Woohyun blinked.

He stared at the face of the corpse, wondering how  and why  someone would want to mutilate this young woman.

The dead girl stared back at him, unable to give him the answers from the afterlife.

With a little wince, he drew back and began examining the rest of the body. Human life, he thought sadly, was such a fragile thing. A fragile, weak, delicate part of nature. It took months to develop a single person inside of a mother, and longer still for their personalities and characters to bloom. But it would only take one bullet, or the quick of a knife to end it all.

The agent shook his head and glanced over at the man standing beside him: Lee Sungyeol. The one who had come in with a glowing letter of recommendation, yet so little was known about his actual person. Five minutes ago, Myungsoo had gotten a call from the Bossman, and walked off as to not distract his partners in their investigation. He stood there, talking into his phone beneath an oak tree, leaving his friend alone with the newbie. Woohyun didn't mind, though. He rather liked Sungyeol. Sure, he seemed a little cold and unfriendly, but that was just who he was. He was certain that Sungyeol would warm up to them in no time.

"So, Yeol," Woohyun said. The younger man turned towards him. His look had not changed at all from when he'd first walked into Sunggyu's office to the moment now, after seeing his first case's victim up close. There was still the bored and uncaring expression on his face- it was kind of like seeing someone's reaction after showing them a dead fly.

Hiding a grin, Woohyun tried to focus on the matter at hand. "Our buddy Myungsoo told you the basic steps of investigating. Wait for the photographs to be done, search for clues, talk to witnesses, etcetera. I guess we can start searching. But before that, I wanna know: What's your  view on this? What are your thoughts on your very first case ever?"

A minute passed before Sungyeol gave his reply.

"Irony."

"Iro- Say what?"

The rookie tersely nodded in the direction of the chapel. "Irony," he repeated quietly. "For a murder to take place before a house of God, for the vilest sin mankind can do to be committed in the presence of the Lord... I find that as something like a slap to the face. Don't you?"

Well. Woohyun felt bemused at hearing Sungyeol's- unexpected- answer. He hadn't realized how, err, insightful the newcomer could be. "Hmm. You're right. I've never really thought of it that way, you know." He looked down at the corpse again, but this time, in a more thoughtful manner. Indeed, the mutilated girl seemed quite sardonic, like she had deliberately  been placed right in front of the church. "You know, this kind of reminds me of something. Maybe it was a case CSI had to deal with before, but for some reason I'm getting a sense of Deja Vu... And this bird. Don't you think it's-"

He was cut off by a familiar voice behind them.

"Listen, guys." Kris had returned from his little photography session. He was looking distracted, however, and was talking to them with a bit of a hurried air. "I just got a call from Hoya. He says he needs me to start the interviews for his case, ASAP. Sorry, but looks like I gotta run. Here-" he took the camera off his neck and handed it to Woohyun, "Finish the shots of the body. No, don't complain, I know how good you are with shooting. Just remember to get both full and detail photos."

Woohyun groaned at the prospect of more work, but accepted the camera nonetheless. "How are we supposed to develop them, though? None of us have access to the dark room."

"Leave it with Youngjae when you get back. I'll do it as soon as I'm done helping Hoya." Kris glanced over at Sungyeol, who had resumed staring at the corpse, then turned back to Woohyun. "Sorry, but I have no choice. Sunggyu did  assign me with Hoya's investigation before you guys."

Snorting, Woohyun watched as the intelligence agent made his leave. "Of course he did. And then he orders me on a case on what's supposed  to be my day off... Bastard owes me a breakfast."

"Who owes you a breakfast? And did I just see Kris leave?"

Woohyun looked over his shoulder to see Myungsoo walking towards them. "Yeah, he did. He got tired of seeing your ugly face and decided to skip."

Shoving his phone into his pocket, Myungsoo ignored his friend's smart aleck remarks. "Why didn't he take his camera? Kris never asks people to hold onto it... Unless he didn't get to finish and left you to do the job."

"Bingo." Woohyun aimed the photography device his way and pretended to snap the shutter. "He had to leave to help Hoya's case. That guy's fast; he says he's moved on to the interviews already. Of course, I, being the generous soul that I am, offered to finish taking pictures so Kris could leave early."

"I'm sure you did," Myungsoo snorted. Sungyeol raised his head to look at him, but said nothing. Frowning, Myungsoo returned his gaze. Seriously, what was up with this guy? Would it kill him to say whatever thoughts were running through his head? Slightly irritated, the agent broke his eye contact and tried to focus on Woohyun's words.

"- so useless, that guy," his friend was complaining. "I don't know why Sunggyu asked him to come with us. All he did was drive us here and take pictures of the church. Heck, I  could have done that, and I'm not even supposed to be in today!"

"Yes, yes, and you're wonderful for that," the dark-haired man rolled his eyes. Subconsciously, he looked back to the dead body lying an arm's length away. "Say, what was Kris' reaction when you told him about the bird here?"

