Thrilled, that was the emotion that would describe my state the best. I was sitting in the big office and watching the boy, or was it a man, in front of me. Hyukjae was going through some basic paperwork before he could officially join my team. The other co-workers were whispering from the other side of the office and also looking at Hyukjae.

The problem was that I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. Hyukjae´s features had changed since I´ve seen him three years ago during the trial with Kim Junho. The lawyer was found guilty but because the case was involving a chimera, everything went overly fast and quiet. I met Hyukjae only for a few minutes and even then we couldn´t talk to each other. I can´t even tell how surprised I was when Jungsu told me that Hyukjae graduated and would be joining the police force in spring this year. Not that I was surprised by the boy´s ambition but I didn´t expect him to appear right under my nose.

“Is that all?” I finally blinked when instead of Hyukjae, a bunch of paperwork appeared in front of my eyes.

“Uh, yeah I guess,” I took the papers and placed them on the desk. “If Jungsu said so, I don´t really know about that stuff.” The paperwork was the detective´s worst enemy. “Hyuk-“

“Eunhyuk,” the brown haired man interrupted me, “You meant Eunhyuk, right?” He said again and his eyes shifted slightly in the direction of my subordinates. I see, the cover. Hyukjae has to be especially carefull about this stuff, even more than other agents. The gutsy ones like me don´t care, though.

“I don´t like it, it sounds too cool,” I frowned and crossed my arms over my chest. The real reason was that I hated those stupid cover names and even more I hated giving Hyukjae one. ´Fairy´ would be enough as a nickname! Hyukjae sighed, he could read my stubborn mind again.

“How about just Hyuk then?” He said dejectedly. I raised my brows and hummed. ´Hyuk´ was a good compromise. It was close enough to ´Hyukjae´ for me and it was embarrassing too a little because it sounded like a diminutive of the latter´s name. I was satisfied.

“Alright, Hyuk,” I said and smirked. Hyukjae didn´t really expect the nickname to flow out of my mouth so simply and his cheeks got a pretty blush as a decoration. “You should get to know your colleagues now.” I stood up and gestured to the four people at the back of the room to come closer. Some faces would Hyukjae find familiar, some were completely new.

“Introduce yourself, I don´t remember your names anyway,” I grumbled and left the awkwardness for the others to deal with. “Starting from the oldest.”

“Oppa, that wasn´t funny,” Songim scrunched her nose but immediately smiled warmly at the maknae. “Nice to meet you, Eunhyuk,” she held her hand and Hyukjae quickly shook it, “my name´s Song Jihyo but feel free to call me noona.” She was a beauty so I couldn´t really get angry at Hyukjae that blushed properly in front of her. Genius or not, he´s still a man.

“Hello, I´m Shindong,” Hyukjae´s soft hair got a ruffle by the big man. The maknae´s eyes widened seeing Donghee and his stare was a little panicked. They met during the school festival and Donghee knew that the man in front of him was a certain blonde boy called Hyukjae. “Nice to meet you, Eunhyuk.” He added calming the slim man down by empathising his cover name.

“And I´m Ju Myeok,” the tallest from us added with a huge smile and accented speech. Oh God, Zhoumi also knew Hyukjae from the day he had to take care of him when I had to leave the boy in my house. I didn´t warn Zhoumi about Hyukjae´s cover. “Feel free to ask me anything!” Zhoumi sing-sang and I almost laughed. He didn´t recognize Hyukjae!

“This guy is the happiest, he finally gets to drop the maknae title,” I laughed and pushed the young man forward.

“Hello, I´m Choi Minho,” the tall guy also offered Hyukjae his hand, “it´s my real name. No need for ´hyung´ either, just Minho for you.”

“Ah, I see,” Hyukjae was a little surprised just like me. Minho has always been pretty forceful and confident but he seemed especially stubborn in front of the brown haired newcomer. Did I miss anything?

“I´m Eunhyuk, please take care of me,” Hyukjae bowed deeply for the third time today. Must be tiring being a newbie.

