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If Kyungsoo had known at the beginning what he knew at the end, he definitely wouldn't have moved to Greyvil. There were inarguably good things—good places, experiences and people—in Greyvil, but it wasn't without its shadows. Not once Kyungsoo got there, at least.

He was a fickle man, he'd been told. He could be aloof and peculiar, and at the same time curious and nosy. It was ultimately what drove him out of his previous residence in his hometown, and it was yet again what isolated himself from the locals of his new settlement. That, and the early yet somewhat-warranted suspicion of him being a murderer.

Greyvil itself was a place no one would visit on purpose, nor remember after they drove past. Perhaps it was the dusty roads and the dull-colored shop fronts, maybe even the unimpressive nineteen-hundred's architecture or the way it was strangled in a prairie. Personally, Kyungsoo found the most unappealing aspect of the town the way nothing was neat; gardens grew as they pleased and verandas remained dirtied at all times. It was almost as if the very concept of order didn’t exist within the town’s confines.

The ungroomed visage of the town matched perfectly with the people, too. They huddled close only when gossiping, otherwise preferring to keep a wide berth from one another, an even wider one from Kyungsoo. While academics often discussed city living as claustrophobic and crowded, Kyungsoo found the town of Greyvil to be infected with the same disease. Everyone hunched with sharp gazes, and it reminded him of caged animals. Then again, perhaps they were. Caged, trapped. Stuck in a dusty town with no reference to outside living.

Yes, caged animals was exactly what they were. And it was this self-perpetuating hysteria that would eventually become their downfall.

The night of April twelfth was the night Kyungsoo arrived. He’d been lucky enough to stumble upon a truck driver back in Wattlesburg that had been heading down the Vega Highway, the major road cutting through Greyvil like a merciful guillotine. He’d gotten a lift, and so the overnight trip had lasted only a few hours in the end. Kyungsoo knew two things at this point. One: he had given the deposit for a house he’d never seen to a man named Mr Kim, and two: Mr Kim was apparently the Sheriff. Putting these two pieces of information together, Kyungsoo chucked some dollar bills to the truck driver and set out in search of the local police station in the dark.

Once he found the sturdy brick building, he noticed it hailed him with its overhead light, though any glow was eclipsed by the sheer number of moths that clung to its vibrance. He’d made his way inside with a plethora of ignored knocks. Sans the offshooting room to the side of the main assembly, the station was empty, and while obviously the Sheriff's office back there, Kyungsoo almost wished he hadn't thought to check. The warm light of a desk lamp had pooled by the doorway, spreading out into the main room like a hand reaching for him.

Inside, he greeted the Sheriff with a shudder and a jolt backwards. In turn, the Sheriff continued to lie amidst the splatterings of his own blood on the floor by his desk. His chest was pockmarked by deep crevasses with crimson discharge staining his skin and the crude edges of material around the wounds. The lava tumbled down his chest and flanks until it claimed areas of timber flooring, too. His skin, while sanguine, was ashen, and a small cloud of mosquitoes were already taking advantage of his state.

Fortunately—and the only fortunate thing to happen for a long time after that—the phone placed on the desk began to ring. Kyungsoo had answered the call from a man named Jongdae, who was apparently Sheriff Kim’s eldest son, and thus the whirlwind of paranoia and murder accusations begun.

Jongdae seemed a good man, all in all. Kyungsoo could only presume from his apologetic and fumbling manner that he'd spent his life both sheltered by and fearful of the former Sheriff. Despite his wavering personality, Jongdae was the second in charge of the police force in Greyvil, and was forced to take on the brunt of his father’s responsibilities in the wake of his death. At first, after hearing the news and witnessing it for himself, he had been incapacitated by despair. He had then, surprisingly, picked himself back up in time to call all the necessary members of the town, ask Kyungsoo a few questions about who he was and how he’d found the body, and then take Kyungsoo to his new home himself. He had blubbered all the walk there, but Kyungsoo made sure to follow a few paces behind to at least give the illusion of privacy. That, and he was often told he was terrible at comforting others.

Settling in had been virtually impossible then, when instead of receiving casserole and dinner invitations, Kyungsoo was welcomed with weary stares and well-meant warnings to leave. One such person who had given the neighborly advice was a weedy man named Oh Sehun. He was the type of person who could be stranded on an island and still curse the feeling of being watched, and every time he opened his mouth Kyungsoo had the urge to assure him that nobody cared. But before he actioned it, he always remembered that maybe he himself did care. In a removed, non-personal sort of way.

