“Taemin!” Minho shouted as he bursted through the door to the livingroom.

But the livingroom was empty. Taemin was nowhere to be seen.

“Where is he?” Jonghyun asked, out of breath. “Did Ace take him..? But that’s- that’s not something Ace would do..” Key said, also out of breath.“There’s a first time for everything.” Minho grumbled.

Suddenly the maid also bursted into the room. “Where is it!?” she shouted as she trashed the room. Minho, Jonghyun and Key just watched as she did so.

Soon another maid joined. “W-What’s happening here?” she asked, very confused.

“Ace,” Minho answered and turned to the new maid. “Have you seen him? Or Taemin?”

“Eh? That thief?! No.. I have not seen him. And with Taemin you meant that boy that was with you, right? I believe he went with a butler upstairs.” Minho sighed out of relief. At least Taemin wasn’t taken by Ace.. But why did he go upstairs? Didn’t he tell Taemin to stay in the living room?

“Upstairs.. That’s it!” The maid from before suddenly screamed. And with that she ran out of the room.

“Huh? What’s wrong with her!?” The new maid asked as she watched her collegue run.

“Minho, she knows something that we don’t. Should we follow her?” Key asked.

“Yeah, let’s follow her!” Minho said. The trio also ran out of the room, trying to catch up with the maid.

The maid stopped before a large door. The detective trio had caught up and stood next to her.

“So, why are you going here?” Minho asked while panting.

The maid faced them. “This is the old living room. The one downstairs is the second one actually. But since this one is very old it isn’t used anymore. Duke Heojung came here sometimes, though.”

Minho’s eyes widened.

But Taemin went upstairs, right? Minho hadn’t seen him. Did he go to this living room..? If he did, then that meant Taemin was probably in the same room as Ace.

The most precious treasure..

“Let’s go inside.” Minho said determined. He reached out for the door and it opened slowly. When they all entered they noticed that there was a lit candle on the middle of the room.

Jonghyun walked toward it, but stubbed his foot against.. something.

“Huh? What’s this?” He squinted his eyes. Key and Minho followed him into the room. Jonghyun knelt down to inspect what was on the ground.

“Oh my god!” He exclaimed. Minho and Key quickly came to his side and knelt down too. “What is- Oh..” Key said, as he looked at the thing on the ground.

It was a body.

“Is he..?” Key asked.

“No, he is just sleeping.” A deep voice said.

Minho stood up. “Ace.”

“Yep, it’s me again. Did you get lost? It took you some while to come here.” Ace chuckled. They couldn’t see where Ace was, since it was too dark. The candle wasn’t really providing much light, the living room was too big.

Minho gritted his teeth. How could Ace always be there first? He was fast, too fast..

“Where is my treasure?” The maid then angrily shouted.

“Oh my, your treasure? I believe it’s mine now.” They could hear some rattling.

“That.. That’s impossible. How did you where it was? It’s supposed to be impossible to find.” The maid asked, voice shaking.

“Hmm, I have my resources.” Ace replied casually.

Judging from the direction his voice came from, Ace was moving, Minho discovered. Was he doing that on purpose, so they wouldn’t know where he would be? Or did he do that because…

“What kind of resources? Heojung made everything top secret!” The maid exclaimed.

Ace chuckled, voice coming from nearby now. “No secret is safe from us.”

Minho concentrated on Ace’s voice. Yes, he was indeed moving around in a random pattern. And why was Ace having a little chat with the maid? Ace said before he didn’t liked chit-chat, so why… Minho was certain.

Ace was bluffing. He didn’t had the treasure, he was still searching for it.

While Ace and the maid were still talking, Minho slowly stepped out of the light from the candle. He sneaked around the living room as quietly as he could, trying to get closer to Ace. This was his chance, he could catch Ace now.

But then Minho heard a click.

“—Don’t you dare to talk like that about duke Heojung!” the maid ranted on, but Ace wasn’t replying anymore. Minho also didn’t hear him shuffling around anymore. Ace.. disappeared again? No, that wasn’t right. Then he would have said something. Right?

Minho placed his hands on the wall. Somewhere around here was the click-sound. Minho fumbled around, until he felt an opening. He went down, and discovered that the opening was pretty big. He could fit in it. Minho glanced at Jonghyun and Key, not sure if he should call them over. If he did, Ace might hear him and flee. Minho turned to the opening again. He was going in.

Minho got on his knees and crawled into the hole. It wasn’t small but it wasn’t big either. After crawling for a while he suddenly bumped his head into something.

“Ouch!” Minho cried out, before forcing a hand on his mouth. Damn it, what if Ace heard that? Then he was busted.

