Married with kids. Married with kids and yet no one knew. No one on the university campus at least. Everyone at the precinct had a completely different story about the professor than the students at the uni did.  At school, he was the guy you wanted to screw for a free credit or extra opportunities without raising suspicion. Jongin had to talk to about a billion people on campus before anyone was brave enough to say a single thing. At the precinct, people talked openly about him, but not about him as a professor. They talked about the cases he helped solve, about his family.

Jongin still couldn't believe that he had figured it out. He knew exactly who had killed Kyungsoo. But why did it feel like he had accomplished nothing? Like he knew nothing.

He had never meant to come across this kind of information about his professor. He hadn't snooped to get this revelation, it had just come to him. But he had to be sure. The only way he knew he could be was to confront Junmyeon face to face, but that could only bring about bad results. There was only one other person he had a feeling he could go to about this.

He wasn’t sure if that person could be Sehun this time around, unfortunately. He wasn't sure Sehun would understand that he really hadn't been trying to get information on Kyungsoo's killer on purpose—that he had just happened to notice something and now he was deeper than he had ever intended to be. He couldn't help but feel he had betrayed Sehun's trust once again, despite not meaning too.

He had taken his time piecing the things he already knew in his mind. Kyungsoo and Luhan's murderer had been a Professor, he had a connection with the police, no one at his work place knew about his real home life and he wasn't in the same department as Kyungsoo had been in. Professor Kim fit the description incredibly well.

Specifically, Junmyeon had a connection with the same precinct that Jongin was interning at. The same precinct that had processed Kyungsoo and Luhan's murder and had just thrown it aside instead of investigating it properly, since they had already known exactly who had committed the murder.

How exactly did Jongin know all of this for absolutely certain?

On thing for sure was that Junmyeon didn't suspect him in any way about knowing this dark secret, because if he did, he probably wouldn't have gotten Jongin a job at the same place where the records about the murders he was trying to cover up were kept.

Maybe Jongin happened to look through a couple of files from five years ago, and happened to find the exact one he was looking for.

He wouldn't call it snooping. Technically, it was his job to keep all the paper files organized. It was busy work that the cops had given to him to keep him out of the way. He spent more time in the records room than anywhere else in the precinct. If he was suspected of knowing anything, it wouldn't have been so easy to get his hands on the file that had everything he needed to know, and that everything, ended up being a whole lot of nothing. The file was thinner than a whole bunch of less complicated cases that he'd filed during his time at the police station.

It worked in his favour, however, when it came to piecing things together. The crime scene wasn't described at all, there were no pictures in the file, no coroners reports or anything. There was a list of pieces of evidence that had been gathered but when he had managed to sneak into the evidence locker, all he found was a box with the case number scrawled across it that was empty besides a half faded sticky note stuck to the bottom of the inside of the box that said nothing save for the word ‘misplaced’.

The case had obviously been neglected and then just marked unsolvable. There had been no witnesses—the case hadn't even been taken to court thanks to the ‘misplaced’ evidence. It was as if the case had been given to a rookie like Jongin who would have no idea how to file the report for a murder, but even Jongin could have done a better job than whoever had done this. Jongin knew the officers who had signed their names at the bottom of the report, they were his main supervisors, one of them being the officer who had been interacting with Junmyeon almost the entire time he had been there when Jongin saw him at the precinct.

Junmyeon's name was on the case too, as a consultant, though there was no description as to why he was needed for the case, and Jongin assumed it must have been to waive away any suspicion as to why he would have been around the building around the murder. When Jongin double checked some of the dates on the file with the dates he had managed to get out of Kyungsoo in the past, they were all muddled up or completely wrong. According to the report, the murder had occurred in an entirely different season, a good three months before the fact.

He had wanted to stay true to his word. He didn't want anything to do with any of this anymore. But now what could he possibly ing do. After everything he knew now, there was nothing more to find out. There had been two things he hadn't known, and that was who the murderer was and how he had gotten away with it. Now he knew both.

The worst part was that he had only found out once he had decided he didn't want to know any more.

Now he can only go to the one person that he can trust it with, who unfortunately didn't want anything to do with the whole situation either.

----

Jongin didn't know exactly how many days had passed now that he had this new knowledge. Once it had entered his mind it had been the only thing occupying his conscience.

Should he tell? Who should he tell? And how much should he say?

The answers to those questions were obvious.

He had to say something, to Sehun, and no one else—so far at least—and he should tell him everything he knew.

But as he watched Sehun's sleeping face—looking years younger than he was, with one side of his mouth hanging open, which would no doubt be leaking drool when he woke up in the morning—he knew that Sehun didn't deserve this. Sehun didn't deserve to know the horrible things Jongin now knew.

