Woohyun gazed at the empty wall across from him. He was currently sitting in his cubicle, staring into space and not really doing much of anything. Of course, he knew he should have been working. More than two hours had passed since the meeting with the others had ended, and there was so much to be done if they wanted to catch the killer. But... But... Oh, jeez. Really, as much as he tried, he just couldn't seem to concentrate on the case.

"Lee Sungyeol might possibly have a connection to Park Kyung, one of our top Persons of Interest. He was also in Yangsan on the day of Kim Hwayoung's murder. I'm not sure about you, but every time I see him, I get an undeniable feeling that he's hiding something from us."

Chen's annoyingly calm voice echoed in his head. Okay, so now their own co-worker was a suspect. Woohyun knew that Chen's logic was reasonable enough to sound like a legitimate theory. The fact that Sungyeol's persona was an entire mystery on its own didn't help the situation at all. But as suspicious as the newcomer was, it just didn't seem right. The dark-haired inspector had a strong hunch that Lee Sungyeol was not  the murderer. Woohyun might have been a lazy man, and yes, perhaps a bit too careless at times, but he had an extremely sharp intuition to him. And right now, that intuition was telling him one thing:

Lee Sungyeol was not the Mockingbird Killer.

He just wasn't. He couldn't be. Groaning, Woohyun squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. He could practically hear Chen's voice in his head, telling him how silly he was being, ridiculing him for the trust and confidence he had in the newcomer. But that was where he was wrong. Woohyun didn't  fully trust Lee Sungyeol. It was true that he liked him and wanted to build a friendship with the guy, but he wasn't stupid enough to blindly trust the mysterious, seemingly cold-hearted Sungyeol.

But even so, that didn't shake the firm belief Woohyun had in Sungyeol's innocence.

'Things aren't so great for you, buddy...' Grimacing, the agent glanced down at his case notes. Dongwoo had taken Lee Seonwoong's notebook, but Woohyun had copied a few things down beforehand. 'Nope, not good at all. There has to be some way to fix this... Some way to shed the suspicion off you... Damn it, if only you'd open up to us more, we wouldn't be having this problem-'

"Well, that was a brilliant waste of time."

The sound of Myungsoo's dry voice drifted into Woohyun's cubicle, breaking the previous silence of his surroundings. Sitting up, the inspector turned his head to see the ravenet and his partners entering the room. Huh. It looked like he'd been too engrossed in his thoughts to have heard them come in.

Myungsoo continued. "Three hours of searching the place, and all we find are the girl's old donations. Touching, but nothing to tell us anything we didn't already know. When you said that there was 'something we needed to see' at the church, I thought it was a clue of some sort, not Lee Minhee's used clothing."

Sungjong winced. "Sorry, sorry," he said. Close behind him was Sungyeol, who, as usual, looked totally indifferent to everything happening around him. "But it looked like it could have been something big. How was I supposed to know all of that stuff had been given away by Minhee five years ago?"

"You could have asked the pastor. Could have cleared it up with him before  jumping to conclusions and calling us out."

Woohyun raised a brow. It looked like Myungsoo and Sungjong were still being awkward with each other. Of course, as best friends, they often disagreed and had their fair share of arguments. But this felt different. Whatever fight it was they'd had during their trip to the orphanage, it seemed that it hadn't quite blown over yet.

Clearing his throat, he lazily raised a hand into the air. "Yo," Woohyun said loudly. His greeting successfully grabbed the attention of the two bickering friends. Distracted from their little argument, they both looked startled to see the procrastinating agent in the room.

"Oh. It's you." Sungjong blinked owlishly before walked to his own cubicle. "What are you doing here?"

Woohyun snorted. "Is that any way to treat your elder, brat? And if you've forgotten, this is my desk. I'm working."

"Doesn't look like it," Sungjong countered.

'Sheesh. Kids these days.'  Woohyun narrowed his eyes at the younger man, but didn't bother retaliating. Instead, he turned to greet the other two inspectors. "Hey, Myungsoo. Sungyeol. Haven't seen you in a while."

The newcomer didn't even look in his direction. "We saw each other this morning," he said. His voice sounded bored as usual, but there was something close to resignation in it, as well. Almost like he was- reluctantly- starting to get used to the jokester agent.

Woohyun stifled a grin. This guy had attitude, and maybe other people found him to be rude, but Woohyun liked Sungyeol. The rookie reminded him of himself back when he was younger. "Is that right? Guess I was too busy with other stuff to notice."

