It's a nice building. Wide windows, glass floors, marble restrooms. Even the stalls look like they're made out of marble, with molten brown swirly designs on the doors. It reminds Chanyeol of ice cream that he's so craving right now...

"Chocolate caramel from Ben and Jerry's," a stranger's voice echoes from an adjacent stall. Chanyeol freezes. He hears the stranger flush and leave the stall. Chanyeol quickly zips up to catch a glimpse of the man, but the man is gone.

"Those are a couple of people that I suspect on my own," Kris explains as Chanyeol flips through the pictures. "Tao stayed home most of the time, so there weren't a lot of people who knew him."

"And what was your relationship to Huang Zitao?" Chanyeol asks, memorizing each face. There is silence except for the soft shuffle of photo paper, and Chanyeol looks up at his client curiously.

"Friend," Kris mumbles at last. There's an ironic smirk upon his small lips, and Chanyeol knows better than to ask. His client is Kris Li, and the less Chanyeol knows about his personal life, the safer he is.

"It's a $40,000 job," Kris says, rising from his office chair and facing the stretch of windows. "The deadline is in a month."

"Two," Chanyeol protests, "because Huang Zitao wasn't a registered resident in neither China's nor Korea's system. He's not on any record, and that means it's going to take me twice as long to track him down."

Kris doesn't respond. Chanyeol takes it as a yes.

"Why wasn't he registered, by the way," Chanyeol asks, now scrutinizing the photograph of Huang Zitao. Dark eyes, slim jaws, a feline grin. Chanyeol wonders briefly if his client had kept him hidden from both countries just to keep the handsome lad all to himself.

"His father was the Prefectural Director back in the days," Kris sighs. "He had an affair, the woman had a kid, the father wanted none of it. The cliche."

"It's not cliche," Chanyeol says. Kris has his back to Chanyeol, but Chanyeol can already sense his client's nervous fatigue at approaching the sensitive issue of Huang Zitao's mysterious childhood. "I'd love to hear more."

"His mother fled to Korea with him," Kris continues after a pause. "I honestly don't know much about how he grew up. All I've heard from him was that he lived in a coastal village in the south Chungcheong region."

"Okay," Chanyeol nods, sliding all the papers and photos into a manila folder. "I'll start off there." He walks over to where Kris is still standing and observing the city horizon.

"It's a nice building," Chanyeol grins. "Your restrooms are real nice, too."

Kris hums in amused agreement and he finally tears his gaze to shake hands with the detective.

"Bring Tao back," Kris mutters almost inaudibly, his grip firm. It sounds more like the plea than an order from the chairman of an international publishing firm. "Bring him back home."