Note: the dialogue in cursive emphasises that they are speaking in Chinese.
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Yolkov had given up on continuing the interrogations as long as everyone was so upset and had allowed them to go back to their rooms to rest. After all it was still in the middle of the night and the last couple of hours would have been enough for anyone to want some sleep.
Tao, however, lay restless in his bed, staring up into the bottom of the bed above his. Lay had returned from an intense hour-long shower, his skin scrubbed sore red and in some places almost bloody and he was now lying on his bed, silently crying into the pillow. Tao couldn’t help thinking of how used and humiliated he must feel and his stomach immediately felt as if it were going to rip itself apart. He wanted to comfort him, tell him that there was no way any of them judged him for having been with Kris, that he shouldn’t give in to this immense feeling of self-loathing, but he couldn’t think of any words which would begin to cover it. After a while Lay’s sobbing had turned into a calm, steady breathing pace, telling Tao that he had finally fallen asleep.
Very slowly he rose from his bed and without making even the slightest noise he tiptoed to the door. It creaked a bit when he opened it and went outside, but Lay didn’t wake up.
The aisle was deserted and he met no one on his way to the restaurant; his bare feet made little to no sound at all as he walked, exactly as he wanted it to be. If one of the others found out what he was about to do Tao would probably be the next in line for a broken nose, but he couldn’t stand it any longer.
Sliding through the half-open door to the darkened restaurant he moved towards the wall where he knew there was a light switch. For a long time he fumbled along the wall, gaining a few slivers as he moved and he started to get annoyed the longer it took him to find that damn switch.
Finally his fingers scraped against the button on the wall, but before he had the chance to press it the lights were from the other end of the room. Yolkov was standing by the door to the staff-room, one hand on the light switch, an inscrutable look on his face.

“Looking for something?”

His almost perfect Chinese made Tao lose his breath. It took him several astonished seconds to catch it again and when he answered it was far from being anything coherent.

“You… you know… you speak Chinese?” A smile settled on the sergeant’s thin lips and he nodded, obviously amused by the boy’s overwhelmed reaction. “But how? I thought…”
“Russia is vast. My mother was born in the northern part of the Heilongjiang province, very close to the border. Naturally I must learn to speak her language as well as my father’s.”

“But you didn’t tell,” Tao sneered, irritated and confused. “How come you didn’t let us know?”

“In truth I hoped you might let something slip if you thought you were safe speaking Chinese. Especially that blond one, Kris…” He chewed on the inside of his lip, looking carefully at Tao, who had finally found enough presence of mind to lower his hand from the bare wall. “But you were awfully good at keeping to Korean… Never mind that. More importantly, what are you doing here?”

At least, he thought, Yolkov didn’t sound as if he were accusing him of something, which was likely to be the first time since they met earlier that night. Shrugging, he sat down on the chair he had used earlier when he had been interrogated and looked at the Russian sergeant.

“I wanted to talk to you.”
“After finally having gotten rid of me? What for?”
“I want to help you.”

Yolkov nodded, seating himself on the opposite chair, leaning leisurely across the table, yet his eyes remained serious.

“I figured one of you eventually would say so.”

“Actually, it’s not like I want to help you, more like I need to… I can’t take this anymore, I need to know the truth. Everyone is hiding something and it just feels wrong having to unravel all these stupid secrets, when we are in fact trying to find a psychopath.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, not able to look the sergeant in the eyes when it came down to it. The word “psychopath” had been luring in his mind ever since the bodies had been found, but to think that he was using it to speak of one of the others… “The thing is,” he mumbled, slightly blushing, “I feel as if I’m about to sell my friends to you by cooperating, as if I’m some kind of… traitor…”

It tasted sour in his mouth as he spoke and the weight of his confession felt like stones straining his tongue. But even if this ended up with him being forced to conclude that two of his best friends had been slaughtered by someone he had considered his brother he needed to know for sure.

“Tell me… Are you more of a traitor than someone who pretends to grieve with the rest of you when truthfully he has gunned down your friends in cold blood?”

Yolkov tilted his head a bit and Tao looked down, biting his lip, before he slowly shook his head.

“I guess not…,” he whispered in defeat.

“Good, because you’re not. Rather, you’re a saviour. Now, I would like to ask you some questions, regarding the motive. I need to find out who of you actually has something to gain from their deaths.”
“Fine.”

Yolkov frowned a bit when he noticed Tao’s meek expression, but he continued nevertheless.

“You probably know that I suspect Kris and Kai more than the rest of you… for obvious reasons. But I would like a fresh view on it. Do you think Kai could have done it? After all, you know him better than I do.”

