Chapter Text
Jung Yu
The swish of her skirt as she walked up the hill was rhythmic. The black paper bag in her hand swung cheerfully back and forth with every step. Occasionally, it would slap against Jung-Yu’s leg with a wet squelch. She didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she was orchestrating those slaps rather deliberately. Instead of wincing, her gentle smile seemed to grow wider with each wet, nasty sound.
She waved politely to people as she passed, returning each greeting. She knew all of her neighbours. Intimately. They thought they knew her too. Dozens of feet above, some night bird screeched loudly. She could relate - she wanted to screech too. It had been a long, frustrating day. It was hot. And her wig was itchy. She couldn’t wait to get home and take it off. Then she could take a look at her haul. Smiling, she glanced down at the bag in her hand. She couldn’t wait.
Jongin
Jongin was running late. Of course, this would be the day the streets decided to descend into chaos. The blonde pedaled through the dreary Monday morning, droplets of mist clinging to his jacket and hair. The sky was heavy with clouds, the kind that threatened rain but refused to deliver, casting everything in a muted gray. He kept a cautious eye on the weathered pavement beneath his bicycle tires, mindful of the slick, treacherous dips that seemed to multiply after every storm.
As he neared his workplace, the traffic congestion thickened. Soon enough, he’d gotten to a stretch that was almost at a complete standstill. Cars honked impatiently, and a mess of tail-lights stretched down the narrow street in a red string. Jongin gritted his teeth, weaving through gaps between vehicles where he could. However, eventually, he was forced to slow to a complete stop—just three streets from the office.
Ahead, a flash of bright yellow caught his eye: police tape stretched taut across the entrance to one of his usual shortcuts. His first thought was to brush it off as a minor inconvenience - maybe a drunk driver from last night had run into something.
But as he squinted through the haze, the scene grew more sinister. Three police cars were parked haphazardly in the street, their lights slicing through the gloom, while paramedics hovered by an ambulance stationed outside a small storefront.
Jongin’s heart sank as he spotted the sheriff’s distinctive shape—a barrel-chested man with a slow gait and a perpetually sour expression. Sheriff Kim rarely ventured beyond his desk these days. Jongin knew this all too well thanks to his paramedic sister’s frequent tirades about the man’s lackluster work ethic. If he was on-site, something serious had to have happened.
The realization hit like a punch to the gut: a major crime, in their sleepy, uneventful town. Jongin swallowed hard, vague dread settling in his stomach. In the doorway of the storefront, he saw a stretcher being pushed out onto the street. A black bag was strapped to it…
Murder?? In his town?
Jongin’s phone buzzed in his pocket, wrenching him back to his senses. Jongin couldn’t afford to linger. Capitalism waited for no man - he had a job to get to. Tightening his grip on the handlebars, he turned away from the scene, steering down an alternate route.
But as he pedaled, his felt a mild sense of unease. The peaceful monotony of his Monday morning now cracked wide open.
Jongin
Jongin ended up late to the office. He skidded to a stop in front of the office building, his bicycle tires squealing against the damp concrete. Quickly locking the bike to the rusted rack, the blonde slung his bag over one shoulder and broke into a brisk walk, speed-walking up the stairs. His damp bangs clung annoyingly to his forehead.
By the time he reached the lobby, his earlier thoughts of police tape and crime scenes had been pushed aside, replaced by a sharper, more immediate disappointment: he’d missed his crush’s morning routine.
Kyungsoo was like clockwork, always walking through the doors at precisely 8:15, a breakfast box in one hand and an air of quiet efficiency in the other. Jongin had come to rely on those moments—the unspoken ritual of pretending to casually bump into Kyungsoo in the breakroom, a shared glance or, when he was lucky, a small exchange of words. Sometimes, if the stars aligned, Kyungsoo would even offer him a bit of his breakfast, those perfectly packed boxes filled with soft rice rolls or neatly folded omelets that tasted simultaneously like home and clean precision.
But not today. Jongin groaned inwardly as he realized the opportunity had slipped through his fingers. Today, he’d been planning on making actual conversation. He’d even looked up icebreakers.He’d felt like they made some progress last week…
Slightly dejected, Jongin turned down the corridor toward his desk, his stomach emitting an audible growl that echoed embarrassingly in the quiet hall. He hadn’t had time for breakfast, and now he wouldn’t even have Kyungsoo’s leftovers to tide him over.
With a sigh, Jongin quickened towards his department, already dreading the long, hungry stretch before lunch. By the time he was in his cubicle, he’d resigned himself to a morning of corporate drudgery.
Kyungsoo
Kyungsoo loved slow lunch hours, the kind where the world seemed to quiet down and let him breathe. When luck was on his side, he could even squeeze in a power nap. Today, he’d arrived at his favorite park bench to find it blissfully empty. Wasting no time, he spread his lunch out across the seat, a subtle barrier against anyone thinking about sharing the bench. Solitude had its perks, and for Kyungsoo, food was best enjoyed alone.
Well, alone except for the new guy.
The thought brought a faint smile to his lips. Jongin… yes, that was his name. The new hire was always so delighted by the smallest gestures—like the times Kyungsoo had shared some breakfast kimbap after packing one roll too many.
