Dowoon hooks his fingers behind his head, leaning against the leather office chair as he takes one final look at the transparent board. Alone in the room, he had taken all the time he had from after he met the victims until lunch to put together the information they have so far. Pictures of the culprits and victims are pasted on the board, with scribbles of relevant details and lines connecting them with each other. He had transferred the timeline from his notebook to the board, providing him with a wider view but even so, there are a lot of empty gaps.

Jeong Yunho's picture is in the middle of the board, the most prominent culprit now. Before, he was also thought to be one of the victims, but things changed when he was found out to be the rightful owner of the villa. His picture is connected with lines to the five victims, with the words 'director/boss' written along the line, and to the other two culprits with the words 'friends' written along the lines. The lines connecting the victims are all adorned with huge question marks, because he still can't come up with how they could be connected.

With Mingi's picture, he wrote 'MISSING SINCE 2 DAYS AGO'. Underneath Wooyoung's picture he wrote 'REPORTED MISSING 4 YEARS AGO' and underneath San's picture he wrote 'DIED 4 YEARS AGO, SUICIDE'. There is the summary of the events that happened with the case written at the bottom of the board.

"Why did they torture them and then let them go?" he thinks out loud. "But if they wanted to be caught so much, they could have stayed put and let the police do their job. Why run away?"

"That means their game is not over yet," a voice offers, the sound of a door shutting behind him following suit. Dowoon swivels in his chair to spot the team's hacker, also considered the genius of the team, bringing in two cups of coffee with him. He offers one to the former and he accepts. "Do you know the actual situation at the villa when they ransacked it?"

Dowoon doesn't answer as he lets the hacker - Kang Younghyun - explain. It's not that he doesn't know, but he needs another perspective, and Younghyun just might be the person to bring light to the case.

"Everything in the house in orderly, the way you would leave your house when you know you're going on a long trip for some time. The dishes were clean, windows and doors were shut and you could say, everything was in place. Well, except for the victims' belongings, that is. The basement is wide open, as if inviting all the officers to take a look. It's like they're saying 'Hey, take a look at my work, isn't it beautiful?' As opposed to the upper grounds of the villa, the basement is dirtied with blood and their prints, which means they are not trying to bury whatever they did. They knew we were coming, oh of course they would be expecting us when Wooyoung had asked them to tell us everything. They ran away not because they're scared of getting caught, they ran away because that's their plan. That is exactly the flow of their game."

"There was a message on the wall Yeosang said he was kept in, but the first message they supposedly wrote in Seonghwa's room was found to have been erased," Dowoon refutes. "Why is that so? Why kill Seonghwa straight away but try to cover the evidence of it ever happening, when they put the rest of their work proudly on display?"

"This... is only my theory but that could have been the outlier in their gameplan. They weren't supposed to kill him, because they had prepared three enclosures for them. But maybe he found out something too early, or maybe one of them wanted to prove something to the others, he decided to take matters into his hands. Seonghwa could have only been unlucky to be the random first victim, or there would be a particular criteria on why he was chosen."

"According to Hongjoong, Seonghwa's face was lacerated really badly, up until his features were unrecognizable, but his body was barely scathed. Why did the murderer aim for the face only?"

"Maybe he was jealous that he was too good-looking," Younghyun says with a straight face while pointing towards the picture. "Or maybe his face reminded him of something that he didn't want to remember."

"Seonghwa was only recently recruited..." he consults the papers spread in front of him, "8 months ago. He was Hongjoong's assistant, so any interaction between him and Yunho would be quite minimal."

"Maybe it went far before when he was recruited. Same high school? University?"

Dowoon shakes his head, quite disappointed that he's still in the same place. No answers, only more questions. "Different high school and university. Unless they've met coincidentally outside, their paths have never seemed to cross. That included the others too. Would you be aiming for a person you just met for a brief second passing by on the street?"

"It could happen, but this doesn't seem like the case. Yunho is the link, which we could safely say that there is a reason he picked out the five of them."

