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Chapter Text

This was not his fault.

As Namjoon was bounced around in the car trunk, he was pretty sure that everything after loosing the Pomeranian wasn’t his fault.

His face was pressed against the coarse carpeting of the trunk liner – his cheek felt rubbed raw. But it wasn’t as if the engineers at Kia had planned for people to be stacked horizontally in the back of their stylish yet affordable automobiles.

Kim Seokjin was to blame for at least 50% of this situation.

His co-conspirator moaned incoherently beside him in the trunk. Namjoon winced.

Maybe 40%.

“Keep it down back there!” the driver snapped from the front seat, a hint of warning in his tone.

Maybe 30%.

Namjoon forced himself to look again at the gash on Seokjin’s forehead. The facts were these: He knew, he rationally knew, that head wounds bled a lot. It wasn’t necessarily indicative of the severity of the injury. Namjoon really hoped that Seokjin didn’t have a concussion.

Seokjin would kill him if he had a concussion.

Seokjin’s mother would kill him if he had concussion.

He was much, much more afraid of Seokjin’s mother than anyone else in the car.

The fact that he clung as he shifted around in the tight space of the trunk was this: Seokjin was still alive and muttering. As long as Seokjin could mutter, he would be okay.

Namjoon let himself be jostled around the trunk like loose change in a cup holder as the car went over the bridge grating. He had long since stopped being able to track which direction the car was turning. He usually didn’t have a problem orienting himself but the blood running down Seokjin’s pale forehead distracted him.

He hadn’t meant for it to turn out this way.

When Seokjin had first introduced the idea of starting a podcast together, his “big, sexy brain” (Seokjin’s worda) hadn’t seen this coming.

Any of it.

*

“You like crime, right?”

Namjoon looked up from his lunch tray into the face of the most handsome man who had ever walked the face of the earth.

He had seen Kim Seokjin in some interdepartmental meetings – he was from the accounting division and Namjoon was a data analyst – but it was the first time that he had seen him up close. It seemed incongruous that the most perfect human face spent his time quietly crunching numbers instead of being worshiped in a laurel grove somewhere. A face like that deserved acolytes. Namjoon just couldn’t wrap his brain around Kim Seokjin.

His brain had devoted a considerable amount of time to the subject.

In one of his obsessive poetry phases, Namjoon had read through love poetry from around the world to try and wrap his mind around the whole concept of beauty and romantic love. If anyone could explain it and help him understand, it would be the poets. He understood beauty scientifically - he could objectively say, that by certain societal standards, some people were more good-looking than others.

He knew, looking in the mirror every morning, that he wasn’t handsome. His face was too wide – not slim like what most people admired – and his lips were too big. Most people didn’t like dimples – they were distracting on his long face. His skin was tanned instead of acceptably pale. He didn’t fit into society’s beauty standards. He could live with that.

He had first caught sight on Seokjin when he was giving a presentation about a quarterly financial report to the whole company. Namjoon hadn’t really been paying attention – he was paid to analyze, not be a team player. They could pay him more if they wanted him to play nicely with others.

The presenter was clearly nervous: he was chuckling to himself, his body language was awkward, and he was making groan-worthy dad jokes. Namjoon was focused on his phone and flipping through the new numbers from his current project. However, he was the only one still working; the audience seemed to be riveted.

Namjoon finally looked up from his phone screen and he understood their behaviour instantly. He understood why everyone in the entire company was paying rapt attention to bar charts.

He also understood every line of overwrought poetry about how someone’s beauty could cause your heart to skip a beat.

Because that what’s Seokjin’s face did to him.

His heart misfired. His skin goose pimpled. His mouth was suddenly dry.

But most astonishingly, it ground all the whirling gears in Namjoon’s brain to a halt. His brain that never stopped – not even when he was desperate for respite or rest at three o’clock in the morning – just quieted.  

Namjoon just looked.

His face was… open. His eyes were bright and clear. His skin was clear and smooth. His hair was… nice. Namjoon, who was usually so good with words struggled to find the right ones to describe him. He had features and they were on a face. He was just… handsome. So very handsome.

And Namjoon had kept looking. He tried not to be creepy - he could tell how shy the other man was. He ducked out from after-work invitations and usually ate lunch with a few people from his division. He never seemed to know what to do with his hands. He was occasionally loud with his coworkers but hated being the centre of attention. If there was a group meeting, he was on the fringes looking at his feet.

But he was also sharply intelligent. He wasn’t afraid to talk back to the company when they were in the wrong. And he was gentle, almost maternal, to younger workers. He was the first to make drinks for everyone and make sure that no one was left out of group orders. 

Whenever Seokjin was in the room, Namjoon inevitably found his eyes drawn to the other man, but he tried to be discreet. He was a calculation that Namjoon could not solve. 

He was like a paper-thin moth fluttering around a lantern trying not to get close enough to be burned.

He could think of nothing that he could say to Kim Seokjin. Their divisions had no crossover, there was no reason for him to make a direct request of a specific employee from the accounting division, and so there was no reason for Namjoon to talk to Seokjin on work-related matters.

The idea of just approaching him socially to strike up a conversation was impossible. At night, dark nights, Namjoon’s brain would whisper to him that a normal person would just walk up and introduce himself. A normal person would make a comment about the weather or the latest k-drama. A normal person would offer to hold his tray at the office cafeteria while he picked out a drink.

But Namjoon wasn’t a normal person.

He knew that he was weird. Weird people didn’t deserve to talk to people like Kim Seokjin. 

So, he just watched and observed.

Until now.

His dark hair swept up over his forehead and tucked behind glowing red ears, Kim Seokjin himself stood staring unnervingly at Namjoon. He had a very direct, appraising gaze but he was blinking rapidly.   

Namjoon slowly turned around on the cafeteria bench to look behind him. It was empty. It would seem that Kim Seokjin was talking to directly him. Maybe he was lost?

Seokjin snapped his metal chopsticks at Namjoon like an impatient stainless-steel crab. “Crime?”

“What?”

“Reading about it, not committing it,” Seokjin sighed, exasperated. He gestured his lunch tray towards the book that Namjoon was reading, Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood”.

Namjoon was surprised that someone else recognized it for what it really was. He’d thought that the book would fly under the radar of his coworkers, being a classic that few people knew the dark subject matter. It wasn’t like he liked the idea of crime – the everyday world was frightening enough to him without being aware of every monster that walked in it. But there was something about learning about the worst that calmed that horrible spinning in his mind. Learning about crimes and how to solve them, absurdly calmed his anxiety.

He was a freak; he knew he was a freak.

“Yeah,” Namjoon downplayed. They had normal jobs in an office. He was a data analyst. He was supposed to think boring analyst thoughts and not spend most of his nights watching old episodes of Unsolved Mysteries on YouTube and learning some very specific English vocabulary.

But he had to say something to keep this man in front of him.

“Yeah. Crime. It’s great.” Namjoon set down the book and willed the floor to swallow him. Sink holes were fun. It would be a great story for everyone in the company – his last generous act.  

Seokjin was still standing with his lunch tray in one hand and chopsticks poised in another. He narrowed his glassy eyes and looked again at the cover and the back at Namjoon. “Okay.”

He sat down across from Namjoon to the shock of everyone else in the company cafeteria, arranged his tray and took a bite of pickled radish. “My name is Kim Seokjin. We’re going to start a podcast.”

“What?”

It seemed that Namjoon was destined to never say an intelligent sentence around Kim Seokjin. Thankfully, their podcast recordings mostly involved Namjoon reading from his research and Seokjin interrupting with questions and pithy remarks.

Their podcast, Cypher, focused on cold cases from around the world.

It was Seokjin’s suggestion that they stay anonymous.

“It’s weird enough being an accountant without being a true crime enthusiast,” Seokjin grumbled as they finished their planning meeting at a small café. Seokjin had suggested that they hash out the details over brunch on the weekend. It was the first time that Namjoon had gone out with a coworker on the weekend. He and the other analysts usually kept to themselves.

Namjoon usually spent his weekends riding his bike around Seoul, visiting art galleries, or checking out used bookstores. It had been hard, since university, to make friends in the big city. He’d hoped that he would meet some people at work, but they seemed focused on making money.

Namjoon didn’t mind the money, but he preferred dealing with his facts. He lived for the moment when he unfocused his eyes, his mind flicking through all the information and possibilities, and let his synapses spark. Eventually, all the pin tumblers in the lock would fall into the place and the answer would click.

So, he’d spent a long time picking out an outfit for the meetup that would convey that he was a cool and relaxed data analyst who knew how to have fun and only analyzed data for profit and not because he couldn’t control the inner workings of his own brain.

He wasn’t sure if the washed-out jeans were doing the trick.

Seokjin had picked out the restaurant in Hongdae, and they’d spent most of their time passionately debating the Monster with the 21 Faces case.

“Inside job,” Seokjin argued, wrongly. “Disgruntled employee. You have to remember that no one actually died.”

“Katsuhisa Ezaki was actually kidnapped!”

“Maybe he hired them.”

“To tie up his mother with telephone line?”

“I bet that was the last time that she nagged him about his hair.”

“If that was the case,” Namjoon said as he could feel his face getting hotter, “he probably would have arranged to have been kidnapped wearing his clothes. Why on earth would anyone choose to be kidnapped naked?”

“Don’t kink shame, Namjoon.” Seokjin sat back in the restaurant booth and grinned without rancor. Namjoon felt his heart beating – he wasn’t usually this… assertive with other people. They often found his intensity off-putting or aggressive. He was passionate about arguing – it wasn’t personal despite what his performance reviews said. But Seokjin didn’t seemed phased at all. “I think that this is going to work.”

They had planned nothing about the podcast by the end of their meal and had to continue their conversation in a nearby café.

Despite his nerves, Namjoon found talking to Seokjin relatively easy if they were talking about crime. He was intelligent and witty and clever. He was a walking encyclopedia of crime cases – both local and international. He didn’t talk down to Namjoon or get frustrated when Namjoon needed to sort out his words before talking. Seokjin was a good listener and a good talker even if most of what he said was bullshit.

“And that is why Amelia Earhart was absolutely eaten by crabs, fulfilling the ocean’s revenge upon humankind for our hubris to dare to forsake her and take to the skies,” Seokjin concluded.

Namjoon looked, dead-eyed, at Seokjin over his microphone. “That’s the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

Seokjin’s laughter, his real laughter, squeaked out and destroyed their sound levels.

Thankfully, Seokjin (or RJ as he was known on the podcast) did all their editing and social media. Namjoon (or RM on the podcast) researched the cases and presented them to Seokjin with his pet theory that Seokjin inevitable destroyed or poked holes into. Or presented his own outlandish explanations.

Namjoon knew that Seokjin really didn’t believe in laser crabs controlled by the spirit of the ocean took or that the Black Dahlia’s killer was really Ronald Regan, but Seokjin loved to get a reaction from Namjoon.

Their dynamic worked.

The podcast had a strong following in Korea. Occasionally, Namjoon would spy people laughing to themselves on the subway as they listened to Cypher. Their numbers, when Seokjin allowed him a curated view of their analytics were good.

“I know,” Seokjin had said tapping Namjoon’s forehead and making him feel warm all over, “that if you see one bad comment it will destroy you for a week. I will let you see exactly one piece of data.”

They were coming up on their 100^th episode when Seokjin sat down across from Namjoon in their regular booth at their afterwork restaurant meetup spot and made a out-of-the-blue suggestion.

Seokjin threw his shoulder bag on the empty chair and slid into the booth. He was effortlessly graceful even if he was a terrible dancer. Things had happened at their last office party that Namjoon could not unsee.

The accountant looked unusually serious. Seokjin had explained once to Namjoon that he was “allergic to seriousness” along with potatoes and garlic.

Seokjin’s touch was always light. He believed in living in the present and not being weighed down by the past - twin lodestones that Namjoon dragged on his back every day.

“You can’t change the past.” One late night recording session had devolved into drinking in Namjoon’s living room. He remembered how the moonlight had shone down on Seokjin’s face that night.  “Enjoy things. You never know what will happen tomorrow. You don’t want to regret what you didn’t do. Not too much, at least.”

Namjoon only wishes that he could live Seokjin’s advice. The past and the uncertain future to him were concrete. He could outthink them, plan for them. The present was uncertain and uncontrollable. 

He could not control Seokjin.

The man across the table sat straight in the booth and stared at Namjoon. “I think that we should investigate a crime.”

“Investigate a crime?” Namjoon squeaked. He had already ordered on Seokjin’s suggestion as the accountant was staying late to finish up his last report of the quarter. Seokjin called over the waitress who took his order as Namjoon mulled over what Seokjin had put forward. When the waitress went off towards the kitchen, he spoke again. “What do you mean by investigate? We aren’t the police.”

“No, obviously not. I’m far too handsome to work in law enforcement. But we could bring something to a case that the police don’t have, mainly intelligence and handsomeness.” Seokjin pulled out a napkin from the dispenser and slid it across the table to Namjoon.

“You really think that we can solve a case? Or that we should?” Namjoon dabbed his lips and carefully put the napkin beside his tray. “I don’t know. Amateurs usually just muddy the waters.”

“Agreed,” Seokjin said, handing him another stack of napkins as Namjoon started the soup. Namjoon could never have enough napkins and having cooked for him several times; Seokjin was aware of the dangers. “But we do have a bit of a leg up on this cold case.”

Seokjin rummaged through his shoulder bag and brought out a blue folder held together with cat-shaped clip. It was a thick two inches of papers and pictures, meticulously arranged. Seokjin put it on the wooden table with great care.

There was a picture clipped to the front. Namjoon recognized it immediately.

Kim Taehyung.

The Kim Taehyung.

The chaebol heir who had been kidnapped three years ago from a SNU campus library, held for ransom and was never seen again.

The most famous cold case in Korea.

Seokjin stared Namjoon dead in the eye. “I want you to use your big, sexy brain to figure this out, Namjoon. Not just investigate it. I want you to solve it.”

Chapter Text

From Episode 75 of Cypher: The Mysterious Disappearance of Agatha Christie That Probably Has Nothing to Do With Doppelgangers According to Spoilsport RM

RM: When confronted by the police, Christie claimed that she had driven around aimlessly until she came to the quarry. The car hit a bump and her head was slammed against the steering wheel. That’s the last thing that she remembered. Considering the recent passing of her mother and the discovery of her husband’s affair, it is theorized that she had some sort of mental break.

RJ: Yes, reasonable, logically, probably, sure. But consider doppelgangers.

RM: What?

RJ: Hear me out –

RM: No -

RJ: I will edit you right out of this podcast. So, doppelgangers. Have we considered that Agatha Christie was lured out to the chalk pit by her alternate dimension doppelganger, Theresa Neele? In this universe, Theresa Neele was the name of her husband’s mistress but in the double’s dimension, that was her name and Agatha Christie was the woman having the affair. The double then murdered the original Agatha Christie, hid the body, and then the doppelganger took over her privileged life. She immediately took herself to the Harrogate Spa to treat herself to some rest and relaxation before starting her new life with Christie’s cash.

RM: …

RJ: Have you considered aliens?

RM: … No, I did not consider aliens.

RJ: Makes more sense than any of your mildly depressing theories.

RM: The very reasonable and accepted theories that she entered into a fugue state or that she deliberately planned the entire stunt to punish her philandering husband?

RJ: Yeah, those. Also “philandering”. Love it when you break out the four-syllable words.

RM: It makes more sense that the most celebrated mystery author in England was taken from a salt pit by invisible alien creatures with enough intelligence to build vessels capable of interplanetary flight and then dropped her off in London for a good time?

RJ: I mean, they abducted her to the spa. If I were an alien, that’s exactly what I would do. Forget take me to you leader – take me to your leisure.

RM: …

RJ: I thought that was pretty good.

RM: I vehemently disagree with everything that you have said in the last five minutes. Let’s move on. For eleven days she went unnoticed despite a massive media campaign and front-page newspaper coverage. But this was a different time. In this age of cellphone tracking, tracing chip cards, and CCTV cameras in every corner, it’s impossible to just vanish into thin air like Christie did.

RJ (pause): It’s not impossible though.

RM: To do what? Fake your own death or disappear? I would say almost impossible.

RJ: But if someone wanted to fake their own death –

RM: Most of these cases of disappearance end up being kidnappings or a cover for murder. People don’t just disappear. There are 1.6 million CCTV cameras in Korea. They can monitor your emails, your texts, and your bank accounts.  

RJ: … But people have disappeared.

RM: They were probably kidnapped or murdered. If you’ve been kidnapped, the likelihood of survival is slim. Why would they keep you alive?

RJ: They really like your company? You make a mean carbonara?

RM: 50% are released after the ransom is paid if it is a kidnapping for profit. But 50% are just killed immediately.

RJ: …But there is still the possibility that people could be found alive afterwards? There’s always hope.

RM: It’s unlikely.

RJ: Unlikely doesn’t mean impossible.

RM: No, it just means that the odds are slim.

RJ: But not zero.

RM: I suppose.

RJ: … More or less possible than aliens abducting Agatha Christie to replace her with an alternate dimension doppelganger whose long-term goal was for her to write “The Halloween Party” which would eventually inflict immeasurable global harm through Kenneth Branagh’s ridiculous Poirot mustache?

RM: …

*

The face of Kim Taehyung, the most famous missing person in Korea, stared up at Namjoon from Seokjin’s case folder placed innocuously on the restaurant table. The hustle of the waitstaff and the clink of metal dishes leant a pleasant white noise, but Namjoon heard none of it over the roaring in his ears.

