“Thorny made me do it,” the man who was presumably ‘thornydada’ said, hurriedly jumping to his feet when Jongin and Minseok approached him.

“Do what?” Jongin asked, taken aback.

“Sit on the steps. I know I’m not supposed to, but Thorny was persistent.” He glared at the small, poorly made doll he was holding up to his right shoulder with his left hand. The doll seemed to be a poor imitation of Bart Simpson, with its yellow skin and spiky hair – or rather, head.

“That’s not why we’re here,” Minseok said. “We’d just like to ask you some questions.”

“What kind of questions?” the man asked, guarded.

“We’re investigating the death of a local man,” Jongin said. “From what we've gathered, you’re one of the last people to see him alive.”

“Somebody died?”

“Somebody called Kim Joonmyun. You might know him as Suho.”

“Suho’s dead?” the man asked. “Thorny says good riddance. We all hated him anyway.”

Jongin eyed the man, trying to gauge his expression. He either had a morbid sense of humour or he was a borderline psychopath, judging from the nonchalant glee on his face.

“What’s your name?” Minseok asked.

“Baekhyun.”

“Byun Baekhyun?”

“Yep.” He nodded towards the doll on his shoulder. “This is Thorny.”

“Where were you last week on Wednesday?”

“On Wednesday? I don’t remember.” Baekhyun looked at the doll and shook its head with his right hand. “Thorny doesn’t know either.”

“Did you go to the waterfall last week?” Minseok tried again.

“The waterfall? Did I go to the waterfall?” Baekhyun asked the doll.

Jongin took a deep breath and exhaled heavily. He had a feeling that this would be extremely infuriating.

“Thorny says I did.”

“Who did you go with?” Minseok asked.

“The guys.”

“You need to be more specific than that,” Jongin said.

Baekhyun fixed a beady stare on Jongin, along with the doll. The doll’s tiny, stuck on pupils seemed oddly sinister. What the hell was wrong with this duo?

“The Loners Club,” Baekhyun finally said.

“The Loners Club?” Minseok asked.

“We’re a bunch of local guys who usually chat online. Can I sit down? My arms hurt.”

Jongin frowned. “I don’t see the connection, but yeah.”

Baekhyun plopped himself back down on the stairs and placed the doll on his lap, before looking up at the two uniformed officers in front of him. “So.”

“How many people did you go to the waterfall with?” Minseok asked.

“About ten? I wasn’t keeping count. Neither was Thorny.”

“Was Kim Joonmyun one of them?”

“That’s Suho, right?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, he was there.”

“What did you do at the waterfall?”

“Suho thought it’d be fun to have a mudslinging match.”

Jongin glanced up from the notes he was rereading. “A mudslinging match?”

“Throw insults at one another the way we do online, but this time it was face-to-face, one-on-one, so it felt a lot more personal. The losers get dunked in the rock pool and the winner wins the title of ultimate .” Baekhyun shrugged. “Figures he would come up with something like that.”

“So who won?” Jongin asked.

“Who do you think?”

“Suho?”

Baekhyun nodded. “He must’ve had a death wish when he went against The Fiend.”

“Was it all just fun and games or…?” Minseok asked.

“I think Suho was the only one enjoying himself. We kind of went with it at first, but then things turned sour.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some people got pissed off.”

“Who?”

“The people who usually get pissed off.”

“Names,” Jongin prompted.

“The Fiend, obviously, the 94-er, the five thirty guy, Lilu. Pretty much all of them, really.”

“So the outing ended on a bad note?” Minseok asked.

“Not really. I mean, that game was getting brutal towards the end, but we’re all kind of used to it. Even the pissed off ones were still in character.”

“In character?”

“Yeah. That outing was pretty much a chance to act out the online personas that we’ve built for ourselves.”

“What’s your role?”

“Thorny’s dad,” Baekhyun said simply. “Thorny does everything and I just watch.”

“All of you met up in the woods just to indulge in playacting?” Jongin asked. “That’s a bit sad for people your age.”

Baekhyun looked at him. “You know, Thorny doesn’t like you very much.”

“Yeah? Tell it the feeling’s mutual. I don’t like it very much either.”

