Chapter Text
He remained as still as possible. He must have been hearing things.
Park Jimin was undoubtedly someone with enormous potential to occupy a padded white room, but he hadn't noticed any signs of delirium in himself.
But only madness could explain the fact that someone had knocked on his office door.
The thing is, his office was a dump. It was located on the ground floor of the Busan Police Investigations Center, right next to the storeroom, in a damp and filthy corridor that led to the kitchen. It was tiny and housed a huge shelf full of files that no one cared about. Cleaning staff carts constantly passed through the narrow corridor, often resulting in fights and broom traffic jams.
In addition to all these notable features, the smell of grease was constant due to the proximity of the kitchen. During the officers' lunch hour, the cafeteria noise resonated perfectly into the office due to shared piping, along with the heat from the boilers. The air conditioning was merely decorative, and Jimin strongly suspected there was a problem with rats. Or ghosts, but he no longer cared about ghosts.
He had chosen that office. It had taken him a month to find the perfect place. It was disgusting, small, unpleasant, and hard to find. Nobody knocked on his door; it was perfect. But he could swear he had heard the sound again, this time followed by someone calling his name.
He bit his own cheek, trying to snap out of the psychotic delirium that must have been stronger now, as he could swear there was a kid with a prominent nose sticking his face into the office.
Going mad was much better than this. If someone was there, it was because this time he wouldn't be able to escape the inevitable.
He was going to have to work.
"Agent Park?" the young man said, already halfway into the office. "Can I come in?"
"Kind of late to be asking that now, isn't it?"
The other seemed to ponder for a moment before crossing the threshold, fully entering.
"It was a polite question," he said as he pulled the only other chair in the office to sit opposite the cluttered desk. He added to the chaos a new stack of papers and sat down, extending a hand towards Jimin. "Jeon Jungkook, from the Anti-Vigilante Task Force."
Now everything made much more sense to Jimin. That bunch of suit-wearing clowns was definitely the kind of people who would look for him even in that prototype of hell. The Anti-V's, as they liked to be called.
Now he had no doubts that he really did have a problem with both rats and ghosts.
"Is that so?" he asked, crossing his arms, ignoring the hand of the aforementioned Jungkook, who just smiled and withdrew it to his lap. "Do you see any vigilantes here, Agent? Do you think any of these folders will fly out to try to save the city?"
"Vigilantes don't save anyone, Agent Park," Jungkook replied with an irritating smile. He seemed calm, which made Jimin nervous. "And about whether there's one in this office or not," he cast a look of disdain at the place before turning back to the other, "there are two answers to that question. And one of them I know you don't want to hear."
"Do you enjoy talking like that or is there a stick stuck up your..." Jimin didn't get the chance to finish his insult. There was someone else knocking on the door. "Damn it, what's going on with this place today? Come in!"
Namjoon entered the office, and Jimin looked at him with raised eyebrows. The senator's secretary shrank back under the other's irritated expression, looking at anything but him.
"Ah, hyung," Jungkook said, smiling even more. "I couldn't find you, so I came to talk to Agent Park alone. After all, we're dealing with something important."
"Of course," Namjoon said, still somewhat cowered against the door. "I was talking to Senator Bang about the operation details and the need to involve Mr. G."
"You should call him Agent Park, Namjoon-hyung," Jungkook corrected condescendingly. "Baby G doesn't exist anymore. Right?" he asked, turning to Jimin.
"What are you two doing in my office?" Park asked, ignoring the existence of the Anti-V agent as much as possible in that tiny room. "I thought I made it clear in our agreement that I would only work on what interests me here at the Investigations Center."
"The problem is that nothing interests you, Agent Park," Jungkook said, pulling another manila folder from his bag. That couldn't be good. Manila folders always brought unpleasant news or resumes. Both led to work, the exact thing Jimin wanted to avoid. "You must have heard what the public thinks of your position in the police force."
"I have better things to do than read gossip from a girly magazine, Jeon Jungkook. I'll leave that task to you," he replied sourly.
"In fact, you have nothing better to do. Or nothing to do in general," he retorted calmly.
Namjoon, who watched the conversation so nervously he could faint at any moment, decided to intervene before he had to carry one — or both — of the men straight to the infirmary.
"We need your help on an important investigation, Jimin-ssi."
"And why would I help, Namjoon?"
"You must have heard about the series of suspicious attacks against important figures that have been happening," Namjoon said seriously. "There have already been four deaths, the last murder happening just this weekend."
"I still don't see where I fit into this," Jimin said genuinely confused. "I'm not in the Homicide Division."
"The perpetrator of these crimes has a very specific way of acting. Perhaps you'll recognize it from the photos," Jungkook said, already opening the folder to pull out a plethora of photos of corpses.
Jimin shuddered.
His voice was in his head again. Jiminie, help me, help me, help me, help me, help me, help me...
The photos showed different people, all killed in the same way: stakes in their wrists, feet, and heart. The skin around them a terrible shade of blue.
"They're made of silver salts," Jungkook said, ignoring the paleness on Jimin's face. "Just like the ones that killed your partner that night."
"It can't be," Jimin turned his eyes away from the photographs to look at Namjoon. "He's in prison. He's locked up, isn't he?"
"We think that... Well, there's a possibility he's enhancing his mental abilities through a host, but we can't be sure yet," Namjoon replied, clearly nervous.
"That's the best-case scenario," Jungkook drew Jimin's attention once more, pulling more photos from inside the folder. They were more crime scene records, but now Jimin noticed what he hadn't seen before: crowns of thorns.
"What the hell..."
"We believe there may be some kind of cult, a community following in his footsteps. If that's true, it makes our task of stopping them much harder, but it could be even worse," Jungkook continued, now holding Jimin's gaze, seeing the ex-vigilante swallow hard. "If everyone serves as hosts for him..."
"We need your help," Namjoon said firmly. "And if you help us, the senator promises to give you what you've been asking for for years."
"Jiminie, I'm not feeling well. Hyung, there's something wrong with me, I need you... help me, help me, help me, help me, help me..."
"Agent Park?"
Jimin looked up from those disturbing photographs. Suddenly, that office resembled too much like a coffin. Jungkook and Namjoon stared at him expectantly when he finally said:
"What do we already know about this mess?"