“Whoa, hey! Haruki, wait!” Kangin held out his arm as Haruki approached the door leading into the Forensic Investigations Department. “I need to see your badge.”

“You know me, Kangin,” she snapped, pushing his arm aside, but he moved into her way.

“Uh, I can’t let you in without your badge.”

She scowled, narrowing her eyes at him. “Are you serious?”

“Security’s been tightened, ever since…” He shrugged his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck.

"I was kidnapped. I know, but I need to talk to Chief.” She tried to duck around him, but he grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her back.

“No badge, no entry. I’m sorry, Haruki, that’s the rule.”

Her badge was locked somewhere in one of Chief’s desk drawers, buried under mounds of papers that he had long forgotten about, she was sure. “It’s in there. Can I go get it?”

“Nice try.” Kangin looked faintly annoyed now as he crossed his arms. “You leave now or I’m going to have you escorted out.”

“What?”

“What’s going on here?” Sungmin placed a hand on the furious detective’s arm and stepped between her and the security guard.

“I was trying to explain to Haruki that she can’t enter without her badge,” Kangin replied.

“I-”

“It’s okay. She’s with me,” Sungmin replied. “I’ll sign her in.” Kangin nodded and passed the visitor’s log to Sungmin, handing Haruki a sticker that said “Visitor” across it in bold, black ink. She stared at it.

“You’re joking, right?” she snapped.

Sungmin sighed and took the sticker, slapping it onto her chest. “Come on.” Haruki glared at the security guard as she passed him and ripped the sticker off as soon as she was inside.

Sungmin’s partner, Kim Ryeowook looked surprised to see her as he approached them, arms loaded with files. “Haruki!” He smiled, though his eyes sent Sungmin a questioning glance. “I thought you hadn’t been cleared yet. Are you back?”

“No,” she replied. “Is Chief in his office?”

“I think so, but-” Ryeowook began.

“Thank you.” She brushed past him with a tight smile and headed down the hallway, but not before catching Ryeowook’s concerned expression.

“But Haruki, you’re not supposed to be here!” he called after her.

“Don’t bother,” she heard Sungmin murmur and she grit her teeth, wiping the smile off her face.

“I know that, Ryeowook.”

Were they stupid enough to think that she couldn’t hear the whispers that trailed behind her wherever she went? The entire case had destroyed her calm and unshakeable image, making her look like what everyone had always believed she was: helpless. A weakling. A damsel in distress.

Screw them.

She rapped twice on Chief’s door before pushing it open without waiting for his response.

Leeteuk narrowed his eyes upon seeing her, but didn’t look too surprised as she walked up to his desk and raised her head defiantly. “I want Taemin’s case.”

“You’re not cleared for duty.” He looked away dismissively and began stacking the papers on his desk into a neat pile. He jumped, however, as she slammed her palm on his desk and glared at him.

“Donghae was shot in the stomach and he’s been back for months!” she snapped. “I have a scratch on my face!”

“I’m not talking about your physical injuries!” Leeteuk retorted. “I’m talking about there!” He jabbed her forehead with his finger and she blinked in surprise.

“Ow!”

“You are not the same person you were a year ago, before you started investigating those murders,” he snapped.

“I’m fine!” she protested. “I’ve been fine for months.”

“Bull!” he hissed and Haruki’s mouth fell open slightly. Subconsciously, her shoulders hunched as Chief Park seemed to grow taller before her eyes. He’d never, never sworn at anyone. “Being a detective is a mental game. I need you in top shape to play that game. You need to think like a detective and not let your emotions take over. You coming in here and ordering me around is proof that you are not ready yet.”

She stared sullenly out the window, feeling a bit like a sulky teenager again. Leeteuk’s face softened as he sat down at his desk. “Look, Haruki, I know you’ve experienced something traumatic and-”

“Stop it!” she burst out, temporarily forgetting that this was her boss and talking him to like this was the best way to get herself fired. kept moving on its own as months of frustration came pouring out. “Stop patronizing me! You wouldn’t be talking to the guys like that if they almost got killed.”

