Elections came and went, Sunmi won, as expected, and would need to keep her team for a while post-campaign. But Jihyo got handed a case that brought her right home, but it was part of her coverup and she won’t be removed from it. A kidnapping was what triggered everything, there was signs of struggle and some blood on the scene, despite not treating it as a homicide yet, Jihyo was called in. She got her usual juniors and headed to the scene to see what she could pick up.

As part of their training, Jihyo let Yugyeom guide the juniors through the first walk, she would walk the scene again after and point out what they missed. It was turning out to be quite alright, this guiding the newer generation thing, and she’s been having some extra time to herself and her stress levels were hitting new lows. All in all, it’s been great, and she might even be able to begin that detective training program she’d been considering for a while now. Being commissioner and all should give her a bit more power to make these things happen, maybe she could count on the group that’s been working behind the scenes. 

“Well, kids, do your thing, let’s see how you progressed.” Jihyo instructed her team once they got to the scene. “Don’t forget how to properly walk through the scene and make sure you all take the same steps.”

“Yes, sunbae.” Yugyeom agrees and motions for the other juniors to follow him.

Jihyo stands back and waits. She had taught them how to walk properly, how to synchronize their steps and make them land on the same places so no unnecessary damage would be made. They did practice quite a lot at the gym area, and Jihyo watched them like a hawk until the team got the hang of it, but this is a real scene and not a drill, so she was slightly nervous. Another detective approached her while she was waiting.

“The great detective Park is sitting back on a crime scene?” 

“Hey there, Gwon.” Jihyo greeted, she remembered him from her academy days, he was an assistant like Nayeon back then. “I’m just letting them learn a bit.”

“If you said you were interested in teaching, I know a lot of people who would love to get you to teach the detective formation course.”

“Oh, I’m very selective with my students, but I’ve been considering new adventures.” Jihyo chuckled, Gwon Sonyoon was always a funny guy. “For now, I’m trying it out with this bunch. Let’s see how it goes from there. How about you, haven’t seen you since academy.”

“I’m doing well, have been in the abductions department for quite a few years now.” The man laughs. “My wife isn’t too happy, always telling me to transfer. Maybe it’s because I’ve been shot twice already.”

“That would do it.” Both find the nonchalance funny. “Can’t say I’m doing much better, seeing death on a daily basis doesn’t really get easier, but at least I’m not really at risk of being attacked that much.”

“Why are you here, then? I mean, it’s not a murder yet.”

“We have this possible serial on our hands and everyone is hoping this is from the same person.” Jihyo explains quietly, this wasn’t for all ears yet. “To be quite honest, the M.O. is similar enough, and if my gut feeling is correct, we have to be quick.”

“If that’s the case, then I might as well tell you all we got.” Gwon says just as quietly, he understood that this was for his ears only. “This isn’t the first scene like this we’ve got, I’ll have to get more evidence, but there might be about five others.”

“How about I walk this scene, then we can gather both our teams and talk this through. I might want to see the other scenes, if they are still isolated, but pictures will do if you’ve already released them.”

“We still have three, but the first two are already gone, I’m afraid.”

“Should be good enough. Now, let me walk the scene again.” Jihyo sees her juniors coming out. “You may join if you’d like.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Gwon agreed easily, he always found it fascinating how detective Park unraveled everything in a crime scene.

Jihyo goes to her juniors and introduces the other detective, explaining they would be joining teams and sharing information to try and close this case as quickly as possible. She chooses one of her juniors to mark the things she might point out, the others follow behind to observe, and detective Gwon gets his own partner to follow behind them as well. It was always very enlightening to watch Park Jihyo in her element, and he always learned a thing or two with her.

Indeed, it was a very educational experience, Jihyo would point out things and explain how she knew it was a clue, like how the chair had been forcefully dragged and it was clear because of the faint marks on the floor. Or how whoever was there, took the time to eat what the victim had prepared for themselves, the food had obviously been consumed, but the crumbs on the floor weren’t scattered as they would have been if the victim was the one who ate and was dragged from the table as the chair indicated. Little things like those that would usually be dismissed, but should be clear to the trained eye. Although Jihyo always did think differently.

