It was ten past twelve in the morning as heavy knocks came from the door, waking Yeon-Hee up as she slept on the couch in the dark living room with the curtains covered. The book titled "The workings of a psychopath." fell off her face as she turned and groaned in annoyance.
"Hey, are you still sleeping?!" Dae-Bom yelled, continuing to bang at the door. Yeon-Hee tried to stand up, only to slip and fall on her shoulder on the brown wooden floor with a loud thud.
"Are you okay?!" Dae-Bom asked, after hearing a loud sound.
"Stop yelling so early in the morning!" Yeon-Hee replied angrily. She sighed and slowly stood up and looked at the untidy floor full of pictures and testimonies.
'What the hell is wrong with my organisation skills?' Yeon-Hee thought staring at the mess in front of her before she walked to the door while rubbing her shoulder in pain. She slightly opened the door, peaking at Dae-Bom through the gap. He wore black pants with a plain white T-shirt seen through his unzipped and simple grey jersey.
"What do you want, you bastard?" Yeon-Hee asked in a raspy voice, her eyes were strained from the light coming in.
"Were you still sleeping?" Dae-Bom asked in a shocked tone. Yeon-Hee wanted to kick his head in as she whispered something under her breath.
"Of course! The sun just came out and you want me to be up and about?!" Yeon-Hee replied, opening the door fully this time.
"But it's ten already." Dae-Bom replied in a calm tone.
Yeon-Hee tried to reply "Don't spout nonsense, you bastard." But after checking her digital clock that was supposed to wake her up at eight showing ten fourteen, she was silent as she looked at Dae-Bom
"Ah, is it?.... Thank you." Yeon-Hee softly said, nodding repeatedly as she closed the door. Dae-Bom let out a dry laugh and smiled.
"I'll wait by your car!" He yelled, walking down the steps.
***
After getting ready and driving to their favourite coffee shop, they arrived at the police station. The entrance was packed with a lot more cars than usual along with the parking lot.
"What's happening?" Yeon-Hee asked, trying to find an empty parking space.
"Announcement to the press. The Chief wants to settle the informant issue before the journalists and reporters run wild with it."
"Ah." Yeon-Hee replied.
'Tch! Shouldn't be making false promises when you haven't dealt with the problem itself.' Yeon-Hee thought as she finally found a spot to park her car. They exited the car and entered the police station where Tae-Seok and the man with the belly sticking out were waiting.
"It's unbelievable how you're always late on important days." Cheon Tae-Min, the old man with a receding hairline said as Tae-Seok agreed. Together, team one entered the building and walked over to the conference room that was full of cameras and reporters.
The briefing had already long begun and was seemingly drawing to a close. Yeon-Hee was not disappointed at all, in fact she was rather happy that she missed all the useless things and only showed up for the end. They entered from the back entrance in order to avoid the eyes and cameras, standing with the other police officers and detectives.
Ryu Sun-Jae was also there, wearing denim black jeans and a buttoned up black jersey that the sleeves rolled up to the elbows along with a plain white T-shirt. His long hair was now cut to normal; a light trim around the bottom but untouched at the top with a thin middle-part. He stood with team three of the violent crimes unit in the corner as they were the first to arrive. Immediately after team one entered, all the police officers and detectives cast their gazes on them. Some were full of weird stares while others were simple, second-long glances.
'How uncomfortable.' Yeon-Hee thought as she faced the general direction of the crowd, looking at Chief standing at the podium as he answered the reporters with a plain expression on his face. She would occasionally look around the large room and at the other units out of boredom, suddenly catching the blank stare of rookie detective Ryu Sun-Jae. If it was another person Yeon-Hee caught staring at her, she would have confronted them immediately, but his handsome face was strangely disarming which made her look away.
"That's weird." Yeon-Hee whispered softly.
"What are you talking about?" Tae-Seok whispered back.
"Nothing, just ignore me." She replied, still feeling his gaze.
After the briefing was over and everyone was leaving. Yeon-Hee and her team went straight to their office and closed the door behind them. Team two did not attend the briefing as they were busy with another case with the whiteboard sectioning the room into two.
'Tch, lucky.' Yeon-Hee thought. She was very interested in that particular case, but sadly it was assigned to team two who were unwilling to involve them, botching their attempt which caused a big stir with the public as the journalists had a field day with that piece. Yeon-Hee sat down and turned on her computer as Dae-Bom made a weird sound after realising something.
"Why is it taking so long to assign the case to a team?" Dae-Bom asked curiously.
And as if to answer his question, someone opened the door and said "The chief is calling for you." to Yeon-Hee.
***
On the second floor of the police in their own office was team three of the violent crimes unit. Team leader Kang In-Hyuk had also been called to the Chief's office.
Currently, three out of six members were not present including Kang In-Hyuk. Sun-Jae was busy looking into the profile of the man who attacked Jin-Ah's grandmother at church. One hand was on the mouse while the other was hovering below his chin with the thumb rubbing the index finger in a circular motion. His dark brown eyes were focused on the information of the assailant as he leaned in from his chair.
'Name: Im Jae-Sik. Age: 29. Crime record: Assault, Extortion, Illegal possession of firearm, Arson.' Sun-Jae skimmed through the file and drifted to the picture of Jin-Ah's older brother. He was chubby and had average facial features with stretched tattoos around his neck. Sun-Jae had only seen him a few times at church when he had come to borrow money from his grandmother before gaining weight, which was why he was confused when he saw him again.
"What are you doing?" One of his team members asked, peeking at Sun-Jae's screen from their desk.
"Ah, this person was attempting to hurt someone yesterday and ran off." Sun-jae replied, pointing at the screen. His teammate pushed the wheels of his chair to get a better look as he stared at the picture, before making a groaning sigh that he makes when dealing with annoying matters.
"This bastard again." He said as he rolled his chair back to his desk.
"Do you know him?" Sun-jae asked.
"Of course- Ah right, you were still undercover. So basically two years ago, there was a call about some violent altercation that happened and the police officers were led to this guy. He had previous charges of assault so the case was passed on to us. This bastard went to his grandmother to ask her for money and when she had none he got violent- Ah, this bastard really pissed me off. You know he almost hurt In-Hyuk sunbae with a gun." The teammate kept talking but his voice did not reach Sun-Jae as he stared at the picture in silence.
'I have a bad feeling about this.' He thought as he sighed and dropped back onto his chair.