A young boy was quietly making his way through a hallway. It was a useless attempt though, as the house was too alive with sounds for anyone to be disturbed by his walking. On his right, chatters and the buzz of a TV could be heard coming from the living room. Across from that, the cheerful hum of a mixer sounded loudly in the kitchen. His own footsteps made sharp clacking noises, adding to the orchestra of household tracks.

Pausing, the boy furrowed his brows. It was weird, being in a place so full of sounds and motions. He was actually more used to silence, and the idea of living in such a lively house seemed quite strange to him. Hmm... This would take some time getting used to.

When he reached the end of the corridor, a woman's harassed voice greeted him from behind. "Oh, there you are, dear! I haven't seen you all day- just what have you been up to all by yourself?"

Turning around, the boy politely smiled but said nothing. He hadn't been up to anything, really. Just the usual: Wandering about and trying to get comfortable with things in this house.

The woman continued, too preoccupied with other matters to wonder about his lack of response. "I should tell you now, dear, that a new child came in this morning. He's around your age, and I put him in the room beside yours. Run along and say hello, won't you? The poor darling looks like he could use a friend."

Nodding, the boy watched as the woman walked away with bustling steps. He waited until she had disappeared into the kitchen, then made his own leave away through the backyard door.

The first thing that he saw was a group of children formed in a circle. They were jeering loudly at something in the centre of them.

"What a dweeb! Check out his arms and legs- they look like they could belong to a girl!" one of the older kids, perhaps the leader, was saying mockingly. The boy frowned and headed towards the source of commotion. He had a vague idea as to what was going on over there...

His suspicions were confirmed when he saw properly what was taking place. The rowdy children were surrounding another male, one who was hunching his shoulders and looking down at the grass. This, the boy supposed, was the new kid he'd been told about. He was standing quite still, with brown hair covering his eyes, but there was no mistaking the obvious air of misery about him.

"I bet he couldn't fight if his life depended on it," the bully continued, and reached over to shove his victim. The younger child stumbled a little and fell onto the ground. His friends all laughed stupidly. The boy... He didn't like this. If there was one thing he disliked most in this world, it was when people ganged up and decided to pick on others weaker than them.

The boy walked towards the oldest bully, purpose clear in every stride. "Hey," he called out, "Leave him alone!"

Sneering, the older boy turned around to face his new prey. "Oh, it's you. And what if I don't? Whatcha gonna do about it? I'm not even surprised that you wanna defend this kid- he's a freak, just like you are."

"Better than being a lame-brain who can't tell the difference between a chapter book and a dictionary," the boy shot back.

Just as his opponent was raising his fists ("Punk! I'm gonna teach you a lesson you're never gonna forget!"), the backyard door opened. The same lady who'd talked to the boy earlier stuck her head out, calling, "Kids, it's time for lunch! Come inside and wash your hands."

The leader of the bullies took a step back and sneered again. "You got lucky, you loser. Next time, I'll beat you and your dumb friend into pieces." He stomped away (no doubt trying to maintain his tough guy image), ignoring his lackeys who were scampering off after him.

Rolling his eyes, the boy watched as they disappeared inside the house. So much for teaching him a lesson. He kept on looking for a minute longer to make sure they weren't coming back, then turned to the younger boy left behind. "It's okay, they're gone now. Are you alright?"

The bullied child was still hunching where he'd been pushed down, but had lifted his head to look at his saviour. "... Yes," he whispered in the faintest of voices. But the boy could see the uneasiness in his eyes, the fear that the older kids would return and taunt him mercilessly once more. There was something else, as well. It was an expression different from the worry- grief, sorrow, and a heavy kind of sadness. The boy briefly wondered how it was he had such a depressing look. Maybe he'd gone through a tragedy of some sort, just like he himself had before coming here.

He reached out to offer his hand to the new arrival of the house. "If you're that worried about them, stick with me. I've only been here for a few weeks, but I can tell they're just a bunch of meanies who don't do more than talk. You'll see what I mean. What's your name, anyway?"

His new friend stared at his outstretched hand, then slowly grasped it with his smaller one. "Sungjong. I'm Lee Sungjong."

"Nice to meet you, Sungjong. My name is Myungsoo."

"- Myungsoo. Myungsoo. Hey, Myungsoo, wake up!"

