CHINGUX 2014: jongdae kim and the case of the purloined poodle (1/1) for homages
Title: Jongdae Kim and The Case of the Purloined Poodle
Author: gdgdbaby & michaelwesten
Recipient: homages
Pairing/Focus: Chen-centric, OT4
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: N/A
Length: 2646
Summary: Your local small town high school isn't exactly a hub of crime, but Jongdae and his friends get by.
Their clubhouse isn't so much a clubhouse as it is a storage closet, one that the school lets them use as an unofficial meeting place only because they don't have anything else to do with the space. Jongdae's short enough to stretch out with ease, but every time Chanyeol walks in, his head smacks right into one of the jutting cabinets without fail. "Jongin lost his dog," he says today, massaging the nasty red bump blooming at his hairline, face twisted into a grimace. He flops over onto the bean bag next to Jongdae's makeshift computer table (a cardboard box that's seen better days) and his makeshift chair (a stack of lurid pink pillows Yura donated to the cause before she left for college). "He wants us to help him find it."
Jongdae tears his eyes away from his laptop but keeps typing. "Again? Which one?"
"Not sure," Chanyeol says, trying to fold all his limbs onto the bean bag. "The brown poodle?"
"He has like three brown poodles." Jongdae rubs the bridge of his nose and goes back to his history paper. "You know, this is why we never ask you to find cases for us. Where's Kyungsoo?"
Kyungsoo handles the day to day operations of their little group. The Beagle Boys (a name Jongdae came up with, after Baekhyun suggested the extremely pretentious Holmes Collective and Kyungsoo retaliated with Three Idiots and Their Reluctant Keeper) had started in freshman year of high school, when the four of them were put in the same English class and Ms. Zhang taught a unit on detective fiction.
The morning after they finished reading The Big Sleep, Baekhyun came to school in a heavy trench coat and sunglasses, twirling an actual pipe from God knows where that was quickly confiscated when he walked through the front door. "You look like a drug dealer," Chanyeol remarked, but sat down next to him as he set up shop in the cafeteria. As it turned out, there wasn't much crime to be solved on a high school campus, but the first real case they took on was recovering Yixing's lost lunch money (in his backpack, buried beneath a stash of tenor saxophone reeds and a crusty old spit rag) and it sort of became a thing.
Through the speakers, the study hall bell rings. Jongdae bends his head closer to his laptop. A minute later, like clockwork, Kyungsoo strolls through the doorway of HQ, pulling the STUDENT AIDE badge over his head.
Chanyeol sits up and nearly smashes his face into Kyungsoo's swinging backpack. "Hey, did you hear? Jongin-"
"Lost Monggu again," Kyungsoo finishes. "I know." He's about to say something more, but Baekhyun trips inside the storage closet at fifty miles per hour and then they're all too busy trying to avoid someone's elbow or knee to say much of anything.
"Hi," Jongdae says drily when they've settled, laptop digging into his stomach. "Nice of you to join us."
"Did you hear?" Baekhyun gasps, doubled over, hands braced against his thighs. "Monggu died-"
Chanyeol's eyes snap wide open. "What?"
"Shut up, Baekhyun," Kyungsoo says calmly. "Don't be dramatic. Monggu did not die."
Baekhyun squints at him. "You sure? Jongin looked so gutted when I saw him, I just assumed the worst."
"That's why we never ask you to find cases for us, either," Jongdae sighs. He gives up on the history paper and slides his laptop into his backpack, hefts the strap over his shoulder. As they pour out of the storage closet Baekhyun jostles in next to him, noisy and warm, an easy arm tossed over Jongdae's shoulder. Jongdae leans into it, hands shoved in his pockets, mind filling with Chanyeol's low voice on his right. Baekhyun's main pull-besides cheerful, magnetic charm-was gossip. Not necessarily because he talked a lot, but because he tended to have his fingers in so many pies that it was difficult for him not to know at least something about anything that was going on. It came in handy for intel gathering purposes, like last fall, when the school was dealing with a textbook theft problem. Baekhyun managed to systematically sort through all the rumors churning through the grapevine and pin it on Mr. Wu, the band director, who'd been selling them for a hefty side profit.
