Attraction | Ateez

Chapter 8: Mistakes

Seonghwa found himself at the police station faster than he could count to three. Panting from running across the parking lot, he threw open the station doors and ran to Mingi's office, ignoring the police officer, Jo Haseul whom he had met earlier. The door came open, almost as if Mingi knew Seonghwa was there.

"Come with me," he said, leading Seonghwa out of the office without further explanation. Seonghwa followed Mingi to a silver car. "Come on," he said, unlocking the doors and getting in. Seonghwa sat in the passenger's seat waiting for an explanation. When he didn't get one, he let his eyes wander over the inside of the car. It was clean, not a speck of dust anywhere. Even the floor of the car at Mingi's seat was completely clean. Hanging from the mirror was a tiny metal photo frame with a small girl who he recognized as Mingi's daughter, Haeun. Also hanging was a string of blue and pink beads that spelled out her name, letter by letter.

Mingi put the key in and started the ignition. The car quietly purred as it woke up from its slumber, waiting to move. Mingi pressed his foot on the accelerator and the car rolled smoothly forward. As Seonghwa pulled his seat belt over his shoulder, he noticed Mingi hadn't put his on, which he found a bit ironic considering he was a police officer. Seonghwa buckled himself anyway and stared ahead at the road as Mingi pulled out of the driveway and on to the busy road, hitting the breaks hard when a truck sped past as he was turning. Mingi cursed under his breath as he watched the truck fly down the road.

After a few minutes of silence, Seonghwa asked, "What did you find?"

"A couple of my officers were able to get someone in custody for aiding the escape of Choi San." Seonghwa turned his head towards Mingi. 

"He didn't escape on his own?" he asked. 

Mingi looked at him for a second with an unreadable expression before looking back at the road, smirking. "Do you really think he was able to get out of a place that secured on his own?" Seonghwa shrunk back a bit, feeling embarrassed by asking such a foolish question.

"Anyways, do you know a Kim Hongjoong?" 

Seonghwa straightened. "Yeah, we work on the same ward. What about him?"

"We have him in custody. He's responsible for helping San escape." Seonghwa furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. 

"W-what? How is that possible?" Mingi ran his fingers through his hair. 

"I don't know, that's what we're about to find out."

The rest of the car ride was silent as they made their way to the police station near the mental institution. "Come on. They're waiting on us." They got out of their car and made their way to the doors of the station. A cool blast of air met them as they walked in. A tall, blonde-haired police officer led Mingi and Seonghwa down a long hallway to a back room. A window next to the door revealed that Hongjoong was inside, sitting in a chair at a table with a water bottle in front of him. There was an interrogation officer waiting outside the room, shaking hands with Mingi as they approached.

"Thank you, Officer Song, for coming here. We wanted to wait to start the interrogation until you got here. I thank you for coming on such short notice." 

Mingi bowed his head respectively, "No, thank you. This is Park Seonghwa. He is Ms. Young's boyfriend." Mingi said, introducing him to the officer. The tall man extended his hand out to Seonghwa, shaking his hand. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Park. My name is Jeong Yunho." 

Seonghwa smiled, "Nice to meet you, Officer Jeong."

"I assure you we are doing everything we can to find Ms. Young. We dispatched our finest officers and investigators to find her and we won't stop until we do." Seonghwa smiled again and thanked him for his hard work. Officer Jeong turned to Mingi. "Shall we?" he said, motioning for the door. The three men entered the room. Hongjoong looked up, surprised to see Seonghwa there. Seonghwa noticed that his eyes and nose were red as if he had been crying.