For a moment, Chief Park thought he had gone back in time. Upon walking into the department, he found Sooyoung with her feet up on her desk, talking into her phone. When he greeted her, she merely frowned and spun her chair around so that her back was to him.

Instantly, his mind went back five years to her first day at work. After catching her chatting with a friend over the phone twice, he'd snatched the phone from her and told her friend all the embarrassing secrets he'd learned from her background check. The next day and every day after that, Sooyoung had been completely professional. Now, he glanced over his shoulder to see her sitting at her desk, typing on her computer with no phone in sight. He shook his head. It must have been his imagination.

"Give it back!" Ryeowook's voice came from his office and he poked his head in to see Eunhyuk dangling the younger detective's hat out of reach. As soon as they spotted Chief Park, though, Eunhyuk quickly tossed it to Ryeowook, who fumbled as he caught it.

Chief Park held out his hand and with a pout, Ryeowook handed it over. "No hats in the office, Ryeowook. You know the rules," Leeteuk said, feeling like a teacher or a hall monitor. "You'll get this back at the end of the day."

"Yes, sir," Ryeowook mumbled.

As he walked towards his office, he spotted Haruki storming out of the coffee room, eyes blazing and her lips pressed together so tightly they were almost white. "Haruki-" he called, but she didn't seem to hear him as she retreated into her office and slammed the door shut.

Deja vu, he thought, a slight headache beginning between his eyebrows. Reluctantly, he headed for the coffee room and found Donghae standing there, tugging uselessly at the handcuffs chaining him to the fridge. The detective looked up sheepishly as his boss entered. "Hey, Chief."

"What happened this time?" Chief Park asked. "No- don't even answer. How many times do I need to tell you, no flirting during work hours?"

"Sorry," Donghae mumbled, not looking in the least bit contrite.

Chief Park, who had been about to unlock the cuffs, thought better of it and left the key on the counter, just out of reach of the detective. Ignoring Donghae's protests, he finally made it to his office, closed the door, and sank down on his desk with his head on his arms.

He was drained, completely and utterly drained. When he was younger, his passion for the job had been enough to allow him to overcome the long hours, the mental battle of each case, and hounding from the media. He had whipped every officer he'd hired into the sharp, skilled detective they were today, significantly increasing the department's success rate. He knew it was because of him that everything ran so smoothly, but he didn't have the energy for it anymore. Even the little things he had to take care of every day left him exhausted.

Leeteuk raked a hand through his hair and sighed. Yes, he had been thinking about retiring for quite a while now. He hadn't shared his thoughts with any of his colleagues, because he didn't want to tell them anything until he was certain. But who could he trust to take his place?

Several months ago, the answer would have been obvious. He would have picked Siwon in a heartbeat. That is, until he learned about about Siwon's activities outside of the office. It was part of the reason he was considering retirement. He was losing his touch. First Taemin, then Siwon. How could he be trusted to continue running the FID when he hadn't seen the two killers right under his own nose?

But back to the question of his successor. If not Siwon, then who? None of the others were experienced enough, or had the leadership qualities necessary to keep the rest of the department in line-

A loud burst of laughter outside his office made him start. With a sigh, he climbed to his feet, already feeling weary, though the day had only begun. He followed the jeers and laughter to Luhan's new office. The crowd fell silent and parted as he approached. Luhan was crouched behind his desk, almost on the verge of tears, struggling to pull open the drawers of his desk.

Chief Park didn't even have to say anything. He simply glared at the surrounding crowd, which quickly dispersed as he bent down to help Luhan with his desk.

Chief Park's head was a whirl. He'd just broken up a fight between Yoona and Kyuhyun, yelled at the hackers for looking up inappropriate material on their computers, and scolded Shindong for wandering out of the morgue with a kidney in his hand. It was all too familiar; the entire day had just been one flashback after another. He was beginning to seriously think that he had imagined training everyone out of their old habits. Either that, or the time travel theory was making more sense every minute.

A timid knock sounded on his door and he said, "Come in," without looking up. When he finally raised his head, he was almost surprised to see Luhan, not Taemin, standing before him. "What year is it?"

"What?" Luhan frowned.

"Never mind. What's the matter?"

"The pipes burst in the conference room and..." Luhan grimaced as Leeteuk closed his eyes, imagining the mess in there. His eyebrows narrowed slightly and he got to his feet.

"Let's go."

Chief Park followed the rookie to the dark conference room. The moment he stepped inside, however, the lights went on and everyone shouted, "Surprise!"

Leeteuk winced from the noise, taking a step back even as Luhan dragged him inside, beaming brightly. The conference table had been set up with a pizza buffet, sodas, and cookies of all kinds. Balloons and streams hung from the ceiling. A large banner, stretched across the back of the room, read "Happy __th Anniversary, Chief!"

"Do you like it?" Sooyoung asked.

"It's...it's...wait." Leeteuk stopped and pointed at the banner. "Why is there a blank space on that poster?"

"We didn't know how many years you've actually been in charge," explained Eunhyuk. "It's before any of us even started working here, so we left it blank for you to fill in the number. You do like it, right?"

"I do," he said softly. "Thank you all." Then a thought came to him and he narrowed his eyebrows. "Wait a minute, is that why you were all behaving badly today? To drive me insane?"

"No, to remind you of how far we've come since we started working with you," Haruki said quietly. "We know you're thinking about retiring and this is our way of telling you that you can't. You're not just our boss, you're our mentor and friend. We've learned a lot from you, but not nearly enough."

"How did you know I was thinking about retiring?" asked Chief Park.

"Oh, come on. You think we wouldn't figure it out?" snorted Eunhyuk. "I mean, like she said, you taught us almost everything we know."

A tiny smile appeared at the corner of Leeteuk's stoic face. "We'll discuss this later," was all he said, but the department cheered as if he'd announced he wouldn't be leaving.

As they settled down to pizza, Chief Park found himself struggling to keep from smiling broadly while listening to all of them discussing how much fun it had been reverting to their rookie selves again. He cheerfully pretended not to notice when some of the guys began mercilessly teasing Donghae for getting handcuffed again.

Jonghyun nudged him in the side, grinning broadly. "You always seem like you know everything going on in our minds, but we got you this time! You should have seen the look on your face!"

"That was because of the noise," Leeteuk replied. "I knew that you were planning a surprise party for me." 

"What?" Jonghyun looked dismayed. "How?"

Chief Park nodded at Luhan. "He told me that the pipes burst in the conference room. Not only are there no pipes in here, but that is also the same excuse you used last year."

He looked around at their disappointed faces and allowed himself a slight chuckle. Maybe there really were a lot of reasons to stay.