The station was buzzing with life, not caring if Yunjin felt exhausted and couldn't keep up.
She slumped back into her chair, looking at the photograph in her hand. A young foreign girl, Chou Lìhuá, only about 23 with striking features, was found dead in an alley with her one-year-old child, whose name had been redacted for privacy reasons in the documents, crying and beaten. It's been about four years since then, so the child would be five now. Even trying to uncover the name would be useless because Yunjin severely doubted that they would remember anything. She sighed, setting it down, closing her eyes trying to go over the facts in her mind.
According to her friends back in Taiwan, Lihua got pregnant, kicked out of her house, and was lured to Korea with the promise of work. No work visas or visas, in general, were ever completed, so in the seven months between her arrival and eventual death, Yunjin had no clue what had actually been going on. She had her suspicions, the autopsy showed high levels of heroin use in her system, but the cause of death was blunt force trauma. And a small tattoo on her wrist, a snake insignia wrapped around her wrist with roman numerals tattooed under it; XII-X-VIXX. Trafficking maybe? That's what Yunjin's current theory was.
"Make any progress on that yet?" Sakura's voice startled her eyes open as she looked over to see the woman leaning over her staring at the file on her desk. First thing Yunjin had noticed, she cut her hair. A good chop, now it ended just above her shoulders, the top half tied up into a half-up ponytail. She was starting to gain a little weight, if you weren't looking you probably wouldn't notice, especially not with the three sizes too big jacket she insisted on wearing to cover her increasingly obvious baby bump.
"No." Yunjin groaned, "No CCTV, no witnesses, this case is also like four years old now. Why was it even reopened anyways?"
"I guess she was the daughter of some big Taiwanese politician." Sakura shrugged, "Apparently he kicked her out when she got pregnant to save face for his campaign, but that didn't end well for either of them. He demanded we reopen the case."
"Do you think this tattoo has anything to do with it?" Yunjin tapped the photo on her desk, "It just keeps nagging me."
Sakura went quiet for a few seconds, "Isn't that the same symbol that patrols picked up last week?"
"Which one?"
"The one that was running and crying half-naked down near Hongdae."
Yunjin snapped, straightening her posture before looking over the file once more. Her fingers flew over to her computer, typing in trying to get the report. Maybe she could interrogate her and try to find something out. She could feel Sakura taking a seat next to her, not so subtly reaching over to grab the bag of potato chips Yunjin had bought from the vending machine in place of a proper lunch. (Don't tell Chaewon). "You can just take them."
With that permission, Sakura snatched the bag letting it rest on her lap as she watched Yunjin work. The loud crunching sound starting to get on Yunjin's nerves she sighed, "Don't you have a case to work on?"
"I'm on break."
"So?"
"I'm not sure if you know this, but a break is when you don't work for a little bit and relax so you don't overwork yourself."
"Wow? Really?" Yunjin deadpanned, glaring over at her friend who just rolled her eyes in response. "Speaking about breaks, are you and Kazuha doing better now?"
"Yeah," Sakura sounded relieved by that, and quite frankly Yunjin was as well. Kazuha's text to her had been very angry, and Yunjin thinks it was fair. They made a big decision that affected the lawyer without her knowledge or consent, and Zuha was never a person to take very kindly to things like that. "We talked about it."
"Did you tell her about the baby yet?"
"Actually, I think I'm going to do it tomorrow on our date."
Yunjin cracked a smile at that, Kazuha was going to be thrilled. "That's great."
"Speaking of babies," Sakura smiled followed by a particularly loud crunch, "How's yours, isn't the trial on Monday? Is she going to be okay with seeing her Mom again?"
The detective wasn't sure. Chaewon and her had tried to bring it up to Eunchae, tried to explain what exactly was going to happen and that she was going to have to talk to Chaewon and everyone in court about what Joohyun asked her. Eunchae's first question was if she was going to have to go back with her mom, but Yunjin wasn't all too sure if that was out of fear or if she genuinely was missing her mother. She knew for a fact Eunchae missed her, even if she wouldn't tell that to Chaewon and her, she had overheard Eunchae talking about it with Kyujin. Kyujin being five, had no idea how to respond but she tried her best and it seemed good enough for Eunchae.