Jongin’s bright-eyed enthusiasm made it hard not to indulge him. It was infectious, really, the way he treated Kyungsoo’s simple offerings like gourmet treasures. It had occurred to Kyungsoo last Friday that he wouldn’t mind sharing his lunch with the blonde, too.
If Jongin could ever find him, that is.
This bench, tucked beneath a weathered rock outcropping and hidden from the main trail, was one of Kyungsoo’s well-guarded secrets. As far as he knew, only he and a few retirees ever came here. Still, every lunch hour he couldn’t help worrying that this one old man with a wiry gray ponytail might have beaten him to the spot. Perhaps it was time to show Jongin this place? It’d save the guesswork of hoping they’d cross paths near the office at just the right moment before he headed to the park.
Kyungsoo unwrapped another tuna sandwich as he considered introducing Jongin to his lunchtime sanctuary. A breeze ruffled the edges of his paper wrapper, carrying with it the distant murmur of voices from the trail. He leaned back against the cool rock, the idea settling comfortably in his mind.
Maybe tomorrow. Maybe
Jongin
On his way to work the next week, Jongin caught the distinct yellow of police tape again. This time, it was wrapped around the colourful entrance of an ice cream shop a street over from the last crime scene.
Ironically, the vibrant yellow crime scene tape fit right in with the multicoloured stripes painted all over the store's porch. The police cars didn't, though.
The police chief's portly figure was at the crime scene again. Jongin guided his bike close enough to see the man's worried frown. The brunette suspected - from the chief's tired, bloodshot eyes and crumpled uniform - that they weren't making progress on last week’s case. That was the look of someone that had been sleeping in the office, if at all. What had happened this time? Was this an arrest?
As if to answer his question, a bed was wheeled out of the shop right as he passed by. A body bag was securely strapped to it. Murder, then.
The shiver that ran down Jongin's spine had nothing to do with the chilly weather.
This entire situation was getting out of hand. Was there a crime wave going on in their sleepy town? And what could they even do about it? Their bare-bones law enforcement team wasn't built for this. Jongin wasn't holding out hope that they'd solve either of these cases. Having the whole scene get him late to work again only made dread worse.
Around lunch time Jongin ran into an old friend, Baekhyun. It wasn't surprising, since the redhead ran the tattoo parlour across from his favourite chicken shop. And it would be a cold day in hell before Jongin went more than a day without chicken for lunch. Still, it was nice to see a friendly face. With all these cases lately, the downtown area - tiny as it was - had started to feel…unsafe.
The tattoo artist’s shop was on the same block as the incident from that morning, and it was all Baekhyun could talk about. Jongin understood. If he were Baekhyun, a local murder would be all he’d talk about too.
According to Baekhyun, it was the chicken shop owner’s daughter who had called the police. Whatever had happened, it had happened to their upstairs neighbor. Baekhyun suspected the girl had been dating the young college student who lived there. According to the redhead, she wouldn’t tell him what she’d seen, but it must have been horrific. Baekhyun had seen her being treated for shock by the paramedics. In contrast, there had been nothing they could do for the person in the body bag they wheeled into the ambulance.
The tattoo artist’s shop was on the same block as the incident from this morning, and it was all the man would talk about.
Jongin got it. If he was Baek, a local murder would be all he’d talk about too.
The call to the police had come from the chicken shop owner’s daughter. Whatever had happened, it had happened to their upstairs neighbor.
Baek had a theory. The girl had been dating the college student who lived there—that much was an open secret. But she refused to say what she’d seen. Wouldn’t even hint at it. And that, more than anything, made Baek uneasy. He’d caught a glimpse of her as the paramedics treated her for shock—wide, unblinking eyes, hands trembling even as they clutched a foil blanket around her shoulders.
But there was nothing they could do for the one being wheeled into the ambulance, zipped tight inside a body bag.
Baek had been quiet all through Jongin’s lunch break, an unusual stillness settling over the man’s tattoo shop. Even the adventurous yellow streaks in his hair seemed muted under the weight of the conversation. The usual rhythmic buzz of the tattoo machine felt louder, the antiseptic smell sharper, biting at the back of Jongin’s throat.
And Baek kept fidgeting—drumming his fingers, adjusting his ink bottles, flinching at every creak of the old pipes in the walls. It wasn’t like him. He was usually the type to meet strange news with a smirk and a joke. But today, there was no joke. No smirk. Just Baek's knuckles going white around the bottle of disinfectant he hadn’t even realized he was still holding.
Even after Jongin left, the sharp, clinical scent of the shop clung to him, an unwelcome phantom trailing him through the afternoon.
Two deaths. Two weeks.
That alone was strange enough for this town. Added to the fact that no one knew how these people had died? It was alarming.
The police wouldn’t say. The families wouldn’t say. The only official statement was that they were both “freak accidents.” But in a town this small—where secrets never lasted long, and the chief of police’s wife ran her book club like an intelligence agency—the silence felt deafening.
Baek had his suspicions. Beneath the leather jackets and ink-stained hands, he had once been a military police officer, trained to read between the lines. His gut told him this wasn’t some isolated tragedy. It was part of something bigger.
A national investigation, he guessed. Something the local cops had no power over.
Jongin wasn’t so sure. But then again, what did he know about law enforcement? Maybe Baek was just being paranoid.
Then again… maybe he wasn’t...