Hongjoong had visited pathologist San Choi thrice during his training, and every time had been worse. Back then, Yunho told him he would get used to it with time, but Hongjoong vividly remembered his nightmares. The first time he inspected the mortuary, he had also thrown up.

As he ankled down a sterile white corridor towards the postmortem room of the local hospital, Hongjoong felt that same queasiness. Through the scent of disinfectant and the sharp tang of chemicals, he always found this area of work to smell like going into a butcher's. Even if no blood was visible, he knew it was there, and it churned his stomach the same way a killer taking apart a victim did. 

San's laboratory was right next to his main access point for dead bodies. Though he knew they were meeting, he was likely still at work. Steeling himself, Hongjoong peered through the large window offering a view of the corpse room. Most steel doors along the wall were closed, but one unveiled its grisly contents. San stood next to the stretcher with a clipboard in hand, studying his findings with his assistant Jongho, whom everyone lovingly called 'little Choi.' How a young gee such as him landed in this field of work was a shared riddle among everyone associated. He smiled so brightly, yet he never looked perturbed at the sight of a stiff.

Hongjoong's pale visage stared back at him through the glass. Finally, he lifted his fingers to knock on it. 

San lifted his head and nodded at him. After giving instructions to Jongho, he snapped his gloves off and dipped outside.

"Detective Kim," he greeted Hongjoong, and they shook each other's hands. Hongjoong wasn't wearing his lid today, but he could swear the stench of death already settled in his clothes. It surrounded San like his personal perfume. 

Pathologist San Choi looked exactly like one would imagine someone from his line of work. Strong arms and shoulders for sawing through bones. The perpetual ghostly white uniform and terrifying hands that were experts with tools. His smirk was ever so sly and unnerving and the sharp slant of his eyes glommed everyone with the mulling of how their body could best be taken apart.

Hongjoong got the heebie-jeebies whenever he saw him. Though Jongho's genuine happiness might be even more unnerving to deal with when his front was splattered with blood.

Thankfully, all four of Seonghwa Park's husbands were already below the earth. There was no body left for San to pluck on and study until Hongjoong's stomach flipped over. 

Thus, they left the corpse hall, which made Hongjoong's skin tingle and blood slow in dread to steer for San's office. One day, he would also be on one of those stretchers. Depending on who ended his existence, San would have a field trip prodding at his leftover skin.

Shuddering when memories of a past event he had to attend came up, Hongjoong closed the door to San's office behind them. Blood wasn't so unnerving when the body losing it still moved and made an effort to retrieve it. But a body void of blood, just stretchy skin and red organs, that was the true horror.

Sometimes Hongjoong wanted not a shred of his body to remain after curtains, so no one would intrude in his final rest. But San did essential work. And he tugged the according files right out of his cabinet.

"Yunho already rang me, so I prepared. Never knew all four of those old eggs shared the same wife," San snickered. He sunk into his chair to grab for a pen and somehow, those fingers made it look like a scalpel.

"Husband," Hongjoong corrected as he tugged the binder in. "He's a doll. I'm not surprised everyone scrambles after his beauty, especially at a certain age. Best they could get."

"Even better when it gets them killed," San purred. "I ordered them chronologically."

With a nod, Hongjoong flicked open the first page. 

Marcus Gallagher, aged 83 at the time of curtains. He had died of a heart attack. Seonghwa Park should have been in his late twenties at the time of marriage. Since he had an otherwise clean record, this might have been his first victim, or it might have been a natural death that inspired him to accelerate things in future marriages.

But Hongjoong doubted that more than ever. Park was beautiful, and he picked his husbands based on their age already. He didn't have to hurry things along. And he might genuinely have a personality that pitied the old and wanted to sweeten their last few years.

San hadn't mentioned anything notable back on the report. The victim had been routinely examined since there was no reason to suspect a violent death. 

"He can't have hidden poison or a strike to the heart beneath natural symptoms?" Hongjoong asked, more out of protocol than his conviction. These reports were his first evidence of Park's innocence.

"A random, beautiful vamp wouldn't know how to wield a shiv, even when the goal was murder. We can assume he is no trained killer, otherwise he would know to hide his traces. Then we wouldn't be sitting here."

