Do Kyungsoo’s reaction to the news was almost comically theatrical – his face paling in an instant to make the bags under his eyes even more prominent, mouth falling open into a frozen gape, eyes wide and unblinking as he gripped onto the frame of his front door for support. “Dead?” he managed to croak out.

Minseok nodded. “We’d like to ask you some ques-”

“Are you sure it’s him?” Kyungsoo interrupted.

“Kim Joonmyun, went by the name Suho on the local online forum,” Jongin read out from the notes he had scribbled down on the way here. “23-year-old male, average height and build, lived in a shed in the woods, body found in the rock pool below the waterfall, dead for about a week-”

“I have pictures of the body on my phone if you want to take a look,” Minseok offered.

“No,” Kyungsoo said quickly. He paused, hesitation apparent on his features. “On second thought, yes.”

Minseok scrolled through the photos on his phone, trying to find the best shot of the dead man’s face. “Here you go.”

Kyungsoo barely glanced at the photo on the phone before turning away with a horrified exclamation. He took a deep breath, seemingly to gather himself, and looked at the photo again, a look somewhere between concentration and disgust on his face. “I think that’s him.”

“I’m surprised you can tell,” Minseok remarked, looking at the photo himself. The victim’s face was not only severely distended, it was also a gruesome purple, thanks to the fact that he had been lying face down in the water. Not to mention that almost half of his scalp was missing, the skin loosened from having been underwater for so long.

“What do you need to know?” Kyungsoo asked, his voice feeble.

“Your username on the online forum would be a good place to start,” Jongin said.

“Abysmal Abyss.”

Jongin exchanged a knowing look with Minseok. Do Kyungsoo was one of the people who had every reason to loathe their cyberbullying hermit.

“I came up with it when I was ten,” Kyungsoo added, misunderstanding the odd reaction to his answer.

“We have quite a few things that we’d like to ask you,” Minseok said. “Can we talk inside?”

“Yes, of course,” Kyungsoo said, stepping aside to let them in.

“Can you tell us more about the outing to the waterfall?” Jongin asked once they had settled into the cushioned chairs in the living room.

“I don’t know who came up with the idea, but Suho was the one who set the time and date,” Kyungsoo said. “It just so happened that none of us had anything planned on that day.”

“So you went there on Wednesday last week.”

Kyungsoo nodded.

“What did you do there?”

“Just normal stuff. We fooled around in the water for a bit, had a picnic – byuntaeng brought some old food that they couldn’t sell at the store anymore.”

“Byuntaeng?” Minseok asked.

“Yeah, he works at the petrol station.”

Jongin scribbled that down for future reference. “How long did you stay at the waterfall for?”

“Almost the whole day. We gathered there at around 11-ish and came back in the evening.” Kyungsoo’s brows furrowed as he tried to recall the exact time. “Until around 6, I think? It was starting to get dark.”

“Did you leave the waterfall as a group?”

“No, we went back separately, the same way that we went there.”

“Did Kim Joonmyun leave at the same time?”

Kyungsoo nodded. “He said he was going to walk home. That’s how I figured out that he lived close to the woods.”

“Did any of you stay behind?” Minseok asked.

“I don’t know. The person I went there with was in a bit of a hurry, so I was one of the first ones to leave.”

“Who did you go there with?”

“Lilu. He lives close by.”

Minseok looked at the photo of the handwritten list of names and addresses in his phone. There was only one other person who lived in this area. “Lu Han?”

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“You know his real name,” Jongin commented.

“Everybody knows Lu Han,” Kyungsoo mumbled.

“What else happened during the outing?” Minseok asked.

“Nothing worth noting.”

“What was Kim Joonmyun like when you last saw him?”

Kyungsoo chewed on his lip as he thought, before finally giving a slight shrug. “The same as what he’s like online, I guess.”

“Mean? Spiteful?” Jongin prompted, earning him a wary glance from Minseok.

“What?” Kyungsoo asked, obviously confused.

“He sent you some pretty unpleasant messages online, didn’t he?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“He didn’t?” Jongin repeated skeptically.

Kyungsoo shook his head.

