Undercover [Chapter 1]
Title: The Lost Case
Word count: 2637
Genre: mystery, romance, angst
Pairing(s): KyuMin, (slight) EunHae
A/N: So... this is my first multichaptered fanfic ever to be really taken seriously by me OTL I usually scrap 'em when they got too long and I don't have the mood to continue them anymore BUT! This is the breakthrough (and I'm quite proud with myself hehe) And thank you so so much to my precious beta ten_03 for putting up with my typos and such <3 Enjoy!
***
The sound of scribbles was his only company in the silent room. His right hand, which was holding a pen, was carefully marking the words and jotting down quick relevant notes as his brain wheels kept on turning to assess the information he was seeing. This was how he usually started his day at the bureau, the monotonous routine he was quick to adapt.
Swiping his ID card on the attendance machine on time, going through cases reports and analyzing them to see if there were any issues left for him to work on. If yes, then the Chief would be his next destination; his approval was a crucial step that determined whether the problems were to be solved in the hands of the expert or not.
Not that he meant to belittle his colleagues but that was a Detective's job, wasn't it? 'Detective' was a title given to those who had the guts and the brain to look deeper into what had gone unseen through ordinary eyes. Although if Lady Luck was being generous and the cases had been unofficially closed, he just had to seal the deal. Just a simple signing and then delivering it to the storing department.
Dull may it be, but Kyuhyun wasn't complaining. This was what he had been prepared for. This was the reason he hadn't the slightest happy memory of South Korea.
At the age of four he had moved to America, his parents had insisted on a better education by studying abroad so he could take over his father's business in the future. His sister and him had been forced to leave everything Korean behind and lived the foreign life. Ahra was the one who had been bitter about leaving her elementary school friends but Kyuhyun didn't have anything to be sorry for after he left. At least that was what he remembered convincing himself.
He had long learned not to raise a voice against his parents. After all he would be doing it for naught; his parents never listened to any of their children. All they cared about was to make sure the children were well-educated so the company could be passed on to capable hands. Social life was a secondary to education. Kyuhyun recalled he could count the total of his friends from junior high until college by only one hand. He was lucky his brain capability was slightly above the average so he didn't have to depend much on having friends to help him get through school life.
'Why do I have to remember them at a time like this...' The brunette set his pen down and closed his eyes, letting out an audible sigh as he brought a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.
Not that he held a grudge against his parents' way of showing their 'love', but it was partially their fault he was so difficult to mingle with people until then. He had been used to being thrown into the 'nerd' group, never one to talk much or even interact with his other yearmates his whole teenage years. He was still carrying the same habit even now that he had a job, finally had a life of his own without being his parents' pawn. What stopped him from shutting himself completely in the past were his only friends, the two Korean seniors he met back at college. They were his reason to come back and reclaim his life in his homeland.
"Will you stop that, Hyuk? It's annoying." Kyuhyun opened his eyes, glancing at the sofa to his right where a man was sprawled like a starfish, his shoe kept on tapping a steady rhythm on the tiles.
Said man sat up a little, propping himself with his elbows on the armrest to stare at the brunette with narrowed eyes. "Oh shut up and get back to work. I've told you hundreds of times to call me 'hyung' anyway." Hyukjae snorted, flopping back onto the sofa but wisely keeping his foot glued to the floor as he stared at the ceiling.
The younger rolled his eyes and grabbed his pen, resuming his work of taking notes and reexamining reports. "And I wonder if you deserve that. Have you been lying about your age, both you and Donghae? Seriously, I keep wondering if you two are really older than me." He said, scribbling the last line of his notes before closing the file he had been going through for the last two hours and putting it on the stack under his desk.
Hyukjae reached out over his head to the notes on the drawer beside his sofa and tore a paper, balling it before throwing it to his friend, hitting Kyuhyun square on the temple. "It's not us who are childish, it's you who get old too fast. Be careful, Kyu, or you'll grow white hair faster than us. And Donghae is adorable the way he is." He said, snickering to himself when Kyuhyun tried to throw the paper ball back at him but failed miserably.
Hyukjae than sat up and stood, walking to the door after picking up the paper ball and again hitting Kyuhyun on the forehead.
