It will be quick, she said. No one will know, she said. This isn't my fault, she said. 

Jungeun spouted all this and somehow, she was wrong and right at the same time.

Hyejoo just wanted to sleep. Call it a night. Throw in the towel. All the expressions, Hyejoo was it. But no. It was never that easy. Stuck in a ty cabin full of ty girls she stupidly called her friends, Hyejoo somehow always got strung into their mess.

She plays along just so they would shut up. Because if one more person tries to roll her out of bed, she was going to snap them like a twig. Hammer, scissors, paper. Easy, right? Right. It was easy. For her to lose. Alongside Jungeun. But then again, Jungeun lost in everything. That girl is the unluckiest person she's ever known.

The situation? The girls were all snackish and wanted to stay up playing cards. The chore? Jungeun and her lost, so they had to be the ones to sneak out and run to the closest store that was still open at this time.

Of course, she said no. She was in her comfy clothes and one sheep count away from sleep. Of course, she didn't want to face the cold and run to god knows where just to grab a couple of chips and drinks.

But Jungeun was as convincing as she was annoying. And she was very annoying.

They had made it to the store. Hyejoo doesn't want to toot her own horn, but she has the best stamina out of the entire unit, so she made it there fast and easy. Jungeun on the other hand … has much more to be desired.

Everything was going fine. They were going to make it back in no time before anyone noticed they had skipped curfew. But Jungeun knew a shortcut.

"Cuts our time in half and we will dodge most of the security!" She had divulged.

What she did not add was that this shortcut was a shortcut because it cut through a maze of alleyways, and they had to toss the bag of food over fences they were climbing. It was dark in these backstreets, so Hyejoo was not too concerned with getting caught in places she shouldn't be, doing things she shouldn't be doing.

She supposed that she had the same idea too, because getting caught with a knife deep in a man's throat was not probably in the plan.

Jungeun was already on the ground, cradling their after-midnight snacks. Hyejoo, however, was one leg over the fence, sitting there keeping her balance, as she stared straight into the obscured face of a bloodstained girl, still holding the knife, from the window of the second-floor apartment just in front of her. Her eyes widen at the scene while the man grabbed at the girl as he continued to lose blood, blood that dripped down the window it splattered on. But the girl seemed unfazed at being caught. On the contrary, she smirks at Hyejoo. Keeps that grin as she slowly draws the knife out from the man's neck.

"What's taking so long? Is your crotch stuck or something?"

Hyejoo looks away for only a second. Only a second. But when she looks back the girl is gone.

"Jungeun, we have to call this in."

And that's why she's here right now. Getting her eardrums yelled out of her. They went through the long list of rules broken, Jungeun crying her innocence all throughout.

They snuck out and stumbled upon a man being murdered? Not the best scenario to wake their senior officer to.

"You better start marching, cadets!"

Hyejoo wanted to chime in that without them no one would have known the man was killed until the morning, but she's been yelled at enough tonight, and red isn't a good colour on her senior officer's face. So, with words of distaste lingering on her tongue, she tugs at Jungeun's wrist and they begin doubling back to campus.

"This is all your fault."

"It isn't!"

"I'm going to kick all your asses when I get back."

"But it wasn't my fault!"

She makes ill threats all the way back to the academy with Jungeun whining her defence. Too caught up in their troubles, they don't notice a lone figure tailing them, smirk still intact and interest sparked.

🗡🗡

All four corners were occupied. On all fours were the four occupants of cabin 16, scrubbing with all their might. Each with a metal bucket and armed with a pitiful toothbrush, they had been punished into cleaning the north wing's shared bathroom.

"Tell me again. How did us sending you two out to get snacks result in us cleaning disgusting, mouldy tiles?" Sooyoung, the star pupil of close-range combat, scathed from across the room.

"Because we have a snitch as a friend." Hyejoo deadpanned.

