Additionally to the two days of which Heechul had ransacked his house, it's been a total of four days and a half that he and Chanyeol had begun their research about the truth behind Yoona's death. Or, more precisely, Heechul spent the first day getting back the sleep he lacked (since he hadn't closed an eye for more than fifty hours) and Chanyeol took advantage of his long slumber to move in his stuff without the house master's acknowledgment. Then they spent the first half of the second day arguing over Chanyeol's impromptu moving in (mostly, the latter's extempore redecoration of the interior) and the second half tidying up the house to make it livable.

You may say, they haven't made the slightest progress from their starting point.

It was the morning of the third day, they decided that it was time to do some relevant work, but didn't know where to begin. That was when they received a phone call. Initially ignoring the call (Heechul was absolutely sure that it was yet another one who wanted to show their pseudo-condolence over his unfortunate situation, he had it more than enough listening to them trying to cheer him up -- saying that they understand him when they don't is just pure hypocrisy.), they finally decided to answer after the caller obstinately kept calling back. Heechul had picked up the phone in a very cranky mood, about to tell off whoever it was, when that 'whoever' introduced herself as his wife's colleague.

A light of optimism shone in the house when the colleague told them that she had something to tell them about Yoona, and that she'd like to pass them down the late activist's belongings they had cleaned up at her workplace. Heechul didn't wait, he made an appointment with the caller at a coffee shop near his wife's company for that same afternoon and drove out to the other side of Seoul as soon.

Now, it's been exactly thirty-six minutes and twenty seconds since the due time of the appointment, there was still no sign of the 'colleague' (and of course, they had forgotten to take a note of her number). If it was not because of the yet unbeknownst clue they might (or might not) hear, Heechul would have never known that he was capable of such a patience until today. It seemed like everything was playing with Heechul's nerves, from the noisy chattering of the group of friends sitting behind them, or the loud shouts of the bartenders taking commands, or again the dirty table they had no choice but to sit at; everything.

And that is without talking about the incessant whines of his new roommate.

"Hee, I'm bored."

Heechul royally ignored Chanyeol, who was now making paper ball with the label from his drink (he was trying to aim for the small hole of his straw).

Now, it's been forty-eight minutes and thirty seconds, Heechul swore that if the so called colleague wasn't going to appear in the next minute and a half, he was going to go straight home, find back her number and then give her a piece of his mind.

"Are you sure that she's even coming ? What if she stood you up ?" Chanyeol gaped like a fish.

The minute and half was up, Heechul stood up getting himself ready to leave this place as soon as possible. He took his jacket, ignoring his friend's dumbstruck face and was going to set out when a voice called out from behind.

"Heechul-ssi right ? I'm sorry for my lateness, something came up at work and I couldn't get out." said the owner of the voice between heavy pants.

Doing his best to put a 'You just made me wait nearly an hour but it's alright because I am cool' face, he turned around.

He expected to see a lady in working uniform, which is why he couldn't hide his slight shock upon seeing the person who was standing breathless before him. Even if he overlooked the unfashionable sneakers and the Bob Marley black tee-shirt (that certainly was far from the image he had of a working lady), the person's dark short hair and rather masculine demeanor made Heechul seriously question over his (or her) gender. If he recalled properly, the one who had called him had presented herself to be a colleague of his wife and the voice of the person talking to him right now was, without doubt, not a man's voice. But even the way the 'colleague' extended her (his ?) hand and smiled should be described as handsome rather than pretty, so Heechul was really confused as to how he should behave without looking impolite.

Chanyeol seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he whispered to Heechul (with that ever so discreet voice of his) "You said that it was a 'she', right ? Didn't you hear wrong ?"

"I may not look like that but I'm a girl." said the now confirmed woman. "Don't worry, people often misunderstand. I'm used to it." She coolly waved it off when Chanyeol wanted to apologize for his rudeness.

She sat down in front of Chanyeol and put the box she was carrying on the table, before presenting herself again. "Nice to meet you, I'm Amber. I don't know if you remember, but we have met at Yoona's funeral."

To be honest, Heechul couldn't recall seeing the woman before, but he decided that it was a detail that could be overlooked. "Ah, yes. Thank you for coming. I'm Heechul, Yoona's husband."

The woman named Amber gave him a small smile, before turning her gaze towards Chanyeol. "And you are ?"

Chanyeol extended his hand, showing the big grin of his. "I'm Chanyeol, Yoona's childhood friend. Nice to meet you."

Amber shook his hand and commanded a drink to the waiter who happened to walk by their table. She then fanned herself, catching her breath (it seemed like she ran here).