“Don’t you dare play the gender card with me.” Chief Park stood up again, eyes narrowed as he towered over her. “Get your back to Evidence before I send you on leave!”

She knew she should have left immediately. She knew that continuing would be the equivalent of throwing her badge down the drain. And yet, she took a deep breath and asked in a quiet voice, “Are you afraid I’m going to end up like Taemin, Chief?”

Leeteuk stared at her until she nearly squirmed before sitting down once again. “I’m afraid that you’ve already forgotten everything you learned at the police academy. I’m afraid that you don’t remember what the Thin Blue Line stands for anymore.”

Haruki swallowed hard. “Chief…”

“To hold yourself accountable for your actions,” he said softly. “You swore that on your first day.”

She swallowed hard and nodded her head. “Yes, sir. I…”

He shuffled through the pile of folders on his desk and pulled out a thin file. “You want Taemin’s case? Take it.”

Her eyes widened, a small smile touched her lips. “Really? Tha-”

“Don’t thank me yet. There’s a catch.” She nodded quickly as he gave her a stern look. “Before you close this case, you have to start seeing a therapist.”

“And if I don’t need to?”

Leeteuk pursed his lips. “This is an order, Haruki, not a suggestion.”

“I think you’re wrong, Chief,” Haruki retorted, ignoring the way his eyes narrowed at her. She held up the file. “This is all the therapy I need.”

“Don’t make me regret this, Haruki,” he snapped.

“I won’t.” She turned and brushed past Siwon on her way out of the office, with a slight nod. The older detective frowned and slowly pointed in the direction she’d gone.

Leeteuk shook his head. “No, she wasn’t officially cleared for duty, but she demanded that I give her Taemin’s case.”

“Why did you?” Siwon asked.

“Because if I don’t give it to her, she’ll investigate on her own anyways and do something incredibly stupid,” Leeteuk replied.

Siwon smiled wryly. “I thought she was planning on staying in Evidence forever. It’s nice to see her getting some of her fire back.”

“What kind of fire, though?” Leeteuk sighed. “If she’s not careful, she’ll burn the whole city down.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully and eyed the senior detective. “You're not working a case right now, are you?”

Haruki took the nameplate off her desk and packed it into her bag. She opened her desk drawers one last time, checking to make sure she hadn’t left anything. As she stood up to leave, she finally realized what was bothering her.

It was too quiet.

She looked up, finally realizing that twelve pairs of eyes were staring at her. In all her months of working in Evidence Management, she had never seen these boys so quiet.

Kris was the first one to break the silence. “So you’re really leaving?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going back to Forensics?” asked Lu Han. She nodded, though she’d never heard the FID referred to that way.

Kris smiled slightly as he came over and patted her shoulder. “It was nice meeting you, even if you’re kind of boring.”

“Good luck with everything!” Jongin added as he tried to balance the bat on his fingertip.

Haruki felt her lips quirking into a smile. “You, too,” she said quietly. She zipped her bag shut and headed for the door.

“Wait!” called Lu Han.

“I’m not getting you guys coffee before I leave.”

“No, I wanted to ask you something,” he replied. She stopped and turned slightly in the doorway. “Why did you leave Forensics in the first place?”

Jongin dropped the bat as Do Kyungsoo spit water all over his desk. The silence in the room was almost chilling as a flicker of irritation crossed Haruki’s face. Her smile tightened before she walked out of the room and closed the door firmly behind her.

Jiyong groaned out loud and kicked his feet up on his desk, ignoring Youngbae’s look of disapproval. He never thought he’d say it, but he was bored at work. Sure, things were slow. They usually were. That gave him and the other hackers- or digital forensics experts- plenty of time to go about their own…activities. Usually, he enjoyed this. Usually, he found real work an annoyance.

So it had come as a surprise to him when he realized he hated having so much free time. The last real case he’d worked had been a year ago, which was the longest dry spell he’d ever experienced. Well, of course he enjoyed the attention he got from showing off his skills to other detectives, so it was a bit of a blow to his ego when they didn’t come begging him for help.

No, that wasn’t the reason he was upset. His eyes flickered over to the empty desk diagonal from his. Not having work gave him too much free time to think.