Myungsoo rolled his eyes. Plopping his things down on his desk, he grabbed a bottle of water and took a swing from it. "Sungjong has a point. What are you up to now? Just lounging around as usual?"

"Excuse me," Woohyun replied, indignation laced in his voice, "But I've been extremely hard at work for the past two hours. Look at all of the notes I've made so far." He gestured at his messy papers for emphasis. "Besides, I bet this is more than what you three have done today. Didn't you go to hang out at the church or something?"

"It was hardly a pleasure trip," Myungsoo scowled. He jerked his head towards his grumbling friend. "Sungjong thought he found a good clue about Lee Minhee's history, but it turned out to be nothing. There wasn't anything that could have helped us there."

"Still sounds like fun." Woohyun yawned, giving off the impression that he found the trio's day of work anything but  fun. "Though you missed a lot today. You weren't at the debriefing, were you?"

"What debriefing?" Sungjong wandered over to where Woohyun's desk was. "What did we miss?"

The older inspector rolled his eyes. "I'm getting to that, brat. Don't rush me." Ignoring Sungjong's glare, he proceeded to tell the three partners about what had been discussed during the meeting- the latest murder, Lee Seonwoong's mysterious notes, and so on.

"Great," Myungsoo sighed as Woohyun finished outlining the issue with Kim Jongin. At first, when he heard about the Kim Hwayoung murder, a look of pure shock had plastered itself onto his face. Now, the agent wore a troubled frown, as if he'd acquiesced to the grim turn the investigation had taken. "Another murder. More cryptic clues. Suspects with extremely loose ties. Just what we needed to solve the case."

Woohyun reached for the mug of coffee on his desk. "Yeah," he said after taking a gulp, "When you put it that way, our job sounds like a dead end. But cheer up, pal. I still haven't told you about the new lead we got."

Sungjong perked up his ears. "What lead?" he asked, grabbing a drink for himself. Sungyeol was still standing a little away from the other three men. Leaning against the wall, he said nothing as he swept his dark gaze from Myungsoo to Woohyun, then back to Myungsoo again.

Woohyun found himself studying Sungyeol's silent form. It was surprising that the rookie was gazing not-so-subtly at his raven-haired partner. There was a strange glint in his eyes, an emotion that Woohyun couldn't quite identify (he couldn't help but wonder if there was something going on between the two. He knew that Myungsoo and Sungjong were having an issue, but now Myungsoo and Sungyeol?  Jesus, Myungsoo sure was getting around). But seeing him up-close reaffirmed his belief that Sungyeol wasn't the murderer. Not to Woohyun. There was just no way he could be the Mockingbird Killer... Right?

"- hello? Earth to Woohyun. Are you planning on telling us any time soon?" Sungjong was saying.

"... Right. My bad." The older male forced himself to look away from Lee Sungyeol. "I was thinking about something else." Still, as he turned towards the impatient Sungjong, he was able to see the newcomer out of the corner of his eye.

"Not unusual," Myungsoo sighed, "But I don't have the time to be annoyed." He threw away his empty bottle into a nearby recycling bin and joined his friends, who had naturally grouped together (sort of) around Woohyun's desk. "Sunggyu said he needed to talk to me about something, so I have to leave soon. Hurry up and tell us already."

"Since when did you get so freakin' demanding?" groaned Woohyun, but he complied either way. "It's not anything major, really, but it's the biggest thing we got since this case came up. About time, huh? Anyway, it was Youngjae and Kahi who uncovered it. You guys remember what they were investigating, right?"

"The mockingbirds," Sungjong answered promptly. "Who could have bought them and where they might have come from."

"That's right," said Woohyun. "Long story short, they found someone who may or may not be connected to the dead birds. He's an underground trafficker, supposedly one of the best in the black market. If we were to find this man, we could figure out who it was that bought the little animals."

Myungsoo slowly nodded, processing the information. "That's good. Sounds like a bit of a stretch, but I guess it's the best thing we have so far. What's his name? The trafficker we're trying to find."

"It's Kyung, I think," responded the seated agent. "Park Kyung." Perhaps it was a figment of his imagination, but Woohyun could have sworn that at that moment, he saw from the corner of his eye that Sungyeol had stiffened up ever so slightly. Or was he just seeing things? The newcomer was so still most of the time, his actions were hardly perceptible and difficult to catch in motion.

