“Breaking news! Several hours ago at 8:27 pm, an unidentified man was found dead in an alleyway along Dongmak road. Eyewitnesses claimed they heard a singing voice from the area before the victim’s scream, which connects it to seven recent and similar cases across Seoul. This time though, it appears the perpetrator was caught on camera before fleeing the scene. While police work to investigate the identity and whereabouts of this serial killer, the public is urged to stay safe at night and give any information they can that can lead to the arrest of said killer.” The broadcast concluded with a low resolution picture of a short-haired girl wearing a mask and a hoodie.

“At least they got your good side.” Yena says after turning down the tv’s volume.

“Yah, that’s the first thing you notice from that whole segment?” Yuri replies with an exasperated sigh.

“I’m just kidding, Yul! I’m just trying to lighten the mood. You know I was worried when you didn’t come back home in time, right?”

“Yes, I know. I feel terrible though; whoever that was died on my watch because I was caught off guard, and now I find out this isn’t the first related case.” As members of IZ*ONE, protecting the innocent was just something the girls were hard-wired to do, so to fail in that duty hit Yuri harder than anything.

“It’s okay, Yuri. I know you tried your best. Now that we know there’s a mutant out there murdering people, it’s our duty to go out and catch her before anyone else gets hurt. That’s how we can make it up to the first victims.” Yena says quietly while giving her girlfriend a reassuring hug.

“Thanks, unnie….I really wonder who that mutant really was. Her ability was definitely voice-related, but I don’t know the specifics yet.” Yuri thinks. Of course, she knew that rogue mutants existed from stories she’s heard from Yena, Gaeun, and her trainers, but this was the first time she’d encountered one in person.

“I’ll do some research on it tonight. You should head to bed because you have a schedule tomorrow morning.” Yena advises. Yuri is shaken out of her thoughts by the reminder as she’d completely forgotten about her music show recording. The past couple hours have really been a blur for her, but she didn’t want to drop the topic just yet.

“Are you sure, unnie? I can still help out. I’m the one who couldn’t save that guy.”

“Don’t worry about it for now and just rest. I got this.” Yuri wanted to argue more, but the exhaustion was finally catching up to her, causing her to yawn. Yena took this as her queue to lead the hamster to her bed and tuck her in.

“Alright, let’s see what we have here…” The duck says as she heads over to her PC and starts searching about the case.

~~~~

The next day…

“Jo Yuri-ssi, please keep your focus.” The stage producer says when he notices the pop star a bit lethargic during the rehearsal run.

“Sorry, producer-nim! Just haven’t gotten my stretching done.” Yuri replies, trying to make up an excuse. In truth, she didn’t have a good sleep with the memories of the night before replaying in her dreams. She wanted to ask Yena if she’d found anything, but when she woke up, her girlfriend was still sound asleep, no doubt because of an all-nighter.

“Well, recording is in 20 minutes, so I’m going to need your head back in the game.” The producer says as he begins doing his final checks on the cameras. The young girl nods and tries to focus back on her performance, but she was interrupted by her manager calling from beside the stage.

“Yuri-ssi! Can you come down for a second? It’s urgent.” Yuri had a feeling she knew what this was about, so she tells the backup dancers to take five and heads off stage.

“Is this about last night?” The short-haired girl asks when the two get to her dressing room.

“How’d you know? Don’t tell me you were really at the scene of the crime.”

“Well, I was, but I wasn’t the one who killed the guy. I was trying to protect him from someone.” Yuri whispers.

“Uhm, that’s not exactly what the public thinks…” Her manager says before taking out her phone and showing it. It was a post of her blurry picture from yesterday, and the comments seemed to be less than friendly.

“That has to be Jo Yuri!” One commenter wrote.

“Yes, I agree! The murder happened near her apartment complex, people reported a singing voice, and Yuri is a mutant whose powers we don’t know. It only makes sense!” Another person said. The rest of the comments were some variation of that one, and the numbers only seemed to grow.

“Ugh, people sure do bandwagon fast…” Yuri says while rubbing her temples.

“We tried deleting the speculative posts, but because of the nature of the case, we can’t do that unless we confirm that you weren’t actually there.” The manager says sadly.

“It’s fine. Because the picture is too low-quality, I don’t think they can arrest me for that. I also don’t think the company making a comment will do any good because people already believe what they want to believe. The only way to clear my name and stop people from getting hurt is finding the real culprit as soon as possible.” Yuri replies.

“Alright, Yuri-ssi. I hope you know what you’re doing. I’ll clear your schedule for the rest of the week, but that fansigning event can’t be moved.”

“Yes, that’s no problem. I’ll meet up with Yena-unnie after the recording to figure this out.” Yuri says with a bow before heading back out towards the stage.

