Donghae found an envelope on his desk the following morning. He narrowed his eyes as he picked up the white envelope with his name neatly written on it. He knew it was from Hyukjae. He’d recognize his neat handwriting anywhere.

The inspector took the letter out and read it. Hyukjae had resigned, just like he said he would. Donghae hurried over to Hyukjae’s desk and exclaimed when he saw that the desk was entirely cleared from Hyukjae’s usual stuff. Even the wastepaper bin was empty. Everything was perfectly clean as if nobody had touched anything for months.

Kyuhyun entered the office and noticed the inspector staring at Hyukjae’s old workplace. Donghae looked at Kyuhyun with a confused expression, and the latter just didn’t have the heart not to tell him what really happened.

“He moved everything out last night, after everyone was gone. I only knew because I came back for some stuff I left behind.”

Donghae couldn’t believe it. Hyukjae had meant everything he said yesterday. The inspector hadn’t wanted to believe that the officer would really resign; he thought it was just a spur-of-the-moment thing. But as he thought longer about it, he realized that Hyukjae had always meant everything he said, even before they started dating almost ten years ago.

“Oh.”

“Hey, are you alright?” Kyuhyun asked, stopping in front of the inspector. He thought he caught a glimpse of tears in his eyes but they quickly disappeared as Donghae blinked rapidly.

“Of course. I’m better than fine. Now that Hyukjae is gone we can probably focus more on the cases instead of wasting our time falling for his pranks. He’d been nothing but a headache anyway. It’s not like I’m going to miss him or anything.”

Kyuhyun raised his eyebrows when he heard Donghae say the last sentence but decided to keep quiet about it. Instead he nodded silently and walked over to his own cubicle, leaving Donghae in his daze.

Donghae began to regret the things he said to Hyukjae the day before. Of course he was mad that Hyukjae managed to stir trouble in the neighbourhood, but he probably should have asked Hyukjae about it before he began making assumptions. He’d exaggerated a few things yesterday; the video hadn’t gone viral at all, but it was posted in the Internet for everyone to see and there were at least a few hundred views on it, he’d just gone all paranoid; the media weren’t hogging him for answers, but only a handful of editors had called his attention to the video. Donghae realized in horror that while he was busy shooting Hyukjae down yesterday, all he had ever thought of was how much trouble he was going to get into if the higher-ups caught wind of the incident and blamed him for not being able to control his officers. He had never once thought of Hyukjae’s feelings and the possibility that he might have been right the whole time.

Donghae didn’t want to admit it. His ego was too inflated to admit that Hyukjae was probably right and he was chasing down the wrong suspect the entire time. He remembered the latter saying that he’d seen someone familiar during both investigations, but he hadn’t acted upon it and he certainly never bothered finding out whom Hyukjae had been referring to. He had let their past get in his way of thinking and there was nothing else Donghae regretted more in the world now.

He had to admit, though, that it was rather quiet in the office without the elder around. Everything was peaceful and quiet with only the soft humming of the coffee machine and clicking of keys as his officers furiously typed away at their daily reports, just like a month ago. No frightened screaming, no angry cursing, no hysterical laughing. Had it always been this quiet?

“Your coffee, sir?”

The inspector snapped out of his daydreams to see Henry peeking into his office, a cup of warm coffee in his hands. Don