“Hey, cutie!” came Seungri’s voice and Jiyong whipped his head up, a grin threatening to split his face open.

“Hey, look who’s back! My favorite girl cop! How about a hug?” He held his arms out, but Haruki ignored them.

T.O.P. nodded in greeting and Youngbae welcomed her back with a smile. “Took you long enough to come back to work,” he chuckled.

“What can I do you for?” asked Jiyong and she rolled her eyes.

“You heard about him?” she asked and he didn’t have to ask to know who she was talking about.

“Don’t know a cop who hasn’t heard,” Jiyong replied, careful to sound neutral. The last thing she wanted was pity. Haruki never wanted pity.

“We’re starting from that case,” she told him. “Going back to all his conversations and accounts, looking back into his victims’ social networks. Seeing who out there could have wanted him dead.”

“A lot of people wanted him dead, Haruki,” a deep voice said from behind her. Jiyong looked up as the detective turned around to see Siwon standing behind her. “Hello, Jiyong, everyone.”

“What are you doing here?” Haruki asked.

“Chief assigned me to be your partner for this case,” Siwon replied. “I’m sure we will work well together.”

Haruki nodded. “Lobotomy isn’t a normal way of assaulting people. I’m thinking the attacker is connected to the case I investigated last year. I was just asking Jiyong to look into it.”

“I think that’s wise,” Siwon said. “We’ve been paying them to do nothing for too long. Come on. We should head back to the hospital to collect his medical records and talk to his doctors again.” He held out a folder to her. “Donghae and Eunhyuk questioned the witnesses at the crime scene. You can read their reports on the way over.”

“This feels too easy,” Haruki murmured as they headed down the hallway towards Taemin’s room. “There are security cameras in every corner. They cover every inch of the hospital. At least one of them must have caught the attacker going in and out of his room.”

“The attacker is smarter than you’re giving him credit for,” Siwon replied. “Taemin’s not dead.”

“And?” But as soon as Haruki asked the question, she realized the answer. “If he were dead, Shindong could determine the time of death.”

“And since he’s not, we don’t know when he was attacked, except that it was before 8am this morning,” Siwon replied. “That’s when the nurse came in to give him his meds.”

“8am?” Haruki stopped walking and gave him a look of disbelief. “Yuri called me around 10.”

“I know.” There was nothing more to say as Siwon stopped in the doorway of Taemin’s room. “Do you want to go in?”

Haruki nodded. The bed had been made, ready for a new occupant. Most of Taemin’s belongings had been taken out of the room as evidence, but there was still a vase of wilting flowers on his nightstand and a rumpled hospital gown slung across a chair.

“Do the windows open?” Haruki asked.

“I don’t think so,” Siwon replied.

“So the attacker came in through the door.” Haruki murmured. “Found him lying asleep, pinned him down and attacked him. The same way he attacked Gyuri.” Her curly-haired neighbor’s face popped into her head and she pushed it out of her mind. She and Jessica had been the only two at Gyuri’s funeral. Even her own family hadn’t bothered to show up.

These memories were distracting her. She bent down and yanked open the bottom drawer of the nightstand, hoping Siwon hadn’t noticed anything strange about her. She knew that he had been sent to keep an eye on her and that he’d report everything she did back to Chief Park.

The drawer was empty, but as she pushed it shut, it stuck halfway. Frowning, she pulled it open again and reached into the back, eyebrows furrowing as her fingers touched paper. She tugged, pulling out a black composition notebook, which fell open to a well-creased page. Taemin’s familiar scrawl met her eyes.

Were you hiding from me, noona? Is that why I never saw you? I knew you wouldn’t come see me, though- you still felt guilty for hurting me. I wanted you to come see me, though. I wanted to tell you that I forgave you for everything. You didn’t mean any of it, did you?

“What’s that?” Siwon asked and Haruki quickly slammed the notebook shut.

“That’s the journal I asked Taemin to keep.” Haruki looked up to see a man in a white coat standing in the doorway. “Kim Junsu. I’m Taemin’s doctor.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Siwon replied, moving forward to shake the man’s hand. “I’m Detective Choi and this is Detective Morita. We’re investigating the attack.”

