Ghosts of the Past (2)

Not more than ten minutes after the phone call, you made it safely to Jinyoung's apartment by taxi, ensuring that your exit was discreet enough not to raise any questions or have Yoongi find out that you left.

You have yet to rest since you got here. Feeling too restless in your wait to even sit down, you have been spending your time here pacing around, while letting the questions and doubts in your head fill the silence.

Detective Jeon hadn't asked too many questions when you requested to meet up, except to know the location and your purpose for the sudden contact. At first, you were hesitant to give him the address to this place. Sharing your secret hiding place was a huge deal, after all. But after considering your options, recalling the fact that he was the one who put you in this situation in the first place, you finally gave in and told him about this place.

Twenty minutes in, after some more pacing and turning, the doorbell finally rings.

Unlike you, who is filled with unease, Detective Jeon appears at the doorway looking like he is out on a night stroll. Wearing all black, with a leather jacket over his dark hoodie and jeans, he doesn't look anything like someone working for the authorities.

"Good evening," Jungkook gets you with his signature side grin, which immediately puts you at ease.

"Thank you for coming on such short notice. I wasn't sure if you could make it," you greet him with a smile. "However," you add as you look over his shoulder, "I wasn't expecting you to bring company."

The man who is with Jungkook shares similar height and build, only slightly slimmer compared to Jungkook's broad chest and toned arms. Wearing similar black attire to Jungkook, he keeps a hat on which covers his hair and the top half of his face, yet the shadowed grin he is giving you is perceptible to your eyes.

Raising his eyebrows, Jungkook looks over his shoulder and nods. "Right. _____, meet Hoseok. Hoseok, this is ______," Jungkook briefly introduces the two of you, then turns to you with a reassuring smile, "He's here to help us with—you know, the problem, that you've told me about on the phone."

"Is he?" you ask, suddenly feeling dubious about this stranger.

"You can count on me. I'm his partner," the new man says with a nod. His grin grows wide with confidence before his eyes flicker briefly toward Jungkook as he carefully adds, "Well, sort of."

"So you're also from the police department, then?"

"Not exactly. Look," Jungkook quickly rushes towards you while glancing down the empty hallway, "Why don't we take this inside? I'll explain everything."

Sucking a deep breath, you look at Jungkook warily. "You're not going to get me in trouble, are you?"

Instead of getting answers from the young detective, Hoseok chimes in, "We're not breaking any laws here, that's for sure. Although, at least one of us is breaking some rules tonight to get us all here."

"Was that supposed to be reassuring?" you ask the man, Hoseok, before turning to Jungkook again to ask, "Can we trust him?"

"I wouldn't have brought him along if that hadn't been the case," Jungkook tries to calmly convince you. Then, he takes a step closer to speak with his voice lowered, "_____, you asked for my help, and he's the one I can trust to do exactly what you need. I don't have the resources in hand to do it myself."

"And he does?" you ask him, still finding it hard to trust this new person to enter your safe place. But then you realise that Jungkook might be right. After what he had already shared with you so far, it wouldn't make sense for him to just bring anyone into this unless they truly are useful for your cause.

And you really, really need their help at the moment.

With a resigned sigh, you shake your head and step aside to let them in. "Fine. Come in."

Closing the door behind you, you follow your guests as they enter through the foyer while looking around curiously. "Whose place is this?" you hear Jungkook ask while he studies the place closely, "This doesn't seem like your old place."

Crossing your arms over your chest, you pause right behind him to ask, "And how would you know that?"

Jungkook turns to you with a smirk on his face. "I just know."

You squint your eyes at him, finding his words suspicious, but say nothing more about it. "Let's do this in the living room. We might need the space," you simply say to him before leading the way to the main living area that Jinyoung had set up to welcome a large number of guests, something that he once said to be a custom in his family that would often arrange large family gatherings.

Gritting your teeth at the sudden reminder of the past, you gesture to them to take a seat on one of the couches in the living room so you can talk. "I won't ask you about how you were able to tell whether or not this place was my old home." You throw an accusatory glance at Jungkook, who is merely smiling in response, before continuing, "But at least explain to me why it was necessary for him to be here and how he's going to help me."