Woohyun shrugged. "Nothing. He left before we got a chance to- seemed to be in a big hurry." Experimentally taking a picture, he asked, "Why, is it important? Should we have told him?"

Myungsoo stared at the bird. "... No," he said finally. "He's not assigned to this case; it isn't his concern. It probably would have distracted him from his own work with Hoya." He gave the dead animal a final look before glancing up at the others.

"Don't worry. There's no need to bother other agents about it."

----------

Ten minutes later, Myungsoo was still standing in front of the corpse. Sungyeol was beside him, but Woohyun, who'd finished photographing the body, had wandered off somewhere with Kris' camera. No doubt he was having too much fun taking pictures to do what he was originally supposed to be doing. Myungsoo exhaled a breath, but allowed himself a rueful smile. That guy... If he hadn't been so darn good at doing his job, the Boss would've put him on probation a long time ago.

Speaking of probation, Sunggyu wouldn't be very pleased if he found out Myungsoo was slacking off his work...

Not for the first time that day, the ravenet fixed his eyes on the bird. It was there, as a clue from the murderer, and quite frankly, it bothered him more than it should have. Why was it there?  The killer must have been brave (or very stupid) to have left the animal with his victim. It was almost like he was calling the agents out, almost as if he were-

"- making himself known in the criminal world," he heard Sungyeol murmur.

Myungsoo shot him a glance. His companion was, as he had been for the past half hour, observing the two murdered beings with his typical indifferent look. It intrigued Myungsoo greatly. By now, most rookies would have turned sickly green, or hastily walked off at the sight of a gruesomely killed lady. That was natural. It was in human nature, after all, to have such reactions. But not Sungyeol. He still appeared as cool as a cucumber, not looking the slightest bit alarmed by the events that'd happened so far.

'Strange guy...' Myungsoo tilted his head back and studied the newcomer further. The sun, still shining brightly in the sky, highlighted Sungyeol's hair and the shadows on his face. It made his cheekbones stand out a bit more, and his eyes only added to his sharp, prominent expression...

"Are you finished looking?"

"W-What?" Myungsoo was startled. Sungyeol, who hadn't even moved for the duration of time he'd been standing there, finally glanced up at his jolted senior.

"I said, are you finished? We won't get much work done if you keep staring at me."

Indignation laced through Myungsoo's words. "Excuse me? And who said I was staring at you?"

"I did." The corners of Sungyeol's mouth lifted up slightly in amusement. "I know I may be wonderful to look at, but I'd appreciate it if you'd admire me some other time. We are  in the middle of an investigation here."

'This guy!'  Myungsoo couldn't stop the heat that was creeping up his neck and into his cheeks. Why was he reacting like this? He wasn't the type of person to get easily worked up over things- quite the opposite, actually. But for some reason, this newbie- this Lee Sungyeol- was managing to unnerve Myungsoo even more than the dead girl lying in front of them.

Composing himself the best he could, Myungsoo gave his (annoying) companion a hard, even look.

"Well, we can't all be as pretty as you," he said, sarcasm underlying his tone. With as much dignity as he could, he stalked off to where Woohyun was, ready to strangle his friend for ever introducing the newcomer to him.

-----------

Jang Dongwoo was having a bad day.

Well, to say it was a bad day  would not entirely be correct. Nothing terrible and out-of-the-ordinary had occurred- he had not, for example, been struck by an unfortunate case of food poisoning. His car was not run over when he'd switched into the busier of the car lanes. He hadn't even been late to work that morning. It was more that Dongwoo was, let us say, stressed. Yes, he was stressed, and his day was going quite downhill because of that.

It was strange, as normally Dongwoo wasn't one to feel worries and pressure and all of those bad things in life. Actually, it was more of the opposite- Jang Dongwoo was a cheerful, carefree man, the type who faced even the toughest of situations with a smile on his face. But one must suppose, after being given seven different assignments at once  (two of them being autopsies and three of them lab reports), and finding out that your boss was handing you yet another  task to complete, even the happiest of men must be forced to feel the burden of work weighing down their shoulders.

Presently, this is where we find the weary man at the moment: in the forensics department of Seoul CSI's headquarters, conversing with another agent of the division. Dongwoo sighed and ran his fingers through his spiky hair. He looked at his companion for a minute or two, before muttering, "Sunggyu's a jerk."

"Come on." His companion grinned. Her name was Amber Liu, and (in Dongwoo's opinion) should have been less amused with his misery, and more concerned with the fact that she, too, was a part of the heavily work-loaded forensics unit. "You have to remember that this is our job, Dongwoo. We're the only ones in the whole building who can do this part of the investigation. And it's not like the Boss wants  to give us all these assignments- he's not, like, forcing people to kill and give us more work."

