[OPERATION : THE STRIP CLUB]

Words : 6,382

 

“Jongin.” He put his phone to his ear, but his eyes never left the body lying on the ground in front of him, blood pooled around the corpse, but the guy, Jongin, didn’t even look disgusted by it. While he listened to whatever information being told to him, his eyes kept observing every detail around the crime scene and the corpse.

“Yeah, I know. I’m on the crime scene as we speak.” Jongin tilted his head a little bit to the right when he saw a faint shoe print near the corpse’s left side. He waved a finger to signal his partner to come and take a picture of the evidence.

But when said partner didn’t come to him right away, he glanced behind him and shouted for his partner. “Hey, Jongdae!!”

“What is it?” The other person on the phone asked.

“Something. I don’t really know. I need him to photograph it for me.”

“Photograph what?” Jongin rolled his eyes at this. Sehun was so nosy sometimes.

“Something. I gotta go. I’ll tell you everything later.”

“Oh, o—“ Jongin ended the phone call before Sehun finished whatever he was going to say. Jongin searched around the area and shouted when he caught sight of his partner. “JONGDAE!!”

Jongdae leapt 10 feet in the air, almost dropping his DSLR he was showing off to the female cop earlier. He scrambled to where Jongin stood now while flashing an apologetic looking smile to the cop and a promise of “I’ll call you later.” Well, before realising he was in the process of getting the number when Jongin shouted his name, so he didn’t get to get the number. Oh.

“What, Jongin?? Don’t you know I was this close to get her number??” Jongdae panted while complaining, his thumb and pointer finger formed a shape emphasizing his remark of “this close”.

Jongin only rolled his eyes at his partner’s complaining and pointed to the shoe print he found. “Have you taken a photo of that?”

“What’s that? Is that a—wait, that’s a shoe print!! How could I miss this?!” Jongdae started taking a few shots of the shoe print.

“Can you search the owner of this shoe print?” Jongin asked.

“Uhh.. I don’t know. I gotta go back to the station first to properly search, but it’s going to be a long search because this kind of shoe print is really common. There are probably thousands who have these shoes, and that’s in Seoul only. I’m gonna find out anyway, though,”

“Okay. Thanks, man,” Jongin flashed his partner a smile and turned around. He was on his way to his car parked somewhere near the crime scene when Jongdae called out,

“Hey, you still owe me that cop’s number!!”

Jongin turned back around, flashing a mischievous smile, shouting back at Jongdae.

“010-235-1125!! She’s  Chanyeol’s sister you know!!”

Jongin got into his car and laughed when he heard Jongdae shouted a very surprised “What?!” and followed by a “She’s the Yura noona?!”

Jongdae was a moron, really.

<<<   >>>

A piece of paper slammed to Jongin’s table—his case-report-filled table—just as he sat at his desk. He eyed the slammer, which is Jongdae, whose face was filled with confidence.

“Uhm.. what’s this?” Jongin took the paper on his table, after Jongdae removed his hand from there, and began scanning the paper.

“So, I ran a search on the shoe print and I didn’t get a hit, because, like I said earlier, thousands of people wear this kind of shoes and that’s in Seoul only—“

“So, you didn’t get anything..? Then, why are you so happy—“

“Wow, don’t think I didn’t get anything because I did. I ran through the witness statements and one of our witnesses claimed that he saw the victim ran into a guy before he collapsed and you know, died—“

“You have a name?”

“Stop cutting me, geez!” Jongin only shrugged. “His name is Yixing, and before you cut me, again, I’m going to give you a brief information on this Yixing guy. His name is Zhang Yixing, he’s from China, and he used to own a Chinese restaurant before he was arrested for drug possession and closed down the restaurant forever. I think he was framed, though.

“Anyway, he lost his business, his girlfriend, and he was disowned by his parents. Poor guy. People said that he got into a big depression and kinda lost his state of mind, so he can’t remember anything properly. Now, back to the victim, our witness stated that he saw a man stumbling from a corner and ran into this Yixing guy. Yixing actually hugged our victim, and when he let go, our victim just fell down to the ground and never got up.”

“This... Yixing.. He just left him there?”

