Triptych Detective Agency: The Enigma of the Phantom Heir (BTS)
นักเขียน: magnanimuse© WebNovel
บท 1: Ignorance, disarray, and Namjoon exercising his rights
A dog barked and a bin toppled, someone was trying to clean their decade old Corolla down the street, and a group of teenagers smoked in the shades of an alley, protected from the drizzle currently trying to wash the grime away from this part of the city. Today was a relatively quiet day for the neighborhood; no thugs shouting profanities to each other that could be heard from five blocks away even though they were only five feet apart, no biker gangs revving up their engine and being the main cause of intermittent noise pollution, and more importantly, no signs of a bubbling street fight.
In the midst of the dreary buildings was the Triptych Detective Agency, proudly displaying its name on a tilted and weathered down sign. The blinds were down and the lights of the main office were turned off, their occupants just slightly shy of coming back after settling a minor homicide case, and the distant hum of a used Hyundai Sonata across the street indicated their arrival.
Namjoon got off the car first, and Yoongi parked it in their favourite spot; the middle ground between the tattoo shop and the abandoned cafeteria.
"Ah, Hyung! I think you have the keys." Namjoon shouted. The leader of the three turned the knob of the front door, and despite his earlier claims the door swung open easily. The three watched in silence as the dusty corridor revealed itself.
Hoseok shrugged and walked inside with more confidence than he should've had, "I mean, it's faster,"
Thankfully, the office door was still locked, and there weren't any intruder alerts from Alexa, so Hoseok was spared from any heart attacks. Yoongi went ahead and checked the consultation room, or the Consult, as they liked to call it (there was a sign on the corridor for those who just couldn't wait for the Agency to open, to write on the guestbook in the consultation room), while Namjoon and Hoseok made sure their office weren't the epitome of a post-war battlezone.
"It's exactly like we left it, a pre-war battlezone," Namjoon remarked, looking at all the scattered papers, files, takeout boxes, and other miscellaneous items throughout the room. Some of the furniture were upturned in a vain attempt to locate someone's oddly relevant research paper, and the windows were clouded with dirt because they hadn't bothered to fix the overhang outside.
"I'm not cleaning this,"
"The cleaning graph says it's Yoongi's turn to clean," Namjoon remarked, pointing to the cardboard chart pasted on the right wall.
"Perfect, I'm gonna bother him," Hoseok said, before he left the room, presumably to bother Yoongi.
Namjoon was left amidst the ruins, and he finally had the right mind to switch on the lights and check the security room above for any suspicious CCTV footage. Ever since the Macaroni Incident they had installed several cameras and bug devices to cover the entirety of the ground floor. He hadn't even made it halfway up the stairs when he heard an excited-but-also-horrified shriek coming from the consultation room.
That was definitely Hoseok, and it indicated either a targeted terror to Triptych, or an especially thrilling case. Considering Yoongi still hadn't come here and activated a security protocol, it was likely the latter. That was Namjoon's train of thought while he half-slid, half-ran to where they were both standing, equally stupefied expressions on their faces, Yoongi even had his hands still paralyzed in a book holding position, the guestbook itself open on the table.
"I don't believe it." Yoongi simply said.
"What he said." Hoseok nodded, seemingly unable to form coherent sentences.
Namjoon skimmed the book and his eyes flashed past the name written on it.
Hyeonsil. The most influential crime organization in South Korea. Responsible for some of the most intricate web of manipulation, trafficking, and smuggling.
And they had contacted them.
He blinked once, twice, and the name still didn't morph into something else. Maybe he should try to actually read the content before initiating the imminent freak out.
'Dear Triptych,
As you may already know, there were indications of the Phantom Heir's current conditions that have appeared yesterday. We hereby request you to build up on those leads and find the Heir. I will personally come to the Agency today at 4 PM to discuss this with all of you.
Yours sincerely,
Kim Min Jae (Kraken), Hyeonsil's Head of Informational Intelligence
PS. Apologies for the intrusion, our Boss has been in a very precarious mood recently and I had to lockpick my way in. I will also pay for the collateral house plant damage that I've caused while walking into the room, it was dark.'
