Goodbye, Peter Pan [Chapter 8]
Whisper your secrets in my ear; I will hold them close to my chest.
CSI!Bangtan AU. Chapter 7 → Chapter 8
“There’s not much I can say about her. She was my friend. We were relatively close when we were younger but lost contact after finishing college. Even though we weren’t the best of friends, I thought I knew her pretty well. But thinking back now, I’m beginning to realize that, even after all of the time we spent together, I hardly knew anything about Ji Hana.”
Kim Seokjin leans back in the driver’s seat of his sedan and frowns. The neighbourhood street on which he had pulled his car into is empty, providing the best kind of public privacy which the detective could afford on such short notice. In the passenger’s seat beside him sits Jeon Jungkook, who stares out of the side window with the sort of stillness one gains only through years of practice.
“She was a ghost.” Jin stretches his long legs into a more comfortable position, rearranging his limbs as though the physical movement will orchestrate the flow of his words. “Even when she was alive, the people around her knew next to nothing about her. She barely kept in contact with her family and it doesn’t look like she had any close friends in her life. Sunggyu said that her old friends in Gwangju had nothing substantial to say about who she was as a person, and even Joohee admitted that she didn’t know Hana well, not even back when they were in school together.”
Jungkook says nothing but Jin knows that he is listening, deeply contemplating the words which have been presented to him. There are many at the station who find Jeon Jungkook to be unsociable and withdrawn, but Jin is rather fond of the younger man. He’s observant, startlingly clever, and always lets Jin take his pick from the doughnut box first (though the last one is a bit of a stretch to count, seeing as Jungkook hardly touches any kind of sugary food anyway). He just doesn’t talk much is all, and there’s nothing wrong, in Jin’s opinion, with preferring to listen rather than to speak.
Jin drums his fingers on the steering wheel and glances at the empty street outside. The two men had just finished meeting with Lee Joohee, Hana’s childhood friend. The woman, with her sleek charcoal-gray suit and immaculately polished nails, had appeared appropriately sombre when the inspectors had arrived at her gallery office. “I saw the reports,” she’d said, extending a hand in greeting, “And Hana’s parents reached out to tell me themselves, but it didn’t seem real until I received your call. You never think it’s going to happen to you, you know? Or to the people in your life. I mean, murders, killers; it’s the kind of thing that’s only supposed to exist in movies…”
Jin continues. “Sure, Joohee knew what Hana’s likes and dislikes were, what her hobbies were. She knew what Hana wanted to do after high school, who her family members were. But all of these things are superficial. They don’t tell us anything about why Hana was murdered or even targeted in the first place.”
“I suppose you could say that we were childhood friends, although we met when we were sixteen. She moved to our school during the third year of high school, and we only started talking after we were put in the same study group. But honestly, I’m not sure that she would have said the same thing about the friendship that we had. It was hard to tell what she was thinking most of the time. She never talked much about herself, and she was rather quiet, even around me. Yes, we talked and laughed together, but most of the time she just listened to other people speak. Even when we went to the same college together, it still felt like she was keeping me at a distance.”
“Either she just didn’t like talking about herself very much, or there was something she wanted to hide. A traumatic past experience or a secret of some sort… But that goes against everything we’ve learned about her, doesn’t it? Her parents already told us that nothing of the sort had happened in her life…”
“But even with that quiet side, she could be surprisingly absentminded at times. Actually, I think ‘focused’ would be a better way of describing it. She was always concentrating on her art, so it wasn’t unusual for her to forget to bring her lunch or even assignments to school. Most of our classmates- and even some of the teachers- thought she was scatterbrained, but I always thought that it was because her mind was too busy thinking of what she could create next.”
“You don’t murder a person for no reason. And if that person just so happens to be a mysterious artist who keeps her life wrapped in shadows… She was definitely hiding something, wouldn’t you say? Even when she was young, she wanted to keep her secrets. Only the problem is, nobody in her life seems to have known what they were.”