Jungkook follows your gaze towards Hoseok and nods. "Ah, of course. Hoseok," he says while exchanging smiles with his friend. "As I mentioned before, I wouldn't have brought him with me if I didn't know he would be able to help. You mentioned in the call that you needed help regarding some old electronics and old devices, and he heard it since he was with me during the time I received your call. Hoseok here is an expert when it comes to various kinds of technologies and electronics, so I figured it wouldn't be wrong to accept his help when he offered to lend a hand."

You turn to look at Hoseok just then, taking this chance to study him closely under the brighter lights.

There is something about this person that makes you feel sceptical. The way he is dressed may not have been much different than Jungkook, who is obviously hiding his identity as a law enforcer while he is meeting you discreetly at night. But the way he carries himself—from his smile, the looks he is giving you, and the way he is leisurely sitting back on the sofa as if the world moves under his thumb—you immediately know better

"He's not a cop, is he?"

"Ding ding ding! The lady is quick to catch on," Hoseok laughs, earning a glare from Jungkook who is sitting next to him.

"No, he isn't a cop," Jungkook answers with a sigh while pressing the bridge of his nose. He looks at you in the eyes when he reassures you, "but he is trustworthy. I promise. He has been working as my informant for quite a long time and has been helping me out with a lot of cases that I've been handling since I got my current position."

"Is that even legal?" you gasp, "Is he a criminal, then?"

Hoseok lets out a deep chuckle. "I'll admit that I'm not just an honourable samaritan that Jungkook picked up on the streets to help him out. I'm currently on probation and Jungkook is my custodian. Working with him is a part of the social service that I was required to do. You can say that we've made our own deal regarding our special partnership," Hoseok confesses.

"But that's nothing that you need to worry about," he continues, his expression turning serious just to reassure you. "Whatever business you are having with me will remain between the three of us, and even if there's any chance of this coming out to others, then we might have a way of making things—legit, and usable in the future should we need them for legal purposes."

His explanation only helps you understand what kind of partnership the two of them may have. Even if you may not know the entire story.

You are just about to ask them further when Jungkook cuts you off gently. "Look, I know that this isn't a good look by bringing someone with a record joining us and I know that it can be hard for you to trust and involve someone else. But just like you, I also have no one in the department that I can fully trust. Especially after what I found with—" Jungkook lets out a sigh, "you know what I mean, don't you?"

You lower your gaze, knowing exactly what he is talking about. There are still so many questions revolving around Jinyoung's accident and his passing. The fact that there is a lot of missing evidence, and the way Jungkook's investigation keeps getting hindered, Jungkook keeps questioning the people he works with. It was the reason why he believed there was something more to this. Something else behind Jinyoung's death.

Something that someone out there is trying so hard to keep a secret.

"Let Hoseok take a shot on this," Jungkook continues to convince you as he leans forward, locking his gaze on yours so you can fully see that you can trust his words. "He's really good at what he does, and we both know that we might be able to find something if we try this."

Knowing that he is right, you have no other choice but to give in. There is no other chance for you to look for another helping hand, and the only time you have tonight is limited. "Alright, fine. How fast can you work?"

Hoseok shrugs. "It depends. What kind of work do you need me to do?"

Nodding, you rise to your feet and return to them with your purse. Taking out the cell phone in your hand, you open the voice message before handing it to Jungkook. The detective takes one questioning look at you before pressing the play button, and once again, Jinyoung's voice is heard through the speaker.

"What is this?" Jungkook asks as he listens closely to the voice message while keeping his eyes on the screen. The message ends, and he follows your instruction to check the time when the recorded message came in. "The voice message was recorded right before the accident."

"That's right," you respond to him with a nod.

"And what exactly it is that you need us to find out from this message? Were you trying to figure out the location this was sent from or something?" Hoseok asks in return. He has been leaning closer to Jungkook so he could listen better. The playful look in his eyes has disappeared now that he is paying close attention to his future task.

"Will that be possible?"

"Normally, we would need the sender's phone to do that, but I might be able to trace through the signal footprint. Only if you let me take this thing apart, though."

"That's—quite an interesting offer. I didn't know you could do that," "But that's not really what I had in mind."

"What is it, then?"

"Did you notice the void when you were listening to the message? There was a pause, not long before he ended the message. I might be imagining things, but I thought I heard someone else speaking in the background and Jinyoung seemed to be responding to them before his voice came back."

Furrowing his eyebrows, Jungkook looks at the screen one more time before he lets Hoseok take the phone from his hand. The other man replays the recording again, maximising its volume until Jinyoung's voice fills the entire room.