A broken sob followed the accusation. Hyejoo didn't know what was sadder: the fact that she wouldn't be surprised if Jungeun was crying or that the head of the girl's toothbrush had snapped five minutes into scrubbing, so she was left pinching at the head with her fingertips, most definitely scrubbing her fingers into the muck with every . Unlucky, that one is.

"She was screaming at me!"

"So, you squealed?!"

"I cracked, I'm sorry!"

"Oh, you're sorry, are you? Let’s see how sorry you are once I'm done with my corner and beat a backbone into you!"

With that threat, Sooyoung scrubs went into sixth gear, so fast a fire was likely to start. And with it, came Jungeun's trademark whining. How this girl got into the police academy, Hyejoo would never know.

"Okay guys, we've punished Jungeun enough. I accidentally stepped on her this morning, maybe we should let her sleep on her bed again." Haseul, the peacekeeper of their cabin, steps in. She didn't enjoy carnage unless she was the one unleashing it.

"Nah, I like having stacked mattresses." Hyejoo declined.

"And I like the extra blanket," Sooyoung chimed in.

Haseul glances over at Jungeun, who had the fattest pout and saddest eyes. A little part of her felt bad, because she too had taken the girl's pillow last night, but a bigger part of her enjoyed watching her suffer for dragging the entire crew down. So, she puts on her best I tried face and shrugged, watching as Jungeun deflates more than she already had.

"So, this girl you saw, what did she look like?"

Hyejoo scrubs in circles, vision lost in the foam and memory working to paint a picture of the person she saw last night. It was strange, she thought. This was the first time she saw a real crime, like real and not some petty theft, that was not old phhotos from case files. It was the first gruesome crime she's seen but the thought of it, the memory that replays in her mind, does not seem to faze her one bit. It was like the photos. Just pictures of dead people and nothing more. She thoughht she would feel disgusted, or traumatised like Jungeun does.

Unfazed, she was, however. Just like that girl.

"I don't know."

Sooyoung tosses her toothbrush into the bucket, exasperated with her answer. "What do you mean you don't know? You looked right at her, didn't you?"

"She had her hood up, genius. I only saw half her face. Do you want me to tell you about her teeth? They were straight. Jungeun has straight teeth. Wanna book her for the murder?"

Jungeu whinges over being brought into their argument. The two of them were too hot headed to not get into a fight, and that always resulted in either Jungeun being their puppet for dominance or Haseul kicking the both of them until they yielded. Or both. It was usually both.

"Can't believe I'm stuck scrubbing tiles and picking out clumps of hair from drains because you two decided to peep in on a murder."

"For a cadet, you're awfully against us calling in a crime."

"I'm against becoming a janitor."

"Why? It suits you," Hyejoo mocks.

Sooyoung tosses her toothbrush aside, which hits Jungeun who’s across her, and gets up, ready to beat Hyejoo into mercy. Hyejoo doesn't miss a beat but does so with an eye roll. Sadly though, neither of them gets anywhere, because Sooyoung gets doused in the murky brown waters of Haseul's bucket while Hyejoo gets whacked behind the head with said bucket.

Sooyoung screeches at being drenched in god knows what, but it gets out-screamed by Haseul promising hell upon the both of them if they were to make another peep. The devil has switched on, so everyone becomes meek to placate it.

The rest of their punishment is completed in silence. It takes them a couple of hours, leaving them sluggish and aching by the time they get back to their cabin. The plus side of cleaning the bathroom though was being able to be the firsts to use it while it was clean. So, showered and knackered, they all made a beeline for their beds (except Jungeun since her bed frame was still bare bones).

Hyejoo would have liked nothing more than to lie down in bed and be dead to the world for a few hours. She would have liked nothing more than that, but the world seemed to like giving her more than she wanted. Because impaled into the headboard of her bed, with a knife, was a bird. Its blood continued to trickle down from the varnished wood, soaking into the bed's white sheets. And worse, as if anything else could be, was sitting on her pillow, nicely centred: a skilfully removed beak.

This was a warning if she knew one.