ruth to be told, Jun Hong was as scared as hell. But nobody would blame him, though, since this was the first time he had entered that dreadful place called the police station. Moreover, he didn't really know the full reason he came here in the first place — he literally almost threw his phone right after that Detective-something told him that he was needed at the office.

So in the end, here he was, all huffing and puffing in front of the front door to the police station, as a result of sprinting his life out just now.

Jun Hong gulped. His forehead started dropping more and more drops of sweats as his gaze uneasily roam around the place. There were quite a number of police officers here and there — which wasn't surprising considering where they were at the time — and a few common people who surely had something to attend there; much like himself.

No one could deny that a tinsy bit of jealousy was starting to creep inside Jun Hong as he watched how casual people were acting around him, while he himself was about to explode out of worry and fright: how could he not?

The young man bit his lip as he slowly stepped himself to the other side of the office's automatic sliding door, the one that had let him in less than two seconds ago. There were a lot more buzzes going around in the inside part of the office than what he had originally thought. Well, this was the real world after all, Jun Hong thought in a matter-of-fact-ly way, it's not like any of those dramas where the only ones to be attended were the lead roles.

For the nth time, Jun Hong's eyes roamed the place, looking foreign to the new environment. His hand now clutched tightly to the bag he was carrying over his back. Without his consent, a lot of people were now staring at his every move. Sure, they should; after all, we're talking about a handsome boy in an expensive uniform roaming around alone in the police station at school hours, how could they not pay attention?

But of course, despite all that, they boy didn’t seem to pay any attention at all. His eyes were now frantically searching for any doors or tables with ‘Detective Cha’ written on it.

It took him almost five minutes before he found a table that has ‘Detective Cha Sang Yeong, Traffic Violations and Accidents Department’ written on a plate lying on top of it. Now, he was sure that this was the one, since there were actually no other plates or anything that seemed to be owned by anyone by the surname ‘Cha’ that could be seen around.

Thus, Jun Hong slowly approached the table, his head turned from one side to the other in a rather unsure manner, looking for the owner of the table that didn’t seem to be present at the time. Good thing for him, though, it seemed like there were no other clients waiting for this detective’s services other than him.

“Ah, Choi Jun Hong-sshi, you made it!”

Suddenly a voice interrupted Jun Hong’s thoughts. It was a deep and manly voice, and it didn’t take any efforts for Jun Hong to even look to know that the voice belonged to the certain man he was looking for ― Detective Cha.

Jun Hong turned his head to the direction where the voice sourced, finding a tall man, probably in his late 40s, dressed in a black leather jacket, and was now smiling at him.

“Yes, hello… uhmm… Detective Cha, I suppose?” Jun Hong greeted, bowing his head a bit to respect the older. Detective Cha’s smile grew a bit wider as he nodded.

“Have a seat, please,” the man pointed at a chair positioned right in front of his desk, gesturing the younger to take a seat there while they take care of their business.

The boy did as told, and sat, followed by Detective Cha, who also went to his chair behind the desk, sitting there proudly as any other public officials would be. It tickled Jun Hong a bit as he witnessed how Detective Cha lifted up his chin as he sat, almost as if he was saying “hey, it’s me; I’m important here,”; but Jun Hong knew this wasn’t the time to laugh at anything at all. This was when he needed to throw away all his playfulness and cheekiness and start to get serious. After all, we were talking about his best friends’ deadly accident here weren’t we?

“So,” Detective Cha started “I suppose I have told you before on the phone that you are here for the matters of your schoolmates ― miss Jung Hee and the late miss Jung Chae’s ― accident a while ago,”

Jun Hong nodded almost furiously. Oh come on~ cut the crap and get down to the business shall we, old man?

“Well then,” the older smiled. Wait, why was he smiling at a serious moment like this? “I am happy to inform you that the case was closed, and that the culprit is already inside the bars, accepting his rightful punishment,”

Jun Hong’s jaw dropped. What the-…?! So why was he here in the first place? To be the only audience present at the announcement of an accident case being closed? The boy’s mind seemed to be more and more confused by the minute as Detective Cha chuckled lightly at his confused expression.

“You thought that you were here to become a witness or something, didn’t you?” He asked, almost entertained by Jun Hong’s innocence. The boy, though, didn’t take the words as the joke it was supposed to be, and eventually nodded again, only to earn another amused chuckle from the officer.

“I am sorry. You didn’t give me a chance to explain on the phone ― you just turned it off almost instantly ― that the reason of me calling you here is to fetch one of the things we found at the crime scene that we believed was yours,” Detective Cha explained.

It took Jun Hong roughly a few seconds to finally be able to grasp the understanding of his own stupidity. And when he did, somehow, an unpleasant feeling crept up to his chest. Originally, he had thought that he could probably lend a hand or two in his best friends’ case, and had been slightly delighted that he could help. But now, all his expectations were burnt down into ashes.

But wait, Detective Cha just said that the only reason he was called was to retrieve something of his from the crime scene, didn’t he? But as far as he knew, he had nothing he could think of that could magically fly down to the scene where Jung Hee and Jung Chae had their accident. Suddenly, this had become more interesting for Jun Hong to pay attention to.

“So, are you saying that one of my belongings was there when the accident happened?” Jun Hong asked again, just to make sure he wouldn’t misunderstand this man in front of him again ― he had done quite enough of these humiliating misunderstandings for a day.

