“Detective,” Jungkook calls in a mild pant, swinging open the door to the evidence room. Boxes upon boxes are stacked against shelves, serving as a physical history to their town’s crimes. “I think I may have found the answer to the twins’ identities.”

                  Taehyung stands next to a table with many of the appendages (weapons and stolen goods) from their twin case. He looks up from inspecting a plastic bag filled with packaged confectionery. “Why Twinkies?”

                  Jungkook looks blank. “Pardon?”

                  “If you break into a convenience store, you’d either go for the cash or at least the most sustainable stuff, right?” He tosses the bag in his gloved hands. “The store had chargers, clothes, lottery tickets, amongst other things. But these guys went for Twinkies. Why?”

                  “… Well, there’s no assuming how a sick criminal mind works.”

                  He suddenly slams a palm against the table. “I know! It’s because they’re twins. They stole Twin­kies because they’re twins!”

                  Jungkook pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “Detective!”

                  Taehyung immediately puts the Twinkie bag down. “Yes, I’m sorry. You were saying?”

                  “After reviewing the CCTV,” his intern says, “I found that the culprits did not wear gloves at the scene of the crime. Considering this is their first offense, it’s a reasonably amateur move, but— wouldn’t we be able to scan for fingerprints on the knife used to stab Mr. Lee?”

                  “Huh…” He looks down to give it a thought. “Don’t twins have identical fingerprints?”

                  “According to the sergeant and thirty-two Google searches, no.” Jungkook looks like he’s about to smile, having figured out a sure-fire solution to their case. “Fingerprints are not genetic. We can tell the twins apart from their prints. Then we’ll—”

                  “—be able to tell who the evil twin is,” Taehyung finishes with a genuine gasp. “The eviler twin! You make a point, Officer Jeon.”

                  Jungkook gives a small salute. “We have the weapon in evidence, correct?”

                  “Yup, it’s right here.” Taehyung holds up a bag with a razor knife in it. “Sick, it’s still got blood on it. Okay, give me a second and I’ll scan it for prints.” He takes the knife out of the bag and uses a small light to go over the handle. The light shines orange and Jungkook, observing nearby, recognizes it as an infrared used to look for hidden marks. “… That’s weird.”

                  The intern glances at Taehyung’s look of slight dismay. “What is it?”

                  “I can’t find any fingerprints,” he murmurs. “Are you sure they weren’t wearing gloves?”

                  “Positive, unless my photographic memory fails to serve me.”

                  “Yeah, we get it, you’re a genius.” He tries scanning the knife again. “Maybe I’m just not looking for the right patterns. Do you have their prints on file? Check the folder.”

                  Jungkook flips through the case folder and finds an enclosed sheet labelled ‘fingerprints’. Upon opening it, his face pales. “Uh. Pardon me, detective. It seems we have a problem.”

                  He shows the other male the sheet, which has a pink sticky note that reads ‘the suspects burned their prints off lol’. They simultaneously stare at the note for several moments.

                  “Th—” Taehyung croaks various sounds before he’s able to form a coherent sentence. “THEY BURNED OFF THEIR PRINTS?!”

                  “I’m more than certain the twins were conspiring now,” Jungkook says, his fist clenched. “There’s no definite way to tell them apart without their fingerprints.”

                  The detective cusses. “The only thing we have to go on right now is testimonies. I invited Choi Jiyong’s fiancée and Choi Jaeyoung’s boss to the precinct, so we can interview them to see if any leads come up.”

                  “Yes…” Jungkook puts the sheet down and sighs. “I’m sorry.”

                  “Huh?” Taehyung tilts his head at him. He never thought he’d see the day where the ever so arrogant Jeon Jungkook would actually apologize, but he’s confused as any. “For what?”

                  “For bringing up a false lead and becoming excited about it,” the younger male says. “I assume I was too eager to solve a case on my own that I failed to triple check the facts. I did notice that the twins’ hands seemed substantially smooth, but didn’t put two and two together. So, I apologize for wasting your time.”