“I think the last time I saw her was sometime a year ago. I was passing by this cafe downtown and glanced through the window, and there was Hana sitting at the front table. We’d lost contact by then, so you can imagine how surprised I was to see her there. But what was more surprising was who she was with: Seo Eunkwang, that self-acclaimed ‘doctor of the soul.’ Have you heard of him? He’s the one who claims he can heal your burdened mind and emotional scars through the language of love, or whatever it is. A bit of a farce, if you ask me. Anyway, they looked as though they were in the middle of a serious conversation so I didn’t want to interrupt to say hi…”
Jin hums out a thoughtful, tuneless melody. As soon as he and Jungkook had said their goodbyes to Joohee, he had texted Jimin with the name of the so-called “soul doctor,” asking the intel officer to pass along any available information about him. So far twenty minutes have passed with the two detectives waiting in the car, but Jin is more patient than he lets on, and Jungkook doesn’t seem to mind the wait, either.
“If Ji Hana was as private as she appeared to be, then why would she meet with that doctor? Judging from what we were told, this Seo Eunkwang fellow seems to be more of an unlicensed therapist than a professional medical doctor. And why do people go to therapists? To talk. To seek emotional help.”
He can feel Jungkook’s eyes turning towards him, but still, there is no answer. The silence is heavy, stained only by the faint noises of the world beyond the sedan, but Jin isn’t offended by the lack of response. He’s long since grown accustomed to Jungkook and his odd silences; Jungkook, with his habit of wandering into his own private thoughts while giving neither explanation nor invitation to those around him. He is entirely, Jin decides, like the ocean: perpetually reaching out to the awaiting shores, only to abruptly recede back into the space that belongs to him and him only.
“She wanted to talk,” Jungkook finally speaks for the first time since leaving Lee Joohee’s office. “It doesn’t matter how guarded she was with her secrets; she still wanted somebody to confide in.”
Jin nods in agreement. “Exactly, kid. And it’s too bad our job is to pry the lids off of secrets, not to keep them on.” His phone suddenly beeps, signalling the arrival of a new message. It’s from Jimin, who has sent a makeshift profile on Seo Eunkwang containing his background information, phone number, home and work addresses, and the interestingly high number of complaints filed against his business for fraud and extortion. Jin grins as he buckles his seatbelt, then motions for Jungkook to do the same. “We got a hit for his address. I hope this doctor doesn’t mind walk-in appointments.”
Even with the ease in the morning traffic rush, it takes almost thirty minutes to reach the business district of downtown Seoul, where Seo Eunkwang had chosen to situate his somewhat questionable business. With it being ten o’clock on a Thursday morning, Jin had gambled on finding the man of interest at his office rather than his home address.
“And it’s better not to call ahead,” he’d explained to Jungkook as he drove, slowing down to allow a red minivan to cut before him on the lane. “Wouldn’t want to give him a heads-up on the chance that he has something to hide, see? Not that I’m saying we should treat him as a suspect, but you never know in our line of work.”
The so-called “soul” doctor’s office is relatively easy to find, and Jin makes quick work of parking his car along the curb. While the building itself is small, and slightly drab-looking in comparison to its neighbouring finance offices, its exterior is plastered with company banners and advertisements, as though trying to make up for its lack of decor with boasts of the businesses residing within.
Soul Speech Therapy! Heal your worries with the language of love!, one sign reads, and accompanying the words are a phone number and a picture of the grinning soul doctor himself.
“He’s not exactly shy about marketing the nature of his business, is he?” Jin snorts as he steps out of his car. He waits for Jungkook to do the same, then checks to make sure that his vehicle is locked securely. “I know there isn’t much we know about Ji Hana’s character, but if she decided to meet this guy for ‘soul speech therapy’ or whatever, then I’d be pretty surprised. It seems a bit New Age for her tastes, if you ask me.”
Jungkook takes a moment to study the storefront. The address had placed the office on the fourth floor of the building. Even with the relatively low structure in framework, the windows are still too high up for the inspectors to be able to detect any motion inside. “Perhaps this was her way of coping with whatever she had to hide.”
“Hey, I’m not judging. To each his own, and all that,” Jin says good-naturedly, and walks around the sedan to join Jungkook on the curbside. “Now, come on. Let’s go see what the doctor has to say about our ghost.”
