Bang Bang (He Shot Me Down) - Chapter One
Rating:PG-13
Pairing/Focus:jinki/kibum
Summary: Jinki is a justice-driven detective. Kibum is a thief with too many secrets. Can he bury them for the sake of their relationship? Or will it tear them apart?
"I was doing my morning rounds like usual. Yanno, checking inventory, making sure everything was accounted for."
"And the storage area was locked when you came in?"
The man before him nodded, glancing around a bit as he took down his statement. He looked frazzled, but who wouldn't be? In the midst of cops and analyzers, the organized chaos of a crime scene had to be foreign to a clerk. Jinki scribbled notes onto his pad, letting the man continue.
"I unlocked the door, and secured it again behind me, then started making my way down the log, marking which items were going to be taken to the floor today. I swear to God, everything looked the same as it does every morning. When I reached the case the statue was supposed to be in, I thought there must have just been some mistake with the log. Like, maybe we sold it and nobody told me," the man brushed silky-looking black hair out of his face and Jinki had a hard time keeping his eyes off the motion. He had to concentrate here. Notes. "So I went to the computer and double checked, but it was still on file. So I left the storage room and asked another clerk if it had already been moved to the floor. He said no. And that's when I went to security."
Jinki also had a hard time ignoring how the young man before him bit his lip with a look of distress. "My boss is so going to kill me."
Jinki tried for his most reassuring smile, finally closing his pad, "Mr. Kim, this was in no way your fault. If it will make you feel better, I'll make sure your boss understands that."
Cat-like eyes darted back to his face and Jinki tried not to stare at the small, shy, thankful smile that was sent his way.
"Thank you, detective."
"And I promise we'll catch who did this."
That shy smile, tilted up just a bit more into something that made the clerk look even more attractive, but he only got to see it for a second.
"Jinki!"
"Ah, excuse me."
They nodded to each other before Jinki left him standing outside of the room with other officers. The storage room of the Choi Art Gallery was a basement affair, well insulated and temperature controlled better than Jinki's apartment, with a huge vault-esque door which now stood open and flanked by two officers. Inside was a hell of a lot bigger than anyone would expect, but he followed the trail of police tape through the maze to the sight of interest.
"Clerk says it was locked when he came in and nothing was out of order, except for the obvious."
A shorter man in a suit was closely examining the display case that held no sign of forced entry, just like the rest of the place.
"And the building's security says that nothing exciting happened, no alarms went off and they never saw anything on camera. Which were all conveniantly not facing this specific block."
"So what does that mean?"
Jonghyun sighed and stepped around the CSI who was dusting the case for fingerprints.
"It means we have a phantom thief, Jinki. Look around us," Jonghyun gestured to the art pieces that still sat silent in their respective cases, "millions of dollars worth of art, and the only thing missing is one, little statue."
"16th Century Roman statue of Apollo, valued at over half a million," Jinki helpfully clarified.
"No signs of forced entry, no signs of entry at all," Jonghyun continued as if not hearing him, "nothing caught on camera, no alarms. It's as if the statue dissolved into thin air. Except for this."
Jonghyun gave the area one last glancing sweep, then handed an evidence bag to Jinki as he moved to leave. Following, of course, the detective looked at what was in the bag.
"A key?"
"It was in the case."
"The...closed case the statue was supposed to be in?"
"Yup."
"What does it go to?"
"This door," Jonghyun said as they reached it, the vault-esque door. "In order to open this door, you have to have that key and an alarm code."
"So the thief just.....used the front door?"
FInally Jonghyun turned to look at his partner properly, smiling at the uncertain expression that had not changed in the whole year they'd been working together. He shook his head, grinning more as he ruffled fake auburn locks. "The key is a taunt."
Jonghyun left the storage room and headed straight for the clerk Jinki had been interviewing previously, grinning charmingly when he reached him and holding out a hand.
"Kim Jonghyun, Head Detective of the SMPA Major Crimes Unit."
"That's a mouthful," the clerk looked at his hand but hesitated to take it. "Kim Kibum."
