SHINee {Onew/Minho ; Alternative Advances}

[black_goose]

Title: Alternative Advances
Fandom: SHINee (AU, !forensic pathologist)
Pairing: Onew/Minho, Jonghyun/Key
Word count: 11,148
Rating: PG-13
Summary: One week later, Onew had ruined another Ralph Lauren shirt, spilled iodine solution on Minho's levis, and, just now, had splashed ink onto his face and managed to get it in his eye.
A/N: it's civilized_era's birthday today :33 and this is for her because she's the only one I ever write Onho for. I don't know whether she even remembers this (I found an extract of it on tumblr from seven months ago) but I found it and decided to finish it especially since she'd been interested. this is my favourite type of Onho. I also wrote this for her today, which I'm not going to crosspost but just to share :3 also, yeah, this is based on the tv show Silent Witness. spot the ninja Hanchul.

on a side note: I'm going to be internetless for two weeks starting tomorrow so I'll be working on mutant!au and some other stuff during that time and hopefully will have things when I come back, but there won't be any updates until I get back.

Alternative Advances
or; this is why we don't wear Armani to work
"He's wearing Armani," Key hissed, slamming a beaker down on the desk. Onew rescued it and then almost dropped it himself. "What an asshole. He's just rubbing our faces in it."

"Please don't antagonise our new colleagues before I've even spoken to them," Onew said.

"Just because none of us can afford to buy Armani suits for work."

"Speak for yourself," Onew said. He pulled open a drawer on the filing cabinet and started flicking through. "Work your way up to head pathologist and maybe you could wear Armani for work."

"Bullshit," said Key, furiously mixing iodine solution. "There's no way you make enough to wear Armani."

"I'm head pathologist working with Seoul National Police," Onew said. "Of course I make enough."

"Then why," Key asked triumphantly, "aren't you wearing any?"

"Because I work with dead bodies for a living," Onew said, closing the drawer and pulling open the one below. "Dry cleaning Armani costs almost as much as the suit itself."

"One step down from Armani need not be hobo."

"It's geek chic," Onew said. Really it was, throw-on-whatever-was-clean chic. "Have you seen the toxicology report for the Kil-bang case?"

"No? What was the last name? It'll be under that."

"Kim, but it's not."

"Ask Taemin, he'll have filed it."

Onew stuck his head out of the lab. "Taemin, what did you file Kim Kil-bang under?"

Taemin swung around on his desk chair, minesweeper open on his computer screen. "F," he said. "For Fat Bastard." Onew and Key exchanged looks before Key just shrugged and walked out of the other door muttering something about the chance of getting iodine out of six thread counts. "What?" Taemin asked innocently. "He was."

"That's not how the filing system works, Taemin," Onew said with a sigh. He pulled open the filing drawer again, moved to F and sure enough, there was the Kil-bang file. He pulled it out and waved it at Taemin. "Last name, then first initial. That's how it works. I'll never find anything if you file under Fat Bastard or," Onew winced, remembering the last time, "Butterface."

Taemin shrugged idly. "Just trying to liven the job up a bit," he said.

"Please just go get me some coffee," Onew said.

"Detective Choi," Onew said, nodding his head at the tall, well dressed man, then at his shorter, equally well dressed partner. "Jonghyun."

"I have a title too," Jonghyun said, glaring at him. Onew just grinned and pulled some pieces of paper out of the file that had turned out to be so difficult to find. He handed them out; both detectives took them but just slipped them into their notebooks and looked at Onew expectantly.

"Okay, Jinki-shi," said Minho, gaze intense. "What do you have for us?"

"Well, we estimate he was dead for half an hour at the most before he was found. We did find something strange though," Onew said, walking to the computer and turning the touch screen projection on. He pulled up a written report. "His brain showed odd colouring so we ran some tests. Remnants of a sleeping pill, but of course, it was a homocide, no doubt about it."

"Yeah," said Jonghyun dryly, "the multiple stab wounds kind of made that obvious."

"Fifteen, to be exact," Onew said.

"Do you think the sleeping pills could be relevant?" Minho asked, leaning forward over the table.

"It's hard to say, but I just thought I would mention it. The victim was a large man and he would have been difficult to overpower. Sleeping pills would help explain why we found no signs of any defense marks and anything that would suggest a struggle, really."

"Any ideas as to the murder weapon?"

Onew shrugged. "It's hard to say. It was probably just a normal kitchen knife, there are no specialist marks around the wound."

"Great," said Minho. "Thanks for your help, Jinki-shi." He stood up and held out his hand for Onew to shake. Onew stretched out his hand too but knocked it against the almost empty cup of coffee sitting on the table in front of Minho and sent it flying straight over Minho's Armani clad legs. There was a beat before Jonghyun burst into laughter.

"I'm so sorry," Onew cried, picking up the end of the lab coat he was wearing and dabbing at Minho's crotch. Minho just stared blankly down at the liquid staining into his suit. "It was an accident. Does it need dry cleaned? Key said it was Armani."

"Armani," Minho said, sounding stunned, "costs as much as the suit itself to be dry cleaned."

"I'll pay," promised Onew, letting his lab coat drop. Minho looked up from his lap to Onew's face. "Just send me the bill, don't worry about that."

"Right," said Minho. "Okay. I'll be sure to do that. Come on, Jonghyun." He walked out of the room with long strides, Jonghyun following him still laughing.

"I'm sorry!" Onew repeated before the door shut. Then he sank into a seat and groaned, head on the table. The door from the hallway opened again and Key burst in, face like thunder.

"Did you spill coffee on his Armani suit?" he asked, hands on his hips. "You klutz."

"So what do you think?"

Minho ran his eyes over the witness statements once more. "Well, it's not the wife, since she was in France at the time. Stone clad alibi if you ask me. There was no break in, and who would break in just to inject some guy with herion? The daughter - what was her name, Lee Hanshi? - found him, and we know that her husband was in the house as well. Neither have alibis for the exact time of the murder. I say we haul them in for questioning again."

"What could they possibly stand to gain from it?" Jonghyun asked, biting the end of his pen. "All the property and money transfers over to the wife, not the daughter."

"Well, the will left nothing whatsoever to his only child. You have to wonder if maybe the relationship wasn't as fantastic as it's been made out to be."

"Get them back in, got it." Jonghyun noted something down. "Anyway, that wasn't what I meant. I was talking about Onew-hyung."

"What do I think about Jinki-shi?" Minho scowled. "Ask me again when my lap isn't sodden."

Jonghyun laughed. "So he's a bit clumsy. He's never going to grow out of that."

"You said you knew him from college?"

"He was the T.A in my forensic anthropology class senior year. A genius at what he does but otherwise... I swear, he never made it into the classroom without tripping over his own two feet."

"I can imagine." Minho sighed, pulling out the report that Onew had given them. "Still," he said, looking it over, "he seems to know what he's doing."