~~~~

Thankfully Yuri managed to finish her performance without any major mistakes, but she was mobbed by paparazzi the second she exited the broadcasting station. Many of them asked if she was connected to the events of last night, and all the hamster could do was pull her hood up and walk forward. She was wondering how they all knew which exit she was going to use until she saw a familiar yellow car parked next to the black private vans. At this point, her relationship with Yena was no secret, and seeing as the cameras have caught her entering that car several times, it made sense that the reporters would camp around it like vultures.

“Yah, what’d I say about bringing the yellow car to fetch me from work?” Yuri asks with a sigh when she gets in.

“That’s no way to talk about the Yen-mobile, Yul.” The duck replies with a sarcastic laugh before getting a smack on the shoulder from the younger girl.

“If you weren’t so cute, I swear. I just can’t stay upset with you.” The short-haired girl says before moving on to more important matters. “You find anything about the mutant from last night?”

“You mean the masked singer?” Yena asks.

“Isn’t that what they were calling me in the comments because they couldn’t clearly see my face?” Yuri says, referencing the new nickname she’d seemed to earn from her outfit from the night before.

“Well, funnily enough, this person shares the same name.” The older girl says before explaining during their drive back to her apartment.

Apparently, the urban legend of the masked singer began almost a decade ago in Ulsan where a string of deaths had occurred that matched up pretty well with the events happening now in Seoul. A lovely singing voice would echo through alleyways until an unsuspecting victim would get drawn in only to be stabbed and robbed afterwards.

“I still don’t get where the masked singer nickname is coming from. Also, why did whoever this is end up here all these years later?” Yuri asks, which causes Yena to pick up her phone and hand it over. It was a picture eerily reminiscent of the woman she’d seen the night before except from the front side. She was still dressed in all black, but her face was covered by a white mask.

“It looked like someone had snapped a picture of her before one of her kills. Once it started circulating, the murders stopped. Without any more evidence, the Ulsan police had to leave the case behind which caused the events to fade into urban myth. I’m assuming the mutant decided to move over to Seoul recently after things had died down and resumed her crimes here.” Yena says as they finally arrive at their destination. Fortunately, security wouldn’t let non-residents in the apartment complex without approval of a person living there, so there weren’t any reporters camping around like a while ago.

“Alright, so we have a profile of who we’re looking for, and her power feels like it’s a hypnotizing singing voice. We still need to find out how to pinpoint her next location though. Seoul’s a big place, and from the news reports, it isn’t clear how all the victims are connected.” Yuri says after they settle back into their room. The duck thinks for a moment before appearing to have a eureka moment.

“Maybe there’s something the investigators overlooked or aren’t telling the public. I have an idea, but you’re not gonna like it.” Yena says with a smirk.