                  “Th—” Taehyung’s flustered all over again, mouth gaping open as he stares. “It’s fin—”

                  The evidence room door swings open and Hoseok’s head pops in. It’s at this moment that two officers realize they may have been standing too close to each other and step back at least three feet. “Yo, some people came in for interviews.”

--

                  Mr. Choi Jiyong’s fiancée seems like a nice suburban woman and it’s a shame that she had to be caught up in all this, Taehyung thinks as he approaches his desk. The woman is sitting nearby, hair up in a bun and an apron tied around her waist. She looks as if she’s been crying.

                  “Hello ma’am, I’m Detective Kim.” He shakes her hand before sitting in his own seat. “Do you understand why you’ve been called to the station?”

                  “I… got the gist of it,” she says, clutching onto the folds of her skirt. “Jiyong and his brother…?”

                  Taehyung looks up. Across the office, Jungkook is conversing with an older man who is presumably Mr. Choi Jaeyoung’s boss. He decides that the intern’s interview is going okay and looks back at the woman in front of him. “Your fiancé is under investigation for multiple offenses. While I understand that you might not want to indict your partner, ultimately it’s only our job to do the right thing. I just want you to answer a few questions, just about him and your life together.”

                  “Well, we’ve been dating for four years,” she starts, sniffling. “And engaged for three months.”

                  Taehyung points to the silver band around her finger. “Is that the ring he got for you?”

                  “Yes…” She looks at it until tears start rushing out of her eyes; the detective hurriedly slides over a tissue box. “We—We can’t afford much. He’s still paying off our rings, so if that’s any reason to go and rob a store— but Jiyong is not the type of person who would hurt someone! I swear…”

                  “Ma’am, it’s alright. Please don’t cry.” Taehyung waits a beat before asking, “so as far as you can tell, Jiyong would be less likely to harm a civilian?”

                  She nods. “They might be twins, but I don’t know Jaeyoung that well… He never comes over, and the only time I see him is in passing or at Christmas. I don’t want to think badly of him either, but Jiyong would never…”

                  Taehyung makes his consensus after a few more questions, and after the woman leaves the station he meets up with Jungkook again, just in time for lunch. The two camp out at the latter’s desk with subway sandwiches in their laps, security footage of the fated night open on their laptops.

                  “Utter bias,” Jungkook murmurs while on a pickle. “The fiancée thinks fondly of Mr. Choi Jiyong, I could hear her sobbing from the washroom.”

                  Taehyung looks at him in distaste. “Biased or not, she makes a convincing argument. She’s engaged to her brother, but she barely knows Mr. Jaeyoung. Who knows what he’s been up to, if she can’t keep tabs on him?”

                  “According to his boss—who is much more credible, I assure you—Mr. Jaeyoung works constantly. More than his brother, even. He works all week, attends all golf sessions, even works overtime on some days. That might explain why he’s still single.”

                  “Golf,” Taehyung scoffs. “We have the motive behind the robbery, but it still doesn’t suggest which one of the twins stabbed the victim. Relying purely on assumptions… Mr. Jiyong’s more of a family man, I agree with his fiancée that he’s less likely to harm.”

                  Jungkook shakes his head, grabbing his soda. “The problem with assumptions is that they have no tangible evidence, detective. I would think you’d know that by now.”

                  “Oh, be quiet.” He bites off a piece of his sandwich and continues talking despite the overwhelming amount of mayonnaise in his mouth. “We don’t have any helpful evidence! At this point, our only choice is to work under assumptions, and I’m assuming Mr. Jaeyoung, the workaholic that he is, is more than capable of stabbing an old man. At the end of the day, it’s prosecution that handles the punishment, not us.”

                  Jungkook shifts his chair a few inches away from him. “It’s a wonder why the sergeant said your work was sloppy work.”

                  Taehyung feigns a soft gasp. “The sergeant said that about me?”

                  “Everyone said that about you.” The intern turns his attention to his laptop, where he plays back the footage from the crime scene and tries to find a new angle on the case. “Criminal twins, indeed…” he mumbles.

