The sound of the loud bang was filling the environment and its sound waves were reflecting from the skyscrapers which surrounded the smaller, empty and run-down house. The shocking and surprising noise was entering the people's bodies and caused the uncomfortable and angst-inducing feeling that something unexpected had happened. A sound so clear and unable to be misunderstood was hearable for everyone.

Kyhyun was looking into Ryeowook's widely opened and teary eyes and the agent was unable to move, he was frozen by the sound. It caused a cold, fearful shiver over his back and with the spreading shiver the bad feeling of loss, sorrow and loneliness came over his whole body. He saw how Ryeowook was slowly falling down on his knees when the arms of Dami were letting go of him. Her glance became blank, like she was staring into nothing or infinity. She tumbled around, one step backwards, then forward again and suddenly the strength in her hand vanished, the gun fell out of her hand and bumped on the ground. Kyuhyun watched how Dami fell backwards out of the sudden and then the agent noticed a dark spot on her stomach, which was increasing slowly. The young man was so in shock, he wasn't able to move for a couple of seconds, but to him, it felt like he was in a dream which lasts for minutes; although he knew that a dream takes about seven seconds only, he recognized Donghae who stood behind the porch and was slowly coming out of the shadows, his gun pointing on Dami and all at once, Kyuhyun understood what had happened. Donghae had shot Dami out of the shadows.

"Kyuhyun!" Donghae shouted when he came closer, the other agents were following him and Kyuhyun flinched slightly like he was waking up from a nightmare. As soon as he was back in his mind, he quickly walked over to Ryeowook, who was down on his knees, facing the ground. The agent crouched down in front of him while the others were coming closer and Donghae and Chanyeol took care of Dami.

"Ryeowook..." Kyuhyun whispered with a thin voice and put his hands on the smaller one's shoulders to make him look up to the agent. Ryeowook's whole body was shivering and shaking, his eyes were puffy from the tears, and his cheeks were flashed in some soft red from the cold wind which was dancing over the rooftop. The small, fragile man looked up to Kyuhyun and fell around the agent's neck, hugging him tightly and, finally, he could let everything out and the tears were running down his cheeks.

"Kyuhyun" Jonghyun caught his attention when he slowly walked closer, "We should return to the headquarters, it’s cold and you two can warm up there." Kyuhyun nodded and took the blanket, which Jonghyun had handed him, and wrapped it around Ryeowook to warm him on their way back to the headquarters. There, Kyuhyun quickly cleared his chair so the smaller man could sit down and Baekhyun brought him a hot cup of tea.

"Here, get warm first" Baekhyun talked when he severed Ryeowook the cup of tea then turned to Kyuhyun, "Yunho wants to see you." The doctor nodded and wanted to walk over to his chief's office as Ryeowook suddenly grabbed his wrist.

"Don't go" he said and looked around. Ryeowook was still in shock and trembling, he looked pale and his eyes were still red.

Kyuhyun smiled at him and took his hand, holding it warmly between his hands. "Don't worry I will be back in some minutes. I won't go anywhere. Just stay here, drink your tea and warm yourself up. Baekhyun will stay with you. You can trust him and I will be up there." The agent pointed on Yunho's office before he gave the analyst a glance and Baekhyun nodded with a smile; Kyuhyun went to the office.

"She's in the hospital, but her room will be observed by two police officers" Yunho said as soon as Kyuhyun came in, while he was working on some papers, "As soon as she can leave the hospital, she will be arrested for stalking, kidnapping and threatening Kim Ryeowook. In addition, there will be an accusation for illegal gun possession."

"Can I interrogate her?"

"No" Yunho finally looked up to his youngest team member, "I know you must be angry with that woman because you are involved personally, but Kim Ryeowook is safe now and I don't think it’s a good idea when you or him have any kind of contact with her again. The issue is done; you should treat it like any other case too." Yunho waited until he saw Kyuhyun was nodding in agreement, and then he returned to his papers. "We have a new case, but I will exempt you from it."

"What? Why? I am alright."

"Kyuhyun..." Yunho looked up again and after some seconds, the chief stood up and walked in front of his desk, "You know I do believe in your skills and everyone knows that you are the most intelligent of us, but today you had a really tough, confusing and exhausting day, besides that, you were finally able to meet Kim Ryeowook, you should rest at first."

"How long do I have to rest?"

"We will go to Uijeongbu, near Bukhansan and solve the case. You will stay here and rest and if we need your help, I will call you" Yunho said while packing his papers and folders, "Its a 20 minutes ride by car and 45 minutes ride by train from Seoul to Uijeongbu, so if you have to join us, you will quickly be there."