Hands grabbed at Myungsoo's shoulders and gave them a rough shake, attempting to wake him up to reality. "You lazy bastard, get up already! Just because you have nothing to do right now doesn't mean you can take a nap."

The tired agent blearily raised his head off his desk. "I'm up, I'm up, stop nagging so much. Why the hell are you so loud today, Nam Woohyun?"

"Just because." Woohyun snickered and plopped a cup of coffee in front of his friend. Looking over his shoulder, he added, "See, this is one thing you should know about Myungsoo. He can never function properly in the morning without a good dose of caffeine. It's like his drug, really. The legal kind you can take by methods unrelated to snorting or injection."

Stifling a yawn, the caffeine addict rubbed his eyes in an attempt to rid of his sleepiness. "Who are you talking to?" he mumbled. Then he paused, as if his tired brain was now processing a fact from sixty seconds ago. "Wait, why are you even here? I thought today was your day off."

"It was. I was at home, enjoying a perfectly good and relaxing breakfast, when Sunggyu decided to be a and call me in. I'm filling in for Sungjong. He's sick," Woohyun groaned. Myungsoo stared at him.

"He seemed alright when I saw him yesterday..." His voice trailed off as he spotted the person standing with his talkative visitor. "Oh. Sungyeol. You're here too?"

The newcomer gave a curt nod at the hot drink on Myungsoo's desk. "I suggest you take a dose of your caffeine now, since you obviously aren't awake enough to notice your surroundings."

Myungsoo rolled his eyes, but did as the rookie said. Gulping a mouthful down, he asked, "So, it's the three of us on back-up today? I'm guessing that there's a group who needs us, since Sunggyu had to call you in. Who's investigation is it?"

Woohyun shook his head. "No, it's not as back-up. Right before we came in, head office got another call. Seems there's been another murder down on Fourth Avenue, where that old chapel is. Sunggyu's sending us to check out, along with Kris to photograph the scene."

"Kris, too? He's supposed to be helping Hoya with his case. You haven't met him yet, right Sungyeol?" Setting his empty cup down, the dark-haired male glanced over to where Sungyeol was. The younger man stared back at him silently without any answer. It was just like the day before: it would have been impossible to tell what exactly Lee Sungyeol was thinking.

Myungsoo pushed his chair back and stood up. "Alright, let's get going. Kris is probably waiting in the car for us." He looked back at Sungyeol, wondering how long his little favour to Sunggyu would extend to. "Come on, newbie. It's time to show us what you've got."

-----------

"We're here," Kris announced. He pulled up sharply on the curb and turned the engine off, then faced the other agents in the car. "Come on, I don't have a lot of time. After I'm done with things on this case, I still have to develop some photos for Hoya."

"Thanks for helping us," Myungsoo told him as he took his seatbelt off. "I know it's unfair for Sunggyu to send you here, especially when Hoya needs you on his own investigation. But you're doing us a big favour right now."

Kris shrugged and flashed him a cocky grin. "I know."

Myungsoo rolled his eyes good-naturedly and stepped out of the vehicle. He glanced over at Woohyun, who had slipped on a pair of sunglasses and was removing supplies from the trunk, before turning to look at the newcomer in the back seat. "Coming? We have a lot of work ahead of us."

"In a minute," Kris responded before Sungyeol did. "I'll give you and Woohyun a chance to scope the scene out first, while I explain to our rookie here how things go in the intelligence unit."

"Youngjae already did that for you," Myungsoo chuckled, but joined Woohyun at the back of the car nonetheless. Taking a briefcase that'd been placed on the ground, he waited until his companion had closed the trunk to speak up. "We're pretty much alone on this case, do you realize that? There's no other back-up group Sunggyu's assigned for the day. Things must be pretty busy if he had to send us on this assignment."

Woohyun laughed. "You mean, you're pretty much alone. I'm just the fill-in for Sungjong, remember?" He jerked his head towards the chapel across the street. "Speaking of which, I'm sure you don't want to waste anymore time with me, so let's go. I still have half a plate of pancakes waiting for me at home."

The two agents walked together to where the white building lay. In the sky, the sun was shining merrily (though was admittedly also beating down a strong heat ray), and fluffy clouds tumbled about. Birds chirped happily from the treetops, singing their hello's to the CSI men. It was a beautiful picture. One might even take it a step further to say it deserved to adorn the back of a postcard.

