Case File: CLOSE

“Chief Inspector Bang, I had heard a lot about your team before moving here. You’re not really living up to the title of B.A.P.” Major Lee spoke with a file thrown into Yongguk’s chest. The chief inspector barely tamed his anger as he thumbed the smooth metal curve of his lighter in his pocket, tousled hair over his eyes barely veiled his temper. “I want this case solved as soon as possible, make it your priority.” The major glared at the remaining members of Unit B.A.P. “Ever since that Detective Kim failed your mission your team has been its worst. Pick up your slack or pack up your bags boys, the choice is simple”

Unable to bear the silence from his team, Detective Jung met the Section head’s gaze. “We won’t let you down, sir” thick lips spread into a small smile. The sounds of boots hitting linoleum took everyone’s attention as the Section Head bore daggers into the chocolate haired man. “Detective Yoo why are you never here?”

“We don’t get paid to listen to your lectures, sir.” The young detective stopped in front of his boss, waving a manila folder in his face. “Time is of the essence, our team has a lot to work on.”

“Seems like you’re more of a chief than him” the official jutted his chin towards Chief Bang with a smirk.

“We’ll take our leave.” the deep voiced chief spoke, his teammate’s eyes downcast as everyone filed into the meeting room.

“Cat caught your tongue, Youngjae?” Major Lee spoke up, he could hear the elder’s smirk in his irritating voice.

“A word of advice.” Youngjae waited until Yongguk entered the meeting room before turning to the Section Head. “Don’t mess with our team particularly our Chief. You don’t want your house in flames as you sleep. The stench of burnt skin is gut wrenching.” He finished before making his way into the meeting room.

Silently manoeuvring himself around to the laptop on the table. A USB holding research slowly loaded the content for the spontaneously adjourned meeting.

“Is he stupid or is he serious?” Detective Moon split the silence in the room, a butterfly knife twirling in his hands. Detective Choi breathed before gathering the courage to speak up

“Relax, Jongup” Chief Bang calmed his subordinate, the cool of his metal lighter did little to ease the belittlement he felt from his superior

“Hyung, what did you find?” Junhong spoke up, a seemingly innocent face masked his sharp eyes.

“Information. A lot of it. It’s just how to break it to you all.” He replied simply as the projector finally co-operated with Youngjae. A tap to the space bar and a presentation slide of statistics pops up “I tried looking into it to get us somewhere, but I’ve gotten nowhere. Only to find I had been looking in the wrong direction. I thought it’d be wise to share it with you all and get your perspectives on it.” The man pulled out printouts for everyone before continuing with the presentation. “Current status: we have three victims and three casualties of our alleged serial arson case, all of which are arson attacks.”

Pointing to the slide for the self-explanatory information Junhong took upon himself to read aloud “Our first arson, The Jones’ holiday home with on the edge of the Able River perched upon a ridge on the edge of the precinct begins, no casualties and two burn victims with the fire at around 1am on March 30th”

“Second arson happened in Ibis Flat 12” Jongup recounted. “Two casualties and one burn victim, with the fire starting shortly after 11pm on the April 3rd.”

“Third arson, Grandmas’ Soup House on West Side,” Yongguk added in. “One casualty. Fire presumed to have started at 4am this morning June 4th”

“I’ve found evidence to prove there was one more.” Younjgae began with the click of a spacebar. Footage of a flickering streetlamp began to roll, a shaky date of May 9th 3:17am rolled at the bottom right of the screen. “I found this in the security camera footage of the batch next to the one where Himchan hyung...” Youngjae paused with a shaky sigh. “It took them a long time to give me this, they wanted to be assured I wouldn’t look into them if they just give me the tape for investigation.”

“Are you saying it wasn’t the Soviets?”

“Or Northern Europe for that fact.” Youngjae replied. “You’ve been looking into the Soviets very obviously Daehyun, stop before they bite.” He breathed. “Himchan hyung was killed in an arson attack. There, is your proof.” He pointed to the screen just as a person clad head to toe in black walked in the darkness with the cap pulled down completely holding some sort of canister in hand with a black backpack. Minute of silence is disrupted at the sound of broken glass, and the roar of fire meeting gas. The orange glow of the bushes turned to a flickering yellow as the soft crackle of fire filled the empty night. Scuffling footsteps grew louder as the suspect kicked a pebble before tossing a canister into the nearby bush. Youngjae pulled out a rusted canister of butane from under a table, secured in a plastic bag. “Same unique branding, same signature. It’s him.”

Yongguk gaped at the ace of spades printed cover of the canister with hard eyes. Slender fingers curled around the plastic as he took the canister in his hands, the lover of fire immediately stilling at the weight of the empty canister. “Son of a ” Yongguk growled.

“What the actual !” Jongup breathed as he stood up with hard eyes. Emotions caught up with the cobalt haired man as fists shook with fury in silence.

“We have a suspect.” Daehyun spoke up, eyes filling with emotions bottled away since his friend’s death. “This might prove that this person started the fire…but he could have been paid to do this” the man pieced together.

“Which is why I say we request for a special investigation squad for this case.” The button nose detective proposes, meeting the gazes of his colleagues for their response. Youngjae’s heart softened, just a few hours ago he felt the shock his friends were going through. Minuets of silence passes as everyone made sense of the situation.

Yongguk slowly nodded to Youngjae’s proposition. “It’s bigger than we initially thought, I’ll work on a proposal for that.” The chief pulled a loose pad towards him to jot notes down.

“If this is the same person or agency’s doing, there has to be some sort of correlation with the victims of the attack.” Daehyun added. “We’re going to need a lot of perspective to understand why this happened.”

“We’re going to need experts” Jongup nodded

“I’m on it” the youngest chimed.

“Who are you calling?” the cobalt haired man spoke up knowing the younger was never up to good..

“Noona,” Junhong smiled at Youngjae. “We need you in Fortune City.”

This can’t be good. “Jongup.” Youngjae began “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Grandma, she treated you dearly. You okay man?” Daehyun placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“The person who killed Grandma and potentially Himchan Hyung is on the loose, I’m peachy.” Jongup looked to Daehyun “Let’s go get more witness testimonies” the cobalt haired man stopped for a second to grab Youngjae’s attention. “Who was it you got the CCTV footage from?”

“The orchard on the way to that house” he replied.

“I suggested Rose Villa because it was so isolated, the culprit wouldn’t have just walked all the way there. They must have more cameras around there.” Daehyun replied.

Jongup nodded while tucking his butterfly knife back into his pocket. “A number plate would really help.”

“I’m thinking it’d be wise to look into other cases to see if there are any signatures we can find other than the branded butane canister” Junhong stood up with a tablet in his hands.

“Meeting adjourned. Next meeting will be in here at 1pm with pizza, you all have 4 hours.” Yongguk slapped his notes before filing out of the meeting room.

Youngjae heaved a sigh. This case just got really personal.