An old friend

I arranged a board in my room, along with the sticker and a marker to officially start my investigation.

"Real mother waitress," I mumbled.

-Someone who is adopted.

"If he has been adopted that woman should have known about the child already, and where does Coeus fit in this," I thought.

"She's hiding a bigger piece of the puzzle," I thought, clicking my tongue.

"She needs the boy or needs the one who adopted him," I mumbled.

I began searching with their social media.

I sighed and printed the picture of the three shortlisted ones.

"I'll need a coffee to think ahead," I mumbled, standing away from my laptop's screen.

I put the coffee in the sipper with water.

"Now, I can think straight," I said and shifted towards my board shaking the sipper thoroughly.

We've three possible suspects who are adopted publicly from an orphanage.

"And these two their father's filled their adoption papers, and there is no public information about their orphanages," I said, putting their pictures down from the board.

"He's the most suspicious one, Park Yoon-cheol adopted at the age of eight."

"He's their heir even though he has a younger legitimate son for his wife," I mumbled.

"Park Yoon-cheol, they sure are family to Coeus," I thought, biting my lips.

"He's the only one who fits in this absurd puzzle," I said, rubbing my eyes.

"Let's focus on him for now," I said, opening his social accounts to do a primary search.

"He's a club addict, his social media has nothing but clubs and girls."

"Tiple and gamble what a way of life?"

"Is this his house, it would be perfect if I could get in," I thought, scrolling down his SNS.

"You just won a VIP hamper from our club, we'd like you to give passes to our exclusive lounge area," I texted on his SNS.

"Let's get on with work," I said, standing up from the chair, to get changed into a black hoodie to cover my head along with a mask.

"Sure," I received a message as soon as the phone's screen turned on with a notification.

"Sir can you confirm your address," I texted again.

"I packed a pair of Little leaf's lounge tickets," I received for emergencies.

***

"No camera on the hallway, his house has an electronic lock,"

"No accessible windows obviously," I mumbled, taking a walk around the hallway, against his apartment.

"It doesn't look good," I mumbled, resting my head on the wall of the hallway.

I started to doze off in the hallway while waiting for Yeon-Cheol to contact me again.

"What a life?" I continued yawing.

"I'm waiting for you," a text appeared again.

"I think I'm lost sir, I can't find your apartment number, can you please step out for a minute," I texted again.

"I'm waiting outside the house of some sort of idiot stranger," I thought, turning my back to his apartment.

His apartment door unlocked, after a beep.

"Excuse me, are you from the club," he asked, approaching me.

"Uh, here you are Mr Park Yeon-Cheol," I exclaimed.

"I'm sorry, I caused you inconvenience," I said, handing him the hamper.

"No problem," he replied, taking the hamper.

"I'm sorry, but can I have a glass of water," I said, rubbing my hands together.

"Really!" he whines.

"Wait a minute," he said, moving towards his house.

I quietly stood after him, 4752 he typed his house lock in hurry and slammed the door after him.

"4752," I kept remembering the password.

"Water!" he said, handing me a glass.

"Thank you," I said.

"You can keep it," he said, slamming the door after me with a puckered face.

"Now I just have to wait for him," I thought, taking a sip from the glass.

The door unlocked, as he moved out of his apartment to leave for the club.

"I'll be at Sevilla," he said, hanging up on his phone.

Until he left the hallway, I made sure to keep hiding on the street.

I rang the bell of his apartment as soon as the lift started moving, to make sure no one else is there.

"Great," I mumbled, as no one responded.

I put the gloves on and pressed 4752.

Its door gets unlocked with a click.

"Finally," I mumbled, closing the door quietly after me.

"Is this a house," I thought, gazing at the house, a black chandelier was hanging from the stairs, the floor was covered with white granite and a water show was going ahead to the black kitchen island.

The walls were covered with Japanese paintings, the doors were made of grenadilla.

A led screen, hanging on the wall of the hall, was playing R&B.

The couches were filled, with rummaged blankets leftover pizza and napkins.