Satisfied, Hongjoong flicked to the next page.

Harvey Thompson, 79. He was the one who died in that freak accident while working on the chimney. He hadn't been educated in that work, and San noted an ongoing back injury. Most likely, his age gave out on him. 

"Emergency services were at the scene?"

San nodded. 

"The spouse called them, but they were too late. Thompson died of shock."

Again, an internal death that wasn't easily faked. And Park called for help to prolong his husband's life. That was a major hint about his loyalty, no? Why make himself look like a suspect if he planned the incident?

The third husband was called the bent politician Clayton Bennett, the oldest of the bunch with 86 at curtains. He was the richest man Park had been married to, but his age gave away the simple deduction of his heart attack.

"He was the first one Yunho had me examine with more caution, but again, no hidden assault. We may assume his vamp of a husband could have purposefully tried to over-exert him, but that's our best bet."

Hongjoong wanted to scoff. He believed this story less and less. Someone so alluring as Park might just be in for all that cabbage he got as payment for his service in love. Bring heaven upon these old mashers before their final breaths. Show them youth and energy so they wouldn't wither away pitifully.

"How so?"

"This one had coronary heart disease, which means clogged arteries and a higher likelihood of myocardial infarction. We cannot trace what triggered it, but one way to get blood pumping even at an old age is sex. Might just be your daisy got down on him and ended the poor egg."

An abrupt blush took over Hongjoong's features. It shouldn't be there since he was at work, but he couldn't help the vivid imagination of his mind. After all, he saw Park in the flesh and his allure was almost stifling.

"Maybe," Hongjoong muttered, not wanting to follow that thought. Park deserved better. He didn't need some old, withered fiddle to sit on, unable to give him what he needed because the body attached was rotting away. While his old husbands might have been in euphoria, Park needed to take care of himself miserably.

The more Hongjoong learned, the more he pitied him.

The last husband, Albert May, had choked on an apple. It carried no poisonous substances but wasn't chewed properly by aged teeth. 72 was old enough to lose caution and Park had called the emergency services hours post-mortem. Hongjoong bet he wasn't home at the time of the incident. 

With his information memorised, Hongjoong nodded at San. Those sly eyes tracked him, so intrigued by the energetic pump of blood through the detective's cheeks.

"I will meet Park this evening and ask him some questions about these four incidents. Thank you for your work." Horrid as it was.

San rose to shake Hongjoong's hand.

"I wish you the best of luck, detective. May our next meeting not be on the stretcher." His grin was bright yet chilling in its meaning. Hongjoong hysterically ran his hand through his hair. He needed a smoke after this. San was the best suited for this work and damn, if he ever switched sides to become a button man, it was over for London.

"Have a nice day."

While being surrounded by corpses wouldn't be a nice day to Hongjoong, to San, it was. As the cutter took off with a whistle to attend to his butchery, Hongjoong scurried with his new notes. Jongho waved at him through the window and his gummy grin contrasted with the raw liver in his gloved hand.

Gagging, Hongjoong made his way out of there. Even in the fresh air, that metallic tang lingered in his nostrils. Damn cutters and their eerie gaff.

Hongjoong went home for a change of clothes. Park had contacted him for tea, dialling the number of the office since Yunho was the Jeong in association after all. He had shadowed Albert May in case he died. Glad their ruse fooled their suspect, Hongjoong dug through his closet.

His heart hammered at the prospect of seeing Park again. His beauty was remarkable and mysterious, like a starry night, and Hongjoong wanted to look the part. 

In his best shirt and his new hat, Hongjoong left the house. His shoes were old and shabby, but he hoped Park wouldn't mind. 

On his way through London's streets, Hongjoong contemplated buying him flowers. Would that be taken as an insult, so soon after the death of his husband? But he might as well mean to console.

Unsure, Hongjoong clutched his trilby in his lap and gnawed on his lip. Could some flirtations butter Park enough to gain easy access to information? Or was it wiser to stick with the methods of questioning Yunho taught him?

1. Flirt -> go to chapter 10

2. Don't flirt -> go to chapter 11