Chapter 3: Case OO1

The twelve of them entered the crime scene. Nina and Dongwoon were lagging behind the group as they wanted to avoid seeing the corpse while Seulki, Kikwang, Chohee and Junhyung were leading the group head on.

“Hmm, there is nothing much here, except that damn corpse,” Seulki remarked, glancing around at every corner of the room before landing on the corpse in front of them. Chohee had crouched down beside the corpse. Her hands were now encased with a pair of protective gloves and she started probing the corpse for any possible clues.

“There’s a smell of chemicals in the air, chlorine and something else that I can’t seem to remember,” Lan commented, wrinkling her nose at the smell in the air.

“Yeah, this person has definitely been killed by poison. The blow to the head isn’t severe enough to kill him.” Chohee affirmed Lan’s statement as she held the corpse’s head up to examine.

“You know, you girls really should leave the touching corpse stuff to us guys. Best keep your pretty hands clean, you know,” Kikwang commented as he moved the corpse out of Chohee’s hand with a charming smile, making her blush a light tinge of pink.

“Don’t interrupt me while I’m examining it,” Chohee snapped at Kikwang after staring at him for a moment, grabbing the corpse back from him rather roughly.

Kikwang’s eye widened in surprise before feeling a pat on his back.

“Don’t disturb her while she’s working if you don’t want to die,” Seulki said with a sweet smile, while patting his back and walked off to the various corners. Kikwang frowned at Chohee before standing up and following after Seulki.

“You know her well?” He asked Seulki as he stood beside her.

“Why?” Seulki asked back with her eyebrows raised. “If you’re planning to ask me about her so you can hook up with her, you can forget about it.”

“No, I prefer to stay away from people who snap at me like that.” Kikwang replied with grin as he stuck his hand into his pocket.

“Okay,” Seulki simply replied before turning her attention to examining the various corners and stuff. Her eyes twitched as she noticed Kikwang was still following her. “Why are you following me?” she asked curiously.

“You didn’t snap at me, and I like that. So I’m staying with you,” he said simply as if it was so obvious, still grinning from ear to ear.

“Psh, whatever, just don’t bother me,” Seulki mumbled as she could feel heat rushing up to her face before turning away, trying to ignore Kikwang.
-

At the other side of the room, Hyunseung was merely leaning against the wall while still typing away on his phone; Eve, Yoonji and Nina were looking through the lockers while Dongwoon stood beside Junhyung whom was working on a laptop, seemingly hacking into the CCTV system.

“Guys, look at this,” Doojoon said excitedly while walking towards where the six of them were at, waving a small piece of paper in his hand. The paper seemed to be ⅕ of a whole A4 sized paper and from the look of it, it seemed to be torn off by someone in a hurry.

“What’s this?” Yoonji asked as Doojoon passed the piece of paper to her. On the paper, there were some words written, with ‘SWERS’ capped in bold.

“Swers?” Eve repeated the bolded words, trying to pronounce it in different ways to get an inkling of what it meant.

“It seems to be part of a full word Eve,” Nina pointed out to Eve and giggled.

“O-Of course I know! Yah Nina!” Eve pouted and started to bare her teeth at Nina while hitting her playfully. Nina laughed and ran to stand on the other side of Yoonji.

“Girls, stop playing around,” Yoonji said seriously as she tried making sense of the paper.

“Childish,” Hyunseung scoffed, finally tearing his gaze away from his phone and strutted beside Eve, taking the piece of paper out of her hand.

“Yah, how can you just call people childish? You’ve just been standing there, looking at your phone and not doing anything at all!” Eve cried irately while glaring at Hyunseung. She did not bother trying to snatch the piece of paper back, knowing he was so much taller than her.

“Eve,” Nina tugged on Eve’s sleeve to calm her down while looking at Hyunseung who was looking at the both of them with an amused expression.

“I was not talking about you,” Hyunseung said simply as he leaned against the wall, looking down at the piece of paper.

That made Eve blushed beet red from embarrassment and turned next to glare at Junhyung who had ended up laughing so badly - due to hearing Hyunseung and Eve’s exchange - and was practically rolling on the floor.

“Aish,” Eve mumbled and stalked off to the other side of the room to find the rest.

Hyunseung looked at Eve leaving with an amused smile before turning to Nina. “Do you have any guesses as to what it means?” he asked, holding the piece of paper up to her.

“A-ah... I-I think it... well, the bolded words means ‘Answers’...” Nina stuttered and guessed as she looked down on the floor, trying to hide her flushed face from Hyunseung.

“Hmm,” Hyunseung smiled, “That makes sense,” he said before passing the paper back to Doojoon. “I’ll go check on the origin of the paper with Nina,” he simply announced before grabbing Nina’s hand and headed out of the room.

“Okay?” Doojoon mumbled as he looked from the paper in his hand to Hyunseung, “Aish, that kid didn’t even wait for my permission,” he complained as he ran his hand through his hair when laughter caught his attention.

“Right, Leader,” Yoonji commented while laughing.

“Y-yah,” Doojoon blushed red from embarrassment. “Your girls don’t listen to you too!” he retorted.

That stopped Yoonji’s laughter but she stuck a tongue out at Doojoon before turning away and walking off.

“Aish, wait for me!” Doojoon shouted after Yoonji as he ran after her.
-

Dongwoon sauntered around the room, avoiding where the body was and sighed. It wasn’t because he was afraid of the body, at least that was what he thought, he just preferred working with someone who was still alive, someone he could talk to. He pouted as he leaned with his side against the wall, trying not to think about the dead body.

“Yah,” a girl’s voice said. A hand also patted his shoulder which caused him to jump up in fright, after all, he still remembered that a dead body was near him. He clutched his chest as he slowly turned around, surprised to see the girl he had clung on from before standing in front of him.

