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“Trust me, Joonghyuk-ssi. ‘SSSSSS-Consulting’ has a stellar reputation. Please just give them a chance.” Yoo Sangah practically begs.
That’s how Yoo Joonghyuk found himself standing in the middle of a crime scene, overlooking the many crime scene technicians scavenging the vicinity for evidence of any kind. When he arrived on the scene, an esper, likely a part of the first responders team, had already set up a barrier around the area.
Yoo Sangah had initially called him that evening while he was on his way home after finishing his shift. She told him he should take a look at a body that was reported, thinking that the M.O. was similar to another case their department was working on. He agreed to head over to the scene to take a look.
What Yoo Sangah had (conveniently) forgotten to mention was that the other case was subcontracted out to a private specialist firm some months back — a referral that Yoo Sangah, herself, had made, making him all the more suspicious — due to the overload of cases that their department was currently suffering from.
In other words, they were understaffed and overworked so the case was pushed to a no-name private firm so that it could be someone else’s problem.
He had a hunch that their Department Head had initially told Yoo Sangah to push the other case into the ‘Cold Case’ files. If the Department Head were to be asked why the 2-year-old case was so quickly turned over, the P.R. response would have been that the case was a dead end and would be revisited again when new evidence was found. The truth was likely because there wasn’t enough money and political pressure involved in solving the case.
But Yoo Joonghyuk had been working with his, for lack of a better term, ‘handler’ for more than 3 years now. He knew Yoo Sangah better than most of their co-workers. He was sure she had subcontracted that other case the moment she received the notice of the change in status.
Why she had given it to this strangely named private firm remained to be determined.
From what he had gleaned from the case file, the now 2-year-old case had initially started with a call to the local police precinct from a man who lived in the suburbs. He had called to report that his “story was stolen”. When the dispatch officer had asked the man if he meant something like ‘plagiarism’, the man just kept insisting his story was stolen, sounding more and more hysterical, without much further explanation for clarity.
The dispatch officer had already marked the complaint as a non-emergency and asked the man for further details of his situation. Yet the man had demanded that they send the entire force over to his house because his story was stolen!
Then the call was promptly disconnected.
A few cars from the local police force were of course sent over, although there was no rush since it was already written off as some crazy man calling in to share his nonsensical ravings.
However, when the officers arrived at the recorded address, they encountered something unexpected.
The house was located at the end of a street, backed up to the treeline of a forest that bordered the mountains. It was broad daylight, a working day, so the other houses along the street were quiet, the inhabitants already gone off to work or school.
Which was either a blessing or a curse for the officers who arrived first at the scene.
A blessing because they found the man already dead, pinned to the side of his house, stretched out like a macabre scarecrow, his face completely mutilated.
And a curse because there were no witnesses, no markers to construct a timeline that they could follow other than when the man called the station, and the call record indicating that the man had made the call from the location of his home.
It should have been a cut-and-dry case for the local police to handle.
The anomaly came in the form of a simple statement on the crime scene description:
〔No blood was found in, on, or around the body of the man. No blood was found inside the man’s house, inside the man’s car, or anywhere else in the vicinity of the neighborhood.〕
It was considered that maybe the murder had happened elsewhere, at some distant place. However, as the possibility was considered, the time it took from the man’s call to the officers reaching his home address was less than fifteen minutes.
First, there were no recorded espers that had an ability related to exsanguination. It may be possible with a water-specialized esper, but it would require an unbelievable amount of precise control as not to leave any evidence that could be detectable.
Second, the timeline was too short for there to be no evidence left at all. Draining a body completely through wounds only made to the face of the victim would require a much longer period of time and be much messier than the ‘pristine’ condition of the crime scene.
And that’s how the case landed with their department: Esper Response Specialization, or ERS.
(He lost count of how many times he had heard Yoo Sangah complain about the many inquiries they received regarding retirement information.)
So, here Yoo Joonghyuk was, standing at a crime scene, with the victim’s bloodless body, their face mutilated, waiting for this no-name firm to show up.
The lab technician, Han Dareum, was busy taking photos and processing what she could on-scene before they took the body to her lab.
It was then that Yoo Joonghyuk looked towards a commotion at the edge of the barrier. From this distance he couldn’t quite make out the faces of the interlopers, but both silhouettes looked slim in stature, both of them wearing white coats.
After a brief interaction and I.D. check with an officer-on-duty, the two forms entered the crime scene, headed straight towards him. And, as they drew closer, although he noted they were trying to keep the conversation between themselves, he was able to hear snippets of their banter.
