“I’m surprised you two haven’t run for the hills,” the person thought to be Kim Jongdae said, giving the two policemen walking into his open garage a glance before resuming polishing the car in front of him with a rotary buffer.

“Kim Jongdae?” Minseok asked, yelling to be heard over the noise.

“That’s me,” Jongdae said, pausing what he was doing again. “The last guy who moved here was a cop too, you know. He left within a week.”

“We’re not here to chat,” Jongin said, frowning when Jongdae restarted the machine. “Can you stop that for a second?”

“Hang on,” Jongdae mumbled, concentrating on what he was doing before finally turning the buffer off and putting it aside. “Whoever killed Suho should’ve done it earlier, before you two settled in. That would’ve put you right off this town.”

“How do you know he was killed?” Jongin asked.

“Word gets around,” Jongdae said, mechanically wiping the hood of the car with a cloth.

“We don’t know if he was killed.”

“Then why are you going around town interrogating people? It’s obvious that you think something’s off.”

“We’re just checking all the possibilities,” Minseok said.

Done wiping down the car, Jongdae placed the cloth on the workbench behind him and casually leaned against it. “I had a feeling you’d say some kind of watered down gobbledygook.”

“Apparently you don’t like us very much,” Jongin commented.

“No, I’m just-” Jongdae paused, searching for the right word. “-amused.”

“Did you find Suho ‘amusing’ too?” Jongin asked. “We heard you weren’t a fan of his.”

“Of course I wasn’t a fan. I barely even talked to him.”

“Not even on the local online forum?”

Jongdae shook his head. “I minded my own business and he minded his.”

“Just to clarify, what’s your username on the forum?” Minseok asked.

“1lonewolf.”

“When was the last time you saw Suho?”

“Last week on Wednesday,” Jongdae said. “The day he died.”

Jongin frowned. “How do you know that?”

“He didn’t go online that night. Some of the others didn’t either, but he never went online since.”

“I thought all of you go online everyday?”

“There were only four of us online that night,” Jongdae said. “The chatspace had never been so empty.”

“Who were the ones who didn’t go online that night?” Jongin asked. “Do you remember?”

“I know byuntaeng didn’t because he had to take the night shift to get the day off. Lilu wasn’t online either, probably because he was still pissed. I think the others were thornydada, Aby, and Suho, obviously.”

Jongin scribbled all that down. “Can you tell us what happened when you met Suho that day?”

“All of us – the forum members went to the waterfall in the woods. It was supposed to be like a holiday outing, which I don’t really get because we don’t have holidays.”

“What do you mean?”

“We don’t have holidays,” Jongdae repeated. “I work 365 days a year. If someone wants me to look at their car, I’ll look at it. It doesn’t matter what day it is.”

“Then who came up with the idea of a holiday outing?” Jongin asked.

“I think it was sone0530. He’s the only one affected because the post office closes during the holidays.”

“Sone0530 planned the outing?”

“No, Suho did.” Jongdae paused. “I think. Maybe he just summarized everything, I can’t remember.”

“What did you do at the outing?” Minseok asked.

“It was lunchtime and I think we were all famished so we ate first, and then Suho proposed we play a game.”

“What kind of game was it?”

“Something like a wit testing game where we had to come up with retorts. It was fun.”

“Did everybody else think that it was fun?”

“I don’t know, I was too focused on playing the game to notice anyone else. Now that you mention it though, I think the Fiend had had enough of the game when the final match rolled around.”

“What did he do?” Jongin asked.

“He pretty much said that he would kill Suho in every way imaginable.” Jongdae gave a slight shrug. “Doesn’t mean that he actually did, of course.”

“Did anything else happen when you were playing the game?”

“No, not as far as I know.”

“What did you do after you played the game?” Minseok asked.

“We went swimming in the rock pool.”

“All of you?” Jongin asked.

Jongdae shook his head. “Suho didn’t. I remember he threw something into the water and it flew right past me, and thornydada was getting in a huff at him for whatever reason. I think sone0530 was with them.”

“What happened after you swam?” Minseok asked.

“We sat on the rocks by the pool and just chatted for a while.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Just random things. Like I talked about how getting my hands on Lilu’s ute is one of my major life goals, and Suho said something like that’s not going to happen because he has too many secrets stashed away in there.”

“What does that mean?” Jongin asked.

“I don’t know. Ask Lilu.”

“What else did you talk about?” Minseok asked.

“Nothing important enough for me to remember.” Jongdae seemed to think it over for a moment. “I think Suho said something about putting up surveillance cameras in the woods, and hikikomori 94 apparently didn’t like that idea.”

“What did he do?” Jongin asked.

“Well, he called Suho a lying , and Suho retorted with something like of course hikikomori 94 was an expert in because he still had his head stuck in his mother’s. Obviously that pissed him off even more and we had to resort to manhandling to keep Suho alive.” Jongdae paused, before adding, “For the duration of the outing, at least.”

“What else happened?”

“I can't remember what the others talked about, but after a while Suho went away with someone. I didn’t give it much thought, but then he came back and did the same with the rest of us.”

“He talked to you?”

Jongdae nodded. “Wasn’t much of a talk though.”

“What did he say?”

“He said I should watch my back because he knew everything about me.”

“What was he talking about?”

“Don’t ask me. He didn’t elaborate.”

“But it sounds like something big,” Jongin remarked. “Is there anything you don’t want people to know?”

“If I did I wouldn’t tell you, but no.” Jongdae shook his head. “I don’t think it’s possible to have secrets in this town.”

“What happened after Suho talked to you?” Minseok asked.

“He talked to everyone else. I remember he talked to Lilu last and pissed him off so much that he just about stormed off, towing Aby along. Then Suho said that the outing was over and we could all leave.”

“What time was it then?”

“It was getting dark, so maybe around half past 6.”

“Did all of you leave at the same time?” Jongin asked.

“Not quite. I kind of hung around a bit, and I remember that hikikomori 94 wasn’t making any move to leave, and neither was Suho. Thornydada was apparently upset about something and went back into the rock pool to cool off.”

Jongin frowned and flipped through his notes to quickly scan through it. “So four of you didn’t leave with the rest.”

“I didn’t stay long,” Jongdae said. “I left as soon as I realized that the others were staying put for no apparent reason.”

“What did you think they were going to do?”

“I don’t know. I just thought that they were going to do something, and whatever it was I wanted to be in on it.”

“So that was the last time you saw Suho,” Minseok said.

Jongdae nodded. “Who do you think killed him?”

“That’s not something for you to concern yourself with,” Jongin said.

“Thank you for your time,” Minseok spoke up. “We might be in touch in the near future.”

“Sure,” Jongdae said blandly. “Not meaning to be rude, but you can show yourselves out the same way you came in.”

“Right,” Minseok said, turning around to walk out of the garage with Jongin. “So where are we off to now?”

“I think we’ve narrowed our list down,” Jongin said. “I think I know the people who we have to have another chat with, but before that let’s go to Kim Joonmyun’s shed again.”

Minseok paused when they reached their car, fixing an amused gaze on Jongin.

“What?”

“You’re actually really getting into this.”

“I think solving this case will be a personal highlight for me,” Jongin said.

Minseok smiled and opened the car door. “Let’s hope we can solve it soon.”