"I tried to do that earlier, but—"

Hoseok cuts you off by raising his palm, and then his grin widens. "You're not imagining things," he says, his eyes looking bright with mirth when he lifts his gaze. "There is something there, and I know just how to make these voices reveal themselves."

Once Hoseok's mind was set on solving the mystery behind the muffled sounds you heard through Jinyoung's message, the apartment's living room quickly turned into a mini-workshop for the hacker.

Yes. A hacker.

You had soon found out Hoseok's true identity once he began setting up his workstation in one corner of the living room. One moment, he was talking about how he was going to solve the problem regarding the mystery noises in the voice message. Then, within a blink of an eye, he had an entire spread of monitors, a couple of laptops, and other electronic devices plugged in to help him work his magic.

Hours have passed, and he is still on it, using some kind of program on his laptop to tweak around the frequency of the message until he can bring up all the missing noises—that was how he explained it, though you still can't really understand the way it actually works.

During your wait, you have also been keeping yourself busy just to get out of his hair, only coming back once or twice to get an update on his progress while delivering drinks to his desk. Jungkook also stays, though he offers no help to his hacker partner when he knows that Hoseok has everything handled. Instead, he has been on the phone since, claiming that there is work that needs to be done even if he is supposed to be off duty.

"Now tell me again where this guy came from," you ask Jungkook when you join him on the couch, carrying two fresh cups of steaming hot coffee to help warm you up while you wait for the hacker to finish working.

Hoseok himself has already had a couple of empty cups loitering on his desk. The coffee has given him enough boost of energy to keep his eyes wide open on the screen of his devices and his ears sharp as he listens to the sounds coming through the headphones he is wearing.

Jungkook murmurs a thank you as he sips his drink. "We met during a case that I was working on a while back. He helped us as a core witness at first, and then used his expertise to help me find some other missing links that my team may have failed to uncover to solve the case," Jungkook explains, "Ever since then, he's been helping me with another case, to investigate some people who may or may not be involved in that old case."

"Is that even legal, to work on an investigation with someone from the outside? Someone with a criminal record, even," you curiously ask him. This was the one question that has been lingering in your head ever since Hoseok told you his circumstances. "I'm also going to assume that his work isn't exactly bound by law."

"No," Jungkook answers with a bitter chuckle, "His method isn't really law-abiding, and no one in the department knows about my partnership with Hoseok. Not many people even know that he exists. Not in the legal system." His gaze shifts towards Hoseok, his lips lifting to a grin when he adds, "Legally, he's nothing but a ghost."

What he says about his partner has you raising your eyebrows. But instead of making you grow cautious, Hoseok's story only intrigues you further.

"And it isn't uncommon for authorities to combine forces with people from the other side. Especially with people like Hoseok, whose skills can be useful for our cause," Jungkook continues to explain, inadvertently answering your question that was left unspoken. "To be honest, with this case specifically, I really have no choice but to turn to him for help. The people I'm investigating have connections, benefactors, working as the higher-ups that have power and control in everything everyone in the department does."

"But why are you—" You wonder why someone like Jungkook would risk his life, his career, working on such a case in the dark. You recall how he first approached you regarding his connection to Jinyoung and the possible truth behind your late fiancé's death, and wonder if what he is working on has something to do with it.

"Does the case that you're working on right now have anything to do with—"

"Does your husband know that you're keeping this place?" Jungkook cuts you off before you can finish your words. You have no idea whether or not he is doing it on purpose to avoid talking about the case which led him to Jinyoung, or if he's simply too curious about this place to care about anything else.

"No," you simply answer him, trying not to let his evasiveness bother you. But then you recall his reaction when he first arrived, which makes you wonder, "You knew that this was Jinyoung's home. Have you ever come here before?"

Jungkook lets out a scoff. "Our contacts were kept private, but we made sure we never crossed each other's personal lives," Jungkook reveals, followed by a murmur under his breath, "Not that it would be possible."

Shaking his head, he lets out a bitter chuckle and continues, "But really, no, I've never been here. I just knew this wasn't your old place, since I still got your address from the time I tried to make contact with you."

This has you raising your eyebrows, only remembering now how much effort Jungkook had to make just to finally be able to talk to you before. "Right. Of course, you did."