Everyone knew that face. For a time, it had been everywhere: on the television; on the front of newspapers and magazines; and on posters blanketing Seoul. Kim Taehyung had been considered one of the most handsome bachelors in Korea. He had an easy, sleepy beauty with kind, expressive eyes, soft cheeks and moles in all the right places. He was objectively handsome by everyone’s standards.

He had grown up in the lap of luxury – his parents owned an unspecified chunk of Seoul. He’d insisted on earning his way into university even though there was little point – his destiny was assured as soon as he was born. His time at university had been his parents’ one indulgence of his whims and it had been their last mistake.

Three years into his degree, the chaebol heir had been studying at one of the smaller university libraries late in the evening when he had simply stood up, walk away from his table, and vanished. His bag, laptop, wallet, and phone had been discovered still on his table upon closing. The librarian had searched the entire building and had found no one. He had placed Kim Taehyung’s belongings in the lost and found, and thought nothing of it.

It had been a Friday night - the heir’s bodyguard had the weekend off. There was nothing unusual about Kim Taehyung spending the evening at the library. He had been, by all reports, a diligent student – a hard worker but not naturally gifted. SNU was considered safe – cameras covered most of the campus and it had its own security force. But it wasn’t until Monday when the alarm was sounded that no one had seen or heard from Kim Taehyung for an entire weekend.

His apartment was searched and nothing incriminating was found. Eventually, his phone was traced to the library and the story started to unroll.

Search parties scoured the campus and surrounding areas. All of his usual haunts were flipped and shaken to see if anything came out. His chaebol friends all did carefully scripted interviews about how concerned they were for their friend. The university held a vigil to hope for his safe return.

It seemed impossible that someone like Taehyung had simply vanished into thin air.

There had been no news until a week later when a ransom for 7 billion won was texted to Kim Taehyung’s father. It included the secret phrase between the two of them that was used to confirm proof of life. There was no picture, nothing traceable.

Despite the protests of the Seoul Metropolitan Police, the Kim family paid the ransom electronically and siphoned some of their spare change to the kidnappers for the safe return of their heir.

There was no answer.

The young man was simply never seen again.

No body was ever found. There was no trace of him or sightings that panned out to be anything but wishful thinking. The posters eventually became sun faded and were torn down or plastered over. The university reopened the library and cancelled the extra campus security.

It remained the shame of the Seoul Police Department that they had been unable to find a single clue. The money had simply vanished into a web of untraceable online banking due to the stubbornness of the Kim family in following the kidnapper’s demands.

Three years ago, Kim Taehyung simply stood up on Friday night and vanished.

Namjoon had followed the case obsessively when it’d happened – Taehyung was only a few years younger than him. The facts of the case seemed like something from a detective novel – a young, beautiful man who simply disappears never to be found again. But why did Seokjin care about it or think that they had a chance of solving it when organizations with more money and expertise had failed?  

“Why this case?” Namjoon opened the file folder. It was meticulously organized – newspaper articles were clipped together and there were other groupings of police reports, shots from security cameras, floorplans of the library, and a stack of photos. He recognized a few of the security camera photos from the true crime websites he followed and documentaries, but there were some pictures he had never seen.

One caught his eye.

He had never seen a photo of Kim Taehyung where he wasn’t serious, demure, and wearing a suit. He was always poised and put-together in a way that Namjoon could only dream of – and then shake his head because it was never going to happen.

The missing man was in a messy art studio – a beret was perched rakishly on top of his messy curls, and he was holding a paintbrush dripping with red paint. He was standing in front of a painting with a distinct cubist face with a bloody nose. What was shocking to Namjoon, was that he was grinning.

In all of the pictures Namjoon had seen, the man had looked serious and shy. But he looked so genuinely happy, Namjoon’s own lips curled up in response.

It was a candid photo.

Seokjin drummed his fingers on the table.

He never telegraphed his emotions – other than shyness. Namjoon had seen him at work in some very tense situations and he hadn’t been able to tell whether Seokjin was affected at all. Later, when they were at a bar together, Seokjin would rant and complain until he was red in the face about how furious he had been.

But Namjoon was careful and meticulous. He always saved a little brain space to add notes to his file on Kim Seokjin. Seokjin rolling his eyes could mean one of seven things. He had six, very distinct blinks. He had five laughs – one of them very real, one indulgent, one polite, one a little cruel, and one fake.

Seokjin was craning his neck around and humming - which meant that he was feeling anxious and indecisive.

“I…” Seokjin’s fingers stilled. He looked at Namjoon, really looked as if he was studying an abstract painting in a gallery. He wasn’t just looking, he was interpreting. Seokjin wasn’t an analyst in the same way that Namjoon was. He looked at the world like it could be solved – that with the right input and output, everything would balance. Seokjin was attracted to true crime because he thought there were answers to be found – he was not a fan of ambiguity.

Eventually, Seokjin spoke. “I… I knew Taehyung.”

Namjoon, on the other hand, could not hide an emotion if his life depended on it. He knew that surprise was written all over his face. How could Seokjin not have mentioned this before? What did it mean?

Seokjin took a drink of water; his fingerprints were clear in the condensation on the silver cup. “We were at university at the same time, for a year. We had friends in common.”

University Seokjin. What was he like? Was he a partier? Or a serious student? Namjoon tried to image what younger Seokjin would have been like. Instead, what he said was: “You had friends?”

Seokjin rolled his eyes – this one meant he was amused at something Namjoon had said. “Yes, I had friends. You’ve met one of them – Hoseok?”

Hoseok with the wide smile and the boundless energy. He had insisted on taking them to dinner on the 50^th recording of their podcast despite their identities apparently being secret (“I can’t keep secrets from Hoseok – just look at that face!”). He admitted that he didn’t listen to the podcast (“Too scary, sorry!”) but he was endlessly supportive. Namjoon liked Hoseok.

“One of them, Min Yoongi - knew Taehyung from Daegu. A good guy.”

Hun. Seokjin had a lot more friends than he had ever let on. He never talked about other people or weekend plans beyond gaming until his thumbs fell off.

“I had already graduated when he… he disappeared.” Seokjin blinked several times while his face was a perfect blank. “When he… went missing, I went back to talk to them, but everything was so chaotic, and campus was locked down. His parents made everything much worse.”

Namjoon could not imagine what his parents would do if he went missing. They called him every weekend and his mother sent him regular daily reminders to drink water and eat lunch. His father insisted on transferring him 50,000 won every month for snacks. “They must have been devastated.”

“They were upset because they thought their golden goose had slipped out of their hands,” Seokjin said in a bitter tone. His eyebrows furrowed. “They always had eyes on him – his grandmother left him a pile of money and bypassed the rest of the family. They couldn’t wait until he turned 25 and could get their grubby little hands on his fortune. I was surprised that anyone managed to find the chance to…”

He didn’t finish this thought. Instead, he spun the file around and flipped through it in a way that told Namjoon he had done it many times before and took out a picture.

It was five men, boys even, sitting on a couch in a dorm smiling at the camera. He recognized Seokjin, immediately. His haircut was atrocious, but he was still the most handsome person that Namjoon had even seen. Beside him was Hoseok, a young man with a heart-shaped smile who had his arm flung around a cat-eyed man who was mugging to the camera.

And there, on the floor, was Kim Taehyung, the Kim Taehyung, with his arm flung around a blonde-haired man with a smile so unrestrained and bright that his eyes were practically closed.

“This was us. Me, obviously, the only ten. Hoseok was in the dance department. That’s Min Yoongi, a librarian. I always thought he’d end up as an anarchist.”

Namjoon raised his eyebrow. His brain was pinging loudly. “Librarian?”

“Yeah,” Seokjin said. He kept his finger on the young Min Yoongi’s chest. “He was working at the library that night. He was the one who found Taehyung’s stuff that he’d left behind. That’s why he didn’t think anything was wrong, at first. Taehyung could always be a bit absent-minded, so he figured he’d just left the stuff there for Yoongi to take care of.”

“Do you think he-“

“He would never hurt Taehyung.” Seokjin’s eyes flashed dangerously. “He loved Taehyung. We all did.”

Noted.

“That’s Park Jimin, sitting beside him. He was a double-major in dance and computer science. A ridiculous combination. They were all younger than me, so I ended up paying for all their food. Every time. They sure could eat.”

Seokjin’s voice was so soft and low as he spoke about them. They all looked so young, and Seokjin didn’t look as sharp as he did now. University Seokjin was padded against all the horrible barbs of the world. His face was now leaner and harsher in its beauty from what he had lived through.

“I graduated and then that fall… Taehyung… was gone. Everyone was… a little broken. Jimin moved back to Busan to be closer to his parents. Yoongi moved there too, for a job last year. Hoseok’s still in Seoul but he works abroad a lot.” Seokjin’s voice was quiet. “Everyone drifted apart after Taehyung… disappeared.”

Namjoon hummed.

Seokjin kept himself to himself. He rarely mentioned other people to Namjoon – he mentioned games that he played, and merch drops for those games. He’d introduced Namjoon to his mother and to Hoseok, but he’d never mentioned anyone from his time before working at the company. Seokjin lived in the present; he rarely looked back into the past – probably because he didn’t like what he saw.

Some people were drawn to true crime because their brains needed to know what was hiding in the dark. Their brand of anxiety was soothed by understanding the worst. Other people had the darkness thrust on them and needed to understand where it had come from.

“What do you think happened?” Namjoon asked finally.

The accepted theory, the theory that Namjoon had always thought was the most likely, was that Kim Taehyung had been kidnapped and kept alive until the ransom was delivered. He had probably been killed as soon as the kidnappers received the money. It was most logical explanation.

To stay hidden for three years in a country where even the back alleys were covered in CCTV cameras was next to impossible. He would have shown up somewhere at sometime. The fact that he hadn’t meant that he was probably gone.

Seokjin put the photo of their group back in the folder. He drummed his crooked fingers on Taehyung’s young, unguarded face in the art studio. “I think that Kim Taehyung is still alive.”

This is why Namjoon preferred to focus on cold cases from other countries or the distant past. Everyone involved was long since passed or the emotions had dulled. Talking about a contemporary, local case made him nervous. A cousin or brother or friend with ties to the victim or the perpetrator could be listening, and it could stir up horrible memories for them.

Emotions were tricky. Emotions were hard to predict and harder to control.

Namjoon kept his attention on Seokjin’s face. He couldn’t tell how Seokjin was feeling. He could tell if he was sad and wanted comfort or angry and wanted an argument. What Seokjin was saying was statistically unlikely but who was he to take away his friend’s hope? So, he answered: “Why?”

“Delicately put, as always.” Seokjin rolled his eyes - laughing a little at Namjoon but not in a mean way. “It’s not just wistful thinking. I am saying this because I think there are unanswered questions about the investigation.

“I’ve never said anything to the police because, frankly, it sounds insane.” Seokjin laughed at himself nervously. “And I’ve never said anything to another human being… but I think… I think that we need to talk to Jimin.”

Jimin. Namjoon looked down at the picture of all of them in the dorm room. Taehyung and Jimin were wrapped around each other, like happy little magnets. Their faces wore mirrored grins.

“You think that he was working with the kidnappers?”

Seokjin scratched the back of his neck. “No. Yes. I don’t know. I mean, according to every Webtoon I’ve read, every twink is a secret mafia boss. But after the disappearance, Jimin left for Busan and never came back. He barely talks to any of us anymore.”

Namjoon could see why he didn’t go to the police. “He went to live with his parents. That’s not suspicious.”

“That’s doesn’t make sense to me.”

“He lost a friend.”

Seokjin narrowed his gaze. Namjoon shivered. “Taehyung was much more than a friend to Jimin. And if you’d ever met Jimin, you would know that he would never walk away from his friends – especially if they were in pain or needed him.”

Namjoon wondered what his life might have been like if he’d had a best friend. He knew people, he’d had friends. But he’d never had anyone that he shared everything with. Really, Seokjin was the closest thing that he had to a best friend. And even now, he could tell that Seokjin was still holding his cards close to his chest.

“Jimin's behaviour afterwards was… out of character. And he was studying in the same library the night of the kidnapping. He’s on camera the entire time in the library. I just think that it would be worth talking to him. The police didn’t question him at all.”

“At all?” Why would the police ignore a potential witness with ties to the victim?

“They took the angle that it must have been organized crime. The Kim family had some shady business deals and had crossed a lot of people. Some people thought this might have been their revenge.”

To kidnap such a high-profile person was a huge risk. If he had been kidnaped, he was dead, and they might never find the body.

“Look. On the surface, this is an open and shut case. The kidnappers were organized crime and they just snatched him from the library. They could have probably figured out the camera angles and avoided being seen. He was a chaebol – they knew that his family would pay the ransom. They took him, and when they got what they wanted, they… got rid of him somewhere that he wouldn’t be found.”

As he articulated the accepted facts of his friend’s disappearance, Seokjin’s face was as cold and remote as the Dyatlov Pass. These were the facts.   

“But… Something about this doesn’t add up. I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is – it’s like an error in a spreadsheet that I can’t find. The formula should work but it doesn’t, and I can’t figure out why without going through and finding the mistake. I can’t… I can’t find the mistake, but I know that it has to do with Jimin. I know that something about this is off, but I can’t pinpoint what or why. But I think you can.”

Seokjin’s fingers stretched out towards Namjoon’s hand. For a crazy moment, Namjoon thought that Seokjin was going to hold his hand in the middle of the restaurant, and he slowly unfurled his fist to capture Seokjin's hand. But then Seokjin shook his head and withdrew his hands to hide them underneath the table.

“I think that we should talk to people – Jimin and Yoongi. That’s all. Ask some questions, see what they remember.”

What they would remember is the pain of loosing their friend. What they would remember is having a little part of their heart wrenched from them and stolen. What they would remember is how their whole world shattered.  

It would bring up bad memories for Seokjin. It would bring up a lot of bad memories for people that had spent three years living with uncertainty. Namjoon wasn’t sure if he wanted to stir all of that up.

But there was something there.

Something in that file was making Namjoon’s brain buzz. He could feel that whirl in his brain – the click of the gears warming up and the cogs clicking into place. There was something in that file that intrigued him. Something in it was not right.

“Take the file with you.” Seokjin smiled up as the waitress brought his food, arranged it on the table and surrounded it with side dishes. “Consider it. If you think it’s a bad idea, no hard feelings. I won’t be insulted. As I said, it’s a suggestion. We could always do the 100^th episode about DB Cooper. I know that people have been asking for it.”

“He died jumping out of a plane,” Namjoon said dully. “It is the least interesting case of all time.”

“That’s not what the polls say,” Seokjin teased. His devoted himself to his food and teasing Namjoon about parachute physics.

After the meal, Namjoon did take the file home. It was meticulous – Seokjin was an accountant and good at details. He had presented a solid case. The police investigation had started with a foregone conclusion and hadn’t bothered to investigate anything else. They had shaken down some local gangs and investigated people with a grudge against the Kim family (which were numerous). But they hadn’t gone beyond that. There were no reports of talking to any of his friends from university beyond simply establishing alibis.

It seemed from the case file notes (Namjoon wasn’t sure that he should have access to them as he flipped through the typed reports with Seoul Police letterhead), they weren’t even aware that Taehyung had friends outside of his approved circle of other chaebols in the business department.

What was also strange is that Taehyung had been failing most of his business classes that semester. A few professors had mentioned that for most of the fall, session, Taehyung had been conspicuously absent from most of his lectures.

Namjoon texted Seokjin.

NJ: Did you know that Taehyung was failing most of his classes? How was he acting before the disappearance?

Seokjin called him immediately. “I know that you’re thinking Namjoon, and you’re wrong.”

Namjoon said nothing.

“Honestly, the few months before he disappeared were the happiest that I’ve ever seen him. Sure, he was failing his classes, but he’d never been happier. He kept talking about all his plans for next year. He wasn’t depressed.”

Namjoon knew how easy it was to mask feelings from other people. It was easy, he did it all the time. But he also knew that Seokjin was canny. He always knew when Namjoon was feeling overwhelmed – sometimes even before Namjoon realized it himself. When Namjoon needed a peopling break, Seokjin would take out his switch without a word and silently play beside him. Seokjin always exited them from meetings or company socials with charming excuses that left everyone laughing.  

So, he trusted Seokjin’s opinion. Namjoon dropped that line of inquiry.

For the next week, Namjoon went to work, did his silly little job, ate lunch with his coworkers working on their quarterly project, researched the next case for the podcast (The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist), and went home. But in every idle moment, the smiling face of Kim Taehyung haunted him. There was something there. Something that was picking away at his brain.

As he sat in his bed compiling his notes about the art pieces stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum with a Rembrandt biography propped on his knees, he shook his head to focus on the task at hand. He really didn’t have any illusions of actually solving a case. He preferred to analyze them – to learn from them. He enjoyed doing the podcast with Seokjin. They got to talk about aspects beyond the case – the history, the sites, the politics or the art –

The art.

That was what was bugging Namjoon.

He sat up in bed, the book falling to his bedroom floor, and went over the folder on his desk. He had flipped through it so many times that he’d memorized how many flips he needed to get what he wanted.

He flipped past the schematics of the library.

