A/N: Spring Day!!!!!!!!!!! Also, there's a hint in this chapter - it should be pretty easy to spot if you're paying attention. Thanks for reading! :)
***
I kept looking in the rearview mirror as I drove to meet Areum and her family, fearing that I would be followed. But I didn't see anything – not that I really knew what I should be looking for. A car that was following me, of course. But I didn't really know how to spot the difference between a car that was tailing me and a car that was just sharing the road with me; it was especially hard to tell on highways like this.
This was the same stupid stuff that I'd been doing for the past few months, with absolutely no results. Nothing I did was effective! I couldn't even spot a trailing car, let alone throw one off track.
I was so over this whole crazy situation.
I relaxed as I neared the small house that belonged to one of the Kim family's friends, who was out of town for a few days on business and had agreed to let them stay there over the weekend. The house was near the ocean, so that was something to look forward to. I was also just so excited to get out of town for a while.
As I parked in front of the house Areum had told me about, I sighed and turned off the radio. Driving alone was such a drag.
Taking my black duffel bag out of the trunk, I walked up to the house and knocked. Areum opened the door quickly and tackled me in a hug. "Chunhwa! I've missed you!"
I hugged her back with one arm. "I've missed you too." Walking into the house, I greeted Areum's mother and father, then followed her to a bedroom.
"We'll be staying here," she said, gesturing to the two twin beds. "Take your pick."
Sitting on the left one, I moved my bag against the end of the bed. "How have you been?"
"Pretty good. I'm still working at that daycare, and I love it."
"Are you doing okay with..." I trailed off, realizing that it was tactless to ask about Seulgi right now. After all, he was supposed to be the one here on vacation with her; I was just a replacement because of the breakup.
"Yes, I'm doing fine." She hesitated, but as her parents called us, she smiled and nodded her head toward the door. "We're going for a walk on the beach, do you want to come?"
"Of course!" I smiled back.
After the walk, which offered Areum and me a chance to catch up, we had dinner and sat on the porch in the fading summer heat of twilight, talking. I felt myself growing tired – after all, I'd had about four hours of sleep the night before.
Blinking to stay awake, I was startled when Areum's father's phone rang. Answering it, a smile grew over his face. When he hung up, he looked at his family and grinned. "Namjoon says he was able to get some time off, and he'll be at the train station in half an hour."
I smiled at the others' excitement. They saw Namjoon so infrequently – I didn't want to think about how painful it must be for them to hardly ever see him.
"When do we need to leave to pick him up?" Areum asked.
"In about ten minutes."
Areum's mother made an exclamation and rushed into the house. "I must check the room!"
"I'm going to make sure we have snacks!" Areum ran after her mother.
I looked at Mr. Kim. He smiled and said, "Are you coming with us to the train station?"
"If there's room in the car, sir," I said.
"Are you sure?" he asked doubtfully.
I shrugged a little. "It's better than staying here by myself, I think." Although, if I stayed, I could nap...
"All right, but I'll have no yelling or fighting between you and Namjoon." He wiggled his finger at me with a smile.
I laughed. "Oh no, we've gotten a lot better at hiding how much we hate each other now that we're older."
He laughed too. "That's good, because I don't want to have to spend my weekend watching fists fly."
"I promise there won't be any fighting," I grinned.
"Good, good."
As silence fell, I looked off into the dusk, smiling. This was what I'd missed – the ability to laugh and take some joy in life. This weekend was looking to be just what I'd needed.
Areum and her mother bustled out of the house. "Ready?"
We got in the car, and as soon as we began backing out of the driveway I felt my eyelids drifting closed. Drat this propensity for sleeping in the car, it just wouldn't go away.
*
Namjoon looked up as he heard his parents greet him. Shoving his phone into his pocket, he stood up and embraced them. As he spotted Areum, he pulled her in for a hug as well.
"How have you been?" he asked them.