"Where are you going?" The Detective asked, giving the paper ball a nasty glare before tossing in to the trash bin. He didn't like it whenever something was thrown at him, especially papers. They poked your skin in the irritating way.
The older man paused by the doorway to look over his shoulder. "I'm going to Hae's cafe. It's going to open in a few minutes anyway. Want me to bring something for snack later?" He offered, earning a raised eyebrow from the brunette. "Seriously, Kyu. I'm being generous today, take it or leave it."
"Okay, okay. Bring me some sandwiches and Americano. Then maybe we can get some Thai down for dinner?" Kyuhyun grinned, to which Hyukjae replied with his trademark gummy smile and a thumbs up before exiting the room while whistling to himself.
Kyuhyun just shook his head, forever amused with his hyung's antics. Now that his workspace was silent and free of any distraction, he reached for another file and began to read the reports. His routine might be tedious and his work was even more, but there was Hyukjae and he was enough for a lifetime entertainment.
Two signed reports and a half-through file later, there was a knock on his door that brought Kyuhyun back to reality. "The door's not locked." He called out, looking up from the papers he was reading.
The door opened and a familiar man with soft features walked in, the smile on his face made his dimple stood out. "Good afternoon, Kyu."
Kyuhyun blinked a few times, quite surprised to see the Chief coming into his office at this hour. As if on cue, he tidied up his desk in a haste- even as far as to reposition the golden placate placed at the edge of the desk with his name and title on it- to make himself at least presentable in front of his superior.
"Good afternoon, Chief. Is there anything you want to talk to me?" He greeted with uncharacteristic politeness. It wasn't that Kyuhyun was behaving like a hypocrite, trying to impress his superior and earned some designations sort of stuff, he couldn't help but held his tongue whenever Jungsu was around. He held high respect for this man and respect meant politeness, and it also meant awkwardness for Kyuhyun. If only Hyukjae could see him now, that monkey of a man would have a field day. Kyuhyun would never live this down if Hyukjae ever knew.
"Please, I told you to call me 'hyung' if there's no one around." Jungsu chuckled, patting the younger on the upper arm. "Just relax, really. No need for formality."
The older then took a seat across the Detective, who just smiled a bit sheepishly for his behavior, and put the file he had been bringing on the desk. As he opened the file, he noticed two mugs perched beside the placate from the corner of his eyes and frowned. "Kyuhyun, are you okay?"
Again, the Kyuhyun blinked at the randomness of the question. "Of course I am. Why are you asking that?"
"You have two mugs of coffee there..." Jungsu replied, gesturing at the mugs with his chin.
Two mugs for one person was quite the unusual sight for the former. He knew how black Kyuhyun liked his coffee and to have two mugs of that strong drink in the morning... well it was supposed to be unhealthy. But if Kyuhyun somehow had a bad case of brain wreck and couldn't function properly even after one mug then maybe a two was understandable. Although from the way the younger brunette scrunched up his nose while slapping his forehead almost instantly then proceeded to grumble under his breath, Jungsu knew brain wreck was out of option.
"It's Hyukjae's. He likes to leave his things scattered around people's place, really." Kyuhyun sighed, mentally vowed to have a word or two with his friend about never-leave-your-things-in-other-people's-space policy.
Hearing the answer, Jungsu pursed his lips into thin lines. Hyukjae, again. "Oh, right then." He gave a curt nod and decided to drop the subject. The Chief then shifted his attention back to the matter at hand, the main reason why he was sitting in the young Detective's room at the moment. "Here, have a look at this."
The Detective noted how his superior's reaction had changed whenever he mentioned his friend. In the beginning, Jungsu would smile or sometimes joked about it even, but lately the Chief just nodded and then bluntly changed the subject. Kyuhyun just shrugged it off. It didn't really matter for him as long as Jungsu wouldn't suddenly barge into his office and kick his hyung out.
And now that he had something to focus on, Kyuhyun just realized he hadn't notice Jungsu had brought in such a thick -and seemingly heavy- file. The cover was pretty worn-out, even the color was dulled from time and dust. It seemed that this was one old fellow.
"Uhh... what's that?" Came his dumb reply, his eyes were glued to the file. For the two years he had been working as a Detective in this bureau, the files he received were never this thick and intimidating. He could feel a headache coming.