He started to run it over in his head again. Yes, Kai was definetely one of the most obvious suspects. He had been alone with no one to confirm his whereabouts for hours, he had been outside at some point during the night and most importantly, he actually had a motive, and a strong one, too. His reaction, however, had been so heartbroken and genuine that he couldn’t get himself to believe it to be an act. Sehun had been the only one whom he had really loved and even though it must have been Hell to see him with someone else all the time, it still didn’t make Kai a murderer.
After several seconds of silence, Tao shook his head and looked determined at Yolkov, his eyes aglow with confidence.

“Honestly, I don’t believe a boy who is scared of confetti would be able to do something like this. Kai would rather break his spine lengthwise than hurt Sehun.”
“And you are not only saying this because you want to believe it’s true?”
“No.”
“Good. Then I’ll trust you about Kai. What about Kris then?”

Tao’s stomach felt as if it had tied itself into a hard little knot that fought to pull his entrails from their original positions inside of him and the more he tried to convince himself that his leader simply wasn’t capable of harming anyone, the more the knot tightened and hurt. He didn’t want to believe anything Baekhyun had revealed earlier, but it was clear that he couldn’t shake off the accusation when it came down to it. Kris had denied nothing. And it was true that Baekhyun’s hysteria attacks had changed their character that time in Busan… Before that he had been more like a diva than a crazy person, in fact they had only used the word “hysteria” as a joke, but after that night when even Chanyeol had had trouble calming him down he had turned jumpier than ever, strange and deranged and sometimes even afraid of his own shadow. Tao remembered how he had even caught himself thinking that he had to be considered fortunate for not having to deal with Baekhyun every day because of their schedule in China.
And now the fashion in which he had stayed in his room, crying and incoherent and downright terrified. Something had happened and he had to admit that the explanation brought forward seemed possible. Kris was not a frail little boy the way Kai was.
He bit his lip, tugging down on it as hard as he could without biting through.

“I guess it’s more likely… for it to be him,” he whispered, his voice shaking as he thought of what the others would say if they heard him. Yolkov nodded.

“I would say so as well. But that leaves us with another problem: he has an alibi for those two essential hours now, thanks to Lay. Kris was right when he said that any physical evidence would prove his whereabouts, it was obvious from the way Lay reacted. He must have felt truly humiliated, but there’s nothing to be done about it. We have to cease entertaining the idea that it was Kris who did it for now…” Little did he seem to like it, though. “So tell me about the others, starting with Baekhyun. Would he have anything to achieve by shooting them?”

“Baekhyun?”

He looked confused at the sergeant, wondering why he had chosen to ask about the little brunette. Of all people Tao would have deemed him least likely to kill anyone.

“Yes, Baekhyun. If he wasn’t with Kris during those ten minutes he wasn’t in the bar with the rest of you, then where was he?”

“You’re right…” Tao shut his eyes tight and moved a little in the chair, uneasy. “Well, if Kris really were having with Luhan at a regular basis it would not be too beneficial for him to shoot him in the head, now, would it?”

For a moment a smile flashed on the Russian’s mouth and he nodded approvingly.

“You ask the right questions. No, it would not. And that leads me to my next question: if Baekhyun was not with Kris and did not kill the two in compartment 6, then where was he? Could he have seen anything of importance?”
“Maybe… But what if… uhm, okay, hold on, what if… let’s say Luhan had turned Kris down last night. You know, before we got on the train. Assuming he really were in a relationship with Sehun, then he might have been sick from having to give himself to someone else than Sehun. Or Kris could just have made him so angry that he told him no. Wouldn’t that give Baekhyun a motive then?”
“Anger… or desperation. Very good Tao, very good. That would indeed be a possibility. If he learned that he was no longer safe from Kris, then he would want to try and persuade Luhan to go back to him, in order to save himself. And from what I’ve seen he is the type to do something drastic out of desperation. Let’s not rule him out just yet then… What bugs me most about that explanation, however, is that if Baekhyun had a gun in his possession already, then why not just shoot Kris and claim it self-defence?”
“I’ve thought about that as well… How could anyone from the group have gotten hold of such a weapon in the first place? We’re under observation twenty-four hours a day, it should be impossible.”

It frightened him how easy it was to sit there and talk so freely about it. Every ugly thought about who could be the guilty one were rushing to his mind and right to his lips. It didn’t feel as if he was saving anyone. Well, other than his own conscience maybe.