The police suspected that the kidnappers had stolen a staff pass earlier in the week in preparation to take their victim out through one of the staff exits that wasn’t covered by the cameras. The student librarians were always misplacing them or lending them to friends to use the staff break room. There were van deliveries that came in and out during the evening. It was likely that they had used the cover of the delivery van to smuggle him out.  

But this wasn’t what he was looking for. He flipped past the police reports and the printouts of the faces of the students coming in and out the library that evening. He saw the form of Park Jimin slouched over a desk. Kim Taehyung studying and then the empty table with his things. He saw Park Jimin going into the staff room. Min Yoongi at the Reference Desk.

He was searching, searching, searching for something.

There.

He stopped at the candid pictures, the snapshots of their group that Seokjin had taken, that their friends had taken together.

There it was.

A picture of Taehyung, holding a paintbrush, in front of a large canvas. There was a strange angular face painting on the canvas with a nosebleed.

There.

That is what had been bothering him.

He held the picture closer. Then he grabbed his glasses from the nightstand and looked again.

Outside of true crime, the other thing that he used to calm his brain was art. He liked wandering through art galleries and finding pieces that spoke to him. And he remembered that there had been a piece in an exhibit – something like this in one of the Leeum Gallery a few months ago. The face – the same face. It could be a coincidence, or it could be something else.

He took a picture of the painting and sent it to Seokjin.

NJ: Did Kim Taehyung paint this?

It took a while for Seokjin to respond. Namjoon’s eyes flicked up to the corner of his screen. It was three in morning.

SK: He did. He was always hanging around the art studio and messing around. He always painted that weird face. Why?

Namjoon was flipped through the albums in his phone. He kept detailed pictures of pieces that he liked in carefully arranged folders. And there was the painting that he remembered. It was bright and colourful – maybe inspired by Basquiat. And it had the same face – down to the bleeding nose. It was a connection – maybe it was. Maybe it was nothing.

Namjoon sent Seokjin the picture that he’d taken from the gallery last year.

Seokjin immediately called him. His voice was deep and husky from sleep. “What are you thinking?”

Namjoon hummed. He was busy looking up the artist. They was anonymous, and it was exhibited under a pseudonym: Vante. They had exhibited a few pieces in Busan. The work at the Leeum Gallery had been on loan from a small gallery in Busan named Golden.

“I think that maybe… I think… I think that we should call the police.”

Seokjin groaned. Namjoon could hear him sitting himself up in his bed. Namjoon wondering whether he was wearing pajamas or…

“Namjoon… if Taehyung is still alive, maybe he doesn’t want to be found for a reason. And if we report on something and it turns out to be nothing, we’d be laughed at. Maybe persecuted. His family has so many lawyers.”

Namjoon considered. It was maybe nothing. They only had Seokjin’s memory of the painting to go on. Maybe someone had seen it at the university and copied the style in tribute to the missing student. Maybe it was a motif from another artist that Taehyung had copied. It wasn’t anything concrete. It was just a painting. Just a face.

“You said that this Vante first exhibited in Busan? Why don’t we go down there and investigate? We could talk to the gallery owner at Golden, maybe show Yoongi the picture? Maybe he remembers something. I can contact Jimin to see if he’ll have dinner with us and we can ask some questions to see if anything pops up. Your quarterly project is done, my report is finished. Why don’t we just take a two-week vacation to Busan?”

A vacation. Together.

Namjoon had never taken a vacation with a friend since he was in high school. His university friends had gone abroad but never invited him. They knew that he liked his things his way. Usually, a disruption to his routine made him anxious. A disastrous trip to Jeju had proved to them that bringing Namjoon along was a guaranteed bad time. But he thought that he might like it with Seokjin.

Seokjin could sense his hesitation. “I can make all the arrangements and send you a schedule. I’m the best at planning a vacation.” Seokjin laughed nervously. Namjoon could tell that his lack of response was making him nervous.

“Okay,” Namjoon said finally. This was important to Seokjin and Seokjin trusted him with this. Seokjin believed in him. He had to at least try. “Let’s investigate. Let’s go to Busan and talk to your friends.”

“Yeah,” Seokjin breathed out. “Yeah, okay, Namjoon. We’re doing this!”

Whatever they were doing, they were doing it. Together.

Chapter Text

As surprised as Namjoon was that he was taking a two-week vacation to Busan to try and solve the most notorious missing persons case in Korean, he was not as shocked as his manager as he handed in his vacation request form.

“Two weeks?” She looked down at the signed paper in her hands, eyes wide. Namjoon had tripled checked the dates to ensure that they didn’t coincide with any new project launches. He and Seokjin had determined the optimal two-week window between their schedules. “But… You don’t take vacations.”

Namjoon cleared his throat and answered as politely as he could. “I take my minimum required vacation every year.”

All employees were required to take the minimum amount of vacation days so that the company wouldn’t have to pay them out at the end of the year. Namjoon usually spent his days off going to art galleries. He had never taken so much time off in one stretch.

“Are you going somewhere?” His manager looked interested in his personal life for the first time since he’d been hired. They hadn’t exchanged small talk since Namjoon’s first day.

Namjoon didn’t see any point in lying. “Busan.”

She pulled at the ends of her hair as she usually did when she was confused. “Is there anything in Busan worth doing for two weeks?”

Namjoon didn’t think that he had to answer that.

“Anyways, nothing is standing in your way. It’s a bit short notice but I appreciate that it’s in-between projects. Make sure to have your out-of-office message up and have a happy vacation.”

Namjoon took the approved vacation form and dropped it off at the HR department. As he was leaving, he saw Seokjin coming towards him with a similar blue form.

Seokjin looked… energized. He was buzzing with anticipation and grinned at Namjoon, his real smile, not his work smile. A few ladies in the HR department swooned. He grabbed Namjoon’s forearm and squeezed.

“Everything approved?”

Namjoon looked at the knobbly fingers around his upper arm. People didn’t usually touch him that much. When people bumped up against him in the subway, he felt like they were invading his space but Seokjin touching him felt nice even if they were at work. His cheeks were suddenly warm.

“Yeah, everything was approved for next week.”

“Perfect.” Seokjin waved his vacation form. “Mine went through without a hitch. As if they could say no to this face.”

Namjoon did not think that many people could resist Seokjin’s face when he really turned on the charm.

“I’ve worked out all the details and will send the schedule over tonight. Let me know if you have any questions about the itinerary.” Seokjin squeezed his arm one more time before turning around and striding to drop off his form. Several workers who overheard their conversation shot puzzled looks in Namjoon’s direction.

Namjoon also had a lot of questions as he rubbed his arm, skin still buzzing from where Seokjin had touched him.

They were going on vacation together.

Coworkers didn’t usually do that.

But it wasn’t just a vacation. They were on a mission. A mission with… sunset capsule train rides and reservations at fancy restaurants looking out over the ocean. Namjoon stared at the itinerary on his phone. Seokjin had sent a spreadsheet of their two weeks in Busan which included links to all the restaurant menus and a Naver map of their routes.

“I’ll take care of all the travel details. You just focus that big, sexy brain of yours on solving this case!” Seokjin’s email read.

In high school and even in university, people who had needed that big brain had used him. They had him tutor them for free or got him to look over their homework. And because he had been lonely and sometimes, desperate for human contact, he had agreed. But it made him feel used. They didn’t really need him or want to spend any time with him that wasn’t a means to an end.

But Seokjin didn’t feel like that.

Seokjin edited the podcast and handled all the social media. Namjoon concentrated on the research, which made him the most comfortable. Seokjin handled the things that Namjoon didn’t want to do. It was a partnership.

Seokjin cooked for him. And knit for him.

“Here. Happy Christmas.”

“It’s November?”

Namjoon examined the… object Seokjin had thrust into his hands. It was strangely lumpy and clearly handmade.

“It’s a scarf, hat, and glove combination. Since you’re always losing your gloves and leaving your hat on the Metro, I made all your winter gear into one accessory.” Seokjin’s ears were pink. “I’ve already filed the patent so don’t bother trying to steal my design.”

Namjoon did not think that would be a problem.

They spent time outside of the podcast too. When their lunchtimes lined up, they ate together in the cafeteria. Sometimes, Seokjin ate with his coworkers which didn’t bother Namjoon at all. Sometimes he just wanted to be alone with his book. When he needed space, Seokjin would just pull out his phone and play a game in silence.

Spending time with Seokjin wasn’t draining.

Was he Seokjin’s friend? Or was he his podcast partner? Or coworker?

He was more than a coworker and maybe more than friend.

But what was Seokjin to Namjoon?

Namjoon was still considering this when Seokjin arrived at his apartment to pick him up. They were going to travel to the train station together as Seokjin was very concerned about Namjoon missing their train.

“Are you still not packed? We need to be at the train station in an hour,” Seokjin tsked without much rancor. He parked his own luggage in Namjoon’s hallway, and yanked on his regular house slippers. He brushed past Namjoon who was shrugging hopelessly and marched into his bedroom to survey the situation. He picked through Namjoon’s half-empty suitcase sitting on the bed. “You haven’t packed any underwear.”

“I wasn’t sure what I needed to bring,” Namjoon admitted. “I’ve never gone on a vacation this long.”

Seokjin’s hand stilled. “Really?” He looked at Namjoon with curiosity. “Not even… Like a couples vacation?”

Namjoon swallowed. Seokjin and he didn’t really talk about their relationship or their past much. It had taken a year before Seokjin had shared that he was intimately connected with one of the most infamous cold cases of all time. But for Namjoon, there really wasn’t much to say. He didn’t have a personal life – just his art and his books. And now Seokjin and the podcast.

“No,” Namjoon said.

Seokjin blinked. His ears started to bloom red, so he stomped over to Namjoon’s closet and flung it open. “Me neither. I haven’t been on a long vacation since I was in university. I usually just sit at home and play video games for a week. Occasionally, I go somewhere for a few days for the Instagram pictures.”

Namjoon had seen Seokjin’s pictures of him on vacation, shirtless at the beach. He hadn’t been brave enough to like them.

But a lot of people had.

“By my calculations, and I am an accountant after all, you will need at least seven shirts. We have laundry at our hotel. A few pairs of pants. Let me pick them out for you, I know what you’ll need. You go pick out your books for the trip. I’ve marked out a few bookstores to visit but they’re not on our schedule until week two.”

Namjoon was pushed back into the living room as Seokjin sorted through his clothing. He tried not to think about Seokjin touching his underwear. He went to his overburdened bookshelf and picked out a few books in Korean and English that he had been meaning to read. He could tackle them in the scheduled rest time in between tourist activities and investigating the case.

Seokjin believed in rest, and he had scheduled it out with bold letters RELAXING - NO THINKY TIME FOR NAMJOON.

“Okay,” Seokjin rolled Namjoon’s suitcase out of his bedroom. He unzipped it for Namjoon to drop the books inside. “Did you bring your deerstalker and magnifying glass?”

Namjoon held out his gloves/scarf/hat combination from the hook and waggled it in Seokjin’s delighted face. January in Busan was going to be cold, he would be well protected. “Better than a deerstalker.”

“Much less noticeable when you are tailing suspects around Busan,” Seokjin said. He took a deep breath. “Look, even if we don’t find anything, I just wanted to say… thanks. Even if Taehyung is… gone or whatever or we don’t find anything out… this will kind of help to close this chapter, you know? And I’m happy that you’re doing it with me.”

Didn’t Seokjin know that he would do anything for him?

Seokjin was avoiding eye contact and fiddling with the suitcase handle. He cleared his throat. “Okay, enough sincere emotions. We have a train to catch.”

The station was bustling but navigable. Namjoon usually didn’t spend a lot of time in the central Seoul station. His parents still lived in Ilsan and he only went to visit them for holidays. Seokjin picked them up hot coffee from a kiosk on the platform – more to hold to warm their hands as they waited for the train than for the taste.

Namjoon had the schedule memorized but wanted to put Seokjin at ease. He was chewing his lips and looking periodically at his phone. As nervous as he was, Seokjin must be much more anxious. They were going to revisit a difficult chapter in his past – and they were going to do it by gently insinuating that his friends had something to do with it. “Min Yoongi is picking us up?”

Seokjin nodded. He put his phone back in his jacket pocket and pushed his hand through his hair. “Yeah. He’ll drop us of at the hotel and then we’ll go for an early dinner. I said that we could just take but the bus but he insisted. Don't let the round cheeks fool you - he's very stubborn. We were roommates for a long time. He’ll be easier to talk to than… Jimin. Jimin is going to be… tough.”

Jimin was the key to everything.

The train pulled up and they quickly hopped on. Namjoon easily hoisted their luggage into the storage compartment and then followed Seokjin to their seats. When he got to them, he smiled. He sometimes got motion sickness when he went backwards but Seokjin had planned for this too: their seats were forward facing and warmed.

Seokjin already had his phone out and was glued to a game. Namjoon brought out his headphones and settled in for three-hour train journey. He closed his eyes and reviewed the facts of the case as the train pulled out to even-voiced announcements.

Three years ago, Taehyung had gone missing from a university library – a library staffed by only one person: Min Yoongi. He had been present at the time of the abduction and had access to the staff areas that it was presumed Kim Taehyung had been taken out from. He was Seokjin’s old roommate and Kim Taehyung’s friend.

He had means.

Seokjin had mentioned that he’d thought that Min Yoongi would be an anarchist. Perhaps he’d collaborated with someone or some organization to exploit his friendship to a chaebol heir?

Maybe he had motive.

And he’d been the one with the most opportunity – he would have known exactly where the cameras were pointed. He had a staff pass but it had been used exactly once that evening: by Park Jimin to go into the staff room to make coffee. But he could have stolen a pass from a coworker.

While Seokjin believed that Jimin was the key to everything, Namjoon was more interested in talking to the older man. He’d read through the case notes (notes that he would have to ask Seokjin how he got his hands on). Min Yoongi had been questioned by the police extensively and while he had been factual, his answers had been elusive. He’d provided curt answers to questions about why he hadn’t raised the alarm when he’d discovered Taehyung’s belongings.

The librarian had been unconcerned initially at Taehyung’s disappearance. He had not mentioned Park Jimin and Kim Taehyung’s relationship. He had also avoided bringing up that he and Taehyung knew each other well. He had it seem like they were acquaintances.

It wasn’t unexpected – why would anyone voluntarily put themselves in the crosshairs of the Seoul police? But maybe he was the source of the inconsistency that was bothering Seokjin.

*

Min Yoongi met them outside the train station bundled in what looked like four puffer jackets. He looked like a round, black volleyball. He was older than the pictures in the folder but somehow looked younger. His hair was no longer a harsh metallic maroon but naturally dark brown and curled around his soft face. His cat-like eyes lit up when he saw Seokjin and his serious face broke out into a wide smile.

Seokjin stopped dead on the sidewalk and opened his arms. “My friend!”

“My friend!”

The two ran towards each other (Min Yoongi waddled) and into an enthusiastic hug.

Namjoon had never seen Seokjin hug someone so tight.

Like a butler, Namjoon rolled his and Seokjin’s abandoned luggage towards Yoongi’s waiting car.

“How have you not aged?” Yoongi pouted as he searched the face of his old roommate.

“It’s been a year since we’ve all had dinner,” Seokjin scolded as he swatted Yoongi’s shoulder. But his smile was pleased. “Yah! What is with this idol hair?”

Seokjin pulled at one of Yoongi’s curls.

“My mom likes it.”

“I bet she does.” Seokjin stepped back as Namjoon hoovered awkwardly behind them. He pulled on Namjoon’s jacket until he was standing in front of the infamous Min Yoongi. He was short. Shorter than Namjoon would have guessed from the attitude he'd given the Seoul Police. He found himself unconsciously hunching over to look the man in the eye. “May I introduce you to another Epik High fan, Kim Namjoon.”

They both bowed. Namjoon looked at Yoongi who exuded comfiness and quiet curiosity. His jeans, what he could see poking out of the ball of jackets, were tight around his thin little legs. He was wearing round glasses with golden frames that made his face look even rounder. His eyes were crinkled in a smile and flicked between Seokjin and Namjoon as if they were trying to figure something out.

“I like the podcast,” Yoongi said simply.

Namjoon started backwards and almost tripped on air.

“Ah,” Seokjin said, his cheeks a little red. So much for their anonymity. “I know that we weren’t really going to tell anyone, but I can’t keep any secrets from Min Yoongi. It’s the eternal roommate’s pledge.”

Namjoon nodded as if he understood such things. He and his university roommate hadn’t spoken since graduation. It was for the best. If Namjoon ever saw him again, he was going to deck him for killing his plants by watering them with cheap soju after graduation. “Thanks for listening.”

Yoongi has a mischievous little glint to his eyes. “But I have to disagree about the Black Dahlia. Clearly George Hodel was the murderer.”

Namjoon could work with this.

They argued amicably all the way to the hotel, with Seokjin pointing out the Jean French connection. Busan was stretched out – an interconnected city of many cities. They were in the western part, far from the core, as it was closest to where Seokjin’s old friends lived. They were away from the beaches of Hongdae, but Seokjin had planned some beach time later in the week. Even in the winter, he was sure that they would be beautiful.

Yoongi said that he would see them later for dinner as he dropped them off at the hotel to finish something at work.

Min Yoongi was the sort of friend that would pick you up from the train station and drive you to your hotel on his lunch break.

It was very hard to picture him as a murderer.