"You're the clerk who found the statue was missing, correct?"
"Yeah," Kibum nodded lightly in Jinki's direction, crossing his arms, "he already got my statement."
"I'm aware," Jonghyun never stopped smiling, but put his hands in his jacket pockets, "I just have a few questions. How many people have keys to that door?"
Kibum gave a very slender shrug, "three. Me, Ryeowook and the manager."
"And where is your key?"
Kibum uncrossed his arms to pull a keyring from his pocket, handing it over. But Jonghyun didn't take it.
"Ryeowook, is he a clerk, too?"
"Yes, he's the one over there, honey-colored hair, small mouth," another small nod in a different direction.
Jonghyun was about to ask something else when a booming voice came out from where the elevator doors just opened.
"What in the name of hell is going on here?!"
Both detectives and the clerk turned to see a very expensive and important looking man marching over. Kibum froze up quickly.
"Mr. Kim-"
"Kim Heechul, I presume," Jonghyun never missed a beat, and met the man with a handshake. "Kim Jonghyun, Head Detective of the SMPA Major Crimes Unit."
As Jonghyun filled the man in, Jinki looked at the key in the evidence bag once more, mostly to keep himself from staring at the stupidly attractive clerk next to him.
"What's that?"
Jinki did a double take looking up at Kibum, who's mouth twitched like he wanted to smile at how ridiculous Jinki probably looked doing that.
"Oh, uh, evidence."
"...Obviously."
Jinki smiled then, "it's a key to the door, it was found on the scene."
Kibum's eyebrows shot up into his hairline, "really?"
"Yes! We found this key inside the display case, we believe it was left as a taunt," Jonghyun interjected, snatching the evidence bag from his partner's hand and showing the gallery's manager, who still looked furious, and frightening for a man so petit. "Sir, how many copies of this key are there?"
"Just three, mine and the two clerks," at this, the manager glared at Kibum, obviously blaming all of this on him.
"Well, Mr. Kim Kibum's key is accounted for."
As Jonghyun spoke, an officer herded the second clerk over and Jinki wondered in the back of his mind if being petit was a job requirement here.
"Ryeowook, where is your key to the storage vault?" the manager asked heatedly, making the young man look nervous.
"Right here, Sir," he, too, produced a keyring from his pocket, silver key dangling amidst others, each with a label.
"That's two out of three, Mr. Kim?" Jinki prompted.
"My key is right here," Heechul brought his own keys out and searched for the right one. However, after a second of not finding it, his face drained of color.
Jonghyun, clapped the man on the back, motioning an officer over with his head, "Mr. Kim, we're going to need to ask you a few questions at the station, I hope you don't mind."
Jinki caught the key in the evidence bag when Jonghyun tossed it back to him, ushering the gallery manager away. He looked back when he heard a soft, "wow."
Both clerks looked stunned.
"It wasn't him," Jinki figured he should say, calling both pairs of eyes to look at him instead of their boss being led away.
"How do you know?" the other clerk, Ryeowook, asked.
"Call it...detective's intuition. We'll still have to check him out, though, verify his alibi, whole nine yards. And we'll be very thorough." He was saying this mostly to Kibum, earning that small twitch of a smile again. "You might not see him for the rest of the day."
Ryeowook sighed in relief, but Jinki did little more than glance at him because Kibum's smile widened.
"Thank you, both, for your cooperation. We'll still need you to write your formal statements with those officers over there, then you're free to get back to your business," Jinki finally bowed slightly, pocketing the evidence bag before he turned to leave.
"Hey, wait."
He looked back to Kibum, who was biting his lip again. "There's something I didn't tell you before."
Jinki raised his brow, walking back to the man and taking out his pad once more.
Kibum hid a sly grin very poorly, "you'll have to write this down exactly as I say it, okay?"
"Okay?"
Jinki neatly wrote out the sequence of ten numbers Kibum listed, brow furrowing now as he repeated them in his head.
"What's it mean?" he asked when he looked up, and the clerk rolled his eyes.
"It means I get off of work everyday at six," he smirked, turning away to follow where his coworker had gone to give his written statement.
