“What do we know so far?” Minseok asked, a piece of dry toast in hand.

Jongin placed the notepad he had been flipping through repeatedly since he woke up that morning down on the kitchen table and lifted his gaze to meet Minseok’s. “Pretty much nothing.”

“What’s ‘pretty much nothing’?”

Jongin leaned back in the relatively new kitchen chair he was sitting on. “We know that nobody saw the victim after that outing, at least nobody that we’ve talked to. We know that they went to the waterfall at lunchtime and left at sundown, but I don’t know if that’s even worth noting.”

“That tells us that he was still alive during that time last week.”

Jongin nodded. “We know for sure that they had lunch, and that at least some of them went into the rock pool, but that’s it. Two of them said that they played some kind of insult-throwing game and two didn’t, three of them said that the victim talked to people privately but two said that he spoke to everybody while the other said he only spoke to some.”

“We’ll be talking to four more people today so that should clarify some things,” Minseok said.

Jongin mulled that over for a while. What would bring them a step closer to solving this case? “Maybe we’re on the wrong track. Maybe the outing isn’t important.”

“If it’s not important, why would they give contradicting statements?”

“So someone’s lying,” Jongin mumbled to himself, throwing his head back to stare at the vaulted wooden ceiling as he thought. “Do Kyungsoo seems to be the most likely candidate since he barely told us anything.”

“But that could be because he was the first person we talked to and we didn’t ask him good questions,” Minseok pointed out. “We should come up with a list of questions to ask.”

There was a momentary pause before Jongin brought his body forward and slouched in the chair, brows furrowed in concentration. “We have to ask them when they last saw Kim Joonmyun. If they say the outing, then we’ll ask all the routine questions to make sure that they’re all telling the truth. If they say sometime after the outing, then yesterday was a complete waste of time because the outing’s not important.”

“It wouldn’t be a complete waste of time,” Minseok said, standing up to rinse his plate at the sink. “We learnt about more than just the outing, didn’t we?”

Jongin picked up his notepad and mindlessly turned the pages. “We know that Kim Joonmyun wasn’t the most pleasant person, and two of the people we talked to said outright that they didn’t like him. According to Lu Han, the ones who weren’t fond of Kim Joonmyun are Huang Zitao, Park Chanyeol, Kim Jongdae and Oh Sehun. He’s right about Oh Sehun, we’ll see about the others.”

“He didn’t mention Byun Baekhyun though.”

“Right,” Jongin said, flipping to the notes he had scribbled down when they talked to Baekhyun. “According to Byun Baekhyun, the so-called mudslinging match pissed off Zhang Yixing, Oh Sehun, Huang Zitao, Lu Han, and ‘pretty much all of them’. Neither Oh Sehun nor Lu Han said anything about that.”

“I don’t think we asked Oh Sehun for details about the match.”

“No, but he probably would’ve said that he doesn’t want to speak ill of the dead,” Jongin muttered. “Lu Han said that the match didn’t even happen, so god knows what’s true.”

“What about the messages in Kim Joonmyun’s inbox?” Minseok asked, tapping Jongin on the shoulder to tell him that he was ready to leave the house. “What did those tell you?”

Jongin got off the chair and followed Minseok to the front of the house. “That he sent a lot of unpleasant messages to Do Kyungsoo, Byun Baekhyun, Park Chanyeol and Oh Sehun. Oh Sehun and Byun Baekhyun apparently didn’t like him for that, while Do Kyungsoo claimed to be a voluntary communal punching bag. We’ll have to wait and see what Park Chanyeol has to say about it.”

“That’s who we’re going to see now,” Minseok said, taking the car key hung on a hook by the front door. “Let’s go to the service station.”

“How do we know he’ll be there?”

“He’s there every time I go there. I think that’s how I picked up his name. Even if he isn’t, we need to get more bread so it won’t be a wasted trip.”

“Okay,” Jongin said. He pulled Minseok closer before he could open the door to give him a kiss, one that was different from their usual quick goodbye kisses. It was a mutually understood rule that once they stepped out of the house their relationship was strictly platonic, but behind closed doors they could be anything. Sensing the odd look Minseok was giving him, he broke off the kiss.

“We’re going to the same place,” Minseok pointed out.

“I felt like doing that.”

“You felt like it,” Minseok repeated blandly.

Jongin nodded. “I think I’m starting to get into this.” Minseok looked at him quizzically, and he added, “I think you’re right. I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but after sleeping on it I think what we’re doing is… compelling.”

“The investigation?”

“Yeah. It’s a new experience.”

“One that we wouldn’t get anywhere else,” Minseok said, stepping back to open the front door. “Where else can we become detectives at a moment’s notice?”

“I feel bad about feeling this way when somebody died,” Jongin said, walking out of the house and waiting as Minseok locked the front door.

“As morbid as this might sound, I think it’s good that you’re enjoying this,” Minseok said. “People die everyday. If you can find something positive in that, then good on you.”