“We need to talk.”

Ryeowook turned around in surprise. “Hyukjae hyung?” He quickly hid the cockroach in his pocket, earning an eye roll from the older officer. “What did you want to talk about?”

Hyukjae crossed his arms on his chest and shot the other an unimpressed look. “That’s not how you properly scare a person. You need to let it loose in a place where they least expect it, like across their desks or something, just don’t let the mechanism catch anything on the surface,” he added, the mischievous glint in his eye suddenly coming to life as he talked about the prank he last pulled off. Ryeowook’s mouth formed a round ‘O’ in understanding as he nodded. “But no, that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

“Then what is it?”

“Are you in a relationship with D.O.?”

“Am I… what?”

The older officer frowned and tilted his head curiously when Ryeowook started laughing. “What’s so funny? I’m asking you a serious question here.”

Ryeowook chuckled and shook his head. “No way. As opposed to the majority of the people here, I’m very much straight, thank you very much. s and butts excite me more than whatever body parts I’ve already got that’s on another man.”

Hyukjae’s ears burned a bright red when Ryeowook gave him a knowing look at the last of his sentence. “Yah!”

“Why are you so curious, hyung?” the shorter male asked, taking out his cockroach and inspecting it. “I thought I told you that I don’t really know him. You were the one who conducted my first proper introduction to him,” he added, handing the cockroach over to Hyukjae. “I think the mechanism’s broken. Can you fix it?”

“Oh? Let me see. Maybe there’s some hair wedged in the joints?” Hyukjae commented, taking the cockroach and turning it upside down to look closer. He let out an unmanly shriek when the cockroach flipped up and jumped out of his hands before falling to the ground and scuttling away to safety. The older officer stared at the escaping insect and screeched. “That thing was ALIVE?!?! What the heck, Ryeowook? You have PET cockroaches now? I thought it was clockwork!!”

The other officer was doubled over in laughter, slamming on the table top as he struggled to breathe. Hyukjae stood up at once and ran to the bathroom to wash the distasteful stench of cockroach off his hands.

* * *

 “Where’s Heechul?”

“He didn’t show up today, sir,” Henry answered, making sure to skip out of the way from Donghae’s angry and heavy footsteps. “Is it an urgent matter? I can call him if you need– ”

“Henry, when have my matters never been urgent?” Donghae sighed, rubbing his temples in frustration. “He never told anyone he wasn’t coming in today? Specifically why?”

“No, sir. I don’t think he told anyone about anything. He hasn’t come back since lunch yesterday, in fact.”

The chief let out a dissatisfied grunt and went back into his office. So much for wanting to have a proper chat with him, how could he even manage to question him if he never even knew about his whereabouts?

Was Hyukjae really right about Heechul being the bad cop and murderer in their station? With Heechul missing at crucial moments like this, it seemed highly likely that the tall officer was trying to hide something. Donghae remembered that Hyukjae told him about Scarface being Heechul’s lover, or at least partner, and suddenly he wondered if perhaps the officer was out there in the middle of a rendezvous with Scarface again. If so, maybe they would find Heechul when they found Scarface.

All they needed to do was to comb through the many dark and abandoned alleys in the outskirts of town just about half an hour away… he would probably need more manpower than was available at his station right now to do that.

All that just for one guy.

Nope, Heechul just wasn’t worth it.

Or, Donghae thought, he could just ask Kyuhyun to track Heechul’s cell phone and then he’d be able to locate him right away. Right? That would just take one person to do it.

“Cho Kyuhyun!”

“Nope, his phone is completely turned off. Silent. No signal whatsoever, yadda yadda yadda,” Kyuhyun deadpanned, checking the screen a couple more times to make sure. “You know, that’s actually very suspicious of him. Why would he block off signals from his phone, unless he knew that he would be tracked?”

“Where was his last location though? Could you track that before he turned it off?” Donghae asked, squinting at the map of the district. “Is he this red dot over here?”

Kyuhyun nodded and enlarged the map. “This place is the more deserted part of town near the outskirts. It would take you maybe half an hour tops to reach there by car. Heechul was there just about half an hour ago…”

Donghae furrowed his eyes in worry. “Maybe I should send someone to go get him now. If he really is up to some funny business out there I swear I’m gonna kill him myself.”

“It’s too late,” Kyuhyun said, shaking his head. “By the time you reach there, he’d have already gone off by then, and since I can’t track him anymore, I won’t even know which direction he’s headed off to. You can’t guarantee that he’s gonna come back here. I can’t predict his moves either.”

“Then what can I do to get him back here?” Donghae yelled in frustration. “Can’t you see, Kyu, he’s a major suspect in this case we’re handling now! We need to do something!”

“I thought you weren’t so convinced of his guilt just yesterday,” the other officer replied, typing in some commands into the computer and pulling up a couple more maps for the chief to see. “What made you change your mind?”

Donghae sighed. “I don’t know anymore. I talked to Hyukjae yesterday, and he’s right about one thing. Heechul has been acting really suspiciously ever since he came here and that’s also around the time when the murders s