"Detective Wang's throwing a party while the Captain's out," Sooyoung tells Seungwan before she can even sit at her desk. 

"Huh? He's what now?"

Seulgi rolls on her chair, over to their desks and adds, "It's his birthday or something."

"Wasn't it his birthday last week?" Seungwan blinks, looking over to the break room to see the blinds closed and the door shut, but a faint bassline resounding into the bullpen. "And the month before that?"

Seulgi nods her head. "Maybe he forgot. That happens to me sometimes too."

Sooyoung and Seungwan share a confused look and the tallest says, "Okay, well. A party's a party. Free food, guys."

"Hey!" Seungwan calls out, watching Sooyoung leave her desk and make a beeline for the break room. "You still haven't touched your paperwork, Detective Park!"

"You do it then if it bothers you so much," she shoots back with a dismissal wave before opening the door. The music inside becomes louder the moment she slips in, followed by a great cheer when the partygoers welcome Sooyoung inside.

"Wait, did she say free food?" Seulgi mutters and doesn't let Seungwan get in a single word before also joining the party.

Seungwan sighs and adds the files on Sooyoung's desk to her own stack. This is all because of her, she realises. The Blue Squirrel and the Pink Bunny have taken all the excitement out of being a cop. They've all been reduced to menial paperwork and throwing impromptu parties. Seungwan can sort of empathise with Joohyun's distaste for the vigilantes now.

Speaking of, the older comes to stand at Sooyoung's desk opposite her, carrying her own papers and asks shyly, "Can I sit with you while the kids are slacking off?"

"Of course," Seungwan smiles back, opening her first file and clicking her pen. "What're you working on?"

"My case against the Blue Squirrel."

"Not the Bunny as well?"

Joohyun shakes her head and starts looking around at the desk, opening a drawer. "N-No. I'm focusing on the Squirrel first. Hey, do you have a pen? Why doesn't Sooyoung keep any here, how does she even do her paperwork?"

"She doesn't," Seungwan deadpans and reaches into her inner blazer pocket, giving her a pen.

"Thanks." Joohyun glances down at the file before Seungwan and asks, "What about you?"

"Armed robbery. Failed of course. Thanks to the vigilantes."

A noncommital hum leaves Joohyun's throat and they slip into a comfortable silence as they work. It's quickly broken however when Joohyun gasps, making Seungwan snap her head back up. "What is it?"

"This pen." Joohyun holds it up as if it's the key to well... Everything. 

"Oh, sorry. Is it out of ink?"

Shaking her head, Joohyun stares at her with wide eyes. "It's the pen, Detective Son. Remember when I told you the Blue Squirrel left me a note?"

"Yeah..?"

"Well, this is the pen!"

Seungwan blinks once, twice, a third time for good measure before saying, "There's plenty of blue pens out there. What makes you think this is the same one?" Oh , oh , oh .

"The ink is the exact same shade and it writes in the exact same size."

"Brands could use the same kind of ink," Seungwan hurriedly offers. "I know you really want to catch the Blue Squirrel but this seems a bit far-fetched, don't you think?"

"It's the same pen, Seungwan."

"Whatever you say..." Oh , oh , oh .

Joohyun huffs and shakes her head vigorously. "It is!" She quickly walks over to her desk and rifles through her bag, returning to Seungwan by slapping a piece of paper on her desk. "Look," she says and compares the note left by the Blue Squirrel with her own writing. "Handwriting's way off. I think she uses her non-dominant hand but it's the same. Look at the way the ink sort of smudges and settles like that. What brand is this?"

"Um," Seungwans utters, swallowing thickly. "I don't know, I got it at a dollar store."

"Which one?" 

"I don't remember."

"Do you know the approximate area?"

Seungwan shrugs a shoulder, eyes trained on the vice grip Joohyun has on the pen. "I don't know."

"Okay, what about what day you went and bought it? I can check CCTV and find out where you went."

"Sorry, sunbae," Seungwan says with an empathic smile. "I can't remember."