"You don't make it to the head of your department before the age of thirty without being good at your job, do you?" Jonghyun asked, giving Minho a pointed look. "You'd know all about that."

Minho ignored him. "That kid who gave us coffee though, he couldn't be out of high school. And his lab assistant kept giving us dirty looks through from the office."

Jonghyun cleared his throat and stood up. "Kibum is an interesting person," he said. "I'll go get the daughter and son-in-law now."

"You know the lab assistant?"

"In a manner of speaking," Jonghyun said uncomfortably. "I'd rather not explain. Can I go now?"

"If you leave now," Minho said with a grin, "I'm going to assume you've slept with him."

"I did," Jonghyun said, right before he fled through the door.

Taemin was beating out a tune on his desk. Sometimes Onew was convinced that Taemin's point in life was to make everything as irritating as possible for the people around him. "Taemin," he said wearily, lifting his head from the file he was trying to read. "Shouldn't you be going home now?"

"Still got some stuff to do," Taemin said.

"What?" Onew asked. "More games of solitaire? Haven't quite managed the drum solo from Don't Stop Believing yet?"

Taemin grinned. "Aw, hyung, look at you thinking you know anything about modern music."

"I heard it on the radio on the way into work," Onew said soberly.

"I've still got some files to put away," Taemin said, "but Kibum-hyung is in the filing room and he's been trying to get me to go clubbing with him for the past week so I'm kind of avoiding him."

Onew frowned at him. "Clubbing? Aren't you underage? Like, way underage?"

"Hyung, I'm twenty-one. I'm your graduate intern. Why are you like this?"

"Joking, Taemin," Onew said with a grin. His childish looks were always a sore spot for Taemin. "What I really meant was, why don't you want to clubbing with Key?"

"Because I don't think he'll take me to conventional clubs," Taemin said, "and my boyish good looks tend to drive the gay guys crazy. Gay guys and older women, actually. You've noticed the way Kibum-hyung acts around me, that's because in Kibum-hyung both categories are mixed up."

"That's strange," Onew said, standing up and slipping his work in his bag. "You don't drive me crazy."

Taemin gaped at him. "Hyung, you mean-"

"See you in the morning, Taeminnie," Onew said innocently, closing the door behind him. Taemin sat in confused silence until Key walked in, pulling his coat on.

"Taemin," he said, frowning at him. "What are you still doing here? And close your mouth, you'll catch flies." When Taemin didn't appear to hear him, Key tapped his chin with an index finger. "What's got you all agape?"

"Is Onew-hyung gay?"

Key picked up his bag from his desk, nodding. "Sure, didn't you realise?"

"No. How was I supposed to guess that? His clothes, hyung! His hair."

"Don't worry," said Key with an amused smile. "We're not going to make him our poster child any time soon." He paused in the doorway. "Hey, I'm going out tonight, you want to-"

"No," said Taemin. "I'm busy. I've got to wash my cat."

"You don't own a cat."

"My brother's cat," said Taemin. "I'm looking after it while he's in China."

"Oh." Key shrugged. "I'll get you one day. Don't stay here too long, Taemin-ah."

Onew opened his apartment door to find Jnghyun standing outside, grinning and holding a bottle of white wine. "Hey," he said cheerfully. "Nice socks."

Onew looked down at the blue fluffy socks his neice had given him for Christmas and back up at Jonghyun. "Is that for me or do you usually wander around carrying alcohol?"

"I'm here to celebrate the fact that we'll be working together from now on," Jonghyun said, pushing past Onew and walking into the apartment. Onew closed the door and thought longingly of his Battlestar Galactica reruns. "Nice place."

"It's okay," Onew said, walking into the living room and taking the wine from Jonghyun. "Bit small sometimes."

"You can afford something larger on your salary, surely," Jonghyun said, settling on the sofa. Onew remembered this sort of thing from university; Jonghyun had a way of making himself welcome in places, of being so obviously comfortable that you found yourself at ease with his presence.

"Sure I can," Onew said. He opened a cupboard and pulled a couple of glasses out. "It's just that the rest of the time, this is too large."

"You need someone to share it with," Jonghyun said knowingly. Onew quirked his lips, not answering. "You're a weird one, hyung, you know that? I never saw you with anyone at university, there were never any rumours, and now you live in a nice apartment all by yourself. You never get lonely?"

"I guess I'm married to my job," Onew said.

"And bad television shows," Jonghyun quipped.

"Brilliant television shows," Onew corrected, handing Jonghyun his glass of wine. "You just don't know how to appreciate good television."

Jonghyun rolled his eyes and held his glass out. "Here's to working together," he said.

"To working together," Onew echoed, clinked their rims together and then took a sip. His face twisted without his even paying attention. "Jonghyun, surely you can afford better wine than this."

"My policy is to never spend more than $7 on a bottle of wine," Jonghyun said, grinning at the look on Onew's face. "Cheap stuff does exactly the same job as the good stuff." Onew just raised an eyebrow and took another tentative sip. "Uh, hyung, your lab assistant..."

"Kibum?" Onew looked at him over the rim of his glass. "What about him?"

"He hasn't said anything about me?" A pause. "Or, you know, Minho?"

Onew's brow creased. "No, he hasn't said anything at all. Well, he was complaining about Minho-yah's suit, but that's just because Kibum covets anything with a designer tag. Other than that, he didn't say anything. Why?"

"Oh, I just thought his face seemed familiar," Jonghyun said with a shrug, though his eyes were darting everywhere, refusing to meet Onew's. "Thought I knew him from college."

"Well, he'd have graduated two years after you," Onew said thoughtfully. "His major was biochemistry, though, he only did his graduate work in forensics so he wouldn't have been in any of the same classes as you."

"Well, I just thought I'd ask," Jonghyun said. "Just drop my name in front of him, would you? Just to see if he remembers anyone by that name."

"Sure, no problem." Onew picked up the bottle of wine and checked the alcohol percentage. Fourteen and a half. He groaned.

"Come on, hyung," said Jonghyun, "drink up!"

Onew nursed the coffee Key had picked up on his way into work and said, "Hey, you know the detectives yesterday?"

"Armani guy and his miniature?" Key asked. He looked up from the solution he was mixing. "What about them?"

"You didn't recognise either of them?"

"No. Why, should I?"

"Well, his miniature," - Onew winced - "said that he recognised you."

"Huh. What was his name?"

"Kim Jonghyun."

Key knocked his test tube over, spilling protein solution all over the desk. "Crap," he said, grabbing a paper towel and mopping it up. "Great, now I'll have to redo the entire thing."

"I take it I rejogged your memory, did I?" Onew asked. He reached out to help clean up, but Key knocked his hand away, which was fair enough; Onew was probably likely to make more of a mess. "And judging by that reaction, you weren't just acquiantances."

