“You finally leaving?” Jaebum lifts his gaze from where he’s packing the files on his desk into a box, to see Jimin sidle up, picking up an empty red folder and turning it over indifferently. “Damn, we’re all gonna miss you so much.”

Jaebum rolls his eyes, taking the file from her and sliding it into the cardboard box along with all his other files. Anyone passing by would take it as a subordinate officer snatching the opportunity to be rude to her leaving supervisor, but Jaebum’s had ample time to get used to Jimin’s sarcastic nature.

“Can’t wait to see you kick again,” Seunghoon, another officer in Arson, fistpumps as he strolls past Jaebum’s desk, black and white CCTV screenshots in a file in his hand. “The force’s been wimpy since you left.”

“I wouldn’t say that so early,” Jaebum mutters, now carefully arranging the notes in a way that would (hopefully) be convenient for the officer replacing him to use. The thought still makes him uneasy- it’s all coming back now, expectations he has to live up to, hopes belonging to others riding on his back, and Jaebum isn’t sure how much he likes it.

“Augh, you’re being humble now, ew,” Jimin scoffs. “Come on, everyone knows you built the best track record here in the fastest time, don’t even try to deny it.”

“Records like these are meant to be broken by you guys,” Jaebum sends them all warning looks, and Jimin rolls her eyes, but Seunghoon salutes cheerfully.

“Yes sir!”

“Shut up and go away, Hoon.”

“You’re only touchy cos you weren’t promoted to chief in his place.”

Jimin picks up a table clock and threatens to throw it at Seunghoon, who pretends to faint in fear, and Jaebum firmly takes it from her, dropping it into his box.

“Don’t kill each other when I’m gone, alright, all of you,” he sends a warning look at Jimin, who stares innocently back through large, expressive eyes. “You’re a team, be it Traffic, CID, Home Affairs, whatever. You’ve got to work together, understand?”

“I’ll take care of them, hyung!” Seungyoon’s trooping down the bottom of the stairs when Jaebum stops, as Seungyoon waves cheerfully. Jinwoo, another officer in Traffic who’d been particularly supportive when Jaebum was working out the new protocol, whoops.

Jaebum feels relieved already- Seungyoon’s young, but Jaebum can’t think of anyone more fitting to take over the department. Said man is already walking over, grinning at Jaebum.

“You’re going to come back and visit, right?” he says, and Jaebum chuckles.

“Maybe, if I remember to amidst all my cool new duties,” he says drily, with a grin, and they laugh.

“You heard about his new partner, though?” Seunghoon pipes up, once the laughter’s subsided, and Jaebum raises an eyebrow. The file JYP had given had been pretty much useless to him- nothing he didn’t already expect from the little he knew about his new partner. And gossip’s one of the most useful (and unreliable) sources of information, he’s learned in the years he’s been here.

Jimin’s eyes light up, like they’ve walked the conversation right down her alley.

“I hear he’s handsome ,” she drops her voice conspiratorially low. “You know, with the kinda face that’d make you wanna get arrested by him, mm.”

“Do your sources tell you anything of actual value?” Seunghoon asks, already looking bored, and Jimin glares at him.

“The new transfer from Busan?” someone’s voice travels down from above, and they look over to the stairs to see Yerin walking down, blinking curiously, a stack of files in her hand. Yerin’s another analyst, like Youngjae, except unlike Youngjae, she’s actually civil to the people around her. Jimin cries out in joy.

“Yesss, Yerinnie, no one understands my woes except you,” She whines, pouting. “Jackson’s a hot piece of , isn’t he?”

Yerin’s cheeks colour, her slender fingers reaching up to rearrange her glasses nervously. “U-uhm, I guess you could say that-…”

“See?” Jimin gestures violently. “Yerinnie agrees with me.”

“What else do you know about that guy- what’d you say his name was?” Seungyoon squints. “Jackson?”

“Weird name,” Seunghoon comments. Jimin smacks him.

“Weird names don’t matter when you’ve got a face that charms the off every woman within a five metre radius,” Jimin declares. Yerin giggles nervously.

“Is he from America or something?” Jaebum decides to join in- Yerin’s an analyst, after all. She should know something he doesn’t.

“Hong Kong. Mixed blood,” Yerin says, looking a little guilty that she’s giving out information like this. “That was his birthplace. Other than that, I don’t really know much. Um, he’s just a little younger than you, Jaebum-oppa? High school education, I think.”

“Foreigner with a high school education, and we let him in?” Seunghoon sounds dubious. “JYP must’ve been crackier than usual.”

“He did a pretty good job with the Busan division,” Yerin says a little defensively. “To be honest, they’ve never seen someone work so hard or so well before. He’s got mad people skills despite the language barrier, and he’s resourceful and intelligent.”

“You say that like you’ve known him all your life,” Seungyoon snorts, and Jaebum reaches over to stop Jimin before she can smack him too.

“Tell them the other part,” Jimin nudges Yerin, once she’s stopped trying to poke Seungyoon’s eyes out with a pen, and Yerin turns red.

