Several weeks passed, and Seungho still had nothing. His daily routines had returned almost to normal, other than the fact that he was still mulling over his latest- and rather dead case.

 

It was early and Seungho was tired. Yet again he had stayed up late into the night, trying to think of something, find anything that could help him understand why Lee Miyung and Jung Chansook had been killed. To him, they seemed unremarkable, Miyung was slightly above average in looks, and from what he had found out from questioning several people that knew her, she was intellectual and took pride in her appearance, always making sure to not seem shabby. Chansook had been a sweet young girl, barely even a teenager, her grades had always been good and she was well liked, her family past somewhat complex, but her brother loving. They were both normal, and he was starting to believe that the killer was simply a deranged psychopath with no motive but the uncontrollable urge to kill, and from the small amount of information he had, with no new leads, his latest theory was beginning to look more and more possible, although deep down he felt like there had to be more.

He sighed wearily before climbing out his bed, having a quick shower before getting changed into his work attire, unsure as to how he should face the day before him.

 

Seungho arrived at work no more than 30 minutes later, and not in a good mood either.  There had been a traffic jam and he hadn’t been able to buy himself anything to eat, so he was hungry. All he wanted was to get to work and be able to sit in his office for a while so that he could sulk in peace, but of course, it had to be the total opposite of what he had wished for, and he arrived at work instead to a full house, people running about the place in a panicked state, calling out to one another and, quite frankly Seungho just wanted to rip out his hair in frustration.

“Detective Seungho!” he heard someone call and he turned reflexively to face a young man who he didn’t even recognize.

“A body was found early this morning near the central station in a back lane” the young man told him. “I was told that to tell you that you were to and investigate the scene before the body is removed”

Seungho groaned internally.

“Alright. I’ll go now”

 

No more than 20 minutes later, he was walking through a crowd of curious yet horrified people, their curiosity getting the better of them as they crowded around a narrow side alley, a yellow police tape blocking the area. He sniffed in disgust. They’d regret sticking around once the body was removed. He decided to pay no attention to them as he shoved his way through, until he finally reached the tape, ducking underneath it and walking into the gloom. It went on for about ten meters before a sharp left turn. Once her walked around the corner, he spotted the police and forensics team surrounding several dustbins that would usually been used by the small stores that had their entrances facing the opposite direction. He approached the bins before stopping and looking down at the scene before him, unable to stop his lip from curling in horror.

It was messy and he knew that whoever had killed the man in front of him had been unskilled and rushed.

He leant down and pulled out a pair of latex gloves and pulled them onto his hand expertly, already used to the same monotonous routine that he undertook every time he arrived at a new crime scene.

“Are you done with the photos?” he asked a nearby forensic photographer, who nodded.

“Yeah, we’ve taken all the necessary photos of the scene and the victim. You’d better be quick, they’ll want to clear this out before it gets too busy” the white uniformed man said.

Seungho nodded and turned back to the body, grimacing. It was gruesome.

The victim was slumped against a wall, his body leaning onto the nearby dustbins, his arms limp on the ground besides him. His legs were turned at a strange direction compared to how his torso was facing, giving Seungho the impression that he had already been dead and was dragged over to the bins and placed roughly there.

Seungho examined his face and felt his lips turn down. The victim’s eyes were large and glassy, clouded over, a slight trickle of dried blood running from his right ear, possibly from blunt trauma. He gently reached over and lifted up the dead man’s hand, noting to himself how the body was cold, rigor mortis setting in, which meant that the body had been there for several hours already.

 The deceased man was well built; he was dressed in rather expensive brand clothing, his appearance tidy, other than the fact that he was dead and covered in grime. He had a sharp jawline and dark hair, almost black. His skin was clear and Seungho could tell that he was naturally pale, dark looking rings circling his eyes.

Seungho lifted the victim’s dark jacket slightly to see if there were any hidden wounds, and found nothing, the white shirt he had been wearing at the time of his death still immaculate, protected from any dirt by the jacket, which had taken most of the damage. Seungho frowned; lifting a dark leather wallet from the dead man’s lap that the jacket had been covering. Seungho flipped it open and felt his frown deepen when he realized that the wallet was still filled with several hundred dollar bills, but was totally bare of any cards.

No license, no bank cards, nothing. Nothing to identify him with. It was like someone had removed them all, and he sighed exasperatedly, realizing that the killer had probably removed them all on purpose in order to make it difficult to identify the dead man. He snorted slightly. Whoever had killed the man had no idea what they were doing. If they had been smarter, they’d have taken the money to confuse the investigation- the death might have been ruled simply as a street mugging gone wrong. He sighed again and stood up, lifting the wallet with him, calling out to one of the forensic team members.

“You’d better go and take this wallet in for testing”

The forensic tem member rushed over and took the wallet carefully from Seungho before bagging it.

“I’ll be going now” Seungho sighed, waving briefly at the few of the investigators that still remained before turning and walking back the way he had come.