"Uh, no." Key tossed the towels in the bin and moved to wash his hands. "We weren't much more than that. There was a party, I was drunk, we slept together. Then I spent an entire year avoiding him on campus until he graduated."

"That bad?" Onew asked, surprised. "I mean, not that I ever, you know, but from what I've heard he's not...bad."

"He wasn't bad," Key said with a casual shrug. As far as Onew knew, that was fair praise from Key. "It was just that I don't make a habit of getting drunk and sleeping with people." He shrugged again. "Call it hurt pride."

"Your pride is cast iron," Onew said.

Taemin stuck his head around the corner. "Hyung, you want some more coffee?" he asked brightly.

"Please, Taemin," said Onew, hand to his head. "Not so loud."

"Clearly, this is why you should come out with me more," Key said. "You need to build up a tolerance to this sort of thing."

"If you're going to bug someone, could you bug Amber about the lab results please."

"Taemin, go bug Amber about Choi Sunkyu's lab results," Key said.

"No," said Taemin.

"Christ," said Amber's voice from behind him. "Do you people ever do anything?"

"Choi Sunkyu," Onew said, bringing her details up on the screen. "At first sight, cause of death seems obvious; she was obviously battered over the head by a blunt object, I'm guessing a stone or more likely a rock, since it would be heavier. However, judging by the bruising on her neck and the burst blood vessels in her eyes, she was strangled first. My estimate of a timeline would be that she was strangled, passed out, then killed by the second blow to the head."

After the meeting was cleared up, he rushed out of the room to catch Taemin taking the lunch order to the take out place on the corner, but ran bang into Minho loitering in the hallway. "Oh," he said, rubbing his forehead and looking for a face shaped dint in Minho's chest. "Hello."

"Hello." Maybe Minho always looked down his nose like that. He was, after all, freakishly tall. "I had something I wanted to talk to you about. I was wondering if you wanted to get lunch."

The office door swung shut after Taemin on his way out with the lunch order. Key was flapping his hands at him about something. Onew sighed. "Can we get dim sum?" he asked.

Twenty minutes later, sitting in a dim sum restaurant that Minho had recommended, Onew asked, "So what was it you wanted to ask? If it's about the dry cleaning, then you could have just faxed the bill over."

"No, don't worry, it's not about that. It's about your lab assistant," said Minho.

"Wait," Onew said, "did you sleep with him in college too?"

Minho looked taken aback. "No, no I didn't. I'd personally never seen him before yesterday. The same, however, can't be said for my colleague."

"He came to see me last night," Onew said, fiddling with his chopsticks. "I dropped his name in front of Key and he said that they'd slept together once in college." He gave a shrug. "Nothing too untoward."

"Except for the part where they slept together and now they're supposed to work together." Minho shook his head. "I don't like it."

"Well, get a new partner," Onew said. "I personally don't see how it's a problem."

"Maybe you should get a new lab assistant," said Minho, narrowing his eyes.

"Key is the best lab assistant I've had in my five years in the job," Onew said. "The day I get rid of him is the day Hell freezes over."

Minho didn't say anything, though he did not look happy at all. Onew just grinned at him and started on the plate of dim sum that was put down in front of them by a waitress. They ate in near silence until Minho said, quietly and thoughtfully, "You really don't think that it'll be a problem?"

"Look, I know Key. He's professional." Well, he amended silently, he was professional most of the time. "He's not going to let some short lived affair get in the way of his work."

"I guess I'll just have to trust you on that," Minho said, though his tone was doubtful. "I'm simply the type of person to keep my business and private lives separate."

"As do I," reassured Onew.

"Great," said Minho, "I'm glad we can agree on that, at all."

Onew nodded and reached across the table to grab the last prawn dumpling with his chopstick. Fate got in the way and knocked his hand against the bottle of soy sauce, lid stupidly left unscrewed. A split second later, he realised what he'd done, but it was too late; by the time he'd snatched it back up, there was a brown stain spreading on Minho's previously impeccable white shirt.

"Oh," Onew said weakly. "You'll have to add that to my dry cleaning bill."

"Ralph Lauren," said Minho through pale lips.

Jonghyun swung back on his chair, craning his head so he could grin at Minho storming through the office. "How did your lunch date with Onew-hyung go?" he called. Minho stopped dead, giving him a glare tinged just a little by shock.

"Is he always like that?" Minho asked. "I mean, look at this!" He pulled his jacket open to show Jonghyun the large mark on his shirt. "The idiot spilled soy sauce over me!"

"He knocked embalming fluid onto our professor once," Jonghyun said, tone almost wistful.

Minho groaned and finished the journey to his desk. He sat down and stared miserably at his ruined shirt. Then he lifted his head. "It wasn't a date," he said, frowning at Jonghyun.

Jonghyun rolled his eyes. "Turn of phrase. Anyway, forget about Lee Jinki and his wonderful habit of knocking things over. While you were gone I went to Lee Hanshi and her husband - you know, the daughter of Kim Kil-bang? Both are sticking to their original stories. The wife was in the garden, the husband was sleeping. According to the neighbour, Hanshi was in the garden at the time that Onew-hyung places the time of death at, so her alibi does seem somewhat legitimate."

"What about the husband?" Minho asked, walking to Jonghyun's desk and picking up the report he'd knocked up once he got back from talking to the woman.

"Nothing. He admits that he was in the house at the time of the death, but swears blind that he was asleep."

"Well, that probably makes him suspect number one."

"Exactly what I thought," Jonghyun said. He stood up, pointing with his thumb in the direction of the door. "That's why he's waiting for us in one of the interview rooms."

Minho looked at him, aghast. "I can't go and interview a suspect looking like this!"

"Fasten your suit up," Jonghyun suggested. "You won't be able to see it otherwise."

Minho did so, sighing. "I'm becoming more and more confused about how that man has lived this long, never mind rose to the top of his field," he said. "How does he not fall down the stairs every time he leaves his apartment?"

Jonghyun started to laugh as he gathered up the things he needed for the interview. Minho gave him a curious look. "You've probably hit on the exact reason why he lives on the ground floor," Jonghyun said, and Minho couldn't help but smile at that.

"Did I just see you get out of Detective Choi's car?" Key asked, the second Onew stepped into the office after lunch.

"How did you know that?" Onew asked, trudging up to his desk and slinging his coat over the back.

"I was not hanging around the window trying to see if you'd been knocked over while getting lunch," Key said, "so don't even think about that."

"No, of course," said Onew. He sighed heavily and then looked. "Where's Taemin? I've got some things for him to do."

"He's sterilising the dissection room," Key said. "Just got a new delivery, I was going to handle it." When Onew just stared blankly at his computer, screen prompting him to log in, Key said suspiciously, "What did Detective Choi want to talk about?"

"You," Onew said.

"Me?" Key asked, taken by surprise. "Why would he want to talk about me?"

"You and Jonghyun," Onew amended. "He's worried that your joint pasts might affect the way you work together."