“I don’t think I should-…”

“If you’re worried about it spreading, we won’t tell a soul,” Jinwoo says encouragingly from behind. “Right guys?”

“Sure,” Seunghoon says brightly.

That gets Jaebum’s attention- something Yerin would be embarrassed to say probably won’t show up on the profile he’d been given. After all, admin like her were the ones who did up these things.

Yerin drops her voice a little lower, so they have to lean in to hear what she’s saying.

“You know, they say-…” Yerin looks behind her nervously, and Jimin pats her back reassuringly. “Jackson-…he kinda had, I don’t know. Unstable beginnings.”

““Unstable”?” Seungyoon prods. Yerin looks more uncertain than ever.

“Uhm, well, he-…I heard from the other analysts and some of the admin in Busan, when we were doing the transfer,” she says, flushing furiously. “He had difficulty climbing the ranks- you know, because of his nationality, though he changed to permanent residency in Korea, but it was also because of-…”

Yerin stops here, and the silence crackles with such an anticipation it’s almost ridiculous.

“They say,” Yerin mumbles. “He wasn’t exactly-…I don’t know, doing legal stuff back in Hong Kong.”

“That’s it?” Seunghoon looks disappointed. “Man, I was looking forward to some really scandalous stuff.”

“It wasn’t petty stuff like theft or vandalism, you know,” Yerin says, frowning. “My associate in Busan-…he trained with him for a while, took the police entrance exams with him. He says Jackson’s got a-…”

She gestures to her back awkwardly, and Jaebum blinks.

“What?” Jinwoo asks, still clueless.

“Agh, I’ll just say it,” Jimin seems to be bursting in impatience. “Jackson’s got a tatt. They don’t know what it is but it sure looks like the kind from the Chinese Triads. Which means,” she says pointedly, looking them all in the eye. “He was part of a secret society in Hong Kong.”

There’s a moment of silence in which Jimin lets that sink in, beaming proudly.

“Whoa,” Seunghoon says, impressed.

“I know, right?” Jimin says happily. “Makes him even hotter than he already is.”

“But isn’t that dangerous?” Seungyoon argues. “He could be feeding info on our activities to-…”

“To who?” Jimin rolls her eyes. “The Chinese Triads? Yeah, I’m pretty sure Hong Kong gangsters have every reason in the world to care about what the legal system does here in South Korea.”

“It’s true though, that something’s weird about that,” Jaebum’s speaking before he even realizes he is, and everyone turns to look at him at once. He furrows his brow, thinking hard. “Why would a triad member in Hong Kong want to come here? And join the police force, of all things?”

“Maybe he defected?” Jinwoo tries tentatively.

“Why would he run to Korea, though? He stands out like a sore thumb,” Seunghoon points out. “China’s a huge country right next to Hong Kong. He could run and hide there a lot easier than he could here.”

That’s true too, Jaebum thinks. He’s already carefully arranging the facts in his head- a Hong Kong triad member in South Korea joining the police force. Why would he do that?

Jaebum’s so lost in thought he doesn’t notice the room’s fallen silent until he’s come to his first conclusion- and he looks up, raising an eyebrow.

“You’ve got that face on,” Seungyoon points out, looking skeptical. “That face you made when Seunghoon broke your mug and dumped the pieces in the bin and you figured it out before the janitors even came around to clear the trash. Come up with anything?”

Jaebum shrugs. “I think he’s here for something. Something illegal.”

“Wouldn’t he have joined, I dunno- something illegal, then?” Jimin raises an eyebrow, and Jaebum shakes his head, still deep in thought.

“Too slow, and they won’t let him rise too far. Rank in the geondal here depend a lot on ethnicity. And if he’s had time with another triad in HK, one that made a deal that fell through with a geondal, they’ll be even more apprehensive about letting him in. The only other organization that deals with illegal goods regularly then would be the police, and this would be a more likely option, especially since his high school education won’t let him specialize in anything far enough for it to be illegal. He’s looking for something, and he wants it fast.”

“What if he’s running from the secret society he joined back in Hong Kong?” Jinwoo asks, and Jaebum shakes his head again.

“If your friend saw correctly,” Jaebum looks at Yerin. “His tatt wasn’t slashed or bleached, right? He left the triad on decent terms. He isn’t running. And like Seunghoon said, he would’ve gone to China or Macau to hide out if he were on the run, somewhere he won’t stand out. And he definitely wouldn’t have joined the police, of all things,” Jaebum straightens, still thinking hard, to gesture.

“I think there was a deal. Something between a South Korea geondal and a Hong Kong triad. We were tracking a lead a couple years ago- something to do with an illegal business venture using Hong Kong’s busy seaports to cover up their black market trade. But the deal fell through, and Jackson’s triad lost something. Something really valuable to him, and him alone, enough that he’d be spurred to come all the way here to look for it, but not valuable enough to the triad as a whole that they’d let him take anyone else to go with him.”

It’s then that something lights in his head. Of course.

“A person.”