The hotel was nice – nicer than Namjoon had ever stayed in. Seokjin had insisted that they would split the costs, but Namjoon suspected that Seokjin had been a little creative in his accounting. The room had two giant king size beds and a stunning view of the ocean. There was a desk, full bathroom, and kitchenette well-stocked with ramen. It was much better than the hostels Namjoon was used to from his university trip to Jeju.

“This is… fancy,” Namjoon said nervously. The bedspread looked like you could bounce coins off it.

“Nonsense,” Seokjin blustered. He instantly claimed the bed furthest away from the washroom. “I got a good deal. No one can work a discount like an accountant.”

Their restaurant for the dinner with Yoongi was a little more Namjoon’s speed. It was a little family noodle restaurant that specialized in seafood. It was bustling with regulars ordering without a glance at a menu. Families ate noisily with controlled chatter as the waitresses bustled around with metal dishes.

“It’s not bad,” Yoongi said as he sipped his gulguk soup and patted his belly. “I mean, nothing beats the food of Daegu-“

“Here he goes,” Seokjin grumbled as he stabbed a seafood pancake with red chopsticks.

“But Busan does have acceptable seafood. I will give them that,” Yoongi finished.

“If Daegu is so superior in every regard,” Seokjin said, “why didn’t you back move there?”

“Ah,” Yoongi said. He set down his chopsticks. “I applied for a job here and thought… well… after everything that maybe it would be better to be near Jimin in case he needed help. But it didn’t exactly turn out that way.”

Namjoon carefully examined his milmyeon. He had thought that he would have to lead the interrogation but it seemed like Seokjin wanted to take the reins.

“Do you see Jimin often?” Seokjin asked.

“A few times a year,” Yoongi admitted. He stirred the last dregs of his soup around listlessly. “He lives outside of Busan, actually. He works from home and is pretty busy. When I moved here, I thought that we might see each other more but… I feel like when it happened, he just pushed everyone away. He texts with Hoseok a lot.”

“He dropped off the face of the earth,” Seokjin surmised bluntly as he ripped off the corner of the pancake like he wanted it to suffer. “I tried to get into contact a few times in the past few years to met up, but he was always busy.”

“I think that it hurts to talk to us. We remind him of Taehyung,” Yoongi said softly. Unlike Seokjin who was chewing with righteous fury, Yoongi’s face was sympathetic.

“Taehyung disappearing hurt all of us,” Seokjin said flatly. Pancake demolished, Seokjin wiped his hands and brought out the folder. He pushed the picture of the painting that Namjoon had seen in Seoul. They had printed it out at work due to Seokjin’s determination to stick it to the man one sheet of paper at a time. “Do you recognize that?”

Yoongi looked at it and immediately he smiled, his pink gums on full display. “Yeah! I haven’t seen that in years. It’s that weird face that Taehyung kept painting in the art studio. I remember thinking how bizarre they were – but they were so him. When the university was going to throw them away at the end of the semester, I called Jimin, and he came to pick them all up.”

This was something that Namjoon had not considered – that it was an old work that someone had found and sent to a gallery.

“Who was running the art department at that time?” Namjoon said, trying to keep his tone even. Maybe they had an inventory of the paintings.

“No idea,” Yoongi said flatly. “I only went there once and a while to grab Taehyung when he was in the middle of a painting. Whenever he got his hands on a paintbrush, he lost all track of time. He almost missed his final exams.”

Yoongi placed the picture on the table but kept a hand possessively on it. “Did you find any more of the old paintings? I thought that Jimin took all of them. There were only a few. I would love to have one.”

“Jimin has the paintings. All of them?” Seokjin asked, his voice high with excitement.

Yoongi shrugged. “Taehyung’s family sure didn’t want them. They weren’t interested in anything. They left his whole dorm, exactly as it was. I remember trying to contact them after… Well, when the police determined that there weren’t any clues there, they called me to get his things as I was Taehyung’s emergency contact.”

“I didn’t know that,” Seokjin said.

Taehyung had Min Yoongi listed as his emergency contact – not a member of his family. Not even a member of his staff. The person that he wanted to take care of him when he could not, was a friend.

“I had a fulltime job and a car.”

“A real adult.” Seokjin rolled his eyes. Fondly.

“He wasn’t enrolled in the art program, so at the end of the year, they contacted me about the paintings, and I texted Jimin. He hired a van and brought them back to Busan.”

It was possible that the painting that Namjoon had seen in Seoul was an old student painting. Maybe they had come to Busan for nothing. Namjoon had wasted Seokjin and Yoongi’s time. He hadn’t even considered that.

Namjoon heard the roar of the ocean in his brain. His leg started to jiggle. His chest felt hot and tingly. He could feel his brain and his body just overheating. He had been so stupid. How could he have wasted Seokjin’s time in bringing him to Busan for nothing? Seokjin would hate him. Seokjin would think that he was stupid.

Then his brain stopped.

He looked down.

Under the table, Seokjin had put his hand on Namjoon’s thigh. He squeezed it once without making eye contact.

“Yoongi,” Seokjin said taking a deep breath. “What if I told you that this painting was exhibited in Seoul last year?”

Yoongi’s eyes widened and his mouth popped open into a little O. He looked owlishly between the two of them and then at the picture of the painting that Namjoon had seen. “It was exhibited last year?”

Seokjin pulled out his phone and showed Yoongi the photo of the painting from the Leeum Gallery that Namjoon had taken with the time stamp and plaque. Yoongi looked at it carefully, zooming in to read the description.

“I couldn’t say for sure.” He reluctantly handed Seokjin back his phone. “I… I don’t know whether it’s one of his old paintings. But I doubt that Jimin would have given any of them away. Maybe his parents were cleaning things out? It says that its on loan from a gallery here in Busan?”

“Golden,” Namjoon supplied. Seokjin removed his hand. Namjoon felt his heartbeat steady.

“Never heard of it,” Yoongi said flatly. He taped the picture of Taehyung in front of the canvas. There was heartbreaking fondness in his gaze. “But if there’s a chance… This is why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Seokjin cheeks flushed pink. “Not that I didn’t want to see you, Yoongi. I missed your round, pinchable cheeks. But I think that it’s possible that…”

“I know what the police said.” Yoongi’s voice was flat. “They said that it was some sort of gang thing. A kidnapping for money. But you know, I never believed that.”

Maybe it was wistful thinking on Namjoon’s part but the fact that two people close to Taehyung didn’t believe the official story made it a little more possible.

“We never really talked about it after it happened.” Yoongi leaned back against the cracked leather seating and took a sip of tea.  “You were lucky that you were already living in the city. You can’t imagine how it was – when they finally realized that he was missing. I have never seen that many policemen in one place – the campus was crawling with them, like ants that one time Taehyung spilled the bag of sugar on his counter and went on vacation for a week.”

“Every time I close my eyes, I see their little marching feet.” Seokjin shivered. “I tried to see you as soon as I heard but they would only let students and university employees on campus.”

Yoongi nodded. “They took my phone because I’d been in the library when he disappeared. They had a lot of question about the language I used when I was texting Taehyung to pick up his fucking stuff before it got stolen.”

Namjoon had read those text messages. They were in the police file.

Yoongi chuckled and shook his head. “Those cops thought that they could pin something on me. Idiots didn’t know that we had cameras practically everywhere when the library was open to stop the students from having sex in the stacks. I had to take a stick and bang it on the shelves to break them up. Saw a lot of action in my day.”

The memory clearly made him laugh.

“But there weren’t cameras everywhere,” Namjoon said. He brought out the pictures of the video surveillance footage from Seokjin’s folder. There was a picture of Yoongi looked bored at the desk. There were other pictures of the back of Taehyung studying and then an empty desk. There was also Jimin at his desk and then him at the door to the staff room a few hours after Taehyung had left.

“Where did you get those?” Yoongi said, flipping between them. “These were never publicly released. I’ve never seen these before.”

Seokjin nervously drummed his fingers on the table as looked suspiciously at the other dinners. “Remember that horrible job that I took for a few months before moving to my current office?”

“You mean that horrible stint that you took for the… Seoul police.” Yoongi dropped the photos on the table as if they were on fire and hissed at his old friend: “Christ Seokjin, you could have been caught and thrown in jail.”

“I’m too handsome for jail,” Seokjin protested in a quiet voice.

Namjoon suddenly realized that the file had been the result of three years of work. A long and very illegal project.

Curiosity won out.

“Well, I guess that’s their problem that they never caught you.” Yoongi picked up the pictures and looked at them again. He paused as he held the last pictures of Taehyung ever captured. His back was to the camera. He had headphones one, big ones and four books spread out in a circle on the desk. There were a few pictures of him with his head down and then he looked up at the clock.

The frame rate hadn’t been great- why would it need to be? It was a university library. There was approximately a ten second gap between the shots. It was like watching an old flip book.

Taehyung stood up at walked away towards the washrooms.

That was the last that anyone had ever seen of him.

There were also a few pictures of Jimin in the file. The timestamps indicated that he had been studying before and after Taehyung had left his seat. Around 10 pm, he stood up to go to the staff room.

“Why didn’t they study together?” Namjoon asked, looking at the pictures.

“Because if they were together, they wouldn’t get any studying done,” Yoongi said dryly. “Those two couldn’t keep their hands off each other.”

Namjoon hoped that his face didn’t show his surprise, but he knew it did. He had read everything that there was to read about Kim Taehyung. There wasn’t a lot – his family had slapped a press embargo on the case almost as soon as he’d gone missing. There were scant details except what was presented and vetoed by the family: He had been a bubbly, bright kid with many friends. He had gone to university for business to take over the family company. He had good fashion sense.

No one had mentioned that he-.

Yoongi eyeballed him. “Yeah, exactly in the way that you are thinking. Those two were attached at the hip ever since they met. Taehyung was flunking his intro science class and Jimin volunteered to tutor him.”

“Jimin knew exactly what he was doing,” Seokjin laughed to himself, low and happy. “He always knew how to get what he wanted.”

“But Taehyung was no innocent victim,” Yoongi warned. “He might have been shit at math, but he was craftier than anyone I’ve ever known. He could lie to anyone’s face and look like an angel while he was doing it. Remember when we played Mafia?”

“We had to ban it,” Seokjin explained to Namjoon. “He was too good. Even when he wasn’t Mafia, he was still playing Mafia. Just to fuck with people.”

“That was the Kim DNA at work.” Yoongi smiled. “Those two were a menace together.”

“Always sneaking off and getting into trouble.”

“They shared exactly one brain cell.”

“I thought…” Yoongi sighed. “Jimin met his parents, you know? It didn’t go well.”

Seokjin frowned. His unconsciously reached over and grabbed Namjoon’s thigh again like it belonged to him. Namjoon tried not to jump out of his skin. Seokjin didn’t usually touch him like this. But being around his old friend clearly relaxed him. Namjoon tried to be calm and cool about it. “Yeah. I know.”

It was clearly a bad memory for them both.

“Taehyung knew that his parents didn’t… get him. They threated Jimin.” 

“Threatened him?” Namjoon knew that chaebol families were powerful but what could they have on a university student?

“Jimin was there on a scholarship. He had a brain on him. But his family wasn’t rich enough for SNU. The Kims said that they would pull Jimin’s scholarship if he kept spending time around Taehyung, corrupting him.” This was Seokjin’s truly angry eyeroll.

“That didn’t stop either of them. They just got a lot sneakier. They were quite a pair,” Yoongi grinned, a contented little kitten. The two eternal roommates exchanged a knowing glance.

Namjoon looked at them with interest. Yoongi and Seokjin were very different but, in many ways, the same. They were both quiet and observant. And they both loved and missed their friends.

“I always wondered…” Yoongi put his spoon down. He looked at the pictures of Jimin at the library that Seokjin had illegally acquired. “I never told the police, because they never asked, but that night, Jimin borrowed my staff pass.”

Seokjin exchanged a quick glance with Namjoon. “What do you mean?”

“He came to the desk earlier that evening and asked to borrow my staff pass. He did it all the time to move the roller stack shelving on the sixth floor. It’s where all the reference books were.” Yoongi eyes were misty as he remembered. “He also sometimes used my pass to go to the staff room to make himself coffee when I was the only one on shift.”

“He used it that night?” Namjoon said. He shuffled through the pictures to show the back of Jimin going into the staff room. His hoodie was up over his head. There was a picture of the open door and then Jimin coming out fifteen minutes later with a coffee cup in his hand facing the camera.

“He did. He told me he went to make a cup of coffee because he was falling asleep. When they checked the logs, it was exactly as he said. There are no cameras in the staff area. Just outside. And the video shows him going in and out. Exactly as he said. But...”

The gears started turning. Jimin had access to the staff areas.

“It’s been three years,” Yoongi said. He looked at the picture of Taehyung again, studying at the desk. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him. I can’t believe that he’s gone. I refuse to believe that something bad happened to him. I refuse. Seokjin, I’ve never asked but what do you think really happened?”

Seokjin looked at the picture of the grinning young man in the art studio. “That’s what I’m here to find out.”

The talk after that devolved into reminiscing about the old days. Seokjin and Yoongi got progressively drunker on soju as Namjoon sat in silence and considered the facts.

The facts where these: Taehyung and Jimin were involved.

Jimin had access to staff areas and was there on the evening of Taehyung’s disappearance.

The police had never questioned Jimin about his actions on the night of Taehyung’s disappearance.

Kim Taehyung’s parents had threatened Jimin. They had insinuated that they would have him removed from the university. Maybe because of this, Jimin had sold out his boyfriend to the wrong people.

When Seokjin and Yoongi started to warble girl group tunes, Namjoon decided that the evening was done. Yoongi nodded and ordered a taxi. Namjoon pushed them both in the backseat and directed the driver to drop Yoongi off after he wrangled his address out of him. It had taken three riddles before Yoongi had disclosed his home address. Troll.

Yoongi waved enthusiastically from his third-floor balcony. “Bye Namjoon! I think you’re great! Love you Seokjin” he shouted into the night.

“Love you too, Eternal Roommate!” Seokjin crooned in reply.

Namjoon winced in embarrassment as he wrestled Seokjin back into his seatbelt. The long-suffering taxi driver scoffed but dropped the rest of his fare at their fancy hotel.

The concierge raised a polite eyebrow as Namjoon carried Seokjin through the lobby and threw him into the elevator.

A drunk Seokjin was a red-faced, huggy Seokjin. They had gone drinking before but this was the first time that Namjoon was sober. He wanted a clear head to consider Yoongi’s answers and think about his gameplan before he went to the gallery tomorrow.

As soon as Namjoon opened their hotel room door with a tap of the keycard, Seokjin ran and belly flopped on his bed like a beautiful whale. Namjoon couldn't help but smile. His hyung was so childlike sometimes.

But now Namjoon needed to be adult and get his friend ready for bed. But where to start?

“Silly, silly Namjoon. You need to turn that brain off. It’s so loud.”

“Click,” Namjoon mimed flipping a switch.

Seokjin laughed hysterically.

“Okay hyung. Time to put on your pajamas.”

Seokjin fumbled with the zipper his jeans. “Pull them off!” Seokjin whined as he flopped back against the bed, starfishing. “They’re stuck.”

Namjoon swallowed. This was a reasonable request to make of a friend while on vacation.

He carefully approached Seokjin’s bed as the man suffering from sticky pants watched him carefully. His pupils were wide as he licked his pink lips. Seokjin lifted up his legs as Namjoon caught him by the ankles. Namjoon looked down at Seokjin.

This angle was… heaven.

Namjoon needed to get these pants off as quickly and platonically as possible. He gripped onto the hems of each pant leg and yanked as hard as he could. Seokjin scooted forward with the force of Namjoon’s pull, but the pants stayed on. His crotch was flush against Namjoon's.

“You are so strong,” Seokjin purred. Namjoon dropped Seokjin’s legs immediately. Seokjin sighed and shimmied out of the jeans himself as Namjoon shame-faced turned to the wall to hide the boner that was absolutely not allowed to happen. When regained control over his traitorous body, Seokjin was reclined on the bed in his black briefs.

“Shirt next,” Namjoon gulped.

“This is not how I wanted this to go,” Drunk Seokjin scowled. He crossed his arms and refused to move.

“How did you want this to go?” Namjoon said. It was like dealing with an angry toddler.

“I don’t know,” Seokjin tapped his lips. Namjoon watched as they bounced back easily. “Sexier? Maybe? This seems… What’s the word? Perfunctory.”

Trust Seokjin to lead with the SNU vocabulary even when he was drunk.

“You are drunk and need to get into your pajamas. You hate falling asleep in your clothes and without doing your skin care.” Namjoon remembered one late night editing session that Seokjin had fallen asleep on his computer. Namjoon hadn’t had the heart to wake him, but Seokjin had been furious that he’d fallen asleep before doing his fourteen-step routine and blamed his pores on Namjoon for a week.

“I do. Gotta look cute. But you didn’t try to take my pants off with enough… pizazz.” Seokjin sighed mournfully. He undid a few buttons, wiggled out of his shirt, and threw it at Namjoon’s head. He missed by a mile.

“I don’t know if I’m capable of pizazz,” Namjoon exhaled as he carefully folded Seokjin’s shirt and placed it beside his suitcase. It smelled lightly of alcohol but also Seokjin’s cologne. Namjoon zipped open Seokjin ‘s suitcase and fished around for his pajamas and bag of face masks.

“You have plenty of pizazz,” Seokjin rolled back on the bed, laying on his belly. He propped himself up on his elbows and watched Namjoon wearing only his briefs. Namjoon did not look at his smooth, very pale chest and nipples. He would swear in a court of law that he saw no nipples. “No one else notices it but me. You have secret pizazz.”

