The cicadas seemed to have increased their volumes, as Sehun could no longer concentrate on his forensic textbook.

Without realizing, April was already here. Sehun swore he could remember the day Luhan arrived as if it happened just yesterday. Winter had ended early for the people of Seoul this year, Sehun blamed global warming; it was already rather sunny the day Luhan came to CRI Academy, despite it being late January. Sehun could still picture the little wrinkles on Luhan’s new uniform, how good those legs looked in shorts when they were head to head in the soccer game, and the sly smirk Luhan had gave after the match.

“Sehun, are you even listening?” His book was lifted away by two hands. Sehun looked up and found Kyungsoo frowning at him.

CRI Academy followed an Americanized academic calendar, first semester starting in September and ending in late December, second semester starting in January and ending in late April. With finals approaching, Sehun, Luhan, Jongin and Kyungsoo agreed on studying together at one of their campus libraries.

“Must have zoned out on us.” Jongin snickered, “he dropped his good student act only seconds after Luhan left.”

Kyungsoo nodded. Turning to Sehun, he asked, “are we that uninteresting?”

Sehun face-palmed inwardly. He wanted to say yes but didn’t want to hurt Kyungsoo’s feelings. “Don’t listen to Jongin.” He ended up saying.

“It’s true.” Jongin turned to Kyungsoo, “just watch.” He raised his hands and waved at Sehun’s behind, “Luhan hyung!”

Sehun rolled his eyes. “Like I am going to believe that Jongin, elementary–”

“Hey, I got us all coffee.” A brunette popped himself right beside Sehun, causing Sehun to jump.

“Give me that!” Sehun immediately grabbed the textbook from Kyungsoo’s hands.

Jongin and Kyungsoo both laughed, proceeding to tease the younger. Luhan, with a confused expression, looked around.

“Did I miss anything?”

“No.” Sehun quickly responded.

Luhan turned to the couple, clearly not believing Sehun. Jongin and Kyungsoo just looked at each other mischievously before diving deep into their textbooks.

Silence followed, for the next hour only occasional noise from sipping coffee and flipping of pages could be heard.

Kyungsoo broke the silence.

“What is a chimera? Mr. Soh never talked about it during his lectures.” He questioned.

The other three raised their head, eyes on the page of the forensic textbook Kyungsoo was pointing to.

Sehun and Jongin both shook their heads in confusion. Sehun went ahead and grabbed his forensics notebook, the result of Luhan’s tutoring. Kyungsoo found his head turning to Luhan automatically.

“Don’t bother, Sehun.” Luhan put his hand on top of Sehun’s, stopping Sehun from reaching for his notes. Luhan had grown more comfortable with skin contacts lately, specifically with Sehun. But Sehun’s heart would still beat faster whenever his skin came into contact with Luhan’s despite the fact that skin contacts with Luhan were no longer rare. “I didn’t go over it with you. Chimera is from the creature Chimera in Greek mythology, it has body parts from a goat, a lion and a serpent. In genetics, it is a single organism composed of genetically distinct cells.”

“Wait, so it’s one person, but with two sets of DNA?” Kyungsoo gawked.

“A chimera should have had a fraternal twin, but the cells of the twin merged with the fetus, giving the chimera two sets of DNA.” Luhan explained, trying to make it as brief as possible. “It’s a genetic miracle.”

“Wow.” Jongin uttered, “so many exceptions in the world.” He chuckled. “We learned since junior high about how special the DNA are and how each person only has one set.”

Luhan smiled, “exceptions or not, it is for us to know and solve.” When he had first heard of this from his mentor, Luhan was just as surprised as Jongin.

“Yeah. You’re right.”

“So do you think this will be tested?” In the end, Sehun really just wanted to get a good grade in forensics.

“Given how unpredictable our professor is? I don’t know.”

“It’s not on the summary he gave us.” Jongin let out a sigh of frustration. “I just want to get this over with. Forensics is hard.”

Sehun gave Jongin a look of understanding. “Agreed.”

“Don’t chime in, we aren’t lucky enough to have a Luhan hyung tutoring us every night.”

