Blaze

That Little Bit of You

~_____~

"Kris seems agitated," Suho started once they were on the road and slightly turned toward Chorong, "he seems upset about something."

Chorong glanced into the side mirror to see Kris slowly driving behind them, "Ah...he did seem a little angry."

"I can understand him," Lay sympathized from the back. "He was really nervous while we were waiting for you guys outside of the brothel. And since that all happened, he's just being particularly cautious. I mean...don't you think Namjoo would start remembering it all when we step back there? She got a shock from it, didn't she?"

Now that Lay mentioned it, Chorong was starting to feel a little uneasy. On the other hand, she and Namjoo were safe in the company of the boys, but they couldn't forget what Namjoo had gone through back there. A shock isn't something that wears off easily. Maybe Namjoo was just being too tough for her own good. Chorong wondered if Namjoo and Suho were the same kind of people; the kind of people who put on a face so as to block others from their lives, and if they used work as a source to escape it all. There had to be some kind of connection between them if they were so close.

"But they seem like complete enemies, don't they?" Suho laughed a little. "It's like they're always having a war. I feel kind of bad for Tao."

Her eyes set themselves on Suho. He seemed amused watching them from the sidelines. Chorong had to admit that she too found it a little entertaining, but there was something itching her from the back of her head. As an assistant inspector she had landed on sites to discover that there was always some kind of little detail missed during investigations. After numerous hours of looking at the same area, person, or whatever that was the center of observation, Chorong had learned that there was always more than meets the eye.

Whether Suho knew it or if Namjoo had told him anything or not, Chorong had seen Kris pull Namjoo into that room before their envoy to Wonju. Whatever they had talked about in there had left Namjoo walking out annoyed. And today, Namjoo was once more annoyed. She only felt confident that there was something going on they weren't sharing.

"You should be careful too, Chorong." Lay said.

She turned away from Suho in her seat surprised by his voice, "Huh? Oh...yea."

When her eyes landed on Suho again she began to recall that night when they hurried to the hospital after Namjoo. He had been strictly quiet the whole ride there. Before they got there he had been furiously nodding his head with his lips somewhat drooped open, his eyes gone large with shock while listening to an officer explain to him in detail about what had gone wrong inside the brothel. Even when Kris had beaten him to accompany Namjoo while she slept and Suho had gone with her to mend her wound, she had felt like he rather wanted to wait with Namjoo. Or was she wrong? Was she reading this whole thing backward? Still...during the five years after his transfer all he'd had was Namjoo and Donghae.

Did Suho not want to make any new friends? Did he not want to get close to her at all?

~_____~

Without consulting Victoria Donghae had walked off toward the inn. He only supposed she'd have areas of her own she wanted to check out and besides, it didn't seem like Victoria wanted to talk to him.

Donghae stared at the little red building that made up the inn and ran his eyes over each solid brown door. What would Eunhyuk be doing in Yeongwol? Why had he left in the middle of the night? What exactly was he thinking? Donghae had so much to ask.

Pulling open the glass door he stepped into a very tiny foyer stuffed with a sofa and a round coffee table. A short wooden counter that reached his waist appeared on his right and that was where he headed. Some fifty year old gray haired man with black rimmed glasses who looked like he'd had too many years of smoking stood up from his computer seat. There was a soft grunt as he did so.