Eight. 

 

"This is our base of operations...?" Wonshik only voiced what was on Ken's mind. He carried a cardboard box in his arms, full of files and paper weights that he usually kept on his messy desk upstairs in the lab. They'd been directed down here, to the basement of the station where they would meet up with N and the other members of their task force. 

 

"It isn't that bad..." Ken said very slowly, almost as if he were trying to convince himself more then Ravi who had yet to close his mouth from shock. 

 

The room may have been fairly spacious, if not for the boxes upon boxes stacked up across the back wall, hiding the wall itself almost completely. Where there were supposed to be six desks there were only three visible, the rest mostly likely buried under the mess of archives within the room. The atmosphere was clouded by dust, both men unable to tell how exactly they felt about the room because of this. 

 

Wonshik blinked and realised Ken had spoken before shaking his head almost chuckling. "And the sky isn't blue." he muttered sarcastically. 

 

The door they'd entered moments before swung open to reveal a tall blonde man and a slightly shorter brunette man. They both had similar expression to what Ken and Ravi had when they'd first entered the room. 

 

The brunette noticed them first and blinked looking at each of them before focusing his gaze on Ken for a while longer. Ken met his gaze and recognition flashed in his eyes as he pointed at the younger. "You're Dimples!" he yelled before quickly rebalancing his box in his arms after almost dropping it during his outburst. 

 

The brunette blinked and received a strange look from the blonde (who Ken remembered to be Hyuk, the rookie that N had dragged away a few days ago.) He heard someone snort to his left, obviously it was Ravi. Ken pouted when Hyuk started laughing at him before the brunette man he'd nicknamed Dimples finally spoke. 

 

"Ah I remember you now, you were the guy that was beating up the vending machine right?" he asked, smiling innocently at the other two men in the room. 

 

Ken felt his cheeks heat up slightly as he looked away and puffed out his cheeks childishly. "That's not the way I remember it...." 

 

"Well that's the way it happened." Another voice cut through the awkward tension in the room like a knife, snapping the others to attention as their eyes landed on a lone figure in the doorway, face framed by long locks of dark hair. Ravi recognised him almost immediately and frowned slightly. Why was The 'Leo' here? 

 

Hongbin blinked and tilted his head to the side. He looked familiar, if only just slightly but he couldn't place a finger on where he'd seen him or exactly who he was. 

 

Ken blinked and then gaped at the man for a mere moment. "And now the ice prince appears from out of no where..." he mutters and rubs his eyes to make sure what he was seeing was actually real. After all, Ken could be dreaming, he did have a very active imagination as everyone called it. 

 

Taekwoon raised an eyebrow at this and sighed shaking his head. He had to work with Lee Jaehwan? He didn't know if that was worse then tolerating Hakyeon. He thought for a moment before internally cringing. Tolerating Hakyeon won hands down. 

 

"Ah everyone's here already. Good." Hakyeon suddenly waltzed into the room wearing a wide grin on his face as his eyes shifted from person to person in the room. All of who he'd met and managed to convince into joining the team. This would be the first time they were all together. 

 

Hakyeon claimed the first desk that was almost clear and sat in the spinny chair behind it, brushing a few stray pieces of paper from it's surface before he rested his elbows on the desk. "I'm sure that you all know why your here, we've been selected to make up a task force dedicated to bringing down the serial killer nicknamed, The Demon." he said, eyes shifting every so often to look over the others who either gazed right back at him or avoided his stare. 

 

The atmosphere tensed at the mention of the serial killer, frowns settled across Hongbin and Taekwoon's faces whilst the three other men grimaced. 

 

N continued, eyes turning steely as his voice took on a determined tone. "We're going to put an end to this." he said. Jaehwan nodded at this, he wanted to help in any way he could. He'd stop at nothing. Especially....especially after he'd previously examined each of the demon's victims. It almost broke him to look at little Kang Jun-Seo's body. The most frightening thing was not the ring of black and blue around his neck. No, it was the bruises on his back. They were almost healed. They were much older then anything the demon could have inflicted. 