Jungsu rubbed the back of his neck with a thoughtful expression on his face. "Well... it's a case. An ordinary case, really. But the fact that this is a 13-year old case is what has been bothering me." He said, looking at Kyuhyun's incredulous expression.
"Thirteen? But, you said..."
"I know. I've said there was no cases suspended for more than 5 years, haven't I?" Jungsu sighed in acknowledgement.
He then rotated the file so it was facing Kyuhyun and flipped it over on a random page. Almost immediately, a few worn-out small papers spilled out, a few pieces seemed to jut out from behind the other pages and Kyuhyun saw not only ordinary papers but there seemed to be photos as well. Old photos.
"I'm still trying to figure out how can this one still be here after that 'cleansing' but that's another topic to discuss."
The 'cleansing' was the program ran by the previous Chief to clean the bureau of all cases that had been rotting in the storage since they had been shoved deep into to back of the room, packed in dusty boxes until people forgot about their existence. The previous Chief's main goal was to restore public's faith to the government and he tried to achieve so by reawakening old terrors, solved them, and burned them to ashes. The program's priority was those cases that had passed 5 years of suspend and it had been a thorough removal, or so Jungsu had heard.
"Obviously they forgot this one." Kyuhyun mumbled, trying hard not to roll his eyes and ranted about irresponsible and careless previous officers. But again, the sense of respect was what that had been restraining him although with the way the older man was smiling he knew Jungsu agreed with him on this point.
"Now, onto the case. I found this lying on the floor between the shelves. Can you imagine that? Lying, as if someone had dropped that and wanted it to be found." The Chief flipped the pages absently, not really searching anything in particular but then stopped at a page where it held a paper full of illegible scrawls.
Well he was looking at it upside down so it was illegible for him. But the problem was Kyuhyun also found it illegible.
"So I picked it up and was thinking to put it on the shelf with the other files. I thought maybe one of those guys really did drop it, scratch my obviously-wanted-to-be-found theory. But then I have this hunch that told me not to leave this case. There was a tiny voice telling me to bring this to you to have it solved immediately. I mean, it's weird isn't it? And that pull was a strong one too." Jungsu chuckled, tracing the paper with his finger while alternating between looking at his younger colleague and the paper. "So I thought 'okay maybe I can keep this first until Kyu's work is finished then I can give it to him.' Then I checked from what year this case is and that's when I found out this thing is one of those that should've been disposed during the cleansing.
"Like I said, I wanted to keep this until your work is done but after seeing the year, I had a feeling that something bad will happen when this case is solved." The former sighed, looking torn between wanting to believe his own words or admitting maybe those hunches had only happened in his head.
Another heavy sigh escaped his lips and Jungsu threw his hands in the air, groaning. "Maybe Heechul's horror movies are finally rubbing off on me. This is literally supernatural. E.T. Alien. Paranormal." He mumbled and rubbed his face a few times. Somehow he felt he wouldn't be offended if Kyuhyun suddenly bursted out laughing or started looking at him with weird looks, no matter how polite that kid could be.
Jungsu lifted his hands from his face and saw Kyuhyun flipping the pages, scanning through some of the writings and dusting off the pages. But he remained silent, his face was an expression of indifference. The latter flipped on some more before stopping and looked up at his superior with a frown. "Maybe you're imagining things, hyung."
Jungsu should've been offended, but he wanted to laugh instead.
"I know. It's crazy, huh? Coincidence can happen, after all. Maybe it really was just the guys dropping it. But I'll make sure to check on them and I'll tell you then." Jungsu chuckled, shaking his head and stood up. He looked at the opened page for a while, thinking but not really seeing. "So... I suppose you can look through it later after you're finished with your work. I'm not giving a deadline for this one, just take the time you need." He nodded after a while, smiling as he made his way for the door.
Kyuhyun just nodded at his superior's back, not really knowing what to say. But then Jungsu stopped at the door, his hand on the handle.
He looked to the younger over his shoulder, asking, "You don't believe in supernatural things, do you, Kyu?"
The latter seemed to be surprised being asked like that, but the Detective just shook his head.
Jungsu smiled a little and nodded, "Me too." He walked out of the office, closing the door behind him with a small click.