Key rolled his eyes. "We slept together five years ago, hyung. I didn't even recognise him anymore."

"Yes, but Jonghyun did."

"If he's suffering under a lit torch for me, then there's nothing I can do." Key patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, hyung. I have no interest in Kim Jonghyun. Now," he narrowed his eyes, "what did you do to Detective Choi and what brand was it?"

"Ralph Lauren," Onew said. "I spilled soy sauce on his shirt."

"One day," said Key, "Taemin is going to be preparing that room for your body after I murder you."

Taemin, walking into the office pulling off latex gloves, said, "It's nice working in such a safe environment."

The average dissection took about two hours to complete; in many ways Onew liked the job because it allowed him to relax. It was ritual and clinical, there were things you needed to do at certain times, things you needed to constantly be on the look out for. Dead people, at least, didn't surprise you or scare you or judge you. Onew never made a mistake during a dissection because it was possible for him to get into the kind of calm mindset that he could never quite manage outside of the room.

He bottled the liquid samples, marked them and then handed them to Taemin. He pulled his face mask down. "Take these to the lab. Get one of the girls to run them and then ask Key to come down and see me."

Taemin nodded and moved quickly. He was a brat most of the time but Onew recognised the talent inside him: his hands were steady, his examinations meticulous, his handwriting at least legible and once he was actually working on something, he followed instructions to the letter. He was young, though, which Onew thought explained his slight attitude problem every once in a while. Still, he thought, as he watched Taemin walk out of the room, Onew couldn't judge him on that, not when he had Key as his assistant.

He washed up and took the notes that Taemin had made through to the office to write up. Once that was finished, he fished a medical journal from the mass of papers on his desk and turned to the article he'd marked that morning on new bone dating methods. He was soon so engrossed on reading, head bent over the paper, he didn't hear the door to the office opening. When someone said his name, however, he jumped and whirled around, thinking it was Key, behind him; it wasn't. It was Minho, directly next to him, wincing as Onew's paperweight fell into his foot.

After a tense pause, Onew asked, "That's, uh, rather heavy, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Minho, bending down and picking it back up. He put it on the desk safely. "Do you have a chair I might sink into?"

Onew ushered him into Key's chair, hovering nervously. "Is your toe broken?" he asked.

"You're the doctor," Minho said, "you tell me."

He probably, judging by the look on his face, wasn't expecting Onew to get down on the floor and slip off Minho's shoe. He gently, one by one, moved Minho's toes, bending them and then straightening them. "Does any of that hurt?" Minho, unable to believe what was happening, could only shake his head wordlessly. "Then you're probably fine. No breaks as far as I can." He beamed up at Minho, then looked back down. "You have remarkably normal heel arches for someone so tall," he muttered.

"You're being remarkably forward, considering we only met three days ago," Minho said, pulling his foot out of Onew's grip. Blushing, Onew stood up, as Minho flexed his toes and put his shoe back on.

"Sorry," Onew said, after Minho had too stood up. "I just notice these things." When Minho just gave him an unimpressed look, Onew said, incredibly embarrassed, "What did you come here for?"

"I wanted to ask you something about the Kil-bang file," Minho said. "You said that you thought the victim was asleep before he was killed, and mentioned some sleeping pills. I forgot to ask in the meeting; do you think the sleeping pills were self administered or not?"

Onew tapped his chin thoughtfully, sitting down at his desk. "Just give me a minute," he said. He pulled up his written report, scanned it, and said, "Well, I mean, it's hard to say exactly, but considering he was found mid-afternoon, it seems unlikely. The traces are possibly from the night before. His records did show that he was being prescribed sleeping pills. Why? Is it important?"

"Our main suspect says that he was asleep at the time of the murder. He has no alibi otherwise, but he's sticking to his story. According to him, they ate lunch, then both he and his father-in-law felt sleepy, so retired to bed. Next thing he knew, he was being woken up by his wife screaming."

"Well, have you run any blood tests on - no, there won't be any evidence left in the blood stream," Onew said, interrupting Minho's answer to his possible question. "If the son-in-law is telling the truth, then the pills may have been broken into the food, which would explain why they fell asleep but also why it wasn't as large an amount as we'd normally expect if taken just before death."

"So it's possible that both the father and son-in-law were drugged into sleep?" Minho asked.

"Well, without knowing whether the same traces would have been found in the son-in-law's blood, there's no way to be certain," Onew said, shaking his head. "Unless you can get hold of some of the food that they both ate, you'll possible never know."

"Still, it's something to be getting on with," Minho said. "Thanks again for your help, Jinki-shi."

"I'm sorry I couldn't do more," Onew said, "and I'm also sorry for knocking the weight on your toe."

"Believe me," Minho said solemnly. "I'm getting used to that kind of thing."

There was a knock on the office door before Taemin stuck his head tentatively around. "Uh, hyung, sorry to interrupt, but Key-hyung wasn't in the lab."

"He wasn't?" Onew frowned. "Where is he?"

"The girls said that some guy came to see him saying that they had to talk. They said he was quite short, good looking, and wearing a suit. Key-hyung seemed to know him, in any case."

Minho and Onew exchanged looks.

"You," Key said, looking at Jonghyun critically over his coffee, "are a lot shorter than I remember."

"Wow," said Jonghyun, raising an eyebrow. "That was - are you always that good at hitting people where it hurts?"

Key shrugged. "I'm just saying. I'm also thinking that I must have been drunker than I remember being."

"Look, why not just stand up and beat me?" Jonghyun asked. "It would have the same effect."

"Because you're a police officer," Key said. "I'm pretty sure simply touching you is a felony."

"Only because I'm so hot I'm illegal," Jonghyun said. Key snorted. Jonghyun sat back in his chair, staring at him. "I honestly don't know what to say. I had a whole spiel thought out and I can't remember it. I mean, it's not often that I walk into a room and one of my college one night stands is standing there."

"You make it sound like you had a lot," Key said coolly.

"I had a few," Jonghyun said uncomfortably.

Key sighed. "What is it you wanted to talk about? I certainly didn't want to talk about your college escapades."

"I just wanted to let you know that, right now, I don't see you in the same way as I saw you at college," Jonghyun said, solemnly and seriously. The sudden turn in his demeanor left Key blinking. "I just wanted to clear the air and make sure that we can work together as professionals, in spite of our past."

Key gave him a derisive look. "I find the idea that it would be anything other than that rather offensive."

"I just thought it needed to be said."

"Jonghyun, I am nothing but a professional. I don't know if anyone told you this, but I didn't even recognise you when you walked into our department. It makes no difference to me. So yes, we can work together. Neither you, nor your overdressed superior, needs to worry about that."