“With how many dumb ideas you’ve had in the past, it’d take a pretty stupid one to surprise me at this point.” The younger girl retorts, knowing that she’ll end up going along with whatever her girlfriend suggests anyway.

~~~~

Later that night…

“You know what, this may actually be one of the dumbest ideas you’ve ever had.” Yuri whispers from behind some bushes.

“And yet, here you are anyway. C’mon, it’ll be a quick in and out.” Yena says as she looks around. The two had found themselves on the outskirts of Seoul’s main police department, and the security looked tight, no doubt due to IZ*ONE’s last visit. The plan in the duck’s eyes was simple: infiltrate the police department’s file room, search for details related to the case and look for the connections of the victims themselves.

“And Kkura-unnie couldn’t just take it remotely because?”

“It’s a local database, Yul. All the files they have here are encoded and stored for that location only. Besides, it might not even be there yet since it’s recent. We could be looking for a folder or notebook for all we know.” Yena responds. Yuri sighs knowing there weren’t any other good alternatives at the moment and any second wasted could lead to the masked singer getting another victim.

“We better not get arrested again then. I hate the cells here.” The hamster huffs before pulling up her hood and putting on a face-mask. After Yena does the same, she rubs her hands together then touches the closest lamp post.

“Lights out~” She says as the power goes out in the building in front of them. The guards look around confusedly which gives the couple a chance to slip through to the main door.

“You will let us through and forget you saw us…” Yuri commands to the man up front.

“I will… let you through… and forget I saw you.” He responds in a daze before scanning his ID on the door.

Given the power outage, the two had a way easier time sneaking around. They wouldn’t need Minjoo’s invisibility if it was too dark to be recognized. Every time they ran into someone, Yuri would just say that they were officers in training, and with the chaos around the station, no one batted an eye.

After a couple minutes, Yena calls Yuri’s attention, pointing at a door labeled “storage room”. The hamster nods and follows her over. Once the two are inside, they lock the door and begin searching, but it proved to be more difficult than they thought.

“Yah, what even is the name of the case?” Yuri asks. She’d taken the role of searching through the physical files while Yena had jumpstarted the room’s PC to search through the digital ones.

“I admit that I didn’t think that far ahead. “Yena replies, scratching the back of her head in embarrassment. “Just try looking at the front where the most recent ones should be.”

“It’s in alphabetical order, dummy.” The younger girl mutters as she continues to dig through the files. Yena was also trying her best by searching all the keywords she could, but couldn’t come up with anything. Even if she did, she couldn’t open the files to check because they were password locked.

“This shouldn’t be that hard…” The duck says to herself when she hears a knock at the door.

“Hey, is anyone inside? I don’t remember locking this on my way out.” A guard’s voice asks from the outside.

“Yuri, I figured out how we can get the file.” Yena whispers, giving Yuri a knowing look that she hoped the younger girl understood.

“Yes, I get it.” She replies as she walks up to the door and unlocks it. Before the guard could react, Yuri gave an order.

“Hand over the case files related to the recent serial killer murders.” The guard slowly nods in agreement as he walks over to the computer and enters the case number and password. Yena pulls out her USB and immediately downloads the files.

“Alright, thanks. Now, forget you saw us. You just went inside to do your rounds.” Yuri says as they close the door and run off. Unbeknownst to them though, a figure had been watching them from the shadows.

~~~~

“Okay, let’s see what they’ve gathered so far.” Yena says when they get home and plug in the USB. There were plenty of notes to look through, but so far, she wasn’t finding anything useful.

“Yah, don’t tell me we broke in there for nothing.” Yuri replies after getting out of the shower.

“I’ll find something! Don’t you know how great of a detective I am?” The duck quacks back.

“Ugh, just let me have a go at it and take a break.” Yuri says before squeezing her way in between her girlfriend’s arms and sitting on her lap.

“Yul, your hair’s still wet!” Yena complains while the younger girl stares at the computer screen.

“Aren’t ducks supposed to be waterproof?” Yuri quips as she begins focusing in. Yena could only laugh and let her girlfriend go to work.

A few minutes pass by and just as the older girl is about to doze off, she feels Yuri’s weight lift off her lap.

“Wait… I think I found something interesting.” Yuri says as she stands up to let Yena see the screen again. “It looks like everyone who was attacked was a singer.”

“Like an idol?”

“Not necessarily. Otherwise, the police would’ve figured it out by now. It just looks like all of them were involved in music. Some were a part of small bands, some liked to post covers on Youtube, and the guy who wasI killed yesterday was a busker.” Yena was surprised by her girlfriend’s perception. That felt like such a random detail to her, but maybe it was obvious to Yuri because of her background. The older girl figured that was probably why the police overlooked it too.

“So, does this masked singer hate the sound of music or something? Isn’t it a bit ironic that a singing voice is taking out fellow performers?” Yena says.

“I actually have a hunch, but we’ll test that theory out tomorrow night.” Yuri replies. The wheels in the younger girl’s mind were already turning with the information she’d found.

“Wait, why tomorrow?”

“Because, after the fanmeeting, we’re gonna go busking.” Yuri says with a smile.

“Yah, are you sure my stupidity isn’t rubbing off on you?” Yena replies. She’s come up with risky plans before, but actively using themselves as bait was pretty wild even for her standards.

“Just trust me, unnie. If it’s true that her power only works when she sings, we won’t be able to find her using normal methods. We have to draw her out, and you know singing is what I do best.” Yuri says with conviction.

“Alright, but I’m zapping her the second we see her.” And with that, the two get ready for bed. It was going to be a long day tomorrow.

A/N: Hello everyone, and happy Eunbi day! Apologies for the couple days delay; I did say writing this would be a bit slower than the first. I think this story should also end in the next chapter unless it gets too long. Hopefully you've all been enjoying the ride because I've thought of a couple other concepts I wanted to try writing for the next short stories!

As always, likes and comments are always appreciated, and I hope to see you in the next one! Thanks!