“No. Our witness said that Yixing looked around the area, asking people to call 911. My guess is, maybe because he is a hobo and a little bit out of his mind, no one took him seriously, that’s why no one called 911, as he has already asked the people to. Until this morning.”

Jongin relaxed himself a little bit in his chair, taking in the information Jongdae gave him. People were just so underestimating sometimes.

“So...” Jongin looked up to Jongdae, his eyes clearly commanding the latter but he didn’t get it. “What are you waiting for? Bring him in.”

The moment Jongdae walked through the main door with Yixing in his hand, Yixing started screaming in fear. Some of them were “I didn’t do it!”s, “I hate drugs, why would I use them?”s and a “Let me go!”

Seeing the commotion, Jongin pulled out his phone and dialed a series of number. Time to call the psychiatrist.

“Hey, Tao. Would you mind joining in an interview?”

 

The interrogation room door opened and then closed right away with a click. Jongin and Jongdae looked at Tao with hopeful look but they were greeted with a desperate sigh from Tao instead.

“Why are you sighing? Was it bad?” Jongdae started.

Tao looked over to the interrogation room for a moment where Yixing was seated in, a blank look on his face. “He is... basically.. in a great depression, I concluded from what he told me. Being dumped by his boyfriend and losing his business are quite nothing to him. But being disowned by his family for doing something he would never do, he claimed, that was just... really depressing. He’s a nice a guy actually. He really wanted to help your victim, but the people around that night didn’t seemingly get what he was trying to do. He tried calling 911 but he stated that he didn’t have any money to make a call. He was so depressed throughout the night and didn’t even get any sleep, until you guys found him and brought him for interview.”

It was Jongin’s turn this time to look over to the interrogation room, observing Yixing’s every movement, which only consist of looking all blank at the paper with the victim’s photograph on it. Poor guy.

“So, what are you going to do?” Jongdae asked again, snapping Jongin back from whatever he was thinking about.

“Hmm.. I’m thinking of taking him under my protection—my family would agree to this, and giving him the medication he needs. He may looks calm and out of it, but he’s actually on the edge of a great breakdown. He would totally break in no time and I want him to be already in the safe of the hospital or rehabilitation or whatever when the time comes.” Tao looked really confident as he glanced over the man inside the interogation room.

Jongin smiled at this. “Yeah, you do that. Good thing you’re a shrink, Dr. Huang.”

Tao only snorted. “Yeah, I know. But, seriously, don’t call me that.” Jongin and Jongdae chuckled on Tao’s remarks. They really shouldn’t call Tao by his official doctor name. The last guy that called him that had to be sent to the nearest hospital. That guy didn’t know Tao did wushu 5 times a week.

But the laugh had to be interrupt when suddenly they heard a knock on the two-way window of the interrogation room. Yixing was holding the paper up on the window with a very happy smile on his face.

“Hey, I kinda remember this guy. He was limping and I dind’t really see where I was going and then he just ran into me.”

<<<   >>>

“So, Yixing, tell me how it happened.” Tao started calmy. His hand clapped on Yixing’s shoulder, encouraging him.

“Uhm.. so.. I don’t really remember, but I’ll try. I was just walking around the area, and then when I this corner,” Yixing pointed at the corner in front of him, “this guy suddenly appeared and I bumped into him. I thought he was really happy because he was trying to hug me, so I hugged him back. But when I let go, he just fell down and dark thing spilled under him. I thought it was ink, you know? Hahaha.. Then, when I really looked what that dark thing was, I smell something weird, something like blood.

“When I know it was blood, I kind of panicked for a moment before I started looking for help. But no one called for help. They thought I was being the crazy man I am and laughed at me. I was mad at them. So I went to the nearest telephone booth, just around the corner. But when I was gonna put in some coins, I realized I didn’t have any, so I... I.. uhm.. I..uhh-I..”

Tao instantly rubbed the sides of Yixing’s arms, calming him, murmuring words of “It’s okay”s and “Calm down”s, while Jongin looked from the side, silently praying for Yixing’s well being then looked away, observing the crime scene and connecting the story Yixing told them just now. There was only one thing missing though.

“Yixing, do you know where he was coming from?” Jongin asked slowly. Yixing looked up at Jongin, momentarily trying to remember who this man asking him question was.

