kicks ✓ || namgi || k.th

014: fall

chapter 14: fall
location: durham, north carolina, day 2

"This is beautiful," Jimin said, standing right smack dab in the middle of Duke University's East Campus. This didn't look a thing like Columbia. Every building was made out of brick and looked so official. The trees were so green, and even though it was cloudy, it still felt like a perfect day.

"Is it okay for us to just...be here?" Hoseok asked, glancing back at the van, which was parked in a lot. "School is out for the year."

"Yeah, but there will be summer school students," Taehyung said. "I think we'll be fine! Let's give ourselves a tour! Hoseok-hyung, what does your book say about this place?"

"It's a map," Hoseok whined. "And I don't have it on me right now. Why would I carry a bulky map across campus?"

"I don't know. Aren't you supposed to know everything?"

"Guys," Seokjin said, "quit your fighting. We'll just walk around and give ourselves a tour, and then we can go for lunch before leaving. Namjoon, weren't you going to go to the library?"

Namjoon remembered now. "Oh, right. Who wants to come with me?"

"I'll go," Jungkook said, and they broke away from the group. They wandered until they found the nearest library and walked in. Namjoon took over. "Do you know where the public computers with Internet are?" he asked the librarian behind the desk.

"They are along the wall by the windows," she said, pointing. "Time limit is a half an hour for non-students."

Namjoon nodded and went over to the far wall. Most of the computers were open; Namjoon sat at one and pulled up two Netscape windows. One went straight to the Encyclopedia Britannica's online version, which because he was at a college, he knew he would get for free. The other went to Metacrawler, a search engine. He started his research at Britannica, and thankfully they had a lot of information on LaPostale. Even Namjoon knew what LaPostale was - who didn't? - but he was hoping the encyclopedia might give him a clue as to what A113 meant.

LaPostale Tech Industries is a global conglomerate headquartered in New York City, NY, USA. Originating as a mail order service in the 1890's for phonographs, LaPostale expanded into the telephone business shortly afterward. Today, LaPostale is best known for their electronics business, and still owns the vast majority of telephone lines in America.

"Hey, hyung," Jungkook said, returning with comic books and sitting nearby. Namjoon nodded at him and scrolled further down the article, looking for any information on cars LaPostale may have manufactured. He finally found a small paragraph in the middle.

In 1957 LaPostale partnered with The Baepsae Company in Seoul, South Korea, to export some of their spare part manufacturing for their automobiles. This partnership lasted until LaPostale exited the automobile business in 1976. Today Baepsae is best known for their computers, as well as their stake in the growing cell phone business, but still manufactures replacement parts for LaPostale machines upon request.

Namjoon grabbed a piece of printer paper and ripped it off the roll, then grabbed a nearby abandoned pencil and scribbled notes down in Korean. Then he pulled up Metacrawler and searched for "LaPostale and Baepsae." He of course found the official LaPostale and Baepsae websites, in English and Korean, respectively. Sadly the computers at Duke did not recognize typed Korean, and so it showed up as weird symbols and boxes instead.

He went back to his search list and found a fansite with pictures of vintage LaPostale cars. There were a few models that LaPostale and Baepsae had collaborated on, but the A113 van was notably missing. Namjoon went back to Metacrawler and typed in "LaPostale Van A113." But the search engine was not very smart, and no results were found. In addition, his time was up at the computer.

He jotted some notes down on the sheet of paper and folded it up, putting it in his pocket. He wished he could just ask his father for more information on the LaPostale-Baepsae agreement. But he couldn't do that if he was on the run. "Come on, Jungkook. Let's go catch up with the others."

They walked out into the sunlight and followed the sidewalk away from the library. Namjoon was lost in thought. He had always been the type to sit in front of a computer or a book and read for hours. He was sometimes bad at the Internet; sometimes all he had to do was blink at the modem and it would disconnect. But once he had downloaded an article, he would read and reread to his heart's content.

It bugged him that he didn't have answers about this van. Did anybody else know about this supercharged button? Not only that, but if there was a model number, there had to be more A113 models out there. Why hadn't his father ever mentioned Baepsae being a part of the automobile business?

"Namjoon?"

Thank God. Yoongi's voice was always a welcome distraction. Namjoon followed the voice to an open area, where tennis courts sat right next to a basketball court surrounded by a chain link fence. A group of what had to be summer students were playing a full 5 on 5 game with Namjoon's friends.

"Aw, I wanna play!" Jungkook called out as they reached the fence.

Namjoon smiled as he watched the others play. They ran around in their jeans and sneakers, t-shirts untucked from the summer heat. Taehyung got the ball, and when one of the other players chased after him, Yoongi defended with his arms, setting a pick that trapped him. It left Taehyung clean open for the shot, and he scored.

"Yeah!" Taehyung said as he high-fived Yoongi. It wasn't an official game, but it was still fun to watch them. Namjoon knew they would have to move on soon enough, but maybe at least for a half hour, they could forget about being on the run.