As another dogfight unfolded between Sehun and Jongin, Kyungsoo took the chance and slid over to Luhan’s side.

“Hey, Luhan hyung, how would you explain this?”

“Do Kyungsoo! Who gave you the right to call Luhan hyung?” A jealous Sehun emerged. It was already bad enough to have Jongin calling Luhan ‘hyung’, now another. Sehun felt like he was no longer special, now that he wasn’t the only one who got to call Luhan ‘hyung’.

“We can call Luhan ‘Luhan hyung’ if we want.” Like usual, Jongin sided with Kyungsoo.

“Oh, no you don’t.”

Kyungsoo watched his two best friends fought again, he groaned then noticed that Luhan had been starring at him for a while.

“What’s wrong, Luhan hyung?” He questioned.

“Are you going to be ok? For the autopsy we’ll be doing.”

Sensing the concern in Luhan’s voice, Kyungsoo offered a sweet smile in return. He had been trying hard to overcome his hemophobia, although he didn’t have huge success, he still made good progress. Kyungsoo knew he would have to keep reminding himself that it wasn’t real human blood he will be seeing during the exam.

“I’ll be fine.” It’s just red dye, Kyungsoo reassured himself.

♔♜♔♜♔♜♔♜♔

“Tinghua, hand me the scalpel please.”

Standing before the autopsy table, Yixing drew open the victim’s chest.

“Scissors.”

Tinghua handed him the tool.

“Scalpel again.”

After half an hour of switching back and forth between the forensic instruments, Tinghua could feel her hands getting sore just from delivering the scissors and scalpel.

She watched as Yixing took out a bloody bullet, quickly she reached for a yellow envelope and gestured Yixing to deposit the bullet inside.

“So cause of death is the bullet?”

“Asphyxiation.”

“I beg your pardon?” Tinghua gave a confused look.

“Postmortem examination suggests that the bullet didn’t kill him, but the lack of oxygen did.” Yixing pointed to the victim’s inner organ. “Also, he was shoot after death. Clear?”

“Yes, I mean no.” Tinghua shook her head, recomposing herself. “I mean, why shoot the guy when he’s already dead?”

Yixing shrugged. “I don’t know. That is your job.”

After leaving a puzzled Tinghua in the autopsy room, to which Yixing had zero sympathy for, he immediately changed out of his lab coat. Even though Yixing had already washed and sanitized his hands, they still felt sticky and gross despite the fact that he wore gloves. Deciding to make a trip to the washroom, Yixing turned at the corner and bumped into someone.

“Oh! Yixing.” The men smiled. “What’s the rush?”

“Cleaning my hands.” Without an apology Yixing made a beeline to the washroom.

The men sighed and followed suit.

Li Kang watched as Yixing lathered his hands with soap and scrubbed carefully, making sure to get under the fingernails as well. It took Yixing roughly six minutes to finish washing his hands. Li Kang sighed inwardly, people were damn right when they say genius often have the weirdest problems.

Yixing could see Li Kang starring at him in the mirror. Rinsing his hands, he asked. “You’re looking for me?”

“Yeah.” Li Kang rubbed his nose. “I heard that you are going on a vacation?”

“Mhm.” Yixing reached for the paper towels.

“For three weeks?”

“I have about six months of vacation day saved up, plus I got approval from Mr. Deng.” Though he wasn’t quite happy about this. Throwing the paper towel away, Yixing faced Li Kang. “Is there a problem, Detective Li?”

“Well, who is going take over your work?”

“My assistant.” Yixing answered.

“Him?” Li Kang scoffed. “Look Yixing. If everyone in the Police Department is Sherlock, then you’re our Watson. We need you.” He continued to persuade.

“But Watson needs to return to the real Sherlock.” Yixing smiled, noting Li Kang’s darkened face and walked away. After all, any Watson would prefer a real Sherlock over a dozen of fake ones.

♔♜♔♜♔♜♔♜♔

The practical examination was underway, students busied themselves with the autopsy instruments in their hands, carefully cutting and slicing knowing that one mistake would cause a great deduction in marks.

Sehun watched as Victoria leaned in closer to examine the body Luhan wa