"Good, really good," his mother said, her eyes drinking in the sight of him actually being with his family for a while. Namjoon smiled – he understood. He was doing the same thing, trying to absorb all the memories of his family for when he could no longer be with them.
"Here," his father said, picking up the black duffel bag.
"No, I have it," Namjoon said, reaching out.
His father grumped, "I'm not so old that I can't carry one bag."
"I never said you were," Namjoon was quick to say, seeing the smile behind his father's face as they walked to the car, talking about what had been happening in the months since they'd seen each other.
Namjoon opened one of the back doors, and saw Chunhwa dozing there, beginning to frown as her arm rest had disappeared. Quickly, before she was awake enough to be grumpy, he closed the door again and walked to the other side. Areum had already slid through to the middle seat, and patted the seat behind the driver. "Here you go, Namjoon!"
"Thank you, Areum."
As they began to drive and the conversation turned to plans for the day that Namjoon would be there, Chunhwa stirred. Namjoon looked over to see her blinking her eyes open, and smiled.
"Hello Chunhwa."
"Hi."
Namjoon chuckled at her grumpy tone. "Is my family so boring that you fell asleep?"
"Please, Namjoon, I promised your father there wouldn't be any fighting." She rubbed her eyes, and sighed.
"Okay. Anything new and exciting in your life?" Namjoon leaned forward so he could see better around Areum.
"Not since yesterday," Chunhwa said.
"Wasn't that technically today?"
"Don't remind me."
Areum looked back and forth from one side of her to the other. "Today?"
"Namjoon was kind enough to listen to some of my stupid ramblings at a stupid time in the morning," Chunhwa said. "I've got some weird stuff going on."
"Like what?" Areum asked.
Namjoon watched as Chunhwa waved her hand. "Nothing really important," she said.
Yeah, right. Somebody who is playing a life-or-death shadow game with you is not really important. Namjoon sighed – she was probably just trying not to spoil their vacation, or worry his family. That was nice, he supposed.
Namjoon looked up to catch his father's eyes in the mirror, and smiled. He went back to asking his family about themselves.
When they arrived at the house, Areum shook Chunhwa – who had fallen asleep again – and pushed at Namjoon's arm. "Hurry up, don't you want to see the house? And we have snacks for you! Come on!"
Namjoon smiled and jumped out of the car. "Lead the way," he said as he grabbed his duffel bag from the back of the car. Following Areum into the house, he heard his parents and Chunhwa bringing up the rear.
Areum proudly showed him the stash of snacks and then took his bag from his hand. "I'll put this in your room! It's the second one on the right."
"Okay, thank you," Namjoon said, watching her awkwardly haul the duffel bag toward the hallway.
As the others came inside, Chunhwa followed Areum, and Namjoon's parents joined him in the kitchen.
Taking out some of the snacks, Namjoon sat with them at the table. They talked for a long time, and he relished the chance to have a deep conversation face-to-face with his parents.
When Namjoon realized how late it had gotten, he reluctantly said good night and began to clean up the food while his parents headed to bed.
On his way to his room, he passed the open door into Areum and Chunhwa's room. He saw Areum passed out on one of the beds; Chunwha was sitting on the other with her back against the wall, looking at the laptop in front of her.
"Areum fell asleep?" Namjoon asked quietly. Chunhwa's head snapped up, and he saw her slap a smile over her previously pained look.
"Yes, we were talking and she kind of..." Chunhwa trailed off as Namjoon walked softly into the room.
"What are you looking at?" Namjoon asked, carefully sitting across from her on Areum's bed.
Chunhwa sighed and whispered, "Come sit over here, I don't want you to wake Areum up."
Namjoon scooted onto the bed next to her, leaning against the wall. Chunhwa turned her laptop so he could see the screen, and he looked at the picture of a smiling young man.
Looking at Chunhwa, he saw that she was staring at the picture silently, and looked from her to the picture. It wasn't that hard to put two and two together – there was a good chance this was that boyfriend of hers who had been killed.