"We are the shit," Baekhyun said, after they received a commendation from Principal Lee himself.
"You are a shit, yes," Kyungsoo returned, and grudgingly accepted the high-five Jongdae aimed his way.
--
They see the freshman in question on the way back home from school, when they stop by the 7-Eleven across the street from their bus stop to stock up on junk food. Jongin's lips are stuck out in a permanent pout, bangs falling into his eyes as he vegetates in front of the sports drink aisle. A sweating Gatorade is tucked beneath his armpit.
"Hey, buddy," Jongdae says, swooping in and anchoring his hand at Jongin's elbow. Behind him, Baekhyun's already digging into a bag of Doritos. "You okay?"
Jongin jumps, startled. "Heard about the dog," Chanyeol says, doing his best impression of James Bond. "Pity." If anything, Jongin droops even more, like a dandelion that's been torn out of the dirt.
The last time Jongin "lost" Monggu, one of his sisters had actually just taken him to the vet for a chipped nail. But that was in elementary school, back when it was normal for a ten year old kid to panic when his favorite dog was nowhere to be found for an hour or two, and this, by all counts seems much more serious.
Kyungsoo's already flipping into detective mode. "When's the last time you saw him? Have you put out fliers yet?"
"Saturday," Jongin replies miserably. "Two days ago. All I've had time to do is tell the neighbors and stress-play 2048."
Kyungsoo pinches the bridge of his nose. "Is now really the time for computer games, Jongin? I mean, really. Midterms start at the end of the week."
Jongin's mouth takes on a decidedly petulant scowl. "Why do you think I'm playing 2048?"
"Let's not get side-tracked," Jongdae says hastily. "Hey, Jongin. We'll help you find your dog, okay? Don't worry about it."
--
With midterms on the horizon, though, all this is much easier said than done. Jongdae spends most of the week working on the history paper he turns in on Thursday, and barely has time to study for physics before the big exam day. The whole hour, Jongdae bubbles in his scantron to the sound of Baekhyun's jiggling desk and Chanyeol's loud mouth-breathing. The rest of the day is filled with a flurry of other classwork, Kyungsoo prodding him in the back with a sharp pencil whenever Jongdae nods forward into his precalc textbook.
When Jongdae gets back to the clubhouse at the end of the day, Baekhyun's decorated the far wall with a mess of yarn and pushpins, highlighted newspaper clippings of all lost dogs in the area taped up on the plaster, along with printed out pictures of Monggu that he'd presumably taken from Jongin's Facebook. Kyungsoo's surveying it with a critical eye, arms folded. "We don't need one of these," he says. "It's just a lost dog, none of this is even relevant."
"You're killing my vibe, man," Baekhyun says, swatting at his shins, and sticks up a copy of Jongin's MISSING MONGGU flier.
--
On Sunday night, Jongdae decides to take matters into his own hands. When you want something done well, do it yourself, right? He sets out after dinner and treks across the neighborhood to where Jongin lives. Rips one of the fliers off a pole on his way there. Nobody's home when he knocks on the door. He realizes Jongin's probably at dance practice tonight, which throws a wrench in his plans. How is he supposed to inspect the crime scene if the house is locked up tight?
He walks around to the backyard anyway, and finds the gate unlatched. He inspects it curiously, flipping the catch back and forth. The mechanism's broken, rusted through, screw missing from two of the four corners. The gate swings free easily with the slightest nudge.
"So this is how Monggu must've gotten out," he says, thinking aloud. He crouches down close to the ground, leaning forward on his knuckles. Sniffs the air, tries to get into the mindset of a tiny poodle. He considers the rest of the neighborhood from Monggu's perspective. There's a Pekingese down the block. Ms Jung lives on the corner and has a pair of golden retrievers. Monggu probably wouldn't like the retrievers very much. They're big and hairy and overly friendly. The Pekingese, on the other hand, barks a lot whenever another dog comes within twenty feet of her territory.