He waits until a pair of office workers pass by on the sidewalk, then gestures for Jungkook to follow his lead. The daylight is becoming brighter with the rise of the mid-morning sun, and Jin has to blink hard to keep the bright light from completely eclipsing his vision. With the end of the May month approaching, the weather is rapidly becoming more beautiful and carefree, as though entirely oblivious to the world and its incessant, unfortunate sufferings. Some might consider it an insult, Jin muses rather regretfully, that the sun can shine so blissfully in the face of a murder investigation.
Suddenly Jungkook speaks in his usual low murmur. “There. Seo Eunkwang is coming out of the building now.”
“Where?” Squinting, Jin raises a hand to block out the sun. The onslaught of daylight makes it difficult to see clearly past the front glass doors, but he is able to make out the figure of a man approaching from within. A man in his late thirties, with a thin, angular face and salon-ready hairstyle matching the picture Jimin had sent to a T. “Perfect timing. Maybe our souls told him we were coming to see him.”
As though somehow alerted to their approach, Seo Eunkwang suddenly looks up and catches sight of the detectives through the heavy glass. Jin and Jungkook are still a few steps away from the doors, but Jin thinks he can see the man’s eyes widen in alarm before he abruptly turns and disappears back inside the lobby.
Jin momentarily stops in his tracks. “Did you see that? He obviously saw us coming. Do you think he’s trying to avoid us?” Whatever reaction he had been expecting from the man, this certainly isn’t it. “I’ll try to follow him inside, catch up to him. You stay here in case he tries to leave through the front again.”
Jungkook murmurs an assent, but Jin is already hurrying towards the building. He steps through the front doors just in time to see the doctor’s figure disappearing up the lobby stairs.
‘He’s running,’ is the first thought which pops into Jin’s mind, and instinct propels him to quicken his own pace. The staircase is free of other patrons, allowing Seo Eunkwang’s footsteps to echo thickly in the air- a light, scampering sound, yet tinged around the edges with an unmistakable sort of desperation. The desperation to hide. The desperation to flee. It’s a sound Jin is all too familiar with, but normally reserved for pursuits after conspicuous criminals and lawbreakers; certainly not businessmen and self-acclaimed medical figures.
But why would such a man want to run? What had provoked him into fleeing the second he had caught sight of the two crime scene detectives? Jin can only imagine the reason as being something so painfully obvious, Min Yoongi would have rolled his eyes in disgust: Seo Eunkwang had something he wanted to hide. He had wanted to avoid talking to the authorities, and the reason behind it was evidently pressing enough that he had decided to run instead of playing it cool.
The doctor is fast; a part of Jin can’t help but wonder if he’s had practice running from the authorities. As Jin rounds up to the third floor, he catches sight of the man already disappearing into the fourth. Frustrated, Jin yells, “Mr. Seo! I don’t know why you’re running, but we’re only here to speak to you-”
His words are greeted with the sound of a door slamming shut. Slightly out of breath, Jin reaches the top of the stairs to find the fourth floor entirely empty of the doctor’s presence. Although it doesn’t take a genius to figure out where the man is hiding- right in front of the stairwell, on the left side of the corridor, is a door marked with the sign of the doctor and his soul therapy practice.
Jin approaches the door with heavy footsteps, feeling both exasperated with this unforeseen goose chase and a bit too winded from the run for his liking. The years hadn’t been kind on his aging knees, he thinks wryly to himself, before coming to a halt in front of the silent office door. “Mr. Seo,” he huffs out, “We’re here on official police business! Whatever it is you’re trying to avoid, we have no interest in that matter. My partner and I only want to ask you a few questions about an ongoing investigation-”
And it’s then that the door suddenly flings wide open, launching itself towards Jin and his quite unsuspecting, quite unprotected face.
"Son of a-!”
——-
Even with your clear warning to stay the fuck still, the man continues to pull something out of his pocket. Inwardly you think that he must be either incredibly brazen or incredibly stupid to ignore your warning, especially when your revolver is practically on display for him to see.
