the music box killer | bang chan (discontinued)

1. murder case

JIYEON'S POV:

I harshly hit the brakes as it finally registers in my head that the light was red. Working in the police department and not following the traffic rules even little children knew? Embarassing.

I woke up late, which explains the mess I was right now. I had grabbed the first thing I saw on my kitchen countertop for breakfast, which happened to be an apple. That had to do. It's not like I had time to make choices, anyways.

Smacking my lips after putting on some lipbalm, I grab my keys and push through a crowd of strangers to get to the police station. Greeting me first at the reception was my insufferable best friend, Hwang Hyunjin.

"Cough it up, loser. I knew you'd be late today," he sniggers, referring to the impromptu bet he made yesterday. I roll my eyes at his unique tactics for earning income, before fishing out a stray bill from my handbag. He gives me a cup of cold coffee in exchange for the money I had to give him. I scoff.

"You're pretty much treating me coffee with my own money," I look at him, amazed at his stupidity. "Anyways, it's your loss. Thank god you didn't end up in financial management or something."

"You can just say thank you and leave," he scoffs, looking away from me as he returns to his receptionist duties. I smile, making my way upstairs.

I have and always will be grateful for having someone like him here. Working a job like mine was stressful enough, so I was glad that I had someone to gossip and goof around with when things got tough. Obviously, I'll never tell that to him.

"And so Madam Jeon arrives! Let's give her a big round of applause, everyone!" Chan, my friend and detective partner, announces sarcastically. Of course, working with a bunch of grumpy old men had its side effects, like Chan getting completely ignored just now.

"That was embarrassing," I whisper, setting my things at my desk. He rolls his eyes, poking his tongue outside a little child.

"What have we got for the day? Please tell me it's not much," I say, knowing all too well that's never the case. Miroh is a small and mostly safe town, so we usually get calls for petty crimes only. Even though we're yet to land on a big case, paperwork could, unfortunately, never finish itself.

"The contrary. We have heaps and heaps of new paperwork to fill in, thanks to Captain Kim," he says as he looks over to the old man's office, which had transparent glass for walls. "Also, you might need more than that," he says, noticing the coffee cup I was drinking out from. I groan, but nevertheless.

We spent the next few hours working diligently to finish our workload for the day. We believed that the faster you finish your work, the more fruitful your resting time at the end becomes. Besides, the stress of having incomplete work wouldn't bother us.

"And... done!" I exclaim, completely devoid of any energy. Chan mirrored the same action, throwing his hands in the air. It would be midnight in an hour and a half, and a warm shower and a good few hours of sleep sounded perfect to me.

"I can't wait to go to home. God, it's been exhausting today," he says, packing up his things. Just as we were about to leave, the emergency police dispatcher notifies our department about a new case. A murder case, which is something this town rarely sees.

Something told me that nothing about this case would be ordinary.

*

"Please clear out the area. Move aside please," the police officers steer the crowd aside as they put the yellow tape around the crime scene. Chan and I duck below the tapes and decide to enter the area and investigate before questioning the person who had reported the incident to us. A few other officers joined us as well.