“Very secret pizazz,” Namjoon agreed. His fingers brushed up against Seokjin’s favourite pink silk pajama set. He dug a little deeper and hit a cosmetics bag.

“You brain is very pizazzy,” Seokjin said, kicking his feet in the air. He giggled. It made Namjoon’s mind fizz. “And your thighs. And your face. It’s oozing pizazz.”

“I don’t think that words means what you think it means.” Namjoon sat down hard on his ass and unzipped the cosmetics bag to fish out Seokjin’s toothbrush and face mask.

He unzipped it and found some… unexpected things.

It was okay. Seokjin probably had sex. And of course he would have safe sex. And of course, he would always be prepared for safe sex. That was only… safe. Maybe he was just liked being prepared. But maybe he was thinking that the meeting with Yoongi would have gone differently.

There was a package of king-sized condoms and a bottle of lube in the cosmetics bag. Just there. Being. Existing.

Namjoon was now touching it.

He hastily grabbed the toothbrush and toothpaste and zipped the bag shut. He threw it back in the suitcase. And then rearranged a few pairs of pants to bury it from sight.

Okay. Seokjin and Yoongi had gone to university together. They were clearly close. Maybe Namjoon should have sent Seokjin home with Yoongi. Maybe they had been planning a more intimate reunion? Maybe Namjoon had been a third wheel. Maybe Namjoon had… cocked blocked him? Was that the term?

Namjoon was stuck. He was frozen as his brain rewound and spun through the entire night. He was so stuck that he didn’t realize that Seokjin had walked towards him, plucked the toothbrush and toothpaste out of his hands and walked towards the bathroom himself.

Okay.

This was okay.

Made total sense.

Namjoon should just step aside and let the old friends be old friends. Old sex friends.

He went to this bed and arranged himself under the covers and stared at the ceiling. Just stared. Thinking.

“Namjoon,” Seokjin whispered dramatically. “Are you sleeping pizazzily? Do you need a good night kiss?”

“Nope!” Namjoon said quickly.

“Booo.” Seokjin blew a raspberry. “Namjoon?”

“Yes?” Namjoon said, full of dread.

“Why are you still wearing your clothes? Do you need some help taking them off?” Seokjin turned his siren gaze towards Namjoon whose heart stopped. He leapt from the bed and sprinted to the bathroom and locked the door behind him. 

If Seokjin kept this up, it was Namjoon's unnatural death that they were going to have to investigate.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Seokjin was not full of pizazz.

He had drowned the bottle of water and painkillers that Namjoon had set up on his bedside table and complained that he was allergic to Busan.

“Why did you let me drink so much?” he grumbled at Namjoon. He brushed his hands through his hair and adjusted his sunglasses. “Yoongi is an endless bucket, a demon of the drink. He could drink the ocean under the table. I’m not young anymore!”

Seokjin looked pretty good hungover.

Stop it, Namjoon scolded himself. He wasn’t allowed to think these things anymore. Seokjin was off limits for those sorts of thoughts. He was Min Yoongi's.

King-sized condoms though.

“Yah,” Seokjin snapped his fingers in front of Namjoon’s face. “Concentrate. I need you at your best.”

Indeed, they were only a block away from the gallery where Namjoon had a meeting with the owner, one Jeon Jungkook. On the website, he looked more like a bodybuilder than an art gallery owner. But Golden had a good reputation in Busan and the gallery owner had been very polite over email.

“Okay!” Seokjin rubbed his hands together. “What’s the plan?”

Namjoon sat back on his feet.

When he wrote for the podcast, it was important for him when he was researching a case to stick to the facts. The facts were these: this was the gallery that had first exhibited works by Vante. There were no details about the artist anywhere on the web: not an Instagram account, not a tweet, not a trace of information.

The painting bore a resemblance to paintings made by Kim Taehyung while he was at university. Whether this was an old work that had been sent to the gallery by Jimin or SNU art department or something new, was currently unknown.

But the gallery owner would have had some contact with the artist or the donor at some point. Perhaps, he had even met him. Perhaps, Jungkook would be able to describe him.

He might be an ally, or he might be an adversary. They needed to be careful.

“Okay, I am going to go in and ask him a few questions about Vante. After that, I’m going to go to this café afterwards,” Namjoon pointed to a little Compose Coffee further down the street, “and I want you to sneak in as quietly as you can and see if he makes any telephone calls afterwards.”

“Devious, I like it.” Seokjin saluted and skipped towards another café. Then, his hangover caught up to him and he slowly walked the rest of the way.

Namjoon squared his shoulders. He had never interrogated anyone before. This was like something out of a movie.

He taped the button next to the gallery door and there was a pleasant chime that went off as he entered.

“Welcome!” A very… fashionable man in his mid-twenties stepped forward and bowed with enthusiasm.

As Namjoon responded, he couldn’t help but notice the gallery owner’s very chunky shoes. How on earth did he walk in those? But as he saw the man’s face, he was clearly capable of anything. He had large, sparkly eyes and a determined look in his face. He was built and clearly worked out, every day, maybe twice on the weekends.

The gallery was open and airy, the lighting mimicking natural sunlight but clearly carefully filtered to protect the art. The floors were a mosaiced bamboo. There was the faint smell of yuzu in the room. Everything felt harmonious. 

“Do you model?” the gallery owner said appraisingly.

“I-I-I… wait what?” Namjoon could hear the gears in his head screeching to a halt. This was not how he had envisioned this conversation going.

“Just saying. You’ve got great thighs. I teach a life drawing class at the community centre, and we are always looking for more life models. My students would love to draw someone with your… proportions.”

It should have sounded lewd and inappropriate, but it came off as sincere and interested. The young man, as far as Namjoon could tell, didn’t have an ounce of guile. He was looking at Namjoon as if he was another piece of art.

And there was plenty of art in the gallery to look at. Including one that Namjoon wanted to ask about.

“No, n-not a model,” Namjoon stammered. He clutched the strap of his bag. “I’m a data analyst.”

“Shame,” Jeon Jungkook said with a winning smile. He had a lip ring that impossibly made him cuter. “Anyways, you are Kim Namjoon, aren’t you? We’ve been talking over email. Welcome to Busan and welcome to Golden.”

“Thank you.” Namjoon cleared his throat and pointed towards the painting on the wall. It was similar to the Vante that had been at the Leeum Gallery. “As I said in my email, I was interested in learning more about this artist. I saw one of their pieces in Seoul.”

Jungkook followed his finger to the strange cubic face painting. He blinked, his face becoming a little more guarded. “Ah yes. Vante.”

“Vante?”

“Yes,” Jungkook said firmly. “It’s what the artist refers to themselves as.”

“I see,” Namjoon added this to his mental file to ask Seokjin about. Maybe the name had significance. Maybe he or Yoongi remembered something about it. “It’s a very distinct style.”

Jungkook grinned. “The artist is a distinct sort of person.”

“You’ve met them?” Namjoon inquired politely.

The gallery owner’s smile fell. He shuffled in his enormous shoes. “Ah. N-no. They prefer to remain anonymous. I just mean that they write a very distinct email. I’ve never met them.”

Jungkook’s breathing rate was increased. He was blinking more than was usual. Namjoon hadn’t known him for a long time, but he knew this man would have been terrible at Mafia.

“You are the first gallery that displayed their work,” Namjoon said, trying to stay neutral and not give away how excited he was. “Golden opened just two years ago, I believe?”

“Yes.” Jungkook walked over to the canvas. “They prefer to work out of our gallery exclusively and then I send selected works to other galleries for display. Vante doesn’t like publicity or the business side of art. They say that they prefer to focus on creation.”

Which would make sense. If this was Jimin selling the works, letting it be known that they were done by deceased Kim Taehyung’s would cause outrage and public outcry.

If it was the people that had kidnapped him, maybe this was their to plan to keep him docile until his release.

And of course, there was another option that Namjoon was considering that he was scared to even think.

“The works are getting some good publicity,” Namjoon said. “Do you know anything about the composition?”

Jungkook looked at painting with a knowing sort of smirk. Here was someone that was just as bad at masking their emotions as Namjoon. “It’s a reflection of the artist’s vision of themselves.”

It was a strangely compelling face for something so elementary. What was terrifying was the trickle of a nosebleed. That could signify all manner of things.

“Are you interested in buying?” Jungkook said.

“Maybe. I was wondering if you had access to any of their earlier works?” Namjoon asked, his heart beating. This would be it. This would be the answer as to whether this entire trip was worth him and Seokjin’s precious vacation days.

Jungkook shook his head. “Unfortunately, I don’t have anything later than two years ago when they first started to display their work here at Golden. They have one other piece in the gallery but it’s newer. Would you like to see it?”

Namjoon agreed and he walked over to another face that was standing in an empty field wearing a scout hat. It was clearly a commentary on the disaster of the 2023 World Scout Jamboree. Namjoon’s heart could have exploded from his chest.

He was aware he was grinning like an idiot, but he couldn’t help himself.

Here was the proof that he needed. Here was the proof that someone, either Taehyung or inspired by Taehyung’s university art, was alive and painting in 2023.

Namjoon could barely stop himself from lifting up Jungkook and spinning him around.

“I-I-I see. It’s a very e-e-evocative piece,” he jabbered as he brought up his phone to take a picture. Jungkook seemed amused as he looked at the piece from a few angles and then enthusiastically shook the younger man’s hand. “Thank you so much for your time and answering my questions. I’m in Busan for two weeks. If I think of anything else, I will contact you. Thank you!”

Namjoon practically sprinted out of the gallery. He ran across the street, gesturing for Seokjin to go into the gallery.

As cool as hungover cucumber, Seokjin strode across the street into the gallery.

Namjoon ordered himself an iced Americano at the counter and scrolled through his phone to look closely at the canvas. It was undoubtably a reference to the 2023 Jamboree. There was the faintest hint of an apartment complex in the foreground and there were scouts with nosebleeds fainting on the ground.

He was no art expert, but the symbolism was clear. They could date this painting definitively.

He wriggled in his seat until Seokjin came out of the gallery. As he crossed the street, Seokjin was suppressing a smile.

“You found something.” Seokjin didn’t ask, he could tell.

“I did!”

“So did I!”

“We should head back to the hotel.” Seokjin held up his hand. “We don’t know who is listening.”

A couple of very bored ahjummas and some university students with headphones where the only ones left in the coffee shop, but Namjoon agreed that they couldn’t be too careful. They were on the brink of solving one of the most puzzling cold cases in Korean history.

Seokjin bounced on his hotel room bed. “You first.”

Namjoon threw over his phone with the picture of the new Vante towards Seokjin. He looked at the art quizzically and then his face cleared as he understood what he was looking at.

“So, whoever is painting them, is still alive. They aren’t old canvases.”

Namjoon bobbed his head. “And they are still producing them. Jungkook, the owner is in contact with whoever is painting them. Directly.”

Seokjin stood up and began to pace. “He was on the phone when I came in. He seemed really worried about something. He was talking with someone and kept apologizing. It seemed like he was warning him that someone was sniffing around. Someone with strong thighs – I knew immediately that he was talking about you.”

“Warning someone,” Namjoon leaned back. This could be dangerous.

Seokjin also started to realize it. He crossed his arms protectively over his chest. “Look. If Taehyung really is in danger, we need to find out where he is. If Taehyung is not, we need to let him know that the people looking for him are friends. We just want to understand.”

There was nothing left for them to do. On the schedule was their first trip to the beach. Seokjin took many pictures of Namjoon framed by the slow waves. They even asked a young lady to take a picture of them together at Seokjin’s insistence.

It was a nice evening. The resisted talking about the case directly but they both knew what was on the schedule tomorrow. Jimin.

Before he went to bed, Namjoon brought out the file looked at the pictures of Jimin again.

He was the key to everything.

Either he was working with the kidnappers and had betrayed all his friends for a paycheck. Or he was something else entirely.

He and Taehyung had been in love – that sort of thing was hard to fake. Namjoon could fake a lot of emotions – but it was draining. He couldn’t image what pretending to be in love would be like.

Would it be easier than pretending not to be in love?

Because wasn’t that what he was doing? Over the weeks and months that he had spent with Seokjin, on the podcast, getting closer, he was slowly falling in love. But it wasn’t fair if Seokjin didn’t feel the same way.

Namjoon sighed.

“Hey,” Seokjin called out. His paused the game on his Switch and stared at Namjoon. He was wearing his glasses. He wore his contacts for vanity reasons, but Namjoon always liked Seokjin wearing glasses. It made him look professorial – a look that Namjoon… appreciated. “Don’t worry so much. Jimin’s a great guy.”

Jimin was a great guy. He was soft and gentle and kind and welcoming.

He had sent them instructions to a family restaurant in the north side, near to where his family lived.

“I’ve been going here since I was five,” Jimin confided when they’d first met. He had given them both warm, enveloping hugs despite the fact that he was shorter than both of them Namjoon had felt cocooned in comfort. “If I go anywhere else to eat on the block, they’d complain about it for years. Especially two handsome guys from Seoul.”

Indeed, the ahjumma owner seemed to dote on having handsome men in her shop. She insisted on taking a picture of them for her wall.

“Finally, Jimin brings some handsome men here! He’s always talking about his boyfriend but never brings him here! The audacity!” The restauranteur frowned deepened. But her laugh lines quickly returned. “I will make everything with extra love.”

The soft man laughed. “You always make you food with love. That’s why it tastes so good.”

“Love and salt,” the woman retorted. She hustled back into the kitchen to start cooking.

Jimin turned back to them with a wide-open smile. His hair was in stylish cut around his ears, and he was wearing a soft blue wool sweater. He just seemed small and cute. Namjoon, now seeing him, had a hard time believing that he had participated in the kidnapping of his boyfriend. All of Seokjin’s university friends seemed to be ridiculously good looking and kind.

But he was a hard-hitting podcaster, dammit. He was here to be impartial and stick to the facts.

“I was glad that you texted,” Jimin said, urging Seokjin to eat first when the first dishes were brought out. “I missed talking to you, hyung.”

“Me too,” Seokjin said. He stuffed some pickled radish in his mouth and then widened his eyes. “This is really good.”

“Of course it is,” Jimin smiled. “It’s from Busan. Everything is tasty in Busan.”

The two of them laughed uproariously at some inside joke. Namjoon examined his water glass.

“Ah, Kim Namjoon. You’ll have to excuse us. When you’re in university, everything is hilarious.” Jimin turned towards Namjoon. It was like being hit with the full force of the sun. “Now, Kim Namjoon, ask me everything that you want to know about hyung in university. Let me tell you about what a big dork he was. He had exactly no game-“

“I had plenty of game!” Seokjin protested. “Don’t listen to his lies!”

“He had the worst haircut I have even seen – other than Yoongi’s cornrows for that week.” Jimin shivered. “Pulling them out was one of the great accomplishments of my life.”

“Those cornrows netted him Hoseok,” Seokjin pointed out.

Huh?

“Only because they were so repulsive and cultural inappropriate that Hoseok couldn’t stop staring,” Jimin replied. “They did their service to society and now we can forget about them and only bring them up at our five-year reunion in picture form and at their wedding. Cannot believe that Hoseok is still dating him.”

Hoseok and Yoongi? Yoongi and Hoseok? They were dating?

Had Namjoon missed all the clues?

“Yoongi sends his regards by the way,” Seokjin said with just a hint of disapproval. Jimin clearly read between the lines.

“I don’t see him as much as I should,” Jimin said mournfully. He pushed around the squid on his plate. “I know, work is busy.”

“Hmmm,” Seokjin agreed.

The ahjumma brought plate after plate of food. When the table couldn’t be seen anymore, she seemed satisfied. “Enjoy.”

“Thank you,” Jimin bowed. They dug in with gusto.

“I’ve been busy,” Jimin said after they’d eaten in greedy silence for ten minutes. “But I’ve been neglecting my friends for too long.”

“Yoongi said that you were working some sort of tech job?”

Jimin nodded. “The dance part of my major turned out to be less useful in the current job market. I work in cyber security.”

“You always were the smartest out of all of us,” Seokjin grumbled.

“Not true! You are all very smart. Except for Yoongi hyung,” Jimin said with a wicked grin. “But after I moved back to Busan, I found a company that was willing to offer some extra training since I didn’t finish my degree. It’s not bad. I can work from home and set my own hours. The pay is okay.”

“Do you live with your parents?” Seokjin asked.

Jimin laughed, his eyes squished up into happy crescents. “No, I love my parents but living with them would be a little too much. I actually live on Geoje Island.”

 “Geoje?” Seokjin blinked. This was a confused blink. He seemed to be reconciling the old Jimin with the new Jimin. “That’s so… far away and… quiet.”

“I like the quiet,” Jimin said. He seemed a little distant. “After Seoul, a little silence was nice.”

Seokjin nodded. “I get it.”

Jimin gently put his hand on his old friend’s arm. Jimin was very touchy, Namjoon realized. “I really like it.”

The proper convention would be to ask him over to visit but Jimin let it stand. He glossed over the silence quickly. “I’ve heard your podcast, hyung.”

Seokjin groaned. “It’s supposed to be secret and anonymous.”

“Do you think that Hoseok can keep a secret? None of our friends can keep a secret to save their lives.” Jimin scoffed. This was true. Every one of Seokjin’s friends were aware of the podcast and who the real people were behind Cypher. “He texted me the link to the first episode and I’ve been listening ever since. You’ve been at it for a long time. How long have you been dating?”