Jonghyun, rather than looking happy by this, instead looked rather put out. "You don't have to be so-" he said, but was interrupted by his phone ringing. A crease in his forehead, he pulled it out and answered. The conversation, seemingly between him and Minho, ended quickly, but not quickly enough to stop Key from standing up and gathering his things. "I'm sorry," said Jonghyun, "I have to-"

"No, it's fine, I have to get back too," Key said. "I had some things brewing that I need to make sure don't get touched."

"Can we arrange another time to talk?"

"Do we really have anything to talk about?" Key hitched his bag over his shoulder, resting on one leg. "It was a stupid one night stand that happened five years ago. We've both moved on since it and you just need to leave it alone."

"You don't have to be so defensive," Jonghyun said. "I just thought, since we knew each other back then, it would be nice to meet up and have a drink to catch up."

Key shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't think that would be appropriate." He nodded his head in goodbye, and then left the coffee shop. As he walked back to work, Onew tried calling him a number of times, which he ignored, until he walked into the office and said, "I'm alive, don't worry."

"The girls in the labs said that you'd gone off with some guy," Onew said, frowning at him. "We assumed that it was Jonghyun. Minho was furious, he seemed to talk it as a sign that you weren't keeping it professional."

"Oh, are we calling him Minho now?" Key asked, a smirk touching the corners of his mouth. Onew spluttered something, though Key didn't think he really knew what he was denying. "Anyway, Minho needn't worry. We were only clearing the air and making sure that we could both work together in the most professional way."

He put his bag down and started working again, writing a report on the autopsy he'd done on a young woman that morning. His typing became slower and slower until eventually he just stopped and stared at his computer screen for a few minutes. It took Onew a few more minutes to realise but eventually he said, kindly, "Key? Are you okay?"

"Hyung, what do you do if someone from your past just walks back into your life and he's trying to be friends with you but he broke your heart those years ago and he doesn't even realise it?"

"Uh," Onew said, looking confused. "I don't know?"

"Exactly," Key sighed and switched his monitor off, deciding to take his frustration out on a dead body or two.

"You," Minho said, clearly pissed off, "were supposed to be interviewing Kil-bang's wife."

Jonghyun threw his arms up in acceptance. "I did! And then I went to see Kibum."

"You said you were going to keep this professional," Minho said. "Taking him out for coffee isn't professional."

"You're making it sound as though we went out on a date or something." Jonghyun slung his jacket over his chair and pulled a tape out of his pocket. "Anyway, here, this is the interview. I'll get someone to type it up but the gist of it is that her husband was picture perfect and didn't deserve to die."

"Same as the daughter," Minho said thoughtfully.

"The son-in-law, however..." Jonghyun trailed off, sitting behind his desk. He shrugged. "Something doesn't add up with him. I mean, he doesn't have an alibi, he's our best shot."

"He also doesn't have a motive," Minho pointed out. "None of them have a motive."

Jonghyun groaned, rubbing his temples. "I swear to god, this case is going to give me white hair."

A knock on the door to the office snared their attention; a young intern guard from the cells was looking at them nervously. "Uh, I don't want to interrupt, but the prisoner in cell three is requesting an interview with you, Detective Choi."

Minho glanced at Jonghyun, who said, "That's our son-in-law."

"Take him to interview room two," Minho said, standing up. "I'll be along in a few minutes." The intern disappeared. "Right, you stay here and do something. Don't go running off with one night stands from the past."

"Asshole," Jonghyun called at his back.

"And now, according to the son-in-law, Kil-bang was a dick who reguarly abused his wife and daughter, be it physically or mentally. He says that neither of the women will admit to it, simply for keeping up appearances, but he thought we should know." Minho sighed, sat back in his chair. "So now both women have motives that neither of them will admit to, and the son-in-law acknowledges that he doesn't have an alibi but says his father-in-law was never abusive to him and maintains that he didn't do it."

"This is all very interesting," Onew said, his smile friendly but very confused, "but I'm not totally sure why you're telling me about."

"Oh." Minho straightened back up, shoulders held back in embarrassment. "I was just...I thought that since you helped me with some other stuff, you could help me with this."

"Detective, I'm a pathologist. I cut up some dead bodies and work out what killed them. I don't have any training in working out who killed them. That's your job."

Minho smiled slightly. "I figure I could use all the help I could get," he said.

"I'm not going to be much help whatsoever," Onew said. "I don't have any training in this beyond the introduction to psychology course I took in freshman year. I'm not trained for this, detective." He stood up, collecting his files. "I'm sorry I can't help you - no, really, I am," he added, when Minho looked like he was beginning to speak, "but I don't want to insert myself into the investigation in any case."

Back at the station, Jonghyun had his feet up on his desk as he read back through the case file. "Where did you go?" he asked Minho, frowning, as Minho sat down heavily.

"To see Lee Jinki," said Minho, sorting through the papers on his desk for the most urgent thing to work on. "I thought he could give me some help on the Kil-bang case but he blew me off."

"What kind of help?"

"I don't know, anything. If he could give us an insight into the criminal's mind, that would have been good."

Jonghyun sat up, giving Minho a critical look. "He's a forensic pathologist, not a profiler," he pointed out. "Besides which, he's never been good with actual people. Probably why he works with dead people."

"I just thought...anything would be good."

"Come on, Minho," said Jonghyun, putting his feet back up on his desk and giving Minho a smug smile. "Time to get your mind back on the ball and off Lee Jinki."

The look Minho gave him was sharp. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"You keep running off to see him whenever you get the chance. Right now you're just making up excuses. What's more, almost every time you see him, you get something spilled on you, or injured in some way. Either you're just a masochist or you have some ulterior motives."

"...I just respect his opinion," Minho said, although he looked very uncomfortable. "He's a very clever man."

"And so are you," said Jonghyun. "So I'd appreciate it if you weren't a hypocrite too, warning me off Key when you're chasing after his boss."

"I'm not chasing after Lee Jinki!" Minho said angrily.

"Well, he's gay," Jonghyun said, climbing to his feet and grabbing his coat from the back of his chair. "I am just saying."

"So I was thinking," Jonghyun said, leaning against the work bench. "Your boss, my boss. We should get them together."

Key ignored him for a couple of seconds in favor of pouring a green liquid into a beaker. "And why would I do that?" he asked, handing the beaker to one of his assistants.

"Because Onew-hyung is hopeless and can't get a date for himself," Jonghyun said, "and it might make my boss lighten up a little." Enough to allow me another chance with you, he didn't add, giving Key a once over from the back. He'd been honestly quite hurt when Key had run off the morning after they'd slept together before Jonghyun had even woken up, and then had never once returned Jonghyun's calls. It had taken quite a while to get over that particular rejection.

"I have no interest in helping my boss get laid," Key said, pulling his gloves off and dropping them in the bin. "Anyone whose life is tragic enough that it needs intervention deserves to stay unhappy."

"Not intervention," Jonghyun insisted, "just...gentle prodding in the right direction."

