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The following days were filled with both wondering and wandering.

Kyungsoo realized that while he’d already met a good number of prominent figures within the community, if he wanted to be thorough he’d have to continue exploring all Greyvil could offer. Which was mostly just farmland. But, seeing as a farm would be a good place to hide a killer, Kyungsoo dedicated himself to looking around.

Of course, loitering in parts of the town he had no reason to be in only made him look more guilty in the eyes of the public. A woman had openly hidden her children behind her skirts one day, standing protectively between them and Kyungsoo as he’d passed on one of his walks.

He just wished everyone was as cautious around the real murderer.

The first homicide was on the night of his arrival, and the second happened in the house next to his, when he’d been at home. Honestly, the suspicion of the townspeople was one of the only examples of sense he’d observed since entering Greyvil.

Continuing slowly along the dirt path, Kyungsoo chose to see the mostly deserted roads around the farmlands as a good thing. No killers jumping out to attack him with a knife or a gun could only be interpreted as convenient, even if it made him feel like the walks were useless. The sun was unrelenting as it cooked his skin, and the air was dry and dehydrating. Kyungsoo hated perspiration but all he seemed to do since arriving in Greyvil was sweat. 

His surroundings consisted of low grass, a fence made from wooden stumps and wire, and a road which was just a pair of dirt strips eroded from years’ worth of wheels’ travel. The only companion Kyungsoo had was a cow on the other side of the fence that seemed to be following him. It had one ear missing, and a small bell strapped to its collar. It was his only companion until a figure came strolling past, pulling with it a wagon carrying a heavy load. Even in the distance he seemed to be struggling.

Once he was close enough to be recognizable, he smiled at Kyungsoo in a way he hadn’t been smiled at in a long time. It was a genuine, friendly smile. And for once, Kyungsoo was neither concerned nor surprised.

“Heya, Kyungsoo.” Jongin dropped the two wooden boards used as a pull handle, and the cart bowed forward in inanimate greeting behind him. “What are you doing ‘round these parts?”

“Walking, similar to yourself.”

Jongin wiped his forehead with the back of his palm, squinting in the sun. “Yeah, I’m just takin’ some borrowed equipment from the Parks back to Kim Junmyeon. Chanyeol has had some back problems, so I offered to do it for him.”

Even as he spoke, Jongin was panting. There were circles darker than regular shadows in the armpits of his shirt, and his fringe clumped on his brow. Kyungsoo hated sweating, and he didn’t understand how Jongin had managed that far without collapsing. It was an odd mix of curiosity and boredom that propelled him to say what he said next.

“I can help you take that to Kim Junmyeon.”

The accepting smile was more painful to watch than the ever-blinding sun overhead, so Kyungsoo made a point to not look at the taller man when he moved next to him, picking up one of the handles and beginning to pull. The weight of the equipment—whatever it was exactly was hidden under a layer of tarp—was far heavier than he’d imagined. Instantly regretting his moment of weak sentimentality, he continued to haul it alongside the local man. His pride wouldn’t let him quit now that he’d started.

“Junmyeon’s farm isn’t too far,” Jongin said, and Kyungsoo wished he hadn’t. He didn’t want the other man to think that conversation—or any degree of interaction, for that matter—was necessary.

Though there was a pause where Kyungsoo’s response was supposed to be, the only sound that was heard was the heaviness of their breaths and the regular squeaking of one of the wheels. The cart dipped to the side as it rolled over a ditch, but Jongin kept moving like nothing had happened. Kyungsoo’s arms were vibrating as the wonky dirt path rocked and shoved the wagon about.

“So, how’s your arm?” Jongin tried again, between ragged pants. Kyungsoo almost sighed, but instead, remained as quiet as possible. At this point, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get words out if he tried. “I—I cleaned your hanky after Dae used it, so I can give it—”

“Don’t.” The one word alone winded him more than he wanted to admit, and his hands warned of an incoming cramp. He tried to subtly change his grip whilst not stopping the cart’s movement. He could see the gate to Junmyeon’s farm up ahead. “I’m not giving yours back,” he puffed, thinking back to the blood stains that now marred the material, “so keep it.”

