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buri-art · 7 years

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Detective Genius: Part 3 of 8

Chapter Three: The Justice-Selling Nurse and the Case of the Missing Creme Puffs

Synopsis: Yoon is a financially struggling nurse and recognizes a trauma victim, Taejun, as someone from his boarding house. The victim’s brother, Kyoga, suspects foul play and offers Yoon money to figure out who caused this. The landlord, Soo-won, discourages Yoon from getting involved, but in order to support himself and his adoptive father Ik-soo, Yoon investigates the suspicious other residents--and then some. Genre: Modern Day AU, (Attempted!?) Murder Mystery in Classic ‘Who Done It?’ Style, General. Could be read as comedy, drama, or melodrama. Words: 2,470 Warnings: I don’t kill anyone, but I do make them suffer a little (sorry, Taejun, somebody had to be the victim). Probably nothing that would make people squeamish, as the focus is on the plot. Find the other chapters in the master post.

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Hak stomped in so quickly that I barely had time to move out of his way. I was pushed up against Soo-won’s door when the other man followed him; he looked to be in his 30’s or 40’s and had a large scar on his right cheek. Hak marched straight to the elevator and turned to face the man while he waited for it.

“Quit hounding me. If you’re not going to listen, then I have nothing else to say to you.”

“Look, Hak, I’m trying to help. I’ve been trying to help this whole time, but you’re not even working with me. Hey! Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

The elevator doors finally opened. When Hak went inside he had his hands up to keep the man from following him inside, and he hit the button to close the doors several times.

“Hak—”

Hak was out of sight. The man let out a mix of a grumble and a sigh, and when he turned around, our eyes met. There was no way to pretend I hadn’t witnessed what happened, and I tried to lighten the air. “Are you… uh… one of his relatives?”

“Tch,” he scoffed with a wry smile. “I’m his social worker.”

My face lit up, but dread also churned in my stomach. “I feel you! I’m a nurse.”

His expression softened as well, like he had found a kindred spirit in me. “Then you know how it is.”

“Is everything alright with Hak?”

“You know him?” his brows knit upward. “I can’t overshare.”

“I’m worried about him,” I said. I worried in some sense of the word, anyway.

“Me too. I don’t know why he started backtracking like this. Maybe being out on his own in the world was too much stress for him.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s barely aged out of the system. Moved into his friends’ place and said he’d be fine. He doesn’t want to rely on any of the adults in his life anymore, so he won’t tell us anything.”

“He’s got his pride to protect.”

“What’s he got to prove by punching some guy in the face!?”

My eyes widened. So did his, but for different reasons.

“One minute he says he did it, the next he tells me he’s not to blame. That he wasn’t in his right mind. That’s what we call an anger issue, but he has the gall to say he doesn’t have one! Argh!” The man put a hand to his temple and looked away. “Please excuse me, I’ve said too much.”

“Wait!” a reached out to him as he tried to pass me by. “Can you… can I get your name? And a phone number?”

His eyes lingered on me for a moment, trying to read my face. I did my best not to show any of the connections my brain was fearfully putting together. I had already told myself I couldn’t implicate Hak until I was sure he was the guilty one! But if Hak really was violent, then I couldn’t dive into this alone.

The man stuck a hand into his pocket, but found it empty. “Do you have a pen and paper?”

“Y-Yes,” I fumbled, quickly turning several pages away from my notes. He took it, wrote something down, handed it back, then said a simple good-bye as he headed out. The note was only a phone number and his first name, Joo-doh.

*********

After making a few notes, I went outside, turned left, then left again. It was time to investigate the alley.

The was no immediate trace of yesterday’s incident; the last of the drizzle must had washed away the footprints of the emergency responders and any of Taejun’s blood. There were big piles of trash there, some stacked well above my head, and there were old housewares, kitchen scraps, and tired looking, bright flowers strewn about. The smell made me gag; I could not imagine what business Taejun, who always liked to dress well, would have in this place. If he had come here and if someone wanted to harm him, the garbage and shadows would have provided plenty of cover even during the daytime. I peered around the piles, trying to imagine how a full-grown man could fit among them.

Something above my head made a skidding noise.

I let out a shriek and tried to get away, but my back was square against the neighboring building. With nowhere to flee I looked up at what it was and saw Joon-gi, the man in room 202, staring back from his window.