“Okay,” I clapped and gained the attention of the people present in the room. Well, almost of everybody. “You too, Minho!” I frowned as the tall boy finally stopped staring at Hyukjae and looked at me. “There´s a lot of work in front of us. This was given to me by Jungsu this morning, it´s a case here in Seoul so let´s have it finished quickly.”

I took out a brown file and threw it on the desk in front of me. It was a case of twenty-one years old chimera that was found dead in the river. Usually the body would get quickly recovered and burnt to ashes so no evidence of the transformed DNA would be left. The problem was that this chimera was murdered in a dread way and various injuries were found on the body. We didn´t have much time, the body would be disposed of tonight.

“Who´s coming with me to the morgue?” I joked and of course nobody raised his hand.

“How about the newbie?” Minho chuckled because it was most of the time he, who had to accompany me. I didn´t want to take Hyukjae to the morgue but I did want to have a private talk with him.

“Good idea, let´s go, Hyuk!” I called and put on my new coat. I heard a sigh but soon I could hear somebody walking behind me. I smiled for myself.

Everyone´s eyes were on us as we walked around the open office to the elevator. Hyukjae didn´t spare the people a single glance and stayed mysterious to himself as always. Whether it was a good way to deal with them I didn´t know and maybe even Hyukjae didn´t but what could he do. He was a newbie, parachute and a chimera on top of that. Nice combination for gaining enemies I would say.

The elevator doors opened and we could finally breathe out a little. Nobody was watching and Hyukjae quickly used the chance to lean against the wall. He seemed tired as he was dreamingly watching the metal box move. His before skinny body now looked a little bit sturdy. I wondered if he even had some muscles under that perfectly fitting black suit. His face looked manlier as his bones were sharper and his baby skin turned a little less soft. Still it was porcelain white and contrasting with his chocolate brown hair. I like that hair about him a lot. He had the same hairstyle as three years ago from which I guessed, he had coloured it only recently. He probably didn´t want to risk with the blonde but I was glad that the mushroom remained. He looked cuter.

Ding! Before I knew it, we arrived to the parking lot. I walked to my beautiful foreign car and inwardly waited for Hyukjae´s reaction. I´m sure he will be baffled when he sees my new car.

“Hyung! That´s Austin Martin? This is amazing!” Hyukjae exclaimed and it was the most honest reaction I heard from him so far.

“The one James Bond was driving. It´s a little older but it has the style,” I smirked and unlocked the black sleek limousine. Hyukjae quickly climbed on the passenger seat and began ogling all the stuff in the interior. Once again I felt proud and had to fight all the urges to show off.

The drive wouldn´t take too long, the hospital wasn´t that far from here. I still didn´t know, if it was a good idea to take Hyukjae to the morgue. Especially since the victim was the same age as Hyukjae, even I shivered at the thought. Dead bodies weren´t fun but they were a part of this job. The ASC agents and detectives might be the ones that come into the contact with death the most. It´s given since we deal with chimeras. I glanced at the man next to me.

Hyukjae was looking out of the window. With his elegant features and formal clothes he looked like a chaebol in my fancy car. Hyukjae once told me that his dream was to become a rich man that could take care of his family well. But then the tragedy happened and that was the end of all his dreams. I wondered, if he had a new resolution now or if he gave up on living just like the most of the chimeras. But he was here, further than anyone else, so I guess he did have something new on his mind.

“Hyung?” Hyukjae spoke up and I hummed, urging him to continue. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, ask anything,” I said because there was no way he wouldn´t ask. Hyukjae has always been curious and this nature of his was impossible to suppress.

“Can I live with you?” And good grief we were standing on the red light or else an accident would most likely occur.

Asa! Quick update! :) Just a run through Hyukjae´s hairstyles so far: first he had the Mr. Simple concept one, long and blonde, the next one was from the breakdown era (without the colourful strands) because he cut the blonde short. Right now it´s the one from Maxstep MV (again without the colours) because he had to get rid of the blonde colour, he left the cut, though. Since the story is a little sad, I wanted at least the main characters look bright. Hyukjae with the cute hairstyle and Heechul with clothes inpapropriate for his job. Also there are some new side characters. Some won´t matter, some will... :D Thank you for reading and commenting! Take care - PandaHero