“Why… here again?”
“...related…leads…”
“But why am I here?”
Yoo Joonghyuk thought the exact same thing.
“You’re my expert in anything story-related. Why are you even complaining? I’m buying you food later.”
「Story-related?」
“I can buy my own food. Plus the next episode in the serialization is coming out today.”
「…」
“ And ? It’s a serialization ! It will be there later tonight, tomorrow, and the next day. That’s how paid content works.”
“You can’t know that for sure. What if the whole thing gets taken down, without notice, without warning? You never know with these things.”
“Pah! Now you’re just being paranoid! There is a dead victim, here and now, that I need you to [Read]. Please ! I didn’t get to do this with the first body.”
“Ha… Fine.”
Yoo Joonghyuk just stood there, his face remaining expressionless as he listened to such a ridiculous conversation, and wondering why he was even needed here at all.
Then one of the strangers looked up and noticed him. She looked rather petite, light-skinned, with subtle curves hidden beneath the white coat. Her face was somewhat small, and her eyes were large with a distinctive beauty mark beneath the corner of her left eye. Her hair was short and fine, pitch black, with a length that just reached her shoulders. And, based on scent alone, he could tell she was a Beta.
“Detective Han of SSSSSS-Consulting. Nice to meet you. I see that Director Yoo was not able to meet us here. Did she ask you to be our babysitter?”
He thought she had the bearing of an Alpha with the attitude to match.
“Not in so many words.” He acknowledged.
Detective Han chuckled. “Yes, she is very good at pushing buttons in just the right order to get the results she wants.”
He only nodded, then looked to the detective’s companion, who seemed to be in a daze, staring off at something just to the left of Yoo Joonghyuk’s ear. He had a slender build with very pale skin, almost milky in color. His face was softly rounded with subtle, high cheekbones.
But, unlike the detective, Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t tell if this man was an Alpha, Beta, or Omega.
With a sharp sense of smell courtesy of his designation, it was rare for Yoo Joonghyuk to encounter another person who didn’t give off any detectable indicators.
Detective Han gently nudged her companion, softly scolding, “You’re always [Reading]. Introduce yourself, you neanderthal.”
A subtle tremor ran through the man’s frame. His eyes regained their focus and a shy, awkward smile stretched his lips. “Kim Dokja, Detective Han’s part-time consultant.”
However, when Yoo Joonghyuk met the full force of that gaze and heard the soft cadence of his voice, it was as if he had stepped into a haze.
For a moment, he imagined he could see an entire nebula swirling in the darkness of those eyes. The stars entranced him, his rusty Alpha instincts waking up and yawning wide, engulfing everything inside him.
It wasn’t something he was expecting, especially when standing in the middle of a crime scene, so he was barely able to restrain himself in time before he started unconsciously pumping Alpha pheromones into the air around them.
Before the silence became too awkward, he cleared his throat and said the first thing that came to his mind, and he immediately wished that he had the ability to regress.
“Strange name.”
Kim Dokja chuckled graciously, breaking the subtle tension forming between them. “I’ve heard that a lot.”
Then, Kim Dokja looked at him thoughtfully. “I’ve also heard some about you, Esper Yoo Joonghyuk. Heard you’re known in other circles as ‘Secretive Plotter’.”
Detective Han scoffed. “ You heard of him? I thought you were living buried in novels for so long that he wouldn’t even be on your radar.”
Kim Dokja playfully glared at her. “I do read things other than webnovels, you plagiarist .”
Detective Han squawked in outrage. “Hah! Ungrateful rat .”
Before it could devolve any further, Yoo Joonghyuk intervened. “You… know me?”
Kim Dokja laughed breathily, his shy smile returning, as he grasped the back of his neck nervously. “I do.” A slight blush stained his cheeks. “I work for a small gaming company. [1864] is pretty famous. I’m kind of a fan.”
Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t explain why he felt a pang of jealousy about that. [1864] was just a facet of himself, so he essentially was feeling jealous… of himself.
Still, it bothered him regardless of the details.
Then.
“Well, a fan of both you and [1864]. I read some articles and heard about your cases at ERS.” He grinned wider. “Especially the one where you caught that bomber, Choi Han-Gyu.”
At the mention of the name, Yoo Joonghyuk vaguely recalled that Choi Han-Gyu was one of his earlier hunts, when he was a rookie starting out at ERS.
It made him feel slightly less jealous.
