A few raindrops fell on the front window of the black jaguar. The sun was only rising and the drops caught its red colour. The weak sound of my radio was sometimes interrupted by a light snoring of Donghae sitting next to me. I would look sideways once in a while and take in the beauty of the brunette detective. Donghae was leaning against the window with his cute sleeping face and the orange light of the sun was intensifying the warm feeling I was having at the moment. It was still very early in the morning but we were already on our way to the south to take care of a new case.

Yesterday we got a call from Heechul who told us to immediately come to his vacation villa on the seaside. At first Donghae was against the idea of having a holiday but soon changed his opinion. Heechul wasn´t calling just for fun. His long-time friend had a summer house nearby too and apparently something pretty interesting happened there. A body was found yesterday but nobody knows who was the man lying dead on the street. Heechul´s friend wanted to see Donghae in action and since he had a big influence in the town, he was able to coordinate the police in Donghae´s favour. I myself was looking forward to it very much. I could already guess that the summer house will be nothing but luxury and seeing Heechul again was another perk of the journey. The only trouble was that I had to drive all the way to the south at night and in this terrible weather. But it´s always better than Donghae driving I tell you. And if I´m lucky, we may arrive in time of breakfast too!

The sun changed its colour from red to its favourite yellow and white. The rain continued to fall but the clouds allowed the sun to peek through. Donghae was slowly waking up, rubbing his tired eyes and mumbling some incoherent words. If he continues to be this cute, I may cause an accident soon. A red flag finally appeared on the navigation, signalling that we are almost there. I told this to Donghae and he hurried to make himself presentable while looking to the side mirror, blocking my view. How am I supposed to park now?! I´m a good driver though so we managed to arrive safely. I left the jaguar parked on gravel next to another expensive sport car. Donghae didn´t even give me a time to ogle at the house and pushed me inside. Has he ever heard of knocking?

“Oh! My little Fish is here!” Kim Heechul welcomed us happily when we arrived to the dining room. “And you brought your lovely Monkey with you! I´m delighted,” the red head added and pulled me into a hug. “Wow, Hyukjae! What´s with that hairstyle? You look y and I bet Donghae approves too,” Heechul threw a teasing glance at Donghae. But my boss only turned his back to us and mumbled something about being hungry.

We sat down around a big table in the dining room. Just like the rest of the house I managed to see until now, the room was styled like one of those French old houses. Everything was in wood with an old feeling but I noticed that lots of electronics were smartly hidden around. The house surely wasn´t as old as it looked like. The best thought was the garden. I could see a part of it from the huge windows in the dining room and couldn´t take my eyes off. The green looked even more vibrant thanks to the rain and the flowers radiated with all possible colours in the rays of occasional sunlight. And although I was hungry to death I watched the view instead of the table full of food.

“Hyukjae?” Donghae couldn´t listen anymore to the loud grumbling of my stomach and the second I turned around after his voice he pushed a spoonful of rice into my mouth. I got startled but started chewing on it nevertheless. It was good. Now when I remembered that I´m hungry, I remembered I was tired and cold too. I took the spoon and started stuffing my mouth with whatever warm I could find on the table. I felt so good that a few tears escaped my eyes and slid down on my dark circles and cheeks.

“He looks so pitiful when he eats. Donghae, I should beat you up. Look at that poor thing!” Heechul scolded, “Can´t you take better care of your employees, huh?” Donghae was smacked in the head and looked completely baffled. I´m sure he had no idea why was he punished. I laughed secretly.

“Leave that idiot to me and go take a warm bath, Hyukjae. You can even take a nap because my friend is coming for lunch around three. Hush, I don´t want to see your bones here anymore,” Heechul ordered and I had no reason to argue. So as I was told I went upstairs and immersed myself in the first bathtub I could find. To say that the bath give me good would be an understatement. Feeling warm I walked with last bits of my strength and consciousness into my room and unceremoniously flanked myself on the bed. I have a blackout for the next few hours.

When I woke up it was already afternoon. I put on some fresh clothes I had in my bag and made myself presentable. I couldn´t find anyone except for the cook in the kitchen and he told me to go to the garden. I opened the glass door and walked outside. Fortunately it stopped raining and I noticed something I didn´t in the morning. A few meters from me stood a white glass building which was surely a greenhouse and the voices coming from the inside indicated that this was the place I was looking for.