“You know, you really shouldn’t walk up to me care me from behind,” he said, finally letting out the breath he didn’t know he had held in.

Lan stared at him as if he was speaking some alien language, “I did say hi you know?” she said.

“You did?” Dongwoon questioned out loud as he resisted the urge to face palm himself, “Ah, Mianhae, I was thinking about some stuff so I did not hear you,” he apologised.

“Ah, nevermind. So what are you doing here and not in there helping?” Lan asked in a rather accusatory tone.

“W-well...” Dongwoon trailed off, looking around as he fidgeted with the hems of his shirt, “I-I-I don’t like being in the same room with dead people,” he blurted out.

Lan looked at him in silent for a moment before bursting out in laughter. “Y-You are such a huge guy and you’re afraid of a dead body?!” she teased while laughing away.

“Yeah,” Dongwoon admitted and groaned as he looked away, pouting. It was not his fault that he actually wouldn’t dare to see the damn dead body. He blamed his hyungs for telling him stupid things about ghosts.

Noticing that Dongwoon had turned his head away, Lan stopped laughing and plastered on a smile, “Come on, let’s go somewhere else then. I’ve noticed something.” she suggested and tugged on his sleeve, pulling him out of the room.
-

Eve was grumbling to herself under her breath as she walked into the room where the dead corpse was at. “Stupid, idiotic, Eve... Why did you even bother saying anything!” she cried to herself as she continued pacing around the room.

“You’re getting a bit loud over there, Eve,” Chohee snapped at her.

“Yah, I am your Unnie!” Eve pouted as she crouched down beside Chohee, looking at the latter and wondering what she was so focused at.

“Well, my mental age is definitely more mature than yours, Unnie~” Chohee retorted with a smirk towards Eve, earning a sigh as a response from her.

“You’re really noisy, you know, unlike Chohee who looks so beautiful while being serious,” A voice commented as Eve snapped her head around, a frown visible on her face as she saw Junhyung walking into the room with his laptop.

“Yah!”Eveshouted, standing up and turning around immediately. She didn’t realise that her leg was hooked under the dead body. The force of her turn causes her to trip and fall backwards. “Ah!” She cried as she closed her eyes. She braced herself for the impact, but it never came, instead, she could feel a warm pair of arm hugging around her.

“Ah, you should be careful you know,” A voice chimed as Eve opened her eyes and found herself looking up into the angelic face of Yoseob.

“Yah, Eve, get your leg off the corpse, you’re going to ruin it!” Chohee snapped again as she moved Eve’s legs away from the corpse.

Eve blinked, once, twice before standing up properly and moving away from Yoseob hurriedly. Her face flushed red as her heart thumped against her chest.

“Ah, gomawo...” she mumbled.

“Aniyo,” Yoseob smiled and patted her head again.

This time, she frowned, “Why are you always patting my head?” she asked.

“Because you’re cute,” he replied without any thought, making Eve’s eye widen considerably.

“Yah, you two, stop being lovey dovey there,” Junhyung remarked, making them turn their attention to him when something shiny on the floor caught Yoseob’s eyes.

“What is this?” Yoseob bent down to pick up the shiny object which resembled a key.

“Eh, it wasn’t there before,” Chohee’s eyebrows furrowed in irritation at why she hadn’t seen that just now.

“Oh, the body was covering it just now. It must have been moved when I trip over it, causing the key to be shown,” Eve said in realization.

“Well looks like someone’s clumsiness helped,” Junhyung remarked with a smirk as Eve glared at him.

“Well, let’s go and find out what key this is to,” Chohee suggested as the three of them nodded.

The four of them then headed out of the room too towards the office to find out where the key leads to.
-

Yoonji headed towards the room where she always stayed in when she needed peace and quiet with Doojoon following behind her.

“How long are you going to keep following me?” Yoonji asked without even turning her head back to look at him.

“Well, I’m bored,” Doojoon replied, shrugging.

“Well, you know-” she was about to ask Doojoon to go away and find his own entertainment when her cell phone's ringing interrupted her. Her blood ran cold as she recalled the message from this morning and she hurriedly took the phone out of her pocket. The phone blinked, showing that she had a message.
 

Unknown:
Those who cheat, those who lie will be punished. You’re one of them aren’t you? This game is for you. Catch me, or else, I’ll catch you.

Yoonji’s eyes widened as she started trembling, thousands of thoughts were rushing through her mind. Who the is this? What cheating? Game? Does this have to do with the case they’re solving now? Her breath started coming out quick and short and her head started spinning.

Doojoon froze in his steps as he looked at Yoonji, frowning when he saw her trembling and rushed up beside her. “Yah, Yoonji!” he nudged her, making her look up at him with her widened eyes that was filled with fear. He gulped, “Y-yah, don’t scare me, what happened?” he asked, concern obvious in his tone before noticing the phone in her hand.

She stayed silent, her knees going weak and held onto Doojoon while trying to process what was going on when she felt her phone being tugged out of her hand. She could see Doojoon’s expression changing from confusion, to suspicion, to worry. “I...” she mumbled, trying to think of what to say before slipping into unconsciousness. The last thing she heard for Doojoon shouting her name.

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-Eevee- : Okay, here is another chapter! I see some of you actually bothers to read my A/N and It makes me sooo happy ;A; <3 Thank you for taking time to read this rambling of mine. Anyway, just to say first, though I shown the characters pairings here, be assured that your final partner MIGHT not be the guy your char is talking to here. Why? Because I like playing around with the pairings, so more pairings will be shown as the story progress. Just to say first, the case will progress into its for the next two chapter, because there will still be lots of other cases. OwO okay i shall end my long speech here. Ciaos ~