Chapter Text
He placed the box full of documents on the table and sighed, removing the glove to wipe his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. Wonwoo was off to the side taking inventory of everything found in Taemin's office after the raid, so Minghao didn’t want to disturb him. Taemin's office was large; it had gray walls, and at first glance, it seemed like a boring place, but it had several bookshelves, a round glass table surrounded by chairs, and on one side, there was the desk, which made it, the more you looked at it, like a rather cozy place. The desk was elegant, with drawers on both sides, topped with a huge computer, decorative artificial plants, and a photograph of Taemin as a child with his parents. On the wall behind it were all his certificates and recognitions earned throughout his disastrous career. Feeling like he had nothing better to do, Minghao decided to secretly eavesdrop on two officers who were still searching for incriminating evidence against the prosecutor. “Eavesdropping” sounded vulgar, so Minghao preferred to call what he was about to do "supervising those under his command." He just didn’t want to admit that he was nosy. Walking quietly and pretending to be looking for something, he listened closely to what the two officers, who had their backs turned to him, were whispering.
“...I can't find anything else,” said one of them. “Ugh, seriously, why are we even doing this? This is the most unnecessary thing ever,” one complained, flipping through a notebook on the desk before putting it back in its place. “The prosecutor is dead already; there’s no need to continue this case.”
“You’re right,” replied the other. “No one else can confirm or deny what he did… I get that Commissioner Im wants to do everything in her power to clear her friend’s name, but it’s pointless. Hardly anyone thinks the prosecutor was innocent.”
“Yeah... if she was so eager to keep up with this investigation, she could’ve just sent her favorites,” the officer sighed. “But no, we always have to be dragged into all this nonsense. I’m sick of it. Whatever we find, no one’s going to get arrested for it.”
Minghao pressed his lips together and quietly stepped back just as he had approached. So, the other officers considered them the Commissioner’s "favorites." If only they knew what Minghao and the others had gone through at the hands of that woman, maybe they would think differently. He glanced at Wonwoo, who was sitting in one of the chairs around the table, and not wanting to stand idly by, Minghao went over to him and sat down beside him. Wonwoo was studying the box on the table, as if debating whether or not to open it and go through everything inside… and of course, he opened it and checked everything because he couldn’t wait for someone else to do it, but he was very careful not to mess anything up, always using his gloves.
Most of the contents were folders, which Minghao knew because he had been the one to organize the box. There were also many folded sheets that he hadn’t checked, but it seemed that Wonwoo was willing to do so right then and there, so he leaned in a little to see.
The sheets seemed to be letters, though the strange thing was that none of them had an envelope indicating where they came from or who had sent them. The only thing left to think was that Taemin had gotten rid of the envelopes. The letters seemed like the typical ones teenagers sent to radio shows with their problems, only instead of being exactly that, they were letters from someone named "Karina" to Taemin, recounting her challenges and adventures living on the "island" and her constant fights with someone named "Jihoon"; she said she was sick of being his sister and sometimes wished she could turn back time so she would never have met him.
“Who could she be?” Minghao asked Wonwoo, taking one of the sheets that the older man hadn’t yet read. Wonwoo shrugged and kept reading the sheet in his hands.
«You said you didn’t want to hear complaints from either of us, and I’ve been sending you mine for a while now. Is that why you’re not responding? Are you even reading my letters? What would you do if you really took me seriously? Did you ever really care about me, or did you just say all those things and worry about us those few weeks to look good? There are great days and horrible days, but every day I miss you. I just wonder, why did you abandon me? I hope my next letter is more positive than this one. And I hope you actually respond next time. Karina.»
“Could she be an ex-girlfriend he left behind?” Wonwoo asked after finishing that letter, then picked up another. In some letters, "Karina" seemed happy, in others angry, and in others sad, but no matter whether what she was writing was positive or negative, she always emphasized how much it hurt that Taemin never responded to her. “Why did she keep sending him letters?” Wonwoo mused aloud. Minghao put everything back in the box except for the folder Taemin had handed them the last time they spoke to him.
“This might have something,” Minghao said, opening it. There were so many pages that Minghao got tired of it before reading a single one and handed the folder to Wonwoo. “I’m not reading all that.”
Wonwoo looked at him, disappointed, but not for the reasons Minghao might think. Oh, definitely not.
"Neither am I" he handed the folder back to Minghao, who took a deep breath and put it back in the box.
"Maybe Chan..." they said in unison after a few seconds of staring at the closed box. They turned to look at each other and burst into laughter, surprising the other two officers in the office, who just watched them from a distance, wondering if these people who were suddenly laughing like maniacs were really their respected superiors.
The search at Taemin's residence was proving to be a bit more interesting. Chan was taking pictures with a camera of all the evidence they were collecting and pulling out from the most random places. Taemin might have imagined that it was possible for his house to be searched one day, which is why he had hidden documents and important devices behind the pictures on the walls or under the floorboards in the bathroom. What Taemin hadn’t considered was that by the time his house was being raided, he would be dead and one of the people in charge would be Chan, who had a fascination with searching for things in the most unimaginable corners.
