Her Image (NAMJOON FIC)

Pieces that have off-beats

Now 

"Would you like a coffee or some juice, soda-" the detective asked.

"A glass of water would be great right now," Namjoon said, clearing his throat. 

His mother had raised him to refrain from inconveniencing others and taking up such offers, but that day he was honestly past parched. The bus that would take him from work to the police station was not running that day, and with his paltry salary as a salesman, he felt he could not afford to take a taxi. He had walked all the way from Barker, his company, to the station in dress shoes and carrying a briefcase with his heavy laptop inside. Not surprisingly, his left arm felt as if it were about to fall off its socket, but Namjoon was confused by this sensation. A few years back, while he was touring the world and dancing over four hours daily seven days a week, this walk would have been absolutely insignificant. However, he had gotten used to the office-job sedentary lifestyle alarmingly fast, and even taking the stairs up to his second-floor apartment seemed like a tremendous burden.

"Have there been any updates on the case?" Namjoon asked. He had asked the same question the day before, when he ran into the detective at the park.

She lowered her eyes and pretended to read the illegible scribbles on her notepad, "I'm afraid not. Nicole Gray remains a missing person, and we've got no leads," she said

except she was lying.

There was already one clear suspect in the case of Nicole Gray's disappearance. The case had also turned from a "missing person" case to a search for a body. Given the amount of time she had been gone with no signs of vitality, the department had just gone ahead and assumed the worst. By law, the detective was barred from telling Namjoon about the new status of the case, as much as she wanted to spare him the pain. 

Detective Shaw knew the type like Nicole all too well: semi-affluent, nice and pretty girls with a large friend circle, including those who wished her harm and those who could resort to dangerous measures if they felt neglected by her.

"Where did we leave off?" Namjoon asked the detective. 

She had been keeping a log of the stories he told her, a timeline of his relationship with Nicole of sorts. To other detectives, this part of the investigation was absolutely useless, but Shaw believed she could get to the truth through the fine details in his story. Out of all of Nicole's acquaintances, he seemed to be the one who had the most stories straight and the best memory and attention to detail. Also, his face and strong muscles, outlined by the tight white button-down that stuck to his chest , certainly helped her focus. 

"A dance studio with Tea and Jimin," Shaw read.

"Oh yeah! So as I said, they caught us at the diner. I froze, Nicole came up with something on her feet that seemed semi-convincing and then Jimin mentioned him and Tea were recording a choreography at a studio in the vicinity. Since Nicole thought I was a fan, she somehow talked them into letting me watch, so after everyone ate and paid, we headed to the studio."

"And this studio, could you tell me where it was located?" Shaw asked.

"It was in a building across the street from the diner down by Road 491. Honestly, the building on the exterior was very run-down, but the studio was decent. I knew Jimin had good taste."

"Sorry- just clarifying, you told me on our last talk that you and Mr. Jimin Park knew each other previously?" 

"Yes, that's correct," Namjoon told her, "we were in the same boy band I told you about previously, remember?"

She nodded.

"Anyways, Jimin and I lost contact when the group disbanded. Hell, all of us just fully stopped talking and agreed to cut ties out of respect for our past career," Namjoon explained. 

"I'm sorry, I don't understand. If you were not to contact each other, how was your involvement with Miss Gray allowed? Clearly, she was good friends with Mr. Park, which meant you would be regularly running into him."

"Good question. I think Jimin and I did not particularly have any big fights when we broke up, so we cared even less about the rule. Some other members, though..."

"Alright, I think I have a clearer picture now," she cut him off abruptly. "Can we go back to the dance studio story?"

"Oh, absolutely! Sorry about that, I got sidetracked," Namjoon said. "Well, Jimin and Tea recorded their dance, and it was good. You should've seen Nicole cheering them on, she was so excited for them! I loved how passionate she was about these things."

Detective Shaw did a double take. She chose to ignore it.

"After the dance studio? Did you all part ways?" she asked.

"Well, not quite," Namjoon had to confess, "Jimin and I were headed in different directions, but the girls lived in the same blue- door building. He drove us to the girls' apartment building and even though we were supposed to continue on our way, we all spontaneously decided to have a drink in Tea's place."

"Tea has an entire two-room pent-house to herself. Nicole told me that she not only gets revenue from her Youtube channel with Jimin, but by day she also works in investment banking," Namjoon explained. Detective Shaw thought back to the girl who had declared a couple of the days before- she could not be much over five feet tall and if she had to guess, the detective would pin her for a fifteen-year-old. It was hard making the reconciliation between that little tomboy and the well-off woman Namjoon described. 

"She pulled out a bottle of white wine, and between the three of us, excluding Nicole, we finished it in record time. We were so drunk, we decided to stay there watching a cartoon show on television. At some point, Jimin slipped away to smoke and Tea had to answer a work call."

Detective Shaw's eyes widened ever-so-slightly in fear. She thought she knew what came next.

"Nicole found my drunk face so amusing. I was just staring at the television and and expressing every single thought that went through my mind out loud. God- that was messy and embarrassing," he recalled.

"I felt a sudden urge to grab her hand. I'm not prone to contact like that, but I just had to- her hand looked so soft and I had to feel it on mine. She flinched at first when I did, but then she laughed with me, looked in my eyes and grabbed mine back. Then, I swear, you could see the panic in her eyes when she realized what she'd done. She let go of me immediately and turned her head away."

"Goodness-" the detective exclaimed, even though she was not supposed to. Her job description included appearing impartial before clients, and just like every other rule there was out there, she was breaking it in this case.

"No, it was nothing like that!" Namjoon was quick to defend, "I tried to relieve the tension. I told her about the bracelet I had bought after my last concert. I got it off a dollar store close to the venue. I told her I bought it thinking it could be a good luck charm for future concerts, not knowing that would be my very last one."

"And what was her reaction?" the detective asked.

"She said she liked it, and I was drunk so I didn't think much and I gave it to her as a 'thank you for tolerating me' present." 

"Mr. Kim, can you tell me what color was the bracelet?"

"Red," he answered.

The detective opened the top drawer of her desk and scrambled around for a while, before pulling out a ziplock bag with a slight red piece of string inside. 

"A bracelet like this one?"