Chapter Text
The plan is simple: go undercover as a broke college student, trying to buy a cheap, definitely stolen, laptop from the perp and then arrest him.
Detective Ha Sooyoung (or rather, Yves, a sociology major from Ewha Women’s University on scholarship with a gambling addiction who blows off all of the very little stipends she receives on sports betting), looks around the surrounding area once more. The only back alley has a uniformed officer waiting and all other possible exit points are secured. If the perp tries to run west, there are two more officers on stand by there. If he heads east, he’ll be running right into the boring but ruthless Detective Kim Jungeun, Sooyoung’s partner.
Subconsciously, Sooyoung’s hand goes inside her hoodie pocket to grasp her badge. She hums under her breath while thinking of a good line to drop when she arrests him. Something witty? Or something punny? The possibilities are endless but she definitely can’t say didn’t your mother ever teach you that stealing is wrong because, hands-down, that’s something her lame partner would say.
Sooyoung hears a cough behind her and turns around to meet her target.
“Yves?” He drags out the S and she cringes internally. These dumb criminals never get it right.
“The S is silent,” She can’t resist pointing out. “But whatever. You got the laptop?”
He unshoulders his backpack and pulls out a MacBook.
“Oh, this is better than I thought.” She mumbles, faking interest as she inspects the device. “You sure all the anti-theft features have been disabled?”
“Yeah, it is. So are we cool?” The perp asks.
“Yeah, hold on. Lemme just get your payment.” She makes a show of putting her hand inside her hoodie pocket, but instead of the expected wad of cash, she pulls out her badge. “Jokes on you I am a whole anti-theft feature! Seoul PD! You’re under arrest for-”
The perp shoves at her shoulder and she staggers back, dropping the laptop and never finishing her sentence.
“Hey! Come back, you!” Sooyoung yells, breaking into a sprint, and talking into her earpiece. “The target is on the move. All units pursue!”
The perp heads east and she smirks, knowing Jungeun’s gonna be there to catch him.
“Kim, he’s heading right to you!”
She gets no response, but she keeps going all while she’s running after the man’s sleazy ass.
“This is totes going to be easy breezy.” She shakes her head in disbelief at their luck. “Since we’re in the area, how about we get some tteokbokki after?”
For some reason, Jungeun still doesn’t answer. Maybe she’s flustered already.
“Detective Kim, just so you know I’m wiggling my eyebrows suggestively.”
Sooyoung can’t believe how fun it is to tease her.
For his part, the perp does try to make the chase difficult, scattering styrofoam boxes of vegetables from the street vendors and, on several occasions, the vendors themselves at Sooyoung. But this is nothing new and she dodges everything easily, jumping and turning away with the grace of a ballerina and the experience of a seasoned cop.
It helps that she’s wearing Vans. She thinks that maybe she should wear this to work all the time. Really, this athleisure undercover fit is doing wonders. Although, maybe, she’d like it more if she was wearing a crop top.
They reach the opening of the intersection and Sooyoung shouts excitedly into her earpiece.
“Kim, he’s coming to you! In three, two, one!”
She brakes with her heels, expecting her partner to come out from behind the corner of the 7-Eleven with her signature baton-to-the-leg move that’s brought down more criminals than she can count on her two hands but instead, Jungeun comes out of the convenience store’s door. Her earpiece dangles on the wire hanging over her shoulder. On one hand, she holds a pack of Lucky Strikes and on the other, her silver Zippo lighter.
With no one putting him down, the perp continues running farther into the street, weaving through and blending in with the incoming lunch hour crowd of smartly dressed business people. Both of the detectives know it’s futile to even try and find him now.
“Seriously?” Sooyoung rounds on her partner whose whole face is turning red with embarrassment. “We’re on the job!”
She frowns at the ground and then at the things clutched in Jungeun’s hands. She knows how this has been a struggle for her. Jungeun’s not a smoker per se, but when she gets really stressed out, she turns to it.
“You said you were gonna quit!” Still, Sooyoung can’t help but feel frustrated.
“Ha, I have a very good reason for this. I can explain-” Her partner starts but Sooyoung turns around and waves her hand to signal for her to follow.
Without looking back, she says:
“You can forget about the tteokbokki, Kim, because I’m driving us back to the precinct right now.” She pauses for dramatic effect. “And you’re telling Cap exactly how you let that perp get away, Katy Perry.”
“This job is eating me alive. I can’t breathe anymore. I spent all these years trying to be the good guy. The woman in the white hat. I’m not becoming like them…”
A deep breath.
“...I am them.”