                  “Hey, wait!” Taehyung suddenly lunges towards the keyboard. “Play that part again—”

                  “What?” Jungkook glances between him and the screen. “Did you see something?”

                  He points to the corner of the screen, where one of the twins can be seen with his arms poised in a familiar dance move. “Look, he’s dabbing!” Taehyung rewinds and replays that split second several times, giggling obnoxiously as he does so.

                  Jungkook lets out a long, exasperated sigh and tries to find sanity by estimating how long it’ll take to become Taehyung’s superior. Then his eyes focus in on the grainy image, gears immediately turning in his head. “… That’s Choi Jaeyoung.”

                  Taehyung jerks his head so fast that he may have pulled a muscle. “Huh? How do you know?”

                  “Ever heard of golf gloves, detective?” The intern uses the edge of his pinky to point to the ‘dabbing’ culprit’s hands. “In a game of golf, you typically wear a glove on your non-dominant hand, while your dominant hand remains bare. This twin’s hand is tanner than the other one, tanner than either of the other twin’s hands, as well. Are you with me?”

                  Taehyung suddenly breaks out in cold sweat. “… That’s definitely Choi Jaeyoung.”

                  “Now, the moment of truth.” Jungkook fast-forwards to the stabbing scene and pauses only when all hands are as clear as day; he thanks the divines for providing them with CCTV in color. “Choi Jaeyoung, workaholic with the tan hand, holding all the stolen goods. Choi Jiyong, the engaged man with pale hands, holding the knife. Case closed.”

                  Even god can’t tell what kind of embarrassment Taehyung holds in his burning chest right now. Regardless, they manage to close the case somewhat successfully and when they report their findings to their sergeant, Taehyung no longer basks in the glory of having solved something all by himself this time. In fact, he realizes that if Jungkook hadn’t intervened then he would’ve accused the wrong person, and that is ultimately the worst thing a detective can do.

                  He tunes back in when Jungkook is in the middle of explaining their deductions to Yoongi. “… based on the assumption that this twin plays golf, we want to persecute Mr. Choi Jiyong for second-degree theft and assault, and Mr. Choi Jaeyoung for just theft and accessory.”

                  Yoongi nods solemnly, his fingers pressed together as if he’s a wise, all-knowing shaman. “Very good. You can leave the case file to me, I’ll hand it over to prosecution.”

                  Jungkook places the folder on the edge of his desk, right next to his mug. “How was your coffee today, sir?”

                  “Strange,” he replies honestly, taking the mug into his hands. “I can’t seem to recall the taste but I do remember enjoying it.”

                  “There’s some leftover in the break room. Would you like more?”

                  Yoongi rises from his seat. “I’ll get it myself, you two have worked hard today.”

                  Jungkook and Taehyung exchange odd glances as the sergeant walks away, more upbeat than they’ve ever seen him or what they thought was humanly possible. “It’s nice to see him so positive, but I should rethink that extra amount of honey…” The intern taps his chin. “To restore the balance of things. Wouldn’t you agree?”

                  “Y-Yeah.” Taehyung breathes out a sigh. “Hey, look… I’m sorry.”

                  The younger male takes on an amused look and folds his arms over his chest, head tilted with his lips stretching into a faint grin. “Oh? For what, detective?” He uses the same tone that Taehyung used on him earlier and it’s only funnier when he doesn’t notice.

                  “For making assumptions and relying solely on them,” he grumbles, scratching the back of his ear. “And for being a general dickhead about it. I should’ve investigated more. My bad.”

                  Jungkook makes a squeaky sound that sounds so absolutely foreign that it takes Taehyung a second to realize he’s just laughing. Smacking his arm with the back of a hand, his intern says “let’s just call it even for my fingerprint mishap,” and strides off to attend other duties.

                  As he stares at the dark locks adorning the back of Jungkook’s head, Taehyung becomes restless with a slightly different burning in his chest.