“Are you sure this is legal?” Jongin asked, hesitating to enter the unexpectedly cozy interior of the shed in the woods. The shed was near the woods had been what he was told, but it was indubitably in the woods, almost completely shrouded by trees and plants. Contrary to its outward appearance, the space inside was perfectly kempt and seemed to be the very epitome of a home.

“We are the law,” Minseok said, walking over to the large pinboard hung on the wall above a small bed. “The owner’s dead and he doesn’t have any living relatives as far as we know. This shed’s as good as public property.”

“If he was really murdered, then don’t we need a warrant just in case we find some kind of evidence to use in court?”

Minseok turned around to look at him. “What court?”

“A court of law,” Jongin said, stating the obvious.

“Never heard of it.”

“What the hell, Minseok?”

“That’s not how things work here,” Minseok said, matter of fact. “This is just a formality. We find the killer, give them a slap on the wrist and that’s it. Nothing gets written down, nothing gets reported, nobody knows anything except for us, the killer, and the people involved.”

“That’s not remotely funny.”

“I’m not trying to be funny,” Minseok said, returning his gaze to the pinboard. “This is a dying town with a forever dwindling population of less than a hundred. The last thing this place needs is a murder case to turn away anybody who’s considering moving here.”

“Because you would much rather move to a town with a killer on the loose.”

“We find out who the killer is so we can keep an eye on them to make sure that there won’t be any repeats. That’s our job. This is more likely than not a one-off anyway.”

Jongin sighed. “We’ll find the killer and then move, okay?”

Minseok paused, fixing a scrutinizing gaze on Jongin.

“What?” Jongin asked, fidgeting uncomfortably.

“This may not be what you’re used to, but it’s not wrong. Just throw away any convictions you’ve managed to form despite everything and start afresh.”

“Not when it’s obviously unethical,” Jongin pointed out. “This person could have been murdered. Don’t you think he deserves justice?”

“I don’t think giving his killer shelter and free food for life constitutes justice.”

“Well-” Jongin faltered.

“Let’s do as the Romans do, shall we?” Minseok gestured at the old, bulky laptop on a desk in the shed. “Go see what you can find in there.”

Jongin reluctantly walked into the shed, sat himself down on a chair at the desk and switched on the computer. He had always found it fascinating how easy it was for Minseok to fall into new ways of life, but that was one trait that he found impossible to imitate. There were always things that he couldn’t bring himself to like or agree with in all the places they had lived in, and this town seemed particularly abundant in those things. Nevertheless, Minseok had obviously taken a liking to this town, so he would just have to it up and try to endure everything somehow. “What’s on that pinboard?” he asked while waiting for the computer to boot up.

“Some blurry but possibly incriminating pictures,” Minseok said, calmly taking photos of everything on the pinboard with his phone – apparently everything was DIY in this town. “I think our hermit was either a spy or a hardcore busybody.”

“What kind of pictures?”

“Some shifty-looking guy possibly shoplifting, what seems to be somebody keying a car, a bunch of people fighting maybe, and-” Minseok frowned. “Somebody pulling out a plant? Is that what this is?”

“He must have been bored stiff and that’s his entertainment,” Jongin said, looking through the countless randomly titled video files in the computer. “He’s also into illegally downloaded espionage and sci-fi movies, amateur , and grainy CCTV videos – not from this town, that’s for sure.”

“There’s a bunch of names and addresses here,” Minseok observed. “If these people were important enough for him to pin their addresses up on his wall, then they might be of some help.”

“Local addresses?”

“Yeah, one of them lives right next door to us. An Oh Sehun? Can’t say I’ve heard of him.”

“Who else is on there?” Jongin asked, idly looking through the other innocuous files and documents on the computer. “Do any of the names sound familiar?”

“I don’t think so,” Minseok said, squinting at the small pieces of paper pinned on the board. “There’s Byun Baekhyun, Lu Han, Do Kyungsoo-”

Jongin frowned. Where had he heard that name before?