“That way,” Yixing pointed at an alley way leading to, “I think there was a club or something there. I don’t really remember.”

Jongin looked at the alley for a bit before deciding.

“Jongdae, come with me.”

 

Yixing was partially right about the something part earlier, but there was nothing that could identify this building in front of Jongin and Jongdae as a club. It was just some brick wall and metal door that somehow reminded Jongin of Chanyeol’s room’s door. To prevent weird sounds—read : sounds—be heard by his entire family members, he said.

“Hey, Jongdae, is there any witnesses that mentioned anything about this building?” Jongin asked, without turning away from the building in front of him.

“I don’t think so, but I can always ask some people around here. There’s a lovely lady at the convenient store we passsed earlier. I think she’d know a thing or two about this building,”

Jongin only rolled his eyes at his partner. “I didn’t know you were into women.”

Jongdae gasped—dramatically—at Jongin’s comment. “Oh, excuse you, Kim, but I’m into both. Thank you very much. Now let’s go,”

Jongin rolled his eyes again, but stopped halfway before realising, “Hey, you’re a Kim too. And I’m the only one who gets to order around.”

It was Jongdae’s turn to roll his eyes at Jongin’s childish remarks and ignored him, and started walking towards the convenient store he saw earlier to ask some questions to the lovely lady there.

When they got there, Jongdae went straight to the lady, while Jongin looked around the store for some time and decided to buy something for himself while waiting for Jongdae to finish his interrogation-slash-flirting on the lady.

Hmm.. some ice cream wouldn’t hurt a soul, right?

By the time Jongin finished his cup of chocolate ice cream—he had a sweettooth, so what?—Jongdae also finished his interrogation-slash-flirting thing and went out of the store, ready to share some info to Jongin.

Jongin snapped his head to his left when someone clapped a hand on his shoulder, only to find a Jongdae with a sickening wide smile on his face.

“What? Why are you smiling like that? What did you get?”

Jongdae only laughed—creepily, actually.

“Stop laughing like a mad man, Jongdae! Just tell me!”

“Brother, that building Yixing told us is... wait for it.. a strip club.”

<<<   >>>

In the 5 years of working as a detective, Jongin was only scared of 3 things. His captain, because that captain of his is just plain scary. No one wanted to have any problem with Captain Lee Seunghyun. Oh, did he tell you he was the national champion in Judo 5 years in a row? Yeah.

The second, is his mom. No reason, really. Who was not afraid of their moms, please give him a call. And the third? Undercover operations.

He wasn’t good at lying, okay. Not at all. Not even now, when his captain—yes, Captain Lee—ordered him to do this undercover thingy, instead of Jongdae, who was sulking because he didn’t get to do it instead. Doing undercover ops. In a strip club. Kim Jongdae would willingly do it even if it the last thing he could ever do when the world ended.

And seriously, Jongin would willingly give the job to Jongdae if it wasn’t because Captain Lee was glaring at him.

And that was why Jongin was standing out of the club with the other strip club-goers, or whatever it was called, frowning to his maximum.

“Dude, we can just bust in and ask the people in the club. Why should we do this undercover??” Jongin angry-whispered to Jongdae, via his earpiece. Jongdae huffed in the same frustated state before answering.

“I know!! The capt is really weird sometimes. Uggh!!”

Jongin was a little bit startled when the line in front of him started moving, one by one entering the club after being indentified by the bouncer with the clipboard at the door.

“Okay, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you again after I get in.”

“Alright. Remember, this club is a very coordinated and high-end. They only let in their registered members or by the invitation of the registered members. Don’t freak out and just say your lines.”

“I got it, I got it. God, I hate this so much. Why couldn’t it be you to do this instead??”

“Because I would only get swayed by the stripping and wouldn’t do my job properly.” Jongdae huffed in annoyance.

“Yeah, that... is true, actually,”

“Shut up, and get in already, Kim!”

Jongin did as that and walked up to the bouncer, smoothly said his lines with his signature handsome smile.

“Hi. I’m invited by Mr. Lu Han...?” His lines sounded a little unsure when Jongin said it.

