It only took five minutes (four and thirty-nine seconds, actually, but who was counting?) of Sehun standing about the station awkwardly, unsure of how to proceed before the door opened behind him and Officer Kai mercifully entered behind him.

"...Hey..." the officer said slowly, frowning. "Uh, didn't I just see you on the road?"

"Yeah. I, uh, I did tell you that I wanted to look into that old case." Sehun tried to smile, but he imagined it must have looked like a rather stiff imitation of one, because Kai didn't smile back. Then again, Sehun hadn't seen him smile once since he'd arrived in Crackwood, so maybe that had more to do with the officer himself than anything else.

"I didn't think you meant, well, immediately." The cop sighed and ran a weary hand through his hair. "All right, fine. Come on back; we've got all our old case files in storage."

"Is this okay? I don't need to sign any agreements?" Sehun inquired as he followed him. That would be a first.

"I'll get the paperwork for you later. Right now I just wanna get this over with."

"Oh." Sehun tried very hard not to be offended and ultimately failed. "Okay."

If Kai heard the despondent note in Sehun's voice, he ignored it. It was growing more and more obvious to Sehun that he was being regarded as more of a chore than anything else.

"Wait here," Kai directed. He unlocked one of the doors behind them. Sehun caught a glimpse of rows and rows of shelves containing battered boxes, most of which were crammed with yellowed files. When the officer returned, he had one of the dusty boxes in arm. It rattled as he set it down on the counter.

"That's everything," Kai said, dusting off his hands. "Everything we've got on the Crackwood Disappearances."

"Wait." Sehun peered into it and pulled out... "...A tape? No, wait." He began rummaging through the box's contents which, in addition to several old files, included stacks and stacks of old video tapes.

"The interviews were all recorded on video," Kai explained. "They were never transcribed, so we just kept the tapes as hard copy evidence."

"Well, it's better than nothing I guess," Sehun replied, trying not to sound glum. Sorting through this many tapes would take hours at the least, which meant he'd have to spend more time than he wanted in that crummy hotel. He could sleep in his car if he needed to, and he suspected that he would if he wanted to get through this much evidence.

"So how do you plan to report this stuff, anyway? You got a newspaper or something?" Kai asked with a tone that was curious enough to surprise Sehun. The officer had expressed next to no interest in Sehun other than to express his thinly concealed scorn.

"I, uh...I run a website," Sehun confessed, knowing full well how pathetic that must sound to a trained officer.

"A website," Kai repeated flatly. The officer sounded as if he was barely holding back his derision.

"Yeah. A, uh, a blog. Gets enough hits a day to keep me going."

"You get paid for that?"

"Sorta, yeah."

"Paid well?"

"Enough to keep gas in the can." But not enough to keep food on the proverbial table, he added silently.

"I see." Living hell, Sehun could just seethe meter of respect steadily dropping. Not that it had been very high to begin with. "Well, seeing as that's everything..."

Sehun could tell when he was being dismissed. He followed the officer out of the back storage area and back to the front of the station.

"Look, Sehun," Kai said wearily, stopping in front of the exit. "I'm gonna be straight with you: most witnesses are deemed unreliable after 48 hours and this case is seven years old."

"What are trying to say?" Sehun asked, with the creeping suspicion that he knew exactly what he was trying to say.

"I'm saying that you're not likely to find anything that we haven't. And even if you do, there's no guarantee it will still be relevant."

Sehun knew when he was being looked down on, and Kai's condescension towards Sehun's efforts was coming off him in waves. For one strange, wild instant, Sehun felt the incredible urge to shove Kai's disinterest right back at him.

"Maybe I'm not looking for relevancy." He straightened up and looked at the officer in the eye. "Maybe I'm just looking to give some of these people a little closure."

"They've had plenty of chances for closure," the officer retorted frostily. "Seven years of chances."

"Well, maybe I'm looking to give them a little more." Sehun was done with this. The rush of adrenaline and fear that had come with standing up to apolice officer gave him just enough courage to offer a tiny half-smirk as he turned to exit the station, box in hand. "Thank you for the tapes."

Sehun felt entirely too proud of himself as he dumped the box of tapes and assorted files into the trunk of his car, but he didn't care. He hadn't stammered, he hadn't hesitated, and he hadn't let Kai make him feel ashamed of his work despite the fact that he was a police officer. That felt good. It was a first, but it felt good.

Sehun paused to grab the some of the files out of the box, flipping through them in the front seat of his car. It was all there, just as Kai said, but he had been right in one other respect – there was nothing in any of them that they hadn't already covered in the station. All the same, Sehun went down the very short list of suspects, scanning each of the names that Kai had mentioned – Kris and Jessica Jung, the only two who were close enough to the victims to know what might have happened. However, there was a third, hastily scribbled out suspect on the list, one that Kim hadn't mentioned, though once Sehun squinted at the black lettering beneath the pen scratches, he could see why.

Officer Kim Kai.

"Well, Mr. Kai," Sehun mused quietly. "You never mentioned that you were a prime suspect...or that you knew any of the victims." No wonder he'd seemed reluctant to talk specifics. Though in all fairness to him, Sehun conceded that it could not have been an easy time for the guy. Why would he ever want to bring it up if he didn't need to? Sehun wasn't anyone with any kind of lasting authority here; just some stupid nosy online journalist who had no idea what he was getting into.

Still, if he had to be a nosy online journalist, Sehun figured now was as good a time as any to start nosy online journalist-ing. His eyes flicked to the first suspect on the list, Kris. By going through his more extensive profile, Sehun learned that he worked at the Operating Outlet, the local auto repair. He wasn't sure whether he should be pleased or disturbed at this coincidence, so Sehun opted to ignore it. He needed to get his engine checked anyway.

After carefully putting all the files in the glove compartment, Sehun pulled out of the parking lot and began surveying the rows of businesses and residential for his destination.