"No." The sociology graduate breathed out, finally finding out that the two's over exaggerated reactions were absolutely reasonable.
"Yeah, no."
"Yoongi, you're up for post-case cleaning."
"Hell no, you all clean with me," Yoongi strode down the hall with no traces of the previous shock. Though it was soon replaced by the shock of seeing the office for the first time since they'd left (read: for the first time since they weren't high on caffeine)
He sighed, and looked at his best friends who were still standing on the doorway, afraid that they would be bestowed cleaning rights if they had stepped even one inch into the room, "Dinner's on me,"
"Dinner for the next three days," Hoseok added.
"And the ramen supply for the whole week,"
"Yeah, it's either that or nothing, Hyung."
Yoongi gave them a deadpan and slowly took out two VIP passes to one of the most famous underground rap concerts from his coat pocket. Namjoon and Hoseok's eyes widened.
"Clean this absolute dumpster of a room with me and maybe I won't burn these,"
The shorter of the two statues gasped, "You can't do that to us, that's illegal,"
"It actually is. If you check article two, clause three of the Triptych Tome, it clearly said that threatening someone in situations that do not call for it can result in a penalty given from the threat receiver." The taller statue chimed in, "I know my rights."
"Well, I guess you guys will just stay here at the weekend then." The sole human in the property took out a lighter and lit it precariously close to the passes, the arsonist in him flaring up.
"NO!" Namjoon yelped, sprinting into the room at lightning speed and slipping on someone's fingerprint records that was lying on the ground.
"Hyung, please. I beg of you," He weakly plead as he held his ass in pain and looked at Hoseok for help.
Hoseok sidestepped the mess that is Namjoon and trudged towards the current common enemy, gracefully avoiding whatever items were on the floor. When he was all but ten centimeters from Yoongi, he gently grabbed his hand and turned off the lighter, giving the other a light kiss on the forehead while wrapping his other hand around his waist.
"You sure you don't want my company next Saturday?" Hoseok breathed out, whispering it right at Yoongi's ear. The effects were as intended. Yoongi's cheeks flushed red, but he didn't get the chance to stealthily snatch the passes from him. They knew each other too well, and the shorter had shoved them into his pocket as soon as he was approaching.
Namjoon, still holding his ass, had had enough, "Really? Right in front of my case files?"
"Fine," He stuttered out, "I'll also buy dinner, but only for today."
Hoseok whooped, to Yoongi's chagrin, and kneeled down to high five Namjoon, "Victory!"
"We could've gotten away without that PDA, though," He stood up and smoothened his pants, "Made me feel like I was the losing party here."
"But it was smooth! You wished you could've done that to Jin," Hoseok snickered, lightly slapping the taller's shoulder.
Namjoon was about to deliver a fitting retort but Yoongi quickly diffused their attention back into the shipwreck they were standing in.
"Would you two quit talking like I'm not here and actually do something," Yoongi grunted, face still slightly red. He started to pick up and arrange some of the larger objects, throwing Hoseok's tri colored socks at him, which Hoseok dodged, ending up on Namjoon's head instead.
"Move or I'll burn--"
Detective #1 and detective #2 immediately started their chores. They worked on the floor first, which was covered with thousands of important garbage, and what seemed to be a picture of a couple, encased in an old metal frame. Namjoon picked it up, "Wait, isn't this from the Schrodinger's Husband case? How did it end up here?"
"At some point I thought it was relevant to our last case." Hoseok sighed, "I also don't know why I took it out of the basement."
"For the nth time, we don't have a basement,"
Hoseok deflated, "But it sounds cooler,"
Yoongi ignored him, and they had managed to unearth the floor in the span of twenty minutes. Granted, everything was just thrown into a pile in the storage room, which would be more of a hassle to organize later. The furniture were next. The sofas of the interrogation corner were pushed back into place, and Namjoon stuck the primary school 'When, Who, Why, How and What' poster back onto the wall. They each tidied up their own desks, with Namjoon finishing in record time, thanks to almost all of of his stuff being either labeled, colour coded, or organized into thematically related stacks.
