26^th March 2013, Tuesday

Everyone knows when Mr Lu enters the staff room. The Chinese teacher sounds like a typhoon ripping through the initial tranquility within the beige-hued walls of the air-conditioned office. The glass door flings open and the male with his obnoxious bob of bright blonde hair (“don’t you think it’s a tad bit, um, bright for a teacher, Luhan?” the dean had once tried to hint to the Chinese, only to receive a chuckle and a twinkle of brown eyes) bounds into his seat, briefcase swinging and all. “Morning,” his greeting is horribly loud and way too cheerful for a Tuesday morning and Jongin pinches the bridge of his nose, tapping his pen against the edge of his table as he hurries through the assignments, already regretting not staying up late yesterday to complete the marking.

Luhan slams the daily newspaper onto Jongin’s table and Jongin jumps in shock, red ball-point pen rattling onto the small table and rolling off onto the polished floor. “A very good morning to you too,” Jongin greets between gritted teeth, trying his best to sound amicable (which would prove to be Mission Impossible because it’s 6:45 in the morning and he still has a whole stack of un-marked assignments and he has yet to have his daily fix of coffee which definitely spells disaster. Definitely.)

“A 16 year old was found dead under a tree in the park yesterday,” Luhan says, thumbing through the pages before pointing towards one article, “he’s so young, I feel so sad for him and his parents.”
 

Jongin scans through the article. Park Chan Yeol. Giant oak tree. Seoul Park. Gash in the neck. torso. Suspected foul play. Yada yada.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, pushing the newspapers away before bending down to pick up his pen.

“yeah okay??” Luhan repeats after him, eyes wide and incredulous, “is that all you can say to someone whose beautiful future was robbed and taken away from him, just like that?”

“fine, I’m terribly sorry for this Chanyeol and this was a disgusting crime and the perpetrator ought to rot in the darkest depths of Hell and now will you please let me finish marking my papers before I get killed by my class?”  

“Jongin!” Luhan almost shrieks, throwing his hands up in the air in utter exasperation, “this boy is just 2 years younger than your students!”

Jongin chooses to pop a wad of gum into his mouth and blows bubbles after bubbles until Luhan leaves, muttering something along the lines of “unsympathetic bastard”.

Its 5 minutes till his first class starts and the papers are marked and done with (finally). Jongin gulps down the last few drops of Frappuccino that Junmyeon had bought for him and he decides that he definitely owes Junmyeon a meal (or maybe even his life because God knows what he would have done to Luhan-- that annoying prick--if not for that cup of coffee). His eyes drift over to the newspapers still left at the edge of his table. Sighing, he reaches over and flips open the page and starts reading.

Jongin finds out that Park Chanyeol is autistic and apparently a very cheerful and helpful child and he can’t help the sudden tugging at his heartstrings. He doesn’t really know why but he scribbles a note onto a pink post-it and sticks it at the back of Luhan’s chair as he walks past his table on his way out of the staffroom to his class, teaching materials tucked under his arm.

I feel horrible for Chanyeol. He didn’t deserve this.  I hope that terrible, heartless murderer will be caught soon.

Jongin ends up talking about the murder case during his Math lesson.

27^th March 2013, Wednesday

Kris smiles for the first time since the start of the investigation. All the investigation done was pointing to one single person. Corroboration, check.

26th March 2013, Tuesday

Jongin dismisses the class and proceeds to tidy up his notes while his students file out of class for their break. He arranges his books according to their thickness (Jongin denies that he has OCD) and gets ready to leave when he sees a single student standing in front of him.

His hair is neatly combed with not a single strand out of place. His uniform is crisp and proper. He has his arms idly swinging in front, hands clasped. His wide soft brown irises looked like they held hesitation. His lips purse a few times as if he had something to say, but everytime he looked as if his tongue was going to form a word, those eyes restrained them, choked them, swallowed them.

“Do you need something, Kyungsoo?”

The student pauses a little and Jongin smiles at him, silently encouraging him. “Teacher,” Kyungsoo finally says softly, “I…was just thinking about what you said about Park Chanyeol. Do you really feel that the person who killed him is a heartless crazy beast? But what if he had his reasons for doing so?”

Jongin is stunned and he’s pretty sure that his face gave him away because Kyungsoo is shriveling even smaller and Jongin thinks that this is the first time he’s seen the soon-to-be valedictorian so uncertain and unconfident.

“And, what,” Jongin pauses a little, not too sure on how to reply his student, “might those reasons be?”

Front teeth dig into pink bottom lip and a soft whisper escapes, “teacher, what if it wasn’t murder but,” Kyungsoo pauses there and he looks so earnest, Jongin is getting the chills.

“nevermind,” Kyungsoo breathes and Jongin feels so confused and he’s actually a little scared right now and he isn’t sure why but he shakes his head and insists that his student finishes what he originally wanted to say.

“but what?” Jongin pushes on.

“what if it wasn’t murder but,” Kyungsoo’s teeth are worrying at his bottom lip again and Jongin blames the Ministry of Education for not having a What To Do When You Are Starting To Be Scared of Your Student protocol, “help?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Kyungsoo looks at him with those eyes again and Jongin wonders if it’s normal to feel this small in front of a student. “I’m sorry for bothering you, teacher. Thank you for putting up with me,”

Always so polite, Jongin thinks as he watches his star student Do Kyungsoo bow and leave the room, as if they didn’t just have some really weird and kind of creepy conversation. Jongin still sees flashes of Kyungsoo’s eyes, wide, piercing, unreadable, and he closes his eyes, running his fingers through his hair. Must be the weather, he decides, that's making his student say funny things. He shakes his head onece, twice adn thrice before decidedly packing up and walking back to the staffroom to find Junmyeon. Coffee, he needs coffee. 

28^th March 2013, Thursday

Tao sits at the back of the police van, flipping through the investigation documents. Minseok sits beside him, blowing a raspberry, thin finger absent mindedly spinning a fountain pen, already penning down words to say to the arrested suspect’s parents. Jongdae chugs down his energy drink before jumping into the driver’s seat, smile bright and enthusiastic. Kris pats the handcuffs in his back pocket and checks his walkie talkie one more time. Bringing the black box-like device near his lips, he runs through the instructions for the final time.

“Operation 280313, this is your leader Kris Wu speaking. Seoul High School. Class 7. Prime suspect: Do Kyungsoo. Got it?”

A babbles of “roger”s cackle through the device and Kris smiles and he can’t help but feel that smiling isn’t something so foreign anymore.

Victim

Park Chan Yeol

Age: 16

Occupation: student at Pathlight Academy.

Address: 13 Hanseon Street 18254

Relationship to witness Lee Eunkyung: neighbours

Cause of death: Gash to carotid artery

Prime Suspect: DO KYUNGSOO

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(p.s thanks for reading)