Accused

Chapter Three

I slam my head on the desk and let out a frustrated groan.

Not two seconds later, I hear the most annoying sound in the world.

"Oh my gosh, there's an animal in here!"

The figure pokes his body through the door - uninvited, I must add - and hurriedly looks around before laying his eyes on me. "Oh, it's just you, Hee Chan," he smirks before barging in and closing the door behind him.

My blood boils and I clench my fingers so hard that I almost break the top of my pen off. "What are you doing here, Kibum?" I grit through my teeth.

"I just came to check on you, that's all," he answers casually, looking around my office at like the busybody he is. "I saw you come back into your office after being holed up for most of the morning. I thought you were dead or something." He fingers the pictures on my wall of evidence.

"Well, I'm still alive, thank you for your concern," I respond, trying to be as professional as possible.

"Yes, sadly," he sighs before sauntering in front of my desk. "Although with the amount of coffee you tend to drink, I wouldn't be surprised if your blood pressure suddenly shot up and you would die of a heart attack or a stroke."

My eye twitches.

"Or at the very least, your acne would spike so no man would want you and you will die alone," he drawls on.

The start of a scream almost rushes out of my throat before I disguise it as a cough. "Thank you Kibum, if that's all you want from me, then please-"

"Oh, I wasn't done yet." He slumps into one of the chairs in front of my desk, kicking up a leg and entwining his fingers behind his head. "I heard you're still working on this murder case. Has it gone cold for you?"

I release my frustration in a sigh to compose myself. "It's only the second day, Kibum, I don't think-"

"You've gotten slow, Hee Chan. How hard is it to find a murderer in plain sight on a residential block?"

"There weren't any fingerprints or DNA or CCTV or any other trace evidence to definitively place someone-"

"But you have a lot of circumstantial evidence," he rises from his seat, completely ignoring me and waltzing over to my wall of evidence again. "Surely, there must be someone who would have fit the bill. I think you're just dragging your feet, this is a pretty explanatory case."

"Kibum, I am perfectly capable of handling this case by myself, I don't need your intervention, so can you please just leave me to do my work in peace?" I plead, massaging my temples to appease an oncoming headache.

"Fine, I'll leave, but you better be careful, sweetie," he singsongs his way to the door before looking back at me, "If you don't hurry up, someone might just snatch your case up from right under your nose."

As soon as the door clicks shut, I let out a frustrated scream. "Just because he's the Chief's son he gets to walk around degrading me, what did I ever even do to piss the fucker off?" I grumble to myself. "Oh, if only the Chief knew how gay his son is. That smug fucker wouldn't be able to pull all the shit he does now." But telling the Chief about his son's sexual preferences would be low, even for someone as annoying as Kibum.

But he's not wrong. It shouldn't be taking me this long just to at least take in my first suspect when I have so much damning evidence pointing at one person. But there's stronger evidence that he couldn't have been the killer, so I'm back to square one.

No, I think to myself, I need to clear any suspicion of him. Someone can still overlook the evidence and say he's guilty. I need to see him.