“Huang Zitao, Park Chanyeol, Kim Jongdae and Zhang Yixing,” Minseok finished. “It’s funny how I’ve never heard of these people.”

“Ah,” Jongin said, belatedly having a lightbulb moment. The guy at the police station, that’s right. Didn’t he mention something about an online community? He opened the internet browser on the computer, silently hoping that the dead guy didn’t make it a habit to delete his browsing history.

“Park Chanyeol sounds somewhat familiar though,” Minseok wondered aloud.

Jongin didn’t have to worry about digging through the browsing history; an ostentatious looking forum with the town’s name displayed at the top was set as the home page, and he was automatically logged into an account with the username ‘Suho’. A quick scan through the forum told him it had a measly nine members and all the boards were empty. However, a visit to ‘Suho’s’ inbox told him a different story. “I think the victim was a cyber bully.”

“What did you find?”

Jongin gestured for Minseok to come closer. “He’s been harassing a bunch of people on this forum. I think we might have found a list of possible suspects.”

“You’re quick to jump to conclusions,” Minseok remarked, looking at the screen.

“The last time he was seen alive was during an outing to the waterfall with these guys. Last week on Wednesday, I think it was.”

“Where did you get that from?”

“One of them went to the station to report someone missing. I think it’s safe to say that the missing person and our dead guy is one and the same.”

“Because one conveniently turned up dead when the other’s reported missing?”

“At the same place. The guy who reported him missing said that he lived near the woods and that he was part of an online community. He also said that there are nine of them in that community, which corresponds to the member count of this forum. The description he gave matches what you told me too. We can ask him to confirm if this ‘Suho’ is in fact the guy that he was looking for. Apparently his address is on there.” Jongin pointed at the pinboard.

“Which one?” Minseok asked, walking back to the pinboard.

“Do Kyungsoo.”

“This Do Kyungsoo is also a member of that forum?”

“That’s what he told me.”

“So I’m guessing that the other people on here are also members of that forum.”

“It’s plausible,” Jongin said, nodding. “The numbers add up.”

“So which of these people had he been harassing?”

“Pretty much all of them,” Jongin said, scrolling through the private messages in ‘Suho’s’ inbox. “He sent a lot of messages to Abysmal Abyss, Thorn- Thorny Dahdah, am I saying that right? Someone called Byuntaeng, an H-K-K-”

“Real names please,” Minseok cut in.

“It doesn’t say. I don’t think any of these people know who the other members are either, if what the guy at the station told me is anything to go by.”

“Do Kyungsoo?” Minseok asked, rechecking the name on the pinboard.

“Yeah.”

“What did he tell you exactly?”

“That the outing last week was the first time they met up as a group, and that they don’t use their real names because they want to be fairies and unicorns online and not the sad hermits that they are in real life.”

“I'm pretty sure you made the last bit up,” Minseok said, frowning disapprovingly.

“That’s basically what he told me in a nutshell. When I asked him for the missing person’s name, he said he didn’t know, and then claimed to be his friend.” Jongin shook his head. “If that’s not ridiculous, I don’t know what is.”

“So I suppose we’ll just have to work through this list,” Minseok said, gesturing at the pieces of paper with names and addresses neatly written on them.

“We might be completely off-track, but that’s a good place to start.”

“We’ll visit Do Kyungsoo first to check if our Kim Joonmyun’s really the guy that he thought had gone missing.”

“He might be able to help us figure out who the other members are too to help us differentiate between suspects and random people who just so happen to be members of the forum,” Jongin said. “He probably won’t be helpful with names, but he knows what they look like.”

Minseok nodded. “He lives close to the town centre, so that’s where we’re going now. Take the laptop with you.”

Jongin shut the computer down, and unplugged the cord from the wall before mindlessly coiling it. “This doesn’t feel real.”

“Well, it is,” Minseok said, giving the shed a once-over to make sure that they hadn’t missed any other clues. “We have a body and we’re about to figure out why it’s there. It’s compelling to say the least.”