Kyuhyun nodded, he didn't like the idea of being left-behind by his team, but he knew Yunho had decided this for his sake. When Kyuhyun turned around and saw Ryeowook sitting on his chair, wrapped in a blanket with his hands around the cup of tea, he knew even more that Yunho was right, he should rest first. He walked over to Baekhyun, who was sitting on his desk, and talked to Ryeowook.

"We will go now."

"Where are we going?" Ryeowook asked confused, "I don't want to go to my house. I am scared."

"Baekhyun" Kyuhyun turned to the analyst, "Are you free at the moment?"
Baekhyun looked confused to Kyuhyun and titled his head. "Ehm... yeah... I just waited for you guys to return because Yunho ordered me to go home, so I will be relaxed for tomorrow when they will go to Uijeongbu in the morning."

"Alright, can you drive us to my place?"

The analyst nodded and got his stuff, while Kyuhyun took his leather case and took Ryeowook's hand. Together, they left the NACS headquarters and Baekhyun gave them a ride to the apartment complex where Kyuhyun was living in. As soon as they got off, the analyst returned to his house.

Kyuhyun led Ryeowook into his bedroom. His apartment looked like Ryeowook had imagined it, a small but familial and homely apartment. His furniture was in dark colors with lots of wooden units and one wall was covered with a shelf full of books from the ground up to the ceiling. But there was something completely missing, Kyuhyun had no TV, no place with a fixed computer, and no home telephone either.

Ryeowook stood in the middle of the bedroom, watching Kyuhyun preparing the bed for him. When Kyuhyun was plumping the pillow, Ryeowook back hugged the taller one tightly.
"Thank you" he mumbled against Kyuhyun's back, "Thanks for saving me. The whole time I wanted to see you, I wanted to talk to you in person, I wanted to see your smile and I had to wait for so long and for a while, I thought I would be the one who would save you from your current insomnia but now it turned out that you are the one who saved me instead. Thank you for that, thank you so much."

Kyuhyun looked down and nodded, he didn't know what he should do or say and simply felt awkward. He patted Ryeowook's hands, which were laying on his stomach. For some minutes there was silence because Kyuhyun didn't know what he should say.

"Don't worry, you don't have to say anything by now" Ryeowook said quietly and let go of Kyuhyun again.

The taller one nodded again and slowly turned around to Ryeowook. "You must be tired, you can rest here, and I will take the sofa. You don't have to be scared; nothing will happen to you, I will protect you." The small man looked up to him and smiled lightly, giving Kyuhyun his agreement by a nod and crawled into the bed. Kyuhyun took place on the sofa, letting the door open so Ryeowook was able to see him every time. Kyuhyun knew there would be much to talk about, that they needed time to handle what happened but for now, it was time to rest.

In the early morning hours, Yunho and his team were leaving Seoul. They were distributed in two black, big cars, heading to Uijeongbu. The city itself was a municipal city and was located north of Seoul. It laid inside a defile, surrounded by mountains which was densely wooded. The local police chief called for the MID team's help because they found two female corpses in the last two weeks. When they arrived at the police headquarters, the police chief had prepared a separate office with all supplied material for them and informed them about the newest developments.

Yunho had ordered Chanyeol and Jonghyun to take a look on the dead bodies, which already laid in the local forensic jurisprudence. The corpses showed several hematomas and wounds in different sizes.

"They bear resemblance to each other, don't you think so?" Jonghyun said when he was leaning over one of the bodies, "They both have long brown dyed hair, same figure, and same height."

"Right and the way they got injured is also the same. I'm sure it’s the same offender" Chanyeol admitted while he put on his blue forensic gloves. After the official Medicolegal expert told the agents about some extraordinary cuts, which were all over the backs of the dead girls, Chanyeol and Jonghyun leaned down to take a look at the cuts. "What could cause such cuts?"

"They look really irregular" Jonghyun mentioned and his by gloves covered fingers wandered over the back, "Some cuts are deep and bit into their flesh, while others are just skin-deep and few just caused swellings."

"We aren't sure about what could cause those wounds but we thought about a whip, which would explain the different types of cuts" the pathologist explained.

"Like a horsewhip?" Jonghyun asked kind of shocked and the physician nodded.

"On some spots, it looks like he tried to cut off their skin" Chanyeol added and stepped back, taking off the gloves.

"The whip must be used roughly on them to cut off parts of their skin and flesh apart from that, the hematomas originated directly before and while death was eventuating."

When Chanyeol and Jonghyun returned to the police department, they told their team members about the dead bodies and Siwon and Yunho informed them also because, while Chanyeol and Jonghyun were at the forensic jurisprudence, the two of them went to see the location where the corpses were found. It was in the middle of the forest, near a high cliff. The national park ranger found the bodies on their patrol.

