[Bonus chapter]

Aria storms into her rooms and with sadistic satisfaction upends every single furniture, every single item, every last article of clothing, she checks the plants and the crap under the bed, even the many pillows and cushions, a twisting jolt of revulsion kicks her in the gut as more and more tiny black devices are found, their glowing red dot mocking her. The pile is unbelievable. Whoever is watching her bugged the room so thoroughly nothing would escape their eyes, evidence enough of their obsession.

They are either very skilled or known to the original Jin Aria to have gotten away with this so smoothly.

Aria ignores the mess in favour of the new purpose to find anything that might give her a clue to the previous owner's life but the longer she searches the room, the phone, succumbing as low as looking through the pink school bag, the more Aria realises there's nothing. Absolutely nothing. No diary, no little notes on the margins of her notebooks (Aria herself had passed many notes with her friends in her original life), even her phone that is protected solely via fingerprint has no personal information whatsoever. It doesn't add up. The original Jin Aria seems like a typical teenage girl, her rooms more than speak for her and her relationship with her younger brother...

Aria crashes through the house towards the room she vaguely remembers from the first time she wandered through it, the door slams behind her and Kang Jimin jumps up from the swivelling chair he was hunched over just seconds ago. He stammers and flails his arms in a poor attempt to distract from the two wide computer panels opened on a boy's profile. Aria can't help the snort that punches out of her when she sees exactly who the brat is stalking. He turns beet red and, in his haste to switch it off presses on the call button. It rings once. Twice. On the third ring a sleep rough voice answers. Kang Jimin makes a high-pitched keening noise before he dives under the desk to pull the plug and the screens instantly turn dark. Aria is giggling so hard her stomach hurts. She wipes the tears in the corner of her eyes and burst into a second fit as he plops down on the chair like a dead fish, his eyes comically bulging from his sockets, his hands are trembling on his lap. Aria really tries to have some sympathy, but the situation is so amusing she can't quite stifle her laughter.

"What do you want?"

After two long minutes pass he asks harshly, voice cracking.

Aria's laughter dies abruptly, she strides to his desk and drops the lapful of cameras on his desk. Jimin's eyes narrow and his brows furrow as he pokes them tentatively with a finger only to startle and fall off his chair when one of the black boxes rolls off the pile to reveal the eerily glowing dot on its front.

"What the hell - that's a camera!"

Ridiculously, he crawls back on all fours to hide behind her legs like some cockroach running from certain death. Aria sighs.

"I found them in my room."

He stares wide-eyed at them for several seconds, then he inches closer pokes another camera, shrieks like a dying creature and grabs the sweater off the back of his chair to throw over the pile. Aria ignores his dramatics beginning to look through his own things for any more of those cursed devices, considering how pretty Kang Jimin is she wouldn't be surprised to find twice the amount. Except. There is nothing in his room. Which means that the stalker is only focused on her. This is personal, not just some weirdo that saw the original Jin Aria and decided that she'd make the perfect target, especially if her family's wealth is added into the equation. Someone she rejected. Or a jilted ex-lover. It could even be a psycho bitch hell bent on revenge; the previous Jin Aria is more than pretty, even Arianna in her prime would have bowed to her beauty.

Beauty is a double-edged sword.

Aria rubs the bridge of her nose; she turns around about to leave the room but stops short as the question Kang Jimin asks finally registers.

"Do you think it's because of that thing...?"

She whirls around and he has such a deer in headlights look on his face that screams guilt and panic that Aria advances on him snatching the edge of his collar to drag him closer.

"What do you know?"

He shifts, looks wildly around the room without making eye contact and when Aria shakes him like he's a thin little sapling he sputters weakly, his voice is faint, and Aria can't quite catch what he is saying. She shakes him again, harder.

"Alright! Fine! Just stop shaking me."

Aria sets him down slowly, crossing her arms she arches an eyebrow pointedly. He looks down at the floor, finally after she nudges him with her shin Jimin opens his mouth to mumble an answer that drops 50 tonnes of weight in her guts.

"Two years ago, you had an accident...well, you tried to you know," he flails his arms, giving up in the end to make a sharp gesture at his neck, "the doctor said you hit your head pretty hard when you fell which caused a severe concussion. There shouldn't have been any memory loss but after you woke up you were acting off. Dad said to leave you alone."

Aria wraps an arm around her waist and perches the elbow in the hallow to support her chin on her knuckles. Teenagers are prone to drama but one that is willing to jump over the line and attempt suicide is one too close to the edge of abyss. Something set her off, something bad enough that her mind would automatically try to suppress the memory in order to cope with the trauma. Every Hero has a Villain, and every Villain has a tragic backstory.

"Why did sh- I try to kill myself?" Aria coughs harshly trying to cover the slip up. It wouldn't do to have her younger brother more suspicious than he already is. She's noticed the way he kept peeking at her worriedly when they drove to the house.

Jimin shrugs, his shoulders hunching in tightly...Aria may not be psychologist, but she knows enough to understand the guilty way he keeps putting space between them and making himself smaller simultaneously.

"Look, I know you didn't live with us when mom died but it hit you the hardest especially after your nana died only a couple of months after mom - "

Aria's head snaps up.

"When did...mom die?"

He looks at her wide eyed, his expression stuck on blank shock. Jimin steps forward, his brows furrowing.

"Aria, mom died more than ten years ago."

"Oh."

"Then why did you -?" Aria waved her hand in his direction.

"My point is, after mom died you weren't the same. You were very...closed off. I have no idea why you might have tried to kill yourself; I mean our best guess was maybe bullying?"

Aria sighs.

The original Aria tried to kill herself, and her family was well off, her grades exemplary and her mother's death more than 10 years ago...her stalker had something to do with it. The question now is if they are a fellow student or someone older.

Aria kisses her teeth, kicks the door shut and storms off because her newly acquired brother starts whining - Aria's temper is hanging by a thread, she doesn't want the cute brat to take the brunt of it.

She might have to reach out to the sole person she knows who is in a position of power that can get the exact details of her stalker. If she can find something worthy enough to bargain with.

And she promised to mind her business too. Damn.

*

Later, sitting on the balcony with a bottle of wine she remembers to ask the system about the out-building and is promptly disappointed as it informs her that it is a storage unit full of paintings, which is weird, indeed, but Aria can't judge someone who wants to protect whatever priceless art they bought at a sky-high price. Taking into consideration how the father isn't in the picture, she's barely learned anything about him since she's been shoved in this world and Aria can be very resourceful when she's curious, it makes sense to lock away the valuables somewhere moody teenagers cannot access.

Simply put she's been bamboozled.

Aria sits upright, spilling red wine across her lap, the system blocks her just in time and Aria is left cursing alone on the balcony. She'll get him back, she always does. Perhaps Aria can cajole Hanjun into her bed again, let the stupid system foam at the mouth. After all, it did use the mystery to reel her in. The opportunistic little insect.