Seokjin choked on him kimchi. Namjoon thunked him on his back. Seokjin sputtered. “We-we aren’t-“

“My mistake,” Jimin said sweetly acting very much like it was not a mistake. He cocked his head at Namjoon.

Namjoon remembered that Jimin was the smartest of all of them. And Seokjin was already pretty smart. He tried his own question in what he hoped what an innocent tone. “The ahjumma said that you were also seeing someone.”

Jimin demurred. He looked at his plate and his cheeks were pink and rosy.

“How did you find a good man on an abandoned island?” Seokjin demanded. “Swear to god they just flock to you. It’s just like it was in university.”

“You only need one good one,” Jimin said rolling his eyes. “They were all idiots. Taehyung…”

It was the first time his name had been spoken aloud. Seokjin took a deep breath. But Jimin shook his head.

“Taehyung wasn’t just anyone.”

Jimin’s smile was heartbreakingly fond. Namjoon felt the loss of Taehyung as he looked at Jimin’s face. Taehyung had clearly been someone special for such people to miss him so much.

“He was my soulmate.”

As if there was anything left to say after that.

“Jimin,” Seokjin said. He exchanged a glance with Namjoon and then his hand found its way to Namjoon’s knee, and he squeezed. This was becoming a habit. “What do you think happened that night?”

Jimin exhaled deeply. He sat back and put down his chopsticks and spoon. Jimin was a dancer and Namjoon suspected that his nerves served him well. “As soon as I heard the podcast, I knew that one day you would come to ask about it.”

Seokjin nodded. “I cannot accept that… I cannot accept what the police say happened, what his parents say. It doesn’t feel right. If he was… I feel like I would have felt it.” Seokjin touched his chest lightly with his fingers. Namjoon could see that they were trembling. “I think I would know.”

Tears gathered in the edges of Jimin’s eyes. He reached across the table. Seokjin removed his hand from Namjoon’s knee and took Jimin’s hands in his. Jimin’s fingers were so small. His pinky was almost half the size of Seokjin’s.

“I know,” Jimin said. “I know. I know, I know. I don’t believe that the police really investigated. They just accepted whatever Taehyung’s parents told them. They wanted him gone and I think they were relieved when they didn’t get him back. I can never forgive them.”

Jimin’s eyes were fiery. Namjoon pitied anyone that got in his way.

“What do you think happened?” Namjoon asked.

Jimin looked over at him. He gripped onto Seokjin’s fingers tightly. “I don’t know. I really… don’t know exactly what happened that night.”

Jimin withdrew his hands and took a drink of water. He looked Namjoon directly in the eye. His breath was even, and his hands were still. “I was studying that night at the library. I was upstairs. I borrowed Yoongi’s staff pass to make myself some coffee in the staff lounge. But by that time, the cameras showed that he had already left his seat. I made my coffee, went back upstairs. When I texted Taehyung, I figured that he had already gone back to his place and fallen asleep. He really hated the classes he was taking.”

“He hated business,” Seokjin said.

“I figured he was just avoiding the chewing out that I would have given him for slacking off before a big test,” Jimin chuckled. “He was always good at avoiding a scolding.”

“The best,” Seokjin grumbled. “And there was so much to scold him about.”

“I finished studying and left. When I didn’t hear from him the next day, I began to get worried. We had plans to meet that afternoon. So, I drove to campus to see if I could wake him up at his dorm. But there was no one there. So, I went to the library and ran into Yoongi. He told me that Taehyung’s things were left behind last night. Including his phone and his car was still in the parking lot.

“I spent the entire day driving around trying to find him.” Jimin said dully. He picked at his food. “We called the police. And they did nothing until his parents contacted them on Monday morning.

“There were a lot of questions and police. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore and I drove back to Busan to stay with my parents and just… couldn’t go back. I tried texting him every day. There was nothing and his parents refused to talk to anyone about how the case was going – even the people who cared about him the most.”

“I couldn’t get them to tell me anything either.” Seokjin shuffled a little closer to Namjoon. Namjoon wanted to stretch his arm around Seokjin’s broad shoulders.

 “What happened? I know what I hope happened. And I know what I really hope didn’t happen.”

This seemed to resonate with Seokjin. He spun one of the metallic bowls on the table. “I know. I’ve always wondering if it’s better not to know, one way or the other. If he really is… gone, that’s too much to bear. If he really is… alive somewhere, I need to deliver the scolding of a lifetime.”

Jimin laughed. “I’m sure he’d love that.”

They moved off the subject and finished the meal in pleasant conversation. Jimin had plenty of questions about the podcast – even if he was totally disinterested in crime.

“You haven’t heard of Jack the Ripper?” Namjoon squeaked out.

Jimin shrugged. He looked at Seokjin. “Glad you found someone to match your weird, hyung.”

The sight of Seokjin blushing was filled away in Namjoon’s brain.

At the end of the dinner outside of the restaurant, Jimin stretched up to hug Seokjin once more. “Keep in touch, hyung.”

“You, too.”

“I will. I think I’m ready.” Jimin let go of Seokjin and then turned to Namjoon and without a second thought, gathered Namjoon into a soft hug. He smelled like the ocean. His little hand cupped around Namjoon’s ear to whisper: “Don’t wait too long to make your move. Take a leap of faith.”

Namjoon pulled back with a gawping face. Jimin winked and skipped down the alley towards his car.

“He hasn’t changed at all,” Seokjin growled. He glared as Jimin honked at them before speeding off in his nice new car. “Shameless.”

Shameless and secretive, Namjoon thought as they drove back to their hotel. He had managed to say everything and nothing at the same time.

*

Back at the hotel, Seokjin immediately put himself to bed with a sleep mask firmly set as Namjoon stayed awake with a bedside lamp on.

When Namjoon offered to turn it off, Seokjin waved away his protests. “Keep it on. You sitting in the dark thinking will keep me up. It’s bad for your eyes. I worry. Just turn it off when you’re finished.”

Namjoon had a lot to think about.

Everything was spinning around in his head. What Jimin had said. What Jimin hadn’t said.

The fact that Hoseok and Yoongi were dating.

The fact that Seokjin knew this.

He wasn’t a homewrecker, so he had the condoms for… A one-night stand in Busan? They were sharing a hotel room. And Seokjin was considerate to a tee. His mother had raised him right and the idea of uptight Seokjin having sex with a stranger while Namjoon read a book the next bed over was… okay, it was hot, but it didn’t seem in character.

Which meant that Seokjin had planned for… maybe for someone else? Maybe he was planning on meeting some stranger on the beach and going back to their place and then…

Namjoon shook his head.

Seokjin was many things, but a wanton seducer of winter beach babes wasn’t one of them. He was painfully shy around new people. He was an inside person who liked his apartment and the occasional cafe. He was careful about who he spent time with.

He was liberal with his affection to dogs, but that was about it.

Jimin was quite the opposite.

Jimin with his easy charm and genuine ease around people. Namjoon could understand why people were drawn towards him. He could see why Seokjin and Yoongi missed him so much. He was comfort personified. He wasn’t a touchy person, but he’d easily let Jimin take his hands.

Namjoon sighed.

There was something about that entire meeting that was rubbing him the wrong way.

He didn’t think that Jimin had lied the entire time. He had held eye contact; his breath had been steady. Any number of little tells would have given away. But Namjoon had the impression that Jimin had carefully chosen his words – he hadn’t lied but he hadn’t told the whole truth either.

He clearly had deep, lingering feelings for Taehyung. Their bond was something special. Namjoon understood why Seokjin couldn’t believe that Jimin had anything to do with a sinister kidnapping. The man didn’t have a cruel bone in his body.

But he was smart.

Very, very smart.

Namjoon shut the light off and tried to fall asleep. Tomorrow, they were going to try and talk to Jungkook again about the painting. Seokjin was going to pose as a buyer and see if he could wiggle out more details from the art gallery owner who seemed to be a terrible liar.

“I will wiggle it right out of him,” Seokjin said as they went over their plan before bed. He held out his pinky finger. “Promise.”

Fingers.

Namjoon thought of Seokjin’s dexterous slightly bent fingers. They would be capable of really bending into –

Focus! Namjoon squinted his eyes. There was something there. Something that wasn’t fitting.

I’m sure, Namjoon’s reptile brain interjected smoothly, that Seokjin would be patient in making those fingers fit anywhere –

Focus! Namjoon rubbed his forehead. This was important. Seokjin needed him for his brain.

Then why did he pack those very specific supplies? Horny Namjoon’s brain asked.

Uhhh…

He is not going to fuck his best friend who is in a happily committed long-term relationship with his university sweetheart, is he? hissed his traitorous brain. And he is not the type for a one-night stand. So, what, and more importantly who, was he packing them for?

An intense and considerate to cleaning staff masturbation session in the hotel shower?

This did not help his brain focus and now he could picture those long, elegant fingers making their way down his pale chest down, down, down towards his-

Fingers.

That was it.

Namjoon threw the blankets off and flicked on the room lights.

“W-what? Are we being murdered Namjoon? Tell them to come back in the morning,” Seokjin groaned. He sat up in bed, sleep mask askew.

“Fingers,” Namjoon muttered. He went through his luggage, throwing his clothing and books on the ground until he found was he was looking for. There was the file.

“Fingers? What about fingers?” The sleep mask was thrown aside, and Seokjin’s hair was standing straight up. He was gorgeous with his pink puffy lips curled into a frown and his eyes still swollen from sleep.

Namjoon flipped through the file until he found the picture he was looking for. The picture of Jimin in front of the staff room tapping Yoongi’s staff pass on the pad from the security footage.

He stabbed the picture with his index finger. “Fingers.”

“Yeah? He’s got them. Most people do,” Seokjin said. He put his hand on Namjoon’s forehead. “Are you okay? Do you have a fever? Do I need to get a doctor?”

“No.” Namjoon’s brain was working too fast to explain. He grabbed Seokjin’s hand and put their pinkies together. “Fingers.”

Seokjin looked at their hands together. Seokjin had long, slim piano playing fingers. Namjoon’s fingers were also long but boxier. Their fingers were about the same size.

Suddenly Seokjin looked at their hands together and gasped. “Fingers.”

He looked down at the picture which clearly showed the back of Jimin with his hand holding Yoongi’s staff pass. He was holding it in his right hand and tapping it against the black pad. He was holding it between his thumb and his index finger with the rest of his fingers splayed.

Jimin, they had both seen, had very small fingers. His pinky was tiny, his hands were smaller than most. But the hand holding that pass was huge. His pinky finger was larger than the entire card.

Namjoon then showed Seokjin picture of Taehyung holding the paintbrush. His hands were huge. His fingers long.

Seokjin looked between the pictures.

If you looked closely, if you had seen Jimin in person, the picture of the person going into the staff room without camera made no sense. The person in that picture was taller, his shoulders a little broader. He was wearing the same clothes as Jimin, to be sure, but they didn’t fit his slim frame exactly.

“That’s not Jimin,” Seokjin breathed. He looked at the picture carefully. “That’s not Jimin. Namjoon… I think that’s Taehyung.”

Namjoon nodded. He sat on his bed and faced Seokjin. His hands were trembling with how fast his brain was working.

“The security camera only takes one frame every ten seconds. If you opened the door and you were fast, really fast, you could get inside and the camera wouldn’t see you,” Namjoon said.

“Jimin is fast. He was a dance major.” Seokjin was breathing shallowly, and his cheeks were flushed.

“The door opens. Taehyung and Jimin both go in, Jimin comes out. Taehyung left by himself into the staff room. Only Yoongi is working that night and there’s plenty of places to hide in a room with no cameras. It meant that no one forced him to go anywhere.”

It also meant that he had been able to leave the building and wait for Jimin to pick him up that morning before the security cameras were reset. Yoongi had said that they were only turned on when the building was open. Yoongi knew that and Jimin knew that. They knew then the delivery vans arrived and so they had just waited until the camera was covered for Taehyung to climb into the trunk of Jimin’s car that morning when he came to “look” for Taehyung.

They would have had to have been careful. Namjoon would bet that the cameras around Jimin’s apartment captured nothing. He was a computer sciences major. He could have figured out the angles to avoid being seen as they went in and out of his apartment before driving to Busan.

And it would have been at night. Jimin admitted that he’d spend all hours driving around. It was credible that he’d kept strange hours during that time.

He lived in Geoje. There were less cameras in small villages. And Jimin was smart and careful. He was very, very smart.

They’d waited a year before Taehyung had begun to show his art in a gallery. They clearly knew Jungkook, or he was aware of their situation that he was willing to act as a front for them.

It was… possible. If two people were very committed and very careful and trusted each to take a huge risk...

“Namjoon,” Seokjin whispered. “He’s alive… He’s alive and I’m going to kill him.”

Chapter Text

Thankfully, it was not so late in the evening that Jimin’s parents were upset that an old university friend was calling their house for Jimin’s address.

“I want to surprise him,” Seokjin said winningly. Namjoon, with his training, knew that Seokjin was gritting his teeth, but an amateur Seokjin observer probably couldn’t hear it. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen him, and I know that he’ll be happy to see me again.”

“He really doesn’t get a lot of visitors,” his dad agreed. “It’s so lonely on the island but he seems happy there.”

“I bet he does,” Seokjin grimaced as he scribbled down an address. As soon as he got of the phone with Jimin’s kindly but confused parents, he went about ordering a rental car.

Namjoon chewed the inside of his mouth. Seokjin was exuding frantic energy. “Do you think we should wait until the morning to…” What were they going to do?

“I thought he was dead for three years. This cannot wait.” Seokjin grabbed his shoulder bag. “You coming?”

Coming to solve one of Korea’s greatest mysteries? Yeah, Namjoon was coming.

Seokjin, for all his bluster, drove the rental car carefully through Busan. Namjoon was thankful as he often got motion sickness. There was still a little traffic this late at night and they passed over the bridges in silence.  

“What are you going to do when we get there?” Namjoon asked nervously from the passenger seat. He fiddled with the seatbelt and focused on the horizon.

Seokjin was very hard to read right now. He stared straight ahead, carefully indicated that he was changing lanes, and then sighed.

“I am going to smack him upside the head for FAKING HIS OWN DEATH. Who does that in this day and age? Did he think that he could just disappear? Who does that to his friends?”

Friends that couldn’t keep a secret to save their lives.

Namjoon remembered Jimin’s expression when he’d said that. They were a close group, but they shared everything between them. He was sure that they would have said something to someone. They would have let something slip. No wonder they’d kept the conspiracy between just the two of them. If something went wrong, if someone cracked under pressure, it would have been jail.

They would have been public enemies for wasting the country’s time and resources.

Kim Taehyung’s parents were powerful and ruthless. They would have locked Jimin up and thrown away the key. They probably could have nailed Yoongi for being an accessory for lending Jimin his pass. But together and alone, Jimin and Taehyung, had outsmarted everyone.

Seokjin was still ranting when Namjoon came back to the present. “How could they do this to poor Hoseok? He cried for months! Months! Those little bastards.”

“I’m sure they had their reasons,” Namjoon interjected.

Seokjin slowly braked for a red light. He tapped on the steering wheel. “I am sure they did. They wouldn’t have done this if they had a choice. I just wish… I just wished they’d said something. Given us a sign that Taehyung was okay. I’ve… I’ve really missed him, Namjoon.”

His voice broke a little. Namjoon looked over and there were tears in Seokjin’s eyes.

Namjoon couldn’t image if Seokjin suddenly disappeared one day. He had appeared in his life like a bolt from the blue, he made his days so rich and if he just left, how would he feel?

Namjoon knew that he would never recover.

He leaned over and gripped Seokjin’s hand.

Seokjin looked down at their entwined hands in shock.

“What?”

“I would miss you if you were gone.”

The light changed green, and Seokjin froze for a few seconds. Namjoon let go of his hand and gestured for Seokjin to keep driving.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. I would miss you too Namjoon. But I’m not going anywhere. Wait, do you know the future? Is something about to happen?”

Aren’t you? When you get tired of me or the podcast or when you find your other friends again? Namjoon was temporary. A divertissement. That’s all he was good for. His big brain had solved the case, and Seokjin wouldn’t need Namjoon anymore.

“I stick around, unlike Houdini and his shameless sexpot assistant.”

Seokjin concentrated as their path took them off the main roads on Geoje Island. The light became dimmer and dimmer. They were in some sort of forest on the island. It was remote from the bright lights of Busan and Namjoon could understand why Jimin and Taehyung had chosen the area. It was really off the grid, on the edge of civilization. Namjoon had never been somewhere so... dark before.

Seokjin leaned forward as he took them down a barely paved path to the address that Jimin’s parents had given. It was close to the ocean - Namjoon could hear the waves as they came to the end of this driveway. In the headlights, Namjoon could tell the house was beautiful. Expensive. Warm.

There was a little garden full of sunflowers.

And then there was the Pomeranian standing on the dark porch, eyes glinting red in the headlights.

“Of course,” Seokjin hissed as he cut the engine. “Get that dog Namjoon. It’s going to give us away. I don’t want them running off to hide in the trees. They are getting this scolding.”

Namjoon obediently jumped out of the vehicle and went towards the growling fluff ball. He held up his hands in peace. “There, there little dog. We don’t mean you any harm.”

“I mean someone a little harm,” Seokjin muttered as he looked at the house and brought out his phone.