Once done with the crime scene, Jihyo and her kids would head to the morgue and look at the body, but there was no body for now, so they headed back to their precinct. Jihyo had phoned in and gave the chiefs a heads up that they would be having some unofficial company, Mina caught on rather fast, and stopped Nayeon from saying more over the phone. This was probably something that shouldn’t be out in public like this, so the chief just said ‘room h’ and hung up, that actually meant the meeting room in the basement. The guest team arrived first and got inside quickly as instructed, Nayeon had been waiting for them and guided them all to the hidden meeting room where Mina had been waiting.

“Welcome to my neck of the woods, Sonyoon.” Mina greets with a smile. “It’s been a while.”

“Myoui! You’re looking good.” He greets the woman with a hug. "These are my kids, Sung, Ahn and Kim.” Gwon points each one out.

“Nice to meet you all.” Mina gives them a little bow. “I’m chief Myoui, this is chief Im. I’m sure you met detective Park and detective Choi with their juniors at the scene.”

“Where are they, by the way?” Nayeon questions.

“Jihyo is probably trying to shake whomever was tailing her.” Gwon offered goodnaturedly.

“And she probably also sent the juniors to get food for everyone while she’s at it.” Mina adds.

At that, the juniors open the door bringing quite a few items. The visiting juniors rush to help out and they settle into a pleasant conversation until Jihyo and Yugyeom arrive. It’s much later when the two detectives make their way in, looking absolutely pissed off and not in the mood. The chiefs, the house juniors and detective Gwon couldn’t help but laugh, it was always idiotic and utterly annoying whenever detectives were being tailed. First, the further they would be followed to was their precinct, then there was also the fact that they were detectives, how would they not notice they were being tailed. Lastly, what was the point of that! The scenes and morgue weren’t really any secret, and the access was restricted.

“I see you both had some trouble with your tail.” Gwon laughs boisterously.

“Oh, shut up.” Jihyo grumbles, which causes more laughter, and grabs a muffin.

“Any idea about who it was?” Mina decided to ask.

“I’ll draw a portrait.” Yugyeom grabs a notepad and plops down.

“Are you good at those, Choi-sunbae?” One of the visiting juniors asked.

“Oh, he would be one of the great names in the Korean art world had he not settled for being a detective.” Jihyo smiles. 

She had this conversation a lot of times with Yugyeom, and he really never wished to pursue that path. She did think he should do it as a hobby, at least, but he loved tinkering with cars and had taken to rebuilding classics he bought on auctions for dirt cheap and reselling them for quite a lot. Turns out, the car collecting world was bigger than any had predicted, and Yugyeom made a name for himself as the go-to guy for custom classics at fair prices, he could be Jihyo’s neighbor if he wanted to, but decided to save all for retirement because, and his wife agreed, they wanted to live abroad once they stopped working.

Now, both teams shared everything they had and it did look like they were dealing with the same perpetrator, maybe most details would be overlooked by most, but detective Park picked up on all. Jihyo saw too many similarities in all scenes and pointed it all to the others, both chiefs stayed for as long as they could, but were called to solve other issues before everything could be discussed. After everything was said and done, both team leaders came up with a schedule for their teams to meet up and discuss what their own investigations had revealed and share information. It was good enough, and not like they could really make anything official if Jihyo’s suspicions were anywhere close to the truth.

It also happened to be date night with Sunmi, so Jihyo had to leave as soon as the other team was off. Yugyeom said he would take care to wrap things up with their juniors before heading home themselves. Speaking of the politician, she has been a bit off lately, the detective knew it was something to do with their marriage and the whole outside company thing. Jihyo honestly didn’t see the reason for this whole issue her wife seemed to be having, but she would talk things through with Sunmi very soon and maybe they can settle after that. 

The next day would be a sunday, the one day Jihyo insisted her juniors had their personal time, no matter what. So she decided that tonight would be the night. She headed home, scrubbed herself thoroughly, washed her hair and made sure her nails were clean. It’s not that she intended for them to be intimate, but she wanted to go somewhere fancy and the people in those places would critique a single hair out of place. The detective also chose from the fancy part of her closet, where the best clothes were, and she also made sure to generously spray her custom made perfume, the one Chinsun insisted she needed and ended up really needing. 