The trial, another reason why Yunjin was losing sleep. The detective had little reason to believe Eunchae would be going back with her Mom for a very long time, but the sentence was what was bothering her. From what Chaewon had been telling her, Eunchae's mother had not been cooperating, insisting that she wasn't guilty of hurting her, that she didn't do anything wrong. And if the judges believed whatever she was about to say on the stand, she could be looking at only five maybe ten years behind bars. Yunjin wanted her to rot in there, for her to never see the light of day again because from what Eunchae told her, when Eunjung was in the position to protect her child, she failed. There was nothing Yunjin hated more than a failure.
Instead of letting her word vomit rush out, and overwhelm Sakura, she just shrugged. Yunjin had a therapist to unload this all on, Sakura had other things to worry about. She didn't see Sakura frown in disappointment when she did so. The supervisor didn't let that settle though, "Are you leaving to go pick her up soon?"
"No, today is her sleepover day with Kyujin."
Sakura chuckled, "Those two are going to get married one day, mark my word."
"Absolutely not, Eunchae is never going to date ever."
"C'mon, think about it. Childhood sweethearts turned lovers-"
"She's six!"
"She won't be six forever!"
"I'm tuning you out now."
Sakura laughed.
***
"I'm home!" Yunjin called out, kicking off her shoes as Rey greeted her enthusiastically wagging his tail as Yunjin bent down to greet him. She heard a muffled- something come from the living room, she rounded the corner and saw Chaewon laying face down on the couch, still dressed in her work clothes. She chuckled, sitting on the other side of the couch as Chaewon slowly sat up. The detective's entire body ached, she felt sleepy, all she wanted to do was order some takeout and relax with her kinda girlfriend.
"Long day?" Chaewon asked, opening up the container of chinese food on the small coffee table in front of them. Yunjin just nodded, letting her body sink into the couch.
"Eunchae's not home," Chaewon mused, looking over at Yunjin with that glint in her eyes, "Do you wanna...you know?"
It had been a while, at least a few weeks now since they had been intimate, and Yunjin didn't blame Chaewon for suggesting it. Honestly she wanted to as well, but she was just so tired. Chaewon seemed to pick up on that, diverting the situation and scooping a spoon of rice into Yunjin's mouth. Yunjin quirked a brow, "Yeah?"
"You seem tired,"
"I am, how about you?"
"Exhausted." Chaewon sighed, "This fucking trial is going to be the death of me." The lawyer passed Yunjin her own spoon before starting to chew on some of the food, "And Eunchae..I hope she's going to be okay."
"I booked a few extra appointments with her therapist next week just in case."
"Good."
Chaewon had seemingly taken over every single surface in Yunjin's apartment, everything screamed Chaewon. Looking around she could see Chaewon's set of knives and kitchen equipment in the kitchen, her shoes near the door along with her coat draped over one of the kitchen chairs, even some of the toys she would play with Eunchae were out on the living room floor. Every night after dinner those two would play, and sometimes Yunjin would join in, sometimes she would just watch. It was a bit scary how absolutely in love she felt.
There was something nagging at her though, as things got more and more serious the fact that they didn't really have a label was starting to bug her. She just wanted to know if Chaewon felt the same way about her that she felt about the Lawyer. She knew Chaewon didn't like when she went quiet, it meant she was thinking. She could feel Chaewon looking at her, before she sighed, "Chaewon-"
"Yeah?"
"Do you," Yunjin tried to work up the courage, she felt like a highschooler asking out her crush again, "Do you maybe want to be official?"
