SOS.

This was the text that triggered the following series of events.

Luhan rushed to the agency at lightning speed, he even sped through a few red lights in order to shorten the usual twenty minutes drive to ten minutes.

What Luhan expected to see wasn’t there, instead his boss Kris had both feet up on Luhan’s office desk while playing poker with Tao.

Luhan sighed audibly from the doorway; it doesn’t take a fool to realize that he’s been tricked once again. Tao was the first to notice him, and nudged Kris. Kris whirled the chair around to look at him with a smirk on his goddamned face.

“I see you are in life threatening danger indeed, boss.” Luhan said through gritted teeth.

At Luhan’s sarcastic tone, Kris had the decency to look slightly guilty. “I needed you here as soon as possible,” He winked, “and I knew you loved me enough to come ‘save’ me.”

He sighed again. Kris was a ridiculous man at the best of times, but when it counted, he could be serious, even deadly. Like Luhan, many of the detectives here have a somewhat shady past. Kris was no exception, although he chose to instead play the role of a happy-go-lucky . For reasons unknown to Luhan.

The text had said:

“SOS, i am in life threatening danger, if you don't come quickly i may die.” -Kris

Furious, Luhan deleted the text and smacked his android phone right on Kris’s gorgeous face.

Kris squawked indignantly. Unfortunately for Luhan and luckily for Kris, Tao was swift enough to grab the phone before it could leave a permanent pink mark.

“Are you trying to ruin this gorgeous face?” Kris held a hand over his heart, seemingly hurt.

Luhan scoffed, clearly not believing in Kris’s act. The man was such a child sometimes. “Just trying to make your text come true, sir.” He said; now back in his usual robotic tone.

Kris smiled toothily at him, before he turned around to Tao, “thanks darling.” He teased.

Tao’s expression remained indifferent, his dark eyes not giving anything away. But Luhan could’ve sworn he saw just the tiniest lift of the corner of his mouth.

“Anyways, Luhan, we have a mission for you.” Kris’ voice turned deep and serious, just like that. Luhan used to be more shocked at the abrupt transition, but over time, he just wrote it off as one of Kris’ eccentricities, or that he has Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Luhan’s stern expression was replaced by a frown as Kris handed him a folder. He frowned not of the size of the folder, but of the tiny movement Tao made in his peripheral vision. And knowing Luhan, he doesn’t wave it off, nor does he say anything about it, but he remembers it.

His fingers traced the edges of the folder, flipping it open.

The first thing that came into Luhan’s view was a disfigured body, lying in a puddle of dried black blood. It was a gruesome kill, that’s for sure. The face was almost entirely unrecognizable due to being repeatedly stabbed with a knife. The fatal wound though, interestingly, was in the chest. It was obviously no coincidence that the stab that ended the man’s miserable life was straight to the heart; a crime of passion, usually. Especially when the weapon used was a knife, Luhan decided.

The rest of the document Luhan sped through, but in what seemed like a taking of ten lines in one glance, Luhan had got two thirds of the report memorized.

“I am sure you had already seen the news.” Kris said. “Two men were killed within a month; the FBI had already taken this case under their hands, secretly.” He paused, eyebrows knitting together as if in deep thought. “Obviously they asked us to take care of the investigation while they hide away like they’ve got nothing planned, along with whatever the reason they don’t plan on telling us about.”

Luhan nodded, it was understandable, for FBI to take a case underhand and throw it to them because they can’t be seen interfering with other countries’ businesses like they do with their own. Baekhyun would often complain to Luhan about the unfashionable attire he had to wear when he goes undercover.

“The suspects though,” Kris gestured Luhan to flip back a few page and he did as told. “The FBI did not plan on helping us at all with this case, so our investigators narrowed it down for you. There are little to none connections between the two victims besides the fact that they are jobless middle age men, who would often take little strolls around Seoul’s famous Criminal Research and Investigation Academy.”

Luhan raised a brow, he had heard a lot about this academy, the ranking of CRIA rose and was parallel with the university Luhan graduated from for the past few years, and Luhan had to admit was quite impressive.

“The students of CRIA are highly educated about crime in various areas. And as I was researching on the students, I couldn’t help but remembered what you had said to me once.” Kris leaned forward, face stern as he observed Luhan more closely. “Those that excels in ratiocinate are also expert killers.”

After a few seconds of silence, Luhan raised his head to meet Kris’s eyes. “Yes, I said that before.” This motto was something Luhan strongly believed in and it had proven itself to be the truth.

“Oh Sehun,” Kris named one of the suspect on the list. “He’s number one of the excellent rank in the Investigation Faculty. Start with him.”

Luhan said nothing more. This was a promising case, the crime investigation of CRIA, a university where students were learning to study crime. It was almost funny in its irony. “I’ll depart right away, sir.” Luhan said primly.

“See that you do kiddo. This one’s a toughie.” Kris had already gone back to his casual slang, now leaned back on Luhan’s expensive chair. “You can catch up on some good old university time, maybe even experiment a little.” What Kris was intending to imply, Luhan didn’t want to know.

“I went to university, you know.” Luhan didn’t even know what he was protesting.

Kris grinned wickedly at him. “Of course you did. ‘The child prodigy – Luhan, finished