The dog gave one last suspicious yip and then ran towards the house. Namjoon cursed softly. “Seokjin, I’ve lost the dog.”

He looked up just in time to see the shovel connect with Seokjin’s head.

Seokjin turned to face his murderer and then his eyes rolled to the back of his head.

“Oh my god,” the assailant said, immediately dropping the shovel in the dirt. The voice was low and had a strange drawl despite the panic. It was not Jimin’s voice. “I think I’ve killed him. Yeontan. Yeontan. Come back.”

Namjoon lunged towards the shovel and stood as he held it in front of himself like a spear. He brandished it wildly in the dark. “Stay back! I won’t let you kill him.”

“Kill him! He’s here to kidnap me!”

“That would be first for you,” Seokjin groaned from the ground. Both Namjoon and the assailant looked down. Seokjin was sitting up holding his forehead as a frightening amount of blood was falling into his eyes.

“Wait… hyung?”

The lights in the house suddenly all turned on and the yard was illuminated. The very much alive face of one Kim Taehyung glowed in the night.

He looked… happier. His cheeks were fuller, and his hair was longer and curly. He was dressed in a purple silk pajama set and had a robe tied around his waist. His mouth was open and the eyes that had stared out at Namjoon from countless newspaper and posters were wide with shock.

The front door of the house opened. Jimin, wearing a matching pajama set and a sour expression, stomped out, holding his phone. He took in the entire scene. “Why is Seokjin here? Why is Seokjin bleeding?”

Kim Taehyung, back from the dead, blanched. “Oh my god. I’ve killed Seokjin hyung.”

“I’m not dead Taehyung!” Seokjin snapped. He groaned as he sat himself up and pressed his hand against the wound. “I’m just… bleeding… a lot.” He looked peaky.

“Did you just drive here in a huff? Usually, people text before they try to break into your house at three o’clock in the morning,” Jimin grumbled. He was clearly not a morning person.

Seokjin held up his phone that was still in his hand. “I was just about to text you before we knocked on the door. Wanted to make sure you two cockroaches didn’t have time to scuttle away.”

“Hey,” Kim Taehyung stepped out from between the two arguing men. He bowed low. “I’m Kim Taehyung.”

“I know,” Namjoon said intelligently. He put down the shovel.

“Yeah,” Taehyung lowered his eyes as he exhaled. “I guess you do.”

“I’m Kim Namjoon.”

“I know,” Taehyung said. “Big fan of the podcast.”

“Thanks. It’s supposed to be anonymous.”

“Oh, these idiots can’t keep a secret,” Taehyung said fondly looking at Jimin and Seokjin who were screaming at each other to the delight of Yeontan.

Seokjin was so angry, that he had stumbled to his feet and was stabbing a finger in Jimin’s chest. “You lied! You lied to my face!”

“I did not! I always told the exact truth. Just not all of it.”

“You said that you didn’t know where Taehyung was!”

“And I didn’t! He could have been anywhere! At the beach, in the village, on the toilet! I don’t keep tabs on him at all times!”

“Yes! Yes, you do! You two used to go to the bathroom together!”

Namjoon watched as Seokjin’s skin rapidly paled. He was losing a lot of blood. He swung towards Taehyung. “And you!”

Anticipating a scolding, Taehyung expertly stepped forward and wrapped his hyung into a warm hug. “I’ve missed you so, so much.”

Seokjin blinked. Tears were falling down his cheek and mixing with the blood. Namjoon felt his own eyes start to water. “Well… well… yes. Me too, Taehyung.”

Their reunion was cut short by Seokjin passing out in Taehyung’s arms.

“We should probably get him to a hospital,” Jimin said without any emotion. He gripped his robe tightly around his arms. The January sea air was frigid. “He’ll need to get that head wound checked out.”

Jimin looked pointedly at Namjoon and their rental car.

“I.. uh… actually don’t have my driver’s license.”

Taehyung smiled nervously. “And I am technically kidnapped presumed dead?”

Jimin snarled at both of them and trudged off back inside the house. He slammed the door behind him.

“So, how did you meet Seokjin?” Taehyung said conversationally as he arranged Seokjin’s head on his lap. Taehyung took off his robe and pressed it against Seokjin’s head wound. He was very calm considering the situation. But he would have had to have nerves of steal to pull of what they had done.

“Uh, met at work.” Namjoon said.

“I bet it took you weeks to make him talk to you,” Taehyung laughed. He lifted Seokjin’s legs to help the blood run to his head. “He’s so shy. The only reason that he even talked to us is because Yoongi challenged him to a halli galli game and he was drunk enough to agree.”

Namjoon shook his head. “He actually talked to me first. I was just eating by myself in the cafeteria.”

“Really?” Taehyung patted his hyung’s head. “Then, he really has changed a lot since I knew him. Three years is a long time for character development. Does he still roll his eyes when he thinks no one is looking?”

“Yeah,” Namjoon said. Taehyung was also a Seokjin observer. “He thinks he’s pretty sneaky.”

“He does. Terrible liar though. How long have you two been dating?” Taehyung said amiably with Seokjin’s blood on his hands.

“Huh?” Namjoon shook his head. Following a conversation with Taehyung made him dizzy or maybe it was just the sight of his friend bleeding out on the grass. “We’re not dating.”

Taehyung groaned. “Oh no. He hasn’t made his move yet has he?”

Namjoon blinked rapidly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, that our dear sweet hyung has absolutely no game. He just likes to pine from afar and then rope his prey into ridiculous schemes and just hope that they’ll say something to him first. They never do because he doesn’t know how to just ask for something directly. He’s like a really shitty anglerfish.

“When he wanted to share an apartment with Yoongi in his third year when they left the dorms, he asked him to go ghost hunting together in an apartment building that Seokjin had already picked out. Then when Yoongi was entranced with the lightning fixtures, he had him sign a lease agreement on the fridge with all the specs. The man cannot be direct.”

“He’s a wiggler,” Jimin agreed as he emerged dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie. He was swinging car keys around his finger. “Like a worm.”

They lifted Seokjin into the back seat and quickly realized the problem. He was too long to lie down in the sporty car.

“If we put down the back seats, he can lie down in the trunk.” Jimin snapped opened the trunk and looked at Namjoon.

Taehyung took a step back. “No thanks. Been there, done that.”

“I’ll… sit with him,” Namjoon said. They gently put Seokjin in the back of the trunk with his legs elevated. Seokjin groaned. Namjoon took a deep breath, and then climbed into the trunk beside him. They were practically snuggling. It was the closest that they had ever been.

“Hang on tight.” Jimin drove them towards Busan in stoney silence. He really wasn’t a morning person.

Namjoon stared at Seokjin’s fluttering eyelids. He wanted to reach out and touch him but his brain was whirring like a struggling cooling fan on an ancient laptop.

This was not his fault.

As Namjoon was bounced around in the car trunk, he was pretty sure that everything after loosing the Pomeranian wasn’t his fault.

His face was against the coarse carpeting of the trunk liner – his cheek felt rubbed raw. But it wasn’t as if the engineers at Kia had planned for people to be stacked horizontally in the back of their stylish yet affordable automobiles.

Kim Seokjin was to blame for at least 50% of this situation.

His co-conspirator moaned incoherently beside him in the trunk. Namjoon winced.

Maybe 40%.

“Keep it down back there!” the driver snapped from the front seat, a hint of warning in his tone.

Maybe 30%.

Namjoon forced himself to look again at the gash on Seokjin’s forehead. The facts were these: He knew, he rationally knew, that head wounds bled a lot. It wasn’t necessarily indicative of the severity of the injury. Namjoon really hoped that Seokjin didn’t have a concussion.

Seokjin would kill him if he had a concussion.

Seokjin’s mother would kill him if he had concussion.

He was much, much more afraid of Seokjin’s mother than anyone else in the car.

The fact that he clung as he shifted around in the tight space of the trunk was this: Seokjin was still alive and muttering. As long as Seokjin could mutter, he would be okay.

Namjoon let himself be jostled around the trunk like loose change in a cup holder as the car went over the bridge grating. He had long since stopped being able to track which direction the car was turning. He usually didn’t have a problem orienting himself but the blood running down Seokjin’s pale forehead distracted him.

He hadn’t meant for it to turn out this way.

When Seokjin had first introduced the idea of starting a podcast together, his “big, sexy brain” (Seokjin’s description) hadn’t seen this coming at all.

Any of it.

Seokjin drifted in and out of consciousness. Every time that he woke up, he saw the blood and immediately fainted again.

Namjoon did catch a few moments of lucidity.

“Are we being kidnapped?” Seokjin wailed loud enough for Jimin to hear.

“You wish!” Jimin shot back.

“I can’t believe that you kidnapped Taehyung. It was you all along. Always knew you were a villain,” Seokjin said.

“Technically,” Jimin reasoned. “Taehyung kidnapped himself.”

Namjoon wasn’t sure if that would stand in a court of law.

“Pretty sure you helped,” Seokjin said. “You helped and didn’t say anything to us.”

“We were planning to,” Jimin said patiently. “We had to wait exact three years until Taehyung was declared legally dead.”

Three years without any sign of life would be enough for Kim Taehyung’s parents to declare their son dead. It was generally accepted that he had been murdered after the ransom note had been received. In their research for the case, Namjoon had been able to ascertain that the family had been lobbying to expedite the process as much of Taehyung’s family money was tied up to him being their heir. It couldn’t be legally passed on to his younger siblings until he was gone.

“We were planning on inviting you all over to visit. That way, you could blabber all you wanted, and no one would be the wiser. Taehyung’s parents wouldn’t care either way and we would finally be able to live a little freer.”

“There are cameras everywhere,” Seokjin lectured.

“Not as many on the island,” Jimin said smugly. “And as long as he’s carefully and wearing a mask, he can pretty much go anywhere. Dead people are erased from the register after three years. So, he wouldn’t even clock on the Seoul cameras. We were hoping to be able to attend Yoongi and Hoseok’s wedding.”

“If you think that I’m inviting you two to stay with me after the stunt that you pulled,” Seokjin grimaced.

“They were going to make him dropout,” Jimin said quietly. “He was failing school.”

“Yeah,” Seokjin said. “I know. He wasn’t good at math.”

“No, he was miserable in business. Do you know what he really wanted to do? He wanted to paint. He’s good at it.”

“It’s how we found him,” Namjoon said.

“Yeah, it was a risk. Jungkook told us that you stopped by. He thought that you were private investigators.”

Namjoon was secretly a little proud that he’d pulled that off.

“But I knew that it was you two idiots. I only hoped that I’d have enough time to get Taehyung into hiding somewhere else before the great detective duo stumbled into our front garden at three o’clock in the morning.”

“Taehyung hit me with a shovel,” Seokjin complained.

“He tapped you!” Jimin corrected. “I know kendo. You’re lucky I’m a deep sleeper.”

The injury looked bad enough with Taehyung’s tap.

“But really, I didn’t like... lying to you. Lying to everyone. But we had to. His parents were threatening to send him away to… fix him. They thought that something was wrong with him but he’s perfect just the way he is.”

Jimin smiled into the sun slowly spreading into a still-sleeping Busan.

“Well, except for the socks on the floor and apparent refusal to put his dirty dishes anywhere except beside the dishwasher. And his addiction to doing girl group dances.”

“You took the ransom?” Namjoon asked curiously.

“Oh yeah.” Jimin said. “I think that the Kims might have suspected what had really happened. Honestly, Taehyung dying at the hands of some scary mafia types was the best-case scenario for them. Having to deal with a gay artist son would have been a disaster.”

Namjoon could understand what had led the pair to their decision. They were outmatched but they were not outwitted. They had planned around Taehyung’s family and won. They had used their prejudices to their advantage.

“We’re almost there. I’m going to pull into the parking lot. I’m an upright citizen. I don’t need two boneheads covered in blood, stumbling out of my car trunk.”

Jimin carefully calculated the angles of the cameras and parked them in front of a tree. He helped Namjoon extend himself from the trunk and then gingerly helped Seokjin to his feet. Jimin took them to the front desk.

“He saw a mouse and ran into a door,” Jimin explained in his sweet regular voice.

The intake nurse raised an eyebrow.

“It was a very frightening mouse,” Seokjin insisted.

The rest of the evening was spent in the hospital as they did a scan to make sure nothing was wrong with Seokjin’s brain or skull. He texted that he would need stiches. Jimin feel asleep on Namjoon’s shoulder as they waited, his weight on Namjoon’s was nothing. He was such a slight thing.

Namjoon was sure that Jimin had used his appearance to his advantage. He looked soft and Namjoon believed that he did have a soft side. He looked and talked about his hyungs with pure love. But there was steely intelligence underneath. To save the person he loved, he had outwitted the police and the Korean public for three years. He had sacrificed his future for an uncertain promise.

Park Jimin had risked everything, had gambled everything for love.

Namjoon thought he was one of the bravest people he had ever met.

Eventually, a nurse wheeled Seokjin out. He had a bandage over his forehead and his shirt was still stained with blood. He was glaring at Jimin who was still leaning sleepily against Namjoon’s forearm. The nurse explained that the dressing would need to be changed and gave them the scrip for painkillers.

“The least you can do is buy breakfast,” Seokjin said through pursed lips. He pushed Jimin away from Namjoon. Jimin rolled his eyes and grabbed the paper to take to the pharmacy.

Seokjin grabbed Namjoon’s arm and walked towards the car leaning heavily on his shoulder. Seokjin was unsteady on his feet. Namjoon could not help but feel a little guilty. It was his fault that Seokjin had been injured. If only he had been paying more attention.

Jimin met them at the car and threw a paper pharmacy bag at Namjoon.  “Our mutual friend has already covered the hospital bill. You dying?”

Seokjin snarled. His pink lip curled up. “No. Just a head wound.”

“Good. We’re going back to my place for breakfast. Our friend said that he’s cooking so we’ll need to pick some edible food on our way back.”

Seokjin and Jimin had twin shudders. Clearly Taehyung was only an artistic and not a culinary genius.

“I assume that you’ve already texted Yoongi who has already texted Hoseok who is on his way from Seoul?” Jimin sighed.

Seokjin held up his phone which was full of suspicious-eyed cat emojis from Yoongi.

“Fine. Tell him to bring coffee for everyone and met us there. Only three months left. Surely you idiots can keep a secret until them. I’m inviting Jungkook. He wants to try to convince Namjoon to do nude modeling.”

“What?” Seokjin put a hand possessively on Namjoon’s pecs. “Namjoon?”

Jimin grinned, his eyes calculating. “Yes. He’s quite taken with your coworker’s form.”

Seokjin was uncharacteristically quiet the entire ride back to the island. He let Namjoon reply to Yoongi and dictated short messages as he leaned his head against Namjoon’s shoulder. He was so close that Namjoon could smell his shampoo. It smelled like lemons. He liked it.

Namjoon caught Jimin’s eye in the rearview mirror as Seokjin, asleep, burrowed his face into Namjoon’s bicep and snuggled deeper into his side with a content little grunt.

“Interesting,” Jimin said as he expertly wove his way through the island’s bendy roads.

“What?” Namjoon said, softly enough not to wake Seokjin.

“Hyung is usually not so… touchy.” Jimin said.

Namjoon remembered the picture of all five of them on the couch. Jimin and Taehyung had been draped over each other. Even Yoongi and Hoseok had their arms around their shoulders. But Seokjin had sat alone. It must have been strange for him to be by himself, surrounded by couples.

“He’s injured.” This was a fact.

 “Hmm,” Jimin said, both agreeing and not agreeing. He seemed to be an expert at this. “You know, Seokjin is very shy. I was the most worried about him. Yoongi has emotional intelligence even if he refuses to show it. And he had Hoseok. I knew they would be okay. But then Yoongi got the job in Busan and Hoseok started travelling and hyung was… alone.”

Namjoon knew what it was like to be the last one left when everyone else moved on. After university, everyone had drifted apart from their little friend group. And Namjoon just didn’t know how to make friends as an adult. As a child, it had been so easy. If someone was playing in the sand, you just plonked yourself beside them and started adding a moat. As an adult, it seemed impossible.

“Seokjin refuses to admit that he has emotions, but I know that he was lonely. It was hardest to not tell him because I knew that it would hurt him the most,” Jimin rubbed his eyes with the cuff of his sweater. “It’s tough for him to really be himself around people, you know? He’s not what people expect. He’s not perfect - he’s weird and quiet and shy and he likes childish things.”

Seokjin was all those things. And he was so much more.

“I… I knew that he was going to have a rough time. And I was worried about him. But then Yoongi sent me the link to your podcast, to Cypher.” Jimin looked back at Namjoon through the rearview mirror and smiled. “And as soon as I listened to it, I knew he’d be okay. Because he had you now.”

Seokjin would always have him. For as long as he needed him.

Namjoon just hoped that was a long time.

Their moment was interrupted by Jimin getting a message. He glanced down. “How does someone burn every egg in the house?” Jimin gently banged his head against the steering wheel. “Why do I love him so much?”

It was clear that he did. So much.

When they returned, Yeontan, the guard Pomeranian, greeted them with happy yaps that woke Seokjin up. He blinked and looked around him.

“We return to the scene of the crime,” he muttered. Namjoon laughed as he unbuckled Seokjin and maneuvered him out of the car while protecting his head against the low ceiling of the sports car.

“I hope you know that I’ll be billing you for the removal of the blood stains from my trunk,” Jimin sang out as he carried their take-away breakfast to the house.