Myungsoo didn't notice the slight change in Sungyeol's demeanour. He was too busy checking the time on his watch. "Crap, I have to go now. I was supposed to meet with Sunggyu ten minutes ago. Woohyun, I'll talk to you later. You can give me all of the details then. This Park Kyung guy sounds interesting, whoever he is."

After bidding his partners a hasty farewell, the busy agent strode off and slipped through the double doors.

Woohyun trailed his gaze over to Sungyeol. The rookie had not moved from where he was leaning on the wall, but something was different. Something about his appearance seemed off. It might not have been as obvious to the eye, but Woohyun's finely honed intuition was telling him so.

He cleared his throat. "Hey. Sungyeol. Are you okay?"

"... Yes." Sungyeol slowly glanced at his older colleague. The strange look had disappeared from his eyes, leaving nothing but the cold and indifferent expression he always wore. "I'm fine."

But somehow, Woohyun had a feeling that he wasn't telling the truth.

--------

Brring, brring. Brring, brring.

Lee Chaerin, senior officer of the weaponry division, waited for her phone call to be picked up. A frown graced her features as the voice mail system came on, indicating the end of the monotonous ringing.

Hi, you've reached Lee Sungjong's phone. Sorry I can't answer your call right now; I'm probably busy fighting crime. Aha. If you leave your name and number, I'll be sure to get back to you as soon as I can-

"Bull." The blonde woman tsked and hung up on the phone. Her profanity didn't quite match the worried crease of her eyebrows, but that was to be expected. She had been trying to reach Sungjong for the past twenty-five minutes, yet there was no answer from him. Of course, the time was now past midnight, so there was a chance he had already gone to bed. But Chaerin knew  Sungjong. He wouldn't be sleeping at this time. Not while a huge murder investigation was going on. On the contrary, the kid would still be wide awake, trying to fit in another hour's worth of work before hitting the hay.

Frowning, Chaerin gazed at her motionless mobile. She considered unlocking the screen and dialling his number again, making it the umpteenth time she had repeated the action. Maybe he would pick up this time. Maybe he had just been in the shower all those other times she'd called-

Brring, brring.

The shrill cry of her cell phone suddenly broke her train of thoughts. Without skipping a beat, the weaponry agent grabbed the device before it could reach the third ring.

Incoming Call: Lee Sungjong.

Chaerin wasted no time in pressing the 'Answer Call' button. "Sungjong, where the hell have you been?" she snapped, completely forgoing any greetings. "I've been trying to contact you for nearly half an hour."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Sungjong apologized. Chaerin could picture in her head the slender male pressing the phone to his ear, the guilty bite of his lip confirming his apologetic state. "I was in the shower. I didn't hear the phone ring with the water running."

"It's alright." The blonde woman released a tense breath. So she had been right about the shower part. "I was just worried. I haven't talked to you in a long time."

Sungjong apologized again. "It's my fault, I think. I've been so caught up with the investigation that I can barely say hello to you these days, let alone visit you at the range."

"Don't blame yourself, kid. You're just doing your job."

"Yeah..." A silence fell upon the two friends. It only lasted for a couple of seconds though, before Sungjong carried on with the conversation. "So, what's up? I know something  must be bothering you, if you decided to call me at this time of night. Is anything the matter?"

Chaerin twirled a pen in between her fingers. It was a bad habit of hers, to fiddle around with whatever household item that was within reach. Often times, when she had a lot of troublesome things on her mind, Chaerin would absentmindedly take an object- a spoon, a memo pad, keys, whatever- and roll it in her hand. An odd tendency, but Yongguk had once said it was because she needed something to keep her grounded while thinking. Like her body wanted to keep a physical hold on reality while her conscience sorted through her whirlwind of thoughts.

"There's nothing the matter with me, kid," she finally answered. "It's you. I'm worried about you."

"About me?"  Sungjong's tone was bemused. "What are you worried about me for? I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" The weaponry agent's voice was soft. "Are you really okay?"

"I- Of course I am," the younger man faltered. "I mean... Well, maybe I have  been a little tired lately. I've been staying up until three every night to work on the case. But that's not unusual, is it? In fact, at this stage, I think everyone else is feeling a bit put off-"

"Give it a rest." Chaerin exhaled. "You're not fine. You're not tired because of the case. Don't lie to me. I've known you for more than six years, Lee Sungjong. You think I can't tell when you're pulling a Pinocchio on me or not? Stop with this 'tired because of work' business and give me the truth. What's really  the matter?"