“Hey! Would you stop that?” The statement makes Sooyoung look up from her phone. The Instagram live stream is still going. Jungeun rolls her eyes, before providing a seething, “Some of us are trying to work.”
“Fine, but I want you to know that your vibe is making me feel like…” Sooyoung raises a thumbs down, blowing a raspberry with her tongue out. “Everybody come look at Detective Grumpyface!”
Sooyoung points the camera to her briefly.
Jungeun returns to her paperwork, and blames herself for having to work overtime. All because she let the stupid perp from the petty theft case get away. Simple chasedown, shouldn’t have given in to her… tendencies, to put it nicely.
Now she’s stuck at her desk on a Friday night, having to listen to her least favourite detective doing terrible Donnie Brasco impressions to an audience she can’t see.
“Alright, this has been fun. Sorry guys, I gotta go back to my real job now… need to ruffle a certain detective’s feathers if you know what I mean. Hah!” She hears the phone click shut and sighs, resisting kicking Sooyoung from underneath their joined desks. “So… did the Captain give you a telling off? I wouldn’t know, I wasn’t here for all the screaming. Oh wait, I was.”
Sooyoung, as much as she occasionally cares about Jungeun’s lung health, is a devil for a partner.
“Why are you still here anyway, you’re done with all your open cases.”
“Date says she’s running late,” Sooyoung explains, picking up a stray piece of paper and folding it down the middle. “I gotta wait here for twenty more minutes so I can arrive at a suave five minutes later than her.”
She’s not even using a ruler. Jungeun winces.
“You just don’t want to wait outside because you still haven’t fixed the heater in your car.”
“BOOOOOO.”
The haphazardly folded paper crane is flung towards Jungeun’s head, narrowly missing her. All these years and Sooyoung still hasn’t changed. Not that that’s a compliment. Jungeun picks it up off the floor and briefly contemplates flinging it back towards Sooyoung.
She takes the high road, crushing it in her fist and letting it fall into their shared bin instead.
“NO! You killed Betty!” Before Jungeun can retaliate with another bewildered comment about what exactly goes on in the other detective’s head, a familiar set of heels clicking against the aisle distracts Sooyoung from the murder at hand. “Oh, Captain! Going somewhere? You look nice. Look at you, all dressed up.”
Captain Jo is still in her usual police uniform. She tilts her head quizzically at Sooyoung, and Jungeun decides she can’t look on anymore.
“I’m… going on a date,” she says with a pause. “Thanks, Detective. Good work on the drug bust. Enjoy your weekend, dude.”
The police captain turns to leave.
Sooyoung gasps dramatically, “Did you hear what the captain said? She told me to enjoy my weekend! She called me dude! Has she ever called you ‘dude’? I know you would kill to have what I have with Haseul.” Another gasp. Jungeun wishes she could roll her eyes far back enough just so she wouldn’t have to look at Sooyoung anymore. “Did I just call her Haseul? Sorry, my bad, I’m too comfortable with her. We’re like best friends. Haseul, Haseul, Haseul. Also, I wonder which drug bust she meant… the Cheongdam one I solved? Or was it the Apgujeong one that I also solved...”
Jungeun presses the pen to the report on the ‘perp that got away’ so hard that it punctures a hole in the paper. Now she has to redo it. Fantastic.
“I wonder who she could be seeing, though… Her lady friend from aerobics? Or maybe that nice barista she couldn’t stop talking about. Oh, wait, no, she’s too busy to date anyone else because she spends five days a week at the precinct, Saturdays at spin class, and Sundays with her parents. Which means-”
“She’s lying!” Jiwoo supplies from the table across the aisle. The detective’s eyes widen as she connects the dots. “Classic misdirection! Lonely captain doesn’t admit she’s single to her subordinates. Nice find, Sooyoungie! I knew I could trust you.”
“Wrong! Come on Jiwoo, we’re supposed to be on the same page. She’s dating…” Sooyoung looks around, stage-whispering to Jiwoo but clearly making a scene so huge that Jungeun has no choice but to notice. “...the SARGE!”
“WHAT?! Sooyoung, I bet a hundred thinking that’s what you meant when you said ‘I know who the captain’s dating’ during lunch!”
“What? I clearly said I know who the captain is dating in that sentence, why would you bet against that? Nevermind, I’ll split the profits with you. I put two hundred on my word.”
Jiwoo lights up like a candle. “You’re the best!”
“Aren’t you in debt?” Jungeun questions in disdain.
Sooyoung folds her arms, placing them on the desk as she stares right into Jungeun’s eyes. She smirks slowly. “I believe the word for what I’m in, Kim, is crippling debt.” It’s not just the wink she sends Jungeun’s way that makes her narrow her eyes.
