We all have holes in our past.

Detective Jung Hana stood in the middle of the bedroom with her gloved hands on her hips.

She had arrived at Kris’ rented apartment an hour ago with a team from the Crime Scene Unit. They had already found some very interesting items in the preliminary search and Hana had immediately informed Woohyun. He and Myungsoo were at Kris’ agency but Woohyun had assured her that he would be here as soon as he finished up there. Apparently, Youngjae and Minji would take over at the agency.

Hana didn’t know what to think of Minji. She had worked at Narcotics for three years, but she was new to the Violent Crimes Department. When she had asked Minji why she wanted to work Homicide, she had given her an evasive answer. Hana was not the one for idle chatter but in her endeavor to appear friendly, she had asked Minji some personal questions, none of which she had answered properly. The only time she had seemed interested was when Hana had mentioned Woohyun. They used to work together apparently, and she had a very high opinion of him.

It seemed strange to Hana that Minji would want to work Homicide, and that too with their unit, where Woohyun was. It seemed too much of a coincidence, even though she knew the detective couldn't have a hand in it, not in the straight way anyway. She wondered if Minji had indeed followed Woohyun to this department. Maybe she liked him. But Woohyun was probably not aware of that – he didn’t seem like he was.

Just the way Sungyeol was oblivious to Hana’s efforts.

“His laptop, ma’am.” One of the CSU members handed her a silver, shabby laptop. Signs of wear and tear were evident all over it.

“Send it to Tech,” Hana ordered. “And no sign of his cell phone?”

“No ma’am.”

“Keep looking.”

Sighing, she headed towards the small desk placed haphazardly on one corner of the room. He definitely didn’t leave his cell phone home, no one did that. The murderer had to have taken it. Maybe it contained information about the murderer, maybe Kris had even called the murderer in the last few seconds of his life.

If they had at least known where he had been murdered, they would have gotten other hints as to who the murderer was or what he wanted to accomplish. It couldn’t have been just random street crime; if Kris had been attacked by a hijacker, they wouldn’t have missed the glinting diamond ring on his finger though. And of course they wouldn’t go to the trouble of dragging him away from the murder site.

No it’s definitely organized murder, maybe even premeditated.

There were mostly magazines on the desk, spread all over as if Kris had read on the bed and then thrown them to the desk once he was done with them. There were a few papers with Kris’ handwriting, she supposed, which looked like scripts. He had probably gotten them from his manager on how to converse with potential clients and fashion designers since he didn’t seem to be very good in Korean. The last item on the desk was a calendar, but it doubled as his planner as she saw tiny notes on the calendar beside each date, along with time. As she took a closer look, she realized that the notes were made in Mandarin.

Hana remembered taking Mandarin in school – it had never been her best subject. Now as she tried to decipher the characters beside the date marked 8 June, the day Kris was murdered, she had no clue to what he had written.

Aish, who knew I’d actually need Mandarin one day.

“We need a translator,” she said out aloud to no one in particular, picking up the calendar with her gloved hand. She moved toward the other room, which was put to multiple uses such as the kitchen, dining and living room, where the rest of the CSU members were working.

She handed the calendar to one of them, instructing him to get translations of all the Mandarin writings.

They were almost done, and she wondered if she should call Sungyeol to see how things were going at his end. Sungyeol didn’t know she was in the office today; he probably still thought she was on a vacation with her boyfriend, unless Youngjae had told him.

She felt a pang at the thought of her boyfriend, now ex; he was a nice guy and he was so disappointed when she’d broken up with him. But she felt that going on a vacation with him would have given him an almost permanent status in her life, which she couldn’t imagine giving to anyone but Sungyeol. Combing her hair with her fingers, she sighed softly. Every time she thought about Sungyeol, a sigh escaped her lips. They had been friends for quite some time, and she’d been dropping hints left and right too, but he didn’t seem to see it. Or maybe he did see it, but didn’t want to accept it.

Is it because we’re co-workers?

There was a knock on the door, rousing her from her musings. Woohyun and Myungsoo walked in, smiling at her.

“I heard you got something interesting for us,” Myungsoo said, looking around.

Myungsoo was very sweet and he treated everyone at the office often to good food. But there was a cold side to him as well, which came out when he was talking to criminals or trying to catch them. Truthfully, he scared her a bit, how he could change from absolutely angelic to cold and cruel. Woohyun, on the other hand, was more predictable. He was not only soft-spoken, but also soft by nature. He was caring, and often generous, but maybe that was what made him an excellent Homicide detective. Contrary to popular belief, force wasn’t always the best option when dealing with ruthless criminals.

“You’ll decide. Now remember how Kris was a drug dealer gone good? The files said that he’d been clean ever since, but check this out.”