“Hyukjae is awake,” Donghae commented when I entered the greenhouse. The windows were half open but the room was warm. In the middle of various exotic flowers and vegetables a table and comfortable chairs were standing. But instead of two familiar faces I was welcomed by three, one which I didn´t recognise at all.

“You look better. Come here, I´ll introduce you. This is Park Jungsoo,” Heechul acquainted me with a handsome male who was just as tall as me but probably older. He seemed serious but soon I got to know his goofy side too. I wouldn´t say this aloud but I started to like him even more than Heechul.

“So now that we are all here, let´s talk about the reason I wanted to meet you Donghae,” Park Jungsoo or more comfortably Leeteuk started. I was sitting with Donghae on the right side, Leeteuk on the left side and the lunch in front of me and carefully listening. “Yesterday in the morning a dead body was found on the street. The man´s name was Bang Cheolyong but he was more known as Mir,” at that Donghae hummed so I suppose he has heard about him already. “He was released from the prison just a few weeks ago and now he is dead. Someone hit him with a car and disappeared.”

“Could it be an accident?” Donghae asked while cutting the steak on his plate.

“Mir had no alcohol or drugs in his system. It was raining that night but he was hit in a visible place and he had red jacket on. I think it would be impossible to not see him,” Leeteuk answered and took a sip from his wine.

“Who was it anyway?” I couldn´t take it anymore. I was too curious.

“He was a thief and a pretty violent criminal if he got mad. His strength was no joke. He was caught while beating to a pulp a poor guy just because he looked at him badly on the street,” Donghae calmly said. Shivers ran down my spine. So it means that someone who managed to kill this criminal is still running around here? With my luck I´ll bump into him sooner or later.

After the lunch Heechul and Leeteuk went back to the house to play billiard and me and Donghae started with the investigation. First we went to the police station where we were given the file concerning the case. All the policemen were more than happy to help out which was strange because they usually give a cold shoulder to nosey people. Money it must be. The police station looked new and the police car was no joke either. I bet my arm that Park Jungsoo is the local sponsor.

After that we went to take a look at the crime scene. I was so excited to see a real crime scene and hurried to find the place. And really a white contour of a lying person was on the ground, just like in movies. Donghae told me to calm down and I got embarrassed. My boss studied the place for a while, trying to look at it from all the possible directions, calculating and deducing. I stood at the side and watched him work. The sky was slowly darkening and soon it was apparent that it would rain again. Donghae decided to my advice to me for once and so we returned to the house.

“Did you find any clues?” Leeteuk asked first thing when we came home.

“Nothing decisive but yes, we found some clues,” Donghae answered confidently and I nodded vigorously although I had no idea that we found something.

“Great, I´m expecting a good result from you, Donghae,” Leeteuk smiled and put his hand on Donghae´s shoulder. It was a father like gesture and I couldn´t help but smile too.

Later in our room Donghae didn´t look happy though and it made me pretty confused. I thought that the case was going well since he had that overly confident smile plastered on his handsome face. Apparently not.

“What´s wrong?” I dared to ask the brunette who surely wasn´t in a good mood.

“Hyukjae, you are so naïve. It must pretty easy for you, heh?” I didn´t like his tone.

“What do you mean? I don´t understand. Did something bad happen?” I went closer so I could see his expression in the darkness of the room. It started pouring again outside.

“This is not just a case; this is a trial for me. Do you know who Park Jungsoo is?” Donghae raised his voice at me and his face slowly became angry. I got scared and only shook my head. “As I thought. Park Jungsoo is one of the most influential people in the business. He may not be so often in the news or in magazines, he keeps pretty low profile, but his power is no joke, Hyukjae. One mistake and everything I do right now could disappear in a second!”

“But why would Leeteuk want to ruin you? He looks like a good man to me,” I argued back this time.

“That´s why I said you have it so easy. Through my agency I get to know too many secrets of the high society for Park Jungsoo´s liking. He wants to keep an eye on me, I´m sure. But for you nothing is at stake here! With your tiny flat and your unimportant problems you have nothing to lose,” Donghae laughed at me.

“Oh, really? Fine! Since I´m so insignificant I better leave before I bring you some problems. Why having a poor guy as an assistant when there are many useful rich kids who have nothing better to do than digging gold from their fat noses!” I became emotional and exploded.