However, Chanyeol noticed her unusual stare at him, so he asked with a bashful smile. "Is there something on my face ?"

"Ah, no, just..." She quickly averted her gaze, somewhat embarrassed to have been caught in act. But she couldn't help herself to look again at the man. "I'm sorry if I'm wrong, but were you in the same orphanage as Yoona ?"

Puzzlement was written over Chanyeol's face. "How did you know ?"

"Ah. Don't get it wrong." She quickly clarified herself. "It's just that Yoona often talked about her friends back when she was still at an orphanage. I remember her talking about a certain Chanyeol, and since you said that you were her childhood friend, I just thought... ."

"She often talked about us ?"

"Oh, yes." She nodded. "It seemed like you were really good friends before you got separated."

Chanyeol raised a brow. He didn't think that Yoona would share such old stories that even he had forgotten for most part. "What did she say ?"

"Nothing much, just some little anecdotes about when you were kids. Like when you got spanked by the dean for eating in the food reserve." She spoke in soft chuckles.

"No way, she told you about that ?" Chanyeol's eyes widened in horror with Amber's laugh of affirmation.

"Not only that, she also told me that you wet your bed until you were ten."

Chanyeol face-palmed. "My charismatic image is destroyed." He outcried morosely.

Heechul snorted. "You never had such an image to begin with."

"You don't know how popular I was in Europe ! Women were queuing just to catch a glimpse of me." rebutted Chanyeol with exaggerated hand movements. He then turned towards the woman as his friend wouldn't believe him. "Yoona must have also told you embarrassing episodes about Heechul, right ?"

"Ah, yes. In fact, she told me more about Heechul-ssi than you, Chanyeol-ssi." replied Amber; and it was Heechul's turn to widen his eyes.

Chanyeol clapped his hands enthusiastically, happy to take back at the older guy. "What did she say ? What did she say ?"

"Like, when you sneaked out in the middle of the night and got lectured for hours by the dean. Or when Heechul-ssi broke his legs while trying to get her ball from a tree."

"How is that embarrassing ?" complained Chanyeol, unsatisfied. "She's just flattering him."

"Well, Yoona mostly told me about the good times you spent together." admitted Amber. "She must have been happy to have had such good friends. I didn't think that you'd still be in such good terms, it's a rare sight to see."

"Not all of us stayed in good terms." Heechul didn't want to sound rigid, but the way he said it instantly cooled down the lively talk.

Amber could only blink and give an awkward smile. "Ah, really ?"

She was kind of thankful that the waiter chose this right moment to bring her drink. He asked six thousand won for the drink and she (almost gladly) gave him the money along with a small tip. However, as soon as he left, an awkward silence ensued.

And it was it those moments that people like Chanyeol were gladly welcomed.

"So, you said that you had something to tell us, right ?" He grinned, almost too widely.

"Ah right." She posed her tumbler as she remembered the purpose of her coming. She straightened her posture, her friendly features stiffened into serious ones. Something in her tone told them that what she was going to say was important, so the two men let her continue with a brief nod of head. "I didn't know if I should tell you or not, Heechul-ssi... People in the company told me that I shouldn't trouble you with that since your situation must be difficult enough, but... it's been bothering me for a long time, I think it's not right to keep it from you. Yoona was still your wife and-"

"Please, tell me about that." It wasn't really intentionally that Heechul interrupted her, but really, he didn't want to listen to people's solace (because truthfully speaking, it doesn't help the least) and he was much more interested by what she had yet to reveal.

Amber was a little taken aback by Heechul's downright personality, and it was almost apologetically that she muttered, "Oh, sorry. Maybe you've heard enough of those sympathies." She hid her disconcertion behind a unnatural cough.

"So, about Yoona..." She came back to business. "About a month ago, Yoona began to act strangely, she'd often leave in the middle of the work without telling anybody and only come back much later. When we asked her where she had gone, she'd always answer us vaguely. And... it seemed like she was troubled with something."

"What do you mean she was troubled ?"

"I don't know how to explain it, but she wasn't her usual self. Like, she was often thinking of something else when we were talking to her." muttered Amber. "It was also about that time that she began to receive strange calls."

Heechul joined the interrogation. "Strange calls ?"

She nodded. "She'd go elsewhere to pick up those calls and talk in whispers, as if she didn't want us to hear her."

"Did you get to see the ID of the caller ? Or happen to hear his name ?" Heechul pressed the woman, but was only answered by a sorry shake of head.