Unlike Chanyeol, Sehun had no personal vendetta against the Professor, though he wasn't fond of him in any way. But Sehun wasn't the kind of person to keep important things to himself. If, like Chanyeol, he had a big reason to hate the Professor, aside from the rumours, then he would have likely told Jongin as bluntly as he could.

Which is exactly why Jongin had to tell him everything, otherwise it would be considered that he had broken his promise again. But it wasn't his fault that he had accidentally discovered the marriage that Junmyeon had managed to keep a secret from at least the student body.

Of course, Sehun wasn't the first person, he had already accidentally let things out to Chanyeol and then had been forced to explain exactly how he knew what he knew. Chanyeol had told him they were better off never talking about this again, despite Jongin having just told him that, technically, if he wanted to see his stepbrother again, he could, as long as he timed it right to catch Kyungsoo's physical manifestation inside his apartment.

For all Jongin knew, maybe Chanyeol had gone and visited Kyungsoo, but he had no way of knowing for sure. He hadn't gone to visit Kyungsoo himself since the night Sehun had left nor had he brought the topic up with Chanyeol again, not wanting to upset his friend anymore than he likely already had.

But he still had Sehun to talk to.

Jongin sighed, not wanting to wake Sehun up and not wanting to be alone with his thoughts either. He had to explain everything he had discovered to Sehun soon, though, because he didn't want the other thinking that he was hiding things from him again.

So the next day while they were chowing down on some takeout, Jongin tried to piece together how he was going to say what he had to say.

“Sehun,” he called out softly, to catch the other's attention.

“Hm?” Sehun replied, mouth full of food.

“This… hasn't been an easy year for me.” Sehun looked up, full attention on his boyfriend now. “But you've been there for me, through everything, even despite your own troubles.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I don't exactly know just yet… I just wanted you to know how grateful I am and—”

Sehun reached out and gripped one of Jongin's hand tightly in his own with a small smile on his face. “It's okay, I know. I feel the same way.”

Jongin took a deep breath. “This only makes this next part more difficult to say. I know…”

It was now or never, if he didn't say it now he didn't think he ever could.

“I know who killed Kyungsoo.”

The smile on Sehun's face fell and he pulled his hand away. “You're kidding.”

“I'm not.”

“You said you wouldn't—”

“I haven’t been investigating I promise.”

“Then how the hell do you know? Did Kyungsoo tell you?”

“No I swear I haven't seen Kyungsoo since that night you left. I—,” he faltered slightly with his words. He could see distrust forming on Sehun's face. “I didn't want you to leave again.”

Sehun's sighed, but his expression was no longer as intense as it had been a moment ago. “I won't. I told you, I'd never leave you again.”

They shifted so that they were snugly fit into each other's arms, food evidently forgotten for the conversation at hand.

“Tell me everything you know.”

“You're not going to like this.”

“I don't care.”

So Jongin explained seeing Junmyeon at the precinct for the first time and how weird it was that everyone was so up his . He explained that he saw a wedding ring but the next day on campus his hand was bare. He also told Sehun about the records and evidence—or lack thereof—with the case and how there were only written records but the case hadn't even been digitalized and didn't exist in the computer records.

He inadvertently had to mention that he had talked to Junmyeon face to face and Sehun definitely hadn't liked the sound of that, holding Jongin tighter and huffing slightly at the mention of the summer trip that the Professor had offered Jongin.

Jongin hesitated slightly when exposing Chanyeol's side of the story, but he knew that Sehun had become close to his two friends in the past few months, and that Sehun would keep his mouth shut in front of Chanyeol, not wanting to upset him.

As always, Sehun didn't talk much until Jongin was done.

“You're absolutely sure?”

“As sure as I can be right now.” Jongin said. “Tell me it makes sense? That I'm not going crazy and all of this seems at least a little connected.”

“You're not crazy. But I have to say, none of this makes sense. It didn't make sense in the beginning and it doesn't now. The situation is crazy, not you. You're right though, it's far too connected to just be a coincidence.”

“What should we do?”

Sehun sighed. “I don't know. But you haven't talked to Kyungsoo right?”

Jongin shook his head.

“Then maybe that's where we should start?”

“You wanna go down there?” Jongin asked, surprised.

“Why not?”

Jongin shrugged and they pulled apart from each other and put on their shoes.

Jongin eyed Sehun nervously in the elevator.

“What? Is there something on my face?” Sehun dragged his palm across his face to wipe off whatever invisible crumbs or stains he thought were there.

“This is the first time you're going to meet him.”

“Not the first. I saw him once before remember?”

Jongin shook his head. “Doesn't count. You didn't talk to each other and you barely saw him in the dark.”

“Okay fine,” Sehun agreed as the elevator doors opened. “First time, but it's alright, I feel like I know him already, after everything you've told me.”

“ what day is it?” Jongin stopped right outside the elevator and the doors slid shut behind him.

