“I’m a prisoner and there’s no way out,

Cause the future’s past,

I’m stuck in here now.”

– Time Machine, Girls' Generation

Snap!

Jongsuk waits patiently until the image on the Polaroid gets completely clear. He has taken a photo of the victim’s condition and though it is evident that he was stabbed to death in the stomach by some sort of sharp weapon, he needs to have a reference. Who knows he might inadvertently get something unforeseen from the photo?

“It seems like someone’s opened the drawer,” he mumbles silently as he walks over to the study desk and stumbles upon the slightly ajar wooden drawer below the desk.

Aimlessly, he finds himself staring at a torn, newspaper article inside the drawer. Jongsuk skims through the article regarding the rivalry between the deceased, Byun Baekhyun and the suspect, Kim Kai, nonchalantly and has his pair of eyes bulged at one particular line.

He said that he did not have any problems with the latter, but perhaps his rising popularity was envied by Kai (23).

A line of frown appears across his forehead as he scratches the back of his neck out of bewilderment. He remembered listening to the latter’s enlightenment when he presented his alibi. With an overly confident, the tanned idol explained that Byun Baekhyun was jealous of his popularity and that was why he persuaded the producer to get ahead of his comeback plan and ultimately toss Kai’s comeback aside.

“Perhaps he’s lying?” That may be true, but Jongsuk knows he cannot be completely sure. Kai may have told everyone the truth.

“I’ll just ask him later about this article.” Clicking the ‘snap’ button on the camera as the lens focuses on the entire article, Jongsuk shoves the article back into the drawers and slams it close.

When he discovers a rather suspicious thumb drive on the study desk and opts to check on it, his hope gets shattered into pieces when the available laptop requires need a password to log in.

Jongsuk turns around and meticulously scans the deceased’s room in a sluggish pace, trying to fathom what this room could be saying and what other crucial clues he has consciously missed.

On the spur of the moment, the night stand next to the bed intrigues him. Since he has not inspected it yet, he decides to search for well-hidden clues, but only to be greatly disgruntled when the drawer of the night stand was locked.

“Dammit,” he curses and clenches his fist tightly, groaning. “Did he need to lock every of his darn properties?”

Amidst the dissatisfaction frustration, he figures out that there must be a way to unlock the drawer.

Thinking the keys might be kept within a particular place which Baekhyun only knew, he strides back to the mannequin and crouches down to rummage for the keys inside his jeans pocket.

His eyes glisten when the keys are really inside his pocket, for God’s sake.

And though with the success of finding the drawer keys, one could not think he can always be showered with good fortunes.

That perfectly describes Lee Jongsuk.

He slips the letter back into its envelope after verifying it. His face darkens instantly and his fingers do not stop shaking.

“This sue letter… cannot be seen by them,” he mutters edgily. He needs to come up with a strategy to keep the keys concealed from the other suspects’ knowledge.

///

Knowing she should not waste her precious time on Jongdae’s room for too long, Yoona decides to barge out and inspect the other rooms.

And Krystal’s room becomes her next target.

Ever since she skimmed through the house plan, she has been thinking why the latter has another room for herself when she sleeps together with her boyfriend in the master room. This is totally confusing.

Could it be there are reasons for her to have a separate room?

Just before she can scrutinize the young girl’s room for clues, Jongsuk appears behind her.

“Hey,” she says, a little bit startled of his presence. “Have you finished inspecting the master room? Did you find any important clues?”

“Uhm… uh… there are some.” He nervously takes out one of the taken photos and hands it to her. “I found it inside the drawer of the study desk.”

“You remember about Kai saying that Baekhyun was jealous of him, right?” he asks. “But in the article, it turned out that Kai was the one who was jealous of him. Don’t you find it a bit strange?”

Yoona is not in denial and believes Jongsuk words, though she cannot read the article because the texts are too small. “One of them is lying, then.”