And the bouncer also looked a little bit unsure himself before checking his clipboard to see if there was any Mr. Lu Han on it. His face was still stoic when he let Jongin in. Or maybe it was just his face...? Whatever. The important thing right now was, he got in.

“Jongdae? I’m in.”

 

Honestly, Jongin was surprised when he first saw the inside of the club. It was totally mindblowing compared to how it looked like from the outside. It was glamorous, sophisticated, and like Jongdae said, high-end. And judging by the multiple gasps Jongdae let out when he saw the club through the spy-camera attached to Jongin’s ear piercing, he liked it too.

Well, like how the saying goes. Don’t judge a book by its cover.

And Jongin certainly wasn’t judging anything by its cover when this particular stripper—uhh, dancer, whatever—caught his eye.

But that couldn’t be said for Jongdae.

“Damn. Look at those super s. Oh my god.. Tell me you didn’t get a just by seeing those, Jongin!”

“Shut up, Jongdae, or you won’t be seeing any of this in 5—“ Jongin started removing his ear piercing. “..4..3..2—“

“Okay, okay! I’ll shut up! Geez..”

Jongin strived towards the stripper’s platform charmingly, or so he thought. Jongdae told him earlier that with just Jongin walking his model-walking, all women would definitely be begging him to bang them, Jongdae’s words, not his.

But Jongin thought, maybe, this time Jongdae was right. He did his model-walking thingy towards the stripper’s platform, his eyes stared right at the stripper’s eyeliner-covered ones, and he thought he did it. The stripper looked back at him, and she winked at him, in a flirting kind of way. Like she accepted his silent invitation.

The stipper jumped a little bit from her platform, her wavy hair and, dare he said, her bounced a little at the action. She walked rather slowly at Jongin, who only stood a few feet from her platform, red lips between her pearly white teeth, looking all y and... inviting.

Both Jongin and Jongdae muttered a breathy “wow”.

“Hey, there,”

Her voice. Oh my god, her voice.

“I saw you staring at me earlier. You want it fast, huh?”

Yeah, I want it—what?

“I’m sorry?”

“’Staring’ here means ‘I can’t wait to get in you and just give me the fun right now.’”

Jongin’s face went blank at that.

“Well, that. Or,” The stripper leaned closer to Jongin, and whispered right in Jongin’s ear. “..you’re a newbie.”

Both Jongin and Jongdae breathed heavily at this.

<<<   >>>

“Come with me.”

What? Where? Can I join? All those questions—the last one was Jongdae’s—were stuck in Jongin’s head because all he could think right now was how the stripper’s voice, so chocolatey and super y yet so sweet and kinda sultry, sent goosebumps all over his body. In other words, he couldn’t think straight right at the moment.

And right at this moment, the stripper was pulling on his hand, leading him somewhere only the stripper knew.

After two flight of stairs—and dealing with Jongdae’s breathing too heavily Jongin thought he was hyperventilating or had a seizure, the stripper pulled Jongin into one of the rooms on the dimly-lit floor. There were some weird noises coming from the other occupied rooms and Jongin thought, holy .

“Don’t be nervous there, Mister. I will do all the job, and you just have to sit and enjoy. Or maybe you prefer to lie and enjoy..?”

“A-a-anyth-thing, uhm..”

“It’s Kyungsoo.”

“Yeah, anything.. uhm.. ‘Soo,”

“Nicknames. Cute.”

With that, the stripper—Kyungsoo—slammed the door shut with her left foot and backed Jongin until he fell down on the bed he didn’t realize was there.

A hand on Jongin’s chest, pushing him down to the bed, a perfect view of Kyungsoo’s very plump , and a low mewl could be heard through his earpiece—wait, what?!

“OH MY GOD, JONGDAE!!!”

Jongin sat up really fast he startled Kyungsoo, almost making her fell.

“Seriously, Jongdae?! We’re on a mission here!” Jongin rolled off the bed, his eyes wandering at  every corner of the room, checking for any CCTV or weird looking things.

“Is there any surveillance camera in here?” Kyungsoo shook her head, but her eyes not leaving Jongin, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Are you a... cop?”

Jongin snapped his head towards the stripper, almost breaking it even. “..What??”

“You just shouted to a non-existent person. That or..”

“...Yes.”