"Yunjin-"
Yunjin held her breath, anxiety bubbling in her stomach as Chaewon looked at her with this expression like she couldn't believe the detective was even saying that. This was a mistake, she should'nt have said anything. Yunjin wasn't sure her heart could take it if Chaewon rejected her now. The lawyer had become such a stable part of her life, someone who she was so absolutely in love with if Chaewon left- Oh god what if Chaewon left. She's going to leave, this was a mistake-
"You thought we weren't dating? Babe, I've practically moved in." Chaewon sounded surprised before giggling, "Of course we are girlfriends. You know, for someone whose job is to look at the small details of things you really do miss a lot."
Oh. Wait-
Yunjin's mouth opened a little bit, before nodding slowly. "R-right."
"What am I going to do with you?" Chaewon giggled, leaning in to place a soft peck on Yunjin's lips. Yunjin kissed back harder, pulling Chaewon onto her lap and wrapping her hands around the woman's waist. Chaewon let out a small whine when Yunjin nipped at her neck-
Ring Ring
God fucking damnit. Yunjin fished her phone out of her pocket before looking at the caller ID; Wonyoung. As cute as Eunchae was, she really had the worst timing.
"Hey Wonyoung, what's up?"
"Yunjin?" It was Eunchae, her voice sounded watery like she had been crying, "Can you pick me up?"
Frowning, she shot a look over at Chaewon before humming an agreement, "Of course, did you and Kyujin get into a fight?"
"I'm scared." Eunchae sure did sound it, gently crying into the phone as Chaewon now sat up and Yunjin set it to speakerphone.
"Why are you scared?" Yunjin pressed gently.
"They're going to hurt you! He saw you!" Eunchae sobbed, Yunjin could hear Yujin speaking gently in the background and slight sniffles from Kyujin. In hindsight, Yunjin should have expected this, Eunchae had been a nervous wreck ever since they had seen Jiho in the store, she wouldn't leave Yunjin or Chaewon's side. She had thought maybe a fun night with her best friend would take Eunchae's mind off of it for a little bit, but apparently she was wrong. "Yunjin, he's going to do it to you too!"
"Eunchae," Chaewon cut in, her voice calm and steady like she was talking to one of her clients, "Hey, calm down. We're okay, guess what Yunjin's a cop. It's a rule, cops can't be hurt. And if Yunjin is with us then they can't hurt any of us, okay?"
"Promise?"
Chaewon paused, "We'll come to get you, how about you put Wonyoung on the phone so we can talk to her?"
After a bit of shuffling, Wonyoung's voice rang through the phone, it was clear she was stressed this probably wasn't something she had to deal with before, "I'm so sorry. She fell asleep while we were watching a movie and she just jerked awake and scared all of us. Kyujin's a bit upset too right now, I don't think she likes seeing Eunchae so upset. I don't know if we spooked her or something-"
Cutting Wonyoung off mid-rant Yunjin sighed, "No it's okay, she's just a little stressed right now. She's been having nightmares recently, and I bet the stress of the trial and everything else just is starting to get to her." She got off the couch and slipped on her shoes as Chaewon tossed her the keys to her car, "We'll be there in ten."
True to her words they arrived in seven minutes (Chaewon may or may not have broken a few traffic laws in their panic), and Eunchae all but dove into Yunjin's arms as soon as the front door opened. She gripped onto her shirt so tightly her tiny fists were starting to turn white, and she was shaking. Yunjin cooed, "Hey, hey, I'm here, don't worry."
Eunchae didn't respond, just dug her face into Yunjin's shoulder as the detective picked her up. Chaewon took Eunchae's bag from Yujin, tucking it onto her shoulder as they bid a quick goodbye. Eunchae didn't speak the rest of the way home, or even after Yunjin sat them both on the couch and pulled a blanket over them, or when Chaewon took one of the new books she had bought the other day and started to read it to her under there. Yunjin wasn't sure if Eunchae didn't have the energy to speak, or the vocabulary to express exactly what she felt.
Yunjin was going to make sure Eunchae never worried about any of those fuckers ever again. She pinky promised.