Yellow police tape fluttered across her vision as Haruki watched paramedics push the black body bag out of the courtroom. Just a little while ago, you were smirking at me.

“Haruki!” The detective jumped at the sound of the voice and turned to see her colleague, Ryeowook, scowling at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I said your name five times!”

Haruki’s smile came out as a grimace as she watched the body bag disappear through the door. “Sorry. What is it?”

“I need your witness statement,” Ryeowook replied. “Did you see the shooter?”

“No,” Haruki replied. “I heard a crack from behind me and then a scream and I looked over to see him…on the ground.”

“Did the killer use a silencer?” Ryeowook asked.

“It sounded like it,” she replied.

“That makes it hard to figure out where the killer was,” he murmured, scribbling something in his notebook. “The shooter was behind you? Is there anything else you can say about the direction it came from?”

Haruki shook her head. “I’m sorry, Ryeowook.”

“No, not at all!” the detective replied quickly. “Help me process the crime scene until Sungmin gets here?”

“I-” Haruki began, but he a pair of latex gloves towards her with a smile and moved on to talk to a shaken Hyoyeon.

A hand on her shoulder made her jump and she turned to see Yuri smiling at her. “Trouble follows you like a dog on a leash, doesn’t it?” she asked.

Haruki shrugged. “Can you say anything about where the killer was sitting?”

Yuri nodded as she pulled out her camera. “I’ll have to print these out to get a better view, but see there?” She pointed at the back of G.O.’s head. “There’s where the bullet went in. Was he standing or sitting when he was shot?”

“He was standing,” Haruki replied.

“So if he was standing, from the angle he was shot at…” Yuri turned and faced the other side of the room. “It had to come from that side. Whoever it was, he was sitting near the wall.” Haruki’s eyebrows narrowed slightly, but the other woman noticed immediately. “What is it?”

“I was sitting near the wall,” Haruki replied.

“Did you-”

“Sorry I’m late.” Sungmin came running onto the scene, hastily pulling gloves on. “What happened?”

Yuri stepped aside to fill him in on the details, while Haruki peeled off her gloves and rejoined Eunjung, Tiffany, and Hyoyeon. “Let’s get you home, Eunjung. It’s been a long day.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Eunjung replied, looking rather calm for someone who had just witnessed a murder. “He got what he deserved.”

“How can you say that?” Hyoyeon snapped, but Eunjung was looking at Haruki with a slight smile.

The smile widened as Haruki swallowed and glanced to the side to avoid looking into anybody’s eyes.

Siwon grabbed her by the arm the minute she walked into the department and dragged her back out. “You’re going to be late! Come on. I’ll drive you.”

“Late for what?” Haruki asked.

“Your counseling appointment.”

“What counseling appointment?”

Siwon pulled her through the door and headed towards his car. Haruki had to jog to keep up with his long stride. “The patients in the hospital are protected by laws to prevent the law from taking advantage of them, so we can’t question them. However, there’s a session this afternoon with a trauma counselor and we signed you up for that. You’ll be going undercover as a patient.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Haruki demanded. “Did you and Chief Park plan this?”

“Actually, it was Onew’s idea. The counselor is a friend of his,” Siwon replied.

“That little-” Haruki sputtered as she tried to yank of Siwon’s grasp. “I told Chief I didn’t need to go to therapy!”

“It’s just a little undercover work. You’ve done that before,” Siwon replied. He raised an eyebrow at her as he opened the car door. “You’re getting a little defensive, aren’t you?”

“No, I…”

“Good.” He pushed her into the car and shut the door before she could escape. Climbing into the driver’s seat, he ignored her glare as he started the car and drove off.

“Why don’t you introduce yourself?” Dr. Park Hyojin, or “Narsha,” as she’d introduced herself to the group, smiled brightly at a sulking Haruki. The rest of the group, made up of about five or six girls in white hospital gowns, turned towards Haruki expectantly. She recognized one of them as Jiyeon, the girl she’d met when she came to examine Taemin’s room.

“No, thanks,” Haruki mumbled. “I’m just here to observe this time.” Because I’m never coming back again.