“Yes, what? Yes, you’re a cop or—“

“Yes, I’m a cop!” Cue Jongdae letting out a frustated sigh over the earpiece. Great. They were busted. By a stripper. And a hot one at that.

“Actually, I’m a detective. Detective Kim Jongin. I’m here on an undercover task to investigate a murder case.” Jongin let out a defeated sigh as he sat down on the bed. His eyes eyeing the stripper in front of him. She looked betrayed though, judging by her very shocked face. Ugh, he felt guilty all of a sudden.

What?

“You’re a cop.” Kyungsoo said matter-of-factly.

“...Detective, actually.”

“Whatever. You’re a cop.”

“Yes...?”

“And you’re here to investigate a murder case.” Jongin nodded slowly, not knowing where the conversation went. “..Who died?”

He looked up, too quickly, at Kyungsoo. “Mr. Lu Han. Do you know him?”

Surprisingly, Kyungsoo gasped at this, almost dramatically, but that only because Jongin didn’t know any better.

“Do I know him?? Everyone in this club knows him!” She strutted over and sat down beside Jongin, suddenly agigated and kinda panicked. “He was one of the most frequent member to visit this club. The longest member also. He was one of the very first members to join the club. Now I know why he didn’t come tonight.”

“He was a member?”

“Yeah. And he was really nice too. Oh my god, I can’t believe it. Who killed him?” Kyungsoo’s eyes were watery now. She looked terribly sad, so she was out of the list of suspects. Not that she was one of them in the first place anyway.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Is there  anyone you know who tried to harm in any way before?”

“Uhm.. I don’t really know. He’s really kind to every strippers-slash- girls here, especially to Minseok unnie,”

“Whoa, wait. Who’s this Minseok unnie?”

Kyungsoo looked a little hesitant before answering. Then she took out an iPod from one of the drawers in the night stand, and then played some random song. She even turned up the volume to the maximum.

“We sometimes turn on some songs to sign that we’re not doing anything we’re supposed to do. It’s something we do here too. We provide bodies to satisfy your needs, but we also provide our ears to at least pushed your problems away for a while. And when we do that, we have to turn on to any songs, and put the volume to the max.”

“Oh. Right.”

“So, tell me about this case.”

“Uhm.. I can’t really tell you about the case, it’s confidential. But could you please tell me about this Minseok girl?”

Kyungsoo took a deep breath. “Okay. Minseok unnie is the owner of this club, alongside her brother, Joonmyun. 3 years ago, it was just a very small strip club at first, but then it got bigger and bigger and it became this club you’re in right now. Luhan—as how he wanted to be addressed—did the same thing you did earlier, staring, to Minseok unnie, like 2 years ago, and he only wanted Minseok unnie ever since. Either to talk, or to, you know, .”

“Is there anyone who seem to not like them together?”

“Her brother, maybe. Joonmyun doesn’t like it when someone took one of his strippers to continuous out-of-club dates.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know, dating out of the club. That’s actually forbidden. But sometimes Joonmyun let it slide because of the money he asked the members to pay everytime they took the strippers out on an out-of-club date. You basically can only date in the club.”

Jongin was silent for a moment. His eyes only looked at Kyungsoo and only her when she was telling her story.

“Jongdae. I want you to run a search on uhm... Kyungsoo, what’s Joonmyun’s and Minseok’s surname again?”

“Oh! Uhh... Kim!”

“I want you to run a search on Kim Joonmyun and Kim Minseok for me. Can you do it faster?”

“How much faster do I have to do it?”

“Faster than usual.”

“Got it.”

Jongin turned his gaze towards Kyungsoo who was sitting in front of him. His eyes glinted with curiousity as he gazed into those deep and big ones.

“So Kyungsoo. Tell me your story.”

<<<   >>>

“You do know that you can just apply to any law firm with that degree of yours. Why don’t you try?”

Jongin asked Kyungsoo after the stripper told him everything about herself, while waiting for Jongdae to finish his search on Kim Joonmyun and Kim Minseok. And some time during the wait, they found themselves sitting next to each other on the bed, blanket covering Kyungsoo’s lower body—so Kyungsoo wouldn’t catch a cold, Jongin had said.

