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Starting the Chase

"Did someone break into your house ?" questioned Chanyeol upon witnessing the mess in the luxury house.

And 'mess' was an understatement.

Disregarding the numerous empty bottles of alcohol and cans of beer strolling around the tiled floor (of which Chanyeol could more or less understand the existence in the house), it was hard to comprehend the (literally) molested closets, with their drawers hanging out in the air or just ejected somewhere far from where they should be; and clothes, garments (mostly women's) and bags abandoned pretty much everywhere where they could hang on; and that this not to talk about all the papers laying on the ground such as it was impossible to walk without stepping on them.

Chanyeol may have not seen Heechul for many years, but as far as he can remember, Heechul was not the kind to be untidy and keep the dirty dishes piling up in the sink (and he hardly believes that Yoona would have permitted such a disorder in her house, as lenient as she was). He also recalled that Heechul was a well-known lawyer who was running his own office, and by the look of the expensive materials in the house, he guessed that the guy should make enough money to be able to hire a charwoman to clean for him, so he couldn't understand why his friend turned the poor home upside down.

"No, I was just doing some... investigations." Heechul tiredly tossed away some trashes from the couch.

He hadn't slept for two nights and his appearance mirrored his wasted state. He had disheveled hair, growing bear and dark rings pending below his reddened eyes that were far different from his usual neat and proper self. His branded shirt was recklessly ed to his chest, the sleeve messily rolled up to his elbows, and he had swapped his costume pant for a cozy sweatpants.

But it's not like his current appearance was his priority anyway.

"You have quite a peculiar way to do your investigations." joked Chanyeol with an amused smile. "What were you investigating ? How to burgle a house ?"

"Very funny." Chanyeol's pleasantry was responded by his sarcastic laugh. "I was searching in Yoona's stuff to see if there was a hint about her perpretatorr." Heechul said sternly as he went into the kitchen and came back with two mugs of coffee.

"Sorry, I don't drink coffee. You know, caffeine and all." Chanyeol cordially refused.

Heechul just posed the other mug on a corner of a table, drinking in his own as he sat on his personal leather chair, massaging his aching temples.

Putting his bag down, Chanyeol went to serve himself a glass of water while observing around the modern eco-home (it was likely that the modern part was chosen by Heechul while the eco part was requested by Yoona).

The house had two floors. The first floor bestowed the living room, bathing in the natural sunlight from the big conservatory facing their little private backyard, while the american style kitchen revealed himself behind a black-and-white bar counter. The first floor was pretty vast, as you could see everything just standing in the middle of the open space. He got a quick look of the second floor from the spiral staircase and supposed that it must hold the bedrooms, by the look of the numerous doors closed on a carpeted hallway, giving a more intimate feel than down here.

Chanyeol could only concede with a quiet awe. It was not the kind of house he could buy with a salary like his.

"And ? Did you find something ?" He asked while rummaging casually in the kitchen's cupboard for a snack.

"Nothing." Heechul shook his head, unnerved. "I looked everywhere to find if she didn't receive some threat letters or something, but she had nothing of the sort."

Chanyeol went back in the living room, munching on an apple he had found in the fridge and a glass of water in the other hand. "Maybe it's just like Victoria said, Yoona sent the letter herself, a prank or something. If it's like that, it's only normal that you don't find anything." His tone was far lighter than the somber man, as he made himself comfortable on the couch.

Heechul then showed him two pieces of paper, one of them was the letter Chanyeol had entrusted him previously while the other one was just a rough draft with things scribbled down on it.

"I compared the handwriting of the letter and Yoona's, they are completely different." He positioned the two paper next to each other to make it easier to compare. " When I saw the letter, I knew that something was off. There's no reason that she'd do something like that, it's too unlike her." A certain skepticism was heard as the lawyer spoke. He wriggled his hand together, a deep frown creased on his forehead. "After the funeral, I gave a good thought about it and... there are too many misfits. I didn't realize them at first because I wasn't really in my right state of mind after Yoona..." He clenched his teeth, for it was still painfully hard for him to remember the last scene of his wife laying inert on the cold floor.

