The night seemed to stretch endlessly for Jovan. He was still sitting at his bedroom desk, staring at the old photograph he had found inside the black box.
The photograph continued to trouble him.
Someone he didn't know was standing beside his father. On the back of the photograph was a message that seemed to have been deliberately left for him.
“Meet the person holding the second letter.”
Jovan repeated the sentence over and over.
“Who is that person? Why did Dad have to hide everything from me?”
He took out the first letter his father had written. Every word in it felt like an incomplete clue.
Suddenly, he heard footsteps outside his room.
Jovan quickly put the photograph in the drawer.
His bedroom door slowly opened.
“You’re not asleep yet?”
It was his mother.
Jovan gave her a small smile.
“I’m not sleepy yet, Mom.”
His mother came in and sat on the edge of the bed.
“You’ve been daydreaming a lot lately.”
Jovan stayed silent.
He wanted to ask about the letter, but he was afraid. Afraid that his mother might already know everything and had been hiding it from him too.
“Mom...”
“Yeah?”
Jovan looked at his mother.
“Did Dad ever have any big secrets?”
His mother’s expression immediately changed.
Only for a moment, but Jovan saw it.
There was shock in her eyes.
“Why are you asking that?”
Jovan began to feel that his question had been right on target.
“Just answer me, Mom.”
His mother drew a long breath.
“Your father did have some things he never told anyone about.”
“Why?”
His mother lowered her head.
“Because maybe he wanted to protect you.”
Jovan grew even more curious.
“Protect me from what?”
His mother didn’t answer right away.
“You found something, didn’t you?”
The question left Jovan speechless.
He hadn’t expected his mother to figure it out.
“You know about the letter?”
His mother glanced toward the desk.
“What letter?”
Jovan watched her face. He felt that she was trying to hide something.
“I found a letter from Dad.”
The mood in the room changed instantly.
His mother slowly stood up.
“Jovan, don’t dig too deeply.”
That only made Jovan even more curious.
“Why does everyone keep saying that? Why won’t anyone be honest with me?”
His mother looked sad.
“It’s not because I don’t want to be honest. But there are things you have to understand for yourself.”
After saying that, his mother left the room.
Jovan became even more certain that something big lay behind all of this.
The next day, Jovan contacted Raka.
They met at a small café near school.
“I kept thinking about that letter all night,” Jovan said.
Raka stirred his drink.
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to look for the second letter.”
Raka looked at him.
“But we don’t even know where it is.”
Jovan pulled the old photograph from his bag.
“I think the person in this photo knows something.”
Raka looked at the photograph.
“So we have to find him?”
“Yeah.”
They began examining the small details in the photograph.
On the back was a date and a location.
“What does this say?” Raka asked.
Jovan brought the photograph closer.
“An old house near the station.”
Raka fell silent.
“An old house near the station?”
“Yeah.”
“You know the place?”
Raka slowly nodded.
“I think I’ve heard of it. They say there’s an empty house that hasn’t been lived in for a long time.”
Jovan immediately stood up.
“Then we have to go there.”
“Wait, Van. We don’t know what’s there.”
Jovan looked at Raka.
“I don’t know either. But I have to find the answer.”
That afternoon, they went to the old house near the station.
The place looked deserted. Much of the paint had peeled from the walls, the front yard was overgrown with weeds, and the door looked as if it hadn’t been opened in years.
Jovan stood in front of the house.
“Strange.”
“What?” Raka asked.
“I feel like I’ve been here before.”
Raka looked at him in confusion.
“But you said you’d never been here.”
Jovan didn’t answer.
Seeing the house stirred a strange feeling in him.
They tried opening the front door.
It wasn’t locked.
“Seriously? An empty house, and they didn’t even lock it?” Raka said.
Jovan stepped inside slowly.
The inside of the house was cold.
Dust covered almost everything.
They searched every room for clues.
Finally, Jovan found a small table in the back room.
There was an envelope on top of it.
Jovan froze.
A single name was written on the front of the envelope.
“Jovan.”
Raka looked at him.
“That’s...”
“Yeah.”
Jovan picked up the envelope with trembling hands.
This was the second letter.
The letter that had been missing all this time.
But before he could open it, a voice came from behind them.
“You shouldn’t have found that letter.”
Jovan and Raka immediately turned around.
A man stood near the doorway.
The same man from the old photograph.
Jovan couldn’t say a word.
“You...”
The man looked at Jovan with a serious expression.
“At last, you’ve found your way here.”
Jovan tightened his grip on the letter.
“Who are you?”
The man was silent for a few moments.
Then he answered in a quiet voice.
“I’m the person who knows why your father hid everything.”
Jovan grew even more curious.
“And I also know why this letter never reached you.”
The room fell silent again.
Jovan realized that the answer he had been searching for might already be right in front of him.
But at the same time, he also felt that something much bigger was waiting on the other side of the second letter.