Thankfully, Sehun lived on the outskirts of the town, farming only corn and bitterness, and Kyungsoo had almost no reason to see him. Beyond the first time, when Sehun had marched up to the shorter man with a pitchfork and a mouth full of anything but inclusive language, which had taken place during a populated Sunday market and only aided in stirring rumors.

It was at that moment, or possibly the next—when he felt the stares of the surrounding populous crawling up his back and tightening around his neck—that Kyungsoo decided Greyvil was a sinkhole. It was a dark abyss covered in dried grass and dead leaves that collapsed as soon as one tried to gain a solid footing. Kyungsoo wasn’t about to let it swallow him whole, and he certainly wasn’t afraid of murder rumors or unfriendly neighbors.

The idea there was someone within the sea of dull faces that hid their own guilt amongst the suspicion flung in Kyungsoo’s direction had a familiar tingle buzzing across his fingertips. Maybe coming to Greyvil wasn’t as useless as he’d expected, if he managed to find out who was using him as a scapegoat.

 

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It was, undoubtedly, far easier said than done. And the difficulty was only doubled when taking into account the unwillingness of the public to talk with Kyungsoo any more than necessary; but he chose to view it as an advantage. It was true that people were unlikely to share their stories with the man they assumed to be a suspect for murder and that all eyes trailed him as he walked about the main street, yes, but at least nobody asked to take up any of his time.

Had the Mr Zhang he lived next door to asked him to dinner, then there would have been no way that Kyungsoo would have had the time to sneak back into the police station to look over the crime scene a few days later.

The building glowed from the inside out, but after looking through the front windows Kyungsoo came to the conclusion no one was inside. The front door, after some slight jostling, was discovered to be locked, and so Kyungsoo followed the building around until the Sheriff’s open office window. The room itself wasn’t lit, though some particularly brave threads of light filtered in from the main room. It was still too dark to see much, and so Kyungsoo pulled the sleeves of his shirt over his hands as he hoisted himself up and through the slim opening. Once his lithe body had squeezed past the window and thudded to the floor with all the grace of an inexperienced burglar, he arose only to realize it had been left cracked open to try diffuse the smell permeating within.

The body was gone, though that was no matter, as Kyungsoo could remember that part in clear detail. And he had, the past several nights, seeing the bloodied body every time he closed his eyes. 

The rest of the room appeared to be virtually as it had been when Kyungsoo had first entered days prior, and he took his time looking over the deceased man’s few possessions. There was a black and white photograph, no frame, of the late Sheriff with a woman by his side and two young boys in front, next to a half-empty bottle of whiskey. The small bookshelf to the side of the office was stuffed full of cream folders and crinkled white documents, with a slew of old sports certificates and medals perched carefully on the second-to-top shelf: right at eye level.

Kyungsoo stood still by the wooden shelves as the floorboards creaked, and he wasn't surprised when he heard a voice.

“They say that the killer always returns to the scene of the crime.”

Kyungsoo made sure to slowly, pointedly, turn around to look at the figure in the doorway. He was tall and tanned, and his suspicious eyes and scowl only embellished the look: he was the closest thing to the physical embodiment of Greyvil he'd ever seen.

“Are you confessing, then?” Kyungsoo asked, though he was entirely disinterested. Behind the man were only empty chairs and desks, and so Kyungsoo could only presume the rest of the station was alight but deserted.

Looking back up to the half-silhouetted figure, Kyungsoo noted that the man’s cheekbones and jaw were an echo of Jongdae’s, and though the thought that he was the actual killer had crossed his mind, Kyungsoo quickly disregarded it as he assumed the other to be the younger son of the late Sheriff. Of course, he then reminded himself that the man could most definitely be both.

“People are talking about you, y'know.” The younger Kim leaned against the doorframe with languish, but his stiff shoulders and planted feet gave him away.

“Then you know precisely why I am here. I don't appreciate slander.”

“So you’re gonna what? Clear your name by finding my pop’s real killer?” His first assumption had been correct, then.

“I came to see if anything would jump out at me. Thus far, you're the only thing to have done so.” Kyungsoo continued to look around the room, careful not to leave any fingerprints behind, knowing the entire town would fall over itself trying to use it against him.