Word count: 2637
Genre: mystery, romance, angst
Pairing(s): KyuMin, (slight) EunHae
A/N: So... this is my first multichaptered fanfic ever to be really taken seriously by me OTL I usually scrap 'em when they got too long and I don't have the mood to continue them anymore BUT! This is the breakthrough (and I'm quite proud with myself hehe) And thank you so so much to my precious beta ten_03 for putting up with my typos and such <3 Enjoy!
***
The sound of scribbles was his only company in the silent room. His right hand, which was holding a pen, was carefully marking the words and jotting down quick relevant notes as his brain wheels kept on turning to assess the information he was seeing. This was how he usually started his day at the bureau, the monotonous routine he was quick to adapt.
Swiping his ID card on the attendance machine on time, going through cases reports and analyzing them to see if there were any issues left for him to work on. If yes, then the Chief would be his next destination; his approval was a crucial step that determined whether the problems were to be solved in the hands of the expert or not.
Not that he meant to belittle his colleagues but that was a Detective's job, wasn't it? 'Detective' was a title given to those who had the guts and the brain to look deeper into what had gone unseen through ordinary eyes. Although if Lady Luck was being generous and the cases had been unofficially closed, he just had to seal the deal. Just a simple signing and then delivering it to the storing department.
Dull may it be, but Kyuhyun wasn't complaining. This was what he had been prepared for. This was the reason he hadn't the slightest happy memory of South Korea.
At the age of four he had moved to America, his parents had insisted on a better education by studying abroad so he could take over his father's business in the future. His sister and him had been forced to leave everything Korean behind and lived the foreign life. Ahra was the one who had been bitter about leaving her elementary school friends but Kyuhyun didn't have anything to be sorry for after he left. At least that was what he remembered convincing himself.
He had long learned not to raise a voice against his parents. After all he would be doing it for naught; his parents never listened to any of their children. All they cared about was to make sure the children were well-educated so the company could be passed on to capable hands. Social life was a secondary to education. Kyuhyun recalled he could count the total of his friends from junior high until college by only one hand. He was lucky his brain capability was slightly above the average so he didn't have to depend much on having friends to help him get through school life.
'Why do I have to remember them at a time like this...' The brunette set his pen down and closed his eyes, letting out an audible sigh as he brought a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.
Not that he held a grudge against his parents' way of showing their 'love', but it was partially their fault he was so difficult to mingle with people until then. He had been used to being thrown into the 'nerd' group, never one to talk much or even interact with his other yearmates his whole teenage years. He was still carrying the same habit even now that he had a job, finally had a life of his own without being his parents' pawn. What stopped him from shutting himself completely in the past were his only friends, the two Korean seniors he met back at college. They were his reason to come back and reclaim his life in his homeland.
"Will you stop that, Hyuk? It's annoying." Kyuhyun opened his eyes, glancing at the sofa to his right where a man was sprawled like a starfish, his shoe kept on tapping a steady rhythm on the tiles.
Said man sat up a little, propping himself with his elbows on the armrest to stare at the brunette with narrowed eyes. "Oh shut up and get back to work. I've told you hundreds of times to call me 'hyung' anyway." Hyukjae snorted, flopping back onto the sofa but wisely keeping his foot glued to the floor as he stared at the ceiling.
The younger rolled his eyes and grabbed his pen, resuming his work of taking notes and reexamining reports. "And I wonder if you deserve that. Have you been lying about your age, both you and Donghae? Seriously, I keep wondering if you two are really older than me." He said, scribbling the last line of his notes before closing the file he had been going through for the last two hours and putting it on the stack under his desk.
Hyukjae reached out over his head to the notes on the drawer beside his sofa and tore a paper, balling it before throwing it to his friend, hitting Kyuhyun square on the temple. "It's not us who are childish, it's you who get old too fast. Be careful, Kyu, or you'll grow white hair faster than us. And Donghae is adorable the way he is." He said, snickering to himself when Kyuhyun tried to throw the paper ball back at him but failed miserably.
Hyukjae than sat up and stood, walking to the door after picking up the paper ball and again hitting Kyuhyun on the forehead.