Jinki watched him go, then looked back down at the numbers, face flushing just the tiniest bit.
Black oxfords crunched on the glass that lay shattered on the floor, despite how he tried to edge around it, and he gave a slight bow to the CSI who was photographing the frame that once held it all together. Around him were breath-taking displays of Chinese history, arranged tastefully throughout the hall. But the only observers wore dark uniforms and latex gloves. He weaved around them with polite bows and greetings, already reaching for the notepad in his suit jacket. Jonghyun stood near the back of the gallery, on the edge of yet another spill of glass surrounding a much larger display base. Two more CSI were working their way around it.
"You're late," was the first thing out of his partner's mouth, not even looking up when he joined him.
"Yeah, sorry," Jinki sighed, clicking his pen open. "I was....yeah."
Warm brown eyes glanced to him, "search not going well?"
Another small sigh, and a scratch to the back of his head. "Not really."
"Doesn't help that he's pickier than any girl I've ever met."
Jinki just shrugged with a small smile, "he just knows what he likes. And I want him to love it. So what have we got here?"
Jonghyun cleared his throat, "according to the museum, this display case held a suit of armor."
"Armor?"
"Ceremonial, royal armor dated in the Qing Dynasty, made out of gold plated copper and precious stones," the bleached-blond CSI crouched near the display base chimed in. Jinki was already taking notes.
"We found this on the base when we got here," Jonghyun handed his partner an evidence bag, inside was unmistakabley a silver key. Jinki sighed. "It goes to the exhibit door, stolen off of the museum curator."
"Another Ghost Thief hit. Kangin's not going to like this."
"He never does."
"Huh."
Both detectives looked up, walking around the glass to where the platinum CSI had moved.
"What've you got, Sungmin?"
"All of the display cases use bullet proof glass, the bases themselves housing sensors that are meant to trigger an alarm should anything damage the glass. But this one's been turned off."
"What do you mean, turned off?" Jonghyun crouched down, too, trying to get a closer look at what he was talking about.
"Turned off, disabled, deactivated, not on. It's off."
"You think the thief did it?" Jinki broke off Sungmin's sass, scribbling on his notepad.
"Dunno, we'll have to check the circuits."
Jonghyun stood up again, tugging at the end of his tie and huffing a bit. "Since when does he break glass?" he said to Jinki alone.
The auburn-haired detective looked from the display, to back across the hall where the glass door had been shattered, just as an officer approached them.
"Sir, we have access to the security footage. You're going to want to see this."
Jinki looked back to his partner, "since when does he get caught on tape?"
Inside the museum's security office, Jinki and Jonghyun sat nearly in disbelief.
"Two?"
"It was hard enough imagining one person doing all these robberies."
On the monitor in front of them, they watched the scene unfold in black and white. Two covered up figures slipping onto the screen, making their way quickly down to the back of the hall. One knelt at the base, where Sungmin had been examining. A second later, the second one brought some kind of hand-held hammer out and whacked the glass hard, cracks splintering the surface. It clearly took their partner by surprise because they quickly backed up. Another hit and it shattered, at which point Jinki mumbled a soft, "but how?" But just as quickly as the duo had entered, they were gathering up the heavy armour. One dropped something on the base before they made their way to the front again, and were out the door in seconds. They were gone. Not a single alarm went off, and it all took place in less then four minutes.
Jonghyun sat back in his seat, Jinki about to follow suit when something else on the footage happened.
"Jjong."
One of the black clad figures re-entered the screen, on the other side of the glass door. With something in his hand, he started writing on the surface, despite how no words showed up. When he was finished, a single, hard kick shattered the door from it's frame, and again, he was gone.
Jonghyun whipped around in his seat, "tell CSI to gather every piece of that glass as evidence. We'll take a copy of this footage with us back to the station. C'mon Jinki."
"Coffee?" an eager, smiling officer leaned into the debriefing room. Jonghyun, who was leaned back in a chair with his feet propped up next to a laptop, grumbled a "yes. Black."