There were less people at the mouth of the alley, most of them had cleared out once a white van had pulled over, signalling the removal of the body. Seungho looked around, somewhat dully until his eyes landed on a darkly dressed man, standing a little too close to the van for comfort.

Seungho frowned and walked towards him, unnoticed by any of the remaining spectators.

“Hey, you. Can you move away from the van?” He said sharply once he got near enough.

The young man looked up, and Seungho felt his eyes widen somewhat in surprise when he recognized him.

“Mir?”

Mir seemed to have aged in the short period of time since they had last met. Seungho stared at him, stunned. He was pale and sickly looking, his hair a mess.

“Oh, Detective. I thought I’d see you here”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Seungho said, his tone coming off as rude when he was really only concerned for the young man’s health. Mir looked in no state to be wandering around at a crime scene.

Mir was silent for a moment before answering. “I… I want to help”

Seungho stared at him incredulously for a moment before letting out a brittle laugh. “And what makes you think that you can just walk into my case and ‘help’ me out?”

Mir stared into Seungho’s eyes, silently pleading with older man. “Please Detective, I- I need closure. I want to move on but nothing I do is helping. I can’t sleep at night, it frightens me, the unknown frightens me. I need to know what happened to Miyung, I need to find the killer and make sure no one else has to suffer. Please. I just want it to end” His voice was desperate.

Seungho sighed. “Look, I want to help you move on, I do. I feel bad that you’re suffering like this, and really, I actually would let you help me, but it’s not like I can just let any person walk into my case, into crime scenes, into important folders and evidence. It goes against everything I’ve learnt”

Mir’s eyes widened. “I don’t care about the evidence or the files or any of that stuff. Don’t you remember when you first told me that Miyung had been killed and you said to me that you wanted help so it wouldn’t happen again? Don’t you remember?” Mir’s voice was desperate and Seungho felt even worse than what he already did.  “So this is what I want to do. I want to help, just like you asked back then when we first met. I just want to be there when you catch the killer; I want to help in any way possible, if someone tries to interfere with the case, I’d stop them, if someone tried to shoot you, I’d jump in front- just so that this case could continue and the killer could be caught. Miyung… you told me she was kept against her will, she suffered. She was all alone, kidnapped by some crazy person. She was scared and alone, probably hurting, and all that time she probably thought she was going to die, she probably knew that she had no hope. No one should go through that, no one. I just want to help and make sure no one else has to suffer anymore”

Seungho stared at the pleading young man, before sighing.

“Fine. I’ll let you help, but I swear if you’re a burden I’m kicking you out. This is against the rules you know”

Mir was silent for a moment before burying his face into his hands. “Thank you” His voice was muffled and quiet, but Seungho could tell that his words were sincere.

“It’s alright, jeez” Seungho sighed and patted the younger man comfortingly, noticing how thin he had gotten, the loss of a loved one taking its toll. “Seeing as you want to help, you’d better have a look. I have no idea what happened to this guy” he motioned down into the alley way “It’s altogether a different case, but who knows, right?”

Mir looked up, immediately serious. “Alright”

Yet again, Seungho lead the way into the dim alley, Mir following silently behind him.

“So, what can you tell me so far about this murder?”

Seungho sighed. “Not much really. All I can say that it was rushed and poorly planned, probably on a spur of the moment. I did find it strange that all his identification and cards and what not had been removed from his wallet, but I have a feeling the killer did that only to slow down the investigation”

Mir nodded slowly. “I wonder why the killer would do that. Do you think someone tried to mug the victim but accidentally ended up killing him?”

Seungho shook his head. “No, that’s what got to me. All the cards in the victim’s wallet were removed, but there was several hundred dollars’ worth of cash still inside”

Mir frowned. “Weird”

“Oh they’re removing the body now” Seungho noted to himself absently as he saw the last of the white body bag being zipped up.

“Can we have a look around?” Mir asked.

Seungho nodded and began to walk around absently; vaguely registering the fact that Mir was diligently searching around. Seungho looked down at the ground and froze, a perplexed frown on his face.

“Mir, get over here” he called, and soon Mir was standing behind him, peering at the ground in confusion, not spotting what Seungho had already discovered.

“What is it?”

Seungho leant down and grabbed the corner of a slightly bent folded sheet of paper which had been partially covered by a fallen dustbin. He pulled it out carefully, making sure not to rip it before standing back up and holding it gingerly by the corner. He unfolded it carefully and lifted it up, trying to read it in the dim light.

“Next therapy session 3pm, on the 24th of July. Busan Central psychological treatment centre” Mir read from over his shoulder, his eyes squinted in an attempt to read the fine print text and scrawled writing of the person that had written the time and date.

Seungho slowly felt himself grin.

“Mir, I have a feeling we’ve just got ourselves our first lead”

 

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi everyone~

Please forgive me for such a slow update, I've been really busy recently (so much uncompleted homework ergh)

There seems to be many deaths~ hehe. Does anyone have any idea what I'm planning yet? ;)

 

Anyway~ I'm off to write a little bit more, so until next time!

 

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