"From what Hongjoong told me they were invited on the trip together on the context of them being the only young people at the division. It could be a coincidence that their targets all happened to be young people so he could use that as an excuse or maybe, they made it work from that point of view."

"So what you're trying to say is?" Younghyun asks, but he's starting to get where Dowoon is heading.

"This may be a little bit too far-fetched but this is what I had been thinking. Considering how Yunho is the director of the division," he points to Yunho's resume. "He has the power to do anything he wants because he's the only son of the largest shareholders of the company. Basically, you can say that the company is his. What if he recruited all of them just for this sake?"

Younghyun stares at him, slightly incredulous. "You're saying that Yunho recruited them to the company just to invite them of a trip that soon turned to hell on earth? Why? And I'm pretty sure that all of them are hired at different times. Would you really wait for years just so that you would finally have enough people to fit in the minivan?"

"If you have a strong enough motivation, you would wait for years and strike when people are less likely to be aware."

"Like what?"

"Revenge. My gut is telling me that this has a connection to Choi San's suicide."

"So what the three of the perpetrators think is that five of them are responsible for his suicide? So they're trying to get back at them with this so-called game?"

"From what I've got now yes."

"Hmm... so how does these five people fit in their idea of the game?"

"They probably played some kind of role - at least in the heads of the three - so they are fitting them into the equation. Like you said, Mingi and Hongjoong were forced to make choices for the two so they are the players, while Yeosang and Jongho were the gamepieces. Seonghwa was supposed to be one too, but their plan diverged and only the two were at the receiving end of the torture."

"And they are the audience."

"Pretty much. Like Hongjoong said, they keep repeating about them conducting a game. To them, the five of them must have done something in the past that lead to Choi San's suicide."

Younghyun takes a piece of blank paper and a pencil. Something clicks in his mind, as his hands move fast to lay down the idea he currently has. "If it was indeed something to avenge for his suicide," he writes down San's name the largest in the middle of the paper. "Then his death is the catalyst for the game they're conducting; both Yunho and Wooyoung were his friends so they are in this together," he writes down Yunho and Wooyoung's names next. "So they separated the victims into different rooms before dragging them to the basement. Kim Hongjoong and Song Mingi together," he writes down their names and adds a 'plus' sign in between their names. "Maybe both Hongjoong and Mingi couldn't remember, but they could possibly be the witnesses when Choi San-" he takes the time to read his profile. "-jumped off the building."

"Basically to them, Hongjoong and Mingi could've done something to prevent San's suicide, was that it?" Dowoon offers.

The hacker points the end of the pencil to him. "Bingo. Their choices could have saved him, like for example, pulling him away from the edge of the building before it was too late or maybe even calling out for help. So that was why they made them the players; they could witness how the choices they made would bring forth torture towards their colleagues."

"Punishing them for what could have been."

"Right. Only now, they didn't exactly replicate the situation." The pencil makes a scraping sound as he circles Choi Jongho and Kang Yeosang's names individually. "If we exclude Yunho, we could say that both Yeosang and Jongho were prisoned individually. If Seonghwa was there, he would probably be put away alone in a room too. So what they did was the gamepieces had a room of their own. This," he puts down the pencil, "baffles me a little bit. I can't really think of how Jongho, Yeosang and Seonghwa could have contributed to San's death. Maybe it was something they said or did to him, but like you said, they are all from different high schools and universities. What we need to do is find the point at which they all could have met, way before they were all recruited to the company."

There is still something bothering Dowoon, so he asks, "If Choi San really did die 4 years ago, then who was the person they saw at the villa?"

Younghyun shrugs. "A vengeful spirit probably? You know like those ghosts that roam around because they still have business left in the human world." He leans back. "Why, are you scared? Yoon Dowoon, I know that you're only someone who likes something to be logical and can be understood by the mind. Though sometimes, you need to remember that we don't only share this world with other humans, animals or plants, but beings like them exist too. It's not impossible."

"Fine, then let's say that is the case," he replies, too lazy to debate with him. "Does that mean we're going against a psychotic ex-director, a missing person who showed up after 4 years and a vengeful ghost? Sounds like a mystery combined with some supernatural shit to me. I've never even come across any case like this."