"He lives alone and is a heavy drinker," I mumbled, looking around and clicking pictures of his hall.

"He is I rely on spendthrift," I said, looking around, and towards the only bedroom of the apartment

I unlocked the door, to look inside his bedroom.

His room is tidy, unlike the hall.

A laptop was resting on the table.

I opened the flap of the laptop to go through it.

"It's locked, expected," I sighed.

Then I move to the cupboard to find any personal documents.

School record, a file labelled as the record was resting under with his clumsy clothes along other files of his medical records.

I took the file, clicking the pictures of his football club certificate and high school report cards, transfer records to the middle school from Yorkshire High and a picture of him with a lady ahead of Saint Paul cathedral, I clicked the picture of his documents.

"Irene Adams, mother," I mumbled, reading through his school transfer.

"He was not an orphan," I mumbled.

"Why was he up for adoption?" I thought.

"Irene Adams," I go through each document he has.

"She just disappeared," since middle school.

"Irene, what happened to her? Why would anyone give up on such a young child," I mumbled?

"Let's do field work," I said, collecting his documents and putting them back.

***

"We met again," Yeon-Cheol came after me.

"Terrace girl, am I right," he said.

"What a coincidence" I replied, taking a sip of martini.

"I just met a girl like you in the evening too," he continued.

"You guys always have the same line," I scoffed, throwing my fist softly against his arm.

"So you're waiting for someone," he asked, with a coy smile.

"My friends are calling, do you want to join us," he asked.

"I've got a date, I'm meeting my friends from my middle school, he's coming from Cambridge otherwise I would have joined," I replied.

"Middle school, you did that Cambridge," he asked.

"Huh," I replied.

"I studied there too for quite a time," he replied.

"Really! I was in Yorkshire High," I replied.

"Really," he asked, widening his eyes.

"Huh, I went there last year too for some personal reasons," he replied.

"Really! What a coincidence," I said, covering my face.

"His mother isn't dead, he is still visiting her," I thought.

"I'll see you later he's here," I replied, crossing by his side.

"Maybe his phone definitely would have something," I thought, putting his phone in my pocket.

***

"Anyone here," I rang the bell of an apartment.

"Who's this," Benjamin asked, yawing as he stepped out of his apartment in the early morning, fixing his outworn t-shirt.

"I've to….," I said, looking at the floor.

"Da Hee-jin,"

"Come in," Benjamin said, stepping away from the door of his apartment.

"It's Dasom now, you should learn to call me by name," I replied, after him.

"Water," he said, stepping towards the kitchen.

Benjamin Lee, our school senior. A perfect person who can hack into anything if you've got the handsome price to pay.

"I want the data of this phone," I said, putting the Yeon-Cheol phone out and placing it beside the water glass.

"You came all the way here for a phone, after all this time," he asked.

"We were worried about you, you didn't even call us," he commented.

"Huh," I mumbled.

"But app data would be hard to recover," he replied.

"How about 1000$," I replied, putting the money on the table.

"Just make haste, before he found out he had stolen it," I said.

"Consider it done," he said, putting the phone in the pocket of his boxer.

"Your father doesn't want this life for you, he wanted you to go to cool meet a nice guy get graduated unlike us," he said, reminiscing while blasting everything my life is headed towards.

"That doesn't matter now, I'm deep in this shit also I never told him to die," I replied, without turning back.

"Where are you leaving now," he asked, after me.

"To see my father," I replied.

"Call us if you need me, I'll have to pay back for what your father has done for me," he replied.

"I don't need favours," I replied, grinding my teeth.

"How are you doing?" I said, putting the water lilies by his cemetery.

"I'm sure great," I replied, clearing off the fallen leaves from his cemetery.

"This is my last gift, I'm not sure if I'd be here next year too," I replied.

"I have to leave you behind too, I would possibly leave this country,"

"What's with me, today just because," I said, with wet eyes running my tongue around the inside of my cheeks.

"I'm still angry at you," I sniffed.

"Don't worry I'd keep coming back at least for once," I replied, cleaning his engraved name with the sleeves of my jacket.