"Then feel free to prod however you like. Kindly leave me out of it."

"You're a lot more prickly than I remember," Jonghyun said, anger rising.

Key regarded him for a long minute. "Kim Jonghyun, you didn't even know me back then," he said, and though he was outwardly calm, the coldness in his voice almost made Jonghyun flinch. "Please do not act as though we were in any way anything even as close as acquaintances. We weren't. We didn't know each other. Anything that you happen to remember is a false memory."

"I'm not sure that I really understand what your problem is," he said. "In fact, I never understood what your problem was back then either. You walk around like you're too good to associate with us normal people and you think nothing of-"

"Like I said," Key interrupted, "you didn't know me back then. You're not going to know me now in anything other than a totally professional manner." He fixed Jonghyun with a look that Jonghyun had to fight hard against flinching at. "Now could you please leave? You're getting in the way of my work."

"You're a bit of a bitch, you know that?" Jonghyun snapped.

Key didn't smile. "You're not the first to say so."

One week later, Onew had ruined another Ralph Lauren shirt, spilled iodine solution on Minho's levis, and, just now, had splashed ink onto his face and managed to get it in his eye. Almost before Minho could even think about what had happened, Onew pushed him into a chair, stepped between his knees, tipped his head back and started washing his eye out. "I'm so sorry," Onew said. His apologies were getting more and more emphatic.

Minho didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to put his hands, other than to dangle them uselessly by his side, because really, the only place he could put them were on Onew's hips or waist, which would have been the height of unprofessional. Not that this was particularly professional, Onew standing between his spread legs.

He had started to wonder why he kept coming back for more. Sending an e-mail with his request would have been far safer, not to mention quicker, than driving over to the pathologist office every time he needed some new information. If nothing else, he'd have a clean wardrobe and an eye that wasn't starting to sting unbearably, and Onew probably wouldn't have an ever growing dry cleaning bill, one that Minho had decided to hold off giving until the end of their time working together just so that he could have the full thing in one go.

"I really don't know what to say," Onew said, fussing over Minho's eye. He could Onew's hands cupping under it to catch the water that he was dripping and was pleasantly surprised to find Onew's hands warm and soft. "I'm honestly not this much of a klutz normally. I mean, I can't be, not without losing my job." He pulled back so that he could smile at Minho apologetically. "I guess you make me nervous."

I do? Minho attempted to ask but his voice was caught. He cleared his throat and asked, "I do?"

"Yeah." Onew dabbed at his eye once more and then stepped back, wiping his hands on his lab coat. "You're pretty scary."

"Because I'm so tall?" Minho asked, having heard that one a few times before. His eye wasn't stinging so much but it felt tender.

"Oh, no, not because of your height. Making detective at your age is impressive and I'm sure you didn't get there without stepping on a few toes. I'm rather fond of my toes," Onew added solemnly.

"You don't act like you're scared of me," Minho said.

"I didn't say you made me nervous because you're scary," Onew pointed out. "They were two separate statements."

"Then why do I make you nervous?"

Onew screwed the top back on his ink before it could make a break for it over Minho's shirt. "Now," he said, giving Minho a smile, "what was it that I could help you with?"

"Come on," Key muttered under his breath, glancing across the bar at the man who had been eyeing him up for a while now. "Come and buy me a drink. I'm not going to turn you down, I need the fucking alcohol."

"Would you turn this down?"

A glass of something dark was placed on the bar in front of him. He looked up to see Jonghyun grinning at him. Key couldn't have been more surprised than if it had been Onew wearing a dress. "What are you doing here?" Key hissed, looking back at the man at the other end of the bar and finding him now gone. "How the hell did you find me?"

"That intern said that you liked to go to the bars around here," Jonghyun said, sitting on the bar stool next to him. "From there it was a case of finding the right one."

"That's pretty stalkerish," Key said. He picked up the glass and sniffed it. "What is this, anyway?"

"JD and coke. Go on, it's yours."

Key handed it back. "Sorry but I make a habit of refusing drinks that I haven't seen been made in front of me."

"Good policy," Jonghyun said, and knocked back the drink. He raised his hand, motioning for the bar tender. "What are you having then?"

Key narrowed his eyes. "What's your ploy here, Jonghyun?"

"No ploy," Jonghyun said, holding his hands up in innocence. "My own personal habit is to not drink on my own. Too depressing. I figured that since you were out and I badly needed a drink myself, it made sense to drink together."

Key thought very carefully about that while Jonghyun ordered some more drinks. Drinking with Jonghyun had never worked out in the past. In fact, it had turned out to be one of the worst decisions of his college life, including that philosophy class he had taken in his junior year. It had almost ruined his sophomore year and he knew that it would be far harder to avoid Jonghyun now that they were being forced to work together. As Jonghyun placed another JD and coke, along with a tequila shot, in front of him, Key decided that fuck it. He was older now. He could handle himself while under the influence. It wasn't as though Jonghyun was offering anything more than an opportunity to get absolutely black out drunk, which was exactly what Key needed.

Three bars later, when Jonghyun kissed him, Key didn't pull away.

"You're late," Onew commented when Key walked into the office the next day. He wasn't reprimanding; Key was usually so good with time keeping that he could let it go once or twice. Beyond that, Key looked like he was about to pass out.

"That's okay," he muttered, throwing his bag onto the desk and then throwing himself into his chair. He sank down into and buried his head in his hands. "You're going to have to fire me anyway, what does it matter if I'm late?"

"Why would I fire you?" Onew asked, surprised. "We just got another suicide. I know you like those."

"Don't," Key groaned. "I'll throw up. I really will."

Onew frowned. Then he crossed to the office door and stuck his head out. Taemin was playing angry birds on his iphone. "Taemin, go get us both some coffee." Taemin paused his game, sighing like this was the greatest hardship he'd ever suffered, and stood up. "Don't get it from the cafeteria, that stuff doesn't help at all. Go to Starbucks or something. Get me a latte, something stronger for Key, and whatever you want." Onew threw him some change which Taemin caught expertly.

Back in the office Key was looking decidedly green. "Don't worry," he said when he saw Onew's expression. "I'll throw up in the wastepaper basket if I need to."

"Are you ill or just hungover?"

"Very hungover, mixed with abject humiliation."

"Why would I fire you for being hungover? You haven't even thrown up on my shoes yet." He saw the way Key paled suddenly and amended, "Yet."

Key lay his head back on the table. There was silence for a minute or so and then he said, "Hyung, I am such an idiot."

"I'm sure that's not true," Onew reassured. "What's happened?"

Key took a took breath. "I slept with Jonghyun," he said. "Again."

There was a pause. Onew wished that he had the coffee already so that he could take a calming sip of it. Instead he picked up his paperweight, the one that almost crushed Minho's foot a week earlier, and turned it over and over in his hands. "Uh," he said. "Why?"