He cracks his knuckles. "If you spend a lot of time on the web," he eyes him, "and not just on the surface, you'll find even more bizarre things. Stuff like this is pretty normal. And that's why I like working with the police force, I meet cases like these and I get to deal with them legally."

"Weird guy," Dowoon whispers to himself, but he quickly changes the topic. "So why did they kidnap Mingi again and let the rest of them flee?"

"It could be the same case as Seonghwa; where he's the outlier and their original plan was messed up, but I don't believe that's the case." He puts down his pencil, then gulps his whole cup of coffee straight away. "What I really want to believe is that, they are inviting us to a next round of their game. And we, the police, are now the players."

"And who will be the gamepieces?"

Younghyun doesn't answer, because he doesn't have one.

---

He pushes the bowl towards Wooyoung after the middle-aged server puts down his order, inviting him to eat first. Their lunch spread consists of rice with beef rib soup and some side dishes, served at a back alley shop, hidden away from the bustling crowd of the city. The three of them are currently seated at a table with barrels as their chairs - it could lean towards the aesthetic sense of the restaurant, or maybe they just couldn't afford to get proper chairs. Still, the restaurant serves the best dishes - that being one of the reason they always eat there - and the other reason because nobody pays attention to them. Today is no different, even though they are now considered fugitives.

They have been surfing through the channels on the television, looking for updates on their case, but it looks like the police would like to deal with them quietly. Only the victims and the police force knows, which excites them even more, considering how everything is working according to plan. Well, almost everything is working according to plan.

Park Seonghwa's death was an unplanned one, and that was the first strike.

"Are you still mad at me for killing Park Seonghwa?" Yunho asks when Wooyoung took the utensils from him begrudgingly. "I told you it was at the heat of the moment. You saw how San changed when he came, didn't you? His condition became worse when he looked at Seonghwa because he was reminded of the past!"

Yunho gestures towards San, who is only silently observing. San doesn't have any food in front of him, and it's not like the restaurant would serve him any - they can't hear nor see him. To the other restaurant-goers and the workers, there are only two people at the table; Yunho and Wooyoung.

"Looking at him made you mad, didn't it?" he directs a question towards San, hoping that his answer would justify his action. Wooyoung keeps on bringing it up, and he is starting to get irked, as if his impulsive decision to kill the assistant ruined their whole plan, when it was only a hiccup.

San peeks at Wooyoung before sheepishly answering, "A little bit. He... scares me. Whenever I saw him I kept on thinking of when-"

Wooyoung sighs, intentionally cutting him off. "Stop reminding yourself of what happened. It's not good for you."

"That's why I got rid of-" Yunho starts.

Wooyoung slams down the utensils on the table, earning them a few stares from the others in the restaurant. He juts out his chin to them, asking them to mind their own business. They do, intimidated by his attitude. "I said that wasn't in our plan. Our plan was supposed to have the three of them in the boxes, but one was empty because you killed him. I don't like that."

"That is your problem," he hisses. "You always think that you have to follow every single detail, that you have to do everything by the book. Once something gets out of line, you panic because you don't know what to do. That is your problem. So what if killing him wasn't part of the plan? Everything else worked out perfectly. We let them go, so they can tell everything we did to them, and that the police will get the message we're trying to deliver. The police doesn't spread the news about our case because they are scared of the uproar and backlash it will bring. A missing person committing crimes like these? A ghost out here trying to get revenge? So why do you keep on bringing up the part where I killed him? Is it so wrong, when I'm just trying to get rid of someone who brought so much pain to San?"

"Fucking lunatic," Wooyoung shoots back.

"Look who's talking." He points the end of a fork towards Wooyoung, his face unsmiling. "Is it so hard to admit that we are all crazy?"

"At least I show that I'm crazy," he sneers. "They call me crazy because I act like one. But you, Jeong Yunho, are the scariest of all of us. You act so nice to them, play the part as their kind boss and make them trust you all these years, yet behind them you're plotting all these. You are a fucking lunatic. You act so well that even I'm starting to believe that you're actually sane. Maybe you should choose a career to become an actor instead," he says cynically.