Once the room was reverted back into its original state of a cozy, if not slightly chaotic, home office, they no longer had any excuse to ignore the gargantuan elephant that should have burst out of the room at this point in time.
Namjoon sighed, "Someone bring the book here,"
"No, you bring it. It's cursed now and I don't want to touch it," Hoseok shuddered.
"I'll go get it," The oldest of the three dragged himself out. He didn't want to do it, but someone had to bite the bullet.
"Thanks Hyung! You're the best,"
Yoongi held the book with the tips of his fingers. He too, secretly believed it was cursed. During the thirty seconds that he was gone, Namjoon had managed to escape upstairs and Hoseok was out mending the window overhang. The office was silent.
"It's 2 pm, the Hyeonsil official is gonna be here in two hours, and I don't know about you guys, but I don't want my body to be distributed among the nation's biggest black markets." He yelled.
Namjoon swooped down in an instant, "I was peeing."
The other detective was by his side just a second later, shaking his head to get rid of the water from his hair.
Namjoon cleared his throat and opened the book with his pinky, "The entry--"
"He could be one of us!" Hoseok gasped.
The others also gasped. They shared one brain cell.
"OH MY GOD IT'S JIN,"
"WHAT? No, look at Jungkook, he always wears black,"
"And that's relevant in what way?"
"Okay, let's all calm down and discuss this very calmly. Refer to Article 1: Code of Professional Conduct, Clause 1 of the Triptych Tome: It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence." Namjoon spoke up, using his best leader voice and trying to keep them all mentally grounded.
"Let's all play judge and conduct a spontaneous trial! All of you write an affidavit on your past--" Hoseok said with the excitement of a kid at a candy store, while the leader covered his face with his hands exasperatedly.
"Let's NOT turn this place into a courthouse and actually act like detectives."
"Right, we even gathered data on and off about it for several years. I don't think any of us has the devious braincell of conning two detectives at once and getting away with it." Yoongi said, gaining back a bit of his previous common sense.
"BUT IT'S THE PHANTOM HEI--"
"GUYS THE PHANTOM HEIR," Taehyung screamed, slamming the door open and making Hoseok leap up to the ceiling. He threw his briefcase on to Yoongi's desk, which toppled a mini shelf of files and initiated a domino sequence that ended with the demise of one of Hoseok's succulents. But at least it made the distraught house plant gardener come down.
Namjoon just wished he could gain some sanity back after this, "Taehyung it's literally been fifteen MINUTES how did you even hear about this."
"The Theory of Causation is not always correct, hyung. It doesn't matter."
"That's not how that works."
"What matters is that I have," Taehyung made a rainbow arc with his hands, channeling his inner SpongeBob, "Evidence."
He handed the detectives his briefcase, "Behold! Material that I have gathered for over four years. Observe and bathe in its glory,"
They swarmed around the leather bag like bees to honey, and Taehyung watched as they rifled through papers and judged his work, fidgeting with a houseplant near the doorway. He could slightly hear Hoseok wail weakly about his ever growing grave of plants.
Jungkook had texted him about this earlier, even if his messages were mostly comprised of keymash, and he had hailed a cab from the police station straight to the Agency as soon as his break had started, inspector duties be damned. His life had led up to this point, and he didn't care about the fact that this was most likely outside of legal boundaries. The Phantom Heir was one of the most elusive people, if not the most. And it was what everyone had talked about during his time in the police academy. He was proud of what little leads he was able to collect.
"We've already gathered most of this material ourselves but the government data was one that we couldn't really obtain. That's gonna come in handy eventually." Yoongi summarized.
"Well, that's to be expected from one of the most talented inspectors in Korea," Namjoon smiled, giving Taehyung an encouraging pat.