"Speaking of your husband," he continues, ignoring your sneer, "Shouldn't you go back? It's late. He might be looking for you."

Being reminded of Yoongi only adds to the uneasiness that you have been feeling inside. Biting your lips, you look down at your watch to check the time. You remember his words about coming home late, and you recall hearing him coming in past midnight during the nights he was busy to know he probably wouldn't be coming home soon.

Still, it sounds like you will be risking getting caught if you choose to say too long. "I might be able to stay for another hour, at least. Yoongi went back to the office to finish some extra work, and he probably won't be back until it's past midnight," you try to convince Jungkook, even though you cannot be too sure about it yourself. Sighing, you ignore Jungkook's sceptical gaze and lift your cup of coffee to calm yourself down. "Is this going to take any longer, though? How do we know that he's making any progress?"

Jungkook gives you a small grin. "I'm pretty sure it won't be long now. But that doesn't change the fact that you've been out for too long and your husband might notice you're gone, whether or not he's home. These things do take some time, so perhaps you should—"

"Got it!"

At the sound of Hoseok's cheer, both you and Jungkook immediately jump out of your seats.

"What did you get?" Jungkook asks as he rushes towards Hoseok, who is wearing a victorious grin on his face.

"The secret whispers, I got them unveiled," he proudly claims, as he rises from his seat, unplugging his headphones from his devices before gesturing you to take his seat. "I managed to separate the layers from each sound that we got through the message, then isolated the background noises until I was able to increase the volume on the muffled sounds and force them to come to the surface," he explains when you question him how he managed to handle your request.

"There are some interesting details once everything came up, so you might want to get comfortable with this."

Once you are settled in, Hoseok reaches out around you to turn the volumes up. His hand hovers right above the play button when he asks, "Shall we reveal the mystery behind the missing noises?"

Taking a deep breath, you exchange glances with Jungkook briefly before nodding. "Let's hear it. Play the new recording for us."

Hoseok winks in response to your request, gleefully boasting, "My pleasure," as he hits the play button and the newly edited voice message comes out through the speakers.

It begins as it was in the original message, with Jinyoung's apology and promises repeated the same way you just heard it hours before. Then comes the cryptic part of the message, where his voice began to grow tense as he spoke of how much he loved you, and his promise to talk to you once he returned home.

What comes next is the part that had you feeling uneasy.

The rustling sound of the phone being hidden or covered is slightly cleared. And then, finally, a new voice is heard, enhanced just enough for you to hear the words clearly as the other person calls out—

"Jinyoung, where are you?"

Replacing what you heard before as a void between Jinyoung's words is now a deep voice, speaking clearly through the speakers as if the other person was standing nearby while Jinyoung was sending you the voice message. Next, Jinyoung's voice—previously muted and now perfectly enhanced—can be heard responding,

"Oh—I'm sorry for stepping out, I had to take an important call before we continue."

Th man with the deep voice responds with a chuckle, before firmly talking to Jinyoung, "Then get it over with and get back inside. We still have a lot to talk about. You haven't given us any good reports this month, have you?"

"Yes, I'll be there...I—" Jinyoung's voice is cut off by more rustling sound, as if he's moving around to hide his phone further, then the deeper voice returns to say,

"Good. You better not lie to us, Jinyoung," followed by a deep, wicked chuckle that ends uneasy chill running down your spine.

The rest of the message continues just the same, before it ends with Jinyoung's cryptic words which now seem to hold more meaning than you ever realised, "Please...please remember that I love you. Believe it."

Your hands tremble on your lap, so you clench them together as you whisper to Hoseok, "Play it again, please. Just the enhanced part."

"Got it."

With a few clicks on the keyboard, the recording starts again. Focusing on the newly enhanced part of the message, Jinyoung's words that made you feel tight in the chest fade into the background. Meanwhile, your heartbeat picks up the more you listen to the voice that had been concealed until only moments ago.

The deep voice that you somehow find to be familiar. From the tone of speech to the raspy laughter.

You know who it is.

Recognition quickly sinks in as you request Hoseok to play the recording a couple more times, repeating the same part just so you can hear that voice again.

Because it was only hours ago when you last heard that same voice. Only hours have passed since you sat across from him in your husband's office, listening to him speak in the same tone of speech he used in the recording while he shared an intense conversation with your husband about a certain business deal that he and his two business partners had come to offer Yoongi.