Your fingers tense as you quickly assess the level of danger. Although the man has yet to present himself as an outright threat, his actions are far too suspicious for you to overlook. He’s already proven himself to be a disturbance, if not nuisance, by sneaking up to the scene of the crime. Twice. Even if he’s not the person who dragged the body into the apartment- his build doesn’t match the one from the footage- you’re still reluctant to treat him as a harmless bystander. Firing your weapon has always been your absolutely last resort, but if he pulls out a gun or even knife of his own, then you have little chance of disarming or even evading his attack in this confining hallway-
The door to Ji Hana’s unit suddenly swings wide open. Neither you nor the man have the chance to react as Hoseok appears in the doorway. His eyes flash towards yours, and without a word he wretches the man’s arms behind his back. Within seconds Hoseok has the intruder secured in a death grip, pointedly ignoring the man’s yelps of pain. An object clatters to the floor, and you give it a quick, cursory glance. No knife, no gun, not even a stick to beat you over the head with- all you can see lying on the ground, much to your surprise and chagrin, is what appears to be an identification card of some sort.
“Ow ow ow, what the hell? I wasn’t going to do anything; I was only trying to show you my badge! I’m a journalist, for crying out loud!”
Immediately you swing your eyes to the intruder’s face. In the midst of the scuffle his mask has fallen off, giving you a clear view of his features and the grimace of pain which currently twists at his lips. There is something about his face that seems oddly familiar. Narrowing your eyes, you mentally sift through your memories, weaving through each until at last you find the right one. “You. You’re the reporter who wrote that month-long feature on the museum case last year.”
“That’s me. Lee Changsub; pleased to make your acquaintance again,” the man says in a pained voice. “Now, could you please call your partner off? I think my arms are going to fall off any minute.”
Relief floods your system, but just as quickly as it appears, it’s replaced by a wave of ire and exasperation. You let your arm fall back to your side and survey the man in front of you. “What do you think you’re doing here? You’re trespassing on private property, not to mention serious police activity.”
“Jesus. You don’t skip out on arm days at the gym, do you, buddy?” Lee Changsub grimaces as Hoseok wordlessly releases his hold. He straightens up and quickly takes a step away from your colleague, eyeing the inspector with an expression that contains both wariness and grudging respect. “I’m a reporter for The Globe. We haven’t been told much about this case- your chief is quite stingy when it comes to sharing information, did you know that?- so I decided to take some initiative and check things out on my own.”
“By sneaking past our officers without a pass?” you ask skeptically, just as Hoseok says, “That’s because that information is confidential.”
The reporter picks up his ID and mask, and dusts the items off. Now that you have a better view of him, you can see that he’s clearly not the suspect from the footage. Just as you’d thought, his frame is too slender, too lithe, to match the one from the surveillance tape.
Changsub pockets his belongings and shrugs at your question. “Gotta earn a living somehow. You can’t actually expect this story to stay under wraps, not when the city’s local art sensation Ji Hana is involved. And as I said, your chief hasn’t given us much to go on. He’s not very good at answering his phone, is he?”
“If you’re an authorized journalist, then you’ll know how the protocol works for this kind of thing. We answer your calls and hold media conferences when we’re able to, not anytime sooner than that.”
“You can’t blame a guy for trying, Inspector. But so long as we’re talking about protocol…” His eyes flash towards your hip, and you’re slightly taken aback to see Hoseok follow his line of sight. “Pulling a weapon on an innocent civilian? Wouldn’t you say you’re… jumping the gun a bit?”
You ignore his grin and tasteless pun. “Not if I have reason to believe that my safety, and the safety of the residents in this building, is at risk. Besides, with all of that sneaking around, you can hardly be called innocent. Consider this a warning. The next officer who finds you trespassing in crime scenes might not be so lenient.”
Changsub raises his hands in a show of surrender. “Alright, alright. I can take a hint. I promise I’ll be on my best behaviour from here on out. But before I leave…” Pulling out his wallet, he digs through the compartments for a moment before producing a white business card. He holds it out to you (a wise decision, you privately think, for Hoseok would have left the questionable offering hovering in the air). “I know that we media folk are something akin to vultures to you, but would you call me if you find any developments? Out of consideration for the public, if not for what I sense to be the beginning of a beautiful and blossoming friendship.”