"So," Yoongi began, turning his computer screen to face the three, "We basically have these as our current leads. His birthdate. His school records up to the first year of high school, which included his name, report cards, and past address, phone number, and academic achievements. Taehyung had also provided us with reports of Hyeonsil's finances and criminal records in the past fifteen years along with some government data that gave us his past work history, and the time and cause of death, or pseudocide, I should say; The data corruption of his death was what pushed the organization to make a move and contact us with the belief that he's still out there, and most probably within South Korea too."
"We shouldn't make too much speculations now, since Kim Min Jae is gonna give us information from their side that can help us." Yoongi continued, "Considering they wouldn't mind sharing it, of course. I don't think they will give us the whole story, either, so we have to keep that in mind."
The screen contained a compilation of the information they'd gathered. His real name was Hyun Jae Song and he was born on September 17, 1995. Blood type O. Next to those was a picture of his face; black hair, chubby cheeks, slightly feminine in structure. He was especially accomplished in math and science, and was often appointed the class representative. The address and the phone number both led to Busan; the center of Hyeonsil's influence. A fairly standard medical record, although it did report the guy having a lot of bruises. Only worked one part time job a few weeks before his disappearance on January 22, 2012. And two years after that he was reported dead by suicide, with no other records between 2012 and 2014. Yoongi was fairly surprised he could maintain the anonymity of his disappearance from as young an age as sixteen.
"He's probably changed identities at least three times by now," Namjoon speculated, "I would've done that if I were him."
"False identities are definitely in the calculations. The problem is how to track those identities down. Also, he could've taken plastic surgery to change his face. So his personal information isn't reliable in this case. His fingerprints would be the only thing that's gonna stay the same one hundred percent." Hoseok inferred, while cleaning up Namjoon's ecosystem box.
"There aren't any useful patterns that we can use in Hyeonsil's records, too. I suspected there would've been a major outflow when the Phantom Heir took the money for his escape, but he was too careful." Taehyung chimed in, looking back at his papers, "They spent a lot in the periods shortly after the disappearance, though. We'll have to confirm whether those were used to fund a search system, or stolen."
He continued, "I also included the corrupted version of the government records in the USB. Maybe Jungkook can--"
"I CAN!" Jungkook slammed the door open, slid down to his knees into a begging position and implored the three horsemen of the apocalypse for case rights. It all happened so smoothly that Namjoon didn't even realize one of his little ecosystem boxes had hurled itself off the shelf.
"Pleaseletmejoinyouguysandsolvethecasepleasepleaseplease--"
"Jungkook-"
"WAIT," He interrupted, "I have data."
He took out his laptop from his backpack and placed it on the floor. It was already on, displaying his folder that contained his personal goldmine, "LOOK,"
And they did, sitting on a circle on the floor. Taehyung noticed Jungkook looked like he had ran from China to here.
"Did you run straight from campus or something?"
"Yeah," He nodded, "All those time at the gym paid off."
"You mean your muscles aren't enough of a benefit?" Taehyung snickered.
"I consider that a break even,"
The inspector took out his handkerchief and dabbed it on Jungkook's forehead, wiping some of the sweat off. He didn't notice Jungkook looking away with a faint blush on his cheeks.
Taehyung remembered what he was talking about before Jungkook busted down the door, "Also, do you think you can somehow trace or find out who corrupted the data?"
"Hmm, I don't think that's possible unless I gain access to the server the database is housed on. Even then, it's quite an arduous and risky process. But I'll see if I can do something about it," He rubbed his head.
"Thanks, Kook!"
"As long as you bail me out if I get caught,"
"No guarantees," Taehyung winked.
While the two were flirting it on, the Triptych detectives were scrolling past Jungkook's handiwork. There was a massive amount of forum screenshots of people that claimed they had come into contact with the Phantom Heir at some point in their life. Yoongi had also gathered a lot of them himself. Hackers, neighbors, and fellow gang members alike formed the web of possible traces. But due to the anonymity of most of those forums it was hard to verify their claims.
"Jungkook, can you find out the IP addresses of these people? That way we can at least develop a geographical heat map of alleged Phantom Heir encounters,"
"Can we stop calling him Phantom Heir, that's too long,"
"Then what?"
