The detective unit was experiencing a drought. There was absolutely nothing for them to work on. In fact the most interesting case they had in months was tracking down Old Lady Emma’s dog. Not that it was a bad thing to have low crime, but come on! Nobody wanted to spend their working hours filing and re-filing solved cases, did they?

Taehyung sighed and twirled his pen around his fingers. It had been three hours since work started which meant that there was another two more hours to one which meant that he couldn’t go outside for lunch yet which meant that he was bored. His coffee had turned cold a long time ago and he was too lazy to stand up and get a fifth refill. It’s not like he didn’t have anything to do, it’s just that he already finished the night before and really wanted to move on to more interesting things. In other words, he was thirsty for a new case to work on.

“Taehyung-ah!”

Before he could stand up, a head of auburn appeared in his view along with a relatively thin L-shaped folder with the word “CONDFIDENTIAL” stamped in bright red ink across it’s glossy tan surface. He looked up with an eyebrow raised and lamented with an irritated growl of,” Jimin I already filed this yesterday-“

“Idiot,” Jimin scolded almost gleefully,” We have a new case!”

That’s when Taehyung falls off his chair; along with half the things on his table. Jimin jumps and looks over his table, a smirk playing on his lips.

“You okay down there?” is the only consolation Jimin has for his friend when Taehyung manages to get off the floor and pick up the file. Taehyung pays no mind to Jimin’s sarcasm and just grabs Jimin’s wrists and drags him into their meeting room as he calls out for their other teammate, Hoseok who just so happened to be raiding the police department’s donut supply.

“Oi, what’s going on?” Hoseok asks as he jogs up to them.

“We finally have a case!” Jimin answers with glee.

“And we’ll be the ones to solve it!” Taehyung adds.

The three enter the boardroom and sit down as Taehyung pulls out the papers excitedly. It wasn’t much, maybe around five to six papers plus a single headshot, but it was enough information to help them kick start their case. Then Taehyung catches a glimpse of the headshot and almost blanches. He doesn’t recognise him with that soft mint hair, but his cotton skin and pursed lips immediately draws out memories that he thought were buried long ago. He blinks away the images in his head and stands up with the papers in his hand and begins to write on the long white board behind him.

“Min Yoongi,” he says as he scribbles the name in the middle of the whiteboard, his mouth filling with a familiar taste. He doesn’t really need to refer to the victim profile to know about Min Yoongi- after all, he knew him,” 22 years old, runs a flower shop called ‘Hidden Amongst the Roses’, has been missing since yesterday, apparently; last seen coming out of a tattoo parlour called ‘Inked’ which is just across his flower shop. The witnesses at the tattoo parlour say he was pretty worked up and was yelling at one of the artists while he ran out. Min Yoongi also has next to zero family members to speak of other than his recently deceased cat.”

“His recently deceased what?” Jimin repeats in confusion. To this, Taehyung rolls his eyes and leans on the table to say a very exaggerated and condescending,” His recently deceased cat.”

“And you would know this, how?” Jimin shoots back.

“He’s my neighbour and a not-so distant family friend,” Taehyung replies vaguely.

“Hold up,” Hoseok interrupts with his hands up. He presses his elbows onto the table and leans forward, his face pinched into a scowl that looked extremely foreign on him.

“Did you just imply that a man named Min Yoongi is missing?”

“I didn’t imply I stated, Jung Hoseok,” Taehyung corrects. Hoseok stands up and pulls the headshot out of his hands and stares at it with thought. He lightly kicks his chair away and circles around the table as the other two stare on with confusion. Jimin and Taehyung look at each other then back at Hoseok until said man jumps and turns to the two of them with wide eyes. He frantically runs up to the two of them and holds the picture out, jabbing his finger at the person in the headshot.

“This- this guy!” Hoseok stammers,” I know him! No, no, I knew him!”

Jimin jumps up from his seat and takes both Hoseok’s shoulders and shakes him.

“Come on, tell us!” Jimin whines.

Hoseok his lips with hesitation, his eyes glued to the headshot of the mysterious stranger when he sighs and plops down in what was originally Jimin’s seat. Hoseok runs his fingers through his hair and lets his arm drop onto the arm rest and looks back down at the picture with a certain longing- was it nostalgia?