"Where are you going?" The Detective asked, giving the paper ball a nasty glare before tossing in to the trash bin. He didn't like it whenever something was thrown at him, especially papers. They poked your skin in the irritating way.
The older man paused by the doorway to look over his shoulder. "I'm going to Hae's cafe. It's going to open in a few minutes anyway. Want me to bring something for snack later?" He offered, earning a raised eyebrow from the brunette. "Seriously, Kyu. I'm being generous today, take it or leave it."
"Okay, okay. Bring me some sandwiches and Americano. Then maybe we can get some Thai down for dinner?" Kyuhyun grinned, to which Hyukjae replied with his trademark gummy smile and a thumbs up before exiting the room while whistling to himself.
Kyuhyun just shook his head, forever amused with his hyung's antics. Now that his workspace was silent and free of any distraction, he reached for another file and began to read the reports. His routine might be tedious and his work was even more, but there was Hyukjae and he was enough for a lifetime entertainment.
Two signed reports and a half-through file later, there was a knock on his door that brought Kyuhyun back to reality. "The door's not locked." He called out, looking up from the papers he was reading.
The door opened and a familiar man with soft features walked in, the smile on his face made his dimple stood out. "Good afternoon, Kyu."
Kyuhyun blinked a few times, quite surprised to see the Chief coming into his office at this hour. As if on cue, he tidied up his desk in a haste- even as far as to reposition the golden placate placed at the edge of the desk with his name and title on it- to make himself at least presentable in front of his superior.
"Good afternoon, Chief. Is there anything you want to talk to me?" He greeted with uncharacteristic politeness. It wasn't that Kyuhyun was behaving like a hypocrite, trying to impress his superior and earned some designations sort of stuff, he couldn't help but held his tongue whenever Jungsu was around. He held high respect for this man and respect meant politeness, and it also meant awkwardness for Kyuhyun. If only Hyukjae could see him now, that monkey of a man would have a field day. Kyuhyun would never live this down if Hyukjae ever knew.
"Please, I told you to call me 'hyung' if there's no one around." Jungsu chuckled, patting the younger on the upper arm. "Just relax, really. No need for formality."
The older then took a seat across the Detective, who just smiled a bit sheepishly for his behavior, and put the file he had been bringing on the desk. As he opened the file, he noticed two mugs perched beside the placate from the corner of his eyes and frowned. "Kyuhyun, are you okay?"
Again, the Kyuhyun blinked at the randomness of the question. "Of course I am. Why are you asking that?"
"You have two mugs of coffee there..." Jungsu replied, gesturing at the mugs with his chin.
Two mugs for one person was quite the unusual sight for the former. He knew how black Kyuhyun liked his coffee and to have two mugs of that strong drink in the morning... well it was supposed to be unhealthy. But if Kyuhyun somehow had a bad case of brain wreck and couldn't function properly even after one mug then maybe a two was understandable. Although from the way the younger brunette scrunched up his nose while slapping his forehead almost instantly then proceeded to grumble under his breath, Jungsu knew brain wreck was out of option.
"It's Hyukjae's. He likes to leave his things scattered around people's place, really." Kyuhyun sighed, mentally vowed to have a word or two with his friend about never-leave-your-things-in-other-people's-space policy.
Hearing the answer, Jungsu pursed his lips into thin lines. Hyukjae, again. "Oh, right then." He gave a curt nod and decided to drop the subject. The Chief then shifted his attention back to the matter at hand, the main reason why he was sitting in the young Detective's room at the moment. "Here, have a look at this."
The Detective noted how his superior's reaction had changed whenever he mentioned his friend. In the beginning, Jungsu would smile or sometimes joked about it even, but lately the Chief just nodded and then bluntly changed the subject. Kyuhyun just shrugged it off. It didn't really matter for him as long as Jungsu wouldn't suddenly barge into his office and kick his hyung out.
And now that he had something to focus on, Kyuhyun just realized he hadn't notice Jungsu had brought in such a thick -and seemingly heavy- file. The cover was pretty worn-out, even the color was dulled from time and dust. It seemed that this was one old fellow.
"Uhh... what's that?" Came his dumb reply, his eyes were glued to the file. For the two years he had been working as a Detective in this bureau, the files he received were never this thick and intimidating. He could feel a headache coming.
