VLIVE | j.jk

t w e l v e

"look she's got the book!" a girl harshly whispered to her friends. her eyes narrowed at mia from afar who smirked as she gazed at the cover of the book in her hands.

the girl turned around to face her friends all dressed in bts merch and though everyone were of different colors, shapes, ages, and genders they all shared the same passion and were equally committed to finding jeongguk.

that's why they spent almost every second they weren't looking for him, on their phones engaging in conversations through kakaotalk. only a close group of people knew about them. it was meant to be TOP SECRET. if the kidnapper, who is assumed to be army, knew about their advances (especially when they thought they were so close!), armys wouldn't be able to surprise the kidnapper and catch her off guard to save jeongguk.

and that book was the most important part.

apparently some armys from the chat heard about a book from ages ago describing exactly what happened to jeongguk. a blue cloud, being transported somewhere. it's not too popular a book, the author had only sold about four copies and three of them were his family members.

after constant researching and cross referencing the book was said to be in this store. and these armys were going to get it from mia one way or another.

A FEW MOMENTS EARLIER

mia was frustrated with a capital f! she spent hours working on her feet while also working her eyes to scan every inch of the store with anything remotely related to what she wanted.

that's when archie came into the break room during break time. mia had been sitting there, contemplating her life, then jeongguk's life, going through twitter to see the fan's theories, then questioning whether or not that mark on the wall in front of her was a bug or not.

she grimaced.

archie feigned a gasp, "are you that unhappy to see me? i gave you my sweater!"

mia rolled her eyes and let out a sigh.

"still thinking about jeongguk?"

kinda.

"yes but don't worry i'm not gonna cry again," mia said sheepishly, sinking into her seat.

"good because we have work to do!" archie smiled, his blue eyes shined. "we got a call from a publishing company that the author no longer wants their book to be sold anymore. it's barely been a year since they published it and no one except his family bought the book. he's tired already and wants em out. our store is the only one left to take them out."

mia groaned.

"mia it's so not like you to groan so much," archie laughed, running a hand through his long hair.

"you know, there was a time when i used to be happy," mia dramatically said, looking longingly too the distance. her eyes caught sight of the mark on the wall. it was definitely a bug and it was moving fast. "ah! okay i'm leaving. what's the book called?"

"'when you wish upon a star', by carl james. the book was actually supposed to be shipped back to the publisher but since they don't really want to pay for shipping we have to recycle them," archie noted as he begin to notice the bug on the wall. "ew lets get out of here before it eats one of us."

mia nodded and the two scurried out of there. archie agreed she would get the books and he would meet her in the recycling room.

it took a few moments to find the section where the book was in. it was surprisingly in auto-biography. the cover had a man on the cover stretched across two different places. the left was a starry cabin woods and the right was a suburban home. each was divided by a line down the middle of the cover which was intercepted by a phone screen where the man had been stuck between. he was surrounded in a blue cloud.