“Can you stop making bets about their love lives?” Jungeun barely makes it through her sentence before she’s met with another extended boo. She stares the culprit - Chaewon - down. “They’re our superior officers. That’s such an invasion of their privacy. Not to mention how Sergeant Wong is literally still sitting at her desk, not out on a date with her superior officer.”
Sooyoung sticks her tongue out at her while propelling another failed paper crane her way. Childish. Jungeun never expects anything more or less from her.
That’s when the sergeant gets up to leave as well. “Goodnight, squad. Have a good weekend.”
Sooyoung raises her eyebrows at the fazed Jungeun. “Hey sarge, quick question: where are you going, who are you meeting and where will you be staying the night?”
“Where I sleep is none of your business, Detective Ha,” Vivi stalls, a grin creeping out from under the stoic facade. “Though, actually, I have a date. Bye!”
As the sergeant leaves, Sooyoung punches the air in victory. Jiwoo gasps loudly at the revelation, scandalised.
“I had twenty on them being together!” yells Detective Hyunjin from her seat. Her partner, Heejin, sitting across her, knocks her forehead against the table with a groan as Hyunjin gloats.
“We still don’t know for sure! Right? I mean, they could be separately going on dates.”
“Jiwoo! You’re supposed to be on my side, I even promised you half my winnings!”
The detective turns to her with an apology in her eyes. “Sooyoungie, you’re my best friend and I love you, but I need my 100,000 won back. You know I am overly attached to things I know I’m never getting back. I need this.”
“You do have a lot of ex-girlfriend issues… Hold on, you put how much in there?!”
“A hundred thousand won!”
That makes Detective Heejin rise from her seat, amused. “Wait, how much did you bet?”
“Two hundred. Like, two hundred won.” The squad lets out a collective groan. “Oh come on, I’m in crippling debt! We ALL know this.” Heejin mutters words of thanks under her breath, sitting back down. “Right, so: a hundred, twenty, Jeon got forty on them not dating, like a loser. Chaewon put in her deck of tarot cards. Thank you, Chaewon. And Detective Kim Jungeun has decided to abstain from betting!”
This time the round of boos came from all around the squad. Chaewon links up some sad piano music from YouTube to the precinct speakers. Jungeun looks up and around her reluctantly.
“Twenty on them being together,” she mutters, loud enough for only Sooyoung to hear.
“What was that, Detective?”
“Twenty,” Jungeun clears her throat uncomfortably, “on them being together.” She narrows her eyes. Something’s wrong. “Hang on, why are the last few pages of my report missing...”
“Good choice,” Sooyoung remarks with a wink. “Wait what?”
“I left them right... “ Jungeun points at the space between their desks, where the stack of very important papers once lay. “There.”
Oh no. Sooyoung looks at the pathetic crane in between her thumb and index finger, blinking very hard and very fast. She sees it. The very neatly scrawled “Kim Jungeun” under “Detective-in-charge” on the wing.
Sooyoung’s out of the precinct before Jungeun can finish screaming, “HA SOOYOUNG!! MY REPORT!!!”
Sooyoung sniffles a little, feeling herself grow irritable.
As nice as Gangnam is at night, the cold nullifies any of its bourgeois niceties from ‘breathtakingly beautiful’ to ‘downright meh’. Pulling her leather jacket even tighter unto herself clearly isn’t working. She really needs to get her heater fixed.
And her date is still running late.
The tapping of her fingers on the steering wheel is short-lived as she busies herself with scrawling decorative text on a box of dark chocolate coated Pepero, the one she bought in the afternoon but decided to save for a very special occasion-slash-person. If she puts this much effort into it, Detective Kim has to think it’s a decent apology, she supposes. Just as she perfectly squeezes out the last ‘S’ with her marker, a cold gust of wind blows, taking her last remnants of positivity with it.
She shoves the Pepero and the marker back into her briefcase. At least she’s parked opposite a club with a long line snaking into the next intersection. Very rowdy teenagers who have definitely pregamed and are also most certainly feeling testy from the biting cold? That’s just free entertainment.
Her phone dings.
She leans back into her seat, closing her eyes briefly. And then, just as she’d hoped, a loud scream tears her out of her reverie. She opens the door and jumps out of the car. A girl in the line is crouching in fear while a lanky man stands over her, fist raised and ready to strike. Security seems too preoccupied to care. They’re drawing some eyes.
“Bitch! Fuckin’ flirting with other guys in front of me!”
“Hey! What’s going on?”
