Talking to the moon

Chapter 2

A sleepy Eunchae was not a very happy Eunchae. They had come to learn that very quickly.

Only an hour into the girl's nap, they had woken her up and dragged her into the back room so they could do a very quick check for injuries. At first, Eunchae was almost too sleepy to open her eyes, plaint to let Sakura roll up her pant legs as Yunjin snapped a few pictures of two oddly shaped bruises. She became a bit more aware when they rolled up her sleeves, snapping a picture of a nasty purple hand-shaped bruise on her right forearm. By the time it was time to roll up her shirt to make sure there were no injuries to her, Yunjin was sure she was going to start to throw a fit. Her brow was furrowed, her lip quivered, and she kept smacking Sakura's hands away.

"I just need to see your tummy and then we can be all done." Sakura could sense the girl's hesitation when she brought that up, the smaller girl took a step back behind Yunjin's leg and shook her head. While the detectives had almost become desensitized to documenting injuries, they had to remember that it was usually an uncomfortable situation for the other party. Sakura stood up and placed her hands on the bottom of her shirt, "Look, I can do it too."

After Sakura raised her shirt, she put it back down and sent Eunchae a smile. The girl relented, letting go of Yunjin and patiently waited as Sakura rolled up the hem of her shirt, as Yunjin got the camera ready. There were a few bruises, the worst of which being a purple circular one just below her ribcage, and she was really skinny. She snapped the pictures as fast as possible, and Sakura stood up clapping her hands, "All done!"

"Can I go home now?" Eunchae asked, holding onto Yunjin's hand as the three of them started to walk out of the backroom back the main bullpen taking the detective by surprise. The child didn't even seem fazed, just gripping onto her fingers as she looked up as Sakura and brushed her bangs out of her eyes with her other hand, "Mommy will be mad if I stay here all night."

"Just a little bit longer," Sakura assured as they finally got back to Yunjin's desk, "Some good people just have to check on your mommy."

"Why?"

"We just need to make sure she is alright." Sakura reached down and helped her back into Yunjin's chair, "You know Detective Yunjin and I have a prize for you for being such a good girl and following our directions."

Eunchae's eyes lit up, "A prize?"

"Stay right here and I'll go grab it." With that Sakura clapped Yunjin on the shoulder and took off, undoubtedly going to grab one of the stuffed animals she kept in her desk for kids she had to interview. Sakura's desk was always bright, had pictures taped to the walls of the cubicle of her wedding day, her dog, and a picture with Yunjin on their first day back when they were beat cops and various candies for people to take. Sakura always argued that she needed someplace comfortable to work in when she dealt with some of the gruesome cases they had to take on. She looked down at Eunchae, who just sat at the desk kicking her legs softly as she waited with patient eyes, and realized just how empty her own desk was. It was just full of information on her cases, that was it. No pictures, no candy, nothing but the sad grey that ran rampant across the rest of the office. Well, actually there was a single one of those furry worms on a string that Yeonjun had taped to her cubicle, but Yunjin chose to ignore its existence.

She sat down again, grabbing a file off her desk and opened it up. She only got through a few lines before she looked up and saw Eunchae staring back at her, "What?"

"What's that?"

"It's my case. I need to figure out what happened."

"Like Scooby-Doo?" Eunchae asked, excitement tainting in her voice. Yunjin just nodded, there was no point in trying to explain it.