"Because I was horribly drunk. Christ, it's like history is repeating itself all over again. I should just throw myself out of the window and have done with it. Hell, I should have done that the first time. It's bad enough being a notch on the bedpost once, never mind twice."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing, I left before he woke up."

Onew frowned. "That's not very polite."

"Hyung!" Key cried. "Excuse me if I wanted to get out of there before he woke up and threw me out!"

"You don't sleep with someone twice if you don't like them, Kibum."

Key rolled his eyes. "I want to live in your world, hyung."

Minho was elbow deep in written reports when there was a knock at his office door. "Yeah?" he called, brushing his hair out of his face. The door opened slowly to reveal Onew holding a brown paper file. "Oh," Minho said and for some inexplicable reason wished that he'd thought to roll his sleeves back down and turn on the air conditioning. He was suddenly acutely aware of the sweat on the inside of his elbows. "I wasn't expecting you."

"I was coming to see Jonghyun, actually, but I thought I'd give you the toxicology report from the food that you brought in." He lay the report on Minho's desk and then glanced back towards the door. "Where is Jonghyun, anyway?"

"Bathroom," Minho said, the irritation creeping back. "Throwing up. He came in late and has been in no fit state at all."

Onew smiled. "I guess he had quite a night of it last night."

"I wouldn't know, he never told me anything before he ran for the toilet."

Onew didn't say anything, just looked around the office. Minho picked up the report that had been delivered and looked through it. "Residue found in the food," he murmured. "So there were sleeping pills in the mean, which means the husband most likely was asleep at the time."

"Providing he did actually eat the food," Onew said with a shrug.

Minho groaned and lay back in his chair, rubbing his hand over his face. "This entire case is just getting more and more confusing. We've got alibis but motives and no alibis but no motives and no murder weapon and no new leads. Plus the head of the department is on our backs about it because Kil-bang was such a prominent donor to the police department."

"The wife has an alibi?" Onew was looking thoughtful. "If she administered the sleeping pills then surely she's the prime suspect."

Minho shook his head. "A witness places her outside in the garden at two thirty, the time of death."

"..No," Onew said firmly. "Time of death was closer to two. Highly unlikely to have been two thirty." He gave Minho a skeptical look. "Did you even read my report?"

"Yes!" said Minho, offended by that. He pulled open a drawer in his desk and searched through until he could return triumphantly with the report Onew had written. He turned it to the correct page. "Here, it says so here. Time of death at some point after two in the afternoon. At two thirty, the suspect was seen in the garden. Even if time of death was closer to two, that doesn't change the fact that she wouldn't have time to kill her father, stash the murder weapon and her bloody clothes, wash the blood off herself and then get into the garden in time to establish a legitimate alibi."

"Let me see that," said Onew. He stepped closer to the desk to see the file. His feet became tangled in the wires on the floor of the office and he tripped forward, straight across Minho's lap, his stomach against Minho's thighs. "Ah."

"Are you okay?" Minho asked tightly.

"Fine, fine." Onew stood back up, looking flustered and a little red. "I really am sorry."

"That's okay." Minho was certain that he was blushing quite a bit too. He was a little disappointed that Onew had stood up so quickly. "I suppose I should be glad that you didn't spill anything on me this time."

"Or splash it in to your eye," Onew agreed. "I don't normally fall over people, though, I hope you'll believe me on that." Before Minho could reply, Onew had picked up his things and was saying goodbye, leaving the room before Minho had time to stop him. Minho sat for a long minute, trying to work out what had happened, when Jonghyun came into the office. He was pale and sweaty, his tie missing and his top buttons unfastened. He did look terrible but Minho had little sympathy for him, seeing as it was self-inflicted.

"Just got some good news-" Jonghyun stopped, looked him over and raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong with you?"

Minho pressed the back of his hand to his cheek and found it burning hot. "I just had a run in with your friend from the pathologist department."

Jonghyun paled even more. "Which one?"

"Onew."

Jonghyun peered at him. "You don't look like anything was spilled on you."

"He went for a different approach this time," Minho said shortly. "What's the good news?"

"Oh!" Jonghyun unrolled his sleeves and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair. "I've just been informed that Hanshi is having an affair with one of the neighbours."

"Let me guess," Minho said, "that neighbour happens to be our only witness."

"Got it in one."

Minho lifted his own jacket up. "Let's go bring them both in," he said grimly.

Onew was expecting Jonghyun, or even Key, so the sight of Minho standing in the front entrance to his apartment was somewhat of a shock. "Hello," he said, blinking and trying to look around him to see if anyone else was there. No one was. He looked back at Minho and found that he couldn't read his expression. It could have been good news, or bad news; Minho could have been angry or pleased or anywhere in between. Onew found that he didn't like that. People were hard enough to deal with when their expressions were showing what they were feeling.

"I just thought," Minho started, then frowned. Onew realised that the reason he couldn't understand Minho's face was because Minho himself was out of sorts. "I just thought," Minho pressed on, "that you'd be interested to know that we caught who had killed Kil-bang."

"Oh?" Onew was interested, and he stepped aside in silent invitation. Minho walked into his apartment, fiddling with the top button on his coat, as if he couldn't make his mind up as to whether he was going to take it off. After a brief moment of awkward silence, Onew murmured, "I'll make some tea, should I?"

"I don't want to be any trouble," Minho said promptly.

"It's no trouble," Onew reassured him. He began pulling cups and tea bags and spoons out of various cupboards and drawers in his kitchen, aware all the time of Minho's eyes on him. His hands shook as he tried to pour the water out and it splashed onto the counter surface, dangerously close to his hand.

In seconds, Minho had grabbed the kettle from him and was pouring the water in a smooth movement that allowed for no mistakes. Just like how Minho did his job, Onew thought, biting his thumbnail.

Minho gave him a fleeting smile as he handed over a cup. "She was having an affair with our key witness," he said, and it took Onew a couple of seconds to realise that he was talking about the Kil-bang case. "It was his daughter. Drugged him into unconsciousness and then stabbed him fifteen times."

Onew shivered. It was easier to deal with the bodies when you didn't have to think about the human cause of their death. "Did she say why?"

"Years of abuse simply became too much, I guess. The court date is in a couple of weeks. As far as I'm concerned, this case is closed. She'll plead guilty to get a lesser sentence."

"Congratulations," Onew murmured into his tea. When he looked back up at the continuing silence, his eyes caught Minho's for a second. Onew hated it when that happened; it was like something in his chest slid and clicked into place each time and it was only going to get harder to unravel it all later on.

"Your input really helped," Minho said eventually.

"It's been good working with you," Onew said honestly.

"It has," Minho agreed, which Onew knew was just good manners. Working with Onew had resulted in a dry cleaning bill the length of Minho's arm and more trouble than any working relationship was worth. "I'm not sure I want to do it again."

Onew smiled, though it was weak.

