Jongin had always found it difficult to be alone. Not in the way that he needed someone at his side 24/7, or that never wanted to be away from other people, but in the way that he had grown up surrounded by family, and had been given love throughout his childhood that he gratefully accepted. It was due to this, that he was a serial dater, a hopeless romantic who had the constant nagging need to just keep looking, and the idea in his head of the perfect person to fill the little gaps in his heart and his head. Needless to say, he rarely went on more than two dates with the same person. They never clicked right with him, and they usually didn't really want to be tied down so young, or to a man who was shortly going into active police duty as an inspector.

It was ironic, he thought, that he would choose a job that carried so many risks to those attached to him, yet crave someone close just the same. But it was his passion to help others after all, and he couldn't deny the smug thrill that would fill him whenever he managed to finally understand how a criminal worked, and unpick their trail of lies thread by thread. 

Of course, he wasn't amazing. Sometimes his opponent was too good, too well prepared for every occurrence, for Jongin to get them, and it would be then Joonmyun would pass him a cup of coffee from Joonmyun's own machine, pat his head lightly and tell him to take the rest of the day off. Jongin was thankful for his superintendent at these times, and all the ways that he looked after him and the rest of the division, despite Jongin never actually seeing someone do the same for him. It was stressful work, with hours long past what was written on the job description and training the rest of the time. He didn't regret his decision though, he couldn't, not when he would finally manage to close a case, be it a robbery, , mugging or even just a stolen car found, and he just knew that he had helped someone out. 

It was still a thorn in his side for his dating game though.

Despite Seoul being not that much of a hotspot for everyday crime, compared to other places at least, people still carried the fear of investing time, money, and emotions into someone, only for it all to be wrenched away in an evening. If they didn't know it was coming, a car crash, a stabbing, an accident, they could blame everything else, the world and fate and their gods, for taking them away. But if they went into a relationship knowing the risks? Well, that guilt and pain would fall all on them, and people are far too self-preserving to really consider that an option most of the time.

So this is where Jongin is now. Overworked, kind of happy, kind of sad, a bit lonely, full of belief and 'painfully young', as Kris liked to put it. Jongin could sense something coming soon though. He could see it in the new lines of tension in Suho's back, hear it in the rushed whispers between Tao and Kris, and most of all he could feel it under his skin, a slowly inching crawl down his spine growing harsher everyday. Something was coming, and he sighed slightly to himself, sinking low in his seat and he typed up more reports onto his computer, wondering idly if this meant he would be getting even less sleep in the next few months. Suho better have his damn coffee machine working.