"She was really secretive about that, I thought that I shouldn't ask her since it's her privacy. Also, most of the time, she'd go out when she received those calls."

Heechul wasn't usually one who was good at reading people, but sensed that Amber had more she hesitated to say, so he probed her. "Is there something else ?"

She looked around cautiously as she spoke in a more secretive tone. "It may only be my imagination, but... I think someone was stalking her."

*  *  *

"That Amber woman is suspicious." Heechul finally declared after the silence Amber left behind when she went back to work.

Chanyeol was at his third cup of Vanilla Frappucino when he asked, "Why ? She was nice, she gave us quite some clues."

Heechul didn't share the same opinion. "No. Something's not right. She knows too much."

To that, Chanyeol gave him an weird look. "And that's a bad thing ?"

"Not the fact that she knows, the fact that she knows too much." Heechul emphasized on his last two words. "She knows about the orphanage, she knows about us, she knows about a stalker that even I didn't know about." He stressed.

Chanyeol, though, didn't seem to be on the same page as him. He crossed his arms against his chest, staring back at the angered man sitting in front of him. "Maybe something's odd about her, but you know what I find more suspicious ?" Heechul momentarily cooled down as he looked up towards the photographer. "Why, when even her colleague knew that something was bothering Yoona, you didn't know anything. I mean, you're her husband right ? You should have known better if she was troubled."

Chanyeol didn't miss the way Heechul flinched in his seat, nor how his expression hardened (albeit only half a second). He didn't respond to Chanyeol's inquiry first, looking at the window, but the guy's stare was persistent.

"Yoona and I got into a fight, we were kind of in a cold war." He ended up admitting with a sigh.

The suspicious look on Chanyeol's face didn't falter for all that, he sipped in his Frappucino without tearing his eyes off Heechul. "Even if you fought, this is not something that you can ignore. I mean, someone was probably stalking your wife for a month, you should have at least noticed that something was going on around her."

"You'll know when you'll get married, when they're giving you cold shoulders, women won't speak to you at all. Be it roses or jewelry." Heechul talked from experience. "And besides, I was too busy with my work, there was an important case I had to take care of so I wasn't really paying attention to her or the house. Maybe if I had, nothing would have happened to her." The last part came out as soundless whispers, but it was dampened of sincere remorse.

If he had to be honest, Heechul's reasons didn't wash off the suspicions Chanyeol had on him, but the latter thought that he shouldn't press on the matter. Instead, he opened the cardboard box to look into it.

They were mostly Yoona's work related materials, like reports about the missions she did in the past, or information about the orphans she helped before. Among them was a photo album that he chose to pick and flip through. It was photos of her with children from all nationalities, from black to white skinned, from blonde to dark haired.

Chanyeol let out a chuckle. Yoona really loved her work. She was grinning so brightly on all of her photos. It was so sadly heart-warming.

His eyes then wandered over a picture frame (that Yoona most probably kept on her desk, looking at it here and then when she missed home) and it was with no surprise that Chanyeol saw a couple picture with Heechul, the latter hugging her from behind, giving that rare smile he only had around the woman. Most likely, that picture was taken when they went on vacation together, by the look of the beach on the background.

Heechul saw the frame in Chanyeol's hands, and couldn't hide his heartache upon remembering those times when they were still acting like young enamored teenagers. A sad smile crossed over his face as the photographer passed the frame to him.

"You were really in love, huh." And it was not a question.

Heechul didn't answer, Chanyeol didn't insist.

He continued to explore inside the box, finding nothing peculiar, when his hand got onto something that was hidden between two folders. It was a cell phone, but with Heechul's wealth and today's technology, Chanyeol didn't think that Yoona would use a model from five years ago. And most importantly, why was it in this box ?

"Does she always leave her phone at work ?"

The lawyer turned his eyes from the frame to the phone in question, and surprise was only one of the expressions that came across his face. "No. Her phone was in her bag, at home. This one's her old one, she should have thrown it away when she broke it."

"But it seems like it's still working." Chanyeol pointed out as he the cell phone.

They exchanged glances.

One of those rare moments when Heechul and Chanyeol were on the same line of thought.

A/N :

Yup', Amber is the first cameo of this story. Actually, she was supposed to appear a little later, but... oh well...
The three chapters thus far were written to give basis information about the plot and the characters,
but starting from next one, there should be more action hohohoh.

Also, it seems like someone upvoted this story, I was so surprised, like that :

 
A big big big thank you tumbleweed ! :D
And of course, thank you to those who suscribed and commented, and read as well !