Donghae must have been flabbergasted by my dramatic scene and didn´t manage a single word. As if I waited for a word. I opened the door and ran out of the room, just like always I wanted to escape from the situation. But this time my run was pretty short. Donghae is much slower than me and his reactions aren´t fast enough too but this time he caught me even before I got to the stairs. He grabbed my arm and pulled me backwards. I spun around and crashed into him. I was about to yell at him for hurting my nose when I felt his arms around me. Donghae hugged me so tight that I couldn´t even breathe. He hugged me so tight that I couldn´t even tell him that I can´t breathe.

“I´m sorry, Hyuk. Don´t run away, I´m so scared when you do that. What if you fall down to a well again or bump into someone dangerous. Don´t do that to me, okay?” Due to Donghae´s unexpected confession and lack of air I only weakly nodded. All my anger and oxygen was gone at that moment. “Good,” Donghae said and loosened his grip. I took a deep breath.

“My problems aren´t unimportant. Not having money for strawberry bread for breakfast is a huge problem,” I mumbled into his shoulder. Donghae leaned his head so it was sitting on mine. “Of course, Hyuk. I´ll buy it for you next time.”

We stood in the hallway like that for good twenty minutes and then silently decided to go back to the room. Donghae asked me to help him with the investigation tomorrow again and I of course agreed. But when I went to sleep I still had to think about what Donghae said about Leeteuk. I couldn´t help it but thing that for once my favourite detective might be wrong.

The next morning I was woken up by the smell of the breakfast. Nothing can make me climb off of my bed faster than yummy food. I quickly brushed my teeth and put on some clean clothes. I took a few more minutes to style my hair that seem to be more and more irresistible for the people around and sprinted downstairs.

“Hey, Ryeonggu! What´s for breakfast?” I asked the chief before I even made it to the dining room. Kim Ryeowook is Heechul´s personal cook who accompanies his employer even to his summer houses or abroad. I got to know Ryeonggu very quickly after meeting Heechul and we became friends. The cook is kinda small and his speech might be sometimes rude but he always puts more onto my plate and so I like him very much.

“French omelette and ham sandwiches. But I also have a delicious pastry from the bakery at the town. I bought a few strawberry flavoured just for you,” the cook winked and I gave him a high-five. “You´re the best, Ryeonggu!”

“I heard that you are working on that horrible murder,” Ryeowook put a plate with the omelette in front of me, “should I tell you something?” I could only nod because my mouth was already stuffed with the food. “I would tell Donghae but he might think that it´s not important but you always like to listen to me right?” I nodded again. It was fun to talk to Ryeonggu, he always knows the newest gossips. “When I was in the bakery I heard something interesting from Eunji.”

“Who´s Eunji?” I said in a short break between switching the foods from the omelette to the sandwich.

“Ah, it´s the baker´s daughter. She usually sells the bread while her father bakes in the kitchen,” Ryeowook went to clean my dishes but raised his voice so I would be able to hear him from the dining room. “She told me that the guy had come a few times to the shop and had been annoying her. The baker got even mad once!”

“Really?” I arrived to the kitchen with an empty plate from the pastry.

“Yeah, but the thing is, the guy was coming to buy bread for him and his friend who lives somewhere in the town!” Ryeowook whispered creepily.

“And who is that friend?” Someone suddenly asked but it wasn´t me! I jumped and almost landed in Donghae´s arms. , he startled me! I should have jumped more to the right, aigoo.

“Oh, good morning,” Ryeowook politely bowed, “she didn´t know the name of his friend and she wasn´t really eager to find out, heh.”

“I´ll eat my breakfast and then we will head out to find that mysterious friend,” Donghae smiled slightly, making my heartbeat fasten, and went to sit in the dining room.

We left the house even before Heechul has showed up and went straight to the police station. As always we got the full service and perfect attention. Thanks to that Donghae managed to quickly find our suspect.

“Look here, Hyuk,” Donghae pointed to a file in his hand. This person moved to the town just a year ago and works as a freelance helper in the town.” I glanced into the papers but I didn´t see why would this guy be of any interest to us. “Let´s visit him,” Donghae ordered and I obediently followed him outside.

With a small help of one of the policemen we finally found the guy. I immediately knew that he couldn´t be a suspect. His slim and well-built body was pretty poorly hidden from my hungry eyes just by a thin wife-beater and work pant. I had to take a deep breath when the handsome man ran his hand through his long brown locks. Donghae must have noticed how unfocused I became, more like focused on a different thing, because a discreet slap landed on the back of my head.

“Are you Lee Changsun?” Donghae asked professionally. “Yeah that´s me,” came an awkward answer from the hot guy.