Jongin didn’t try to talk anymore after that. Kyungsoo was initially grateful, but soon found out why the other would be so chatty. The lack of conversation was the lack of a distraction. The path stretched longer the more he looked at it. He should have brought a water bottle with him.

When they got to the gate, Kyungsoo had hoped he could drop it and soundlessly begin his walk home. Unfortunately, Jongin was keen to drag it all the way to one of the sheds behind Junmyeon's house. It was a tin roof balanced on four walls of corrugated iron. Any wind remained negligible, and the still air was more suffocating than the silence.

It was on their walk back off Kim Junmyeon’s property that the man himself called them over. He stood up on his veranda, framed by the open doorway.

“Oi, thanks Jongin,” he called over the distance, and the said man waved in return. Jongin made his way over to the front of the house, hopping up the steps to stand under the cover of the roof. Kyungsoo lusted over the shade, but moved no closer than the stairs leading to the decking.

Junmyeon was short but stocky. The rolled sleeves of his plaid button up bloated around his arms, and his weathered frown was hidden under a beaten-up straw hat, even though he stood safely under shelter. That wasn’t a once off event, Kyungsoo came to discover much later, but he never found out why the farmer refused to take it off. Other than that, Junmyeon was a rather boring man, until it came to the lengths he would go to in order to protect the things he valued.

“No worries. Chanyeol sends his regards.” From behind him, Kyungsoo could see the way Jongin wiped at the sweat on the back of his neck. “Kyungsoo helped, too. Maybe you heard about him, he just moved in.”

The fly-wire door whacked the side of the weatherboard house as Junmyeon pushed it further open, leaning around to look down at where Kyungsoo stood. The newcomer squinted back, trying to see Junmyeon’s eyes under his hat, but the unrelenting brightness of the sun maintained the secrecy of the farmer’s expression.

“Yeah, I heard-a you. Minseok’s spoken ‘bout you once or twice.” Junmyeon leaned further into the doorway, the wood groaning under his weight. “He seems to approve-a you, but he’s a strange boy. Has fantasies of moving to the city. You better not encourage him.”

It was only at this point that Kyungsoo found much interest in Mr Kim, realizing he was the librarian’s father. There was very little, sans the family name, that the two had in common.

“Course, other folk talk ‘bout you, too. They swear up and down you're a killer.”

“He’s not,” Jongin intervened. He stepped forward, his broad back eclipsing half of Kyungsoo’s view of the farmer. “He’s innocent, I’d know.”

Though Kyungsoo couldn’t see the details of any movement, he heard the whine of the fly-wire door as it began to close again. Then, Junmyeon’s indifferent voice.

“A’ight.”

Technically speaking, both Kyungsoo and Jongin walked back through the farmland together, but the silence kept a distance beyond physical between them. The sanctity was carefully broken only when the dirt roads became wider and the property boundaries started to get closer together. Jongin cleared his throat.

“Come with me,” he said, turning left and leaving Kyungsoo at a crude intersection. He was walking perpendicular to the path leading back to town, and he hunched his head low, shoulders scrunching up in the heat. Kyungsoo followed.

He remained a few paces behind the local man, just like he had with Jongdae on the night of his arrival. This time he wasn't led to a house, but a water tower.

Under its shade, Kyungsoo watched as Jongin scaled it, uncaring of the way the metal ladder clanged and whined as it shook unsteadily. He was halfway up to the tank when he stopped, looking down at his stationary companion.

“C’mon!”

Kyungsoo hated climbing, even less so on rusted rungs. He could always appreciate a new perspective, of course, but he was skeptical about finding any such thing up there. But, in the end, there was nothing left to lose. And when he reached the top, the sun continued its merciless burning as he sat on the annular platform encircling the drum.

He looked down over the town, seeing the clusters of houses and how they huddled. The wobbly streets and paths between them frozen mid-slither like snakes in the golden grass that covered Greyvil as spikes covered a landmine.