“Choi Minho?” A familiar voice said, surprised. It was also surprisingly close, so close that Minho was taken aback for a moment. It was like someone was right before him. No, someone was right before him. He bumped against this someone. Ace? But the voice was a bit higher than normal.

Minho reached his hand out be he couldn’t feel anything.

A cough. “You sure are a smart one. How did you know there was an opening here? You followed me?” Yes, that voice was Ace for sure. Although now the voice wasn’t close anymore. He backed away, Minho thought.

“Ace.” Minho said. “You got the treasure now?” Minho slowly crawled closer. Maybe he could trap Ace in here.

“Why, yes, of course. I’ve got it for a while now, didn’t you hear that before? How about your precious treasure?” Ace replied sweetly. “But it sure is a problem that you’ve here now. How am I supposed to get out now~?”Ace said dramatically. Minho crawled closer, he could feel that he was at the end of the tunnel. He stopped crawling. He noticed there was a light coming from behind him. Jonghyun and Key were probably catching up.

“You can’t go anywhere now.” Minho said sternly.

“Oh really? That’s too bad.” Ace laughed, his voice getting further away. Minho was alerted now. Where was he going? Was there another way out of this hole?

“The treasure, what is it?” Minho asked as attempt to keep the conversation going.

“Something important. Detective, I would love to keep talking to you, but sadly enough I have to go. Bye bye, Minho.”

“Wait!” Minho stoop up, out of the hole.

Suddenly the small room was lightened up. “Minho!” Key and Jonghyun said at the same time, also coming out of the tunnel.

“He got away.” Minho grumbled. “But how?”

Now the room was lit, he could see his surroundings better. But Minho couldn’t see way to get out. How did Ace escape? There had to be a secret passage somewhere..

Jonghyun placed a hand on his shoulder. “Minho,” he sighed. “Let’s go.”

The trio went to the other living room again, downstairs. The maid had trailed off somewhere, but they didn’t really care about her.

“Oooh, you’re back! How did it go?” Suddenly a happy Taemin popped up.

“T-Taemin!?” All three exclaimed.

“Uh, yes?” Taemin asked, surprised at why there were all so shocked.

“Where were you?!” Key, the worried umma, asked.

“Umm, I was here the whole time?” Taemin answered nervously.

“No, when we came back here you weren’t here. A maid said you went upstairs with a butler.” Minho said, scolding Taemin a bit.

“Oh! That’s right!” Taemin exclaimed. “I needed to go to the toilet, so the butler brought me there.” Taemin smiled sheepisly, slightly blushing.

“Oh, I see. We were so worried, you know!” Jonghyun said as he hugged the boy.

Minho had told the owners about everything that happend.

"Sadly, we didn't catch him. I'm sorry." He apologized, bowing his head.

The woman smiled at him. "No, it's okay, you did all you can and I'm grateful for that. About that maid.. I'm afraid we will have to fire her. Do you still want to ask her some questions about what happend? I can give you her number."

Minho nodded. "Yes, that would be great, thank you." The woman gave him a paper with all of the maid's data.

"And about that boy that was with you, I believe you lost him somewhere along the line. Is he okay?" The man asked.

"Ah, yes," Minho replied. "He's completely fine. Turned out that he just went to the restroom with a butler. Oh, speaking of butlers, I hope he gets better soon." The man they had found lying on the ground was a butler, apparently. 

"Yes, I think he will! He wasn't hurt at all, just unconcious thankfully. Thank you for everything, take care mister detective!" The woman smiled warmly.

The detective trio and Taemin said their goodbyes and went to their car. They waved at the couple and then left.

"Well, that certainly was an eventful day." The man said to his wife. She replied with a giggle. "It sure was. And here I thought this mansion was a boring one!"

The man chuckled too, but then turned serious.

"But darling, don't we have only one butler?"

"Hm? Yes, we have only one butler. Why?""

"You're never coming with us again." Minho stated.

"Ehh, why!? It was so much fun!" Taemin pouted, attempting to do aegyo.

"Because it's dangerous, you could have been hurt. I was worried!" Minho exclaimed.

"Yeah, I agree with Minho. Ace was going to the living room, and we thought it was the one you were in. And then you weren't there.. Geez, Taemin!" Key said, his dramatical-diva mode activated. 

"But it ended well, didn't it? See, I'm not harmed!" Taemin argued.

Jonghyun chuckled.

"Well, you're right about that. You should have seened Minho though, I thought he was going to go on a ramppage when we discovered you weren't there!"

Key agreed with Jonghyun, and they all had a good laugh. Except Minho. Minho was quiet, cheeks flushed.

"Have you found your precious treasure yet?"