Invitations | MinSung

1

Jisung walked into the dark, empty office, not bothering to switch a light on. His footsteps echoed in the silence as he trudged towards his small desk in the far corner of the room. It was late night and all he could think about was sleep. His head felt heavy, as if he couldn't keep it up for any longer, begging him to lie down.

But, like an idiot, he had left his keys in his desk drawer.

Jisung sighed, approaching his drawer and yanking it open, his eyes widening when he saw what had been left there for him. Suddenly, sleep held no importance in his mind as he picked up the red envelope, feeling quite glad, now, that he had forgotten his keys.

"You have been invited to the annual dinner held by Jang Dae Hoon.

Date: Friday 12th February
Location: City House Restaurant
Dress code: Formal

Time: 8:30PM

We hope to see you there."

Jisung let out a frustrated groan as he read the date and time of the dinner. It was scheduled for tomorrow evening and he had to work in the office, since he had taken over the theft cases his district had encountered recently.

He couldn't exactly ignore the invitation, but he had no idea on how to get out of work. He couldn't call in sick, since he had used that excuse one too many times. How could he attend the event and keep his job at the same time?

Jisung shook his head, deciding to worry about it later as he reached for the origami paper crane enclosed in the envelope. Wondering what it would be this time, he unfolded the crane and revealed the message inside.

"scapegoat/ˈskeɪpɡəʊt/
noun
a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others."

As usual, it made no sense to Jisung. He didn't know how a scapegoat could link to Crane's actions. He sighed and grabbed his keys, shoving the invitation and crane in his pocket.

It had been like this for the past 6 months. Jisung had been receiving multiple invitations to various events he had nothing to do with. Within every invitation there was a origami paper crane that contained a nonsense message. He didn't think much of them at first until he realised that a murder took place at every single one of these events. Jisung became more and more intrigued in these invitations and, eventually, brought it up to his superiors. He asked for permission to pursue this case, using the invitations as a lead.

However, he was denied. The higher ups laughed and told him to get his head out of the clouds. They rejected his evidence and told him to stop overcomplicating matters. They told him to leave it to the professionals.

Jisung knew what they really meant. They didn't want this series of murders to get out hand by trying to find the person or organisation behind it because of an important public figure that Jisung was sure had something to do with the motive of the killer. They wanted to close this case as quickly as possible and pray that it would stop on it's own.

Jisung couldn't just leave it and back down because of his stuck up seniors. He took it into his own hands and tried his best to catch the killer he had named 'Crane'.

Whenever he had received an invitation, he did everything in his power to outwit Crane and find whoever was behind it all, but he was always too late. No matter how hard he tried, Crane was always a step ahead. All Jisung ever found was an origami paper crane at the crime scene with the same message written on it every time:

"Maybe next time :)"

There were no patterns Jisung could identify. The victims were killed in multiple different ways. Sometimes by a gun, sometimes a knife, sometimes a dull object and sometimes by the criminals own hands. The timing didn't match up either. Sometimes, he received only one invitation over two months, and other times he received three invitations a week. Everything about Crane was so sporadic.