“An awful stench, isn’t it?” he said. “People who don’t even live here toss all their rubbish here. Makes it easier for the beggars to find a meal, I suppose.”

“You—you see homeless people around here?”

“Oh, yes. This is such a dreadful area. Thankfully my daughter is safe away at boarding school.”

“…You can afford boarding school and you live here?”

“Ahem. That’s why I live here.”

“I see. That’s… that’s really terrible that you’ve got the window closest to this dump.”

“It’s truly awful. But that’s why I am the neighborhood watch committee. Self-appointed, I might add. Someone had to do it after all that toilet paper was going missing from the supply closet and someone started stealing my cream puffs from the communal freezer.”

“A committee is more than one—nevermind. Did you see anything happen here yesterday?”

“I didn’t see it happen. I have terrible eyesight, you know, especially in the dark.”

“…”

“But I heard it happen.”

“You did?”

He smiled. “You’re referring to that boy’s injury, aren’t you? Terrible, isn’t it. That’s what he gets for loitering in an alley in the inner-city. What did he think was going to happen? My guess is that one of the bums got him. Maybe the tall one with the squirrel.”

“What exactly did you hear happen yesterday?”

His squinty eyes lingered on my notepad ready in hand. There was a hiss in his voice when he asked, “Why do you want to know?”

“I was his nurse at the hospital.”

“Is that really why you want to know?”

I felt caught for a moment. Before I could answer, he went on.

“You should be careful. If it wasn’t a bum that did it, you’ll be putting the target on your back next.”

“Would you please tell me what happened?”

“I was making myself a cup of tea when I heard the sound of ‘gyah!’ outside. I thought it was odd and it reminded me of Taejun—he’s my neighbor across the hall, so I hear him a lot, you see.”

“What time was that?”

“Oh, sometime between 6 and 6:30, I suppose.”

“And then what?”

“Well, I drank my tea, of course.”

“That was it? You only heard him, and that was it?”

“No, of course not! I was the one who called the ambulance.”

“Before you drank your tea?”

“No, after I had a few cups of it.”

“………Why didn’t you—”

“I decided there was no reason to rush. As long as he didn’t make any other noise like calling for help, I assumed he was fine.”

“When did do you finally figure out he wasn’t fine?”

“When I finished my tea.”

“So, about five or ten minutes later?”

He chuckled coldly. “Yoon, you’ve never had good tea, have you? You have to take at least half an hour. I already in the process of it when I heard him, so by the time I looked out the window, it was closer to 6:45. My kitchen cast enough light for me to see his legs very clearly, and I knew by the quality of his shoes that it couldn’t have been one of the bums, and I then I called an ambulance.”

“How much later did you do that? An hour later?”

“What do you take me for?” he huffed. “Of course I called as soon as I saw the body! They got here within ten minutes of me seeing him, and then had him on the stretcher and shipped out within a few minutes after that. I heard Soo-won go out and talk to them, and they asked him to contact his next of kin, and that was that, another job well done for the neighborhood watch.”

I didn’t even know where to start. Joon-gi took a sip of his tea then asked if I had any other questions. I said no, and thanked him for his important service.

**********

It was about time to go run some errands before making lunch. Today I would have to make extra for Yuno, so it would require some extra effort as well. While I was out, I bought a canned coffee and took a seat in the deli area of the supermarket so that I could organize my notes. I wanted to get out of the boarding house to give myself a wider view of the situation. I started with a list of what I knew. “5 or 6” (according to Jaeha): Yona and Taejun talk/fight. Yona says he didn’t seem to have plans to hurt himself. Between “6 and 6:30” (Joon-gi): Taejun is struck by something and falls unconscious in the north alley. Between “6:20 and 6:40” (Kija): Kija gets home, sees Hak. About 6:45: Joon-gi calls the ambulance. About 6:55: The ambulance arrives and takes Taejun away. Yona hears sirens. Soo-won talks to paramedics. 7:10-ish: Taejun arrives at the hospital and receives treatment.

