Hana didn’t speak at first, instead leaving it to Myungsoo. She simply stood there, taking in the store.

“We’re detectives from the Seoul PD,” Myungsoo introduced as he held up his badge; Hana followed the motion. They didn’t really bother introducing themselves completely with their full names since it was just a check. They didn’t have warrants to go look at every detail that the florists had and especially since the five had split up to make the process faster, they figured it would be better just to give proof that they were detectives with the badge.

The man smiled at the two. “How may I help you?” he asked pleasantly.

“We were wondering if anyone had bought a copious amount of anemone, lavender, or tulips recently?” Hana asked politely as her eyes roamed the store, feeling uneasy. They were standing at the checkout area — a section of the store that was separated from the flower packaging area across the store which was quite open and colorful. There were stands where there were pre-made bouquets ready for customers to come in and pick one to buy. There were also baskets scattered all over the room of different species of flowers were displayed for customers to come in and handpick bouquets. The walls were adorned with different pictures of flowers and bouquets except for the area above the flower packaging table which had different bouquet styles and their prices written on a blackboard hanging on the wall.

“Not that I know of. I’m a part time worker here, but I can check the inventory list for you,” the man replied. He bent down to retrieve a red notebook from a drawer underneath the cash register, and he opened it up to a page with ‘May 2017’ written on top in big, bold letters. Hana watched his eyes quickly scan the sheet but diverted her eyes when he raised his head to look at the two detectives, not wanting to make eye contact. The feeling of familiarity that she had felt earlier still hadn’t left her completely.

“Nope. It looks like the only times they were bought were when they were part of a pre-made bouquet,” Lu Bolin said as he turned the notebook so the writing in it was right side up for the detectives. Myungsoo picked up the notebook and looked through it. Hana leaned her right side on the counter, turning her body so it faced Myungsoo as he flipped a few pages back and forth until he returned the notebook, closed, to the main behind the counter.

“Thank you for your time,” Myungsoo thanked, bowing slightly. Hana did the same and followed him out the door. They walked to where their car was parked in silence, simply thinking about how they’d run into another dead end.

“I can’t believe we’ve gone to almost every florist in Seoul between the five of us, and we still haven’t found anything. Maybe the flowers were from outside the city?” Myungsoo finally broke as they got into the car. Hana shrugged as she buckled in and opened her phone’s map application to get back to the precinct when she noticed a post-it stuck to her sweater. She took it off gingerly, having a bad feeling that she knew exactly who left it there.

“Myungsoo,” she breathed, reading the note. He turned his head towards her after putting the car in reverse, foot still on the brake.

“What?” he asked. Hana looked up at the man with wide eyes and held up the note. “Baekhyun.”

“Oh, for god’s sake,” Myungsoo spoke, cursing under his breath softly afterwards. “What does it say?”

“It says: The game has just begun and I’m already two steps ahead of you. At this rate, there will be no ‘Flower’. It’ll be a wilted ‘Flower’.”

“Flower? What the hell is he talking about? The flowers from the corsages on the victims?” Myungsoo asked as he reversed out of the parking spot and got onto the main road that would take them to the precinct.

Hana felt like she couldn’t breathe. The word flower had been in quotes for a reason.

“Me. He’s talking about me.”

“What?”

“My name in Japanese means ‘flower’.”

“And how do you know this?” he asked, sending her a confused glance. Hana shrugged.

“When Hansol and I were younger, we watched a lot of Japanese anime. Seeing that Hansol was interested, mom decided to get him a Japanese tutor, so he would be more ‘well rounded’. I ended up picking it up from him.”

“Didn’t he learn English like that too? I remember that, but not the Japanese thing.”

“Yeah. Except my pronunciation is way better than his,” Hana retorted smugly with a small smile. Myungsoo snorted, but his lips were turned up into a smile as well. However, both of their smiles quickly disappeared when the reality of the situation came back to them.

“Either we arrest him, or he kills me,” Hana whispered suddenly, feeling empty. Her tone reflected just how empty she felt inside now that she had come to that realization. Hana watched as Myungsoo quickly sent her an alarmed look before looking back at the road.

“Don’t be dumb, Hana. He’s not going to kill you!”

“We both know that he kills randomly! He didn’t get to kidnap me, so why wouldn’t he attempt to kill me? Plus, didn’t you hear Jess earlier? And Yixing? He’s turned this into an episode of Tom and Jerry! Tom tries to eat Jerry every single episode!” Hana spoke desperately. She felt like she was going through mood swings constantly ever since Baekhyun came back into their lives, and it certainly wasn’t fun. At the moment all she felt was desperation that they would never catch Baekhyun, and that he would win.

“Yeah, but this isn’t a cartoon. You have friends with you who will protect you, and you’re pretty much capable of taking care of yourself — you’ve proven that on several occasions.”

“It doesn’t feel like it at the moment,” Hana replied bitterly, leaning her head back on the head rest. Myungsoo glared at her, but he didn’t say anything knowing that nothing would get through to her when she was feeling so hopeless and desperate.

Roughly ten minutes later, they arrived at the precinct. Hana still hadn’t exactly gotten back to her normal self after the desperate talk she had with Myungsoo in the car, but she wasn’t exactly feeling so hopeless anymore. After thinking about what he had said, she found determination within her to not die, but she also felt like she was up to her neck with stress and worry. She was stressed about giving all the victims and their families the justice they deserved. She was worried about Subin’s safety, her friends’ safety, Yixing’s safety, and her own safety. Everything going on was just piling up, and sometimes she felt as if she would just suffocate.

She was trying to practice some breathing exercises in the chief’s office while she, Myungsoo, and Chief Park waited for the rest to arrive. Soon enough, the rest of their team was scattered around the chief’s office, even Yixing.

“Okay, what’s the update?” the chief asked as he looked through some papers on his desk. Kyungsoo spoke up first.

“I already called Jess and told her everything, but there’s some new information,” he said, pushing his glasses up higher the bridge of his nose. “The victim died by bleeding to death from the cuts on the wrists roughly 14 hours before the body was found. There was pollen found in and around the wounds too. That’s the standard stuff that matched up with Baekhyun’s other victims. But get this — the wound was made by a small garden shear. The previous reports with the victims said that the wounds were probably made by a knife, but when you take the fact that the pollen was there--” Kyungsoo was cut off by Yixing suddenly speaking up.

“That means that the murder weapon was being used near flowers as well.”

“Yes, Yixing. Thank you,” Kyungsoo deadpanned. Yixing sent him a sheepish smile to which