"Seems like they were thrown down the cliff, which caused them to die" Siwon talked and was taking a look on the photo wall, which Donghae had prepared while the others were on order.

"The rangers said it’s rare that hiker go near that spot because the ways to the cliff were closed last year already after some hikers were injured when they tried to climb up the cliff" Yunho explained, "It must be someone, who knows about the area. If he wanted them to be found quickly, he would have placed the corpses on a well visited hiking path."

"Right, and from what we could see by the wounds, how he tortured them with the whip, it looks like he's suffering some kind of restrained anger issue" Chanyeol added.

"While I stayed here, I've received all the information about the victims from Baekhyun" Donghae said and pointed at the picture of one of them, "The first victim is Kim Jiyeon, she was on a hiking trip with some friends, they stayed in a holidays apartment in Songu. I've talked to her friends already per phone and they said that they were hiking in the Gwangju mountains and Jiyeon went missing when they took a break and she was a bit behind, but never reached them. The day she went missing was about four weeks ago."

"And she died two weeks later. That mean he keeps them trapped for about two weeks before he kills them" Jonghyun combined.

"But the second victim, Yang Soohye, was in the mountains with some other students for some research project for their biology course at university. They were observing the offspring behavior of the local occurring birds. She wanted to take some more samples and the others returned to their camp, she never returned. ; it was three weeks ago."

"So both got kidnapped in the forest while their friends and fellow students were close" Siwon talked, "He could have be seen easily, means he needs the kick, when he kidnaps them."

Yunho leaned over the table and pressed a button on the hands-free telephone, calling for Baekhyun. "Here is your lovely technical analyst who knows everything and will find out everything for my handsome agents" Baekhyun said when he answered the call.

"Baekhyun, we need the list of all rangers who are working for the national park besides that, a list of all who got fired because of anger issues. Maybe our offender worked here before and that's why he knows the area so well."

"Aye aye sir. I will call back as soon as I have finished the lists."

Suddenly, the leading detective entered their room and the agents already knew what happened. The rangers found another dead body of a woman, it was found at the same cliff as the days before, but something changed. The agents all went to the scene and, although they were used to many cruel and terrible crime scenes, this one was a bit shocking for them too. The corpse was hanging ly on a dead tree, which was some meters ahead and came out of the crevice.

"He changed the way of displaying the victims" Chanyeol spoke while watching how the police men were taking down the dead body, "At first, he pushed them down the cliff. He didn't care where exactly they would land but now, he placed her like this."

"I feel like we are missing something" Siwon mumbled as the others agreed to the older agent.

"But it’s no time anymore, he's increasing his procedure and, at the same time, he's minimizing the period of time he keeps the women with him before he kills them" Donghae said.

"Something must’ve caused that change of his behavior" Jonghyun mentioned.

"We should return to the police department and inform them about the profile" Yunho ordered his team before he went to the police chief and leading detective, "Mr. Yeon, we will publish the profile as soon as we are back at the police department and I would like to have some of the rangers there too."

Back in the police department, the agents received the call from Baekhyun who sent them the lists Yunho had ordered. But he also had some information about several girls who were all in the same age as the victims and they all went missing near Bukhansan. Yunho thanked him, but the analyst stopped his chief from ending the call.

"Sir, there is something I need to tell you" Baekhyun babbled, "It’s about Kyuhyun."

"What is it Baekhyun? Talk directly; I have no time for your babbling."

"Well Kyuhyun came and noticed what Donghae and I talked on the phone, about the case and he insisted on helping. I couldn't hold him back, so he took all information I had and prepared a geographical profile for you, I will send it to you. He is sure that it will be helpful for finding the hideout."

"Alright, send it to me and I will look over it" Yunho said and Baekhyun noticed by the voice that he was angry, "Ah and Baekhyun, tell him that he and me will have some serious talk when we are back."

Baekhyun immediately sent the geographical profile which Kyuhyun had prepared. It showed the places where every victim and missing person was seen the last time, the spot where every dead body was found yet was marked red and the agent had connected every spot with a yellow line. The yellow marked area was showing an oblique triangle, this area showed the environment where Kyuhyun was sure about that the offender had his hideout.
Yunho and the others returned to the open office after they went through everything they knew. The open office filled with police officers and rangers of the national park who were working around Bukhansan, where the victims were found.

"So the offender is someone at the age between forty and fifty, he lives cut off from the outside world. He never had long employment because of his anger issues" Jonghyun started their profiling session with the police men.