 

"Alright. Let's get to work." 

 

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Jimin's shoes clicked gently across the wooden floor boards of the old basement floor. It was silent. He still held his clip board in his hands, pressing it against his side as if to comfort himself. Rovix had asked him to meet up with the new task force today in their new 'office' room. 

 

He wouldn't let the boss down. Of course he wouldn't. He just needed to find the room...the basement was actually like a maze more then anything else. He'd never had to go down here before, this floor was where they kept all the dead cases or the solved ones that weren't high profile. 

 

He stumbled across a door, chipped brown wood and a rusty old door handle that groaned in protest as Jimin turned it. The room was no better, dust particles were flying and Jimin coughed suddenly, drawing attention from the others in the room. There were six pairs of eyes on him now however Jimin merely pushed away the uneasiness he was feeling and stepped into the room fully. 

 

"Ah hello everyone. I'm Jimin, Rovix's personal assitant for those of you that don't already know-" he said before he was interrupted by N's sudden laugh. 

 

"Come on Minnie. Everyone knows you. This station probably wouldn't be standing without you running around after everyone." he said grinning slightly at the younger man. 

 

Jimin flushed red in embarrassment and readjusted his glasses, pushing them up his nose. "Ah yes...Anyway, I've been instructed to monitor your progress and report back to Rovix." he said. 

 

"So your basically our babysitter?" A voice he recognised to be Ravi's asked slightly teasing. 

 

Jimin smiled very slightly, eyes glinting. "You could say that." 

 

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After a few hours of clearing the basement room, so now each member of the team had their own desk, Jimin found himself back at his desk outside Rovix's office, fiddling with his pen whilst mulling over every detail he'd picked up on today. 

 

They were all skilled. There was no denying that and they all had the intelligence to help in solving the case. He couldn't doubt Rovix's decisions and choices when it came to the task force. They were indeed some of the best suited officers for the job. 

 

Jimin stared at his desk, being bored with not much to do (as Rovix was currently having lunch with Senator Lee.) so he found  himself drowning in his boredom. There was noise all around him, the flapping of reports and the scrapping of chairs was most definitely prominent. 

 

A neatly folded piece of paper landed on his desk and he looked up to see the legendary Leo staring back at him. He furrowed his brows and reached for the neatly folded page before reading it's contents. They were mostly names of files and requests for warrants in case they were needed. Jimin looked back up at Leo and hummed. 

 

"You certainly come prepared don't you?" he asked, leaning back on his chair and crossing his arms casually. Leo looked uncomfortable for a moment as he studied the contents of Jimin's desk. There wasn't much to give an insight on who Jimin really was. There was a stack of plain paper with the police emblem on them, a telephone and answering machine as well as his computer, situated in the direct centre of the desk. Everything was neat surprisingly. Jimin didn't seem like a very organised man most of the time. 

 

Just then Jimin knocked against the desk, making everything on said desk sway from left to right almost as if to a rhythm, a lonely picture frame rattled and fell from the left hand corner, only to be caught by Taekwoon's quick hands. He'd meant to put it right back in its place but got distracted, looking at the odd photo instead.

 

There were seven people in the photo. Jimin was in the centre of the picture being hugged by another boy that seemed younger then himself. They could have been anywhere in the world, in some dingy bar on some dead end street. He didn't know why it fascinated him so much. They all looked so...happy. He guessed they were all good friends. 

 

Jimin spoke up after awhile. "That's from when I turned 19." He muttered, smiling thoughtfully. "The guys in the picture were my friends from high school...." He said and looked up at Leo smiling a little. 

 

Leo blinked and put the picture down, safely in the middle of the desk before nodding and turning to leave. He didn't know what exactly had compelled him to look at the picture for so long. He guessed he wanted to know more about Jimin, as there was next to nothing known about him in Taekwoon's mind. 

 

As the detective walked away Jimin frowned and gazed at the picture, a sort of sadness settling on his face as he looked at it. He stood and looked at the picture frame once more before pushing it until it was face down on his desk.