Chapter 10. Awkward

Deadpanned? Was that the proper word to use for how expressionless she had been when she told him all that? Was it rest face?  It didn’t really matter because whatever the word was it probably couldn’t describe just how relaxed she looked and sounded when she talked about something that was so crushing and one of the biggest trauma for women.

“We’ll wait. Whenever you are ready.” She continued talking as she went down the stairs.

“So you’re alright with just now, seeing me almost and the guys making all the jokes and...?” Kyuhyun was careful as he asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she looked towards him surprised. Placing her hands over the rail of the staircase, she looked at him properly as she talked. “I am not emotionally scared, boss.” She explained with a smile.

“I didn’t....” he wanted to say.

“It takes a woman 3 seconds to check a guy out, boss. Even less when the guy is half and I sure checked you out. I don’t have problems with kissing and is awesome.” She grinned a bit. “When there is consent.”

She pursed her lips together, having mentioned that last part only to see him getting shocked out of his mind, mouth opening in surprise. She understood his reaction. Apparently people had a problem with other people that were casual about traumas since apparently people were not supposed to get over them and lead a good normal life but remain in a state of distress and depression for the rest of their lives, although not obvious.

“You can put your hand on my shoulder and I can totally see you but if you plan on hugging me, you better make sure I nod y head okay before. Or I will kick you in the balls. Which is probably what any woman would do regardless of their history.” She added. “God, I forgot talking took that much energy.” She noted as she continued talking, now not minding him at all, making her way downstairs.

Kyuhyun was shaken. He was wondering why in the world she was not. The only thing he could possibly do was to just sit himself down on his bed and try to process what had just happened. As if talking about her favorite color, she had just confirmed that a terrible thing happened to her. He had so many questions just going round and round inside of his head. First, was she serious or just messing with him? If she was serious, how could she just casually tell him that? There was nothing wrong with her talking about it but she had been too casual about it to the point anyone would be confused if it was true or just made up. Secondly, was it really okay for him to know all those details? They were personal details and people were reluctant to even tell minor things to people they just met and yet she had been so open about it towards her. Even if she was alright with saying everything out loud and not minding what people might have said as a reaction to that, it was still very overwhelming to know it.

 To top it all, what was he supposed to do now that he knew that? How was he supposed to just act as if he had not heard anything? Was he even supposed to act like he didn’t hear anything or like he heard everything?  He had no idea how exactly she was expecting him to react now. The best guess was that she wanted him to act as if nothing had happened at all because she didn’t seem to give the event much importance anymore. He had no idea what he was supposed to do about what she had just told him but he knew he had to put on proper clothes and do his job. That seemed like the only priority he was supposed to have.

Returning downstairs, his eyes opened wide in surprise upon seeing how many boxes had been brought to their location. He shivered in frustration and then let out a deep sigh, approaching to table and opening the lid to one of the boxes. He prayed to God that those five people they couldn’t track via CCTV were friends of the same person otherwise it was going to be hell to go through all of them. Looking towards the control desk, where Moon was busy on the computer, he gulped and quickly gave up on his thought of asking her to help out. He was still too shocked to do that after the conversation he had with her upstairs. Plus, he still needed to find a proper way to refer the long desk with computers as because it was weird to just refer to it as the computer area.

“What are the five names?” he asked, pulling out one set of files from the box.

“Give me a minute. I’m trying to cut more names off the list.” Moon replied, her eyes focused on the computer screens.

“Can you do that?” Hyukjae looked amazed. “Make it even smaller?”

“I set the search for within the country. Maybe we are lucky and some were abroad.” She shrugged.

“Or we can be damned and all were abroad and then we go back to having to read through everything.” Heechul casually spoke out.

He had not realized what he said himself and upon finishing his own sentence, Heechul shuddered in fear of that possibility turning into reality. Even if each of them took three boxes, it would have taken them weeks to finish reading them. With the conference table piled up with boxes, Kyuhyun had no choice but to move towards the desk were Moon was seated and to his surprise, he found himself glancing towards her as he pulled the chair out.

“Yes.” She spoke to herself, moving the chair to the side so that she could type on another keyboard.

All of the guys turned their head towards the main screen and then hoped for the best. Three names popped on the screen and while it wasn’t just one that they could kidnap and torture into confessing, it was still better than five people. Soon after, their connections to the victims appeared. It seemed that they were friends of Victim 4, 6 and 8 and their paths might have crossed with the others since one worked inside a mall, one at a club and the last was a delivery man. It did make sense for the criminal to have one of these jobs. Even if the victims didn’t live close, places that were hot spots, places where a lot of people went, could have been good recruitment places.

The criminal might have been picking the victims from inside the mall or inside the club or as he delivered something to their house so even though they were still three people that they need to verify again, it was still a good sign. Since every box had the number associated with the victim written on them, Donghae and Hyukjae began opening the ones mentioned in search for the testimony given by those three people.

“We can work in pairs. Each take one friend and see what’s up with him or her.” Kyuhyun thought about it for a second.

“We need to meet with them again and see if they said the truth, right?” Hyukjae questioned while glancing towards their leader.

“Exactly.” Kyuhyun nodded his head.

“Will you join on field? I mean... aren’t you supposed to stay here with Moon? Or will she team up with someone as well?” Hyukjae looked towards her.

It made him groan for a few seconds. If they approached each of them in teams of two, then indeed both him and her would have to leave the house. Then again, she was in charge of all the communication and information flow so she had to constantly be in front of monitors and see what was going on. He still had not received an okay sign from Leeteuk to let her carry technology with her and that meant that she was house grounded. He could leave her alone inside the house but what if then she would do something bad? She could attempt hacking or something worse even with him next to her so what would stop her from just going wild in their absence?

“I guess you’ll have to shuffle.” Kyuhyun finally decided. “Hyukjae.... you should go with Donghae to the delivery man...” he looked at the screen.

“I want to go to the club.” Heechul was quick to call dibs.

“Alright. You and Siwon to the club. But first....” Kyuhyun thought for a bit. “you’ll all go together to the mall.”

“Why?”Siwon asked, looking confused.

“It would be good to ask other workers in the mall  and show them some photos of the victims. Maybe someone else can remember seeing them there.”

“The one working at the club is a woman though. So it the one at the mall.” Donghae pointed out. “Aren’t we looking for a male as the suspect?” he asked Hyukjae first and then turned to look at Kyuhyun.

“Maybe we should check their boyfriends too.” Kyuhyun thought about it for a bit.

“I’ll do a background search then.” Moon let out a sigh, already having a lot of things to do.

“You have enough work to last you a month.” Heechul looked towards her, his facial expression showing that he felt rather bad for her.

“I’ll go through their SNS and set an algorithm to search their names and locations. It’s not hard to do but it will take a while.” She replied, giving the eldest o