Joohyun sighs in frustration and takes back her things from Seungwan's table. "It's okay. At least I have a clue now."

Meanwhile, just a wall away, Seulgi has a mouthful of some chips, watching as a stripper gives Sooyoung a lapdance.

"Shawty got them apple bottle jeans," Detective Wang sings along to the song from his speaker and the rest of the crowd echoes with a chorus of 'jeans' before he continues yelling out, "Boots with the fur!"

"With the fur," Seulgi shouts, muffled by her food.

Laughing, Jackson turns to her and asks, "Hey, you enjoying the party?"

"Mhm! This is my favourite flavour of Pringles..."

He flashes a smile at that and pats her shoulder, lightly guiding her to the corner of the room before asking under his breath, "Um...Do you know if Joohyun's seeing anybody?"

"Right now?"

"Yeah."

Seulgi shrugs and shoots a glance over at the window. "I don't know. I can't see through the blinds. She's probably looking at her computer screen right now, or something."

Jackson shakes his head at that. "No, no. I mean, is she dating anyone?"

"Oh," Seulgi says suprisedly. "Well, no?"

"Great, do you think she'd go with me to the BTS concert?"

Seulgi cringes at that and weakly shrugs, "She doesn't really listen to boy groups."

"Oh, okay. What about Red Velvet?"

Sooyoung appears then, stealing a pringle from Seulgi's hand and says, "Woah, I have two things to say to that, Jackson Wang. First, Red Velvet?" Sooyoung makes a grand gesture in the air and exclaims, before lowering her hands down, wincing at him and giving a critical once-over. "You." She does the same action of grandiosity again. "And then...Red Velvet."

Scoffing, Jackson nods hurriedly and asks, "Okay. I'm not as cool as them. What's your second point?"

"She has a type, man," Sooyoung explains. "And you definitely don't pass the first round because of the thing dangling between your legs. Didn't she tell you she was a lesbian? Like four times?

"So? I'm not racist or anything. I can vibe with a mixed girl just fine."

Sooyoung blinks at him and Seulgi furrows her brows as she slows her chewing. "Lesbian, Jackson. Not Lebanese."

A beat passes and his knees lower a bit as his eyes grow wide in realisation. "Oh, that makes so much sense!"

"Also, even if she wasn't, her type would definitely be anyone but you. No offense."

"None taken. That was my ex's type as well."

Seulgi swallows her mouthful, sighs and says, "A Red Velvet concert is like God-tier-level. And you're um..."

Jackson waves her off with an eye-roll. "Not even close. I get it."

"Maybe we can all go together? You could bring someone else, along?"

"Do you think that'd make her jealous?"

"No," Seulgi and Sooyoung deadpan at the same time.

"She's gay as ," Sooyoung adds, deepening his frown.

Suddenly, there's a commotion on the other side of the room and another officer yells out, "Woah, hey what the ?"

Jackson quickly goes to turn off his speaker, cutting through a Pitbull song.

"Jackson, you hired a suicidal stripper?" Another officer hisses at him as they make their way through the crowd to find the guy wearing an explosive vest.

"Bomb Squad's on their way," Sooyoung whispers, tucking her phone into her pocket. "Five minutes."

Seulgi and Jackson give her a look of understanding before they turn back to the stripper.

"I'm sorry," he sobs. "I was supposed to do this at Starbucks but I got hired here at the last minute."

"Damn it, Jackson," an officer grunts from the back of the room.

"You guys are good people," the stripper frowns, wiping his tears with the same hand he holds the detonator. "You don't deserve this but I have to do it."

"No, you don't, Keeho. You don't have to do this," the other stripper says at the front of the group.

"I do, Momo. I'm sorry, but I really do. We live terrible lives. You're a stripper and a bartender at Twice and you eat any leftovers you can find, even from the bins. Don't you think we should just--"

"Hey now," a voice appears through the open window and everyone turns to see the Blue Squirrel jumping over the coffee machine before walking calmly towards him. "Let's not think like that okay?"