She motioned to one of the CSU people, who carried a large cardboard box and put it at Myungsoo’s feet. It was full of what looked like small packets containing something whitish. Hana knew what they were the moment she’d seen them.

“Found them under his mattress,” she said, smiling grimly.

Woohyun extended his hand, and one of the CSU members passed him a pair of gloves. Pulling them on, he stooped down and lifted one of the transparent packets of whitish substances and held them to the light. Myungsoo joined him.

“Is it what I think it is?” Myungsoo asked, looking at Woohyun.

“Positive,” Woohyun said, his face darkening. “I don’t understand, I thought Kris was not doing this business anymore.”

“I can’t tell if he’d recently started it or if he’d been doing it all along. This is all we found, 50 packets,” Hana said.

“He probably had the number of whoever was in charge on his phone, maybe that’s why it was taken,” Myungsoo said, frowning.

“Wait, do you think he was killed because of something relating to drugs?” Hana asked. The drugs in his apartment of course opened a whole new world of possibilities. Kris could have been killed by someone from a competing drug gang, or someone from his own gang, or maybe even someone he supplied to. It could have nothing to do with his modeling career.

“We’ve found his laptop, we’re going to check it for emails and stuff,” she volunteered since none of the two detectives were speaking. “And also there was a calendar he probably used to note down his appointments, but it’s in Mandarin so we have to get it translated.”

She informed them about everything else they’d found at the apartment. He had an expensive wardrobe, everything else was quite plain. There was a few hundred Wons in a locked drawer and no other money or things of real monetary value. He didn’t have any flat mate and speaking to the neighbors didn’t yield much – all they could tell about him was that Kris kept to himself mostly, and had only one or two visitors a month. They hadn’t noticed anything unusual yesterday and hadn’t even known that Kris didn’t return last night. All in all, they weren’t interested in Kris.

“This is strange, isn’t it?” Woohyun said thoughtfully, more to himself than anyone else.

“Do you think his manager knew that he was dealing again? Maybe even using too?” Myungsoo asked.

Hana wasn’t exactly sure why but the other two detectives were finding it difficult to believe the existence of drugs in Kris’ place. She however didn’t think it was that odd.

After all, old habits die hard.

She was wondering if she should tell her colleagues as much, but surely they knew. She was about to say something when Woohyun stopped her.

“Kris’ manager said he was working hard to leave everything behind him and become a top model. He spent tedious hours at the studio and gym, practicing and preparing himself. By the looks of it though, he was going to throw it all away…”

Hana nodded, finally understanding why the other two were confused. Kris was about to make a name for himself – why implicate himself with drugs at this point?

The head of the CSU team handed her a list of the things they were taking away for examination. Thanking him, she turned to the other detectives questioningly. They shrugged, which meant that they didn’t want to see anything else at the apartment. Hana had sharp eyes and all the detectives usually didn’t question her observation, except for Youngjae. He had an odd complex – he thought he was the brain of their little team. There was nothing grossly wrong with the idea because Youngjae was indeed smart but he felt that he needed to check everyone else’s work, just to make sure they hadn’t missed anything, even though he was the junior most detective on the team. He usually pissed off Sungyeol bad, who hated the show-off types.

Who am I kidding, Youngjae’s an annoying brat.

As they were exiting the building, Woohyun filling her in on what they had heard and seen at Kris’ agency, Myungsoo asked, “Have you heard from Sungyeol?”

She had been about to call him when the two detectives had walked in.

“Not really, but I think I should check up on Minji, she’s my responsibility after all. I brought my own car so…”

Woohyun and Myungsoo nodded at her and ambled toward where there car was parked. Waving at them, Hana took out her cell phone and dialed. She waited as the sound of ringing filled her ear. She didn’t know why but every time she called him, she felt a strange, almost childish trepidation. Any moment now, she’d hear his voice.

The call went to his voice mail. She heard his voice, recorded at a previous time, not exactly what she was hoping for.

“This is Detective Sungyeol, and I’m busy at the moment. Please leave a message if you like me, and if I like you, I’ll call you back.”

He’s so childish.

But that was one of the things she loved about him. His childlike innocence appealed to her immensely. A man like Sungyeol was difficult to find in these days when true love was almost nonexistent. If there was one person who could love her honestly, it would be Lee Sungyeol.

But he doesn’t want to love me, does he?

Annoyed by her pessimistic side, Hana walked toward her car. Thinking about Sungyeol made her pessimistic, but it also made her strangely happy. It was both a blessing, and a curse.

Smiling a little, she started dialing Minji’s number. Sungyeol had to wait – right now, she had to check up on her responsibility.