“None of your business, bitch.” The man looks up. Sooyoung watches the fury in his eyes melt away into confusion, and then fear. She hasn’t even pulled out her badge yet, and he looks terrified…
“Shit!”
...because they’ve met. Just this morning. Sooyoung feels her phone pinging in her pocket. Her date is probably here. As expected, he takes off. Technically, she’s off duty. But she also made someone do even more overtime than she deserved, so maybe this is her comeuppance.
“Damn it,” she huffs, before sprinting after him.
Three blocks, one shortcut, and thirty seconds later, Sooyoung sees the perfect opportunity to tackle him from behind. He’s pinned to the ground, hands put behind his back. He tries to wriggle himself free, and Sooyoung only chuckles when putting the handcuffs on him. As if those two chopsticks he called arms could prove any resistance to her.
“You’re under arrest for theft and assault… punk,” Sooyoung adds a little unnecessarily when he glares back at her. She recites his rights to him on their way back to her car, her body warmer than it was before and her date completely forgotten about.
Even after a smoke, Jungeun finds it difficult to calm herself down. If anything, breaking her promises to quit has only made her more nervous and jittery. She’s never purposely broken anything - not a single rule, not even a pencil! And then, like clockwork, Sooyoung’s pure look of terror before taking off flashes across her mind again, and she finds herself cursing aloud. “Ah shit! That asshole.”
“Smoking isn't good for you,” Heejin, the only other detective left, says from her seat. “Won’t do your paperwork for you either. Thought you were trying to quit.”
Jungeun sighs in relief at the absence of judgment in her voice - she can’t take another blow to her fragile psyche, not right now. Either way, she’s glad to have company. Heejin has always been her favourite junior.
“I am. It’s hard,” Jungeun mumbles, settling back down at her desk. She swivels her chair, leans back tiredly, and sighs. “Sooyoung’s not being extremely helpful about it either.”
Heejin laughs. “Say that again without the sugar-coating.”
“I wanna strangle her so bad, Heejin,” Jungeun groans. There’s a beat before Heejin chuckles at the revelation. It takes a whole lot for Jungeun’s inhibitions to be lowered, but it seems the detective has been thoroughly defeated by the day’s events.
“Sometimes you need to just let it out.”
“She’s the worst!”
“Yes! Keep going, you’re doing so well.”
“She’s like- she’s like a child! She takes my things without asking and uses my paperwork for origami.”
Heejin nods for her to keep going. And so Jungeun does.
“Sometimes, when she turns on her Instagram live three feet in front of a crime scene, I reach for my stun gun.”
Her mentee gasps, “No way!”
Jungeun nods solemnly. “I’m not proud of that. But I’ve never shot her either, so a win for the force’s mandatory impulse control training…” That’s when Jungeun notices that Heejin’s desk is already packed. “Hold on, you’re done for the day? You should leave. Don’t wait for me. I’m not going to go any time soon.”
Heejin shrugs, “I know. But I thought you’d appreciate the company for just a little while. Mentee duties.”
That brings a smile to her face - probably the first genuine one for the entire day. “Thanks, I do. But really, you should go. Pretty sure I heard Hyunjin say she’ll be waiting for you in her car.”
“Oh SHIT! You’re right!” Heejin scrambles out of her seat, dashing a few feet before backtracking to get her briefcase. “Bye!” Heejin sprints towards the exit, places a hand on the door handle, before turning around yet again with a grin on her face. “You should make someone hold on to your lighter! Somebody you trust. I heard it’ll make you feel more accountable in working towards actually quitting.”
“Bye!” Jungeun calls after her, chortling to herself. Her own laughter fades quickly when she realises that her little break is over, and she has to finish up her work before she can actually leave. Bummer. She scrawls impatiently over the same report, twirling her pen in her fingers before slamming it on the table in frustration.
And then, a thud against the glass door. Jungeun looks up, fully expecting it to be Heejin, who has probably left something behind. There’s a scrawny man pushed against the door from the outside instead. She squints, catching the faintest glint of shiny handcuffs twinkling against the glass. Belatedly, she registers the black leather jacket of the other figure, and then hears an unmistakable voice aiming a muffled string of insults at the perp.
“What the- Ha?!”
Jungeun’s jaw remains hanging even after ten minutes have passed since Sooyoung walked through the precinct’s glass doors with the perp from earlier, handcuffed and looking humiliated.
Still confused with the sudden turn of events, she looks to the defeated criminal as he’s sitting in the holding cell and back at her partner who stands a few feet away from her, arms crossed over her chest with victory on her smile.
