I don’t love you for who you are but rather what you mean to me.

“Which means we’re back to square one.”

“Well, I wouldn’t necessarily say square one.”

Woohyun had us all gather at the briefing room, after he had informed the Captain our current situation. Apparently, the Captain had raised an eyebrow when he told him how we had obtained the classified files, but didn’t ask any farther. I was glad I hadn’t been called about it – I would have not been able to explain about Sunggyu hyung.

Out of all of us, Sungyeol seemed the most nonchalant. In fact, he actually looked quite excited, his eyes shining among the dispirited ones around the room.

We all turned to look at him when he said it. Settling himself in a chair, he cleared his throat and started speaking, as if he had been waiting for this chance.

“We have Dr. Ok. Granted, we hadn’t even imagined him to be a part of this case at the beginning, but from all the evidence found, and the fact that Chanyeol had murdered him...”

He left the sentence hanging but we knew what he meant. Even though it would appear Dr. Ok was unrelated to the case, but he had enough ties with it to be an important part of it.

“So do you think Chanyeol murdered him because he believes he killed Kris?” Woohyun asked.

“I definitely got a feeling that he knew more than he was letting on,” I added. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he had actually caught a good glimpse of Dr. Ok disposing of the body, and he was only bidding his time to get his revenge.”

“It was definitely premeditated,” Hana said, nodding her head. “He chose the time when there wouldn’t be anyone at Dr. Ok’s place. The two-storey building holds both his chamber, on the first floor, and he lives on the second floor with his sister and a housemaid. You can’t hear anything from the second floor. During the morning, Dr. Ok didn’t see any patients,” she read from a report. “He was working on an article, so he went down to his office every morning to work on it. Then he went up again to have lunch, and came down at 2 pm. That’s when his secretary arrived and he started seeing patients. Chanyeol went in at 10.30 am, when he knew there wouldn’t be anyone except the doctor.”

It went without saying that Chanyeol had been seeking revenge. The murder weapon had been a gun, brought before at the black market – there was no way it was a random act.

“But what baffles me is, why Dr. Ok would put the revolver he used to kill Kris, and his bloodied jacket on the table right in front of him?”

I had heard that those two items were found at the doctor’s office, incriminating him farther, along with the burner phone that had been used to send threat texts to Kris. They were sent to the CSU, to check for sure that they were indeed the objects we were looking for. If they were, either someone was trying to frame him badly, or he was our murderer – the proofs were stacking up against him. But it didn’t make sense why he wouldn’t hide those evidences that tie him to the murder, or even get rid of them. He’d had plenty of time.

“From what the police who’d been following Chanyeol on your order,” Hana told me, “Chanyeol had been inside the house for thirty minutes before he heard the gunshot. And he had escaped after Minji entered, right?” She looked at the younger detective to confirm it.

Minji agreed.

“I saw him run away, so I went to check up on Dr. Ok but of course, he was already dead.”

“If you’d caught him then, we wouldn’t have to look for him now,” Hana said fiercely. She didn’t usually point fingers at others, so I was surprised. Had something happened between the two of them?

Minji looked taken aback.

“How would I know to arrest him? I didn’t know Dr. Ok had been murdered.”

“But you saw him fleeing, you definitely heard the gunshot!”

“Yes but -”

“This is why you don’t send rookies on important missions,” Hana finished viciously. I could tell everyone around the table was surprised by this side of her, this sudden antagonistic feeling for Minji was new.

Minji pursed her lips but didn’t say anything. I expected Woohyun to say something, but when he didn’t, I said, “Hana, it’s not Minji’s fault. We have people out looking for Chanyeol, he’ll be caught soon. We should focus on the job at hand.”

Minji looked at me gratefully, and Hana apologetically. It seemed that she had found herself and she apologized to Minji.

“This is what I think,” Sungyeol pushed forward as the atmosphere became awkward. “Chanyeol accused Dr. Ok, face-to-face, maybe he forced him to bring out the evidence, on gunpoint. Maybe Chanyeol just wanted the jacket and gun so that he could finally tell the police who the murderer was, because without them, no one would believe him. But then things got nasty, maybe Dr. Ok even tried to attack him, which prompted him to throw a paperweight at him, and just generally finish him off, for good measure.”

He looked around the table – Hana and Youngjae were nodding; Minji had her face in her hands, her elbow resting on the surface of the table, her face unreadable. Woohyun was frowning lightly. To be honest, I liked Sungyeol’s theory – it was plausible.

When Woohyun still did not speak, I took charge.

“That’s good Sungyeol, and it will be over once we catch Chanyeol. But what we have to decide now is, was Dr. Ok really from the drug gang, or is he someone who just found out about Kris’ past and decided to threaten him?”

“How would he know about Scream, that particular codename? Even Chanyeol didn’t know. And why would a rich, respectable man like Dr. Ok threaten a lowly drug dealer?”

“And how did he acquire Sunggyu’s gun?” Woohyun finally spoke. I had a feeling that maybe meeting Sunggyu hyung was bothering him, maybe he was still thinking about how hyung had not recognized him, or spoken to him. That was why I hadn’t wanted them to meet.

“The way I see it, we need a bit more to go on. Chanyeol might be able to elaborate,” I said. “And I think it is important to find the crime scene, that way we might find the blunt weapon used to hit Kris on the head.”

Everyone nodded.

I then looked t Minji.

“Tell us about Sunggyu hyung’s files. What did you glean from it?”

Minji moved slightly in her chair, pulling out a thick stack of papers.

