Of all the ways to be woken up, especially considering the fact that she had slept beside her  boyfriend, a ringing phone was not her preference of ways to be awoken. 

“Babe! Can you answer my phone?” she heard Baekhyun ask from the bathroom. She grunted incoherently as she reached over to where he’d left his phone on the bed. Squinting at the bright screen, Haeun scowled at the sight of the caller ID.

“Okay, Chanyeol, I know you have a thing for my boyfriend and all, but can you please let us sleep in for once?” Haeun responded bitterly as soon as she had answered the phone call. “It’s way too early.”

Chanyeol scoffed, and he didn’t seem surprised at Haeun picking up for Baekhyun. “You do realize that it’s nearly 10?”

“That’s still too early.”

“Weren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“I’m off until tomorrow, jackass.”

She could practically hear Chanyeol rolling his eyes at her. “Just give the phone to Baek.”

“Fine,” she responded petulantly. She pulled the phone away from her face and hollered for her boyfriend. “Baekhyun! It’s your boyfriend on the phone!” 

Haeun heard his footsteps as he padded into the bedroom and watched as he stuck his head into the room. His hair was still a bird’s nest from sleeping, and he narrowed his gaze at her.

“You know, if you keep calling us boyfriends, that means you, me, Chanyeol, and Wendy are in a polygamous relationship?”

Haeun scrunched her nose in disgust, immediately holding the phone out for him to take. “Ew, stop that. Who wants to date Chanyeol?” Baekhyun raised an eyebrow at that, and she suddenly remembered that Wendy did indeed exist. “Okay, fine. Wendy does, but I don’t want to date Chanyeol. I certainly do not want to be dating Chanyeol through you, either. Now answer the phone,” she responded, shaking the phone impatiently.

“You’re weird,” he answered, holding the phone up to his ear as he walked out of the room, probably to the kitchen.

“You love it!” Haeun yelled back with a grin on her face. She flopped back onto the bed, fully intending to get some more sleep. The nightmare had left her more tired than when she had first gone to sleep, and she wanted to take advantage of being at home without any immediate responsibilities to just sleep in.

She had just about settled back into bed and was in the in-between state of consciousness and unconsciousness when, this time, her phone rang.

She groaned loudly before reaching over to pick up her own phone without looking at the caller ID and answered with an angry, “Hello?”

“Wow, good morning, Princess.”

“What do you want, Jeonghan?”

“Someone’s grumpy. Does Baekhyun snore?”

Haeun snorted. “No, Chanyeol’s just obsessed with him.” Jeonghan let out a bright laugh, and Haeun’s own lips tilted up in a reluctant smile. 

“I sure hope that you’re this obsessed with me when I’m in a relationship,” he responded.

“Yeah, and what about you? You certainly do not call me enough nowadays,” Haeun retorted.

“Eh, I’m too busy trying to find someone to date.”

Haeun blew out a breath. “Last night didn’t go too well, huh?”

“The man tried to get me into a strip club on the first date.” Haeun blinked for a few seconds, trying to process the information.

“He took you to a strip club?” she asked incredulously. 

Jeonghan groaned, “Yeah! It wasn’t even a gay strip club.”

Haeun raised an eyebrow even though Jeonghan couldn’t see her expressions. “You swing both ways, though.”

“Yeah, but if I’m on a date with a man, that doesn’t mean I want females stripping two feet in front of me. It’s the principle of the entire thing, you know?”

She didn’t know, but Haeun contemplated that for a moment before responding, “Fair point.”

“Pretty sure he was just there for a , or something,” he continued with a grimace in his voice. “Like, that’s not something that’s even a possibility until date number ten.” 

Hauen scrunched her nose up in response.  

“Didn’t realize that was ever a possibility for you, but yikes.”

Jeonghan snorted, and Haeun understood immediately that Jeonghan had only mentioned that because he wanted to mess with her. 

.

“Anyways, how was your night? Chanyeol sent me the stuff about the recording this morning”

“Ah yes, that stuff. Totally did not trigger my nightmares,” she responded with a slight wince as she flopped onto her back and threw an arm over her eyes. 

“Hauen,” Jeonghan responded, the warning clear in his tone. He’d told her to go to a therapist when she’d been attacked the night of her birthday, but she’d refused. Talking it out with him and Eunji had helped her, and she had gotten better.

Until Junmyeon happened.

“I was fine!”

“‘Was’ being the key word in that sentence.”

“What were you saying about the recording?” Haeun asked in a blatant attempt to change the subject from her mental health. 

Jeonghan’s voice hardened as he responded, clearly not happy about Haeun’s attitude. “They traced the source back to the precinct, and seriously, we have to talk about this.”

“We will talk about this as soon as this blows over. Junmyeon attacked me and Baekhyun, and we aren’t exactly safe anywhere, to be honest.”

“Yeah, and by the time Junmyeon is caught, you’ll have who knows how many nightmares.”

“Well, all the reason to get this over with as soon as possible, no?”

“Na Haeun.”

“It’s something I’m going to have to deal with until he’s arrested, Jeonghan, and you know that,” Haeun responded with a firm tone. She knew she was being stubborn, but she did have a point, which she knew Jeonghan acknowledged to a certain extent with the heavy sigh that he let out.

“Fine,” he gritted out, clearly unhappy about letting the topic go for now, but they did have other things to deal with. Haeun would argue that those things were more important, but she also knew that Jeonghan would bite her head off if she said that outloud. Haeun tugged on a stray string on the blanket as a way to keep herself from going off and thinking about things she really didn’t have to.  

“What happened with the source being traced back to the precinct?” she asked, bringing the conversation back to the case.

“The hacker guy managed to trace the source of the recording to bugs that had location addresses of the precinct. Last I heard, Chanyeol said he was going to try to sweep their desks for any bugs, and Wendy would sweep the desk Jaehyun used to sit at.”

“Chanyeol just called Baekhyun, so he probably found something. Although, the only place Baekhyun and Jaehyun had even spoken to each other was at the precinct or over the phone, so the only place that could be bugged are their desks. Do you think we can trace the IP that the bugs were connected to?”

“Maybe, unless they were disconnected. But at least now we can prove that the recording was entirely fabricated from different sources of sound. I’ve added it to the case against Junmyeon, but that’s all under the impression that he murdered Jaehyun. I can’t do anything about the case unless we have a suspect, and it’s just the assumption that it’s Junmyeon.”

Haeun bit her lip for a bit before speaking up, “What about Jieun? Did you hear anything about the interrogation?”

She heard the rustle of papers before Jeonghan responded. “I haven’t heard anything yet. I only talked to Chanyeol for a bit yesterday when he sent me the recording stuff.”

Haeun hummed in response as Baekhyun walked into the room, two cups of coffee in his hands and a wary expression on his face. Haeun sat up in bed and brushed some of her hair out of her face. 

“I gotta go, Jeonghan. Baekhyun just walked into the room with a look on his face that tells me that we have a problem.” Jeonghan barked out a loud laugh. 

“How do you even know that?” Baekhyun asked with an incred