Jinki, smiled back at him from where he stood and added a, "thank you, Donghae." He turned back around to the evidence boards, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth as he neatly stuck a few more sticky notes in various places.
The timeline covered three boards, six robberies over the span of eight months, each with the same exact MO. No sign of entry or exit, alarms all disabled, the item seemingly vanishing into thin air with nothing but a key left in it's place. The media had started calling it the work of the 'Ghost Thief'. Jonghyun called it a headache.
"So why was this time different?" Jinki muttered lightly to himself. He'd been over every case backwards and forwards and all around. But there was never any evidence left behind to even begin to have a lead. It was all so clean, as if a ghost really was the cause. "Why show yourself now?"
"Maybe they're getting bored," Jonghyun said behind him, rewinding the security footage yet again. As of yet, all it had given them was an approximate height and weight, and body type. Which didn't exactly narrow things down. "Stealing pretty notable things but not getting an ounce of credit? They're upping the ante."
Jinki frowned as his eyes wandered down the board's timeline.
"I think you're wrong."
"Hm?"
"I think this one is just different."
Jonghyun drug himself up properly in his chair, pausing the security footage to give Jinki his full attention. The taller man was slowly tracing down the evidence boards.
"A Roman statue, an ancient manuscript, a painting, a diamond necklace, an ancient ceremonial mask, an endangered bird. What sets the suit of armor apart from everything else taken?" Jinki glanced back at his partner, who's eyes were on the boards intently. "The armor was gold plated."
"So you're saying that this was the first time there was two of them? Because he needed help carrying the armor?"
"It wouldn't have been very logical for him to try and do it alone, the suit breaks into different pieces, plus it would have been heavy."
"He stole a marble statue."
"But that statue was only 33 cm high, he could have easily carried it alone."
Jonghyun stood and joined his partner at the board, "that would also explain the glass. On the footage, the one deactivating the case's alarm seemed very surprised when his pal started breaking the case."
"The MO changed because he wasn't alone."
"So why would he go back and break the door?"
Jinki shrugged, "the conditions had already changed. And maybe you're right, maybe he is getting bored."
Jonghyun's phone beeped with a text.
"Sungmin's asking us to go see him at the lab. Hopefully he can give us something, for once."
"Sungmin does his job perfectly well, it's not his fault our thief is so careful," Jinki defended, to which his partner shrugged.
"Let's hope that's changed."
On the way out of the room, they passed the officer who had went to fetch them coffee. Jinki thanked him again while Jonghyun hummed his thanks, already chugging the hot liquid down.
"I hate you," was what greeted them in the forensics lab.
"Sungmin, you're looking lovely, as usual," Jonghyun grinned for the glare he was getting, the irritated tension just rolling off of him.
"And you owe me dinner for a week," he led them through the lab to a room that had glass laid out meticulously on a table.
"But I thought you liked puzzles, isnt that why you became a forensic scientist?"
"I do like puzzles. Not reassembling shattered glass, which took seven straight hours. So here, here's your door, more or less. Dickbag," the last part was added on as an afterthought.
Jonghyun and Jinki stared at it, there were a few pieces missing but it was, for the most part, all there. After almost a minute, they looked back up at the blond man behind them. Another minute passed.
"...Well?"
"Well what? You asked me to reassemble a shattered glass door, nearly impossible I might add. But I did it. And there it is. Dinner. For a week," he emphasized.
Jonghyun grinned again, "I only asked you to do it because I knew you could." Sungmin rolled his eyes.
"You only asked me to do it because you're an irritating little zit."
"What about the message?" Jinki asked, bringing their attention back to the matter at hand. Sungmin stopped glaring at Jonghyun long enough to pull some orange tinted safety glasses out of his lab pocket and hand them over. Jonghyun took them from Jinki when the scientist turned out the lights. A moment later, he turned on a uv lamp and blue letters jumped to life on the surface of the glass shards, smudged in many places, but not impossible to read.
Jonghyun pursed his lips and hummed before handing the glasses to his partner so he could see it better.
Jinki slipped them on and leaned slightly over the table.