“We can’t make copies of the file, because Intelligence doesn’t want copies of it lying around everywhere. But I read them thoroughly and it’s quite – well, Kim Sunggyu-ssi was on the brink of something huge – if he had succeeded, he could have very well maimed the drug business running in this country -” She paused, looking at me nervously.

I was annoyed of course that she had started like that, making it seem like it was hyung’s fault that the drug cartel was running amok in the country, that he hadn’t been successful when he got the opportunity.  However, I didn’t have time to let these thoughts interfere in my deduction.

“Basically, what he found out was, seven years ago, all the different drug businesses run in the country were brought under a cartel, unified by one man. This man, their leader, who went by the code name Blood Lily, was feared by all, but he was also a shadow whom only the members of highest echelon knew.”

Now I understood why Taemin had been shaken by Blood Lily’s name. He had believed me when I had used his name, because Blood Lily wasn’t the kind of name that would be whispered in the streets.

“Blood Lily surrounded himself with a few trustworthy people, and the rest followed his orders too. Sunggyu-ssi had once spoken to a dealer who had talked to Blood Lily, just once. He didn’t remember his face but apparently he was powerful and intimidating, the kind of person you want to follow to the end of the world and at the same time who gave you shivers just by thinking of him.”

I noticed that Minji wasn’t consulting her notes; her voice had risen and she seemed excited, at the prospect of the existence of Blood Lily. She was in awe of this powerful figure perhaps, but there was something strange about the way she spoke of Blood lily – it was almost reverence.

“Anyway,” she said, collecting herself, “this Blood Lily is the center of everything, ‘an intricate web that controlled all trades related to drugs in South Korea’ – according to Sunggyu-ssi. This cartel even controlled drug trades from Korea to China, Taiwan etc.”

“China?” Sungyeol’s head perked up. “Kris is from China.”

“Hold that thought,” I told Sungyeol. “Minji, continue.”

“Yes, so – so this one huge gang –they are called the STR DIENASTY – it’s well protected. You never get to the core, you never can, and as long as you can’t get to the core, it’s impossible to bring them down, according to Sunggyu-ssi.”

Woohyun nodded.

“We knew that there was huge cartel, but we didn’t know it was this big. Sunggyu was really sitting on a bomb there. There are influential people involved in this business, so it’s difficult to get at them.”

“So the STR had a headquarters. It was a rumour, but Sunggyu-ssi found a possible address of this place, he was completely certain. And it later turned out to be right.” She glanced at me again, before continuing. “According to Sunggyu-ssi’s information and calculation, Blood Lily was supposed to be at the STR Headquarters at the time of the raid. He had planned it carefully, capturing the formidable leader would spread fear among the rest of the gang – they would realize that their leader is neither invincible, nor elusive. It would weaken the cartel. He also hoped to capture all the leaders of the gang, who were close to Blood Lily, who would definitely be with him within the Headquarters. It was an elegant plan.”

“But things didn’t go according to plan,” Woohyun whispered beside me. I felt a block of ice settling down in my stomach.

“There are no real names in the file, only the code names that he had gathered. The leaders, the higher-ups especially went only by their code names, and the lower members didn’t know their real identity.”

“Do you think Scream was a higher-up?” Hana asked.

“The files don’t actually say that,” Minji replied, thumbing through the stack she had brought out.

“I have something to add to that actually,” Youngaje said, raising his hand. When I nodded at him, he said, “We missed something in Kris’ case file. It was at the back, in Mandarin, but I got it translated. It’s a conviction paper – this wasn’t Kris’ first time in the business. Back in China, he’d been caught trying to smuggle drugs from China to Taiwan. It was a very small amount so he wasn’t punished too harshly. When he got caught in Korea again, he received a warning – if he’d got caught around this time, he’d have been deported.”

“He couldn’t risk that – especially when he had Chanyeol here, he obviously wouldn’t want to get deported back to his own country,” Hana said.

“China – the link seems to be China,” Sungyeol interrupted excitedly. “Maybe he had been working STR from China, but once he got caught there, they brought him to Korea, where under the guise of a model, he could carry out his work.”

“So they placed him at the same company as one of their other members, Taemin,” Hana deduced. “It makes sense.”

“But then he got caught again, and this time something different happened. At rehab, he met Chanyeol, fell in love, decided he’d quit,” Youngjae added.

“But why would they start threatening him nine months after he quit? Why not right away?” I asked. If they had wanted him that badly in their gang, they would have started to harass him the moment he decided to quit. Or were they giving him a period of respite, to remove the watching eyes of the law from his back?

“It makes sense now that they had Sunggyu’s gun, it’s the same gang.” Woohyun’s voice was soft, his eyes duller than usual. I could tell he couldn’t focus, and most of the times, he was pensively unresponsive.

I broke up the meeting, telling them to meet here tomorrow morning.

“By that time, Chanyeol would be here I hope.”

Minji told me she’d have to return the files tomorrow, the 24 hour-time stamp allotted on it would be over. I told her to note down the important information, and return it. It wasn’t our job to catch Blood Lily, not unless he was somehow related to Kris’ murder. For now, it was almost certain that Dr. Ok had killed Kris.

I turned to Woohyun – he hadn’t heard me.

“We’re leaving,” I told him.

“We are?”

“I’m sorry Woohyun, you shouldn’t have met hyung.”

“No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be like this.” He seemed to shake it off of him, but then he said, “I miss him you know, your hyung. He is to me what Sungjong is to you, you understand right?”

I imagined it – if Sungjong didn’t know me anymore, if he denied everything we were one day – I wouldn’t be able to live. I understood Woohyun’s pain, it was crippling, but he couldn’t go on like that.

“Come on,” I said, “I’ll give you a lift.”