Sunmi had gotten a message to dress up because they were heading somewhere nice, and to be ready by eight. Jihyo sent her a message exactly three minutes before the scheduled time, and her wife laughed because she knew the smaller woman might have been waiting in the car downstairs for a while already. It was a Jihyo thing, she had noticed, to arrive a bit before she said she would and wait around until the right time. The politician got down to the garage, and melted, Jihyo was just looking so cute all dressed up and waiting to open the car door for her. How was Sunmi supposed to resist pinching those adorable cheeks! Exactly, she didn’t.

“Can you let me go so we don’t miss our reservation?” Jihyo asks when her cheeks start to hurt a bit.

“You are the cutest!” Sunmi complies with a kiss to her wife’s cheek.

“I know, now get in and we’ll get going.”

Sunmi only laughs.

“You doing alright lately?” The detective asks once they are on their way.

“Yes and no.” The older sighs. “I can’t really complain much in general, but I don’t feel like keeping up my relationship with Chungha anymore, not that we’ve been dating much lately.”

“Understandable. Then again, you are just out of your campaign, and it’s not like you both did much with the time you had before.”

“Yeah, and she’s great and all-”

“But?”

“But I’m not feeling it anymore. And there’s also my inner dilemma about wanting to be a proper wife to you.”

“We talked about this.” Jihyo stops in front of the restaurant. “Hold up.”

The officer goes around the car to open the door for her wife, handing the key to the valet while she does that. Sunmi gets out and gives the younger woman another kiss on the cheek as a thank you. They entered and their private room was ready for them, Jihyo did make a reservation and they were right on time, so nothing surprising there. Once the food arrived, Sunmi asked if they could continue their conversation at home, to which Jihyo agreed easily, she knew this public environment wasn’t that safe especially to discuss their relationship like this. Back in the car, the senator said to go to the detective’s house, she had a suspicion her own home wasn’t safe anymore and didn’t want to risk their very private conversation leaking.

“Alright, you can go change first, I’ll fix Ppuyo’s bowl and head up.” Jihyo said as they entered her home.

“Will do.” Sunmi agreed promptly and made her way to the bedroom.

Jihyo makes quick work of her boy, making sure to stop and pet him for a bit before heading to her room, finding Sunmi already changed and sitting on the bed waiting for her. The detective did notice her wife had left the purse by the entrance door and couldn’t see her phone anywhere, so she figured Sunmi was more suspicious than she thought. Maybe this conversation was very needed after all.

“Alright, do you want to sit on the bed or lay down for this?” Jihyo asked once she was done with her night routine.

“How about we sit for now.”

“Okay.” The younger agrees and makes herself comfortable. “Do you want to tell me about this fear for your security first, or do we get to that later?”

“We’ll get there, but I want to talk about my relationship with Chungha first, it leads to why I’m sure my entire life is being closely watched right now.”

“Well, I do know you both started this passionate relationship when you began your campaign. And you were in the exciting phase, everything was new and thrilling. When did things turn into looking over your shoulder and keeping even your phone the further away possible?” Jihyo, as always, sounds very understanding.

“That’s the thing, she didn’t change that much, I just started seeing things that I didn’t in the beginning.” Sunmi runs a hand through her hair, frustrated. “You saw how we were at first, but when you weren’t there, it wasn’t that exciting. Something like she was doing some alpha female ‘I got your wife’ routine? I can't explain it, but we weren’t that attached when it was just us.”

“Well, it’s always like that, innit?!” The younger chuckled goodnaturedly. “I get there first, then someone else wins them over and I’m left to watch them assert their dominance and show me that I lost and there’s nothing I can do to change that.”

“I’m glad you are having fun.” The politician scolds harmlessly. “But I’m not done. After you did your little vanishing act, the whole daze was gone and I started seeing that it wasn’t really a relationship, it was just regular booty calls and nothing more. She was at my apartment all the time with the team and all, but we didn’t do anything coupley.”