Jongdae looks left. Right. Left again. Straightens back up onto two feet, dusting the grit from his hands and makes an executive decision to go left, away from the other houses with dogs. Call it intuition or a gut feeling, but Jongdae's usually on the right track when the pit of his stomach starts churning. He's going to do this, he's going to crack this case wide open and bring Monggu home.
Down at the end of the cul-de-sac the next street over, there's a tiny brick ranch-style house with a front lawn full of overgrown weeds. Fluffy dandelion heads sway with the breeze. It doesn't look like anyone lives here.
He turns to cross the street, eyes up and scanning the row of houses on the other side of the street, and steps right in a steaming pile of shit.
"Fuck," he swears, scraping the sole of his shoe on the edge of the unkempt lawn. "When will people learn to clean up after-"
It hits him. There's been a dog nearby recently. Judging by the size of the deposit (at least, before Jongdae had stepped in it), it belongs to a smaller dog. Could be the Pekingese, he supposes, but he's never seen the owner take it on a walk around the block. Too small for the retrievers.
Acting on a hunch, he cups his hands over his mouth. "Monggu!" he calls. "Here, boy! Come here Monggu!"
Nothing.
"Monggu!"
A quiet bark, coming from deep within a house. Could just be a coincidence. He calls for Monggu again and it's not a mistake. He can hear the high yip of a small dog coming from the house with the unkempt lawn.
The crushed flier is still in his back pocket. He fishes it out and irons it as best he can against his thigh, using the flat of his palm to stroke the creases away. The front porch steps creak ominously underneath his feet.
Before he can even lift his hand to knock on the door, it swings wide open. A little old lady, face wrinkled and worn, peers out at him.
"Yes?"
Creepy.
"Uh, hi," he says, pushing the flier with Monggu's picture forward. She doesn't look at it. "I'm Kim Jongdae. I'm looking for my friend's dog, a poodle named Monggu." Somewhere in the back of the house, Monggu responds to his name again with a loud, decisive WOOF. The woman looks at him, squinting through the pair of coke-bottle lenses perched on the end of her nose.
"Ronniekins has a home? I found him digging in the weeds in my backyard. He was dirty."
"He ran away," Jongdae explains. "His owner misses him a lot. He hired me to find him." He pulls out one of their makeshift business cards (really, just their email addresses written on a post-it note in Chanyeol's messy scrawl) and hands it to her. "We're the Beagle Boys. A private detective agency."
"Hired you? I see." She smiles indulgently at him. "Come in. We'll see if Ronniekins believes you." Jongdae edges past her, shoulders squared stiffly. He manages a last glance over his shoulder at the street outside before the door swings shut and he's trapped inside this complete stranger's house. Nobody knows where he is. For all he knows, she could be a serial killer that uses lost dogs to lure her victims in. She could be experimenting on people in the basement right now.
"I can't stay long," he says nervously, looking around at the pictures on the wall. No pictures of family or vacations, just old still life paintings. The house looks like it hasn't been decorated since way before Jongdae was born, all dark colors and heavy furniture. It's oppressive.
Probably also pretty lonely, he realizes, just as Monggu comes skittering down the hall, toenails clicking loudly against the wooden floor. Monggu skids to a stop at his feet and licks at his hand, paws up on Jongdae's thigh as he whines for more attention.
"I see he knows you, then," the woman says. "He didn't have a collar."
"He must have lost it," Jongdae says, lifting Monggu up into his arms. Monggu licks at Jongdae's face like it's the most delicious thing in the world. Jongdae laughs, tips his chin up to try and avoid getting a doggy tongue in his mouth.
"I bought him a new one," she says, holding up a smart collar fashioned from brown leather, brass buckles. The new tags jingle merrily like sleigh bells when she hands it over. He turns over the identification tag in his hand and sees "Ronniekins" in curly font. "He should keep this."
"I'm sorry," he says. She waves her hand.