“Maybe I’ll fake my own death and frame you for it,” Seokjin shot back. “Try explaining that to the police.”

Jimin stuck out his tongue and walked into the very modern house that he shared with Taehyung. In the light of the morning, Namjoon could see that the house was straight out of an architectural magazine. It was all white-washed walls and glass and natural lights. It was backed into the forest and looked out onto the ocean with a beautiful, covered deck. It had clearly been designed with the landscape in mind.

Seokjin must still be felt a little wobbly, because he was clinging to Namjoon. He turned towards him. “Are-are you really thinking of-“

“Kim Namjoon!” Jeon Jungkook’s voice boomed out. The Pomeranian yelped with delight and sprinted, head down, towards the figure jumping out of his car with athletic ease. He picked up the small dog and twirled him around before tucking him under his arm like a living purse. “I hoped that I would see you again. Who’s this? You look terrible.”

“I’ll have you know that I am a perfect ten when I haven’t been hit in the head with a shovel,” Seokjin snapped back. He looked Jungkook up and down. “Don’t you have any manners? You can’t just say that someone looks bad.”

“But you do,” Jungkook said cheerfully. “You have bags under your eyes. How old are you? Do you think that’s going to leave a permanent scar?”

“A scar?” Seokjin practically shrieked.

“Right on your massive forehead,” Jungkook said cheerfully as he walked past Seokjin and patted Namjoon on the forearm.

Seokjin wobbled after Jungkook in a fury and Namjoon followed carefully. He slipped off his shoes and bent down to help Seokjin. He was still pale and a bit slow on his feet. They clearly had very few visitors as they only had a few spare slippers. Jungkook had his own set – he was clearly a frequent guest.

Jimin was setting up plates and cutlery in a breakfast nook that looked out over the ocean. Taehyung was gathering chairs from various parts of the house to make room for all the visitors.

“Yoongi hyung will be here soon.” Taehyung played with his sleeve cuff. He had dressed into a cream-coloured sweater and pleated pants. He looked up at Jimin for reassurance. “What-what do you think I should say?”

“It’s only fair that you hit him with a rake,” Seokjin snapped. He scooted his chair over so that he was sitting closer to Namjoon. “It seems that’s how you greet all your hyungs nowadays. Hoseok can take the spade. Faking your death really withered away your manners.”

Namjoon watched silently in fascination as their strange dynamic established itself. Taehyung was quiet but loud. Jimin was cheerful but sharp. He also hung on Taehyung’s every word. Even Jungkook seemed to delight in teasing Seokjin despite the fact that they had just met. Namjoon felt like he was just on the outside, watching. He didn’t have a place here.

“It’s Yoongi!”

Taehyung leapt up and ran towards the car that was crawling towards the house. The engine cut and Yoongi came out, looking curiously around him. He looked down at his phone to check the address. But as soon as he saw Taehyung, he stumbled back. Namjoon watched as the older man burst into tears.

This set Taehyung off, which set Jimin off, which set Jungkook off (“You don’t even know him!” Seokjin scolded) and left Seokjin and Namjoon the only dry eyes in the entire house.

Seokjin looked over at Namjoon and crossed his arms. “Sentimental fools.”

Taehyung and Yoongi walked back arm in arm. The process was repeated when Hoseok arrived two hours later. But there was more shrieking. The seven of them around the table was so loud that Yeontan escaped to the bedroom to hide.

“I can’t believe that you never said anything!” Hoseok slapped Taehyung’s knee.

“Ah!” Taehyung smiled bashfully. “We couldn’t say anything directly, but who do you think was the secret funder behind your dance studio?”

Hoseok’s heart-shaped mouth dropped open. “You?”

Taehyung shrugged but looked a little smug as Jimin squeezed Hoseok’s shoulder. “It seemed like a good investment.”

Another ear-piercing shriek cut through the room as Hoseok hugged the life out of the younger man.

Yoongi snapped his fingers and broke into a gummy smile. “The children’s library! That was you two, wasn’t it?”

It was Jimin’s turn to give his hyung a cat-like smile. “The children are our future.”

“The podcast sponsorship,” Seokjin groaned. On their 50^th episode, a generous fan had sponsored new professional recording equipment for the two of them. They’d thought it was just someone who appreciated their work.

“I really am a fan,” Taehyung said earnestly. “The episode on the Bermuda Triangle really changed my opinion. I’m now only 30% convinced that it’s aliens.”

“Thanks?” Namjoon wasn’t sure that he’d done a good enough job.

The friends made plans to stay at Taehyung and Jimin’s massive beach house for the rest of the week. As they argued over claiming beds, Namjoon excused himself to take a walk on the beach. There was a wooden staircase down to the private beach. He just needed a little time. Being around them was joyous and overwhelming.

He’d never been around people so effusive – so happy and so free with their emotions. Even Seokjin seemed different. He really was their hyung – a role that suited him so well.

Namjoon stood with his hands in his pockets and watched the waves crash against the rocks and sand. It was strange. He was still Namjoon, but he was Namjoon who had solved one of the most notorious mysteries in Korean history. He had expected that he would feel… satisfied. More complete.

But his brain was still working away, the gears were still grinding.

“I can hear you thinking from the house.”

Namjoon looked around to see Seokjin stomping down the stairs to the beach towards Namjoon. He was holding Namjoon’s scarf/glove/hat contraption. He threw it at Namjoon’s chest when he came close enough. “Put that on. It’s cold.”

Namjoon obediently wrapped the scarf around him. Seokjin frowned and rearranged it until he deemed it right and then patted Namjoon’s chest.

He was wearing a jacket that clearly belonged to Jimin as it was not covered in blood. It was tight around his shoulders, and he looked uncomfortable. Seokjin hated the cold.

“What are you doing here?”

“Counting waves and freezing my ass off, clearly.” Seokjin shifted on his feet. He bit his lip and then tentatively leaned against Namjoon’s shoulder. Surprised, Namjoon carefully put his arm around Seokjin, for warmth. The older man harumphed and then snuggled a little closer. It was the most touching that they had ever done outside the trunk of a car.

“You found him,” Seokjin said in a low voice that could barely be heard over the waves. But Namjoon heard.

“We found him,” Namjoon said.

“No.” A tear escaped from Seokjin’s right eye. It could have been the wind. “No, Namjoon. You found him. You and that big sexy brain of yours. Thank you.”

And now that the brain wasn’t needed anymore, Namjoon should go back to Seoul. He really didn’t really belong in the middle of this reunion.

“I guess… I guess I’ll go back to Seoul then.”

Seokjin stiffened. He leaned away from Namjoon to look him in the eye. “Why?”

“Well. We solved the mystery.”

Seokjin frowned. He shuffled in the sand and touched the wound on his head. “Do you want to leave?”

Namjoon thought about it. He liked Seokjin’s university friends and Jungkook. They seemed kind. They always listened to him carefully. He and Hoseok were the same age, which was novel. He felt like he could be friends with Hoseok. Jungkook was intense, in a cute way. But they were not his friends. He didn’t belong here.

“If you want to leave, let’s go.” Seokjin squared his shoulders. He brought out his phone to look something up. “We’ve still got ten days of vacation. Could probably catch the 4 pm train back to Seoul.”

Namjoon held up his hands. “No, no, I don’t want to take you away from your friends. You should stay.”

“Why would I stay if you’re leaving?” Seokjin cocked his head to the side. “We’re on vacation. Together. If I leave, we’re not on vacation together anymore.”

“I thought we were investigating.”

“Yeah. We were investigating while we were on vacation together. It was one of the activities on the schedule. We also went to the beach. That was nice.”

It had been nice.

“There are still those statues in the mountains that you want to hike to. And we haven’t been to the art museum yet. And I wanted to try the eomuk stand. It’s famous you know.” Seokjin was scrolling through the itinerary on his phone. It was a long list of things for them to do in-between the investigating. It was almost as if he had planned a perfect vacation for the two of them.

“Yeah. Those things sound like fun.”

“And Yoongi had volunteered to have us all over to his place to cook. He’s a good cook.” Seokjin looked hopeful.

“That sounds good.”

Seokjin put his phone in his pocket, satisfied, and then kicked the rocks a few times. “Jungkook will be there too.”

The expression on Seokjin’s face was new. Namjoon was an expert in Seokjin expressions. Maybe all those people left in the house knew Seokjin from three years ago the best. But there was no one, no one that knew Seokjin of today better than Namjoon. He had devoted a year of study to the subject.

But he was having trouble placing what Seokjin was feeling.

His ears were red, which usually meant he was shy. His friends were right about that. Unless he was bolstered by someone else, he was reticent and downright timid. His hands were in tiny fists, which usually meant that he was angry or determined. He was frowning which meant that he didn’t like what he was saying.

Namjoon used that big sexy brain of his.

“Seokjin…” Namjoon took a stab in the dark. “Are you jealous?”

“Jealous? Me? A perfect specimen? Jealous of that… shrimp? I mean, don’t tell him that I said that. I feel like he could tear me apart with his bare hands. He’s very ripped, Namjoon.” Seokjin laughed, nervously.

“Hadn’t noticed,” Namjoon said honestly.

Seokjin narrowed his eyes in disbelief. He gestured towards the boats in the ocean. “Really? He’s like a buff bunny. He can bench press freighters.”

“You’re jealous?”

“Of what? His giant, galaxy eyes that hold all the kindness of a benevolent universe? Or his endless well of energy that goes unending thanks to youth. I bet he has no refractory period whatsoever.”

Namjoon thought about that. “Overrated. No cuddles and naps in between?”

Seokjin swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Hun. Yeah. I agree. Cuddles are very important.”

The cuddles would be the best part, Namjoon thought. His mind becoming very distant and buzzy.

Sometimes, the pieces came together with the snap of puzzle pieces.

Sometimes, the clues slowly knit themselves together.

The facts were these:

Seokjin spent a lot of time with Namjoon. He didn’t spend time with people he didn’t like.

He made an elaborate plan for him and Namjoon to spend time together.

He had planned a vacation for them together.

He had made of list of all the things that they liked to do.

He was going to go to an art gallery with Namjoon because he wanted to spend time with him. Seokjin did not care for art.

He was going to hike a mountain, voluntarily, with Namjoon so that Namjoon could see the statues that he wanted to see. Seokjin hated the outdoors and had a lot of opinions about trees and their motives.

Seokjin was jealous of Jungkook. Jungkook was showing Namjoon a lot of attention.

Seokjin had planned a nice two-week vacation and then also packed condoms and lube and booked a very nice hotel for both of them.

Namjoon groaned. He really had not been a very good detective. He stepped towards Seokjin who giggled nervously. “Namjoon, what are you doing?”

Namjoon took a deep breath. “I am making a move.”

“A what?” Seokjin’s eyes darted around the beach as if Jimin was hiding behind a very small rock.

“Jimin told me to make a move,” Namjoon explained. He took Seokjin’s hands in his.

“Jimin is a loon who has committed several crimes.” Seokjin, nonetheless, did not run away.

“Look, I am not good at… people all the time, so I need you to be really honest with me, hyung.”

At that word, Seokjin’s face flushed. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Namjoon took a deep breath. “There are condoms in your bag-”

Seokjin shrieked and tried to squirm away from Namjoon. Thankfully all those evenings at the gym were really paying off. Namjoon was thankful to past Namjoon for the extra reps. This strength would be very, very useful in his future if he was right.

“Stop! Let me go! I need to fling myself into the ocean.”

“- And lube,” Namjoon finished.

Seokjin let out a sound that had not been heard since the last pterodactyl died.

He dropped his head. His face was burning. “I cannot believe that you are saying these-these words in front of the baby crabs.”

“Hmm,” Namjoon said analyzing the evidence. Seokjin’s face was incandescent - they could probably see him from the Busan harbour. He was refusing to look at Namjoon which gave him the input that he needed to continue. “You planned a very nice vacation for the two of us with all the activities that we both enjoy.”

“I am not enjoying this,” Seokjin said with a deep scowl.

“While that is a thing that friends do for each other, I do not think that friends usually plan on having sex with each other on a friendly friend vacation.” Namjoon took a deep breath. “Seokjin, is this a friendly friend vacation?”

Seokjin gave him a withering look. “Namjoon, would you care to rephrase that? Maybe a little more romantically? At least I had a long speech about how I saw you across the crowded office cafeteria and thought to myself ‘Who’s that handsome guy reading classic true crime and holding the book with his giant arms?’ And then bravely invited him to start a podcast and then brought him on a vacation to solve an unsolvable mystery and kind of… ya know… seduce him.”

“When were you planning on doing the seducing?” Namjoon wondered. That was not on the schedule. It had been very detailed.

“A little later. Maybe on the last day? Maybe on the last night? Maybe never? If it didn’t work out, it was going to be a really awkward train ride home and rest of my life.”

Considerate, kind, shy Seokjin.

“It would have worked,” Namjoon said.

“Really?” Seokjin looked up. He looked down at Namjoon’s hands holding him in place. “Really? Even the speech? I was going to take you for a midnight walk on the beach and then... allude to my feelings.”

Namjoon looked around them. “We are on a beach, hyung.”

Seokjin scowled at the sand as if it had personally insulted him. “Yeah, but this is Jimin’s beach.”

“Taehyung’s beach too.”

“Jimin and Taehyung’s crime-funded beach,” Seokjin sniffed at the tainted white sand and crystal blue waters. “Kind of sullies the moment.”

“Does it?” Namjoon looked around. He didn't exactly understand why beaches were romantic (the ocean was essentially the world's largest unmarked graveyard) but the television shows he'd watched implied that this was a prime romantic setting. “It was crime that brought us together in the first place. It should be crime that finally lets us be brave enough to share… some of our… feelings.”

“And what feelings are those?” Seokjin said curiously. He shuffled a little closer to Namjoon and then maneuvered him so that he was blocking the wind.

Namjoon breathed in courage and salty air, and then pulled Seokjin roughly toward him. He was tight against Namjoon’s body. It felt amazing. He could feel Seokjin’s warmth all over him. He could feel a fire, a drop in his stomach at him being so close. He kissed Seokjin’s forehead. And then at the edges of his eyes. And then his nose. Hyung had a very kissable nose.

“I don’t have very friendly feelings,” Namjoon said roughly. “They are very… adult feelings.”

“Well good,” Seokjin said grumpily shuffling Namjoon around again so that he was taking the brunt of the wind. “I don’t want your juvenile feelings. I don’t want to be kissed by anyone who doesn’t have adult, mature feelings. Fine wine feelings, if you will.”

“Does that mean that I can kiss you? Properly?” Namjoon asked in wonder.

Seokjin considered. His hair was whipping across his face and Namjoon couldn't believe that he got to look at Seokjin this closely. He could see the individual hairs in his perfect eyebrows, his long eyelashes, and his own reflection in Seokjin's dark eyes. “Yes. That will be acceptable. I will amend the vacation schedule for beach make outs.”

Kissing Seokjin was even better than he had dreamed of. He hadn’t really understood how the tongue would come into play before now and how warm he would feel. Namjoon did not have a lot of kissing experience and he suspected neither did Seokjin.

But that didn’t matter. What did matter was the warmth and the feel and how soft Seokjin’s lips were and the little noises that he was making. Seokjin’s arms snaked out of Namjoon’s grasp and wound their way into Namjoon's hair.

It was Namjoon’s turn to groan. His whole scalp was tingly as Seokjin’s long fingers massaged through his hair in tandem with his tongue.

“Enough,” Seokjin moaned. He leaned back, panting. “We need to stop. I refuse to have sex on the beach at my age. Actually, at any age. Especially not where Jimin and Taehyung might see us. Ugh, they’ve definitely had sex on this beach - several times. I can just feel it. We are going to walk back and have a civilized lunch, drive back to the hotel and ravage each other on proper sheets in a proper bed with an expensive mattress. Got it?”

“Got it.” Namjoon leaned over and helped himself to one last kiss on Seokjin’s pink lips.

Seokjin grinned but then poked him the arm sternly. Namjoon didn't stop himself from giggling - he felt like he was going to float away with happiness. “Right. Stick to the plan.”

Hand in hand, they walked back the path up to the house. Namjoon could not keep his facial expression from devolving into what he knew was a goofy grin whenever he looked over at Seokjin. Dear, dear Seokjin who was attempting to look dignified when his hair was everywhere from Namjoon’s roaming hands and his lips were swollen pink.

He wasn’t the only detective as the group around the table grew silent as they walked back inside the house and took off their jackets.

“Oh look,” Jimin drawled with a glass of champagne in one hand. “The two detectives finally got a clue.”

“They finally solved the greatest mystery of all,” Taehyung said dramatically. He gathered up a willing Jimin into his arms and pecked him on the cheek. “The mystery of the heart.”

“Didn’t know that Seokjin had one,” Yoongi said without any rancor. “You really are the greatest detective of all time, Namjoon.”

Seokjin didn’t find it funny at all.

But the facts were these:

Namjoon’s heart was full.

These people were Seokjin’s friends, but they were going to be their friends.

They had kissed on the beach.

He had found Kim Taehyung and he had found him healthy and happy and surrounded by love.

They were going to kiss again.

Seokjin liked him just as much as Namjoon liked Seokjin.

They were going to kiss and kiss and kiss again (And a lot more than that, Namjoon’s animal brain reminded him).

Namjoon sat in the little kitchen nook, surrounded by people who cared about him and the person he cared most about, and felt the gears in his brain come to a pleasant, pleased stop.