"Furthermore, he grew up and lives in the area around the national park, maybe he even lives as a hermit and is rarely seen by anyone. It might be days, weeks or months that he has been seen by anyone" Chanyeol continued.

"The victims are always young women in their early twenties, they all have long, brown dyed hair and they got kidnapped even though their friends, fellow students or colleagues were around. That shows that he needs the surge of adrenalin, the danger of getting caught" Donghae added to their profile.

"Besides that, he uses the victims as his personal punching bag, he keeps them in his hideout and tortures them with a whip before he pushes them down the cliff. The hideout must be in this area" Siwon explained and pointed at the huge map they had prepared with Kuyhyun's help, "It describes the geographical profile, we would advise everyone to search this area, we can request for some additional men and mantrailer for the help because there are about three more women missing, who got kidnapped around Bukhansan."

"In addition, I would like to address myself to the park rangers; maybe you have worked with that man, someone who wasn't working with you for a long time because he had troubles with handling his anger. Maybe he got rough against animals, hikers or even to his female colleagues because he won't turn against men, he is someone who bows and scrapes to men. So he would have been conspicuous because of his rage and anger" Yunho said and ended their session with thanking everyone for listening.

The police men and rangers went back to their work and the agents were about to return to their separated room as one park ranger knocked on the door and came in. He remembered someone, who he had worked with. A weird man who easily lost his poise, that's why he always seemed to be very morose. Once, he was on patrol with the man and they found a group of hiking girls who lost their way and he turned extremely aggressive against them without any reason.

"And he's not working as a ranger anymore?" Siwon asked.

"No, he got fired after he caught a bird, killed it, disemboweled it and placed it on the desk of one of our female co-workers" the ranger explained.

"What was his name?" Chanyeol wanted to know and the man had to think about it for a while until he remembered the other's name. So Chanyeol quickly called Baekhyun to get all information the analyst could find about the man. "Baby boy, we need everything about a man called Jeon Wonsuk, he had worked for the park rangers of Bukhan national park."

"Alright... that man worked there just for some months, and before that, he had several short-time employments" Baekhyun talked while searching the net and databases for more, "Oh seems like he had some school reports already."

"And they were all for anger issues against female fellow students?" Chanyeol asked.

"Ohhhh my super handsome honey bear, you are so smart" Baekhyun replied, "The first one was for punching a female student after some quarrel they had, and the last one was for torturing a girl in the school's basement for two days."

"He tortured one of his fellow students for two days and nothing happened?" Jonghyun was shocked.

"Her parents had reported him to the police and he got convicted for juvenile. He stayed in juvie for three years" Baekhyun read out loud from the court papers he found.  

"Three years only? That's not much at all for something like this", Donghae mentioned.

"Oh my gosh... that girl he was torturing at school, she looks really similar to all the girls he had killed now" Baekhyun added and sent the photo to his team members.

"She's the flashpoint. Maybe he saw the first victim in the forest and remembered the girl from school and he wanted to finished the torturing, which he couldn't fulfill back then because they had found her before he could finish it" Siwon combined.

"Alright, do you have an address of him?" Yunho asked and at the same time Baekhyun had sent them some coordinates for their GPS-systems. Baekhyun apologized for not finding more, but the man lived separated from the outside world since he got fired from the ranger’s job. "Its fine, this will be helpful already" Yunho said and ended the call.

The agents quickly took their cars to reach the spot which the coordinates showed and several police men and rangers accompanied them. They followed the street into the forest until it was unable to follow the street by car. Everyone got out from their cars, the agents and police men were armed and walking down the street, while one of the rangers had the mobile GPS-system in his hands, leading everyone to the place.

After a while, they found some small, inconsiderable log cabin which was unable to be found by hikers or anyone else because it was hidden in the deep forest and surrounded by impenetrable thicket. The treetops of the forest didn't let much light through it and it became slowly darker so that the first people started to use their flashlights. The agents surrounded the entrance door and Chanyeol checked if it was locked. He slowly turned the door knob around and the door fell out of its lock. Steadily and with a squealing, the door opened. The agents, who were followed by armed police men, entered the house. It was dark, no lights were and it was quiet. The men sneaked through the house, checking every room, every corner, every closet for someone hiding, but there was nothing. The agents the lights to look around; they needed to find any hint of Jeon Wonsuk. Suddenly, there was a clicking noise and everyone froze in their actions, trying hard to avoid making any sound. Another cracking and it was sure that it came from under the ground. Yunho and Chanyeol pushed some heavy sofa away while Donghae and Jonghyun put aside some cupboard, and then Siwon and some rangers rolled away a big carpet, revealing the wooden ground. In the middle of the room was a hatch, which was hidden under the carpet and furniture. The ground besides the hatch was covered with dried and blurred blood. They ordered some ranger to open the locked door while the police men surrounded the hatch and the agents got ready to storm down.
 