Over his shoulder he heard the squeak of a tap, the slosh of water. A slurp, and then Jongin was sighing. “What d’you do for a living, anyway?”

“I write books.”

The tap cut off with a metallic groan. In fact, the whole structure sounded particularly precarious, as though one persistent push could have the tower falling; the dam breaking. A big wave of water would wash over Greyvil, leaving nothing more than debris and wreckage.

“What kinda books?”

Kyungsoo set his gaze further out to look over the surrounding prairie, tracing the Vega highway all the way to the horizon: the only escape in sight. He smiled. “You wouldn't believe me.”

Jongin flopped down a few feet to his left, hissing when his palm met the searing metal beneath them. A breeze rippled through the grass below, spreading a wave all the way back to town. It didn’t yet reach the pair watching from above.

“It’s nice, ain’t it. Greyvil,” he said.

Nice. A word pleasant enough, but boringly plain and tirelessly overused. As unremarkable as it was, it did fit. Kyungsoo suspected it held a different meaning for Jongin though, and that he hadn’t meant it as anything short of complimentary.

It was then that Kyungsoo saw the Jongin everyone else did: an optimistic and romantic young man that garnished each slow day out in the country town with simplistic hope. All of that, unpacked from just one word. Thinking back on it, Kyungsoo immediately disagreed with himself.

“Y’know, they’ll change their minds.” Jongin continued straight away, as if not even expecting a response to his earlier comment. “Once this is over, they’ll accept you. Once you’re one of us, you’re one of us," he said, "and nothing’s gonna bring us all together like this will.”

Kyungsoo gave only a stiff nod in response, neither able to share the other’s enthusiasm nor shake the ominousness of his words. Kyungsoo was a man who had never quite fit in anywhere, and he’d made peace with that—there were perks to being an outsider, after all—but if he did settle down and learn to fit into an area, he wasn’t sure he’d want the area to be one like Greyvil.

Nothing was holding him hostage in the town, nothing pinning him to that water tower. Still, he didn't move. Up there, the sun burned that much hotter, that much closer. But the wind was stronger too, and Kyungsoo found himself closing his eyes as the breeze finally whipped past his face and chilled the sweat gathered along his hairline.

There was a kind of mutual trust between them, Kyungsoo thought, now that they both knew the man they sat next to wasn’t a murderer.

"You know, I was mad at Jongdae when he didn't tell me about pops until the morning after, but..." Jongin spoke as if his thoughts were verbal by nature, something private and vulnerable he had no choice but to share. He leaned forward until his forehead struck the rail, barely restrained from the ensuing fall below. "I see Mr Zhang more now than I ever did when he was alive."

The wind passed, settling the pair back into a still heat, and Kyungsoo hummed. He imagined the dam breaking.

"Your pops, too."

 

⁞⁝⁞⁝⁞

 

It had always seemed an odd human trait, that people were only brave when chanced with gaining money. To many people, money meant power. But for Kyungsoo, power was truth.

Honesty was something special. Heralded. A precious commodity that could only be found by panning for it through seas of words. Find enough of it, and the bits and pieces from conversations could be melted down to form irrefutable truth.

And there was nothing more powerful than that.

"Did you hear?" There was an almost angry undertone to the whispered question, something glittery that had Kyungsoo straining to hear more amongst the marketplace. "The Sheriff's office was ransacked last night."

Kyungsoo carefully considered the canvas sack of grain in front of him. A distance away, two women leaned over a tray of apples—unattended, paired with only a rusting can for collecting payment.

"My young Byungchul was the one to find it that way this morning. They think it was the killer," the other said.

"Who else would be diggin’ through the poor man's things?" The pair finished perusing the fruit, picking up their shopping bags and dusting off the bases. "Should just put that city man behind bars now, I reckon. He's done enough."

The locals wandered further down the main street, and Kyungsoo followed only a short distance. He walked straight to the police station from there, stopping only to throw a couple coins in the apple tin on his way past.

The window Kyungsoo had previously used to get inside wa