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( BEACH TREASURIES pt 1. )
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In hot summer mood, the wind pranced across the beach, pulling the dust grains into waltz, while gently stroking the sea and the plants bent towards his hand, also wanting the caresses to become parts.
The waves licked the sand and brought gifts with them, as if it were a token of love.
As Jimin (ex-detective who was currently vacationing on the island) noticed, today's beach finds were minimally strange and seemed to have a connection to each other.
Telescope. Rock from the moon. And an empty spacesuit that already had rancid edges and was by no means glowing a bright white. Instead, deep brown stains dotted the beige suit and the dark disk showed severe cracks.
Her gaze jerked up and slid over the shallow waters. Was there an astronaut in distress somewhere, threatening to drown? Whether it would prove wise to set out in search of him, the blue-haired woman strongly doubted. Until the water transported the new things here, usually days passed, in which the stranger could have drowned surely already. No nice thesis for it moved however on a realistic level.
Somehow Jimin felt the urge to solve this strange mystery. Her thesis was getting more and more out of her head, because she knew there was more to it.
She could probably say goodbye to a quiet vacation then. Sighing, she decided to pull the things further ashore before the sea changed its decision and swallowed the newfound things.
Normally she would contact her team at such moments; at least that's how she would have done it three years ago, before she had dedicated herself to retirement. She hadn't even reached such an advanced age yet; she was just 28 years young, but her career as a detective was gnawing away at her vital energy. Instead, she had changed cities to a quieter place, running a bookstore that was attached to a library.
Today, she seemed to have to resolve that on her own. Jimin wasn't sure if the others were free, nor if they could make it over to an island away from Japan in a hurry.
Jimin's hand slipped into her pants pocket, where her cell phone had been deported. Since the temperatures were high and the sun was considered an acquaintance every day, she wore a pair of light blue shorts that came just to mid-thigh.
Thoughts of contacting Aeri flashed through her mind. After all, she had been team leader since Jimin had stepped down. She was in charge of the team and all the investigations that had to be done, so she had the exact schedule and where she had moved the staff to.
Finally, she removed her hand from her pocket and left her cell phone in place. No, presumably they themselves were already in heaps of investigations, as had been the case at the time. Rarely had it not been that Jimin had to split the team to get ahead with each assignment in any way. If she came along now, too, she was just creating a wild fuss.
She had to solve this on her own.
*****
The day was coming to an end, the sun's smile no longer hung over the island and instead the moon grinned as it kept risking a glance into the sea in which its own reflection was played out.
Jimin had gotten no further with the puzzle. She was still stuck, torn over how to tackle it. She had no clues she could use. Only the three things the sea had dragged to her, which were already in her beach house.
Even inspecting those things, nothing caught her eye that could jump off a clue. It was hopeless.
Sighing, her hand ran over her face. She didn't even have a deadline to which she could adjust her pace. She lacked any information at all. Usually she had SOMETHING to cling to and start her project from. Now it was different. Not even DNA could she extract from the things, since the water had already licked them clean. Was it even worth tackling the mystery? Not even that could Jimin come up with an answer.
"All right..." A sudden knock at the door jerked her out of her stretched-out web of thoughts. Dull eyes lit up and adrenaline covered the fatigue sitting in her bones. It was just before nine in the evening. The perfect time to be the victim of a crime. Or it would be Jongin again, who noticed he had no flour, but desperately needed it. So far in the six weeks, he had knocked about 2 times in the evening asking for a bag of flour. He was nice. If a bit of a ditz.
Distrust gathered in her stomach. Beneath it, pure fear.
Slowly, she moved toward the door, suppressing any noise and leaving it puzzling to the stranger if anyone was home at all. Her curtains were drawn, letting no light through. It was perfectly darkened and hidden.
Another knock. Someone really felt the urgent need to speak to Jimin. Or maybe to kill her, too? Bad timing to let different ways of being cruelly murdered go through her mind. She had definitely seen too much; and not just on a screen.
Taking a deep breath, she opened her mouth. It could be a murderer. Likewise, it could also have something to do with the mysterious spacesuit. Even if this thesis seemed rather far-fetched to her. In the best case, it was simply Jongin, to whom she would soon give a notebook in which he could jot down that he absolutely had to procure flour. But then from the supermarket and not from her again.
"Who is it?"
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I'm sorry that no Winrina moments have come yet, and I've been thinking longer about whether or not to leave the cut as it is. Personally, I feel it's better this way (it raises the tension factor). I'll try to write the second part asap.