“Oh, come now.” Narsha’s smile grew impossibly wider. “We’re all friends here. We’re very open with each other. I believe that’s one of the most beneficial things you can get from these sessions. Others can identify with you and encourage and help you through whatever you are struggling with.”

“I said no,” Haruki replied bluntly. And how does that make you feel? she wanted to add sarcastically, but she bit her tongue. Yes, she was irritated at being here. However, breaking her case might depend on what she learned.

She sighed and shifted in her seat. Narsha’s eyebrows rose even higher as she nodded encouragingly.

“My name is Haruki,” she replied. “I’m not a patient here, but my friend thought…he thought I could benefit from group therapy sessions.” Just play along. It’s undercover work. You’ve done it before; it’s not as bad as the time you had to pretend to be a callgirl.

“You’re the detective,” one of the girls said and Haruki suddenly felt the pressure of six pairs of eyes boring into her. “You were attacked by the serial killer last year.”

“You know about that?” Haruki asked.

“It was in the newspaper,” another girl added. “It said you shot him in the shoulder and saved yourself and your partner.”

“You’re amazing,” the girl sitting beside Haruki blurted out. She appeared to be younger than the others, who made noises of agreement at her comment.

Haruki shook her head. “I’m not.”

“But you fought back,” the girl whispered. “I-I wish…” She began shaking as her chin dropped to her chest, her hair falling around her face. Without thinking, Haruki reached over and patted her back gently. She noticed a thin red scar on the back of the girl’s neck.

“What was it like?” another asked and the entire group seemed to lean forward. “Were you scared?”

Was she scared? How could she answer that?

How could she explain that she shrank away from every man who looked her way, including her colleagues? How could she tell them that she felt unsafe walking from the parking lot to her apartment, despite being a cop and having her gun in her hand? How could she describe lying wide-eyed in bed, her whole body shaking as she envisioned monsters, not the shapeless forms from her childhood that turned out to be sweaters in her closet or socks under her bed, but faceless, human monsters that were out there somewhere in the darkness, watching her?

Scared didn’t even begin to describe how she felt.

And besides, she thought as she looked at the admiring faces staring at her, they didn’t want the truth. They didn’t need to be told about the fear they felt every day; they were too familiar with it. They wanted reassurance.

So she forced herself to smile. “No,” she replied. “I wasn’t scared.” Narsha nodded for her to go on and she hesitated, staring down at her hands.

“Noona…”

Blam!

“It’s…it’s what I’ve been trained to do,” she said slowly. “To protect myself and others. I did what I had to do.”

“Do you think…” the girl with the scar began, before she swallowed hard and seemed to fold up within herself. Narsha smiled encouragingly.

“Do you think this wouldn’t have happened if you were a boy?”

The room felt silent. And Haruki knew that they all knew the answer to that question.

“You should have killed him,” Jiyeon said suddenly. Haruki looked up to see the younger girl’s eyes narrowed at her. “You should have killed him while you had the chance.”

“Detective, if this man were truly as terrible as you said he was, if you really thought he was going to kill you, why didn’t you kill him in self-defense?”

“Objection!”

“Overruled. Detective, please answer the question.”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Haruki,” Narsha said gently. “Is there anything you want to say to that?”

Haruki drew back her hand and shook her head, glancing down at her watch.

“Well, thank you all very much for attending today,” Narsha replied. “I hope to see you all next week for our next session. Will you be attending, Haruki?”

Wordlessly, Haruki rose from her seat and left the room.

As she headed towards the lobby, where Siwon was waiting to pick her up, a voice startled her out of her thoughts.

“Good afternoon, Detective Morita.”

Haruki turned around to see a girl in a black beanie walk out of the lobby, but she wasn’t sure where she’d seen her before.

It hurt to blink. Her head felt heavier than usual and she knew her eyes were a puffy red mess when she trudged into the coffee room the next morning.

“Morning, Morita!” Jonghyun, one of the younger detectives in the department smirked as she came in. “Get your beauty sleep? Guess not.”

He snickered as Haruki muttered a few choice words under her breath and fumbled with a fresh coffee filter.