“Definitely lying,” he emphasizes strongly. “I may not be right, but I did notice he was shaking when he told us his alibi.”

“But the thing is…” Yoona heaves a sigh. “Don’t you think this whole murder mystery game would be too easy if Kai was the culprit? I mean, yes… he detested Baekhyun and they were rivals, but… he wouldn’t want to tarnish his image as a singer if he killed his rival, would he?”

“You’re undeniably right… but if you see through a different side, when someone hates another and wants to avenge him, uhm, like Kai… he’ll do anything… for the sake of getting rid of people who are getting in his way.”

Yoona goes silent, probably thinking that she should have not ruled Kai out as one of the possible culprits.

“You know what, Jongsuk?” A smirk creeps at the corner of her lips. “You’re quite different than you always are.”

“Meaning?”

“You always appear cold and uninterested beforehand… but right now… in the final round, you’ve become particularly enthusiastic,” she chortles softly. “May I know why?”

For the first time ever, right in front of the girl, he is blushing so furiously.

Yoona rolls her eyes. “Perhaps because of the enormous reward…?”

“Uhm… yeah. You can say that,” he answers quite indifferently and hurriedly wanders around the room to cease the cringe-worthy conversation.

The duo only begin to continue the on-site inspection when the sound of the buzzing roaring and the announcement from the host that there are only ten minutes left.

///

“For the love of God, will you stop staring at me like, I am the ing culprit?” Kai huffs a grunt of exasperation as he slams the wardrobe door hard, face burning hot. He has not been quite focused during the on-site inspection because Jung Krystal has been keeping a wary eye on him ever since he trudged into the dressing room.

Suho should have never paired them up in a team. He regrets and blames himself as he did not speak up at that moment.

The Jung girl flinches at his wrath. “W-who says I’m staring at you?” She briskly and sloppily fumbles through the collection of watches. “I’m checking on these watches. Well, uhm, the blood stains may have spurted on one of them.”

“Don’t be silly, bimbo,” Jongin scoffs. “Why would the blood stains be here? If he wore a watch, it should’ve been on his wrist. Not here!”

Krystal grits her teeth in defeat, unable to defense herself.

“Now… tell me.” Their gaze locked. “Why on earth are you following me? Are you, by any chance… afraid that I might find a precious clue here? Well, you know… this dressing room belongs to both of you and your boyfriend.”

“If you were the culprit, you may have unconsciously dropped some clues here.” The smirk on his lips becomes wider than ever upon the girl’s constant fidgetiness and abrupt change of face expression.

“Only stupid culprit would’ve done as you suggested,” she replies after getting a grip of herself. She needs to appear invulnerable in front of the idol so he will not continuously pick on her. “This is a high-profile crime, moron. They wouldn’t have dropped hints only in this room. They are scattering throughout the crime scene.”

Deciding to set her free, Krystal immediately pivots to head out of the dressing room, but half-willingly turns around when the idol called her name.

“What?!” She groans. “I’m sick of being here with you, Kai. What you only know to do is to keep and keep getting on my nerves!”

“Last time you said you possess a mind-reading ability.” He stares into her dark brown orbs questioningly. “So… which one of us… do you think is the culprit?”

She purses her lips for a mere moment. “Do you want an honest answer?”

“Why not?” He offers a shrug.

“You.”

“Me?” He drops his jaw. “B-but why?”

“Because I said so.”

And with the ironic remark that the idol may not be able comprehend, Jung Krystal walks out of the dressing room with a big, triumphant grin.

///

Krystal sticks the Polaroids that she had carefully chosen to ask during this 5 minute briefing with cellophane tape on the white board. When she has done, she turns around to face the rest of the suspects and is ready to start her session.

The third session, 5 minute briefing, will give them a chance to let others know their deductions that they have come up with which based on the clue they have found in the on-site inspection. The speaker at the moment can only ask others questions.

