Bona hurriedly opened the door as soon as the bell rang, knowing exactly who had arrived.

“Sojung.” The blonde called before pulling the woman in front of her in a tight hug. The latter was startled, almost dropping the suitcase she was holding.

“Dude, it’s been a long time since you’ve been this happy to see me.” The taller girl, Sojung, lightly hugged her and patted her back. “Actually, it’s been a long time since you’ve seen me at all, so of course you’re happy. What’s up, kid?”

“Well, you can try taking a look around to start. And I’m the same age as you, ‘kid’.” Bona answered, breaking the hug and straightening her hair, which Sojung had just playfully messed up.

Sojung stepped inside the apartment, along with the shorter, younger girl who was accompanying her, whose presence had just been completely ignored by Bona. As they did so, both Cheng Xiao’s and Eunseo’s stares locked on them, quietly observing the two officers from the infamous lopsided couch they were sitting on. They were surprised to find out they weren’t wearing uniforms, and instead wore slightly more casual clothing, the kind you would see on the characters of criminal investigation shows.

“Daaaaaaaaamn, you live here?! How’d you get so rich?! And why aren’t you sharing any of it with your good old friend? I’ve always been so good to you, Bona… I don’t deserve to be left out of your life like this!” Sojung dramatically buried her head in one of her arms, pretending to sob, extending the other to the girl she had brought along. “Dayoung, tissue.”

The shorter girl, Dayoung, sniffed along and pulled an imaginary tissue from her pocket, wiping the corners of Sojung’s eyes with “it”.

Bona squinted at both the officers throughout the whole act, completely speechless.

“Who are they though?” The officer said, returning to a slightly more normal posture, pointing at the couch.

Both girls who were sitting on it straightened themselves, having been noticed and brought into the conversation.

 “Unbelievable.” She shook her head and facepalmed. “Actually, no, this is not my house. One of ‘them’ owns this house and the other one owns the house next to this one and happened to find the first one unconscious yesterday. Long story. This is Cheng Xiao, owner of this house, CEO of WJSN, and I’m her assistant.”

Cheng Xiao smiled awkwardly and greeted them by waving and bowing slightly.

Eunseo was expecting to be introduced as well, but after a weirdly uncomfortable silence, she realized she had just been left on her own. That Bona… for real?!

“I’m Son Eunseo, nice to meet you.” She lightly bowed.

Surprisingly, both Sojung and Dayoung’s chins dropped dramatically at the mention of her name, a reaction no one was anticipating at all. The officers exchanged a seemingly telepathic look.

“Noooo way! THE Son Eunseo?! YOU are the author of ‘Love next door’? And ‘Same heart’?” Sojung inquired, grabbing Dayoung’s arm, anticipating an answer.

“Ah… Yes… That’s me!” Eunseo was incredibly embarrassed with having just been recognized. Even though she usually felt happy about meeting her fans and knowing their feedback on her work, This was an incredibly awkward situation for this to happen.

“OH MY GOSH!!!! We’re your biggest fans! Your books are seriously great, they really touched me.” Sojung spoke loudly, as she and Dayoung ran towards Eunseo, but not before carelessly dropping their belongings on the floor.

“You TOTALLY have to sign our copies, for real, everyone at work has read your books, you’re a huge deal. They’re going to be SO jealous!” Dayoung blurted out at light speed, as she vigorously shook Eunseo’s hand up and down.

The author was visibly shaken, her smile forced, bowing uncontrollably. She could only say ‘yes’ repeatedly, never meeting their fans’ eyes. These women were seriously something else. Bona had said she knew someone trustworthy at the police who could help, but this was enough to feel doubtful of the blonde’s definition of “trustworthy”.

As if that wasn’t enough to embarrass the author to the point of wanting to hide in a hole underground, indeed all the women in the room had their attention fully focused on her. That included Cheng Xiao.

She was incredibly impressed, learning that her neighbor was a famous author. She hadn’t thought of it, but now that explained how she was able to afford living in such a luxurious building, next door to her. Even though she was an extremely successful writer, Eunseo was kind, generous, and apparently, humble too. And she must be really, really smart. And she was also really, really pretty. How much cooler could this girl get?

Cheng Xiao’s cheeks were blushed in pink, as she had been staring at Eunseo the whole time she had spent admiring her. She felt like a teenage girl with a silly high school crush.

Why am I being like this? What’s wrong with me? I really have to stop staring at her all the time. And sobbing in her arms all of a sudden as well. I’ve been embarrassing myself all this time and causing her all this trouble… Gosh, what does she even think of me now?

“Sojung!” Bona loudly called out. “That’s not why you’re here. Seriously, aren’t you a professional? You’re starting to make me look bad for calling you here in the first place. There’s a whole lot of crap to talk about here. And pick your up right now. How rude of you.”

The assistant’s face and voice were firm, yet noticeably toned down from her usual demeanor. She was close with her after all.

Right, the police is in my house. There’s a reason for it. Focus.