"I'm glad he has a home and an owner who loves him enough to hire a detective agency to find him." She pushes the collar into Jongdae's hand. "Please keep this."
"Thank you," Jongdae says honestly, and bows half a dozen times before he shows himself out.
It's only when he's halfway down the block, Monggu still wriggling from where Jongdae's got him tucked underneath his arm, that he realizes he'd never even gotten her name to thank her.
--
There are finally people at the Kim residence when Jongdae swings by again. Jongin lights up like a Christmas tree when he sees Monggu, sticks his face in his soft fur and breathes in deeply. He makes a face when he comes back up for air. "Where did you find him? He smells like old people."
Jongdae laughs and leans down to flick Jongin's forehead. "An old lady down the street found him without his leash and thought he was a stray. She got pretty attached, I think. And you guys should fix your fence in the backyard. The latch is broken."
Jongin's eyebrows rise. "Wait," he says slowly, and scrambles to his feet, scurries through the living room and into the den. He comes back carrying Janggah, her belly swollen and round, and grins from over the top of her head. "She's expecting. The litter's due any day."
--
"Damn," Chanyeol says, whistling, when Jongdae recounts the weekend's adventures to the others on Monday morning in the cafeteria, before they're dismissed for first period. "Going solo already, Mr. Nancy Drew?"
"It was just a missing dog," Jongdae says, scratching the back of his neck. "Though the lady seemed really excited when we told her that she could have one of Janggah's puppies when they were born."
"Another case closed, as usual, thanks to us," Baekhyun says, sticking a thumbs up beneath Jongdae's nose. He snatches his hand away when Jongdae's teeth click a scant centimeter away from his fingertip.
"Shut up, Baekhyun," Kyungsoo says. "We didn't even do anything." He flashes Jongdae an appreciative look. "I'm impressed."
"We provided much-needed moral support," Baekhyun counters, but later, when they're sitting in history class listening to Mr. Lee drone on about the Great Depression, he leans over, hand braced against the back of Jongdae's neck, and whispers, "You did good." Jongdae flashes a grin back at him and keeps taking notes.
Author: gdgdbaby & michaelwesten
Recipient: homages
Pairing/Focus: Chen-centric, OT4
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: N/A
Length: 2646
Summary: Your local small town high school isn't exactly a hub of crime, but Jongdae and his friends get by.
Their clubhouse isn't so much a clubhouse as it is a storage closet, one that the school lets them use as an unofficial meeting place only because they don't have anything else to do with the space. Jongdae's short enough to stretch out with ease, but every time Chanyeol walks in, his head smacks right into one of the jutting cabinets without fail. "Jongin lost his dog," he says today, massaging the nasty red bump blooming at his hairline, face twisted into a grimace. He flops over onto the bean bag next to Jongdae's makeshift computer table (a cardboard box that's seen better days) and his makeshift chair (a stack of lurid pink pillows Yura donated to the cause before she left for college). "He wants us to help him find it."
Jongdae tears his eyes away from his laptop but keeps typing. "Again? Which one?"
"Not sure," Chanyeol says, trying to fold all his limbs onto the bean bag. "The brown poodle?"
"He has like three brown poodles." Jongdae rubs the bridge of his nose and goes back to his history paper. "You know, this is why we never ask you to find cases for us. Where's Kyungsoo?"
Kyungsoo handles the day to day operations of their little group. The Beagle Boys (a name Jongdae came up with, after Baekhyun suggested the extremely pretentious Holmes Collective and Kyungsoo retaliated with Three Idiots and Their Reluctant Keeper) had started in freshman year of high school, when the four of them were put in the same English class and Ms. Zhang taught a unit on detective fiction.
The morning after they finished reading The Big Sleep, Baekhyun came to school in a heavy trench coat and sunglasses, twirling an actual pipe from God knows where that was quickly confiscated when he walked through the front door. "You look like a drug dealer," Chanyeol remarked, but sat down next to him as he set up shop in the cafeteria. As it turned out, there wasn't much crime to be solved on a high school campus, but the first real case they took on was recovering Yixing's lost lunch money (in his backpack, buried beneath a stash of tenor saxophone reeds and a crusty old spit rag) and it sort of became a thing.