Yunho rolls his eyes. "You say that as if I'm the only one plotting this. Did you forget? Ah," he snaps his fingers before smirking, "this is only you trying to ride out the guilt you have, isn't it?" He shifts his gaze towards San, who is only staring at the empty spot on the table in front of him. The silver-haired man doesn't interrupt their fight, because he's already tired of it. "It was your regret that had you going all out in this. Jung Wooyoung, I know that you hate to admit it, but you are the real reason San is dead. Don't you agree, San?"

San stays mum, refusing to participate. Still, Yunho continues egging him on.

"That's why I'm saying, that is your problem, Wooyoung. Because you are too rigid with yourself, that you tell yourself that you always have to follow a plan. If only you were there that day, if only you were there like any other days, he wouldn't have died. If you could ignore your own damn schedule that day, San would still be alive."

"Shut the fuck up!" he rises from his seat, reaching out his fist and connects it with Yunho's jaw. Yunho tumbles backwards, hitting his body against another patron's table. Screams reverberate through the whole restaurant as Wooyoung sidesteps his seat and grabs a fist of the latter's shirt, pulling his right hand back to land another punch. He stops midway, his pupils trembling. Yunho looks unfazed, even when blood is trickling down from his nose and lips. "Don't you talk to me like that; I'm not the reason San died. They are the reason he died."

They look over to their table behind and notice that San is gone, probably had enough of witnessing their pointless fight. They were supposed to be working together in this call for revenge, but they had only been at each other's throats since Seonghwa was killed.

Wooyoung releases his grip on Yunho's shirt and unclenches his fist. He screams in frustration, knowing that it's hard for him to challenge Yunho's statement. Deep down, he agrees, but he lets his own ego gets the better of him. He stomps past the curious patrons, but they stay seated in fear of getting involved with something they are not supposed to. He feels their stares making holes in his back as he makes his way to the exit. He almost runs into a couple at the door as he is in a rush to step out of the restaurant; anger and embarrassment in his wake.

Yunho stands up and smoothes his shirt, trying to appear dignified after the scuffle. He grabs a tissue roughly and wipes the blood off his face. Other people have lost their interest in them, and so he takes out cash from his wallet to pay for the food they didn't even touch. He throws it onto the table, shoves his wallet into his back pocket and makes a beeline for the exit too. He snorts when he sees the person he came with idling near the entrance, playing with a small stone using the heel of his sneakers.

Of course he would be waiting for me, because where else could he go?

"Why? Finally realized that I was the one who protected you all these years? That I was the one who clothed and fed you? That you wouldn't be able to live another day without me?" Yunho challenges. "You wouldn't even live past that day if it weren't for me, Jung Wooyoung."

Wooyoung remains quiet, the opposite of what he was in the restaurant. A few people pass by with their coats, hugging them closer to their bodies as the temperature around starts to drop. He looks down at the ground, his feet staying still. As the stench from a nearby dumpster assaults his nose, he clears his throat and says the next sentence slowly.

"It was today 5 years ago, that changed everything. That made San a different person."

Yunho's anger dissipates like seafoam as he hears the words, bringing him back to why they started their plan to get revenge. He made a dent out of their big plan because of his temper, and now things are about to split apart if they don't resolve the misunderstanding that they have among themselves. Even San is nowhere to be found, and they have no way of calling him over unless he wants to be.

"I'm sorry," he says, fully unexpected. "I'm sorry I acted out on my temper and killed him. It was really because of San, and I never meant it as something to ruin our plan."

"You can't turn back time," Wooyoung replies. "Just like how we can't bring back San from the dead."

"We can't bring back someone from the dead, but we can punish those who still live on without carrying an ounce of guilt. They have forgotten, but we will make them remember... until their last breath."

--

[A/N: I might update frequently later on because I'm pretty inspired lately and I'm scared I'm going to be busy once my new semester starts. I can't make a promise though. I hope all of you lovelies enjoyed this chapter and things could get twisted from this point on... hehe]