Detective Cha smiled, and nodded. Jun Hong watched with his eyes full of curiosity and expectations as the man bent down to the small drawer at the lower part of his desk, and took out something that was wrapped securely with a see-through plastic bag and an identification note attached to it. It didn’t take Jun Hong for another look to know that it was one of the so-called evidence. Though, he still couldn’t identify which one of his belonging it was.

“Here you go,”

Jun Hong didn’t blink as Detective Cha handed the thing to him. It was only now that he realized that the thing inside the plastic bag was none other than his own English notebook. The book had a few blood stains here and there, but Jun Hong was still very sure that it was what he thought it was. Somehow, it hit him hard recalling how the particular book even got to his best friend’s hands. He remembered well that he had let Jung Chae borrow it a while ago, prior to her one day absence from school when she had to skip it because she wasn’t feeling well; she had asked Jun Hong to take notes of the lesson so that she could borrow his notes later. Truthfully, Jun Hong wasn’t very fond of English lessons as he at it, so the one day when he took notes for Jung Chae was actually his first (and hopefully, last) time ever that he actually paid attention to the poor English teacher. But thinking about it now, English wasn’t so bad after all.

Jun Hong’s grip tightened around the book as he felt a stingy feeling on his eyes.

“T-this is…” Jun Hong couldn’t find any other words to say. It was getting too hard on him now as memories of his late best friend Jung Chae flooded his mind. Suddenly he felt really sorry for the girl; not because she died at a very young age, but because of the lack of help and attention he had given her during that short amount of her years. Jun Hong knew any better, and he knew well how hard the life Jung Chae had lived behind her happy mask.

Without his permission, a single drop of tear rolled down Jun Hong’s cheek. Detective Cha could only remain in silent as he looked at Jun Hong who was now staring almost blankly at the book in his hands. It took quite a while for the detective to finally manage to gather up some words to say to the boy.

“That book was the only thing that survived the accident aside from the victims’ bodies. We were able to evacuate it only because we found it in miss Jung’s hands by the time she was evacuated,”

Hearing these words, Jun Hong finally looked up, still with a blank and unreadable look on his face. Though, a glint of hurt was clearly drawn in the lines of his expression.

“Your friend seemed to like you a lot, Mr. Choi. Miss Jung Hee held that book securely in her embrace when we got her out, so we had no choice but to save that book along. Apparently, it became the only thing that survived the explosion seconds after,”

With no doubt, Jun Hong’s heart was clearly touched. He felt really honored that Jung Hee would think of saving something that belonged to him even in her most critical momen-…

Wait, wait… Jung Hee?

“Jung Hee?” Jun Hong asked Detective Cha confusedly. Surely, he must've been mistaken; the one that borrowed his book was Jung Chae, not Jung Hee. "Don't you mean Jung Chae?"

Despite the questioning tone he got, Detective Cha answered rather calmly “yes, Jung Hee. She was the one that survived after, right? The girl that died didn’t have anything we saved along with,”

“No, no no… you don’t understand. The one that borrowed this book was Jung Chae,”

Truthfully, Detective Cha was amused by this boy and his rather stubborn nature, and would be eager to debate longer with him, but he knew he had other more important jobs to do instead of just talking to a highschool boy.

“Well, I don’t know who borrowed this book before, Jun Hong-sshi, but all I know was that this book was found in the hands of miss Jung Hee. See?”

Jun Hong’s eyes trailed the detective’s hand as he pointed to a photo attached to a board attached to the left side of Detective Cha’s cubicle wall. It was a photo of a girl being evacuated from a crashed car, with a particular book secured in her arms. Jun Hong had identified the girl to be Jung Hee as he read the small piece of paper pinned on the corner of the photo: ‘Jung Hee evacuation’. Jun Hong couldn’t argue to that, while Detective Cha could only smile in victory.

“Told you so,” he said jokingly. Jun Hong could only plaster his forced smile.

Well, there’s always a possibility Jung Hee was borrowing that book at the time, he thought. Well, there could be such thing, right? Jun Hong quickly shook off the thoughts from his head as he carefully placed the book inside his bag.

“Anyways,” Jun Hong made a remark as he was zipping up his bag “that would be all, right? can I go now?” He asked, making Detective Cha chuckle, thinking the boy was actually quite cute.

“You have to sign some papers first, of course,” Detective Cha pointed out in a matter-of-fact-ly way. “This is after all the police office, and you’re taking out an only evidence,”

Jun Hong ― who was already up from his chair and was ready to leave ― could only smile sheepishly as he went back to his chair, saying “oh, right,”

Detective Cha shook his head at the boy’s behavior as he once again reached down to his drawers, this time looking for some papers Jun Hong needed to sign. The boy waited patiently as Detective Cha almost literally trashed out his drawers, looking for the right documents.

“Strange, I was sure I put it here,” Jun Hong could hear him mumble. The boy only rolled his eyes. He had gotten a bit not too fond of this Detective after their little argument before, so yeah.

“Argh!” Detective Cha groaned as he went back up. It seemed like he couldn’t find the documents he was looking for.

“Is something the matter, Detective?” Jun Hong asked, trying to look like he cared. Detective Cha looked at the boy sheepishly.

“I’m sorry, Choi Jun Hong-sshi, it seemed like I have lost that document somewhere, so if you are busy or in a hurry, you can go and I’ll inform you again when I have found those papers,” he apologized.

Jun Hong couldn’t think of anything to say, so he just shrugged “okay,”