Dongwoo grumbled. "Don't those criminals have anything better to do than stalk victims and murder them on a Friday night?" He picked up a file that was on his desk and it at his co-worker. "Look. See this? This is the report for Team C, who sent in their case a few days ago. His name was Lee Seonwoong, an old man found stuck down in his backyard. I've only just  finished typing out his autopsy this morning."

At this point, Dongwoo paused for a bit. An uneasy feeling rose inside of him at the thought of Lee Seonwoong, but he brushed it aside. He was too busy expressing his indignation at his unfair workload to be bothered right now.

"And this, too. Yesterday at noon, Hoya went on a case with his team. They've also filed for an autopsy for their guy, a Mr. Son Taehyun. Did you hear about him? He was the one found dismembered  in his own house. I am not  looking forward to examining that." He shuddered. Like looking over the cold, wrinkly body of an elderly man was bad enough, now he had to poke and prod around the pieces  of another victim.

Tossing Lee Seonwoong's file back onto the desk, Amber waved her own papers. "Then I'm sure this'll make you happy," she began, eyes sparkling with mischievousness.

"That's another thing!" Dongwoo cut her off. "Here I am, telling you how buried I am in this mountain of work, and you're trying to give me another  case to do? Do you have any idea how stressed I am as it is? We're so short-handed at the moment, I've been running around overseeing every single assignment in this division. Not to mention the lab reports we have to do, which I'm sure none of us have even started yet. We have a deadline of next week  to finish those. Obviously, I could use an extension, but will head office give it to me? No! And now we have to deal with another autopsy on top of that!"

Amber waited until her senior was finished with his ranting. "So you'll do it?" she asked, smiling. Dongwoo sighed and hung his head in defeat.

"Yeah, I'll do it," he mumbled, but a smile of his own was tugging at his lips. Of course he would do it. Not only was it his job, but Dongwoo wanted to help the agents in the other divisions as much as possible. They had to handle the searching, questioning, and putting together clues, all of which were quite difficult things to do. He would make things easier by doing his part, and telling them the story that only the dead victim knew.

The forensics agent sat up straighter and nodded at Amber. There was a sudden air of briskness surrounding him, one that meant he was now in serious business  mode and ready to tackle whatever new assignment this was. "Alright, might as well get this out of the way. Details? What team is this for?"

Amber flipped through the pages of the file, matching his professional tone. "Technically, this isn't really a team  who's investigating. It's composed of the agents who were on back-up today: Kim Myungsoo, Nam Woohyun- but he's filling in for Lee Sungjong- and Lee Sungyeol, the new kid."

"Lee Sungyeol?" Dongwoo thought for a second. "Oh, right. Him. Sunggyu did mention we were getting a newcomer on the team. I just didn't know when."

His companion shot him a look  before continuing with her debriefing. Amber didn't like interruptions, especially when she was talking. "They were sent this morning to the white chapel in the town square. A young girl was found murdered there in quite  the brutal fashion. There were cuts disfiguring her entire face, and her abdominal cavity was slashed opened as well." She winced at the mental image of it. "I just feel sorry for whoever had to clean that  up."

Dongwoo snorted. "You feel bad for them? What about the person who has to search through that mess?" He pointed at himself. Amber rolled her eyes.

"You know, you're not the only one. I'm not exactly thrilled at having to help you examine the dismembered dude and  this cut-up chick, either."

"I'll enjoy abusing my power as senior pathologist on you, then."

"..." Amber muttered something under her breath that Dongwoo couldn't make out. But before he could say anything about it, the female piped up with a new question. "Don't you find it weird though, how much cases we've been getting lately? There was Lee Seonwoong before, then yesterday it was Son Taehyun, and now it's this girl from Myungsoo's case."

Shrugging, Dongwoo turned over to Son Taehyun's file and started preparing for his examination. "Maybe the crime rates are going up. You never know what exactly the baddies are planning to do. Let's just hope this is the last case we'll get for awhile." He reached for another paper and handed it to his friend.

"Here, go give this to Team C. It's the report for Lee Seonwoong's autopsy. I should have given it to them yesterday, but what with Hoya's new case..." The man grimaced. That was what he would have to deal with next: The poor, dismantled body of Mr. Son Taehyun. He shook his head and looked back at Amber. "After you're done with that, come back here so we can get started on the next examination. I have a feeling things will get pretty messy."

Amber stood up and stretched her thin arms. "You don't have to remind me of that." Nodding her goodbye, she walked towards the exit and made her way out, shutting the door with a click  behind her.

[A/N]  Just to clear things up, there is a total of 3 victims so far. Lee Seonwoong, who was killed in the backyard, Son Taehyun, who was found by Hoya and Kris in his house, and the unidentified girl, whom Myungsoo, Woohyun, and Sungyeol found by the church. Sorry guys, I should have been more clearer in the chapters about that ^^ But the Mockingbird killer works fast, huh?