“Uh, Friday.”

“He's not—he won't be… well right now.”

“You mean he's gonna be the way he was when I saw him?”

“Yeah. He's usually in a better state of mind on other days.”

“Maybe we can cheer him up?”

“You think so?” Jongin wasn't so sure. No matter what he did or said he could never make Kyungsoo feel better.

“Well we can try. No harm in that.”

Jongin don't know what came over him when he pulled Sehun in for a kiss. Sehun returned it enthusiastically.

“What was that for?” he asked when they pulled away.

“I don't know. You're amazing, you know that?”

“Shut up.”

“Seriously,” Jongin insisted. “The main thing you know about Kyungsoo is that he's dead but you haven't even met him properly to care about him and even though the main reason we came down here is to confirm whether Professor Kim is the murderer or not but you're talking about making him feel better.”

“Well you used to come down here all the time to try and make him feel better before so you're amazing too.”

Jongin shook his head with a sad smile. “I always came for selfish reasons. I always wanted to know more, even if I did try to make him feel better sometimes, my thoughts were always towards finding out the truth so my mind could finally rest easy.”

“You're both amazing now get out of the way,” a familiar but not entirely welcome voice said.

“Jongdae seriously?”

The pair turned to see Jongdae and Minseok standing behind them. Jongin doesn't know how long they had been there for but he hadn't heard a door open.

“Sorry, please get out of the way.”

The two realized that they were still standing in front of the elevators and moved away to let the other two pass. Jongdae pressed the button. They were both dressed nicely so Jongin could only assume they were going on a date or maybe clubbing. It was a Friday night after all. He bid them both a good night quickly, since the elevator hadn't gone anywhere in the time they had been standing there, and then they both made their way down the opposite end of the hall, past Jongin's old door.

Sehun was the one to push the door open when he saw Jongin hesitate slightly and then he pulled Jongin in by his arm.

The apartment was dark and cold. They flipped a switch but the bulb was old and the light was extremely dim so they just felt their way through the dark to the balcony.

Jongin was the one to slide the door open.

Kyungsoo looked up. Jongin was surprised to see the smile that Kyungsoo forced through his tears and he couldn't help but reciprocate. But when Sehun stepped out of the dark behind him, Kyungsoo was no longer smiling. He buried his face in his knees and continued weeping.

“Why’d you bring him?”

Jongin looked back at Sehun who was confused by the animosity that Kyungsoo seemed to have for him.

“Don't be like that Kyungsoo, he's only here to help.”

“Well I don't want him here. I don't want you here either. I've told you that a million ing times!”

Jongin sighed and approached Kyungsoo to sit on one side of him. “I don't know… you seemed happy to see me a second ago.”

“No I wasn't.”

“Were you afraid that I'd actually listened and wasn't gonna come back.”

“Just shut up!”

“Jongin,” Sehun said, calling for his attention. Jongin got up and followed Sehun back inside.

“Is there something you're not telling me?”

Jongin was confused. “Of course not, why?”

“He really doesn't seem to like me.”

“I don't know why—oh!” Jongin suddenly recalled the conversation he'd had with Kyungsoo about being in love with him. It had completely slipped his mind since his entire concentration had been on Sehun after that and he hadn't been to see Kyungsoo ever since.

He recounted the conversation to Sehun quickly, though he wasn't sure how Sehun would react but the reaction wasn't at all what he might have expected.

Sehun looked thoughtful. “I get it. Luhan must have used you to try and get to Kyungsoo.”

“Huh?”

“He must have tried to use your physical presence in our world to try and somehow communicate with Kyungsoo that he was still around too, and that's why you're more affected and pulled towards Kyungsoo than people have been in the past. Since Luhan isn't here the way Kyungsoo is, maybe he used you.”

“But why me?”

“Who knows? Maybe you've been the closest to Kyungsoo in age that's come to live here. Maybe you're special. No one really know how this works right? We can really only guess.”

“Maybe but why does he hate you?”

“Because we’re ing.”

“Could you maybe not say it like that?”

“But it's true!”

“What do we do?”

“Hm… give me a second alone with him?”

“Fine.”

Sehun went out again and Jongin remained awkwardly in place where he couldn't hear the conversation outside but he was close enough that the two outside could call for his attention if need be. He wanted Kyungsoo to be comfortable around Sehun. Maybe then they could get him to calm down and feel a little better.

If all went well, then they could bring up Junmyeon and finally know the truth for certain.

If tonight just ended up being a huge waste of time, then he'd just have to live with not knowing for the rest of his life.

This story is getting so close to the end I can't even believe it. It's definitely the longest thing I've ever written (at least that I've posted online).

I already have two other stories planned (both OT9) and I'm going to make sure that they both have at the very least rough drafts written before I post anything so I don't leave them hanging for months like I did with this one.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to tell me what you think!