Even when he had gone through the entire house and there really were no more places to search, Joshua was still feeling all the floors and walls, trying to locate more of the prosecutor’s secret hiding spots. While in the living room, Chan let go of the camera, which hung from his neck, and looked at Joshua with a disapproving frown, though he didn’t notice, too engrossed in his search, looking totally ridiculous on the floor and desperately running his hands over the floorboards.
"You're not going to find anything else; we checked everything," he said to the detective, who didn’t stop his strange movements despite the remark.
"If you found documents under the bathroom floor, it's possible we’ll find something here too," he continued crawling on the floor. Chan laughed, partly mocking him, and partly because it was simply funny to see Joshua in that position.
"I have a talent for this, and if I say you won’t find anything else, it's because you won’t..." Joshua ignored him and knocked twice on the floor where he was. The sound it made was different from the previous knocks.
"Oh?" he knocked twice more on that spot and looked up at Chan, who looked just as surprised as he was. "Didn’t the bathroom floor sound like this too?"
"Yes," Chan replied, kneeling beside Joshua and helping him lift the wooden floorboard. There was a small hole, narrow but a bit deep. This was another of Taemin’s hiding spots. Chan stood up and searched his bag, which was lying around, for a flashlight and a pair of latex gloves, then returned to Joshua. He shone the light into the hole while Joshua, with the gloves on, reached his arm inside. He felt around the bottom, which felt empty, and after moving his arm from side to side, his fingers brushed against something. He managed to drag the object until it was in his hand, then pulled it out. It was a small transparent bag with white powder inside. Powder that both of them knew all too well what it was.
"Didn’t you say I wouldn’t find anything?" Joshua teased Chan, shaking the bag. The officer scoffed and leaned over the hole in the floor with the flashlight, taking a better look inside.
"There’s a lot more in here," Chan informed him, handing the flashlight to Joshua and taking the camera to take pictures of the interior.
The entire team searching the house, consisting of about five officers, gathered in the living room to help remove the bags from the hole, and also to classify them into boxes that would later be taken to the station and to laboratories for further analysis. That small spot Joshua discovered turned out to be a storage for various drugs that Taemin trafficked, and the prosecutor certainly left many clients with pending orders before he died.
Back at the station, the group gathered in their area, and Wonwoo, without saying a word beforehand, handed Chan the folder full of things neither he nor Minghao wanted to read.
"What’s that?" Joshua asked, while Chan, a little puzzled, just sat in his chair and opened the folder to skim through it.
"Don’t you remember? It's that folder Taemin pulled out when he was trying to recruit us or something like that," Minghao replied. "It’s too much text, and I'm too tired to read it... Wonwoo doesn’t want to read it because... uh..." Minghao looked at Wonwoo, waiting for him to finish his excuse. The officer cleared his throat before looking at Joshua.
"I can’t strain my eyes, you know?" Minghao hissed, disappointed by the nonsense his partner had said, while Joshua pretended to smack Wonwoo’s head with his palm, making the younger one cover himself with both arms.
"You two are ridiculous," Joshua told them, snatching the folder from Chan and sitting next to him at his desk to read the documents. The first pages didn’t contain anything very interesting, just bank transfer receipts and purchase receipts that apparently had no significance; they seemed to be purchases that only someone with the money that Lee Taemin had would make. Until he came across something strange. "Hey, do you know this girl from somewhere?" Chan moved closer to Joshua with his chair, and both Minghao and Wonwoo leaned over behind him to look at the page. It had the complete profile of a young woman, with a small photo of her beside it. Her full name, date of birth, even where she was born, raised, studied, and the names of her parents were listed.
"I think I’ve seen her before," Chan said. "‘Yoo Jimin’? I’ve heard that name," he tilted his head, trying to remember. He pushed himself back to his desk and turned on his computer to start typing immediately, under the watchful eyes of the three elders. "Oh, it’s that fugitive girl; the one who was accused of killing lawyer Park."
"Could it be that Taemin helped her escape too?" Joshua continued flipping through the pages, briefly reading some paragraphs. He stopped at another interesting page: Choi Seungcheol’s profile. It was organized in the same way as Jimin’s, including a small photo of him. Joshua read everything, not caring much if his companions were reading along or not, and when he finished all the pages summarizing Seungcheol’s life and everything he had done, he saw the cover of the next section, titled: "Coast."
"That Taemin was a scoundrel, but at least he organized his documents well," Chan commented, making everyone pause their reading to look at him. "What? It’s true..."
"If you want to say that Wonwoo makes a mess with his reports, just say it," Joshua said, smiling.
"Who’s talking about Wonwoo?" the young man muttered. Joshua’s smile faded, and Wonwoo laughed, throwing himself on top of Chan to hug him and ruffling his hair with his hand.
"Aw, Chan, I love that you’re so honest," Wonwoo praised him before being pushed away by the younger one, who immediately started fixing his hair.
"Why are you always messing up my hair!? Can’t you just not touch my head!?" Chan exclaimed, annoyed. Minghao rolled his eyes and tapped Joshua on the shoulder to turn the page. Wonwoo remained squatting on the floor, resting his arm on the armrest of Joshua’s chair and leaning a bit to get a good view of the pages in the folder.
