Doctor Demon

Jina and Hobin walked into the precinct on Monday to brief the team about the case. Everyone was already in the meeting room, yawning. Only Jiwoon was fully awake and ready to work on the case.

"Why is everyone so tired?" Jina frowned. "I thought I told you guys to take the weekend off?"

"Chief Taejoon had his son's birthday party and he went to Hawaii with his wife," Chanmi gritted. "So all the officer level staff were told to cover up his two day long night duty."

"Was he born a salty bitch or did he become like that after he got dumped by your boss' mom?" Hobin asked.

"Ugh!" Jina scowled. "Anyways. Let's just get on with the case for today. Do we have a suspect?"

Jaebum flipped through his files and pushed forward a picture. It was an image of a bespectacled man in his early thirties with a pleasant face and an army haircut.

"That's Kim Jun," he explained. "He lives in the southern part of the town with his mother. This guy is an employee at the place where our female victim, Chaeyeon, was temporarily working. It's been said that he had proposed to her even though she's a married woman and she rejected him. But he kept on pestering her."

"Any other exes or stalkers we should know about?" Hobin asked.

"None," Woohee replied. "We checked the relationship history of the couple. Turns out, they're middle school sweethearts. They've been together for years and got married when they were 20. Went to the same college and a few years later, had their son. They have no exes at all."

"And the family had no enemies," Dahoon added. "None at all. They were known as a very humble duo, minding their own business all the time."

Jiwoon was studying the picture of the man. Jina glanced at her, knowing well that her partner was feeling that this might not be their guy.

"Let's bring him in," she said aloud. "And question him."

"Yes boss!"

The team dispersed to get on with their work. Hobin studied the picture and frowned.

"What's wrong?" Jina asked.

"He might fancy the victim but I'm wondering if he really is the killer," he muttered.

"We can't judge him by the image," Jina pointed out. "He might be a heinous criminal behind that innocent face!"

"Maybe…"

He tore his eyes away from the picture and followed Jina out of the room towards her desk. There was a large pin board behind her chair where she had put up images and notes on the murder. He examined the pictures of the victims, trying to figure out the mystery.

"A couple who were deeply in love was killed in such a monstrous way," Jina commented. "Sometimes I wonder who are the bigger monsters. Ghosts or humans?"

"All ghosts were humans once," Hobin replied. "I think you have your answer there."

He stepped towards the female victim's picture and studied her. What could she have possibly done to incur that much wrath from someone? Was it a case of rejecting someone's advances? Or was it more?

"If only the sister would let us talk to the kid," he sighed.

"It's no use, the kid is mute," Jina reminded him. "Even if we got the permission, I doubt he could tell us anything."

"Still, we gotta try and coax her into giving us permission."

Jina shook her head. "It's not easy," she stated. "Once a guardian says no, we can't force her into changing her decision. Our hands are tied."

Hobin took a marker and pointed at the symbol of the pentagon star. "This is our real clue," he said. "This isn't a random murder nor was it done out of revenge. It means something. I know it!"

"It's all theories now, Hobin," Jina said. "We ran a search of the symbol and found nothing. I mean, it can be any symbol. Maybe the killer is trying to dupe us. But we can't rule out the possibility of a so-called ritual either."

They were still thinking about the murders when they heard a commotion at the entrance. Chanmi and Jaebum had just arrived from their mission to bring in Kim Jun from his workplace. The man was shaken and scared because Jaebum had a firm grip on his neck while Chanmi held his hands behind him.

"What the hell are you two doing?" Jina scolded them. "You're supposed to bring him in for questioning, not manhandle him!"

"He tried to run when he saw us," Chanmi replied, struggling to keep the man still.

"I didn't do anything!" Jun claimed. "I swear! It wasn't me!"

"Then why did you run?" Jaebum scowled.

"I was scared!"

"If you haven't done anything, you have nothing to be scared about," Hobin slightly sneered. "We're just gonna ask you a few questions today."

Jaebum forced the man to sit on Jina's chair and all of them surrounded him. The man cowered upon seeing so many officers hounding him and he was shaking in fear.

"You proposed to Chaeyeon even though you knew she was happily married," Jina stated. "Why?"

"I was in love with her," he mumbled. "No other woman caught my fancy the way she did. She had a quality about her. You see, she was very docile and delicate. I like that in a woman. She wasn't the type who would protest or argue back. Instead, she would put her head down and apologize. The perfect wife material. It irked me to see her with her husband!"

"Did she ever indicate to you that she was in an unhappy marriage?" Hobin asked, crossing his arms on his chest.

"No," Jun mumbled. "In fact, he was good to her as far as I know. I hate to say it but they were happy. I just wanted a wife like Chaeyeon. You know, someone I can control…"

"So you killed her husband in front of her and then raped her," Jina said. "And when she said that she'll tell everyone, you no longer saw her as a meek and docile wife material but a threat to your toxic masculinity."

"No!" Jun claimed. "I never touched her nor did I kill them! I swear! In fact, I was out for a weeklong training at that time. I only returned yesterday to find out that Chaeyeon and her husband died in a brutal manner!"

"We'll have to verify it with your boss," Jina said. "Were there any other admirers of Chaeyeon whom we should be wary of?"

"There isn't any…" Jun trailed off, deep in thought. He frowned for a few seconds.

"I'm not sure if it's gonna help but Chaeyeon did ask me a strange question two days before I went off to training," he recalled. "She came up to my desk and asked if I left flowers on her desk that morning. I said no. I didn't leave any flowers but we never found out who did. She was taken aback that someone gifted her a bouquet of blue hyacinths. It wasn't her husband either."

Jina glanced at Hobin. Blue hyacinths?

"Was she stalked by someone else?" Jaebum wondered out loud.

Jina did not reply but turned to Kim Jun. "We'll be verifying your alibi with your boss. Don't leave town until we give you clearance. If you're innocent, you don't have to fear anything. Just don't run away from the police otherwise we will be forced to arrest you. Got it?"

Jun gulped and nodded. He scrambled out of his chair and ran off.

"I doubt he did it," Chanmi murmured. "He seems too cowardly to carry out something like this."

"Let's see what his alibi says," Jina sighed. "Also I want you two to check the CCTV footage at the office and see who brought the flowers-"

Her words were cut off by the ringing of her desk phone. She picked it up while Hobin was staring at the board.

The man was killed first, the woman raped before being killed and the child barely survived. Seeing the brutality of the murder, the woman was the main target. But if he was in love with her, why would he go to that length?

He studied the woman carefully. Just one clue…

Jina abruptly hung up the phone and looked very worried.

"Boss, what happened?" Jaebum asked. "You look very worried."

"The call was from an acquaintance of mine from the emergency services," Jina said. "There's been another murder. Same MO. The man was killed and his testicles chopped off while the woman was found naked with blood coming out of her…You know the drill! Let's go!"

She turned to Hobin who had heard what she said and seemed to have come to a conclusion. And she knew very well what the conclusion was.

"A serial killer, huh?" he muttered. "This is going to be very twisted.

"Which means that he has more victims targeted," Jina said. "And will kill again."

She was now dreading what the unsub was planning. Two murders within a week.

"What are we gonna find this time?" she wondered.

"Simple," Hobin said. "Death."