~•~•~•~

Jungkook sighs inwardly, fighting the urge to run his fingers through his hair, opting to clench his hands into fists instead. He knows that he has to remain calm. Or look the part, anyway. People are watching. They are always watching, and he feels the constant need to prove himself. He takes a deep breath, blocking out the commotion surrounding the roped off crime scene to dip his chin down to the still form on the ground.

Even though death has claimed the colour in her, leaving her pale and cold, it is obvious that she had been a beauty. Her long blonde hair pools neatly on the right side of her head, brushed to the side with such care it seems almost loving. Jungkook scans her body with interest, an uneasy sense of déjà vu creeping up on him. It is so similar that it can't be a coincidence - especially the cruel mark at , although clean, tells him that she is another victim of the same killer who claimed the life of the first body they found last month.

~•~•~•~

Exactly one month ago
Parking lot of the largest bowling alley in the city

Emerging from his car alone, Jungkook saw that there were already several officers setting up a parameter in silence. He had received a call early that morning to head there, and he drove straight from home instead of stopping by the office first, leaving you disgruntled for being roused at the crack of dawn after a long night of reading journals and writing. He slammed the door shut, locking the car behind him as he approached one of the officers who turned to him immediately upon his arrival, opting to talk to the man he took to be the first officer on the scene before addressing the body on the ground in the middle of the section.

"Agent Jeon." Jungkook simply nodded at him in response, getting right down to business. "What happened here?"

"Got a call from the owner of this joint about an hour ago. Man was all panicked, said he found a girl unconscious when he came in to take inventory. When he walked towards her to see if she's alright, he saw that she's dead." Jungkook noticed that the young officer avoided looking at the immobile figure behind him as he talked, only waving his arm behind him to indicate the general location of the body.

"Dead? Did he see if she's breathing before calling you?"

He cleared his throat uncomfortably at the question. "Ahem. I don't think so, sir. One look at her and you'd know."

Jungkook frowned at that but pressed on. "Did he see anyone around, before and after he found the body?"

Another no. "She was already there when he got here, sir. And he made sure she was in sight when he called to make the report."

Jungkook nodded and walked past the jittery officer to see her himself, ignoring the whoosh of relief that escaped the man at reaching the end of a stressful conversation with an intimidating superior. Judging by his looks, Jungkook was not that much older than the young officer, but he was used to that reaction by now whether it was from a new recruit or an experienced agent after he gained fame for capturing a serial killer who terrorised the people for months, then went on to solve several other cases. He wished that people wouldn't treat him differently, but he guessed it couldn't be helped after his not-so-subtle promotion following his feat.

The tar and pebbles of the parking lot crunched louder under his feet as he stopped and crouched down to study the victim. He winced at the term; most agents he knew avoided the terms 'girl', 'man', 'child', 'young' and the like when referencing to a dead person, but you once told him that you felt that it was disturbing to use the terms 'it', or 'victim', or 'deceased' as they used to be alive, too, and should still be respected even in death. Your words stuck with him. Several years in this field taught him that it was easy to lose yourself, and you helped him retain his humanity, his sense of self.

She looked young, probably in her early twenties, just out of school or in college. Her attire was not something he would have expected from someone at that age, though. An over-sized white shirt covered her body, big enough to almost hide the blue shorts underneath, but not quite. More puzzling than her being barefoot is how clean she seemed. Not a trace of makeup adorned her face, and from what he could see, he suspected that the only dirt she had on her body was underneath her from the gravel that her body laid on, and a streak of black in her hair that stood out against her blonde locks. Contrasting to her lack of cosmetics, she wore a pair of earrings and a funny-looking choker. Her lips and skin were pale, but that was to be expected if she had been dead for several hours, and she must have been as the call from the owner came over an hour ago now. Who knew when she died here or if this was where she was killed at all?

Because as the first officer on the scene had told him, there was no doubt that she was dead. Soon the other crime scene investigators arrived, and when the evidence - only a purse clutched in her hand - and her body was lifted, the green strip Jungkook had thought to be a choker slipped, revealing a gash across her neck. His eyes widened in shock at the sight and he swallowed bile that threatened to make its way up into his mount. had been slashed open. The 'choker' had actually been a plant, probably a weed of some sort, and was immediately removed to be photographed and bagged as evidence. To say that everyone had been mortified at the discovery w