“I´m Lee Donghae and this is Hyukjae,” Lee Changsun smiled at me, “we would like to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?”

“Call me just Leejoon,” another smile into my direction, “how can I help you?” Is he trying to pick me up or something?

“I´ll go straight to the subject since my assistant here isn´t really focused today,” I hurried to pull myself together after Donghae´s remark, “you and Mir were friends, right? What was he doing here?”

Leejoon´s face became sadder: “We were childhood friends and when he came out of the prison and didn´t have any place to stay, I didn´t hesitate to invite him here. He didn´t plan to stay for too long, he wanted to get married soon and start his own farm.”

“Where ha-,” Donghae started but I interrupted him: “Where do you work?” I was sure that my boss wanted to ask him about his alibi but Leejoon looked genuinely sad about his friend´s death. I didn´t want to add any more pain by treating him like a suspect.

“I have been working wherever I was needed but I just got a permanent job at the mechanic´s. I help him repair the cars and even if I have to often stay long over time to clean and stuff, it´s still worth it!” Leejoon gave us a model like smile but I felt bitter suddenly. That´s really unfortunate.

“Okay, thank you very much! Bye!” I abruptly ended the conversation and pulled Donghae out of Lee Changsun´s house. I´ve heard a weak ´Come anytime, Hyukjae´ from behind us before I slammed the doors behind.

“So, don´t we have a winner?” Donghae crossed his arms on his chest and we started walking back to Heechul´s villa. It started raining again and I pulled an umbrella to hold it above us both.

“I don´t think he is the murderer,” I said just loud enough to be heard over the tapping of the raindrops on the umbrella.

“He works in the mechanic´s shop so he has an easy access to any car there. He also works over time with no one looking after him. They have known each other since childhood so Leejoon knew that the only way to overpower Mir would be by hitting him with a car!” Donghae reasoned and I couldn´t even argue because he was right. No matter how defined Leejoon´s muscles were and how handsome his face was, all the circumstances were against him. Even I had to agree with that.

We were only halfway back when the weather worsened. The sky was almost as black as it is at night and a strong wind kept pulling the umbrella out of my hand. Soon I just gave up and threw the crushed parasol to the nearest bin. The rain was mercilessly hitting our now cold bodies and it became impossible to continue walking. At one moment I slipped and not having Donghae who caught me, I would be already swimming in a puddle like a poor anchovy. The brunette couldn´t watch a lightweight like me struggle with the wind anymore and opened randomly one of the metal doors on the street that weren´t properly locked. He pushed me inside and then also entered.

We found ourselves in something that must have been a storage house or a garage of one of the family houses on the street. It was completely dark inside and the only things my senses were able to pick up was the sound of the wind outside and the dusty smell of the room. Suddenly a small light blinded me for a second but when my eyes got used to the surroundings I realised that it was just Donghae who switched on the light on his phone. Smart.

“Don´t move, Hyuk. I´m pretty sure that if you do in this darkness, you´ll end up in a mess,” Donghae warned but I heard the low chuckle afterwards.

“Yah! I´m not that cumsy!” I argued back but to stomp with my leg to add more drama was a bad idea. I must have stepped on spilled motor oil or something because before I knew it, I was already lying on the ground and my head terribly hurt.

“Hyukjae?!” Donghae used the light and hurried to my side. “Are you alright?”

“I don´t know, I must have hit myself in the head,” I grumbled. Donghae put the phone on my lap and brought his hands to my head. Then he quickly pulled them out and up above the light to look at them.

“You are bleeding!” Donghae panicked. I touched the back of my head too but the pain wasn´t that strong anymore and there wasn´t much blood either. Something was strange.

“Hae,” I gulped, “take a look at the thing behind me. What´s the thing I bumped into?” Donghae stopped panicking and brought the light higher. In the dim light I could see his eyes widen and his face gain that stupid fish-like expression. He slowly took my shoulders and pulled me closer to himself so I would be further from the object.

“Who´s house is this?” Donghae then whispered. I curiously turned around me to spot something pretty creepy. An SUV was parked there but the bumper and the left corner of the car was dirty from blood! Not just that, the reflector and the side mirror were broken, indicating that the car must have hit a living being!

“Tell me that it was just a big dog,” I whimpered. Donghae got suddenly alarmed by my state and quickly took a photo of the SUV, not forgetting to capture the number plate. The he stuffed the phone back into his pocket and returned his attention to me.

