“I heard something while I was in the back of his car,” Hyukjae suddenly remembered, setting his empty mug back down on the table. Donghae looked at him curiously as the officer scratched his head. “It was something weird… wait… Pepero?”

“Pepero? The chocolate stick snack thingy?”

Hyukjae shook his head as he rattled his brains for the word. “No, I don’t think so… but it was something similar.”

“Well, that’s a lot of help, Hyuk,” Kyuhyun deadpanned. “Maybe Ryeowook was just hungry and looking for a midnight snack.” Sungmin shushed the impatient tech officer and tried to jog Hyukjae’s memory instead. “Pepero, potato, tomato, kokoro, tornado, Toronto, Totoro, Pororo…”

“That’s it!!” Hyukjae jumped up from the couch and hugged Sungmin in glee, smacking his lips against the other’s face. “He said Pororo!!”

Kyuhyun growled as he pulled the excited officer off the stunned Sungmin, barking “Get your own boyfriend!” at him, and Donghae didn’t look amused either. In attempt to cool the hot-headed officers, Sungmin firmly pushed Hyukjae back on the couch and frowned lightly at him. “That’s all he said? Pororo? The children’s cartoon penguin?”

“He said ‘Pororo’ – then a bunch of numbers. I believe it was ‘twenty-one-oh-six’,” Hyukjae replied, pushing against Sungmin’s hands to sit up properly. “Pororo twenty-one-oh-six.”

Kyuhyun threw his arms up into the air. “Great. He’s telling us to go watch a stupid kiddie show at nine p.m. tomorrow. Let’s just tune in tomorrow night and see what clues he’s planted in a dumb penguin show. Ha! Maybe we’ll learn how to ice fish some day.”

Sungmin rolled his eyes and smacked his partner on the head. “Stop being so pessimistic, Kyu. Do you want to help or not?”

“Sorry.”

“Besides, it’s not Pororo showing tonight, or tomorrow night. It’s Totoro. Pororo is only showing during the weekends,” Sungmin added confidently. All eyes looked at him in surprise and he began to feel a little uncomfortable. “What? I know coz I’ve been taping the shows… for my k-kids.”

“Wow,” Kyuhyun chuckled, raising his eyebrow. “I feel like a bad father because I’ve never even met them before. What kids?”

“Yah, shut up.”

“Maybe it meant something else?” Donghae offered up, dismissing the stares Sungmin and Kyuhyun were throwing at each other. “Guys, focus. We need to get our man – men, ASAP. We can’t let them get away again.”

“Hyukjae, are you sure that’s what you heard? Nothing else? No context or other clues whatsoever?”

“Well… he said ‘Pororo 21-06, I’m coming over’. That’s it. He must have been talking to someone over the phone.”

“So the name probably refers to a place then?”

Kyuhyun suddenly thought of something and scooted over to his computer, typing in some commands then letting out a triumphant grunt. He pulled up a window and gestured for everyone to go over. “Remember what Taemin said last time about dropping off his stolen cars at a deserted place last time? And then we went to find the place but we just couldn’t find anything suspicious and gave up?”

“Get to your point, Kyu.”

“That place is called District 21, my dear Sungminnie-boo, shown on the screen right here,” Kyuhyun laughed when Sungmin blushed and hissed at him. “Ignore the Pororo bit, which I think must be the code name of the other person at the end of the phone. We know Ryeowook is the bad cop now, so he might have ties with the car theft gang. I’m just saying this on a hunch. So District 21 makes sense.”

“I remember now! The blocks there are also numbered!” Donghae exclaimed, eyes widening in realisation. “Pororo, District 21, building 06!! That’s what Ryeowook meant!”

“Let’s look up who owns this building too. Maybe it’s a valuable clue,” Hyukjae said in all seriousness, then chuckled by himself. “I just rhymed. I’m a genius.”

Kyuhyun typed away at his computer and pulled up a list on his screen. Everyone stared at the screen in interest as Kyuhyun scrolled down all the way to D-21-06.

“Do Kyungsoo? Who’s that?” Sungmin asked.