"I don't know, uhh, pH?"
"Ohh, we can even label leads according to the pH scale. 10 for 'this is not really a lead', and 1 for a breakthrough." Hoseok clapped his hands, impressed by the Taehyung's galaxy brain.
Namjoon and Yoongi just went along. Those three couldn't be stopped even if they tried. Jungkook zoned out before he remembered what they were even talking about.
"Ah, right. I've already done that. At least for mine." He opened a spreadsheet that contained the IP addresses, and their type of claims and locations, "Some of these would be affected by VPN, though."
"That's fair, we'll just calculate the big picture," Namjoon replied. He was the one in charge of making charts and statistics. Although Yoongi or Hoseok would often double check it first.
A lot of the IP locations were centered around Busan and Seoul. With Busan being the highest frequency location during the years just after the disappearance, replaced by Seoul after 2015. There was also a considerable amount of Gwangju and Jeju, along with a few foreign outliers that are most probably caused by a VPN.
Jungkook's phone buzzed. It was a text from Jimin, his online friend that he'd met, but not in person, two years ago. He, Jimin, and Taehyung would often spend their free time playing MMORPGs with each other.
"Who's that?" Taehyung asked, looking over Jungkook's shoulder.
"Jimin, he's asking if any of us are free tonight."
"Ahh, I've got some work due,"
"Yep, already texted that. I also told him about the case we're working on, he seems pretty interested too," Jungkook locked his phone and got back into his task.
He pulled up a specific IP address of a network hacker that claimed he'd worked with the Heir, "I'm going to try contacting this guy. I've worked with him on several projects, not directly though. But at least we've played some Overwatch together."
"These are actually really useful, Jungkook, thank you. You did well," Namjoon pat his head. Jungkook glowered, he felt enlightened inside. He'd scream about this on Twitter later.
"By the way, have you two even read the guestbook entry?" Hoseok asked, referring to Taehyung and Jungkook.
"No." They said, unnecessarily in sync.
"Dumb and Dumber," someone muttered under his breath.
Hoseok fetched the book and handed it to them.
"Hey, how do we know the entry is authentic?" Namjoon asked.
Yoongi shrugged, "No one would parade around as a Hyeonsil member unless they've got a death wish. But then again, death wishes are common here, so we'll just have to wait and see, I guess--"
Never gonna give you up.
Never gonna let you down.
Never gonna run around and--
Namjoon answered the call, "Jin? What's up?"
Taehyung whipped his head around and stared at Namjoon with the determined eyes of a bird of prey, "GLITTER--"
"NO,"
"Just checking in, my friend went to your place earlier but the office was empty. I wanted to make sure he actually wrote something on the guestbook."
"Hmm, which one is your friend?" Namjoon asked for the book from Jungkook and shuffled through the pages.
"Oh, you'll know. It's about the Phantom Heir."
"You mean the, and I quote, Hyeonsil Head of Informational Intelligence, Kim Min Jae?"
"Yeah, we watched some ice hockey together." Jin replied, as if it was completely normal to watch hockey with a high level mafia member.
"I should've known." Namjoon whispered, while Hoseok let out a quick 'woah'.
"As you know, he's going to come there in an hour or so," He continued, "And I may or may not be in tow,"
"With glitter?"
"Taehyung, no."
"Tell Taehyung I am going to make sure he'd be able to witness my glitter terror with his own two eyes. Bye!"
Jin hung up. Jungkook's mouth gaped open, a universe's worth of incredulity and confusion in his eyes. Taehyung was just glad that Seokjin affirmed his request. Yoongi wasn't surprised at all, in fact, he'd been lounging on his office chair the whole time.
"In this day we find out that Seokjin is an omniscient being of human relationships." Namjoon announced, to no one and everyone's surprise.
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magnanimuse
magnanimuse Hey y'all. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. It's a bit slow paced, and I also apologize for the 2749835 inaccuracies and misinformation that's in this fic. any mistakes or thoughts you want me to know, please write it in the comments! :D
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