You resist the urge to roll your eyes and accept the card. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Once the reporter has left, you follow Hoseok back inside unit 905. The apartment is still as quiet as ever, still pitifully lonely, making it seem as though it exists entirely in a world of its own. As you walk behind your colleague through the living room, a thought suddenly appears in your mind. “What if he’d had a knife?”
Hoseok pauses briefly to consider your question. “Well, I suppose that’s where your gun would have had the advantage.”
“That’s not what I meant.” This time, you really do roll your eyes. Honestly, if this is how Yoongi feels whenever you throw sass at him, then you think you owe the poor man a long-overdue apology. “You were unarmed. You could have gotten hurt. Even if you caught him by surprise, he still could have attacked you, and you would have been defenceless to stop it.”
He glances over his shoulder to meet your eyes. In the low light of the apartment, his eyes almost appear to be black, and there is a startling intensity that once again catches you off-guard. “Exactly. What if he’d had a knife? Or a gun? Are you confident that you could have disarmed him with your weapon? Your gun may be fast, but if you don’t know what you’re going up against, then you lose the upper hand. I’m not undermining you, Inspector. But if you’re going to preach to me about being defenceless in the face of a risk, then I suggest that you do the same for yourself.”
His words provoke a conflicting mix of emotions within you: the urge to snap back and defend your wounded pride, a growing exasperation at the petty, practically high school-level tension that hovers in the air. As you evenly return his stare, you can almost hear an indignant voice whispering in the back of your head, what crawled up his ass and died? Over the years you’ve seen your share of haughty colleagues, some superior to your rank, others working beneath your orders, all equally as unwilling to cooperate like mature, reasonable adults. But Jung Hoseok is something entirely different. It’s not that he’s outright rebuffing you, no. It’s more that he’s refusing to allow himself to be read, and there exists a part of you that thinks he must have worked extremely hard to keep it that way.
Eventually you decide to settle the matter with a light shrug and word of thanks. Your work is already difficult enough, and damn it all if you’re going to let this childish tension cloud your focus. Ji Hana deserves better, you decide with a sense of resolution, than for two detectives to squabble in her apartment instead of finding the truth behind her untimely death. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for your help, then.”
He regards you for a second longer before pulling away in the verbal ceasefire. “Don’t mention it. If you had gotten injured, it would have only given your boss another reason to resent my presence,” he says dryly, then disappears into the bathroom to continue his tour of the apartment.
You stare after him before shaking your head. ‘He really is something else,’ you muse, then follow his lead down the hallway. The image of Hoseok putting Lee Changsub into a near-headlock suddenly appears in your mind, and, despite your earlier feelings of frustration, you can feel a wry grin tugging at your mouth. Really, the bureau director couldn’t have picked a better man for his unspoken mission to infiltrate the Seoul station while pissing off Min Yoongi. It’s just a shame that the person on the receiving end of Jung Hoseok’s… antagonism, for lack of a better word, is you and not the branch director in question (although there is a part of you that wonders what Hoseok himself thinks of this power play. Even with his inscrutability, you somehow doubt that he would willingly agree to be a pawn in another man’s political pissing party).
Casually leaning against the doorframe, you watch for a moment as he examines the contents of the bathroom cupboard: an unopened roll of mint toothpaste, a jar of face cream, a large bottle of shea body lotion that looks as though it hasn’t been touched in months. Most definitely not the contents of a woman who cared for a good skincare regimen. “So. What do you think?”
“What do I think about…?”
“About the case.” You wave your hand around the dimly lit room. “About the victim. About where we need to go from here.”
If Hoseok recognizes your unspoken offer of a truce (or diplomatic peace-making, as Namjoon often refers to it), then he doesn’t comment on it. His eyes flash as he absorbs the sight of the bathroom, and it’s only from the way that his lips are pressed together and his brows are furrowed that you can tell he’s taking your question seriously. “She wanted to avoid people,” he begins slowly. “She wanted to keep to herself. And not just because she had the personality of a recluse. No, there was a reason why she wanted to hide her life, and I suspect that the catalyst for this murder is connected to something that happened in her past.”
