The two young girls watched as the eldest at that moment furiously paced in front of them. Their eyes followed her as she walked from one side to the opposite, the whole time the only sound through the eerie quietness being the sound of her heels against the gravel.

Yoohyeon then came to a pause, turning to the two younger girls, fury in her eyes. "You two mind telling me what's going on?"

Gahyeon took a deep breath, stepping forward. "Sister, relax," she attempted to coax her sister.

"Don't tell me to relax," Yoohyeon pointed it at her. "Does this look like a situation I should be relaxed at?"

Before Gahyeon could open , Yoohyeon took an intimidating step forward, making Gahyeon close . "Please, tell me. Tell me why you two, two underage girls, are in a 20 and over club?"

"I can explain," Gahyeon attempted once again but was cut off by her sister.

"And not only that!" Yoohyeon continued to rant. "No! I also have to find you two with a bunch of boys? 

Gahyeon opened to protest, but quickly shut it when she saw the look on her sister's face.

She'd never seen that look on her sister before. It looked like a mixture of anger, disappointment, and was that...guilt?

She took a deep breath. "Can you just hear me out for a minute?" she appealed. 

"They paid us," her friend immediately spoke up, hoping to calm the raging adult, but it only seemed to make it worse, as Yoohyeon came to a stop, her eyes wide and words stalled in .

"P-paid?" she repeated.

Gahyeon's friend fiddled around with the hem of her dress. "M-my family situation isn't the best at the moment," she explained. "Ever since my father was taken into custody...not that it was better when he was at home." 

"He assaulted you?" Yoohyeon narrowed her eyes.

Her friend kept her eyes down, only nodding lightly. Gahyeon sighed audibly, bringing her sister's attention back to her. "He was a drunk, a bad drunk," she explained. "Couldn't hold down a job, but spent all of the money he did earn on booze and bars and women. Then took his...frustrations...out on his family."

Yoohyeon cocked an eyebrow at the situation Gahyeon was implying. "Frustrations?" she mouthed. "But then what does that have to do with the two of you here?"

"After my father was taken into custody, I needed to help my mother with the finances. She can't do it alone," the other girl said. 

Yoohyeon kept silent, urging them to go on, despite the fact that she felt something clogging , making her want to both cry and vomit. 

"Being an gave me the money I need," she said. "It's more than what I could imagine, and it'll help my family."

"I understand," Yoohyeon forced out. "But what is my sister doing here?" 

"They were beginning to harass her," Gahyeon explained. "Seemed they wanted more than what the contract stated, and she couldn't fend them off. Her agency wasn't of any help either. So I went along with her to help her out. But...they..." she looked down.

Yoohyeon was crestfallen. "And it didn't occur to you to tell me about any of this?" she slowly asked. "I know I'm not certified yet, but I can still be your best shot out of this mess."

"You already were," Gahyeon smiled at her. 

"How?"

"You saved us back there, didn't you?" 

Yoohyeon looked down. "Fat lot of good that did," she said. "I don't even know what's happening with my own sister." 

"I-I couldn't tell you," Gahyeon protested. 

"Why?" Yoohyeon snapped. Perhaps it was the alcohol in her system that was making her feel a flood of emotions at the moment, however, she doubted it. She wasn't that much of a lightweight.

"You were engrossed in your case," Gahyeon informed. "I did want to tell you, you know."

Yoohyeon kept silent, turning away as her sister went on to speak the truth about her situation.

"But...you were hardly ever at home, and whenever you were, you were locked in your room, and you never came out."

"You never thought of getting me away from my work?" Yoohyeon softly asked.

"How could I?" Gahyeon asked. "I know you, Yoohyeon. Nothing grabs your attention like that. So when something so big that it takes up your entire life? How could I take you away from it when I knew you wouldn't give me the time of day, in your current state?" 

Yoohyeon stayed silent and the atmosphere thickened with a tension that could be cut with a butter knife. Gahyeon held her breath as she slipped her hand into the hand of her friend, who seemed pretty scared considering that she didn't know her sister at all. 

Yoohyeon turned back to them. "Go home, both of you," she told them. "I'll deal with this mess."

"Wait, are you going to tell Mom?" Gahyeon asked.

Yoohyeon paused for a moment before shaking her head. "No, I'm not." 

Why was she here?

After the two had left, Yoohyeon had put in an anonymous tip to the police. Of course, those boys seemed to have been scared off by her, but what was preventing them from exacting some sort of twisted revenge on Gahyeon and her friend for spoiling their fun night? She might have made it worse, but she would handle it.

On investigating further, she found that they belonged to a local street gang, a much feared gang who ran downtown, but rarely made it past into this side of town.

They must have come just for Gahyeon and her friend...

She really did make it worse.

But then, where could she go?

She couldn't go home, not right now, not after what just happened.

As the full weight of the situation pressed upon her shoulders, she found her legs taking her to the one place she never thought she'd be.

The chamber.

She went back to the chamber.

And there she sat, on the dry ground with brown leaves around her and against the cool mossy wall, not even looking at the four ghosts who stood by the prison, seemingly concerned.

She felt a presence by her and she looked up to find Sanghyuk sitting beside her.

"Want to talk?" he offered.

"Like you don't know everything," she whispered.

"You're right, I do," he said. "But still, it might help you if you talk for a bit, you know."

She ran her hand through her hair as despair clouded her eyes. "I didn't know," she softly said. "I didn't know that my own sister got mixed up with a freaking gang while I was running around chasing a cold case!" 

A tear slipped past her eye and ran down her cheek. Sanghyuk immediately raised a finger to catch it, running it along her feverish skin. "So, what will you do?" he prompted. "Will you abandon us, and help them instead?"

She shook her head. "No," she shakily said. "I made you guys a promise, and I intend to keep it."

"I wonder," Sanghyuk said. "Don't you have another promise to keep to your sister?"

"I do," she replied. "I know I do." She turned to face him. "But can you blame me? Your case is the reason I'm pushing away the people I love. I want to get this over with quickly so that I can apologize to all of them, perhaps save my own relationships, after saving yours." 

"You know, your sister was right," Sanghyuk said. "It's unlike you to get consumed by a case."

"It is, isn't it?" she gave a light laugh. "I don't know, I guess I dislike cases like this."

"Cases like this?"

"You know, where it seems like something is right in front of you but you're blind to it." She clenched her fists. "That's what this case feels like. It's like this case has an extremely obvious explanation but I'm here drowning in darkness because I can't see it."

"You might be right," Sanghyuk mused. "Do you believe it?" he asked.

"Believe what?"

"That the case actually has an obvious explanation?" he asked. "I mean, that was what started this whole thing, didn't it?"

She nodded. "Most cases have a simple explanation, but it may not be the same one that the authorities come across," she explained. "Perhaps due to unconscious biases, we sometimes come to a different explanation. Other times, we believe that its a complicated thing and we go on looking for things where they aren't, while the real reason lies right in front of us." 

"So, it might have been obvious all along?" he prompted.

She nodded, closing her eyes. "Yeah...obvious...." she trailed off.

Her eyes shot open as something clicked in her mind. "Obvious," she murmured. "It was obvious all along."

She scrambled to her feet as Sanghyuk looked after her. "What is?"

"This," she said. "This whole thing. It was obvious from the start!" 

"I still don't get what you're trying to say..." Sanghyuk helplessly drifted off.

"We've been hung up on a certain projection of the killer," Yoohyeon said. "That's where we went wrong. That's what's causing all this confusion."

She took a deep breath. "We've been looking for just a male killer all along." She looked triumphantly at the dumbstruck ghosts. "That's our mistake."