A Cold Morning For A Murder.

16 Years Later.

The air was cold this morning even though it was sunny. Numerous muffled murmurs of curious bystanders standing behind yellow tape that stretched around an apartment complex, guarded by police could be heard all the way from Yeon-Hee's car as she stared at them with a placid expression, hiding the dread and anticipation of what she was about to go into.

Yeon-Hee was now a policewoman, a detective to more precise. She chose the same career path as her father. She had short hair that touched her shoulders, dark brown eyes that had barely visible circles around them that didn't dull her pretty features in the slightest.

Leaning over the passenger seat and opening the glove box compartment, she took out a small yellow cylinder, labelled as her prescription medicine and twisted the cap off, taking out and swallowing two red and yellow pills which were washed down with some water from her grey metal flask. She sighed after swallowing them, jumping in place as a knock came out of nowhere on her window that frightened her.

Her team member, Kim Dae-Bom with his long and round face, brown eyes with average features came into view with a wide smile. She stared at him with an expression of shock that quickly turned into an annoyed one.

"Fuck, you scared me." She said in a deep and annoyed tone, pushing the rouge strand of dark brown hair away from her eye and dropping her flask on the passenger seat with a "Tsk."

"Let's go. The Chief is already inside." Dae-Bom said in a muffled voice, pointing at the building she'd been staring at as he turned around and waited for Yeon-Hee to come out while shivering in the morning chill despite the cozy looking puffer jacket he wore.

'Dammit, he's gonna chew me out again.' She thought with a sigh, opening the door while grabbing her brown jacket from the dashboard and standing outside as she closed the door. The chill of the cold momentarily stung on her pale skin the moment she stepped out of the warm car, quickly putting on her brown jacket.

*zzzzzzt* The zipper reached the bottom of her neck, brushing against her short hair as she took out her I.D card with a dark blue strap and put it on her neck. "Detective Kim Yeon-Hee." it read with her picture above it. She began walking across the road with Dae-Bom in silence.

"What happened? You're never lousy " Dae-Bom asked, catching a whiff of alcohol poorly covered up by a strong perfume.

"A little." She vaguely answered as they reached the pavement across the road.

Dae-Bom scoffed with a smile, following with: "Little? You looked like you were drinking all night." He said, getting smacked on the shoulder by Yeon-Hee as they reached the crowd and pushed through them to reach the yellow tape guarded by two policemen who looked at their I.D badges and lifted the tape to let them through.

'So damn inquisitive.' She thought as she looked at the crowd full of both old and young people with their phones out along with a couple of reporters skulking in the crowd. They approached the entrance, finding a middle-aged man wearing baggy dark blue jeans and a black jacket that was zipped down revealing his stomach poking out of his shirt, walking over to meet them. He was a member of their unit and was often not present as always had some paper work to deal with, so him showing up early and waiting for them was a shocking surprise.

"How is it?" Yeon-Hee asked the fellow violent crime unit detective, not showing any of the surprise she had as he exhaled out mist from the cold.

"It's bad." He replied with a short answer while looking at them and then at the floor, entering the building with them following him up the stairs.

"How bad exactly?" Dae-Bom asked.

"I can't describe it… Just see for yourself." He ended the conversation as they reached the hallway and passed all the apartment units. Yeon-Hee and Dae-Bom looked at each other, worried about the vague replies they received, taking out their blue gloves and putting them on.

Finally arriving at the open door unit at the end of the hallway, they stepped inside, noticing how spacious the complex was despite the size of the building.

Then, without warning, immediately forgetting about the details of the complex as the strong smell of rancid rotting flesh and piss filled the entire room and assaulted their nostrils, making Dae-Bom place the back of his hand on his nose with a grimace of revolt as they looked at the scene. Clad in white, National Forensic Services were already taking pictures as detectives stared at the grizzly murder in front of them with the same expressions as Dae-Bom.

In the middle of the apartment was a small decorated wooden chair, occupied by a large and plump dead body of a man roughly tied to the chair as the rope dug deep into the skin on his belly through the white vest and around his legs above his black and white striped boxers. His skin was grey with dark purple spots all over, showing that he had been dead for a few days, along with large dark bruises all over his body indicating that he was beaten extensively all over with a blunt weapon that a coroner was snapping photos of in the back. His face was perhaps the most gruesome of it all as it faced the ceiling with his tattered mouth agape: his eyes were hollowed out and replaced with two red spider-lilies, one in each orifice. His dark purple and pink lips were cut all over with his teeth missing, some were on his boxers and some littered on the floor with pictures of the man arranged in a circle around him. The pictures showed him harassing and assaulting tenants while drunk, ingesting a white power at a club that was presumed to be cocaine, and dozen other crimes.

