Saving Grace

Chapter 4

He could not believe that Min Ho was one of the prosecutors that was sent out to check on them. He had been honest (as honest as he ever was) to him about some of his feelings those evenings and if he was going to dig deep, he would notice that Ba Reum's reputation here was the one of a big softy, which would not fit with the Ba Reum Min Ho had seen those evenings.

He wondered if Min Ho would destroy his carefully crafted world.

Of course he grabbed the opportunity to get the flyers and get the hell out of this situation, if only to mentally regroup and to distance himself.

"Just a minute, we'll go with you." Min Ho said and of course, since he was the highest rank with them, no on could object.

They walked back towards the police station and he could feel that his senior would take revenge for this in the future. Ba Reum knew that the man was thinking he got special treatment for the prosecutor, so that meant at least extra paperwork for the next two weeks. Petty man.

It didn't take long for them to return, they hadn't gotten far on patrol yet.

"Where can I find the coffee machine?" Min Ho asked, earning questioning looks from the other three men with him.

"It's right over there." The younger of his two seniors said, pointing the way towards their small side area.

"Thank you. Please sit down." Min Ho said, gesturing to Ba Reum to sit down.

"How do you take your coffee?" he asked Ba Reum, who gave him a bewildered stare.

"I'm sorry, I don't think it's the time to drink.." Ba Reum started, but Min Ho interrupted him.

"You have been working from this morning on, and just puked at least two times. You look white and clammy. I want you to sit here and drink some coffee with sugar and eat something, before you faint."

"It's fine, I can go on.." Ba Reum started to say, getting up from his chair.

"Oh, no you don't." Min Ho said, and gently pushed Ba Reum back down in the chair. He turned do his senior colleagues.

"So, how does he like his coffee?" Min Ho asked, they stared back at him.

"I don't know." They both said, "how do you drink your coffee."

"Black." Ba Reum said softly, unsure of this situation, "one sugar."

Min Ho nodded and poured him a cup, added a sugar and gave the cup to him.

"Is this box for everyone?" Min Ho asked, pointing at the box of pastries that Ba Reum had brought this morning.

"Ba Reum brought them." His colleague said.

"Oh, it seems that you wanted to celebrate the arrest of the killer." Min Ho said, and took out a lighter pastry from the box, giving it to Ba Reum. His colleagues looked uncomfortably at each other, as if they just realised that. Ba Reum hadn't meant it for that anyway, but if that got him off their radar, he would take it.

"Here, I want you to eat this and after that we can go further with work."

Ba Reum felt a bit embarrassed about this treatment and to be the only one eating something of the group. It felt like he was breaking protocol and making a faux pas, but since the prosecutor had ordered him to do it, he could do nothing about it.

"So, you have been encountering these dead cats a lot?" Min Ho asked, trying to break the silence that had grown.

When his senior started in on how the neighbourhood quality had been lowering since years, Ba Reum could feel the focus shifting from him to his senior.