“It’s a him,” Baekhyun said levelly. “I’d watch my back if I were you.”

Jongin frowned. “Is that a threat?”

“What else did you do at the waterfall?” Minseok interrupted, gesturing for Jongin to just take notes.

Baekhyun glared at Jongin for a few seconds longer, before turning to Minseok. “We had lunch – crappy, expired food that nobody wants from the petrol station – and then we played that game, and then we kind of just hung out.”

“When did you leave the waterfall?”

“After dark.”

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

“Well, Suho announced that he wanted to go back home first. I mean, he’s the admin, so he gets to decide when everything starts and ends, but Lilu and Aby were the first ones to actually leave.”

“Lilu and Abysmal Abyss?”

Baekhyun nodded. “Yeah. Lilu didn’t seem too happy after Suho pulled him aside.”

“Pulled him aside?” Minseok repeated.

“Suho had things he wanted to say to some of the guys in private or something.”

“Who else did he talk to in private?”

Baekhyun shrugged. “I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Did he talk to you?”

“Nah. He had more bones to pick with Thorny than with me.”

“So what happened after Lilu and Abysmal Abyss left?” Minseok asked.

“The rest of us left too.”

“All of you?”

“I don’t know. I guess so? I had to get Thorny in bed so I was in a hurry.”

“Did you see or hear from Kim Joonmyun after that day?”

“It’s still weird to hear him called that.” Baekhyun shook his head. “But no, he hasn’t- hadn’t been online, which was kind of strange, but I didn’t think too much about it. The forum’s a lot more pleasant without him.”

“Obviously you didn’t like him,” Jongin commented.

“None of us did.”

“How often did he used to go online?” Minseok asked.

“Everyday. All of us do.”

Jongin looked at his notes, frowning. They hadn’t narrowed down their list of suspects at all. All they knew was that Kim Joonmyun was with a bunch of pathetic, antisocial people, engaging in pathetic, antisocial activities the last time he was seen alive. Maybe they were barking up the wrong tree.

“What kind of group did you say you were again?” Jongin asked.

“The Loners Club,” Baekhyun said.

“And what is that exactly? Did all of you meet online and decided to start a group, or did one of you make the forum and the rest just joined?”

“Suho invited me to join. I think the rest were too.”

“He invited you?”

“Yeah, he left a note in my mailbox.”

“That explains the addresses,” Minseok said under his breath.

“So it’s an exclusive club,” Jongin said.

Baekhyun nodded. “I don’t know what the criteria to get in are, but the only explicit rule is that we have to be single.”

“Isn’t that just sad.”

“Do all of you like being part of the group?” Minseok asked, shooting Jongin a warning look.

“I think so,” Baekhyun said. “It’s nice to socialize with like minded people. I mean, we’re all loners in one sense of the word or another.”

“So all of you enjoy each other’s company, but none of you liked Suho,” Jongin remarked.

“Well, he wasn’t exactly the nicest person.”

“Was it a group effort?”

Baekhyun frowned. “Huh?”

“All of you wanted to get rid of him, didn’t you? The outing was the perfect chance-” Jongin halted when he realized that there was another frowning face staring at him.

“Take a step back,” Minseok said, almost wearily. He turned back to Baekhyun. “Thank you for your time. We might be in touch in the near future.”

Baekhyun shrugged. “Sure.”

“Look, I know neither of us know what we’re doing here, but can you at least try to keep your biased judgments in check?” Minseok said to Jongin as they walked back to their car.

“What biased judgments?” Jongin asked.

“I know you hate this town, I know you hate everybody here, but we’re supposed to be professionally, as in unemotionally, investigating a case.”

“I am trying to be professional.”

“You hated that guy on sight,” Minseok pointed out.

“He’s shifty. Did you notice how he completely forgot about his doll – I’m sorry, his son – halfway through?”

Minseok sighed. “Do you honestly believe that all of them conspired to kill the victim?”

“Well, it’s something, isn’t it? We’re nowhere near finding out what actually happened, so I thought I’d just throw something out there.”

“We still have six more people to talk to,” Minseok reminded him. “Let’s just take things slowly and not jump to conclusions.”