“For starters, I looked around at the second living room and found my boyfriend’s cell phone.” She circles the image of the cell phone in the Polaroid with a marker pen.

“Jongsuk oppa, I have a question for you.”

“What is it?”

“I checked the call history and found that Baekhyun didn’t answer three calls from you. May I know why?”

He lets out a sigh. It seems like he ought to tell her and others know the truth. “To be honest, the reason why I went to his house is because I want to seek an apology from him. We, uhm, had a big fight yesterday and I think I should be the one to apologize since I’m at fault.”

“He didn’t answer my calls so I merely texted him saying I’ll go over to his house.” He bites his lip waveringly. “I did say this during my alibi, but nevermind… when I reached there at 3:30 pm, he didn’t want to see my face and it made me return home around 3:50 pm.”

“What made you guys fight?” Jongdae asks curiously.

“Yes, I’d love to ask that.” Krystal nods. “Baekhyun whom I know isn’t a person who holds anger for too long unless you’d caused a tremendous problem.”

“Uhm... uhm... I… actually…” he stutters, sweating out of the blue.

“Why are you stuttering?” Yoona looks at him suspiciously. “This is a strange view. You’ve never stuttered before.”

“It… it was my mistake,” he finally lets it out, “I was responsible for taking care of his income, but one day, his earnings for performing at three different concerts were nowhere to be found.”

“You mean?” Krystal is clueless. “I don’t get it.”

Kai chimes in, “Jongsuk hyung means that the money that went to him for performing at those concerts had lost. Baekhyun was mad and lashed out at his manager. Understood?”

He turns to the younger male. “That was what I was going to say.”

Krystal merely nods in comprehension, though she is still wonderstruck. She needs to catch up faster because time is ticking. Five minutes are extremely not enough to cover everything.

“And at the living room, I also found a broken bowl of half-eaten ramen and there were some sort of vomit and blood stains on the floor.”

“I saw that too, but I can’t get a meaning of it.” Lu Han raises his hand. “Why would the bowl be broken? Who did that? Did Baekhyun have ramen before he got killed?”

“The culprit probably did that or Baekhyun broke it himself because he was surprised to see the culprit with a big, jagged knife. I… wonder who that person might be.” Yoona does not look at anyone when she said that; she stares down at the floor.

Krystal is running out of time and thinks that her clues were not that compelling and only lead her to another string of difficulties trying to solve the case.

“…and last but not least, I’m asking this without a clue. I didn’t get to take a picture of it,” she remarks and eyes the person she would not want to interrogate to begin with, but she does not have much of a choice.

“Jongdae, may I know what lorazepam (Ativan) means?” Krystal remembers going inside his room and found a bottle of prescription pills in the drawer of his study desk.

///

The players are bowled over when Jongsuk comes up, but still has not pasted the Polaroids on the white board.

“Where are your Polaroids, Jongsuk?” asks Lu Han, utterly bemused. “We need to study what you have found.”

“Oppa, aren’t you using them?” Krystal eyes him warily.

Jongsuk responds with a brisk, light nod. “I am not using them.”

Their mouths hang open.

Jongsuk seems relaxed albeit the mixed reactions from the players. Yoona simply shakes her head meanwhile Kai even thinks that he is making fun of the game.

“Stop making any sort of excuses when you don’t get the whole thing yet,” says Lu Han, a bit defensive. “Who knows Jongsuk’s giving us something – uhm, particularly unusual?”

“That’s right.” Jongsuk nods submissively. “I did take a few photos but when I kind of got sudden scenery in my head, I tossed them aside and decided to simply ask questions. I suppose even if I didn’t show the clues, you guys might’ve had them in your hands right now.”

“So… what is it?” Jongdae tilts his head in interest.

He averts his stoic gaze to the front. “I’ve been thinking that the victim’s death wasn’t caused by the sharp weapon. I examined the wound wasn’t that deep. It was close to being a cut th