subtext- sevzen oneshots

obligatory mafia au

Zen sat in his office while he painstakingly went through the list of townsfolk, trying to find someone to interrogate. He had been newly appointed sheriff as of a few days ago, previously not doing too much as deputy but getting paid for bringing coffee to his superior on late nights, and patrolling the town. In those few days since he had been appointed, the peaceful and generally boring town had begun to lose its members one by one.

Each night, the mafia would kill off a member, and so far, the town's beloved mayor was found dead in his home, dead due to a gunshot wound to the head. Beside his corpse was a bloodied note that simply said "sauerkraut."

Naturally, the townsfolk all began to turn on each other. They started to lose sight of who people really were, and everyone's true identity was questioned. A majority of the citizens believed that the mafia could be anyone.

A few days prior, the sheriff was shot in the head. He had been a father figure to Zen after running away from home at a young age. The two had pretty much always been together for most of Zen's teenage and adult life, so of course, his death devastated Zen. The note beside his body read: "i shot the sheriff, but i didn't shoot the deputy." Making him infuriated that someone had such disregard for life. Naturally, town suspected Zen of being the killer because of his proximity to the sheriff, but nonetheless, he still promoted himself to sheriff.

Zen tapped his desk nervously. It was his first night actually doing the job of a sheriff. He hadn't exactly learned how to fill in the position all the way through, but he knew nowadays, he had to interrogate people to see if they were part of the mafia.

There weren't any leads yet, except that the mafioso that killed the two victims had left notes in a lowercase style. Zen decided to just pick a random person from his list to interrogate, because there wasn't really much to go on. He chose a man that he had seen around, but never properly talked to.

"Open up, it's the sheriff." Zen said, knocking on the whitewashed door. A man dressed haphazardly stepped out onto the porch. His tie was loosened, and he wore a half buttoned white collared shirt that lazily slouched open to reveal no wifebeater underneath. He sported eye bags and striped pajama pants, despite the fact that the nights in this town were too hot to wear long clothes unless you wanted to drown in a pool of your own sweat.

"Why are you here?" the man asked, ruffling his red hair with his hands, perhaps attempting to make it look better.

"Well, I'm here to interrogate you." Zen replied, sticking his hand out for a handshake. "Saeyoung, correct?"

"Yeah." Saeyoung said, giving him a handshake. "Aren't you the deputy?"

"No, I'm actually the sheriff now. Anyways, let's get to it. What is your role in this town?"

"I make bread." Saeyoung said, yawning.

"We don't have a bakery here." Zen replied, writing down "suspicious(?)" on the notepad he carried.

"Why don't we head on inside?" Saeyoung gestured for Zen to follow him. Zen hesitated, them followed him into the house.

The house was pretty sparse of furniture, and it seemed to only contain a single bedroom, and a single bathroom. "Do you live alone?" Zen asked, touching a few of the items stored on the counter, including a small cat figure. Zen looked at the figure and began to sneeze uncontrollably. "Are you okay?" Saeyoung asked, looking at the deputy doubled over and sneezing more times in a row he had ever seen. Zen put his hand up to signal that he was fine, and turned to a corner to regain his composure.

"As I was saying, do you live alone?" Zen asked again, his eyes still kind of watering from his allergy attack that was pretty much caused by nothing.