The header on the next page was "Dock House." These pages described a house near a dock, including an address, and also receipts for food purchases and some clothing for both women and men. The next page was titled "Trip," and it had a sort of itinerary organizing a trip to Barbados. In a small text box, there was the contact information and address of a person, who was not named and was simply referred to as "driver." Although it could all be about a trip the prosecutor had planned to clear his mind for a few months, everyone knew that wasn’t it. Joshua read as fast as he could and flipped through the pages until he reached another with a different header: "Barbados." There was a lot of information about the island, focusing on the city of "Holetown." The prosecutor’s interest in that island was more than suspicious, and the details he was collecting were strange, almost as if he wanted to move there. The information was so detailed that it would have been impossible for Taemin to forget any of the things he had in there, making it obvious that the man hadn’t taken into account that he would soon be murdered.
"So, what Taemin is telling us with this is that Seungcheol is in Barbados, right?" Wonwoo said, getting up from the floor and immediately grimacing because his legs hurt.
"I guess?" Minghao responded, unsure. "If that’s the case, what we feared would be true."
"There’s no extradition treaty between Korea and Barbados..." Wonwoo murmured. The atmosphere changed suddenly, the agents’ concern almost palpable. Joshua closed the folder and tossed it onto his small desk, on top of his computer keyboard.
"Extradition can be negotiated, it’s not impossible, let’s stay calm," Chan said. "Let’s talk to Seokmin before making any hasty decisions, what do you think?"
"First, we need to confirm that he’s on that island," Joshua said. "We have the address of that supposed dock house, and we can also contact that ‘driver.’ Let’s check all that out, and then... well, then we can lose our minds trying to find Seungcheol."
At the same time this was happening, in Barbados, Jimin was throwing every object she could find in the house at Seungcheol, who was chasing her. She violently knocked over a dresser and ran around it to escape the small house. Seungcheol got distracted when he heard a faint metallic sound on the floor, and fearing the worst, he crouched down, searching for the fallen object. Anxiously, he swept his hands across the floor, his fingertips brushing against some powder.
“No, no… please, no,” he muttered as he continued searching the floor. Then, he saw it, glinting in the light filtering into the house. The locket containing Jeonghan’s ashes was broken, the few ashes scattered around it. Seungcheol gasped, his heart stopping for an instant. All the anger he felt towards Jimin returned in a rush. He stood up from the floor and stormed out of the house, searching for her outside. He spotted her standing at the shore, her feet in the water. “Jimin!” he called out, striding towards her. She turned around and met his gaze with a defiant look. When they were face to face, separated by just a few inches, Jimin spoke with her head held high.
“If you keep acting like this, I’ll kill you,” she said, her voice calm despite the anger in her eyes.
“Will you?” Seungcheol taunted. “I don’t think it’ll be necessary, sweetheart. Thanks to you, they’ll find us both and—”
“They won’t find us!” she shouted, cutting him off. “Taemin isn’t stupid enough to let them catch us!”
“He’s a bastard; the moment he’s under pressure, he’ll do anything to turn us in,” Seungcheol said, stepping even closer to her until their bodies were almost touching. “You shouldn’t have sent those letters, Jimin…” She took a deep breath before replying.
“I already sent them. There’s nothing I can do.”
Seungcheol sighed. “Yes, there’s nothing you can do…” Jimin crossed her arms and moved past Seungcheol, heading back to the small house. “Wait, we’re not done talking,” he said, turning slowly to watch her walk away.
“What do you want?” she asked without turning around.
“You broke the locket,” he said. She didn’t respond, didn’t even acknowledge his words, and kept walking. That was a grave offense to Seungcheol, but more than that, he felt it was an offense to Jeonghan’s memory. And he wouldn’t tolerate that.
He had already tried to kill her a few minutes earlier for sending the letters, and now his anger had transformed into something more; now it was hatred. He hated this young woman, who was not only putting him and herself in danger but had also disrespected Jeonghan. It was completely unacceptable. Jimin had made too many mistakes that day.
Yes, what Seungcheol did to her was her fault. If only she had been more cautious, if she hadn’t sent multiple letters to Taemin detailing everything happening on the island and in the small house, and if she hadn’t knocked over the dresser where the locket was, she might still be alive. But no, she made bad decisions.
It was very late at night when Seungcheol returned limping to the small house, drenched in blood and sweat. The worst part was that much of the blood was his own because Jimin had managed to injure him quite a bit. She had even stabbed him a couple of times during their fight. She was a very strong woman; it was a shame Seungcheol’s rage had blinded him in those moments. Who knows? In another situation, she might have actually killed him. But thinking about that now was pointless; there wasn’t a trace of her left in the world, Seungcheol had made sure of that. When he entered the house, he didn’t even bother cleaning up the mess and just sat on the floor, leaning his back against the wall. His whole body ached, and he was probably bleeding from more than one place… but that didn’t matter to him right now; he just wanted to sleep for a while. If he woke up the next day, he’d tend to his wounds, but for now, he just wanted to sleep.