 “As if this place wasn’t a mess already.” Dayoung furrowed her brows and pouted, mouthing the words under her breath.

Sojung not-so-lightly elbowed her, clearing .

“Cheng Xiao, is it? You are the owner of this house?” The girl who had been called nodded in agreement. “We are very sorry about our conduct thus far. We, as authorities, are here to help in any way we can, and we will try out best to solve the situation in our hands.”

Cheng Xiao slightly gaped, completely astonished with the very sudden change of stance from Sojung’s end. She looked like a completely different person – it was almost as if the past few minutes had never happened. She stood still for a while until she could bring herself to answer.

“Ah, right, yes… that’s okay. If Bona unnie trusts you, you’re more than welcome in this house.”

“Damn right she does! We were inseparable in high school. To be honest…” Sojung paused for a second and leaned forward towards Cheng Xiao. The officer then brought a hand to the side of her own mouth, pretending to tell her a secret, even though she was about to speak as loud as it was enough for Bona to hear it. “Bona here had the biggest crush on me back then.”

Both Sojung and Dayoung giggled playfully, and neither Eunseo nor Cheng Xiao could help but chuckle.

Cheng Xiao had to admit the woman at least had a great sense of humor. Back at the hospital, she was quite upset when Dawon tried to crack jokes in the middle of a serious situation, but now she could see there was no need in trying to make a difficult situation even more tragic. If they could handle this as calmly and as lightly as possible, it would probably work out for the best for all of them. She’d had enough of feeling depressive and frustrated the past few hours.

Bona did not see in what way that was funny, as her face was red all over, both from embarrassment and anger.

“AS. IF. I. HAVE. STANDARDS.” She yelled in between unnecessarily strong (but still friendly) slaps on her high school friend, who was still laughing.

The assistant then crossed her arms and looked away, trying to put on her signature authoritarian posture. But this time it looked so forced, and she was so clearly flustered, Cheng Xiao actually thought it was adorable and found it even funnier.

“Well. I would never have a crush on someone as ill-mannered as you. You’ve been nothing but inconvenient so far and you haven’t even managed to introduce yourself when people have introduced themselves to you.”

“Wha--? Boss is rude? You haven’t even gree-“ Dayoung tried, but Sojung quickly elbowed her again and interrupted her.

“You know what? You’re totally right. How could we forget? That’s really rude of us, right Dayoung?” She shot Dayoung a look, with her eyebrows raised. The shorter girl nodded and cleared .

“This is the boss, detective Chu Sojung. Codename E-X-Y. EXY.” The younger girl presented, as the older woman raised her chin gracefully, lip-syncing as Dayoung was speaking. It was as if they had rehearsed it countless times.

“Codename?” Bona scoffed. “You made that your… Do you even need a co---“

“And this cute little muffin here is Im Dayoung, my trainee. She’s my assistant.” Sojung – no, Exy – interrupted, pretending not to have heard Bona at all.

“Trainee? Is this what you’re training her for?”

“EXY? What kind of…?” Eunseo said to herself, both curious and confused.

“Oh trust me, you don’t wanna know.” Bona answered, even if not requested to.

The charismatic duo seemed to have no intention of interrupting their act or acknowledging any of them.

“Prepare for trouble.”

“And make it double.”

“To protect the world from dev---“

“THIS STOPS RIGHT NOW!!!!!” Bona yelled, stomping her foot on the floor. She was even more shaken by the fact the girls on the couch seemed to be trying really hard to hold their laughter. How wasn’t anyone taking this seriously but her? Why wasn’t anyone else worried about this?

The officers’ faces were plastered in theatrical, fake disappointment. Cheng Xiao hoped they had only rehearsed this whole thing as a joke, and didn’t really attempt to do that while on duty. By the looks of it, they had probably been waiting a lifetime for the chance to actually introduce themselves to someone like that. Well, they had such a demanding job after all. Who could blame them for trying to take themselves less seriously when they had the chance?

“So what is the situation here?” Exy asked in a serious tone, now evidently done with the jokes, ready to get to work.

In just those few seconds, Cheng Xiao could feel relieved and understand why Bona trusted her. She had turned into a professional, diligent woman in a snap, and it was clear just by the tone of her voice.

“Well, to start with, she’s a very important and influent person, her phone is missing, and so is her--“

“It all started when I came here yesterday to take care of her fish--“

“Actually I think they should explain it, because I can’t really trust my memory--“

“ONE AT A TIME.” Dayoung’s voice was stern and loud, overthrowing the other three, who had started at the same time and each was saying completely different things. “Please.”

The three girls recoiled. None of them was expecting the small, cute, dorky, squishy-looking trainee to be capable of pulling that off. Wasn’t she younger than all of them, too?

“Whoa, wait. Who was the one that found someone unconscious or something?” Exy stepped in.

Eunseo raised her hand reluctantly.

“Okay, then you go ahead.”

Bona rolled her eyes and sighed.