A lump formed in his throat and he had to pause himself in order to keep his composure (he didn't want to cry again, not in front of someone).

Chanyeol put a comforting hand on his shoulder. He wasn't used to console people, but he could understand the pain, and that alone made the whole difference.

"Hey, you're alright ?" It wasn't really a question, rather a concern.

"Yeah, it's okay. Thanks." Heechul sat up, exhaling a profound breath. It wasn't time for him rot in useless wails, he had to pull himself together. For Yoona, he had to.

"So, like I said, too many things are out-of-place." He started again, with Chanyeol listening from the side carefully. "Firstly, the forensics said that Yoona died by poisoning. They concluded that she committed suicide because they found a bottle of cyanide next to her, and only her fingerprints were found on the scene."

"What is weird with that ?" Chanyeol wrinkled his forehead in an interrogative mark.

"I found out later that the door wasn't locked that day, even the windows were opened." Heechul revealed slowly, more grave than before.

Chanyeol's brows arched in surprise. "They were opened ?"

"If she wanted to kill herself, the first thing to do should have been to make sure that everything is locked so that nobody would interrupt her when she's doing the act. It's weird for someone as meticulous as her to have forgotten something that important."

"Then... That means anybody could have walked in, it was easy for anybody to have put the cyanide in her drinks." Chanyeol reasoned out, somehow excited about their little detective game.

Heechul nodded in approval. "And they said that there were no traces of infraction, so most likely it's someone she knew. I think that there's a high possibility she let him or her walk in without suspicion."

"Wait. Someone she knows ?" Chanyeol, now engrossed in the game, gave the other man an eager look. "Victoria said that she invited all of Yoona's acquaintance, so that person must have come to the funeral ! You have the list of the people who came, right ? Where is it ?"

But Heechul only shook his head. "It's no use. I've looked into it already, there are at least a hundred people who came. It'll take us forever to look onto every one of them."

"Why did she have to know so many people ?" Chanyeol scowled, slumping in the couch.

Heechul cleared his throat, a small lopsided smirk creeping on the corner of his lips. "But I managed to reduce the numbers of suspect to only three of them."

Chanyeol raised an interested brow. "How did you do ?"

"The letter you received." explained Heechul. "The weirdest thing in all of this is the letter you received. There's the fact that you received the letter before the murder was committed, but what I can't understand is, why would the culprit send you such a letter ? Why would he go through the pain of covering Yoona's death as a suicide yet let us know that she was killed ?"

The constant flippancy that Chanyeol usually wore disappeared from his face. He put a hand under his chin and muttered in a low voice (if his voice could ever be lower than it already was). "It's weird. The culprit is contradicting himself. If he didn't send the letter, Yoona's death would just have been seen as a suicide, that should be the better for him. It's incoherent that he'd strip down his own camouflage."

Heechul leaned closer to Chanyeol. "I've been thinking about it for these two days, and there are only two rational answers." He showed two fingers. "Either the killer's real intention was not to kill Yoona or..."

"Or what ?" Chanyeol urged him, twitchy from both curiosity and apprehension.

"Or there's someone else who knew that Yoona was murdered and is giving us hint about the culprit." Heechul said in finality.

Chanyeol's eyes widened at the realization.

"And if that is true, it means there's a third person who knows who's the culprit." Heechul continued without taking a break. "In the best case, we have a witness who, for X reason, can't show himself and can only tell us tell us that Yoona's death was staged through a letter. If it's so, then we have an important informer hiding around us."

Chanyeol gulped down a mouthful of water. Things were going far more extreme than what he initially thought. "But you said that you found three suspects ? Who are they ?"

He saw Heechul's expression darkening at his inquiry, the latter hesitating on speaking his deduction. "Are they people I know ?"

The older man looked up at him darkly. "I don't know if you want to know who they are."

"Just say it ! Don't stop talking midway !" Chanyeol jerked, frustrated at the lawyer's dawdling.