“Ooh, romantic,” Jimin claps, but Jaebum isn’t listening.

“He had to start small, somewhere he could learn the language and culture and build a rep, because there’s no way the Seoul Force would’ve taken a foreigner with a shady background and zero experience into the force,” Jaebum continues. “So he went to Busan to start off. Then he asked to be transferred to Seoul, where he knows we’ve got the resources and motivation to crack down on the geondal.”

“You mean he came here for you.”

Jaebum glances up at Yerin, who looks surprised she’d spoken.

“Come again?”

“Well,” Yerin tucks a lock of hair behind her ear nervously. “Everyone knows you’re the best when it comes to eradicating gang activity, right? That was the biggest seizure we had in years, back last year-…” she glosses over that quickly when Jaebum stiffens marginally. “He must’ve heard about you and come in the hopes you’d work together and take down the geondal that’s got his friend.”

“You say that like I’m famous or something,” Jaebum mutters, not liking the thought one bit.

“Er, hate to break it to you, hyung, but-…”

“Duh, your face was headlining on the papers that day, you know,” Jimin cuts in without missing a beat. “The whole of South Korea probably learned about it then. You became this giant hero overnight, then you vanished off the grid.”

Jaebum wonders momentarily why he doesn’t remember all that, but he doesn’t have to wonder long- the memories of sleepless nights spent in the hospital waiting come back in droves around his head. He’d been deaf to the cheers and congratulations of the department, blind to the statistics and success and awed smiles of his colleagues and friends, his eyes wide and weary and fighting back tears as the world around him celebrated while his best friend fought for his life on an operating table.

The memory hurts a lot more than it should after over a year of trying to get over it.

“Guess I’d better be moving now,” he mutters, shifting to cover the thought up, as he picks up the box. The officers around him disperse seamlessly, still squabbling over Jaebum’s new partner and the merits of how potentially attractive he’d be.

“I’ll help!” Jinwoo chirps through the endless stream of noise, standing to pick up another stack of files, and Jaebum offers a tight smile.

“He’s just doing that cos he wants to get a look at that hottie investigator who came over from Special Operations Command again,” Seunghoon grins cheekily, and Jinwoo slaps him with a file, while Seungyoon rolls his eyes.

“Careful though, I hear he’s pretty tight with his partner,” Jimin says drily, and Yerin giggles.

“Ah, shame,” Jinwoo says wistfully. “Still, I’m not giving up the opportunity to go up there and get me some eye candy, though.”

“Augh, let’s just get up there,” Jaebum mutters. He’s heard enough office gossip for a day- honestly, now, he just wants to go and meet his new partner and get all this over with.

“Yeah, stop making noise,” Seungyoon chides, apparently already getting comfortable with his new position as chief, and Jimin imitates him exaggeratedly behind his back as Jaebum heads up the stairs, Jinwoo right at his heels.

Jaebum can’t deny it though, as he heads up the stairs. This Jackson character’s piqued his interest. He wonders seriously for a moment what he’ll be like- silent and intelligent and hardworking to a fault?

Nah. Jaebum would only be so lucky.

He enters the relatively quiet room unnoticed- at least, on the surface, and sets his box right on the desk next to his old one, blinking as memories rush back at the familiarity of the place. The now empty cork board attached to the side of his desk would have been full of notes, all held up with metal thumbtacks, pictures and print outs and bits of evidence attached with string, and he’d be sitting and staring at them for hours on end. The shelves would be full of case files within arm’s reach, in the situation he needed a document for quick reference or wanted to make a connection between different cases.

For a moment Jaebum’s thrown into the past, listening to Jinyoung nagging at him to stop staring at the case files and go for lunch, grumbling over the state of Jinyoung’s desk, watching Youngjae come in to pass them data or forensic reports and make sarcastic remarks about how great his job is and how appreciated he feels around here.

Jaebum sighs, pushing the box of his belongings aside like he’s trying to push his thoughts aside at the same time. Absently, he smooths a hand along the hardwood surface of the desk, just thinking of turning around to get the box of files from Jinwoo-…

…- and that’s when he hears footsteps behind him, clean and confident against the tiled floor, and stiffens instinctively, heart leaping in anticipation as he turns around.

In that split second or so, he finds himself wondering if he’s ready to meet this new guy, ready to begin a repeat of the life he’d so eagerly thrown himself into almost three years ago, before he realizes that he isn’t and probably never will be.

That’s because this is going to be something new entirely.

He would wonder where that thought’s come from, except he’s turned around fully now, eyes searching and widening a little in surprise when they land on the man in front of him.

“Jaebum-ssi?”

a/n: man i missed being able to do that
also augh idek what was happening with this chapter omg i feel like i'm about to regret things. also structure is cries.
i'm going to shower T.T coherence is beyond me.
ALSO guys omg I think it wasn't clear in the foreword (?) jackbum is the main focus, but it won't be a romantic pairing per se (you can always pretend tho ahaha) so yeah I hope this doesn't disappoint anyone T.T heart you guys <3