“Back when I was a high school student living in Daegu,” Hoseok starts,” I was in the underground rapping scene along with two other friends; one of them was Min Yoongi.”

“You rapped?”, “You lived in Daegu?” were the two responses coming out of Jimin and Taehyung’s mouths simultaneously. Hoseok rolls his eyes and ignores the two’s statements and just allows his fingers to linger on the surface of the headshot.

“Obviously, my career choices shifted and I decided to become a detective. I moved here, to Seoul to pursue my new career and I tried to keep in contact with my two friends until we couldn’t and stopped communicating. I didn’t know what they were up to until today, when I found out that Yoongi was missing.”

“Harsh, don’t worry hyung, we’ll find him!” Jimin comments cheerfully as Taehyung nods in thought. He turns to the whiteboard and draws column on one side of the whiteboard.

‘Involved in underground rapping scene in high school’ is what he writes along with the line ‘Hoseok’s childhood friend’ below it. He turns around and spreads the papers out on the table in front of him.

Jimin picks up one of the papers to see two names listed down on the bottom of the page.

“It says here that a Jeon Jungkook and a Kim Seokjin may know him,” Jimin says before he turns to Hoseok,” Recognise any of the names?”

Hoseok shakes his head sadly to this and shuffles through the papers as well.

“Any information about them?” Taehyung asks Jimin.

Jimin skims through the page and nods,” Kim Seokjin, 23 years old, works at the coffee shop right next to Yoongi’s flower shop; he was the one who reported Yoongi missing. Jeon Jungkook, 20 years old, works at Inked as a tattoo artist and  matches the description of the person witnesses say Yoongi was yelling at very well; in other words, Jeon Jungkook is most likely the last person Yoongi interacted with before he went missing. These two seem to be around Yoongi a lot, we should go check them out- especially this Jeon Jungkook.”

Hoseok eagerly nods to this and stands up,” I agree, the sooner we get a lead on Yoongi, the better.”

“Let’s not be hasty here, people,” Taehyung says,” We only know two people on the suspect list, and we don’t even have that much evidence on them.”

“Yeah, but we have enough against Jeon Jungkook to snag an interview with him,” Hoseok points out,” Now come on, to the Bat Mobile!”

The three park right outside the tattoo parlour, which –in Taehyung’s opinion- wasn’t that bade looking.

The exterior was painted a striking black, the cement-and-brick walls washed with black and splattered with deep purple and red and a neon sign with the word ‘INKED’ boldly spread out above the entrance that had white shutters covering the tops of the transparent glass doors so onlookers could only see the legs of the people inside.

Hoseok locks the car as Taehyung sizes up the building. Unfortunately, because Jimin worked in the forensics sector, he couldn’t join them for their so-called “interview”.

The two just stand there outside the parlour in silence until Hoseok starts to laugh. Taehyung turns to the other and just stares at him in confusion, startled by Hoseok’s sudden reaction. Hoseok, noticing Taehyung’s bewilderment, smiles and says,” Don’t mind me, I just find it a little bit cute how you’re so into the case; like you know Yoongi or something.”

Taehyung just smiles as he follows Hoseok into the parlour.

The two are greeted with a screeching guitar rift when the step in and immediately take notice of how packed the parlour was. There were men and women alike in the building either waiting their turns, paying up, or getting inked. Taehyung walks up to the tall counter on their left and ring the bell. Nobody comes to the counter for a few minutes until a relatively small man comes out from behind a long velvet curtain behind the counter.

The man gives a friendly smile and brushes his lavender hair out of his eyes to greet them but before he can even say anything, Taehyung shouts,” Min Yoongi?!”

The man’s smile drops into an immediate frown and he let’s out a deep sigh before saying,” More like Lee Jihoon. Min Yoongi is currently M.I.A at the moment, thank you very much, sir.”

The man is about to retreat back into the curtain when another man steps out of from behind the curtain. That’s when he stops and stares because holy this man was a beauty.

Pretty lips, quirked up into a gentle smile and long lashes framing those shining eyes. The tall man rested his slim hand on Jihoon’s shoulder and laughed, his eyes twinkling despite the parlour’s slightly dim lights. “Relax, Jihoon,” the man chuckled,” I’m sure they didn’t mean any harm.”