“You need to leave. Before I have Jongdae arrest you for breakin’ and entering.” The scowl deepened and he made a show of crossing his arms in front of his body. Oddly enough, the sight was less intimidating than it was irritating, and Kyungsoo sighed through his nose.

“The window was open, and this is a public space. There has been no breaking in or damage of property.” Kyungsoo spoke with an indifference only achievable by familiarity, and though not willing to admit he was in the wrong in any way, it was true he had found no interesting evidence in the office and thus allowed himself to be escorted off the premises thereafter.

Looking back on things, Kyungsoo didn’t know how to describe Kim Jongin. Well, he knew a lot of things to say about him, but none that seemed to fit both versions of him. The before, and the after. Overall, he was contradictory, but so was everyone else. He was… threatened, he supposed. One of many caged animals that felt cornered, stuck in that moment of decision between fight or flight.

And it was that decision, balanced on the probability of a flipped coin, that would make the difference between life and death.

 

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Kyungsoo ended up spending the next few days familiarizing himself with the library. It was a rather surly building, the ostentatious yet withdrawn facade peeling back its skin of cream and blue to bare its brick skeleton to the sun. Wooden boards across arched windows blinded the dormant beast. Timber accents rotted and the large sign at its center had long since been painted over, stripping it completely of its identity.

Even the term library was ill-fitting in no unflattering way. It had a surprisingly small collection considering the building’s large foyer, and was only ever inhabited by the self-proclaimed librarian, Minseok. Seeing as it was but a few houses from Kyungsoo’s new and empty weatherboard monstrosity, it became a preferred location for him to spend his time. The company though, Kyungsoo never fully decided on.

Minseok was young, that much was clear. From the ghost of baby fat still marring his cheeks, to the immature yet judgemental way he articulated himself, he was a child all over. At first, he had been quite skittish—though Kyungsoo wasn't sure if it had been because of the homicidal accusations surrounding the newcomer, or simply because no one else ever visited the library—but he'd warmed up to Kyungsoo rather quickly.

“This place used to be a silent film theater, back in the twenties. No one visited it then, something about small-town people having an aversion to anything with a modicum of sophistication. So, I volunteered to turn it into a library. People don’t read much either, but it’s used more than the theater ever was,” Minseok had once told Kyungsoo, while the older wrote out his recount of the dead body plaguing his mind before the memories warped into something quite far from reality. He hadn't known what to say, and so the conversation had ended at that. Kyungsoo continued to ponder over the killer’s abundance of either anger or fear, based on the number of messy stab wounds there had been, and Minseok continued to read a journal about the evolution of city living.

Once he finished depicting the vision of a dead man through words on paper, Kyungsoo inquired after the local pub he'd overheard two burly men agree to meet at that night. It seemed to be the place where most of the town’s population went to wind down after a long day, hence why Kyungsoo had to attend at least once.

“It’s on the other side of Main Street, past the marketplace,” Minseok responded, his nose scrunched in obvious disapproval. “I don't know why you'd want to go there, it's full of thoughtless people blurting thoughtless things.”

Even with the warning, Kyungsoo found his way over in the late-afternoon. There weren't many people about. Not that it was surprising, given the time. The empty tables looked sticky, with dozens of nicks taken out of the wood over the years, and the one billiard table near the front door had no nine ball but two eights. He'd continued walking past them to the long timber countertop banister'd by non-upholstered stools. There he’d introduced himself to the barman and co-owner of the joint, Park Chanyeol.

He was big and tanned with calloused hands like he’d grown up punching trees. There was something sharp thinly-veiled behind his dark eyes and the tension in his shoulders rippled every time he filled a glass. His words, while blunt and monotonous, were open. He seemed more willing to talk with Kyungsoo than anyone else he’d come across.

Chanyeol had asked Kyungsoo about why he’d moved, but once the newcomer had made it clear he wasn’t going to give anymore of a response than “for a new chapter”, the barman had gone on to mention how his wife was originally from out of town. Apparently now she was seen as just like everyone else, though Kyungsoo never once actually saw her. He had to admit though, the only part of Chanyeol that wasn’t a dull beige or brown was the shining gold ring on his finger.

In such a gossip-filled town, it was probably only natural that the recent murder came up in the few strings of sentences Kyungsoo barely considered a conversation. That was when Chanyeol grew quite wary. But no matter how tense he seemed on the outside, he always responded to Kyungsoo's queries.

“Yeah, the Sheriff came in ‘ere a few times a week,” he said. “Sometimes he'd have a night sh