“How did this happen?” Jungeun mumbles. “You left for your date…”
“I did. But this punk made the mistake of being in the same place as me. Can you believe this guy?” Sooyoung shakes her head as she walks to her desk. “He had the audacity to be out in the open after narrowly escaping earlier!”
The precinct is looking empty with all of the other detectives having left and the fewer nightshifters slowly coming in. So Jungeun briefly wonders why Sooyoung suddenly boots up her computer as if she had more work to do.
Her question gets answered when Sooyoung looks up at her.
“Well, what are you doing just standing there, Kim?” She asks, tilting her head to the side to gesture for her to take her seat. “C’mon, I’ll help you finish up with your report so we can both leave.”
“I don’t understand. You’re supposed to be on your date. You can still make it. You’re only, what, twenty minutes late?”
“It doesn’t matter now.” Sooyoung looks at her with those big eyes and it’s as if they’re the only ones in the room. “I’m already in the company of a pretty woman, aren’t I?”
Jungeun’s ears light up like a flare.
“No, but seriously.” She clears her throat. “I’m sorry for being an asshole earlier. I know you’ve been stressed lately with your cases and just… grovelling for the Captain’s approval AND,” She enunciates the word to stop Jungeun from interrupting because she was about to jump up and wring her neck. “I haven’t exactly been helpful.”
Jungeun blinks at that.
“But you know, we’re partners, Kim.” She pauses thoughtfully. “We have been, for almost two years now. You can talk to me about anything.”
“I guess, what I’m saying is rather than resorting to unhealthy coping mechanisms… you can, maybe, try talking to me.” She adds sheepishly. “Well, that is if you want to. I can’t promise I’ll give great advice but I swear, I’ll be here to listen.”
For a moment, Jungeun remains quiet, watching her usually overconfident and narcissistic partner twiddle her thumbs.
“You know what?” She finally speaks up. “I think I’ll give that a try. So you can hold on to this.”
Jungeun pulls her lighter out of her blazer pocket and slides it across their desks.
“What’s this for?” Sooyoung frowns. “Are you telling me to take over your smoking for you?”
“No! I’m saying I’ll quit for real so you can do whatever the hell you want with my lighter, like throw it away.” She glares at her, crossing her arms over her chest. “It was a symbolic move, Ha.”
“Was it? Anyway, that’s good and I appreciate it because there’s something else.”
The uncharacteristic shyness is back as Sooyoung reaches into her own pocket to produce a box. Because the front is haphazardly doodled over with marker and neon green highlighter, Jungeun has to squint before she recognised the drawing as the logo of (what used to be) her preferred cigarette brand.
Jungeun takes the box from Sooyoung and turns it over to realise that it’s actually dark chocolate coated Pepero, probably from one of the precinct’s vending machines. She looks up to the other detective for an explanation.
“I heard it helps to have something bitter on your tongue when you’re trying to stop smoking. So, there’s that.” She shrugs and throws her hands up. “And there’s me.”
Sooyoung offers her a smile and turns to her computer promptly.
“So, shall we book this criminal now?”
Sooyoung marches in her apartment, slamming the door hard against the wall when she opens it to make sure her neighbour knows she’s back. She kicks her shoes off and navigates the almost strategically mapped out mess of dirty laundry and empty take-out boxes in the living room.
She should probably take care of that. But maybe later, when she’s not about to pass out from the exhaustion of working overtime.
Heading straight to her room, she plops down on the bed face first. She feels and hears her shoulder pop as she shrugs off her jacket and throws it to the floor. She pats her pants pockets, feeling around for her phone but finds a much smaller rectangular object instead - her partner’s lighter.
Sooyoung pulls it out and stares at her distorted reflection on the shiny metal surface smiling stupidly back at her. She carefully places the lighter down on the nightstand, where it’ll be safe and there’s no chance of her losing it, before resuming her search for her phone.
She finds it on the tangled mess that is her jacket.
Several unopened messages from the date she ditched flash on the screen, asking about her whereabouts and if she was still coming. While it may have been flattering to be receiving a long thread of messages from a very pretty girl, the last ones make Sooyoung feel sorry because they sound very pissed, with few extremely colourful choice words that call her out for not showing. It’s a pity, Eunbi seemed like she might’ve been fun to hang with. But whatever.
Sooyoung swipes down to close those notifications, leaving them unread. Then, she starts tapping away on a new messenger window with one goal in mind. (Okay, maybe there’s several. So what?)
Sooyoung watches the dots dance on her screen. It disappears for a bit and reappears again to let her know that Jungeun’s having trouble figuring out what to say.
Mission accomplished.
Sooyoung falls asleep like that, phone cradled in her chest and a light smile on her face.