As soon as the hatch was opened, the men walked downstairs into the dark, hidden basement. Quickly, they found some trapped and fixed women in another burrowed hole in the ground, they were wounded and their heads were covered with cloth bags. Donghae and Jonghyun freed the women and the rangers helped them to bring the shocked, under cooled and hurt victims out, while the other agents kept searching the basement. Iron chains were hung, everywhere, from the ceiling where the offender must have kept the women while torturing them with the whip.

Suddenly, a shadow was moving in the background and the agents were rushing after it. It was Jeon Wonsuk, who was trying to run away and escape through a small, hidden and self-made underground passage. Chanyeol put back his gun into the holster and jumped after the offender. He grabbed him with his strong arms and pulled him back out of the passage. Yunho and Siwon were always behind him, ready to use their guns if they had to but, as they said in the profile, the perpetrator was truckling around the men. So for the agents, it wasn't hard to handcuff him and bring him to the police department where they questioned him. They had enough evidence already to get him in jail for several years but the agents wanted to get life imprisonment for him. Never again he should get close to any woman; never again there should be any kind of temptation for him. It took a while but in the end, Jonghyun and Chanyeol were able to get the plea of guilty they had desired. From that point, their job was finished and they could return to their headquarters.

Back in Seoul, they parked their cars at the headquarters’ underground parking lot before they walked upstairs to the MID office. When they entered the glass door to the open offices, Baekhyun and Ryeowook were standing in front of them and each of them was holding trays in their hands.

"Welcome back my lovely family", Baekhyun said and handed the agents one cocktail.

"What's that for?" Donghae asked and laughed.

"Well, when Kyuhyun came earlier for the geographical profile, Ryeowook came along too and we had some nice talk. He is such a lovely guy and I think we should welcome him to our sweet family like we did with Eunhyuk too" Baekhyun explained smiling and the others exchanged curious looks and smiled. They turned to Ryeowook and welcomed him to their small family.

"Where is Kyuhyun?" Chanyeol asked after a while and Baekhyun pointed on their chief's office. Yunho entered his room while the others stayed with the analyst and the small man. Kyuhyun was already sitting on the chair in front of the desk, waiting for the talk Yunho planned with him, but unlike what the young man had expected, Yunho didn't take place on his chair. The chief just patted Kyuhyun's shoulder and put his bag on his chair.

"Kyuhyun... I know this job is your life, but when I tell you to take a rest, you should follow this order. At least for one day you could have rested" Yunho talked and Kyuhyun nodded. The chief's glance was wandering around and stopped on Ryeowook. "You know your life isn't the same anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you have that nice guy with you, you have to change your life's priorities now."

"I don't understand" Kyuhyun admitted and Yunho chuckled slightly. Then he patted Kyuhyun's shoulder again.

"Well maybe it’s not time yet for you to understand, but time will come sooner or later too", Yunho said and Kyuhyun nodded, who still didn't really understand what his chief wanted to tell him.

A knock was on the door, the two agents turned around and Baekhyun slowly moved his head inside. At first, the analyst looked curiously from one to another and when he noticed that they were fine with each other, Baekhyun smiled brightly and opened the door fully.   "We just decided that we all will go to a Norebang" Baekhyun confirmed and smiled brightly.

"Karaoke? Really?" Kyuhyun asked.

"Just our little family, Donghae will invite Eunhyuk over when Jeno will be picked up from his grandparent" the analyst spoke and turned to his chief, "How about inviting Changmin over too?"

"Well I don't know if he has time, but I can call him. In general, I think I won't stay for too long, but maybe a 'family' date or what you call it would be a good idea. It’s been a while already" Yunho said and Baekhyun clapped his hands happily.

So the agents and their partners went to Hongdae, where Baekhyun had reserved a private room at a Karaoke bar. Once in a while, they went out together, having some fun and getting closer to each other, so that they became not only friends but like a real little family. This night, they used to welcome Ryeowook who quickly felt well around them and Yunho hoped that Kyuhyun would quickly understand that his job as profiler couldn't be the highest priority in his life anymore. Now, it should have been Ryeowook. And all of them wished them the best of luck, because everyone knew how hard it was to combine this job with a romantic relationship.

My dear readers,
I'm sorry that it took a bit longer this time, but my sister was visitng me and I had no time... hopefully the chap didn't turn out too badly ><
Jihoo authornim