Through the speakers, the study hall bell rings. Jongdae bends his head closer to his laptop. A minute later, like clockwork, Kyungsoo strolls through the doorway of HQ, pulling the STUDENT AIDE badge over his head.
Chanyeol sits up and nearly smashes his face into Kyungsoo's swinging backpack. "Hey, did you hear? Jongin-"
"Lost Monggu again," Kyungsoo finishes. "I know." He's about to say something more, but Baekhyun trips inside the storage closet at fifty miles per hour and then they're all too busy trying to avoid someone's elbow or knee to say much of anything.
"Hi," Jongdae says drily when they've settled, laptop digging into his stomach. "Nice of you to join us."
"Did you hear?" Baekhyun gasps, doubled over, hands braced against his thighs. "Monggu died-"
Chanyeol's eyes snap wide open. "What?"
"Shut up, Baekhyun," Kyungsoo says calmly. "Don't be dramatic. Monggu did not die."
Baekhyun squints at him. "You sure? Jongin looked so gutted when I saw him, I just assumed the worst."
"That's why we never ask you to find cases for us, either," Jongdae sighs. He gives up on the history paper and slides his laptop into his backpack, hefts the strap over his shoulder. As they pour out of the storage closet Baekhyun jostles in next to him, noisy and warm, an easy arm tossed over Jongdae's shoulder. Jongdae leans into it, hands shoved in his pockets, mind filling with Chanyeol's low voice on his right. Baekhyun's main pull-besides cheerful, magnetic charm-was gossip. Not necessarily because he talked a lot, but because he tended to have his fingers in so many pies that it was difficult for him not to know at least something about anything that was going on. It came in handy for intel gathering purposes, like last fall, when the school was dealing with a textbook theft problem. Baekhyun managed to systematically sort through all the rumors churning through the grapevine and pin it on Mr. Wu, the band director, who'd been selling them for a hefty side profit.
"We are the shit," Baekhyun said, after they received a commendation from Principal Lee himself.
"You are a shit, yes," Kyungsoo returned, and grudgingly accepted the high-five Jongdae aimed his way.
--
They see the freshman in question on the way back home from school, when they stop by the 7-Eleven across the street from their bus stop to stock up on junk food. Jongin's lips are stuck out in a permanent pout, bangs falling into his eyes as he vegetates in front of the sports drink aisle. A sweating Gatorade is tucked beneath his armpit.
"Hey, buddy," Jongdae says, swooping in and anchoring his hand at Jongin's elbow. Behind him, Baekhyun's already digging into a bag of Doritos. "You okay?"
Jongin jumps, startled. "Heard about the dog," Chanyeol says, doing his best impression of James Bond. "Pity." If anything, Jongin droops even more, like a dandelion that's been torn out of the dirt.
The last time Jongin "lost" Monggu, one of his sisters had actually just taken him to the vet for a chipped nail. But that was in elementary school, back when it was normal for a ten year old kid to panic when his favorite dog was nowhere to be found for an hour or two, and this, by all counts seems much more serious.
Kyungsoo's already flipping into detective mode. "When's the last time you saw him? Have you put out fliers yet?"
"Saturday," Jongin replies miserably. "Two days ago. All I've had time to do is tell the neighbors and stress-play 2048."
Kyungsoo pinches the bridge of his nose. "Is now really the time for computer games, Jongin? I mean, really. Midterms start at the end of the week."
Jongin's mouth takes on a decidedly petulant scowl. "Why do you think I'm playing 2048?"
"Let's not get side-tracked," Jongdae says hastily. "Hey, Jongin. We'll help you find your dog, okay? Don't worry about it."