"Catch me...if you can?"
"He really is getting bored."
Pairing/Focus:jinki/kibum
Summary: Jinki is a justice-driven detective. Kibum is a thief with too many secrets. Can he bury them for the sake of their relationship? Or will it tear them apart?
"I was doing my morning rounds like usual. Yanno, checking inventory, making sure everything was accounted for."
"And the storage area was locked when you came in?"
The man before him nodded, glancing around a bit as he took down his statement. He looked frazzled, but who wouldn't be? In the midst of cops and analyzers, the organized chaos of a crime scene had to be foreign to a clerk. Jinki scribbled notes onto his pad, letting the man continue.
"I unlocked the door, and secured it again behind me, then started making my way down the log, marking which items were going to be taken to the floor today. I swear to God, everything looked the same as it does every morning. When I reached the case the statue was supposed to be in, I thought there must have just been some mistake with the log. Like, maybe we sold it and nobody told me," the man brushed silky-looking black hair out of his face and Jinki had a hard time keeping his eyes off the motion. He had to concentrate here. Notes. "So I went to the computer and double checked, but it was still on file. So I left the storage room and asked another clerk if it had already been moved to the floor. He said no. And that's when I went to security."
Jinki also had a hard time ignoring how the young man before him bit his lip with a look of distress. "My boss is so going to kill me."
Jinki tried for his most reassuring smile, finally closing his pad, "Mr. Kim, this was in no way your fault. If it will make you feel better, I'll make sure your boss understands that."
Cat-like eyes darted back to his face and Jinki tried not to stare at the small, shy, thankful smile that was sent his way.
"Thank you, detective."
"And I promise we'll catch who did this."
That shy smile, tilted up just a bit more into something that made the clerk look even more attractive, but he only got to see it for a second.
"Jinki!"
"Ah, excuse me."
They nodded to each other before Jinki left him standing outside of the room with other officers. The storage room of the Choi Art Gallery was a basement affair, well insulated and temperature controlled better than Jinki's apartment, with a huge vault-esque door which now stood open and flanked by two officers. Inside was a hell of a lot bigger than anyone would expect, but he followed the trail of police tape through the maze to the sight of interest.
"Clerk says it was locked when he came in and nothing was out of order, except for the obvious."
A shorter man in a suit was closely examining the display case that held no sign of forced entry, just like the rest of the place.
"And the building's security says that nothing exciting happened, no alarms went off and they never saw anything on camera. Which were all conveniantly not facing this specific block."
"So what does that mean?"
Jonghyun sighed and stepped around the CSI who was dusting the case for fingerprints.
"It means we have a phantom thief, Jinki. Look around us," Jonghyun gestured to the art pieces that still sat silent in their respective cases, "millions of dollars worth of art, and the only thing missing is one, little statue."
"16th Century Roman statue of Apollo, valued at over half a million," Jinki helpfully clarified.
"No signs of forced entry, no signs of entry at all," Jonghyun continued as if not hearing him, "nothing caught on camera, no alarms. It's as if the statue dissolved into thin air. Except for this."
Jonghyun gave the area one last glancing sweep, then handed an evidence bag to Jinki as he moved to leave. Following, of course, the detective looked at what was in the bag.
"A key?"
"It was in the case."
"The...closed case the statue was supposed to be in?"
"Yup."
"What does it go to?"
"This door," Jonghyun said as they reached it, the vault-esque door. "In order to open this door, you have to have that key and an alarm code."
"So the thief just.....used the front door?"
FInally Jonghyun turned to look at his partner properly, smiling at the uncertain expression that had not changed in the whole year they'd been working together. He shook his head, grinning more as he ruffled fake auburn locks. "The key is a taunt."
Jonghyun left the storage room and headed straight for the clerk Jinki had been interviewing previously, grinning charmingly when he reached him and holding out a hand.
"Kim Jonghyun, Head Detective of the SMPA Major Crimes Unit."
"That's a mouthful," the clerk looked at his hand but hesitated to take it. "Kim Kibum."
"You're the clerk who found the statue was missing, correct?"
