The Tiger King (Chaelisa)

Interlude: No Saints, All Sinners

The city of Seoul slept, unaware of the devils hidden in its midst.

The city of Seoul slept, unaware of its watchful protector working tirelessly into the night.

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Sleep was currently the farthest thing from Detective Chanyeol Park's mind; there was too much preoccupying him.

The city's unchecked criminal activity, for instance.

Seoul's notoriously polished criminal gangs, well hidden in plain sight and in cahoots with business tycoons, politicians and many corrupted officials within the police ranks, continued to elude him.

His superiors sighed every time he stepped in their office, jaded and old next to his steely determination.

He was on a one man crusade and he refused to slow down.

"Park, if you want to clean out the rot, you have to start from here, the corps itself. As long as the criminals have friends amongst the police force, you won't ever win," his mentor Lee Sooman had told him once, his voice sombre. Chanyeol had just graduated from the police academy and was already thirsting to prove himself.

He took these words to heart and never looked back, not even when he put his own mentor behind bars after discovering an extensive sex slave ring that he co-ran with other notable figures in the underworld. 

Lee Sooman had only given him a tight-lipped smile as he walked into his cell that was going to be his home for the next twenty years. Chanyeol himself slammed the door shut, taking a perverse pleasure in the way the metal clanged like a death knell, a warning toll for all corrupt bastards that dared taint the name of justice.

That had been five years ago, when he had been promoted to detective at long last and immediately plunged himself to work and root out the rat infestation, even if it meant resorting to unorthodox methods. It wasn't easy, and many times he even received horrifying death threats, warning him to watch his back. 

It had been five solid years, and as yet, he had nothing tangible to account for, except for some new grey hairs and too few arrests. The media only fanned the flames with apparent polls showing the distrust of the hysterical public in the corps's ability to keep them safe.

But the lack of meaningful progress did nothing to dim Chanyeol's fervent obsession—if anything, it only fired him up with more zeal to trounce those that dared mock him. He knew that he was only scratching the surface. Nothing infuriated him more than when the people around him told him to take it easy; he took it as a personal offence

"Crime never takes it easy so I will not take it easy either," he snapped. 

Nobody told him to take it easy ever again.

Seoul's very own batman, they called him behind his back. Much like the brooding caped crusader, Chanyeol was hell-bent on a mission, driven by one purpose and one purpose only: the mighty hand of justice finally crushing the rotten blackness out of his city.

Chanyeol sat now in his chair, contemplating the view of the deceivingly peaceful cityscape from his window on the 18th floor of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.

It had always been a habit of his to stay working late, sometimes even sleeping for a few hours at a time on the couch behind his desk. Then he would wake up before the night shift changed, wash, shave and pull on a new change of uniform from his closet in the cubicle next to his office and get ready for a new day. 

He was at pains to groom and dress smart—nobody takes some haggard, unkempt officer seriously and the media, aside from mocking him continuously for his utter contempt of the lies it tended to spin, would only be too delighted to jump on that and tear his reputation to shreds.