--
With midterms on the horizon, though, all this is much easier said than done. Jongdae spends most of the week working on the history paper he turns in on Thursday, and barely has time to study for physics before the big exam day. The whole hour, Jongdae bubbles in his scantron to the sound of Baekhyun's jiggling desk and Chanyeol's loud mouth-breathing. The rest of the day is filled with a flurry of other classwork, Kyungsoo prodding him in the back with a sharp pencil whenever Jongdae nods forward into his precalc textbook.
When Jongdae gets back to the clubhouse at the end of the day, Baekhyun's decorated the far wall with a mess of yarn and pushpins, highlighted newspaper clippings of all lost dogs in the area taped up on the plaster, along with printed out pictures of Monggu that he'd presumably taken from Jongin's Facebook. Kyungsoo's surveying it with a critical eye, arms folded. "We don't need one of these," he says. "It's just a lost dog, none of this is even relevant."
"You're killing my vibe, man," Baekhyun says, swatting at his shins, and sticks up a copy of Jongin's MISSING MONGGU flier.
--
On Sunday night, Jongdae decides to take matters into his own hands. When you want something done well, do it yourself, right? He sets out after dinner and treks across the neighborhood to where Jongin lives. Rips one of the fliers off a pole on his way there. Nobody's home when he knocks on the door. He realizes Jongin's probably at dance practice tonight, which throws a wrench in his plans. How is he supposed to inspect the crime scene if the house is locked up tight?
He walks around to the backyard anyway, and finds the gate unlatched. He inspects it curiously, flipping the catch back and forth. The mechanism's broken, rusted through, screw missing from two of the four corners. The gate swings free easily with the slightest nudge.
"So this is how Monggu must've gotten out," he says, thinking aloud. He crouches down close to the ground, leaning forward on his knuckles. Sniffs the air, tries to get into the mindset of a tiny poodle. He considers the rest of the neighborhood from Monggu's perspective. There's a Pekingese down the block. Ms Jung lives on the corner and has a pair of golden retrievers. Monggu probably wouldn't like the retrievers very much. They're big and hairy and overly friendly. The Pekingese, on the other hand, barks a lot whenever another dog comes within twenty feet of her territory.
Jongdae looks left. Right. Left again. Straightens back up onto two feet, dusting the grit from his hands and makes an executive decision to go left, away from the other houses with dogs. Call it intuition or a gut feeling, but Jongdae's usually on the right track when the pit of his stomach starts churning. He's going to do this, he's going to crack this case wide open and bring Monggu home.
Down at the end of the cul-de-sac the next street over, there's a tiny brick ranch-style house with a front lawn full of overgrown weeds. Fluffy dandelion heads sway with the breeze. It doesn't look like anyone lives here.
He turns to cross the street, eyes up and scanning the row of houses on the other side of the street, and steps right in a steaming pile of shit.
"Fuck," he swears, scraping the sole of his shoe on the edge of the unkempt lawn. "When will people learn to clean up after-"
It hits him. There's been a dog nearby recently. Judging by the size of the deposit (at least, before Jongdae had stepped in it), it belongs to a smaller dog. Could be the Pekingese, he supposes, but he's never seen the owner take it on a walk around the block. Too small for the retrievers.
Acting on a hunch, he cups his hands over his mouth. "Monggu!" he calls. "Here, boy! Come here Monggu!"
Nothing.
"Monggu!"
A quiet bark, coming from deep within a house. Could just be a coincidence. He calls for Monggu again and it's not a mistake. He can hear the high yip of a small dog coming from the house with the unkempt lawn.
The crushed flier is still in his back pocket. He fishes it out and irons it as best he can against his thigh, using the flat of his palm to stroke the creases away. The front porch steps creak ominously underneath his feet.
Before he can even lift his hand to knock on the door, it swings wide open. A little old lady, face wrinkled and worn, peers out at him.
"Yes?"
Creepy.
"Uh, hi," he says, pushing the flier with Monggu's picture forward. She doesn't look at it. "I'm Kim Jongdae. I'm looking for my friend's dog, a poodle named Monggu." Somewhere in the back of the house, Monggu responds to his name again with a loud, decisive WOOF. The woman looks at him, squinting through the pair of coke-bottle lenses perched on the end of her nose.
