Chapter 2 – The Rules of the Game

Chapter 2 – The Rules of the Game

12:03 a.m.

The campus was asleep.

Or at least, that was how it seemed.

Dark windows. Empty streets. Silence broken only by the muffled sound of a security vehicle somewhere in the distance.

No one would have imagined that among those buildings, a flawless student was moving through the shadows, a backpack slung over his shoulder and the same calm expression he always wore.

Jungkook walked lightly. He had no need to hide. He knew the guards’ schedules, which cameras were disabled, and which doors looked locked but weren’t really.

He crossed the west courtyard, ignored by the statue of the university’s founder, and slipped through the small side gate of the Experimental Psychology building.

No lock stood in his way.

An old, rusty key turned with a sharp click.

He climbed the stairs at an unhurried pace, as though he were doing nothing wrong.

And in his mind, he wasn’t.

On the second floor, he pushed the door open with his shoulder.

Inside, the room was exactly as he had left it.

A large board covered in notes, diagrams, and black-and-white photographs.

An entire wall plastered with index cards, articles, email excerpts, and old university documents.

At the center of the board, written in red, was the same question:

WHO IS REALLY LYING?

Jungkook switched on the desk lamp.

He pulled out the old notebook and opened it to a marked page.

A new line was waiting to be written.

He picked up a pen and wrote calmly:

Kang Sunhee – September 12 – “I wasn’t there that night.”

Then, beside it, he drew a small symbol:

X

He lifted his eyes toward the board.

The girl’s photograph was already there, pinned in the upper-left corner.

A thin red circle surrounded her face.

“Lie number seventeen…” he murmured.

Then he stepped back.

Crossed his arms.

And studied the connections between the names.

The arrows.

The codes.

The categories.

Slowly, the chaos was beginning to take shape.

But one piece was still missing.

One name.

One connection.

One mistake.

Jungkook sighed.

He took off his hoodie and let it fall onto a chair.

The fluorescent lights flickered briefly.

A fly buzzed lazily against the windowpane.

Then...

He heard a sound.

A footstep?

No.

A door?

Maybe.

He spun around.

And waited.

Silence.

Nothing.

Or so it seemed.

Because Jimin was there.

Hidden a few meters away, crouched behind a broken locker in the hallway.

His heart was pounding too hard, too loudly.

He had followed Jungkook only to clear his mind.

Only to understand.

But he had not been prepared for this.

He had not been prepared to watch his best friend become someone else.

An analyst.

A hunter.

A puppeteer.

His hand trembled.

He had recorded everything on his phone, almost without thinking.

But now he no longer knew whether it was evidence...

Or a burden.

And most of all, he still didn’t know the one thing that mattered most:

Who was the next person on the list?

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