“Are you alright, Haruki?” Onew entered the room, though he froze in the doorway when she glared at him. “Is…is something wrong?”

“If I wanted to go to therapy, I’d arrange it myself,” Haruki snapped. “I don’t need you signing me up for any shrink sessions behind my back!”

“You went to therapy?” Jonghyun asked.

“Shut up,” she grumbled.

Onew frowned as he pushed his glasses higher up on his face. “I didn’t sign you up for anything. I’ll admit, I was going to ask my friend to see you-”

“I met your friend yesterday,” Haruki retorted. “At that group session you, Chief, and my partner signed me up for!”

“You went to therapy?” Jonghyun repeated.

Ignoring him, Onew shook his head. “That’s impossible. Yoochun has been out of town since Monday. He told me he would come in to visit when he returned next week-”

“Yoochun?” Haruki interrupted. “Don’t you mean Narsha?” Onew gave her a blank look. “Dr. Park Hyojin?”

Onew shook his head again slowly. “I don’t believe I know anyone by that name.”

The hot coffee in Haruki’s hands felt ice cold as a shiver ran down her spine.

“Haruki?”

“I’m fine,” she muttered.

“Well, that’s good,” Chief Park replied as he poked his head through the doorway. “I was afraid you’d be mad at me for signing up you up for that group session without telling you yesterday.”

“You went to therapy!” Jonghyun cracked up, banging his fist against the counter. To her annoyance, Chief Park looked mildly amused and she was about to rudely brush past him when he held out a hand to stop her.

“I just thought you should know,” he began, looking serious. “Taemin’s funeral will be taking place around noon today. We’ve been keeping it secret because it might bring a backlash. There will be no ceremony involved, just the funeral director and a priest. Still, I…I thought you might like to know.”

“He’s been dead for a while,” Haruki said, forcing herself to sound as casual as she could, but she wasn’t even convincing herself. “It’s about time.”

There was a crowd of people near the area where Chief had told her they would be burying Taemin. She could make out the funeral home director, a couple grave diggers, and a short man in black she assumed was the priest all standing inside a taped off area. A ring of police officers surrounded the tape, struggling to keep the angry crowd at bay. Some people were shouting questions- there were reporters here.

Word of Taemin’s funeral must have somehow been leaked. How had all these people found out?

Haruki debated turning her car right around and driving away. She didn’t have to be here.

Except she did. She parked the car, took a deep breath, and climbed out, keeping her head as low as possible.

It took the reporters two seconds to notice her. Like sharks to blood, they swarmed forward, blocking her from all directions as they attacked.

“Detective Morita, can you tell us why you’re here?”

“Detective, can we have a comment, please?”

“Detective, can you answer a few questions?”

Haruki could feel her heart beginning to race again. She caught the eye of one of the officers standing near the taped off area and he shrugged helplessly. She was on her own. She dug her nails into her palm as she turned in every direction. The mob of faces around her, their notebooks and microphones and cameras began to blur as their voices blended together in their assault.

“Can you tell us what happened to Lee Taemin?”

“Is it true that he was really in love with you?”

“Stop it,” she whispered, or thought she did. She couldn’t hear anything beyond the roaring in her ears. Stop it, stop it, stop-

An arm wrapped around her shoulders and she looked up with a start to see Donghae glaring at the crowd that was already quickly retreating. “Back off,” he snapped.

Haruki felt her legs buckle as she leaned against him, turning her head to hide her face against his jacket. “Are you alright?” he murmured, bending his head down to whisper in her ear.

She nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered breathlessly. Already, her pulse was returning to normal, though the weakness remained.

He kept his arm around her as he guided her across the police line to stand behind the priest, when she finally shrugged it off. The sudden dizzy spell passed as quickly as it came and as she walked towards the coffin resting beside the open grave.

“Good afternoon, detectives,” the priest said.

Donghae nodded politely, while Haruki barely acknowledged him. Her eyes were fixed on the shiny black casket.

“Is anyone else expected?” asked the priest.

“I doubt it,” Donghae replied. He glanced over his shoulder at the protesting crowd. “It’s probably better to get this over with quickly.”