Between 6pm and 6:45pm: Rm 502: Kija arrived home at some point and talked to Hak on 5th floor. Rm 501: Hak arrived on the 5th floor at some point. Grouchy, flushed, wet. Rm 402: Yona was likely still in her apartment after having been bothered by Taejun. Rm 401: Yuno was probably still out on her date and came back this morning. Rm 302: Ik-soo was home, I was at work. Rm 301: Jaeha stayed long enough to overhear Yona and Taejun, likely left before hearing sirens. Rm 202: Joon-gi was drinking tea and heard Taejun, later called the ambulance. Rm 201: Taejun was in Yona’s room at some point, and later in the alley. Rm 100: Soo-won was mopping the stairwell (???????)

I know he had to have been in there long enough to have mopped all five flights of stairs, and he was still doing it when I arrived home after 9. But when he did start? He was outside around 6:55 talking to the paramedics. He could have started after that and finished in two hours. But why would he do something like that after one of his tenants suffered a serious injury?

Soo-won had also spoken to Kyoga at some point between 7:00 and 8:00, and he told Kyoga not to make a big deal of this.

What did Soo-won have to hide?

I jotted down some other notes:

Soo-won, Hak, Yona: Childhood friends/relatives Joon-gi, Jaeha: Nosy Taejun, Yona: Taejun was bothering Yona. Witnessed by Jaeha and Kija (yesterday, Tuesday), confirmed by Yona (yesterday) Hak, Yona: Fighting, according to Jaeha and Kija Hak: In trouble with his social worker Joo-doh for punching someone in the fa--

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It made me jump, and I hurriedly pulled it out and flipped it open. “Hello?”

“Yoon? This is Kyoga. Taejun woke up!”

“Oh, that’s good. How is he doing?”

“It’s good, but he’s… not good.”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “Can you elaborate?”

“I asked him what happened, but he’s babbling on about something. I can hardly make sense of it. One second he’s trying to answer my question about the alley, and the next minute he’s talking about flowers, flowers everywhere, and of all things, a pineapple, and then he starts crying. Is he… is he going to be okay?”

“My guess is that he’s still medicated, but that’s a question for the nurses on duty. Is that all you can get out of him?”

“Yes. It’s been the same conversation three times in a row. He just gets a little more animated every time, and that’s making it more and more confusing to try to follow.”

“I’d take that development as a good sign.”

“Have you figured things out on your end?”

“Not yet, but I’m… yes, you could call this progress.”

“Do you know who did it?”

I paused, looking at the list of names. My eyes lingered on Hak’s. “Not yet.”

“Please tell me as soon as you can.”

“I’ll do my best. You have to remember that I’m not a detective by trade, but given your choices in the boarding house, I’m probably the best person you can ask. This might be unrelated, but have you heard anything about… well…”

“What?”

“Has Taejun been punched in the face?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“When we kids.” He sighed and went on, “To be fair, he usually had it coming. Do you mean recently?”

“Yes. He hasn’t mentioned anything like that to you?”

“Not that I’ve heard. Let me ask… no, he’s asleep again. He’s got some bruises on the left side of his face, probably from hitting the ground last night, but that’s about all I can tell. Maybe if I look really hard there are some spots on his other cheek, but…”

“That’s alright. Don’t worry about it.”

“Why do you ask?”

I felt a knot in my throat, as though I was choking on silence.

Kyoga filled the silence. “Is there someone who would have punched him?”

“It was just a guess to see if there was,” I lied. “It could have been anything, not necessarily a punch to the face. I was only hoping for a lead.”

“What have you found out so far?”

“Ah! My battery! Sorry, I’m out of the boarding house right now and my phone’s about to die. Send a text if you get anything else out of Taejun!”

“Alri—”

“Bye!”

I slammed the phone shut with a loud clack and threw it on the table, as if that would keep the pressure to figure things out further away from me. It would be easy to make assumptions, but I couldn’t turn in an innocent person. I had to be sure before meddling with someone’s life, especially if someone like Hak already had a rough start. I would never be able to face Ik-soo if I did, and I had no choice but to face Ik-soo every day because of our cramped living quarters.

But we also needed money to pay for those living quarters. All I needed to do was find the truth and sell it to Kyoga. If Hak really was guilty, then it was his own fault.

To find out, I would have to talk to him. And I was going to have to get more information out of Soo-won too.

#Akatsuki no Yona #Yoon #fanfic

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