the music box killer | bang chan (discontinued)

8. big scary oldie

JIYEON'S POV:

"Hey, can I tell you something?" Minho asks, leaning over the table from opposite to me and looking around for prying ears. The three of us had decided to go out and have a meal together to get to know each other better.

"Hmm. What is it?" I hum in response, curious about what he could possibly have to say to me that was such a big secret which no one else should hear. Chan was currently in the restroom.

"Chan is...kind of scary," he sheepishly admits, scratching the nape of his neck. I begin to choke on my cake, trying to calm myself down from laughing. Minho looks at me in alarm and hits my back to help me out.

"Are you okay-"

"You're scared of Chan??" I wheeze, still not able to believe him. Sure, a lot of people were intimidated by him. But Minho? I couldn't see this tough guy being scared of anything under the sun.

"Come onnnn, it's embarrassing," he whines, hiding his face behind my back when he sees said man returning from the restroom. He looks at us with a furrowed eyebrow.

"What's going on?" He asks.

"Don't you dare," Minho warns dreadfully, face buried in him palms.

"Minho thinks you're a big scary oldie," I answer Chan's question.

"Why would you word it like that??"

"We're just a year apart, oldie," Chan teases him back. Minho frowns at me.

"Oh yeah, Felix called," he continues, getting back on track. "He was asking if we've made any progress."

"Felix is...?" Minho asks questioningly.

"The bartender at Inferno who gave us the description for Jisung's sketch. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have known the face of our prime suspect," I explain. He nods understandingly.

"If you didn't know about Jisung, then we wouldn't have met either. We owe it to him to solve this," he says. We wrap up our lunch and head back to the station, lazily dragging our feet with each step. The weather today was nice and cozy. It made me want to snuggle up in my bed and binge watch 90's rom-com's till late after midnight, just like how I used to till this case came up. I knew that the three of us wanted to get this over with as soon as possible, not only for the victims but also for ourselves.

"GUYS I HAVE SOMETHING BIG!" Jaemin pops up on us out of nowhere the moment we set foot inside the building. We eagerly scurry to the surveillance room behind him with high expectations. Every minute thing gave us hope.

"There's some pretty credible evidence to believe that Han Jisung is currently residing in Malaysia," he says, typing away into his keyboard.

"What? Really?" Minho eagerly asks, leaping towards the screen where Jaemin had pulled up a few images of Jisung from what was supposed to be Malaysia.

"That's definitely him. Who sent this?" Chan asks after examining it carefully. Though his hair was hidden under a cap and a mask was partially covering his face, there was no denying that this was our man.

"I don't know, it was an anonymous sender. We've already contacted the international authorities to keep an eye out for Han," Haechan says. "If there are any further developments, you might have to fly out there."

"Let's wait it out."

A week passed by as we waited for more sightings of him. We wanted to be absolutely sure Jisung was there, and it happened to be that he wasn't as slick as we thought with keeping a low profile.

"Any updates, Eric?" I ask the officer we had been coordinating this investigation with through the small microphone. Originally, they were supposed to arrest him on sight, but we realized it would do us more good if we followed him around for a while to find out more about where he goes and what he does. They had to tread carefully or we could lose a lot of valuable information.