“Let´s get out of here,” his voice was calm and soothing and I found myself relying onto the boy again. Donghae automatically crouched down and placed me on his back carefully. Then he opened the doors of the garage and walked as fast away as he could. I glanced behind me and sighed. It was the baker´s house.

We arrived to the house in the late afternoon and found Leeteuk and Heechul sitting in the living room. They both stood up and ran to our wet and dirty selves. They wanted to push me into the warm bath immediately but Donghae stopped them. “Wait a minute!” He took a napkin and cleaned the rest of the blood from my hair, seizing the evidence.

I told Donghae about the rumour I heard from Ryeowook and Donghae found out from his database that Eunji´s father was also arrested for a violent assault when he was younger. The baker might have been almost as violent as his own victim. To the information we put together Donghae added carefully packed sample of the blood from the bumper and the photo of the vehicle. With all that done we mustered our courage and brought our tired but already dried and warmed up bodies downstairs, where the client was already waiting.

Leeteuk was sitting next to Heechul with a glass of expensive whiskey in his hand. He looked incredibly noble this way and I couldn´t help but for the first time feel intimidated in his presence. Even more because I remembered Donghae´s fear from the man. Was this the trial the detective was talking about?

“So you are saying that the death had nothing to do with the fact that Mir was a criminal?” Leeteuk asked.

“Yes. The baker was just overly protective of his only daughter Eunji and Mir trying to hit on her was going on his nerves,” Donghae took a sip of his own whiskey and leaned further into his seat. He tried to look confident but I could tell that he was quite nervous on the inside.

“So he planned to kill him? Isn´t that a bit too much for just flirting with the girl?” Park Jungsoo didn´t seem convinced by our theory.

“I don´t think he planned anything. Mir wanted to get married and it seems like he liked Eunji very much. It´s possible that her father found out and got very angry and the moment he had the boy in his car´s reflectors he simply depressed the accelerator. It´s been three days and he still didn´t clean the blood from his car. I think he himself doesn´t have guts to face his wrong doings,” Donghae reasoned and I hummed in agreement.

“Well, that makes sense,” Leeteuk smiled, “you´re really not bad,” he then added.

“What do you mean, he´s the best!” I couldn´t stop myself from saying. I got immediately embarrassed and my hyungs started laughing.

“Donghae´s forever number one fan, Lee Hyukjae!” Heechul then exclaimed raising another round of laughs. The evening went then in the name of laugh mostly at my account. I didn´t care thought since I learnt that Leeteuk really wasn´t just trying to put Donghae under his control. The man only wanted to become friends and was genuinely impressed by the detective´s skills. I felt proud and also happy for Donghae. Our fears were unnecessary because Leeteuk was unexpectedly fair and friendly person for the amount of wealth he possessed.

With Donghae being a workaholic and my need of part-time jobs to pay my rent, we didn´t stay any longer in the house. The next morning I sat on the driver´s seat again and with sleepy Donghae by my side I started the engine.  Low hum of the jaguar echoed in the car like a lullaby and the brunette slowly closed his eyes. But this time I didn´t just want to watch his sleeping face. I had four hours of driving ahead! With a smirk plastered on my face, I pulled quietly a disk from the case and pushed it into the player. I glanced at Donghae who still had no idea of my doings. Safe. While the album was loading, I put the volume up.

“Ageage no minasan yeah yotte ki na
uchira no denpa wa kando mo ryōkō”

Donghae jumped from the noise and I thought he would evacuate from the car if he didn´t have his seatbelt on. I only smiled wider and started hummming to the song. My favorite CD was on and my favorite detective was up. Could it be any better?

“Hyukjae, what the hell?!” Donghae yelled at me, not believing his eyes or rather ears. He was still surprised, his eyes were wide open and his mouth agape.

“Sorry, Hae!, Can´t hear you!” I laughed and surprisingly Donghae too. The sound of his laughing voice andmended with the music. This could the best four hours of my life.

“Bari 5!”

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Sorry, guys TT_TT It took me a long time to write this chapter. I was busy with exams and the next chapter may also come late. But I hope you´ll like it anyway. This time I have to apologise to A+ for killing Mir. Sorry, heh :D I got the ´Ride me´ album this week for my birthday so I´m really happy! That´s why I added it at the end of the story. Thank you for your kind comments (although they are mostly about Hyuk´s hair :D) and thank you for reading!! Love you! _ PandaHero