Kyungsoo only smiled a sad smile before answering. “Money is always the problem, Detective.”

“You can apply at our department. There’s always that one empty spot for law counselor left.”

Kyungsoo snorted. “There is such thing as a ‘law counselor’?”

“...I don’t really know, actually.”

“There is such as thing as a law counselor, Jongin, you know that.”

Jongin sat up from his position—leaning on the headboard—startling Kyungsoo in the process when he heard Jongdae’s voice booming to his ear.

“I’ve already searched on Kim Joonmyun and Kim Minseok, and I got a hit. Kim Joonmyun was reported for multiple blackmailing cases, thanks to his illegal pay-for-a-date thing he does. And you know what’s upsetting?”

“What?”

“That motherer of a forensic scientist named Park Chanyeol was supposed to give us his forensic report on the victim and the proofs before we go to do this stupid undercover thingy but he forgot to give it to us because he was “preoccupied” with his new girlfriend Byun Baekhyun, who paid him a little visit to his lab. Can you believe that??”

“So, what does the report say?”

“You never cared to the pre-stories I gave you.” Jongin only rolled his eyes. “Chanyeol pulled a finger print on the knife that was used to stab our victim, and guess who’s the owner of the print?”

“Uhh.. Kim Joonmyun?”

“Correct!!”

“What else do we got? A finger  print on a knife is going to be useless, Jongdae,”

“We also got a lot of complaints on Kim Joonmyun, and his threats he sent to his club members—including our victim—via e-mail.”

Jongin paused for a moment. Would all these proofs be enough to arrest Kim Joonmyun? He felt like something bad was going to happen. But first, to hell with it.

“Hey, Jongdae, you got a warrant?”

“Yes, baby. Just tell me where to go. Oh, and by the time I flash my badge to the bouncer, you only got a few minutes to get to Joonmyun and arrest him before the bouncer warns Joonmyun on incoming cops. Got it?”

“I got it. And Jongdae?”

“What?”

“I’m the only one who gets to order around.”

Cue Jongdae rolling his eyes inside his spying van. And Jongdae snorting, and chuckling too. Jongin was such a child. 27, single, childish and totally in need of a girlfriend.

Jongin got up from the bed, followed by Kyungsoo behind him. He turned around at Kyungsoo, startling her a little bit, his eyes was full of the excitement of the thought of arresting his only one suspect. Finally.

“Does Joonmyun have an office, or something? Do you know where it is?”

Kyungsoo thought for a little bit. “Yeah! Third floor. There’s only one room there. His office, and Minseok unnie’s office, too,”

“Any backdoors?”

“None. The only access, in and out, is through the club entrance.”

“Copy that, Jongdae?”

“Copy that, Jongin. See ya later!”

Jongin reached to his back, pulling out a gun—his gun, from there. He made his way to the room door, opening it a little bit to check on the situation.

Kyungsoo gasps from behind Jongin. “Wow, you do look like a detective like that,”

Jongin almost forgot about her. He lowered his gun for a bit. “Kyungsoo, I need you to go downstairs and warn Minseok about this, and to warn the others too. Get as many people you can out of the club to prevent collateral damages if a shooting broke. Understand me?” Kyungsoo only nodded.

Aaww... She looked really adorable, actually, behind that stripper attire—what?? He didn’t just think that Kyungsoo was adorable. Oh my God.

“Hey, you know, when all this is over, would you like, maybe, grab a coffee with me?”

Kyungsoo only looked at Jongin funny. But Jongin looked so hopeful, waiting for Kyungsoo’s answer. But, still.

“Dude, you’re going to arrest someone who just murdered someone and you still have time to ask someone on a date?? Seriously?”

Jongin only blinked at this. Oh, right.

“Right. I gotta go. Make sure you do what I told you, okay?”

“Okay.”

They looked at each other one last time, and,

“Good luck, to us.”

 

While Kyungsoo went downstairs as Jongin had told her, Jongin himself headed upstairs, gun ready on his hand. When he got to Joonmyun’s office, he walked slowly to the door. But the moment he shouted “SMPD”, the door bursted open and a guy dashed out of the office, knocking Jongin down in the process, and flied down the stairs.

