Lucky Number Seven

03 | Puzzle Pieces

Youngah cursed as the coffee-to-go cups she carried swayed dangerously as she opened the door to the police department. Her hair put up in a hurried bun and coat hanging from one shoulder as she tried to not pour the coffee over herself.
The office for organised crime was already bustling with energy. Youngah was a bit late. Again. She had been up all night reading old police reports. Again.
The strap of her heavy bag carrying all the files she had gone through slipped a bit further down her shoulder.

"Shit", she cursed and tilted her shoulder up while trying to keep the coffee in the to-go cups levelled. Suddenly there was a pair of hands taking the coffee cups from her. Youngah looked up into the amused grin of her boss.
A man in his mid-forties, a few grey streaks running through his black hair, but with a genuine character despite what he had already seen in his long career fighting the organised crime.
"You know that someone else could get the coffee, right?", Hyunwoo shook his head in fond exasperation at Youngah.
"And you know that I'll drink at least three of them and therefore should be the one to get them", Youngah easily shot back. Familiar banter putting a smile on her face despite the early hour of the morning.
Now that she had her hands free, she pushed the strap of her bag up her shoulder so it wouldn't slide down, throwing her boss a cocky grin as she did.
Hyunwoo only rolled his eyes at her as he walked away to distribute the coffee among his team.

"Late again, eh?", Sungho teased and leaned against the back of his chair, arms stretched above his head just to cross behind it. Youngah kicked at his chair on her way to her own place right next to his.
"Well, some of us actually work", she teased back and let her heavy bag land on her desk with a dull thud. Sungho rose his brows as his lips stretched further into a grin.
He was just about to open his mouth again, when Hyunwoo put a cup of coffee in front of his face. "Banter later, Yoon Donghyun was killed last night", he said. 

Both Sungho and Youngah immediately let their smiles drop at the information. Sungho was half out of his chair before he even took the coffee from his boss. Youngah didn't bother taking off her coat as she followed Hyunwoo and Sungho into the conference room.
Apparently their boss had told the entire team to gather there while he distributed the coffee. Everyone was sitting at the large desk in the middle of the room. All eyes trained on the enormous white board on one wall. A white board filled with pictures and scribbles and lines criss-crossing.

Youngah took one of the still unclaimed coffee cups and sat down next to Sungho. Eyes trained on her boss.
"Yoon Donghyun", Hyunwoo said gravely and pinned the picture of a middle-aged man on the large white board. "They called me in late last night or early this morning, whichever you want. It was a clean assassination."
"Ghost again?", Yejun asked. Youngah's eyes shot to her older colleague.
"Most likely", their boss answered and drew a line from the word GHOST on the white board to the picture of Yoon Donghyun. Not all assassinations ended up on the white board or connected to Ghost.
Just those that followed a specific pattern: clean assassinations; never more than one shot to kill the victim; no traces of torture, just a quick kill; and no traces of anyone around the crime scene. At. All.

"That's the seventh kill in the last two years", Hyunwoo continued, pen tapping on the white board. "And with this one the connection is undeniable."
Sungho next to Youngah nodded, face pulled into a grim expression that didn't quite suit his handsome face. Youngah herself couldn't help but to scrunch up her nose and furrow her brows.
They had all feared this connection but there it was. In all its messy glory. Glaring at them like a haunting after-image.
"Which connection?", Kwangsun, their youngest, asked with confusion lacing his tone.
Hyunwoo looked at him and then at the other members of his team. Face set in grim determination. His voice hard and foreboding with dread as he spoke.