"Yeah," Kibum nodded lightly in Jinki's direction, crossing his arms, "he already got my statement."
"I'm aware," Jonghyun never stopped smiling, but put his hands in his jacket pockets, "I just have a few questions. How many people have keys to that door?"
Kibum gave a very slender shrug, "three. Me, Ryeowook and the manager."
"And where is your key?"
Kibum uncrossed his arms to pull a keyring from his pocket, handing it over. But Jonghyun didn't take it.
"Ryeowook, is he a clerk, too?"
"Yes, he's the one over there, honey-colored hair, small mouth," another small nod in a different direction.
Jonghyun was about to ask something else when a booming voice came out from where the elevator doors just opened.
"What in the name of hell is going on here?!"
Both detectives and the clerk turned to see a very expensive and important looking man marching over. Kibum froze up quickly.
"Mr. Kim-"
"Kim Heechul, I presume," Jonghyun never missed a beat, and met the man with a handshake. "Kim Jonghyun, Head Detective of the SMPA Major Crimes Unit."
As Jonghyun filled the man in, Jinki looked at the key in the evidence bag once more, mostly to keep himself from staring at the stupidly attractive clerk next to him.
"What's that?"
Jinki did a double take looking up at Kibum, who's mouth twitched like he wanted to smile at how ridiculous Jinki probably looked doing that.
"Oh, uh, evidence."
"...Obviously."
Jinki smiled then, "it's a key to the door, it was found on the scene."
Kibum's eyebrows shot up into his hairline, "really?"
"Yes! We found this key inside the display case, we believe it was left as a taunt," Jonghyun interjected, snatching the evidence bag from his partner's hand and showing the gallery's manager, who still looked furious, and frightening for a man so petit. "Sir, how many copies of this key are there?"
"Just three, mine and the two clerks," at this, the manager glared at Kibum, obviously blaming all of this on him.
"Well, Mr. Kim Kibum's key is accounted for."
As Jonghyun spoke, an officer herded the second clerk over and Jinki wondered in the back of his mind if being petit was a job requirement here.
"Ryeowook, where is your key to the storage vault?" the manager asked heatedly, making the young man look nervous.
"Right here, Sir," he, too, produced a keyring from his pocket, silver key dangling amidst others, each with a label.
"That's two out of three, Mr. Kim?" Jinki prompted.
"My key is right here," Heechul brought his own keys out and searched for the right one. However, after a second of not finding it, his face drained of color.
Jonghyun, clapped the man on the back, motioning an officer over with his head, "Mr. Kim, we're going to need to ask you a few questions at the station, I hope you don't mind."
Jinki caught the key in the evidence bag when Jonghyun tossed it back to him, ushering the gallery manager away. He looked back when he heard a soft, "wow."
Both clerks looked stunned.
"It wasn't him," Jinki figured he should say, calling both pairs of eyes to look at him instead of their boss being led away.
"How do you know?" the other clerk, Ryeowook, asked.
"Call it...detective's intuition. We'll still have to check him out, though, verify his alibi, whole nine yards. And we'll be very thorough." He was saying this mostly to Kibum, earning that small twitch of a smile again. "You might not see him for the rest of the day."
Ryeowook sighed in relief, but Jinki did little more than glance at him because Kibum's smile widened.
"Thank you, both, for your cooperation. We'll still need you to write your formal statements with those officers over there, then you're free to get back to your business," Jinki finally bowed slightly, pocketing the evidence bag before he turned to leave.
"Hey, wait."
He looked back to Kibum, who was biting his lip again. "There's something I didn't tell you before."
Jinki raised his brow, walking back to the man and taking out his pad once more.
Kibum hid a sly grin very poorly, "you'll have to write this down exactly as I say it, okay?"
"Okay?"
Jinki neatly wrote out the sequence of ten numbers Kibum listed, brow furrowing now as he repeated them in his head.
"What's it mean?" he asked when he looked up, and the clerk rolled his eyes.
"It means I get off of work everyday at six," he smirked, turning away to follow where his coworker had gone to give his written statement.