“And yet Jongdae have managed to keep up his drug-abuse for over a month. From now on, let’s assume your company has been sloppy. Someone has or did have a gun. It’s not unthinkable that the murderer has disposed of it to get rid of the evidence. All he would have to do was throw it out a window, which is why I haven’t searched for it. But to get back to the motive, I am thinking either jealousy or safety. If anyone of them started to talk, it would be bad for Kris, so he shoots them first chance he gets and if Luhan managed to man up and tell Kris no, Baekhyun could have gotten quite desperate and ended up shooting them by accident. Jealousy is a bit more complicated, though…” He sighed and leaned back in the chair so that the light fell upon every aspect of his face and Tao realised that the police officer was about as tired as he was; his skin had started to pale and even though he seemed to be happy about finally talking to someone cooperative, his eyes were heavy with fatigue. “Without thinking I need you to tell me the names of everyone in the group who would be jealous or hurt from Sehun and Luhan being together, quick as you can.”

“Kai, Suho, Lay, Jongdae and Kris, even though he probably didn’t want a romantic relationship…”
“Good, with these names in mind I want you to tell me who would benefit from getting rid of either one of the deceased. Romantically, that is.”

“Uhm…” Tao started to chew on his lip. “Well, there’s Minseok, because of Jongdae, but… it’s nothing serious, Jongdae just had a crush on Luhan when we were trainees, that’s all. And Kyungsoo, of course, because of Kai. If that’s the case it has been a bloody waste of time…”

“Jongdae and Minseok seemed to be quite close. Are they in a relationship?”

“Any day now…” Tao curled his lips, thinking of his friends who had stuck together since the beginning. As the only Koreans in the Chinese part of the group they had helped each other through the hard times far from home and everyone knew how Minseok wanted them to be more than friends. Everyone except Jongdae, it had seemed for a long time. But the brunette was finally starting to show little shy signs of liking Minseok back and for three weeks now everyone had been bursting with anticipation, struggling not to spoil it before it had even started by scaring him off again. Despite his cocky and carefree behaviour, Jongdae was extremely innocent when it came to romance, in fact he seemed almost afraid of his own feelings, and Suho had forbidden them to even the slightest.

“And Kai and Kyungsoo?”

“Not in a million years.” Once again he felt fortunate for not having to deal with the problems in their Korean unit. No wonder Suho had looked on the verge of a mental breakdown lately. “Kai only wants Sehun, no one else. He has even turned down offers from some of the female stars from our company as well… There’s no way he would ever want Kyungsoo, poor thing.”

“And Kyungsoo knew this?”
“I think so… Somewhere deep inside he must have known that it was a lost cause. Besides, he doesn’t have it in him to hurt a fly, he’s simply too nice.”

“I see…”

“Is this any help at all?,” Tao sighed and lay his head down on the table, resignedly and tired all of a sudden. “We’re not getting anywhere…”

“Then how about we change that?”
“In what way?”
“You can talk to the others in a way I couldn’t, simply because you’re their friend. So I want you to talk to Baekhyun for me.”
“Why him?”

Yolkov rose from the chair, looking equally as tired as Tao, yet his voice was laced with optimism.

“Because regardless of the impossibility concerning his whereabouts, he believed everything he said himself. Couldn’t you tell? There was nothing made up about what he asked Chanyeol to explain, he was truly confident that what he said was true.”

“Of course he was. What is your point?”

“Kris is lying.”

Lay was clinging to Tao’s stuffed bear when he came back. The panda had been a birthday gift from the rest of the group and he never went anywhere without it. Normally he didn’t like having others holding it either, but looking at how serene Lay appeared, curled up around it with both arms clenching it tightly in his sleep, the shadow of a smile resting in the corners of his mouth, Tao decided that he could do without the bear for just one night. The black-haired boy smiled and his senior’s brown locks softly, thinking him still asleep.

“I’ll forgive you for borrowing that,” he muttered beneath his breath and a tired mumble met his ears in reply.

“Thank you…” Lay nuzzled his face into the panda’s thick synthetic fur and peaked out from behind its fluffy head with eyes only half open.

“Don’t mention it.”

“It’s not like I wanted to steal it…” His voice was almost nothing but air and he was obviously still halfway asleep. “I just needed to have someone with me... You know, someone completely not involved in this mess.”

“It’s okay,” Tao assured him, burying himself beneath his own duvet. “I understand.”

“Thank you…,” he answered sleepily, already drowsing off again.

“Lay?”
“Uhm…?”
“Nothing.”

After all he couldn’t make himself disturb the calm, safe sleep that had settled over his friend. He had thought of asking him about Kris, but now was not the time, he decided, closing his eyes to try and sleep himself.

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Author's Note: I realise this chapter is boring, sorry. Hope you liked it anyway :b

Next chapter, "Secrets in the dim light", will be up Sunday 21st 8 P.M GMT+1! Please look forward to it ~