What they saw at the front of the chapel, however, was a whole other story.

"Whoa, what happened here?" Whipping off his tinted shades, Woohyun took in the rather gruesome scene before him. He let out a low, long whistle at the sight of the mutilated corpse- its throat had been slashed, causing the neck to bend at an awkward angle, and its abdominal cavity had been cut open as well, allowing the internal organs to spill out on the sidewalk. It wasn't, to say the least, a very pretty picture. The fact that the sun was beating down on them didn't help either, making the smell of rotting flesh seem ten times stronger than it really was. "Damn, this is gonna be one helluva pain to clean up. And to think that I could be home, enjoying my nice day off... Myungsoo, you're lucky that I love you enough to have agreed to come."

Myungsoo walked closer until he was standing next to Woohyun, surveying the corpse the whole while. "Shut up, you don't love me. You're only here because Sunggyu made you come." Narrowing his eyes, the younger man scanned the motionless figure a couple of times, trying to see past the cuts, the gashes, the lacerations. Along with the splotches of dried and flaking blood, they scarred the face in such a way that, upon first glance, it would have been impossible to identify the victim. Still, he could tell that it was (or had been) female. The facial features, although horribly disfigured, were far too delicate to belong to that of a male. 'And if I had to guess, I'd say she was pretty young, too. In her late teens maybe, possibly her early twenties... But why? What motives would someone have for killing an innocent-looking girl like her?'

"If you two are finished working out your love problems," Kris came up behind them with Sungyeol in tow, "Then let's get a move on. Forensics will be here in twenty minutes to pick up the body, and that's not a lot of time do to this. Not to mention all the work I still have waiting at HQ." He had a serious expression now, different from the smirk he was usually seen wearing. Popping a fresh battery into his camera, Kris adjusted the lenses and took a few shots of the chapel standing in front of them.

Snap, snap. "You too, Sungyeol. Just because you're new to the team doesn't mean you get to do nothing. Move it or lose it, buddy." The brisk man began walking towards the holy building, where bloodstains could be seen splattering the front steps.

"..." Sungyeol said nothing as he made his way to the other agents, but Myungsoo got the distinct feeling he would have liked to tell Kris where exactly he could lose it. Ignoring Woohyun's enthusiastic "Whaddup, Yeol!", the brunet glanced down at the corpse with a cool and indifferent air. One might have thought he was simply staring at a piece of rock rather than a twisted and mangled body.

Myungsoo cleared his throat. "Hey, newbie," he called, catching said rookie's attention. "Look, I'll tell you now, we have what you might call a system around here. If you're gonna be part of the team, then you'll have to know how it works with us." He opened his briefcase and began rummaging through the items inside.

"First off, scan the premises with your eyes only." He tossed a pair of latex gloves to Sungyeol, then to Woohyun, and pulled out some for himself to wear. "Visually take in the whole scene or items on their own, but don't touch anything until Kris is finished taking pictures. He'll kill you if you do. When he's done, he'll let us know we can start our investigation. Work quickly, efficiently, and like a team- some of us will look for clues, others will talk to witnesses, and the rest will take care of the victims. Any questions so far?"

"... Yeah." Sungyeol regarded the dark-haired agent coolly. There was an unreadable light in his eyes, something Myungsoo couldn't quite make out, but his voice held a slightly mocking undertone. "Where does the dead bird come into your system?"

"The dead bird- Wait, what?"

Still looking bored, the newcomer pointed down at the body- or more specifically, at its left hand. Both Myungsoo and Woohyun followed his gesture, trying to see what he meant by his cryptic question. The dead bird? What was this newcomer talking about? They were here for a professional investigation, not to deal with road kill that had no relevance to the case-

And then they saw it.

Loosely placed in the corpse's hand was an object. Leaning forwards, Myungsoo realized with a jolt that it was the dead bird Sungyeol had asked about (a mockingbird, he would later learn from Youngjae. Mimus polyglottos, or more commonly known as the Northern Mockingbird). It lay there with a terrible kind of beauty, the typical shadow of death glazing over its beady eyes. Blood seeped out of a stab wound on its chest. It trailed all over the animal's body, staining the pale, downy feathers a brilliant scarlet.

Woohyun voiced the single thought that was running through Myungsoo's head.

"Guys, this is one sick freak we have on our hands."