Jihoon purses his lips in irritation and turns back to the two with a glare so similar to Yoongi's that Taehyung has to remind himself that the latter was missing. The handsome stranger leads Jihoon back behind the curtain before turning back to them with a sheepish expression.

“Sorry, Jihoon doesn’t like being mixed up with-“ he pauses, his face stony and a devoid of expression until his lips straighten into a tight smile and says,” Our other friend.”

Taehyung nods giddily, his eyes praising God for the wonderful sight of this beautiful stranger until Hoseok steps in front of him and goes,” I know you’re probably a little busy with all these customers, but we have a few very important questions for you.”

Taehyung kicks Hoseok’s shin and glares at him when he turns around in protest. Hoseok narrows his eyes at him and pulls his ear to his mouth and hisses,” He matches Kim Seokjin’s profile, idiot.”

“Oh!” Taehyung says in realisation.

Seokjin just stands there in confusion and knocks on the counter to get their attention.

“What kind of questions, exactly?” Seokjin asks them cautiously.

“We’re from the police department,” Hoseok mutters softly and flashes his badge,” We’re handling your missing person case.”

“You’re going to help me find Yoongi?” Seokjin brightens and grabs Hoseok’s shirt to drag him behind the curtain as Taehyung follows along behind them. Seokjin leads them into a room decorated much brighter than the parlour with pastel pink walls and a large white sofa pushed into the nearest corner of the room. Along with another man with blond highlights in his Leonardo Di Caprio styled hair, Jihoon ignores the trio bursting in and focuses on the Super Mario game on the wide TV mounted on the wall. Seokjin hurriedly leads them through another door on the other side of the room and hurries them in, locking the door behind them.

The second room is similar to the previous room with identical pastel pink walls. The difference, however, was the lack of furniture for in this room, there was nothing but a big, white square table along with a few matching chairs. Seokjin sits the two down and he sits himself opposite them with his eyes wide as saucers and his lips smiling widely.

“You’ll find Yoongi, right?” Seokjin asks eagerly.

“Definitely,” Taehyung replies without missing a beat,” But before that, we need as much details as we can about him.”

“Of course, anything you need.”

“What time did you last see Yoongi?” Hoseok asks as he takes out a notepad and a pencil, prepared to take down anything of importance.

Seokjin scrunches his eyebrows together at the question as his fingers begin to tap urgently against the table.

“It was on the day he disappeared,” he says,” At around 7 or 8 in the morning. We had breakfast together at some café in the business area. I think it was called the Waffle Iron?”

“Did you contact Yoongi at any time after that?” Hoseok asks. When Seokjin shakes his head, Taehyung is left with a burning feeling that there was more than what Seokjin was telling them.

“Where did you go, then?” Taehyung tests.

“To work,” he replies swiftly,” I’m a model at BigHit Inc. I had a gig from 8.30 am to 10 am. I have a card, you can check with my manager.”

Taehyung nods and takes the card from Seokjin’s fingers to slip it into his jacket pocket, leaving a mental note to check in on the number later.

“Did Yoongi seem different during your breakfast meeting?” Hoseok continues,” Too quiet? Too fidgety, maybe?”

“Not really,” Seokjin says thoughtfully,” Just a little bit more aloof than usual, but then again that’s part of his personality.”

“Is there anyone else that might’ve met up with him after your meet-up?”

“There is one,” Seokjin says, unsure,” But I can’t guarantee that he’ll be very easy to find-“

The door bursts open and a tall man stands at the doorway. His dark hair swept to the side and his angular jaw was set as he stared down at the trio blankly. He takes his hands out of his jacket pockets and smooths down the wrinkles in his pants. They could almost see his bulging muscles through the thin material of his jacket and to be completely honest, Taehyung was slightly intimidated. The man sends a cold glare to them, his lips pressed together into a thin line and his broad shoulders hunched up to create a dominating figure but despite this man’s menacing exterior, Seokjin stands up and smiles happily.

“There he is!” Seokjin says.

“Jeon Jungkook,” Taehyung mutters inaudibly,” Great to finally meet you.”

Whew! First chapter has finally been published! It took weeks for me to edit this chapter so I realllllyyy hope you found this interesting. I'll try to post the next chapter soon, okay? 'Til next time! Bye!

~Elle