Yeon-Hee felt the ground beneath her disappear as questions rushed through her mind at the gruesome scene in front of her, unknowingly taking a slow step forward.

"Who would do such a thing?" Asked one of the other detectives.

'A psychopath is what!' She replied internally, her face turning cross as she took another step forward, then another, suddenly stopped by the loud voice that broke the uncomfortable tension in the room with a boom.

"Hey, Kim Yeon-Hee!" Yelled the chief, walking over. He was a fickle, old and balding man as Yeon-Hee had described him to Dae-Bom whenever venting out her anger. He wore a midnight blue suit with the blazer unbuttoned that revealed his round stomach pushing out of his white shirt. He was also exactly the same height as Yeon-Hee which was short by male standards. "Where were you yesterday, huh?!" He asked, stopping in front of her, hands clutching his hips as they swayed. Yeon-Hee tried to speak, but was cut off by the chief as he continued to yell:

"Do you have any idea what you have done?! The culprit got away yesterday because of you and now my head is on the line! So tell me how you are going to take responsibility for this! Huh?!" He finished yelling and stood there, waiting for Yeon-Hee to reply.

'Fuck, this is annoying.' She thought, holding herself back from grabbing her revolver as she put her hands behind her back and looking down.

"I apologise." Yeon-Hee stared at the dark brown wooden floor, filtering out the chief's voice as much as she could while he continued to berate and complain.

Luckily, Dae-Bom took a step in between them just in time, a bit taller than both of them as he softly and respectfully said: "Ah, Chief. I get that you're angry, but now isn't the right time for this talk. Can you finish this conversation at the station, please?" He said, pointing behind the chief to the uncomfortable gazes of everyone else in the room. The chief felt a bit of embarrassment swell up and cleared his throat, speaking softly this time.

"We'll finish this conversation in my office." He said, walking out of the room with relief to be away from the stench of death, blood and piss.

Yeon-Hee let out a grunting sigh, swearing under her breath as everyone looked at her and shook their heads as they had never seen the chief that angry. She ignored them and said nothing because she knew that she was the one at fault.

"I get that that he's angry but–" Dae-Bom was cut off by Yeon-Hee.

"It's okay. I let him get away," She said as she walked forward, "When was this called in by the way?" He asked as Yeon-Hee walked towards the body and went on one knee to observe the pictures as the detective explained.

"Just this morning. One of the tenants was walking out of his room and caught the terrible smell coming from the landlord's unit and called us."

"Did no one hear him being beaten up and tortured?" She interjected with a question as she pointed to the blood spatter around them, "It would have been pretty loud."

"... Ah, apparently the landlord was always intoxicated and screaming whenever they saw him so they assumed it was just him getting drunk." The detective answered.

Yeon-Hee was about to ask another question when the man they entered with came running in the unit, panting as he held out his phone with a news article with a censored picture of a blood splattered room with a pixelated body in the middle, the exact same room and body with them right now.

"It's on the internet. The reporters somehow got a picture." He said, making everyone sigh and swear as they now had to deal with the reporters antagonising questions when they left. She stared at the spider-lilies with an expression of painful reminiscing.

One of the detectives looked at the body and had thought that he voiced out:

"Hey, doesn't this feel similar to Park Si-Wan?" His words made the room quiet again with that name emotionally pinching Yeon-Hee's heart as she had to painfully agree. Dae-Bom lightly smacked the detective on his arm, replying:

"Don't say such things." He said.

"Why?" Asked the detective.

"Because if what you're saying is true, then that means that this won't be his first or last time doing this," Yeon-Hee replied and looked at the pictures, "... A serial killer." Her expression turned grim with those words as everyone recalled the fact that Park Si-Wan, the "Chrysanthemum Killer" killed her father.

"It can't be… right? I'm probably wrong." The detective asked nervously, regretting his statement.

'Too late to take it back now,' Yeon-Hee thought with her gaze suddenly transfixed on the two red spider-lilies.