“,” Jongin hissed and scrambled to get his gun, he dropped it when Joonmyun—or the guy he thought was Joonmyun—knocked him down.

Jongin hurriedly chased the guy who was heading downstairs, probably to the club entrance, but when Jongin got to the ground floor, oh how wrong he was.

The guy who knocked him down earlier, had somehow got hold on Kyungsoo, one of his arm circled around Kyungsoo’s neck, a knife pressed down on it, and his other hand had got hold of Kyungsoo’s hands so that the stripper wouldn’t fight him.

“Get back!! Get back or I’ll kill her!!” was shouted over and over by the guy, his eyes were bloodshot and a little bit teary when he glared at the police officers in front of him.

“Joonmyun-ssi, drop the knife and let go of the lady.” Jongdae was surprisingly calm as he ordered the guy—Joonmyun.

Jongin rushed to a steady position despite his shock watching a knife pressed down on Kyungsoo’s neck. “Joonmyun, just do it and no one will get hurt.”

“NO!!!” That one single word startled almost all of the people in the room. Some of the people that were supposed to be ushered out decided to wait and witness. Some even recording the scene. What the hell.

“I WON’T LET HER GO!!”

Jongin tried to calm himself down from the shock. Joonmyun got a really nice pair of lungs to be able to shout like that.

“Why won’t you, Joonmyun-ssi?”

“Because someone will take her away!! Like that bastard Luhan!! He tried to take my sister away from me!”

“Why can’t someone take her away?”

“She’s the only family I have!! Don’t you get that?!! DOESN’T ANYONE GET THAT?! Oh yeah, Luhan didn’t get that!!”

“That’s why you stabbed him and let him suffered to death?”

“HE DIDN’T WANT TO LET MINSEOK GO!! HE WANTED TO TAKE HER AWAY!!”

“AND THAT’S BECAUSE I WANTED HIM TO, JOONMYUN!”

A voice shocked everyone presented in the room, including Joonmyun. Jongin turned his head to the source of the voice which came from somewhere behind him. A girl in almost identical stripper attire Kyungsoo wore then stepped into the spotlight, but her eyes were fixed on Joonmyun only. This girl must be Minseok.

“I’ve always wanted a better life, Joonmyun. I’m sick of being a stripper, I’m sick of being a people pleaser. And when I found someone who was willing to help me to get out of this filthy life, you took him away!! How could you?!”

This apparently got Joonmyun’s attention, but he was still refusing to let Kyungsoo go. Tears streamed down Joonmyun’s face but his eyes never once darted from Minseok.

“If you care about me so much, you shouldn’t have make me to be in this business, Joonmyun. If you care about me, you should’ve just let me go and let me have a better life. Now, please, just let Kyungsoo go. Put down the knife and let her go. She didn’t do anything wrong, Joonmyun,”

“She’s right, Joonmyun-ssi. Just let her go.” Jongin tried to convince Joonmyun. And everything Minseok just told her brother seemed to really affect Joonmyun, enough to make him lowered down his knife and dropped it to the floor, and loosened his hold on Kyungsoo’s neck and hands. Jongdae took off to arrest Joonmyun before another breakdown hit Joonmyun and took another people hostaged, while Jongin ran straight to Kyungsoo and took her in his arms, calming her.

“It’s okay.. Everything’s going to be okay. It’s all over. Everything’s going to be okay..” He let go of her, only to cradle her face in his arm now. Checking whether there was any injuries or not.

“Are you okay, Kyungsoo?”

“I think I... I think I’m fine. I’m fine, Jongin,”

Jongin took hold of her one more time. Reassuring himself that she was really okay before,

 “Let’s get you to the medics.”

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After making sure that Kyungsoo was really, really, really okay, Jongin left her for a bit—more like kicked him away from her by one of the medics—to look for Minseok for a little questioning before the other officers had to bring her to the station for the complete and last questioning.

When he got to where she was though, an officer was taking her statement. Jongin dismissed him to take another statement from the other witnesses.

“Hi, Minseok-ssi. I’m Detective Jongin from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Department.” Jongin started. His eyes busy observing the stripp—lady in front of him. But not in a creepy-observing kinda way. That was totally Jongdae’s style, not his.

“Detective.” Minseok addressed, a smile bloomed on her beautiful face.