“Problem is, we have no idea what that something is. We haven’t found anything in this apartment-” you gesture your hand once again, “-that so much as hints at a past trauma. And it doesn’t seem like anybody in her life had any idea, either. Not her parents, not her friends; not even a single diary entry to point us in the right direction.”
“Just because she never told anybody, doesn’t necessarily mean it didn’t happen,” he says, but this time you can tell that his disagreement is for the purpose of speculation rather than antagonism. “She could have lied. She could have pretended that she was okay. People tend to do that.”
“You sound as though you have a lot of experience with that.”
Hoseok tilts his head. “Are you investigating me now, Inspector?” he asks in that slightly mocking voice which you’ve already become so accustomed to, yet you think you can see something close to amusement in his eyes.
You flash him an indulgent smile. The tension from earlier has all but dissipated, but there is a residual hint of it which continues to linger in the air, something that either only a fool or a dead man would be ignorant enough to miss. “Just think of it as me becoming more acquainted with you. I like to know a little something about all of my case partners; you understand.”
“I wasn’t aware that we were partners to begin with.”
“Not officially, no. But we were assigned to this case together, weren’t we? Even if you and I work within different districts, that still technically makes us partners for the time being. And I don’t know about you, but I like to get along with the people I’m working with,” you point out.
He looks at you, and for a very awkward moment you think that he’s going to ignore your obvious attempt at peace-making. But then the inner district officer turns back to the cupboard and resumes his inspection of its contents. “Lies are the foundation of this job, both yours and mine. If I really thought that Ji Hana’s life was as transparent as we’ve found it to be, then I wouldn’t make for a very good detective, would I?”
“Well, when you put it that way.” You’re keenly aware that he’s sidestepping your question, but choose not to push him for further elaboration. “But believe me, I know exactly what you’re getting at. I’m a detective too, remember? I’ve probably seen it just as much as you have.”
“Of course. I never doubted that for a second,” he answers cryptically, and closes the doors of the cupboard with an air of finality.
With the inspection of the bathroom completed, Hoseok steps past you to make a beeline for the living room. He comes to a stop in the middle of the wide room, sweeping his eyes slowly around the space (and what a lonely, lonely, space it is) as he had done inside of the bedroom. Again, you watch silently as he takes in the details of his surroundings: the bookshelf that is crammed with a mismatch of books and painting tools, the weatherbeaten sofa which seems to grieve for the owner whom it knows will never return. The painting of the Night Dancer image, which had practically catapulted Ji Hana to local fame while revealing nothing about its creator or even creation story.
Your vantage point from the entranceway only grants you a view of Hoseok’s side profile, but you can see his gaze coming to a stop at the enigmatic painting. He says nothing, but you think you can see something pass over his expression. It flits over his features like a shadow, so small and fleeting that you’d almost believe it to be a trick of the light should he so make the claim.
You expect Hoseok to make some sort of comment on the image- Ji Hana’s identity had practically revolved around this visual discipline, after all- but he simply turns away from the painting and glances in your direction. Whatever that shadow had been, it mars his features no longer. All that you can see is that slightly mocking smile of his, looking so natural and effortless, as though it had never disappeared from its spot on his mouth in the first place.
“Shall we return to the station, then? Before you decide to- how did that journalist put it- jump the gun on another unsuspecting civilian,” he says, lips twitching in amusement at the echo of Lee Changsub’s jest. Without waiting to hear your response, he brushes past you and heads towards the front door to the apartment, leaving behind only the sound of his receding footsteps and the lingering scent of his cologne to your company.
‘Smartass,’ you think to yourself wryly, and begin to follow his path towards the apartment door. It’s only your second day of knowing this man, yet it feels as though the two of you have already gone circles upon circles around each other. Whatever his intentions are, whatever it is that he’s trying to keep guarded from the rest of the world, you somehow think that Jung Hoseok will be an even greater mystery to uncover than the murder investigation itself.