Sungjong remained quiet. Determined to force an answer out of him, Chaerin steamrolled on ahead. "I'm waiting, kid. Even if we haven't talked in a while, I still see you around the building. And quite frankly, I'm not liking what I'm seeing. Something's bothering you, I know... Is it Myungsoo? Is he the reason why you've been so down lately-"

"No!" The sudden outburst startled the blonde woman. But before she could voice her surprise, Sungjong hastily amended his statement. "I-I mean, that's not it. Myungsoo has nothing to do with how I'm feeling now."

'And there's another lie,'  Chaerin thought, but she didn't push it this time. Instead, she merely commented, "So you admit it. There is  something other than the investigation bugging you."

Silence was all that could be heard on the other line- even Sungjong's breathing  couldn't be heard. Any other person would've thought that he had abandoned the call, but Chaerin knew better. The kid was thinking. Thinking, and carefully musing over her straightforward words. It was better to give him time to answer than to pull a half-hearted one out of him. So for a moment, Chaerin waited. She didn't look like it, but she had an indefinite amount of patience at certain times. Sungjong would talk when he was good and ready.

Sure enough, she heard the younger inspector sigh after a few minutes. "I can never get anything past you, huh?"

"Of course not." The artillery expert clucked her tongue. "How do you think Yongguk learned to be so observant?"

Sungjong gave a weak laugh. "I always thought he was just born that way." Another pause wedged in between them. Then, just as Chaerin opened to speak, the brunet sighed again. "It's my old apartment."

The older woman furrowed her brows. "Your old apartment...?" she echoed, but something in her brain was beginning to understand.

"Yeah. I-" Again, Sungjong faltered, as if a part of him was hesitating about sharing his secrets. "Never mind. It's nothing."

"No, tell me," Chaerin insisted. "What about your old apartment? Isn't that where you lived with your parents?"

"Yes." Although it was a topic that obviously upset him, Sungjong carried on with his explanation. "That was my first and only home I had with my family. It was me, my mother, father, and pet goldfish. Us four lived there until the-" His voice suddenly became abrupt.

"You know what happened. Anyway, I found out a while ago that the building's going to be demolished. Set for the wrecking ball in about a month, I think."

Chaerin stared at the pen in her hand. It was still tight in her grip, which gave her the feeling that she would find imprints on her palm later on. "Oh, Sungjong. Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

His answer was halted. "I- You don't- Because it's silly. Getting so worked up about a building being destroyed... Doesn't that sound stupid to you?"

"Of course not, kid." Chaerin's answer was automatic. She knew how much Sungjong's parents had meant to him. Even if he didn't live there now, even if he had only been a young child back then, the apartment probably held a lot of family memories for him. "That building was the only home you had with your mom and dad. Of course you'd be upset."

"I guess so..." Sungjong was still sounding depressed. Chaerin's motherly instincts kicked in. Although pep talks had never quite been her strength, she tried to lift his spirits nonetheless.

"Don't be so down, Sungjong." The blonde woman tossed her inky utensil away. Like she'd predicted, it had left faint, red markings on the flesh of her palm. "I'm sure that apartment isn't the only thing that reminds you of your family. There must be something else that holds memories for you. And it's not like it's the end of the world. Cheer up, kid. Things will get better soon."

Again, Sungjong paused before speaking. He seemed to be in deep thought over some kind of matter. Whatever it was, Chaerin didn't have to guess about it- her friend voiced his musings soon afterwards. "You know, I held an interview with Chen not too long ago. We talked about some stuff after the woman left, but I remember one thing in particular that he told me. It's funny; he said the exact same thing as you did: things will get better. But I don't think so. You're both telling me that I just have to wait it out and it'll be fine in the end, but isn't that what friends are supposed to say? Tell me, Chaerin. Do you really  think it'll get better?"

Chaerin was caught off-guard. She was a woman of deep and insightful knowledge, she was aware. The female agent knew how to handle guns. She knew how to deactivate intricately-wired explosives. She even know how to construct a tag team bullet and revolver from scratch. But Sungjong's question was the one thing she did not know the answer to.

Still, Chaerin had to say something  in response to the poor kid.

"Of course they will," she answered quietly. She hoped he couldn't hear the slight uncertainty in her voice. "Just keep your head up, alright? Bear with it a little more, and everything will work out."

Sungjong bitterly laughed. "Yeah, that's what Chen said, too." He then gave her a simple goodbye and hung up, leaving Chaerin to hold a dead mobile up against her ear.