Jinki watched him go, then looked back down at the numbers, face flushing just the tiniest bit.
Black oxfords crunched on the glass that lay shattered on the floor, despite how he tried to edge around it, and he gave a slight bow to the CSI who was photographing the frame that once held it all together. Around him were breath-taking displays of Chinese history, arranged tastefully throughout the hall. But the only observers wore dark uniforms and latex gloves. He weaved around them with polite bows and greetings, already reaching for the notepad in his suit jacket. Jonghyun stood near the back of the gallery, on the edge of yet another spill of glass surrounding a much larger display base. Two more CSI were working their way around it.
"You're late," was the first thing out of his partner's mouth, not even looking up when he joined him.
"Yeah, sorry," Jinki sighed, clicking his pen open. "I was....yeah."
Warm brown eyes glanced to him, "search not going well?"
Another small sigh, and a scratch to the back of his head. "Not really."
"Doesn't help that he's pickier than any girl I've ever met."
Jinki just shrugged with a small smile, "he just knows what he likes. And I want him to love it. So what have we got here?"
Jonghyun cleared his throat, "according to the museum, this display case held a suit of armor."
"Armor?"
"Ceremonial, royal armor dated in the Qing Dynasty, made out of gold plated copper and precious stones," the bleached-blond CSI crouched near the display base chimed in. Jinki was already taking notes.
"We found this on the base when we got here," Jonghyun handed his partner an evidence bag, inside was unmistakabley a silver key. Jinki sighed. "It goes to the exhibit door, stolen off of the museum curator."
"Another Ghost Thief hit. Kangin's not going to like this."
"He never does."
"Huh."
Both detectives looked up, walking around the glass to where the platinum CSI had moved.
"What've you got, Sungmin?"
"All of the display cases use bullet proof glass, the bases themselves housing sensors that are meant to trigger an alarm should anything damage the glass. But this one's been turned off."
"What do you mean, turned off?" Jonghyun crouched down, too, trying to get a closer look at what he was talking about.
"Turned off, disabled, deactivated, not on. It's off."
"You think the thief did it?" Jinki broke off Sungmin's sass, scribbling on his notepad.
"Dunno, we'll have to check the circuits."
Jonghyun stood up again, tugging at the end of his tie and huffing a bit. "Since when does he break glass?" he said to Jinki alone.
The auburn-haired detective looked from the display, to back across the hall where the glass door had been shattered, just as an officer approached them.
"Sir, we have access to the security footage. You're going to want to see this."
Jinki looked back to his partner, "since when does he get caught on tape?"
Inside the museum's security office, Jinki and Jonghyun sat nearly in disbelief.
"Two?"
"It was hard enough imagining one person doing all these robberies."
On the monitor in front of them, they watched the scene unfold in black and white. Two covered up figures slipping onto the screen, making their way quickly down to the back of the hall. One knelt at the base, where Sungmin had been examining. A second later, the second one brought some kind of hand-held hammer out and whacked the glass hard, cracks splintering the surface. It clearly took their partner by surprise because they quickly backed up. Another hit and it shattered, at which point Jinki mumbled a soft, "but how?" But just as quickly as the duo had entered, they were gathering up the heavy armour. One dropped something on the base before they made their way to the front again, and were out the door in seconds. They were gone. Not a single alarm went off, and it all took place in less then four minutes.
Jonghyun sat back in his seat, Jinki about to follow suit when something else on the footage happened.
"Jjong."
One of the black clad figures re-entered the screen, on the other side of the glass door. With something in his hand, he started writing on the surface, despite how no words showed up. When he was finished, a single, hard kick shattered the door from it's frame, and again, he was gone.
Jonghyun whipped around in his seat, "tell CSI to gather every piece of that glass as evidence. We'll take a copy of this footage with us back to the station. C'mon Jinki."
"Coffee?" an eager, smiling officer leaned into the debriefing room. Jonghyun, who was leaned back in a chair with his feet propped up next to a laptop, grumbled a "yes. Black."
