To Say the Least

Pieces

Si-u stops walking in a park and lets his hands fall from behind his back. He looks up with a soft smile and lets the snow fall around him. He stares at the sky and the sunlight that reaches through the clouds.

"Oh, you're cold, aren't you, sweetheart?"

Si-u looks down as a mother fixes the hat on her little daughter, and the two smile at each other. Si-u's smile drops as the little girl laughs, and the mother grabs her gloved hand before they walk away. Si-u lifts his bare hand and stares at it with broken eyes as people keep laughing and walking around him.

"Another cold winter... huh?" Si-u mumbles to himself before he drops his hand to his side.

He slides his hands in his white jacket as he remembers all the times he rushed to Ga-eul's bakery for hot chocolate after staying outside for an article to publish. Si-u flashes a weak smile before he turns and leaves the park more defeated than when he came.

*****

Hae-sung sighs to himself and drops his pen on his paperwork that is scattered across his desk at work. He slides his hand through his hair, irritated that the security cameras happened to be down during the time of their murder case. He slides back in his chair as he thinks the case may be an inside job. He stretches his arms and glances over at Chan-woo to see what he's working on. Hae-sung's eyes widen, and he instantly sits up and pulls Chan-woo away from his desk and leans closer to look at Chan-woo's computer screen.

"Is this news feed live?" Hae-sung asks with a glisten of hope in his eyes.

Chan-woo takes out his headphones that are still connected to his computer and stretched out as far as it can to reach where Hae-sung pushed him. Chan-woo reaches forward and pauses the video, which makes Hae-sung lean back, and the hope dies out of his eyes as his face becomes serious again.

"No, it's a recording."

Hae-sung nods and turns back to his desk, so Chan-woo glances at Si-u, who is paused on the screen. Hae-sung picks back up his pen as Chan-woo looks back at him.

"Why are you watching old news reports? Is there a lead to our case in there?" Hae-sung asks without looking back up.

Chan-woo turns his chair to Hae-sung, but Hae-sung leans on his arm on his desk and continues writing on one of his papers.

"I'm waiting on a call from forensics for the soju bottle we found. I thought I'd look into other things while I wait." Chan-woo replies.

Hae-sung raises an eyebrow as he crosses out a line in his paperwork. His eyes glance to the screen and study the paused Si-u reporting by a small stream. His eyes fall back to his paperwork, and he taps his pen on the paper.

"And what does that report have to do with anything?" Hae-sung asks but doesn't turn in Chan-woo's direction.

Chan-woo gestures at his computer, hoping that Hae-sung will pay more attention to what he has to say.

"This was the first report for the Stream Scare case almost two years ago. I was looking into it because it has a lot of similarities to Snow Bridge. And they are barely over a year apart, so I was thinking that -"

"The only similarity is that you have no reason to be looking into them." Hae-sung snaps and glares at Chan-woo angrily. "Snow Bridge is cold while Stream Scare is solved and over with. Now, focus on our current case."

Chan-woo frowns and clenches his fists on his thighs as Hae-sung glares back.

"I am very focused on it, and like I said, I'm waiting for a call from forensics. And I can look into any case I want. You can't just ignore the fact that some murderer is getting away with this."