Detective Han glanced slyly between them before teasing. “Dokja, you're so shameless, flirting at a crime scene.”
Kim Dokja blushed even more furiously and stuttered out a protest, obviously flustered.
And Yoo Joonghyuk discovered that he liked seeing Kim Dokja flustered.
Han Dareum approached distractedly. “I finished processing what I could here. The body can be moved when we’re ready to load up.” And with that, she wandered off, already flicking through the many photos she had taken of the body and the scene around it.
Detective Han glanced at Yoo Joonghyuk. “Has Director Yoo at least briefed you on what we’re here for?”
Yoo Joonghyuk shook his head. “She only said to be here.”
Detective Han clicked her tongue. “Typical. Well, we were given a previous case where the victim was left in a similar state. If you don’t mind, can we take a look at the body before you pack up and get out of here?”
Yoo Joonghyuk nodded and Director Han nudged Kim Dokja. “You’re up.”
Kim Dokja slowly approached the body, pulling a pair of medical gloves from his coat pocket and snapping them on.
Yoo Joonghyuk watched as he first searched through the victim’s pockets, finding a wallet in one of them and flipping through it. After a moment of scanning through what seemed like the victim’s identification information, he closed the wallet and placed it on the victim’s chest.
“Identification says the victim's last name is ‘Baudrillard’, first name ‘Jean’. Guide, Alpha, 231 years old.” He looked up at the apartments and high rises around him.
Detective Han’s eyes sharpen. “What?”
“Just a feeling. Give me a minute.” Kim Dokja’s eyes lost focus as he stared at a point above the victim’s body. Yoo Joonghyuk noticed his breathing deepening and his body relaxing. He felt the familiar disturbance in the space around them signaling the use of an ability.
“Esper?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked, his voice quiet so that he wasn’t overheard.
Detective Han hummed. “Something like that.” She gives him a crafty look. “Maybe you should ask him later.” Then she chuckled. “He’s a [Reader].”
It was the first time he had ever heard such a thing. “I don’t know what that is.”
She scrunched her face in thought. “It’s a bit difficult to explain. To be honest, it’s easier to just witness it in action, draw your own conclusions. Condensing it into words is… difficult.”
She thought more about it. “The basic theory is that the core of everything is a ‘story’.” She tilts her head toward Kim Dokja. “His speciality is that he can [Read] those [Stories]. Ideally, if you give him enough context, he can attempt to reconstruct the [Story].”
Yoo Joonghyuk was skeptical. “Like… pseudo-science?” His teeth clenched reflexively as he asked. “Or retro-cognition?” He couldn’t stop the hint of old rage coloring his voice.
Detective Han looked warily at Yoo Joonghyuk before saying. “No, it’s nothing like predicting the future or reviewing the past.” She shook her head once, a sign of frustration. “I can’t explain it properly.”
“Sooyoung-ssi.” A whisper.
Detective Han’s spine snapped straight as she headed over to where Kim Dokja was kneeling. Curious, Yoo Joonghyuk followed. She pulled a calligraphy brush from the inside pocket of her coat and gently placed it in Kim Dokja’s hand, nudging his fingers to hold it properly. And, as if in a haze, he began unhurriedly moving the brush through the air over the victim’s body, almost like sweeping together wayward specks of invisible dust.
A few moments passed like this. And Yoo Joonghyuk could admit that it didn’t feel like he was watching nonsense. To his senses, it felt like moving currents filled with potential, like being trapped in the moment where the wings of a butterfly were about to flap, causing a storm on the other side of the world.
Kim Dokja slowly returned to himself, drawing in a deep breath. “It didn’t happen here.” He looked down at the victim skeptically. “I also don’t think he’s 231 years old.”
Detective Han unwrapped a candy from her pocket, popping it in her mouth, humming thoughtfully. “Older?”
“Definitely.”
“Hmm.” A pause. “You got a trace?”
Kim Dokja stripped the gloves from his hands as he stood, seeming a bit unsteady on his feet. And, like they had been doing this for years, Detective Han pulled an evidence bag from a passing tech, and held it open for Kim Dokja to place his gloves in.
Yoo Joonghyuk wondered for how long they had worked together.
“He’s missing a lot of [Words].” Kim Dokja sighed, obviously frustrated. “I’m surprised there’s anything left at all.”
He looked down at the body thoughtfully. “But, Jean’s [Story]... it’s definitely been stolen.”
Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t decide if he was being serious or if Kim Dokja was faking a connection between the first case and this one.
《But he knew he would stick around to find out.》