"Is that... um..." Namjoon couldn't remember his name.
"Seong Hajun." After a moment, she said, "He was a handsome kid, wasn't he?"
Namjoon looked at the photo. "I guess." He looked back at Chunhwa, who was still staring at the picture. "He has a nice smile," he said when she didn't move.
"Yes, he did. He was very nice. Weird, but so sweet."
Areum shifted, and Chunhwa lowered her voice. Closing the photo, she looked at Namjoon. "Can I run something by you? I feel like a second opinion would be good."
Namjoon raised his eyebrows and said, "Sure."
She put her laptop to the side and got up to grab something from her bag. Sitting back down, she opened the notebook and showed it to Namjoon. "This is everything I've been able to find on the cases that police officer told me he was not satisfied with. One of them is Hajun's case, then there was another man and five women. I've tried to compare the cases see if they're connected."
"Why?"
"I don't know what else to do. If the person who killed Hajun also killed other people, that gives more clues – or it should." Namjoon looked at her distressed face and left off the questioning. He knew it must have been hard for her to accept a death with no answers; maybe she'd never truly gotten over it.
Chunhwa traced her finger down the list of names. "All five of the women were young, in college or beginning their careers, and lived alone. Four of them were killed at home, while the other was killed while she was on a late-night run. In one way, they seem definitely linked, but I think younger women who live alone are probably more common victims? I don't know." She absently twisted the notebook. "And I don't live alone, so that would theoretically disconnect me from these women. But who really knows? It's so hard to guess what goes on in the mind of a killer like this."
"Okay." Namjoon was not liking the way she was so matter-of-factly talking about a killer. She shouldn't have to deal with things like this.
"Both men's bodies were found in places that they never went, where you'd have to really be looking in order to find them. So the men could be connected to each other, but I'm not sure if they're connected to the women." She sighed. "I need to look for more information about all of them."
"Have you explained this information to the police?" Namjoon asked.
"Yes," she said. "But–"
"Then what you need to do is focus on keeping yourself safe and moving on with your life. Okay?"
She looked away, chin up stubbornly.
Namjoon sighed when she said nothing. "I'm sorry you have these kind of things weighing on you, Chunhwa."
She shrugged. "It is what it is." She picked up her phone, looking through it. "I had one suspicion–" she showed a picture to him – "but the police said he's in jail."
Namjoon looked at the photo. The man's thick eyebrows, square face, and strong chin gave an impression of power, but his hair and clothes were tidy. His expression as he crossed the street was mild, neither smiling nor frowning.
"Where'd you get this?"
"I took it, and gave it to the police. I thought this guy was following me for a while, so I thought it couldn't be anyone else who would shoot Hajun and call my boss, but apparently he's been in jail for too long to have been the killer."
Namjoon looked at the photo again and then at Chunhwa. "You should go to sleep."
She sighed. "You should too."
He stood up. "Goodnight, Chunhwa."
"Goodnight, Namjoon. Thanks for listening." Namjoon smiled, checked to see that Areum was sleeping well, and then left, shutting the door softly.
*
Kim Yeongho closed the file of information Chunhwa had sent him and dialed Lee Jeongjin. The chief had to listen to him at some point.
"Lee Jeongjin, Chief of Police. I'm not in my office at the moment. Please leave a message or call Lee Jeongho. The number–"
Yeongho hung up. He looked through the paperwork, eventually opening the file of Chunhwa's complaint from a couple of years ago. He looked at the picture she'd given them of the supposed stalker – he couldn't blame her for being a bit worried, with that face lurking around.
The narrow face, sharp nose and hooded eyes were enough by themselves, but the defining feature of the man was the scar that ran above his left eyebrow. This picture of him sitting on a bench fiddling with his phone felt incongruous.
Oh well – it didn't matter. Yeongho had cross-referenced this picture with their criminal profiles, and this guy was in jail.