The clock was ticking in rhythm with Yoo Jung-In's round eyes. She was frozen in the middle of the room.
Hwang Soon-Bum was also petrified, his mouth open - obviously split between putting on a stupid grin or the shocked face circumstances required.
Min Tae-yeon realized the lights were back. He straightened up, took his hands off the young woman's face and stepped aside with his elegant nonchalance, sliding his hands in his pockets as if nothing had happened.
- "What are your first impressions, doctor?" he asked.
His voice was barely out of breath.
The old man tried really hard not to burst out laughing.
Yeah. Sure.
Denying the incident would certainly settle the matter.
Yoo Jung-In's arm moved mechanically.
-"W-w-what wa-a-as t-t-that?" she spurted, brushing back her fringe.
The frantic beating of her eyelashes was so pathetic.
- "Obviously : lightning. It probably hit the top of the building", said Min absently.
Hwang Soon-Bum nearly choked.
He turned his back for a moment, bringing his hands to his face, and they couldnot see if he was laughing or coughing.
- "I'll run some tests", managed Dr. Jo in an altered voice – he was having a hard time keeping a straight face. "Detective, I will ask you to stay with me. Prosecutor Min, you should go get some rest."
He paused for a second.
- "You too, Prosecutor Yoo. You don't seem to be - well."
The young woman uttered something, but they heard no sound.
- "I'm going nowhere", said Tae-yeon with a frown.
He turned to Jung-In.
- "Prosecutor Yoo."
He wrinkled his nose, annoyed, when she did not react.
- "Prosecutor Yoo. You came in to report something, I believe. So? What was it ? I'm waiting."
This was too much for the doctor who couldn't suppress his laughter and had to rush to the cupboard where he kept the test tubes to try regain his composure.
Hwang Soon-Bum grimaced as he came to his friend.
- "Er ... Tae-yeon… Prosecutor Min... you ... how about sending the miss back to the crime scene ? They may have found other clues. Hehe."
The young man tilted his head aside, but before he could answer, thunder broke again over the city.
Yoo Jung-In quivered and woke up.
- "You kissed me", she said in a dull voice that gradually ignited. "You. Kissed. Me. You KISSED me!"
- "Uh-uh", Min nodded with his "God, how slow is the rest of the world" look.
The young woman's almond eyes narrowed dangerously.
- "Don't you have anything else to say? Boss."
The salutation could easily be mistaken for a death threat.
- "Should I apologize to you? Would you like me to do it again? When can we be back to a more professional conversation, prosecutor?"
Dr. Jo had tried to come back to the situation but the vampire's bored tone sent him right back to the cupboard. You could see his shoulders twitching with silent laughter under his white coat.
- "Er, we... we'll be on our way", cut in the big detective, dragging the young woman to the door. "He's not quite himself, you know, he may still be ... er ... under aspirin or something like that," they heard him mutter as the door closed on the hallway.
Min Tae-yeon waited until the door stopped hitting the doorframe, then let out a long sigh. He shook his head, his eyes down, then turned to the table where the body was still waiting.
Dr. Jo cleared her throat, now looking serious.
- "You won't get away easily", he said.
The young man bit the corner of his lip.
- "I know. It was silly. I wasn't thinking, I just wanted to prevent problematic issues."
- "Luminol's still affecting you", the doctor nodded. "I know. I saw it when the lights went out. And this body is impregnated too. We're talking serial killer."
Tae-yeon nodded.
The doctor put on his blue latex gloves.
- "I do think you raised a different kind of problematic issues", he said quietly, almost as if he was talking about the weather. "You could have found another way to divert her attention. What took over you?"
He looked up and met the intense gaze of the vampire.
There was a moment of thick silence.
- "Okay. No more questions. After all, it's human to make mistakes."
Min looked exasperated and the tension in the room broke down a little.
Outside, the rain was falling steadily and lightning had gone away.
When Detective Hwang came back to the morgue, the autopsy was over and Dr. Jo was pushing the body covered with a white cloth in one of the wide drawers in the cold chamber.
- "I'll review the data and complete the analysis", he told the prosecutor, while removing his gloves and throwing them in a trash can in the corner of the room. He took a test tube out of his white coat's pocket and stared at it for a few seconds, before handing it to the young man
- "I think it's a very bad idea", he finally said, frowning. "I know it will help the investigation, but we don't know what it will do to you."
- "This is my job and it's my body" said Min coldly.
- "As you wish."
The doctor's voice was more pained than irritated.
- "I'll watch over him", promised Soon-Bum shoving a bear arm on the young man's shoulders. Tae-yeon allowed himself a half-smile and did not try to get out of the hug.
They settled in the prosecutor's office, put down the blinds and shut the door after Detective Hwang made a show of bringing in a bucket, tepid water and a towel stolen from the secretaries' locker room. Then he sat on the guest chair, while Min, seated in his office chair, opened the sample.
- "Ready?" chugged the big detective.
Sweat sticked his black hair on the top of his forehead. He dabbed it distractedly with his large handkerchief, staring at his friend.
Tae-yeon had a moment of hesitation, then threw his head back and swallowed the contents of the test tube.
The body with his head smashed on the side of the road in a pool of sticky and dark blood.