Jinki, smiled back at him from where he stood and added a, "thank you, Donghae." He turned back around to the evidence boards, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth as he neatly stuck a few more sticky notes in various places.
The timeline covered three boards, six robberies over the span of eight months, each with the same exact MO. No sign of entry or exit, alarms all disabled, the item seemingly vanishing into thin air with nothing but a key left in it's place. The media had started calling it the work of the 'Ghost Thief'. Jonghyun called it a headache.
"So why was this time different?" Jinki muttered lightly to himself. He'd been over every case backwards and forwards and all around. But there was never any evidence left behind to even begin to have a lead. It was all so clean, as if a ghost really was the cause. "Why show yourself now?"
"Maybe they're getting bored," Jonghyun said behind him, rewinding the security footage yet again. As of yet, all it had given them was an approximate height and weight, and body type. Which didn't exactly narrow things down. "Stealing pretty notable things but not getting an ounce of credit? They're upping the ante."
Jinki frowned as his eyes wandered down the board's timeline.
"I think you're wrong."
"Hm?"
"I think this one is just different."
Jonghyun drug himself up properly in his chair, pausing the security footage to give Jinki his full attention. The taller man was slowly tracing down the evidence boards.
"A Roman statue, an ancient manuscript, a painting, a diamond necklace, an ancient ceremonial mask, an endangered bird. What sets the suit of armor apart from everything else taken?" Jinki glanced back at his partner, who's eyes were on the boards intently. "The armor was gold plated."
"So you're saying that this was the first time there was two of them? Because he needed help carrying the armor?"
"It wouldn't have been very logical for him to try and do it alone, the suit breaks into different pieces, plus it would have been heavy."
"He stole a marble statue."
"But that statue was only 33 cm high, he could have easily carried it alone."
Jonghyun stood and joined his partner at the board, "that would also explain the glass. On the footage, the one deactivating the case's alarm seemed very surprised when his pal started breaking the case."
"The MO changed because he wasn't alone."
"So why would he go back and break the door?"
Jinki shrugged, "the conditions had already changed. And maybe you're right, maybe he is getting bored."
Jonghyun's phone beeped with a text.
"Sungmin's asking us to go see him at the lab. Hopefully he can give us something, for once."
"Sungmin does his job perfectly well, it's not his fault our thief is so careful," Jinki defended, to which his partner shrugged.
"Let's hope that's changed."
On the way out of the room, they passed the officer who had went to fetch them coffee. Jinki thanked him again while Jonghyun hummed his thanks, already chugging the hot liquid down.
"I hate you," was what greeted them in the forensics lab.
"Sungmin, you're looking lovely, as usual," Jonghyun grinned for the glare he was getting, the irritated tension just rolling off of him.
"And you owe me dinner for a week," he led them through the lab to a room that had glass laid out meticulously on a table.
"But I thought you liked puzzles, isnt that why you became a forensic scientist?"
"I do like puzzles. Not reassembling shattered glass, which took seven straight hours. So here, here's your door, more or less. Dickbag," the last part was added on as an afterthought.
Jonghyun and Jinki stared at it, there were a few pieces missing but it was, for the most part, all there. After almost a minute, they looked back up at the blond man behind them. Another minute passed.
"...Well?"
"Well what? You asked me to reassemble a shattered glass door, nearly impossible I might add. But I did it. And there it is. Dinner. For a week," he emphasized.
Jonghyun grinned again, "I only asked you to do it because I knew you could." Sungmin rolled his eyes.
"You only asked me to do it because you're an irritating little zit."
"What about the message?" Jinki asked, bringing their attention back to the matter at hand. Sungmin stopped glaring at Jonghyun long enough to pull some orange tinted safety glasses out of his lab pocket and hand them over. Jonghyun took them from Jinki when the scientist turned out the lights. A moment later, he turned on a uv lamp and blue letters jumped to life on the surface of the glass shards, smudged in many places, but not impossible to read.
Jonghyun pursed his lips and hummed before handing the glasses to his partner so he could see it better.
Jinki slipped them on and leaned slightly over the table.
"Catch me...if you can?"
"He really is getting bored."