"What--What are you doing here?" Keeho gasps out, fighting his hold on the detonator and taking a step back. "Don't come any closer or I'll set it off! I swear!"

Seungwan stops in her spot and holds out her hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. I won't. I'm gonna be frozen in the spot right here, okay?" She's at the front of the group now, right next to Seulgi who shoots her a worried look. "Look, I can't imagine what you're going through right now, Keeho. It must be really difficult."

"Yeah, you have no idea," he grunts back, shifting in his spot nervously. A sweat gland drips down his temple.

"You're right," Seungwan tells him softly and takes a seat on the couch, not cutting their eye contact. "I don't. But I see a lot of people like you out there on the streets. People struggling to get by and people with very similar thoughts as you. You wanna know what I do when I see them?"

He gulps and shrugs, "Okay..?"

"A couple months ago, I met this girl, she's nineteen, and she was living on the streets. Her name's Dahyun."

"Kim Dahyun?" The other stripper asks.

"That's right."

Keeho clenches his jaw and looks back and forth between Momo and Seungwan. "W-Who..."

"She's a coworker at the bar," Momo answers. "She's really nice."

"She is," Seungwan nods with a little smile. "We talked for hours that night. Took me on a little tour of her makeshift home and I brought her to Twice and bought her her first legal drink. Luckily it was late so we were the only ones there, but the bartender--Mina--was nice enough to put it on the house. I'm not gonna lie, between the two of us, Dahyun and I probably wouldn't have had enough to pay for all the drinks we went through. Let's just say the hangover was crazy and I was terribly late for work the next day."

Keeho chuckles a little at that and Seungwan curls the tips of her lips. "Do you want a drink?" she asks and reaches over to the coffee table, holding up a plastic water bottle. "It seems like this party was going kinda crazy, huh? You probably haven't had much water for a while."

Hesitantly, the stripper walks over to Seungwan and accepts the bottle of water after she opens it for him. He downs it in a few loud gulps before letting it drop carelessly on the floor. "I'm still going to push it," he says; though the tremble in his voice makes it clear that Seungwan's getting to him and he seems a little less determined to do it anymore.

"Alright," Seungwan replies quietly and shifts over on the couch, tapping the space beside her. "Do you wanna sit down before you do that? Take a sec to relax before you never get to the chance to again?"

Keeho purses his lips and slowly descends to the couch, he places the detonator in the small space between them, close to his knee that he nestles beneath his other leg. 

The other policemen are still a little restless but most of them have slipped out of the room by now, leaving only Seulgi, Sooyoung, Jackson and Momo. It's quiet as Keeho wrings his hands nervously, wiping his sweat against his shorts.

"What's your last name, Keeho?" Seungwan asks.

"Yoon," he answers. "Yoon Keeho. I'm--I'm twenty-two."

"Nice to meet you, Yoon Keeho." Seungwan sticks out her hand and smiles encouragingly at him. "I can't tell you my real name or how old I am but can I let you in on a secret?" 

Keeho nods after shaking Seungwan's hand and lets her lean into his ear.

"I know these cops," she whispers. "In the daytime, I work around this area. They've seen my face before."

He widens his eyes at that and when Seungwan leans back to her space, she has a little grin with her index pressing against the centre of her lips. 

"No way..."

"Mhm," Seungwan chirps back with a wink. "Our little secret alright?"

Keeho nods at her. "I'll take it to the grave."

"Good. Now only you and my best friend know it. Is it presumptuous of me to say that it makes us friends too?"

Keeho drops her gaze to his lap shrugging. "I guess... I don't really have many of those."

"Well, the detectives over there could be your friends," Seungwan nods her head toward the three standing a few paces away from them. "And her... Momo, right?"

"Y-Yes, that's me, Miss Blue Squirrel-ssi--sir--ma'am--uh..."

"No need to be so formal, Momo," Seungwan gives her a wave of her hand. "We're all friends here now," she gives a glance to each of the detectives who nod, before looking back at the man beside her. "Right, Keeho? Were they friendly with you at the party? Did you have a little bit of fun, at all?"

"I did," Keeho says wi