“That’s surprising, really. I thought you two would be all up on each other and make sure the romance was happening at all times.”

“Oh, you have been romancing me more than anyone ever did. Even if we aren’t a proper couple yet, you have this way of treating me so right that nobody else ever did.”

“Thank you, I do try my best. But we talked about this proper couple thing.”

“We did, and we should talk about that again, but I want to tie up all loose ends before that. And this means I need help with Chungha.”

“Alright, tell me about it.” Jihyo grabs her wife’s hand in support.

“Right, so I happened to wake up in the middle of the night a couple of times and hear her talking to someone over the phone in various languages, most times chinese. I’ve also found her in various places around the apartment that she had no business being at. Then I came home early one afternoon and she didn’t hear me enter, and I saw her planting a device on my bookcase. Obviously, I ran back to the door and made noise this time, pretending I had just got in and took my time with my shoes and coat.”

“I’m guessing she hurried out of the room and pretended to be doing nothing suspicious after that.”

“And I pretended that nothing was wrong at all. Since then, I’ve been trying to break things off. I also stopped saying anything important in the apartment, not that I ever did while I was campaigning, but now I really don’t. I just talk business, which she is technically still hired to do, and give shallow answers to whatever isn’t business related.”

“Smart move.” Jihyo acknowledges. “I’ll see what I can do without raising suspicion. For now, it’s just assumptions and I have a feeling we won’t be able to do much with the bugs she placed. You know my code, so come over whenever you need a time out, I don’t mind.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to just invade your space like this.” 

“It’s no problem, we are married after all. But I’d say, leave your purse in the car. Can’t guarantee I’ll really find anything other than trying to blackmail a politician, but I’ll look into it.”

“All I can ask for, really.” Sunmi chuckles. “Now, about us.”

“Yeah, I was hoping you’d forget about that.”

“Not a chance. I want to be in this marriage, for real. I want to be your wife.”

“You know I can’t demand that you keep yourself from being with whoever your heart truly desires.”

“Love isn’t a cure all, Jyo.” The older gets serious. “It isn’t even a universal concept. It’s just some Hollywood impression that has been planted on people. Some cultures don’t have this definition of passion, in others people just decide to get married and be with each other because they work well together.”

“That's- Actually true.” Jihyo can’t deny the affirmations. “But I’m not the type of person to stop you from going after someone you really want even when it’s not me.”

“But I want it to be you. I want to make you happy the same way you make me very happy too. Despite not really being with each other yet, I want to really be married to you. Not this façade thing we have now. You are the loveliest, Jyo, and I want to give you the world like you deserve.”

“We could do that.” The younger knew it was going to be hard to argue against. “Look, I don’t want you to feel forced into anything. But if you say you want to be a real couple, we can work on that. We can start with dating each other properly, how about that?”

“I’d like that. But first, I have to get rid of the spy in my apartment. Then I’ll have to move somewhere more private, I’m thinking one of those high rises in Bucheon. It’s a better neighborhood than where I live now, and the security up there is tighter too.”

“It’s a good idea, but don’t let on to any of that. I have a feeling that Chungha knows more than we think she does.”

“I think she’s been recording since the campaign started, to be honest. There’s no telling how much she has, but I noticed it not long after we began, so I’ve been incredibly careful at all times.”

“Must be hard not being able to relax in your own home.”

“Yeah, but I’ve been spending a lot of time at my parents’. And Chungha would never be welcome there, especially after I casually mentioned I was ‘dating’ her.”

“Well, at least you had your safe haven.”

“I wanted to come here, but that would raise questions and she would demand to come along, seeing that you knew her and all.”

“Well, she could try, but this is a very closed community and she isn’t cleared to enter without consulting me, and I’d certainly not be that welcoming to my wife’s fling.”

“Right….” 

“You know I’m messing with you, right?”

“Yeah, and I’m wondering how long you’ll hold onto that.”

“Oh, you are never living this down, sweetie.” Jihyo laughs and moves to turn the lights off so they could sleep.