Eunseo carefully explained the details of what had happened since the day before, but not without being interrupted by Exy and Dayoung a few times, due to her infamous habit of blabbering endlessly and drifting away from the topic at hand. As she was explaining, the officers listened attentively and asked a lot of questions. They also took photos and examined the chaotic scene for unusually damaged furniture or marks on the floor or walls, collecting a few samples along the way – such as the dried blood on the carpet, and the shards of glass from the display cabinet.

“So when we were looking for her phone, Bona, who was going to look in the office, opened the door to find it in a similar state as this living room. We had already noticed her phone was missing, but we found that Cheng Xiao’s personal computer was also missing. That was when we knew we had no choice but to call the police. Something odd is definitely going on here.”

“Only then? You should have called us when you found this living room looking like this! Why didn’t you?!” Exy asked, appalled.

Both Cheng Xiao and Eunseo had felt scared when they first found the room looking like that, and more so when they heard the lock. Bona had arrived almost immediately after they did, and it had all happened so fast, including the scene Bona herself had caused in the aftermath. The girls had been completely overwhelmed with the happenings, and if the office hadn’t been found in such a state, they would have probably only thought of it at the end of their quest for the missing phone.

None of the three girls seemed to know what to say for a second. But one of them was obviously the one to come up with something to mask her embarrassment, due to having overlooked that very important detail.

“Actually, that was the main reason we thought of the phone in the first place, but since we noticed it was missing, we had to look for it first. So we’d report both situations when the police arrived.” Bona shot, speaking a little too fast.

Eunseo and Cheng Xiao exchanged slightly squinting looks, both wondering how in the world she had come up with that so fast.

Exy snorted and rolled her eyes, obviously not buying it, but she probably didn’t think much of it. If she thought it was relevant for the investigation, she would have definitely asked more questions to follow up.

“Let’s go see this office, then.”

The wide, sleek and minimalistic office space was also somewhat chaotic, but not nearly as much as the living room. The flower pot on top of the chic tinted glass desk had been tipped over, the dirt and the remains of the plants laid over the surface. The desk itself and the bookshelf next to it had clearly been moved from their previous position next to the wall, and were now at an awkward diagonal position, just like the couch. The pen holder was on the floor, its content scattered over the area. Aside from the poor flowers, who had met a terrible fate, the glass surface held only a lone set of a wireless keyboard and mouse, no computer or monitor in sight.

“Do you remember what kind of computer you had?” Dayoung asked.

Cheng Xiao nodded, slightly wrinkling her nose with the still-lingering headache, which worsened when she moved her head.

“But you don’t remember anything that happened yesterday… here, or in the living room?”

Nothing, again. Cheng Xiao still had no clue about what happened in her house. She would recall random memories about all sorts of irrelevant things as she walked through it, but nothing related to the night before.

Silence installed itself between the five women. The only sounds heard were of Dayoung and Exy taking some more photos and collecting some more evidence. Cheng Xiao was starting to really dislike the somber, almost pitiful mood that arose almost every time her amnesia was brought up.

Exy finally stepped in to talk, shortly after collecting all of the evidence and having discussed them with Dayoung in a very low voice for a few moments.

“So here’s what we know. You have a head injury, and so far you’ve noticed the absence of your computer and your phone. Someone very likely moved your desk to remove the computer plug and take it, but there is no sign of a physical confrontation here. Much unlike the living room.“

The agents started making their way towards the mentioned space, followed by the other three, who paid the utmost attention.

“You see this?” Exy continued, making her way towards the broken glass cabinet, pointing at it. “Judging by the blood on the shards - which we still have to confirm is yours – but in the case it is, you definitely hit your head really hard here. There is no way a glass this thick could break like this if you had simply fainted and hit it on your way to the floor. There is a chance you immediately fell unconscious and afterwards, you fell towards your lamp and your TV, topping them over, then finally hit the floor, landing your head where it’s evident.”

She paused, pointing at the biggest spot of dried blood on the floor, everyone’s eyes following her hand.

“What I’m saying is someone shoved your head into the cabinet. Someone was here, and they attacked you.” 

---

A/N: Oh my god! I'm so sorry I took so long to update! My job has been really exhausting. :( In fact, I've been working on this update for the past few days, but I got so carried away with the Exy/Dayoung gimmick and everything that had to happen and be said on their visit, the actual chapter turned out to be 4300+ words long. I ended up having to split it, so here is a chapter twice as long as usual. That means the next update is already finished and will be uploaded shortly, at least :) Please accept that as an apology and thank you for your constant support!

Also, I was so overwhelmed with your comments about my appearance at After School Club ;_; I just wanted to share my excitement with you, and in return I got lots of kind comments about it. I was so surprised you guys actually remembered me from watching the show and thought what you did about me. I was so, so, touched guys, thank you so much ;_;

P.S.: SHOUTOUT TO YOU KRYSTAL! I can't believe I found you here and that you actually read my fic omg, what are the chances?!