“But of course,” Dr. Kim said.

“We’ll need to take this as evidence,” Haruki explained after shaking hands with the doctor.

“I understand,” Dr. Kim replied. “Under normal circumstances, I would refuse because it would be a breach of the patient’s rights, but-”

“We’re hoping it might contain some leads,” Haruki replied.

“Of course, of course.”

“Can you tell us anything about your patient?” Siwon asked.

“There’s not much to tell,” Dr. Kim replied. “He never caused trouble, always took his meds and attended therapy sessions. He did whatever the nurses told him to do.”

The detectives exchanged glances before Haruki asked, in a much harsher voice, “Did you treat him differently?”

Dr. Kim bristled slightly at the accusation, but she kept her gaze even and unblinking. “I suppose, knowing that he was a bit…different from our other patients may have caused some bias-”

“Is that why you took two hours to report that he had been attacked?” Haruki asked.

“Haruki,” Siwon warned and she backed off to let him finish questioning the doctor. She shook her head and passed a hand over her face as she walked away from his room. It was normal to be rattled when your personal demons show up again to haunt you. That’s it. That’s all that was bothering her.

He was crazy when he wrote in the notebook. They were just the ramblings of an insane kid. The words meant nothing. They shouldn’t bother her at all.

“He deserved it.”

Haruki looked up at the quiet voice coming from the open door she was passing. A girl sat huddled on her chair, staring out the window as she blankly clutched a doll to her chest. Her short hair reached the edge of the bandages covering her face and neck.

“What did you say?” Haruki asked quietly.

“He deserved it,” the girl replied.

“Who?”

“That boy,” the girl intoned. “The one whose room you were just in. The one they called The Lobotomist. He deserved what happened to him.”

“Did you hear what happened last night?” Haruki asked.

“Everybody knows. Everybody knows,” the girl chanted.

Haruki paused, hand resting on the door as the girl’s voice trailed off and she began murmuring to herself, wrapping her blanket more tightly around her. “May I come in?” she ventured. The girl nodded, her head bobbing up and down as if to the beat of some song only she could hear. The detective hesitantly stepped inside, but the girl paid no further attention to her.

“Um…what’s your name?” Haruki tried again. She’d never been good at making small talk.

“Jiyeon,” the girl replied.

“Did you know…him?”

“Everybody knew about him. They said he killed lots of girls. They said he cut up their brains,” Jiyeon droned. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Haruki replied. “It is.”

“He shouldn’t have. He was bad. He deserved it.” Jiyeon turned to her with a smile that caused goosebumps to form on Haruki’s arms.

You agree with me. You know he deserved it, too, was the unspoken message.

She jumped as her phone buzzed and pulled it out of her pocket. Unknown number. Glancing back up, she saw that Jiyeon had gone back to staring out the window.

She’d imagined it. She was on edge and she was reading too much into things, scaring herself.

She flipped open her phone and held it up to her ear. “Morita.”

“Detective Morita. It’s good to hear from you again, though we always seem to meet under unfortunate circumstances,” came the reply.

“Who is this?”

“It’s Hangeng. Do you remember me, Detective?”

“Dr. Han? Of course I remember you.” How could she forget seeing him attempting to revive Krystal? How could she forget watching him sedate Hyorin?

Her hand instinctively went to her cheek. “It’s been a while,” she managed. “How’ve you been?”

“Busy. I’m afraid this isn’t a social call.” Hangeng sounded very tired, as he always did before delivering bad news to her.

“Taemin,” she said quietly and she could almost hear him nodding.

“He passed away just a few minutes ago,” the doctor said. “I’m sorry, Haruki.”

“Thank you,” Haruki said faintly. Jiyeon’s words were ringing in her head as she numbly stuffed her phone back into her pocket.

He deserved it.

A/N: Leeteuk...Jiyong...Hangeng...I had no idea how much I missed you guys! *sniff* Reuniting with old characters is like reuniting with old friends. I can't wait to bring them all back!