Jungsu rubbed the back of his neck with a thoughtful expression on his face. "Well... it's a case. An ordinary case, really. But the fact that this is a 13-year old case is what has been bothering me." He said, looking at Kyuhyun's incredulous expression.
"Thirteen? But, you said..."
"I know. I've said there was no cases suspended for more than 5 years, haven't I?" Jungsu sighed in acknowledgement.
He then rotated the file so it was facing Kyuhyun and flipped it over on a random page. Almost immediately, a few worn-out small papers spilled out, a few pieces seemed to jut out from behind the other pages and Kyuhyun saw not only ordinary papers but there seemed to be photos as well. Old photos.
"I'm still trying to figure out how can this one still be here after that 'cleansing' but that's another topic to discuss."
The 'cleansing' was the program ran by the previous Chief to clean the bureau of all cases that had been rotting in the storage since they had been shoved deep into to back of the room, packed in dusty boxes until people forgot about their existence. The previous Chief's main goal was to restore public's faith to the government and he tried to achieve so by reawakening old terrors, solved them, and burned them to ashes. The program's priority was those cases that had passed 5 years of suspend and it had been a thorough removal, or so Jungsu had heard.
"Obviously they forgot this one." Kyuhyun mumbled, trying hard not to roll his eyes and ranted about irresponsible and careless previous officers. But again, the sense of respect was what that had been restraining him although with the way the older man was smiling he knew Jungsu agreed with him on this point.
"Now, onto the case. I found this lying on the floor between the shelves. Can you imagine that? Lying, as if someone had dropped that and wanted it to be found." The Chief flipped the pages absently, not really searching anything in particular but then stopped at a page where it held a paper full of illegible scrawls.
Well he was looking at it upside down so it was illegible for him. But the problem was Kyuhyun also found it illegible.
"So I picked it up and was thinking to put it on the shelf with the other files. I thought maybe one of those guys really did drop it, scratch my obviously-wanted-to-be-found theory. But then I have this hunch that told me not to leave this case. There was a tiny voice telling me to bring this to you to have it solved immediately. I mean, it's weird isn't it? And that pull was a strong one too." Jungsu chuckled, tracing the paper with his finger while alternating between looking at his younger colleague and the paper. "So I thought 'okay maybe I can keep this first until Kyu's work is finished then I can give it to him.' Then I checked from what year this case is and that's when I found out this thing is one of those that should've been disposed during the cleansing.
"Like I said, I wanted to keep this until your work is done but after seeing the year, I had a feeling that something bad will happen when this case is solved." The former sighed, looking torn between wanting to believe his own words or admitting maybe those hunches had only happened in his head.
Another heavy sigh escaped his lips and Jungsu threw his hands in the air, groaning. "Maybe Heechul's horror movies are finally rubbing off on me. This is literally supernatural. E.T. Alien. Paranormal." He mumbled and rubbed his face a few times. Somehow he felt he wouldn't be offended if Kyuhyun suddenly bursted out laughing or started looking at him with weird looks, no matter how polite that kid could be.
Jungsu lifted his hands from his face and saw Kyuhyun flipping the pages, scanning through some of the writings and dusting off the pages. But he remained silent, his face was an expression of indifference. The latter flipped on some more before stopping and looked up at his superior with a frown. "Maybe you're imagining things, hyung."
Jungsu should've been offended, but he wanted to laugh instead.
"I know. It's crazy, huh? Coincidence can happen, after all. Maybe it really was just the guys dropping it. But I'll make sure to check on them and I'll tell you then." Jungsu chuckled, shaking his head and stood up. He looked at the opened page for a while, thinking but not really seeing. "So... I suppose you can look through it later after you're finished with your work. I'm not giving a deadline for this one, just take the time you need." He nodded after a while, smiling as he made his way for the door.
Kyuhyun just nodded at his superior's back, not really knowing what to say. But then Jungsu stopped at the door, his hand on the handle.
He looked to the younger over his shoulder, asking, "You don't believe in supernatural things, do you, Kyu?"
The latter seemed to be surprised being asked like that, but the Detective just shook his head.
Jungsu smiled a little and nodded, "Me too." He walked out of the office, closing the door behind him with a small click.