crash & burn

5/5

"what do you mean, where's yerim?" mark wonders, "she was right there."

"i know, but now she's not." jaebeom explains, holding his guitar and walking over towards wendy and seulgi. "did you two see anything? hear anything?"

"no! i swore she was right behind me." seulgi explains, wrapping her arms around jaebeom as he comes closer, "where could she be?"

"don't get frantic, we'll find her." jaebeom comforts her before turning to their friends, "yo.. what is going on around here?"

"someone seriously has it out for us." mark adds, wrapping his own arms around wendy. "are you okay?"

"i'm fine, just a little shaken up."

"so first chanyeol is missing and now yerim... who's next?" sooyoung questions.

"no one... we'll find them." brian announces, "but... we'll cover more ground if we split up."

"split up? why? so someone else can get kidnapped and then we don't find out until it's too late?"

"we all can handle ourselves." jaebeom defends, "plus brian is right. we'll split up into teams of three. sooyoung, you'll go with brian, mark with wendy, and then myself with seulgi."

"oh yeah... all the couples and then push the two singles together..." brian mumbles.

"we meet back at the inn in an hour. hopefully we have news by then." jaebeom adds, "let's go..."

they split up and all head in different directions. brian and sooyoung go back to investigate the inn, mark and wendy investigate the village store and cafeteria while jaebeom and seulgi explore the festival stage. jaebeom holds seulgi's hand as he leads the way. "this isn't exactly how i planned my saturday to go." seulgi admits.

"yeah... same here. i want to practice but finding yerim is more important."

"she usually doesn't just disappear, i know that's weird to say based off of all the times she's snuck away to watch your gigs."

"i understand what you mean though." jaebeom sighs, "look... here's a door to under the stage, let's investigate."

"under the stage? that's kind of scary."

"i'll protect you, baby." he teases, pressing a kiss against her forehead, "come on."

the door is heavy to pull open but jaebeom manages fine. he uses his phone as a flashlight and descends the stairs, helping seulgi down too. there's not much underneath besides stage support beams, and jaebeom is about to give up before something catches his eye. "look over there..." he points to the door, rushing over to investigate, "this must be where they store the costumes..." he mumbles opening the small storage area. inside, are three of the burning man mummy suits, but four hooks, meaning one is missing. "that explains someone terrorizing us in the suit, but why do they need so many?"

"could there be multiple burning men? or are the costumes damaged after setting on fire, so they need backups?"

"it could be either... " jaebeom agrees, "they're a pretty standard size too... so multiple people could use them... that doesn't really help us narrow it down much." he purses his lips, "i just don't understand... why us? why our group? why yerim?" he reaches out for seulgi. "is it all a part of the festival? is it about the treasure?"