The priest nodded, opening the book in his hands. “Then let us begin. The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want…”

Haruki wondered what Taemin looked like now. Sure, she had seen his body just the other day, lying under a white sheet in Shindong’s office. She wondered if the mortician had dressed him up before he was put to rest in the casket. She wondered if they had covered up the bruises around his eyes with makeup. She wondered if he looked peaceful as if he’d fallen asleep, or if he’d died in terror as his victims had.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…”

That was hardly fair. She lived in fear every day; how did someone who had done such horrible things get to leave this world with God’s grace?

The priest closed the book. “Would either of you like to say anything?”

Donghae just shook his head and took a few steps back, hands in his pockets. It was clear that he was uncomfortable with this whole idea; he didn’t believe Taemin deserved any of this. Haruki stepped forward and opened , but nothing came out. She had so many things to say, so many questions to ask him, but there was no use. She wanted to scream at him, to slap him, to demand to know why her? Why had he chosen her?

She wanted to know if it was her fault he’d ended up like this.

But he could never answer her now. And the cemetery was a place that commanded peace.

Instead, she brought her fingers to her lips and touched them to the edge of the painted wood, as she had at her sister’s funeral so many years ago. “Good-bye,” she whispered, before stepping back.

The priest looked surprised at her actions, but he simply nodded. “We commit his body to the ground. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless him and keep him, the Lord maketh his face to shine upon him and be gracious unto him and give him peace. Amen.”

The casket was slowly lowered into the grave and the grave diggers began to fill the hole in the ground once more. Only when the earth was completely smooth, as if it had never been disturbed in the first place, did Haruki finally look away.

Donghae set two steaming cups of coffee on the table as he slid into the booth across from her. “Are you alright, Haruki?”

“Stop asking me that,” Haruki murmured, raising the cup to her lips and taking a huge gulp. She winced and slammed it back on the counter, a tear of pain coming to her eye as she forced herself to swallow.

Donghae couldn’t help chuckling, ducking his head to hide his grin from her. “Are you-” He caught himself just in time and bit his tongue to keep from finishing the question yet again.

After a moment, she offered him an apologetic smile. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“No problem,” he replied.

“How did you know I would be at the funeral?” Haruki asked.

Donghae swallowed hard, rubbing the back of his neck as he glanced at a suddenly interesting spot right over her shoulder. “Well, like you told me once, you like seeing things through to the end. I guessed you’d be there and I…” He cleared his throat as he traced a pattern on the table. “I decided to come, too.”

“I’m glad you did,” Haruki replied and his eyes widened. “I…I wouldn’t have been able to get away from the reporters otherwise.”

“Anytime,” Donghae said with a smile, reaching forward and squeezing her hand. Haruki snatched it back instantly. Now it was her turn to avoid his eyes as she tucked her hand into her lap and stared down at her mug of coffee.

After a pause, Donghae spoke up again. “Haruki? Can I ask you something?” She nodded. “Why did you really go to Taemin’s funeral today?”

Haruki was silent for so long, Donghae didn’t think she wasn’t going to answer at all. However, she finally look up and when she did, he was surprised at the pain in her eyes. “Do you think Taemin would have snapped if he’d never met me?”

“What?”

“Is all of this my fault?” she whispered.

“No, of course not,” Donghae said quickly. “He-”

Haruki’s phone rang loudly and the moment passed. She sat up straighter, head held high as she flipped open the phone and pressed it to her ear, all traces of vulnerability vanishing in the blink of an eye. “Morita.” She listened for a moment, her eyebrows furrowing before she said, “Alright. I’ll be right there.”

She clicked her phone shut and stuffed it back in her pocket as she stood up. “Thanks again, Donghae. I have to go.”

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“That was Sungmin,” she replied. “They found the gun that matches the bullet that killed G.O. He wants my help with the case.”

“With what?” Donghae asked. “Can’t he arrest the shooter on his own?”

Haruki sighed. “It’s not that simple. He thinks I can help him since I was there when the shooting happened.”

Donghae frowned as he leaned forward. “Why? What happened?”

“The gun belongs to one of the guards at the courthouse,” Haruki replied. “But the guard never left his post."