"Do you remember how I said I prefer to keep my work life and private life separate?"

Onew nodded, staring at the bottom of his now empty cup. "I'll get us some more tea," he said, distracted. He rose, took Minho's cup from him, not noticing the frown on Minho's face, and walked back into the kitchen.

A soft touch to his shoulder made him jump and he watched as if it was happening to someone else as the last remnants of Minho's tea flew and splashed Minho's shirt. It was almost poetic, like splashing hot beverages on Minho's expensive shirts were the bookends to their time together.

As it was, it merely brought Onew to the verge of tears.

"Oh for fuck's sake," he said. Minho looked up from his ruined shirt with an eyebrow raised. "This is ridiculous, I'm not this clumsy."

Minho chuckled. "Well, it seems that way to me."

Onew threw a towel at his chest. "I'm not. It's all your fault, you make me nervous and flustered and I just do stupid things and I can't afford your dry cleaning bill, by the way, because who the hell even owns four Ralph Lauren shirts, not to mention wears them around me, and if you weren't so, so tall and good looking, this wouldn't even happen and," he finished, staring helplessly at Minho, unable to believe what he was saying, "I would really like to work with you again anyway."

He was already breathless but the weakness in his knees was definitely thanks to the way Minho's mouth was suddenly on his, insistent and a little impatient. He pulled back before Onew had any idea of what had just happened. After a second, Onew whooped in a much needed breath and said, without the trace of intelligence that had helped him become head of his department before the age of thirty, "Why?"

"I don't want to work with you again," Minho murmured, lips brushing across Onew's cheek, "because then I'd be breaking my own rules on professional behaviour at work."

"Oh," Onew said, and something clicked into place in his head as well as in his chest, and then Minho was kissing him again, hands angling Onew's head back to that he could slide his tongue into Onew's mouth. Onew scrambled for purchase and grabbed Minho's shirt with both hands. He heard a quiet ping sound that could possibly have been a couple of buttons falling onto the floor.

Oh well, he thought, sliding his hand into Minho's hair, add it to the bill.

Key had been finishing off a report, lying on his back on his sofa, when his phone rang. He didn't know the number flashing up on his screen so it was with a tentative, "Hello?" that he answered.

"Key, it's me."

Key almost snarled. "Jonghyun, how the fuck did you get this number?"

"Your boss. Listen, just don't hang up, okay? It's about what happened last night."

"Nothing happened last night," Key said, fighting the urge to throw his pen across the room.

A pause. "We both know that's not true."

"Maybe I just don't want to talk about it, Jonghyun," Key said desperately. "I mean, it's not bad enough that you tricked me into bed once, no, you had to manage it a second time, and it's just embarrassing, so I don't want to talk about it."

"We need to talk about it. Are you free now?"

"No." Key lay his pen down so that he wouldn't snap it in half. "Whatever you want to say, say it over the phone."

"Why does this need to be about tricking?" Jonghyun asked, voice suddenly abrupt; Key wondered if he'd pissed him off with his refusal to meet. He'd even asked security to no longer let Jonghyun into the office. "Why is all the blame put on me? Maybe I just like you. Maybe I just have really liked you for a while, and maybe I liked you in college, too."

"Oh, come off it, you had a reputation for that sort of shit back then."

"It wasn't like we met one night and I seduced you," Jonghyun said, sounding disgusted. "I'd been trying to get close to you for weeks and you know it. I wanted to be friends."

"Friends don't sleep with each other."

"Friends shouldn't run away in the morning without explaining where they stand."

"I thought my silence would have answered that question," Key said.

"It did, right up until you let me stick my-"

"Oh my god, don't-"

"-Tongue down your throat a couple of nights ago," Jonghyun finished. "So don't try to act like you're not affected by me."

"You're so crude."

"You're so stubborn." Key could practically see Jonghyun sticking his tongue out. "But I like you anyway. I wouldn't have slept with you if I didn't."

Key worried his bottom lip between his teeth. He was a scientist, he thought with his head and pushed his heart aside but this time it was remarkably difficult to hear his head over his heart. He took a moment to temper it. "If you're serious, then you need to prove it," he said.

"What does that mean?"

"Well, you could take me for dinner, I guess."

"Oh," Jonghyun said, the smile evident in his voice. "I can do that, I guess."

"Pick me up from work tomorrow," Key said commandingly. "6PM on the dot. Don't be late. You're going to have to work for this. I'm not an easy person to please."

"Please," Jonghyun said, "you can't be worse than my boss."

I'm going to try, Key thought grimly.

Onew walked into the office partly obscured by a huge bouquet of flowers. Taemin stared so hard that he forgot about his game of angry birds completely. Key glanced up, back at his screen, then did a double take. "Who the hell are they from?" he demanded.

"No idea," Onew said, depositing them on Key's desk. "They're for you."

Key gaped at him and the dived into the flowers trying to find a card like an olympic swimmer trying to find a pepple on a pool floor. Onew walked to his desk, switched his computer on, unwound his scarf and then sat watching. Taemin recovered and returned to his game.

It took a couple of minutes but Key eventually resurfaced clutching a card. He read it quickly and a strange look came over his face, one Onew didn't remember ever seeing before. "Who are they from?"

"Jonghyun," Key said softly. He was smiling, Onew realised, and the knowledge hit like a truck; he'd heard about the security business, which was why he'd handed over Key's phone number to begin with. Key shrugged. "I guess he's taken what I said to heart."

"What?"

Key shook his head and looked at Onew. "It's a secr-"

He stopped, eyes narrowing slowly. Onew froze with one hand half in the air to grab a file from a shelf, not sure if he had an insect or something on him. "What, what is it?"

Key jumped to his feet, crossed the room, tugged down Onew's collar and, after a moment, shrieked, "What the fuck is that!"

Onew looked down and then blushed. He didn't remember even knowing Minho had done that, never mind somehow missing it in the shower this morning, but there it was, a rather telling bruise at the bottom of his throat. "It's just a-"

"It's a hickey," Taemin said, bored.

Onew blushed harder and tugged his collar back up. "Who gave you that?" Key demanded, fighting him to look at it more. "What the hell happened?"

"It's nothing," Onew protested, "it's not a hickey, I just burnt myself, I swear."

Key pushed him against the filing cabinet. "Who gave you that," he said, giving Onew a little shake.

"Detective Choi!" Onew yelped before he could stop himself. "He came over last night and, well, things just happened..."

"And he had the nerve to get all high and mighty over inappropriate work relationships," Key said.

"Well, we're technically no longer working together," Onew pointed out in a small voice.

Key let him go with a noise of disgust. "Well, I suppose it's about time, I was starting to think there was something wrong with you."

Onew smiled and turned back to his filing cabinet. After a couple of minutes, he asked, "Taemin, where is Choi Jonghee's file?"

"S," Taemin supplied, "for Stupid Dickhead."

Onew groaned.