“I’m just going to ask a few questions. Is that okay?” The question was answered by Minseok’s nod.

“So, Minseok-ssi. What was the relationship between you and Mr. Lu Han?”

“We were just friends, if that’s what you wanna know. Friends with benefits, I might say. No strings attached, or whatever. But he really wanted to help me to get a better life. He even offered me a job and a nice place to stay even. A nice place away from my possessive brother. But in the other hand, I can’t just leave Joonmyun. He is the only family I have.”

“What happened with your family?”

“Our parents were killed in a car accident when we were little and we both witnessed it. I was 10 at that time and he was only 8. It traumatized him so much that he wanted to protect me so that I wouldn’t get hurt. I thought it was cute at first, but when we got older, he got even more possessive with me. I was okay, though. But I just couldn’t hold it anymore when it only get worse and worse.

“He is troubled, and I don’t want to leave him, but at the same time, what he did to me was just not fair. And Luhan was the one who had to pay—with his life, too, when all he wanted to do was to give me a better one.”

“That is... I dont’ know what to say, Minseok-ssi.”

“You don’t have to say anything, Detective.”

They were just standing there, busy with their own thoughts. Jongin eyes flickered to where Kyungsoo was standing now, blanket covering her body tightly. And in his eyes, she just looked so serene and beautiful.

Too busy watching Kyungsoo, Jongin didn’t notice the lady in front of him smiling knowingly at him.

“You know what, Detective?”

Jongin’s eyes darted back to Minseok, cheeks looking a bit red from being caught staring at Kyungsoo. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Go get her, Jongin. She’d suffered just as much as I had, covering for my leaves to the “out-of-club dates”, almost got hit by Joonmyun for having covering my leaves. Get her out of her misery and give her the life she deserves. I know you can do it.” Minseok gave a smile at the end before turning around to be escorted to one of the police cars that would bring her to the station for more interrogation.

“Oh, hey, Minseok-ssi!”

Minseok stopped at her track and turned around at the call.

“I’m sorry we have to close down the club,”

Minseok smirked at this. “It’s okay. I can always open up another one.”

Both Jongin and the police officer who was ordered to her widen their eyes in shock.

Uhh.. what?

“Hahaha! I’m just kidding! Gosh, you guys are terrible with jokes, really,”

Jongin only chuckled at his stupidity and simply standing there, watching Minseok getting in a police car, waving back when Minseok waved at him and watched the car until it was no longer visible in his vision. And just then he walked back to the medics, where Kyungsoo was earlier and still there when he got back there again.

“Hey,” Kyungsoo said.

“Hey,” Jongin said back.

They just stood there, looking at each other. Both smiling to no ends. Both cheeks were red. But it was probably because of the weather, you know. It was only a little bit after winter in late March.

Yeah, definitely the weather.

“Okay, I’m just going to go straight to the point,” Jongin started.

Kyungsoo only raised one of her eyebrows, curious.

“Can I kiss you?”

Finally, Jongin had said it.

But Kyungsoo only looked at him funny, like she was challenging him.

“You can try.” Kyungsoo said.

Hearing this, Jongin smiled really wide. Wide enough to the extent of Chanyeol’s creepy smile, but still way more attractive than that—Jongin had claimed once.

Jongin started to lean in, a little bit by a little bit, and when it was just a breath away, he could even just claimed those full lips of Kyungsoo’s right away, when a very annoying voice rang in his left ear.

“Jongin and Kyungsoo, standing outside a strip club, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!!!”

He forgot the earpiece was still in his ear.

Jongdae was so dead when they got back to the station.

“Jongdae,” Jongin hissed through his teeth, quietly cursing his partner under his breath. Kyungsoo chuckled slightly at this and then proceeded to kiss Jongin on his cheek.

“We can always kiss later on our date, Detective,”

And Jongin loved the sound of that.

You know, the kiss and the date. And how Kyungsoo said the word “detective”. It somehow sounded so attractive and very y at the same time, it’s just—

“Bro, the story’s finished. Geez..”

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A/N : It's really long, isn't it? I'm too lazy to split it into 2 chapters. I'm sorry!! By the way, comment and subscribe please!! Till next time :)))