Then the scattered drops began their scabrous dance. A frantic, surreal, fascinating and horrible round. Blood spurted backwards, gracefully, from the ground. A scarlet sheaf gushing in the night of the park, then plunging into the skull of the victim while the body stood up like a puppet pulled back by invisible threads.
Then life was back in the eyes of the corpse, his hair carefully combed, his face reconstructed and intact – he smiled and whistled as he walked, swinging his bag and unbuttoning his jacket.
Lampposts that didn't shed much light, the silent and obscure park, a bench, the moon through the leaves.
Then again a waterfall of furious violence – precipitated, brief images, almost incomprehensible.
Someone rushed behind the man, thumped terrible blows on his head with a huge stone.
The glimpse of a sleeve, a dirty hat, someone's beard, crazy eyes and a mouth screaming without a sound.
Then the face distorted by pain and stupor in the lawn. Old worn-out shoes walking away in the pool of blood – in a haste, as if they were in a daze, frightened - and finally a voucher, curling in the evening breeze and sinking in the red and dark pond, as a phosphorescent blue hand stopped moving.
With a groan, Min doubled over as he came back to reality, his hands clutching his head. Pain drummed in his head, blood throbbed behind his eyelids, as he tried to regain control of his wheezing.
- "You okay?" asked anxiously Soon-Bum.
Tae-yeon felt the detective's hand in his back, circling to soothe the discomfort. He was on the floor, his knees pressed into the carpet.
- "No-o", he breathed out, oppressed.
He was on the verge of throwing up, his head felt like bursting and the room was spinning like a stupid carousel.
- "We shouldn't have done this..." the big detective muttered.
Tae-yeon held up a hand to shut him up and his friend thought he wanted help to get up. He pulled him to his feet, but a vague of dizziness overcame the prosecutor. Soon-Bum sat him in the chair and dipped the towel in the basin. He wiped the perspiration that streamed down the young man's face.
- "Look at you… someday, it's gonna killed you…"
Min found the strength to throw him a laser glance under his half-lowered eyelids.
- "I'm a vampire, hyung. It's not like alive means anything to me..."
- "Bullshit", Hwang replied, standing up, his hands on his hips. "You're alive, as sure as my mother called me Soon-Bum. So stop acting as if you were already dead."
He pouted.
Then his face lit up with mischief.
- "The Dead ain't kissing no one", he said in a mocking voice.
Min sighed.
- "I forbid you to gloat about what happened earlier. In fact, until I decide otherwise, you have seen nothing, heard nothing. Absolutely nothing happened."
But his tone was not half as angry as he wanted it to sound and the detective wasn't deceived.
- "Go it, boss", he said with a big happy wink.
The prosecutor raised his eyes, an amused smile drawing on the clammy pallor of his face.
- "Good. Now, what did you see?" Hwang asked as he sat down on the chair when the young man seemed to have recovered slightly.
- "He was attacked from behind. The other guy just went mad. I don't know who it was, but it seems the killer was on the bench - there was a bench by the wayside - and he suddenly jumped on him without even knowing what he was doing."
- "It's not a serial killer, then. But what's with the luminol, guys?"
- "I don't know", Tae-yeon said thoughtfully. "There was something else... a piece of paper ..."
- "Yeah? Something about the murderer's ID?"
The prosecutor shook his head slowly, still sorting the images violently printed in his mind.
- "Some sort of a coupon or a flyer..."
The nausea was back, making it difficult for him to think clearly. Hwang Soon-Bum reached out and patted Min's knee.
- "You should rest a little. I'll go see what the forensics got from the crime scene. Nap for twenty minutes. I wake you up when I come back. Okay?"
Tae-yeon nodded, too exhausted to find a reason to protest. He sank into the seat and closed his eyes. The detective got up and moved in small steps around him - it looked like a grizzly doing entrechats - and exchanged the ceiling neon for the small desk lamp. He put the prosecutor's feet on the desk and covered him carefully with his jacket.
Min didn't move the whole time. He was already asleep - or he pretended to be, too proud to accept being pampered.
And it mattered little to Soon-Bum, as he could at least relieve his concern about the vampire by fussing about him.
The rain was still falling, gently tapping the windows.
Everything was silent for a long moment in the HQ.
Then someone crept in without turning on the light, went across the room in swift steps and opened the door of Min's office.
The young man did not realize someone had entered. Fever tangled his black curls. He was shivering in his sleep, under the detective's kaki jacket.
A hand went to his face, brushed his half-open mouth as to feel it before closing on it to suffocate the unconscious prosecutor.
The rain stopped.
Soon-Bum was leaving the building when he felt the last drop falling into his collar. He winced.
He suddenly felt unpleasantly cold. The sky was low and dark, as if it was already night.
-TBC-
You guys rock ! Thank you so much for your reviews ! Without you and your kind and fun support (I just laugh/love so much when you comment on what's happening !) the story wouldn't go on !
I promise, I will finish it. It won't be [too] long, now. Well... actually, it depends on Soon-Bum and Tae-yeon. These guys are so adorable, I might just give them some more time on screen - I mean, paper. Well, computer. Okay, we're back to screen, then.
Sorry for the bad pun.
=)
I'm going back to the writing !