After work, as promised, Sungmin and Eunhyuk went to their usual bar to drink. They sat at their usual spot, at the bar counter, and the barman, a young very tall guy, came to take their order.

“As usual.” Sungmin said.

As soon as the bar’s boss saw them, he came to them wincing.

“Not you guys again!”

“Yah Junsu, we are the only ones supporting your business so you should treat us better!” Eunhyuk said. “And what the hell did you do to your hair again?!”

The green haired man on the other side of the counter smirked.

“Green is the season’s color.”

Kim Junsu, the owner of the bar, was also Eunhyuk’s childhood friend and schoolmate. After high-school, Eunhyuk and Junsu went to the military together, choosing the police department. Once their 2 years mandatory service was done, Eunhyuk continued serving, while Junsu opened his own business. And since high-school Eunhyuk couldn’t really say he had many friends apart from Junsu, who, for some reason, stayed, and his partner, Sungmin. Junsu was a very peculiar person. He had the face of a baby and his goofy smile could make him get whatever he wanted from people. And also he had something about regularly changing his hair color to improbable ones… But in reality inside he was a very strong and serious person.
Junsu stared at Eunhyuk, frowning.

“Did something happen?”

Eunhyuk smiled. His friend knew him too well. Taking the drink the barman just poured him, he took a sip from it and made a dismissive move of the hand.

“Some stuffs happened at work.”

“And he had another nightmare.” Sungmin added.

Eunhyuk threw his partner a dark glance. He didn’t want to talk about his nightmare…

“Another one?! I thought you weren’t having those anymore.”

“It’s not like I can do anything about it, I don’t have those dreams because I want to.” Eunhyuk said in a bad mood.

“Was it about your sister again?” Junsu asked, carefully.

Taking another sip from his drink, the thin man didn’t answer, he didn’t need to. Junsu then nodded, understanding. In Eunhyuk’s opinion everyone hides a more or less dark past, and he wasn’t any different. Eunhyuk came from a loving family, he had a great childhood and he wasn’t abused in any way. No… his scar had nothing to do with being unloved, but more with losing someone loved. He still asked himself every single day, why? Why his sister instead of another? Would it have changed something if he had been there? Eunhyuk was very close to his family, especially his noona, with whom he had a very special bond. At eighteen, he went to do his military service as he wanted to become a police officer; it was his dream since forever. But, when he had only a few days left before being discharged, his dear sister was murdered… That’s when he decided to enter the crime division to become a detective. The detective that would find the one who killed his sister. What drove Eunhyuk over the edge wasn’t only losing someone he loved; it was how unfair it was. Sora had a loving husband, and she was pregnant at the time. That night, Eunhyuk and Sora’s husband lost more than just a person, they lost a whole future. It was at that moment that Eunhyuk lost faith in humanity and in the justice. Since people weren’t willing to do the right thing, then Eunhyuk, as a police officer and a detective, was going to do it for them. That was his only consolation…

And Junsu knew it better than anyone since it was him who was at Eunhyuk’s side at the time he had the bad news. Junsu poured another drink for his friend and tapped his shoulder.

“I know it can’t be easy to be haunted by ghosts…”

“Yeah, but maybe I’ll be able to put those ghosts to rest very soon.”

“What do you mean?”

Sungmin leaned forward and almost hushing said.

“We think the Checkmate killer is back.”

“What?!” Junsu exclaimed, but immediately started hushing too. “How do you know?”

“We had a body this morning. It was the same m.o. and he left a chess piece.”

“But why would he come back now? I mean, how can a serial killer not kill for a whole year? I thought they couldn’t help it.”

That was indeed a good question. Why after all this time? Why now? What changed now? Thinking that the mood was too heavy Sungmin changed the subject and they started to talk about something else, just meaningless things of their lives. Then suddenly his partner announced something Eunhyuk didn’t know.

“Did you know there’s a guy transferring to our unit?”

“Seriously? I thought that Kangin wasn’t taking anyone else in, saying that he has already too many “freaks” to take care of?”

“Yeah, but seems like this one is special.”

“What is so special about him?” Junsu asked.

“I don’t know, I haven’t met him yet. I don’t even know what he looks like.”

That’s when Eunhyuk remembered the young man in front of Kangin’s office this morning. It couldn’t be a coincidence…

“I think I saw the new guy…” he said.

“Really?! What does he looks like?” Sungmin asked excited.

It wasn’t really because he cared about the new guy, but Sungmin had a special craving to know everything, and loved a new gossip.

“I don’t really know what to tell you…”

“Well, was he tall? Brunet or blond? Did he seemed nice? Or like a nerd? Oh please god not another nerd!”

Eunhyuk chuckled at his friend.

“Seriously Min, you’re unbelievable sometimes…” Junsu commented

“You think you can say anything with your chlorophyll looking hair?!”

The two of them started bickering around, but Eunhyuk wasn’t listening to them anymore, he was lost in his thoughts. A new guy… Why was a guy transferring just now, at this precise moment when the serial killer came back? And what did Eunhyuk thought of the new guy… He still remembered his brown chocolate eyes, they were maybe brown but they had some kind of shine in them… it was weird… and what was even weirder was that Eunhyuk couldn’t stop thinking about it, now.

A few hours later (and many drinks), Eunhyuk finally got to go home. He was up since 5am, so not to say that he was exhausted. As soon as he arrived home, he saw a pair of blue high heels in the hallway. Kicking off his shoes, the young man ran to his living room to find a young woman with long beautiful black hairs, leniently sitting on the couch, a glass of wine in hand, watching tv. Smirking, the thin man came behind her and passed an arm around her shoulders, kissing her cheek.

“Hey you…” he said with a seducing voice.

“You reek of soju.” she said, coldly turning her face away.

“Are you mad?” he asked confused.

“Mad? Why would I be mad to be waiting for you for hours?”

Eunhyuk walked around the couch to face the woman.

“Did we had something planned?”

The girl suddenly got up, putting down her glass of wine noisily.

“If you can’t even remember that we had a date then it mustn’t be that important…”

Eunhyuk’s