"Ronniekins has a home? I found him digging in the weeds in my backyard. He was dirty."
"He ran away," Jongdae explains. "His owner misses him a lot. He hired me to find him." He pulls out one of their makeshift business cards (really, just their email addresses written on a post-it note in Chanyeol's messy scrawl) and hands it to her. "We're the Beagle Boys. A private detective agency."
"Hired you? I see." She smiles indulgently at him. "Come in. We'll see if Ronniekins believes you." Jongdae edges past her, shoulders squared stiffly. He manages a last glance over his shoulder at the street outside before the door swings shut and he's trapped inside this complete stranger's house. Nobody knows where he is. For all he knows, she could be a serial killer that uses lost dogs to lure her victims in. She could be experimenting on people in the basement right now.
"I can't stay long," he says nervously, looking around at the pictures on the wall. No pictures of family or vacations, just old still life paintings. The house looks like it hasn't been decorated since way before Jongdae was born, all dark colors and heavy furniture. It's oppressive.
Probably also pretty lonely, he realizes, just as Monggu comes skittering down the hall, toenails clicking loudly against the wooden floor. Monggu skids to a stop at his feet and licks at his hand, paws up on Jongdae's thigh as he whines for more attention.
"I see he knows you, then," the woman says. "He didn't have a collar."
"He must have lost it," Jongdae says, lifting Monggu up into his arms. Monggu licks at Jongdae's face like it's the most delicious thing in the world. Jongdae laughs, tips his chin up to try and avoid getting a doggy tongue in his mouth.
"I bought him a new one," she says, holding up a smart collar fashioned from brown leather, brass buckles. The new tags jingle merrily like sleigh bells when she hands it over. He turns over the identification tag in his hand and sees "Ronniekins" in curly font. "He should keep this."
"I'm sorry," he says. She waves her hand.
"I'm glad he has a home and an owner who loves him enough to hire a detective agency to find him." She pushes the collar into Jongdae's hand. "Please keep this."
"Thank you," Jongdae says honestly, and bows half a dozen times before he shows himself out.
It's only when he's halfway down the block, Monggu still wriggling from where Jongdae's got him tucked underneath his arm, that he realizes he'd never even gotten her name to thank her.
--
There are finally people at the Kim residence when Jongdae swings by again. Jongin lights up like a Christmas tree when he sees Monggu, sticks his face in his soft fur and breathes in deeply. He makes a face when he comes back up for air. "Where did you find him? He smells like old people."
Jongdae laughs and leans down to flick Jongin's forehead. "An old lady down the street found him without his leash and thought he was a stray. She got pretty attached, I think. And you guys should fix your fence in the backyard. The latch is broken."
Jongin's eyebrows rise. "Wait," he says slowly, and scrambles to his feet, scurries through the living room and into the den. He comes back carrying Janggah, her belly swollen and round, and grins from over the top of her head. "She's expecting. The litter's due any day."
--
"Damn," Chanyeol says, whistling, when Jongdae recounts the weekend's adventures to the others on Monday morning in the cafeteria, before they're dismissed for first period. "Going solo already, Mr. Nancy Drew?"
"It was just a missing dog," Jongdae says, scratching the back of his neck. "Though the lady seemed really excited when we told her that she could have one of Janggah's puppies when they were born."
"Another case closed, as usual, thanks to us," Baekhyun says, sticking a thumbs up beneath Jongdae's nose. He snatches his hand away when Jongdae's teeth click a scant centimeter away from his fingertip.
"Shut up, Baekhyun," Kyungsoo says. "We didn't even do anything." He flashes Jongdae an appreciative look. "I'm impressed."
"We provided much-needed moral support," Baekhyun counters, but later, when they're sitting in history class listening to Mr. Lee drone on about the Great Depression, he leans over, hand braced against the back of Jongdae's neck, and whispers, "You did good." Jongdae flashes a grin back at him and keeps taking notes.