"They are most probably Donghae, Jessica or Victoria." The names came out as a whispers, but it seemed like they echoed against the walls of the quiet house, repeating over and over again.

Chanyeol nearly let go of his glass of water if he didn't have the reflex to catch it in time. He looked at the older man incredulously. "What ? It's impossible ! They would never do that !" He strongly objected. "Yoona is their friend, they have no reason to hurt Yoona !You know that as well !"

"Then how can you explain 'Poppy' ?" Heechul raised his voice. "Don't you find it weird that he wrote 'Poppy' out of all the nicknames Yoona had ? No, even that would be weird. There's no reason to use a nickname, unless there is a hidden meaning behind that. And you know as well as me that no one else, no one else knows about 'Poppy' besides the five of us." He peered fixedly in Chanyeol's eyes as he let astonishment fall on the young photographer.

"Y-You mean," He unconsciously stuttered, "one of them might have... killed Yoona ?"

Chanyeol was left speechless when Heechul acquiesced silently.

"Remember G6 ? Poppy. G6. Our code names. I can't think of another explanation." If it was possible, Heechul's frown drew deeper on his severe visage.

Chanyeol twitched. "Then why don't you suspect me ? Why are you telling me all this ?"

Heechul only replied by showing the palm of his hand. "You have what I asked you to bring, right ?"

Chanyeol lightened up as he remembered about the phone call with the guy that morning and his peculiar request. "Ah right." He opened his bag and took out a plane ticket from his passport. "So you were confirming my alibi." He could only huff a dumbfounded sigh as he handed the ticket to the lawyer.

"Right." Heechul examined the plane ticket and returned it with a satisfied look. "Since you landed in Korea the morning of the funeral, you can't have made her drink poison when you were miles away."

"I should keep it preciously then, since it proves my innocence." Chanyeol finally laughed in this serious atmosphere as he folded the ticket in half and slipped it in the cover of his passport, before asking doubtfully, "What about you then ? What about your alibi ?"

"I was gone on a business trip at that moment. I can let you check my agenda or let you talk with my assistant if you want to check on me."

"It's okay." Chanyeol stopped him. "I believe you. You wouldn't have told me so much if you were the culprit anyway." He leaned back with his trademark grin, crossing his legs together in an arrogant manner. "Then, I suppose that you want me to help you investigate this case, since you took the special care to call me here."

"Better two heads than one." Heechul simply said. "And besides, you were the one who received the letter, so you're more or less the prime witness."

"I know, I'm awesome, it's just in my nature." ​Chanyeol beamed proudly. "But I won't work for free."

"What, you want me to pay you ?" Heechul nearly screamed his indignation.

"That'd be good, but I'd prefer if you could let me sleep here. The hotel bills is getting expensive, you know." Chanyeol smiled sheepishly. "And besides, it's too lonely to live alone in such a big house, I'll keep you company." He winked at his now future landlord while taking his bag towards the bedrooms.

"What about Africa ?"

"Oh, I got fired after I left my job in the middle of a work." He shrugged casually, walking up the stairs. "It's alright, I didn't like my boss anyway. And it's been a while since I've come back in Korea, I guess I'll take a break here for a while."

Under normal circumstance, Heechul would have already kicked him out of his house. But maybe it was because of the fatigue, or that getting older made him lazy, or simply because part of himself knew that it was useless effort to drag the guy out once he had set his eyes on his house, Heechul didn't do anything.

"Just don't enter the last room of the corridor !" Heechul shouted, but was only responded by the latter's shout of amazement about the house.

A/N :

This chapter was supposed to be one with the next one, but I was afraid that it might become too long so I've decided to split them in two separate chapters. I feel like that the story's too fast-paced, even though there is nothing really significant revealed yet, but I want to make it a twenty of thirty chapters at most, so this is needed. Tell me though, if you think that I should slow down the pace.

And thanks to those who subscribed, and to those who commented ! And to those who read, and... eeer... well... Thanks !