“He called you pretty much every name in the book,” Jongin said, flipping through his notepad for what he had managed to scribble down earlier.

“That’s how we talk on the forum.”

“‘How’s the town ?’” Jongin read from his notes. “That doesn’t sound the slightest bit confrontational to you?”

“He was just asking me how I was.”

“Couldn’t have worded it any nicer if he tried,” Minseok muttered.

“And that’s just the first line,” Jongin said.

“You won’t understand unless you’re actually part of that community.” Kyungsoo sighed. “The things we say on there might seem offensive anywhere else, but to us it’s just normal.”

“He sent more messages to you than to anyone else,” Jongin pointed out.

“They all do,” Kyungsoo said. “I’m the communal punching bag.”

“By choice?” Minseok asked.

Kyungsoo nodded.

“Don’t you think this ‘Suho’ guy can get a bit over the top sometimes?” Jongin asked.

“No,” Kyungsoo said, shaking his head. Suddenly, realization seemed to dawn on him. “Wait, you can’t be- You think-” He gaped at the two policemen sitting across from him. “You think I killed him?”

“This is nothing more than routine questioning,” Minseok said.

“It feels like an interrogation.”

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

Kyungsoo hesitated. “You think he might’ve been murdered?”

“We’re just checking all the possibilities,” Jongin repeated.

“If he was, I can say for sure that it wasn’t one of us who did it.”

“Then none of you would have a problem with answering our questions,” Minseok said.

Kyungsoo chewed on his lip again, seemingly in contemplation, before nodding. “What else do you need to know?”

“You don’t think that there was anything strange about Kim Joonmyun’s behavior during the outing?” Minseok asked.

Kyungsoo shook his head.

“What about the others?”

“No. They’re all the same as they are online.”

“Are you sure that nothing out of the ordinary happened?” Jongin asked.

“Yes.”

“It’s been more than a week since then. Are you completely sure that you haven’t forgotten anything?”

“What do you want me to say? That there was a fight and somebody drowned him?”

Jongin nodded. “That would help.”

“Nothing happened,” Kyungsoo said, a hint of exasperation in his voice. “We met up, had a good time, and went back home. That’s all.”

“Alright then,” Minseok said. “We’re trying to put faces on the rest of the forum members. Do you think you can help with that?”

“I can try,” Kyungsoo said tentatively.

“What do you know about the others?”

“What do you want to know?”

“Just give us something that’d help us pick them out from a crowd.”

“Okay,” Kyungsoo sighed. “Thornydada’s easy to spot; he’s usually out and about in this area with a doll on his shoulder. Byuntaeng’s at the petrol station almost 24/7, Lilu’s the guy with the ute who lives a couple of houses down, but you know that. One lone wolf skulks about in carparks; I think he has something for cars.” He paused. “Who else is there?”

Jongin looked at his notes. “H-K-K-”

“Oh, that’s right,” Kyungsoo said. “Hikikomori 94. He doesn’t go out much obviously, but his mother’s active in all the local societies and whatnot. We call her Auntie Oh.”

“What about S-O-N-E-0-5-3-0?”

“So one oh-five-thirty. He’s usually at the post office. I think he runs an online business of some sort.”

“And six the six-” Jongin frowned. “What the hell kind of name is this?”

“The fiend? I don’t see him around much, but his presence is hard to miss.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s… intimidating, for lack of a better word.” Kyungsoo shook his head. “I’m sorry, I’m not very helpful.”

“I think we know enough,” Minseok said, standing up, prompting Jongin to stand up too. “Thanks for your help.”

“You’re welcome,” Kyungsoo mumbled, following them to the front door.

“We might be in touch.”

“Okay,” Kyungsoo said before closing the door, reluctance evident in his every move.

“So now we know who Lu Han and Oh Sehun are,” Minseok said to Jongin as they walked back to their car, which was parked on the side of the street. “We’ll just have to be on the lookout for the rest.”

“I think we’re looking at one of them,” Jongin said, gaze fixed on a figure lounging on the low wooden steps of the bank across the road, animatedly talking to the air. “You reckon that’s a doll on his shoulder?”