Chapter Text
Today was a Saturday, the one day Taeyang tended to have off.
Sure, he'd have to work whenever he was requested. Sometimes he'd be on missions for weeks yet that was a rare occasion. Still, outside of the crazy tasks he got sent on he usually did casual behind the scenes work alongside a large group of people. Not on Saturdays though, never on Saturdays.
So why had he been requested? Was it really that urgent?
His boss requested he came here as soon as possible to meet him yet his boss wasn't in sight, why was he the one waiting!
It mustn't be that urgent then. He was wasting his day off for this!
Taeyang opened his phone to scroll to kill time yet closed it after seeing what his screen was open to.
A fan-cam.
God. Why had he been watching a fan-cam before this?
Something more secret than his occupation was his hobby outside of it.
He was a fan-boy.
Choi Taeyang a professional detective obsessed over kpop groups in his spare time.
At first it was just reminiscing what could've been for him— though it wasn't really all that serious for him. He was fully capable of pursuing music, he just decided not to. It was too much effort and the idol scene was too massive in Korea for him to settle on anything else. He was no dancer, just a singer and a guitarist on occasion. Still, the possibilities were endless. He could've gone great places.
And he still did— he became an undercover detective. That's a pretty noble title.
He wondered how he ended up here frequently, for someone who didn't want to put the effort in he wound up in a pretty tedious field.
His job was technically to uncover evidence illegally— except it was legal as the government authorised it. You can't act on hunches without evidence but sometimes you can't get evidence without sticking into things a little bit. That's where Taeyang came in, essentially he was a lab rat as he liked to think of it. Though this job didn't just get handed to anyone, he was pretty good at his work.
In the past he had snuck into criminal gangs, handled major cases and saved lives in the process. Heroic gestures he did just for the hell of it. Although he couldn't get credit for his work he was well respected by others amongst him which was a bonus.
Plus, it paid well for his life outside of his work.
The music industry was a scam, especially in Korea. Pieces of cardboard valued hundreds of thousands of won. That's just ridiculous— till it wasn't. On his way home one day he got a bit curious. It was just one album. He had heard it on the radio and really liked it, it wouldn't hurt to buy. Then the rest was history, he now had a bigger collection than he was willing to admit.
By now he had come to terms with it, he was a bigger fan of these things than he once was. So what? God forbid he had a bit of leisure outside of his tiring life controlling job! Plus he was certain their were much worse thinks he could've taken interest to.
Taeyang had a small social circle, he really didn't have time for much. His friends were partially aware of his job but didn't know it in it's entirety, he wasn't allowed to disclose much. Though, what they knew even less of was his fan tendencies. Him— Choi Taeyang— a die-hard kpop fan in disguise. He wouldn't hear the end of it!
It may cause people to think, is he gay?, which he himself hadn't thought about too deeply. There were many fan-girls who obsessed over idols they had no interest in, there's no correlation. But there aren't many token straight men who cover their rooms with posters of idols— Taeyang was aware of that. Maybe it served as a bit of a warning sign. Though he had no time to consider anything, his dating life was pretty sparse. One day he planned to settle down, get married, have a couple of daughters and call it there but for now his only love was his work and the inkling of time he could devote to his hobby.
Finally, Jiung entered the room— snapping him out of his thoughts.
"Took you long enough," Taeyang scoffed.
Jiung simply looked up front his clipboard, shooting him a dirty look before continue in his path over to him.
"I called you here for something very important."
Taeyang scoffed, "Just get on with it."
Jiung stared nastily again before resuming, "This is a pretty massive case, we assigned it to you as we trust you to handle it."
Right, typical things. This is just their way of throwing life threatening tasks onto him whilst making him feel like he was the only one who could handle it. He had heard this many times, each time he wanted to ask him to just cut to the chase every time but it was better to keep the inkling of professionalism he had left.
"Just give me the details," Taeyang responded care-freely.
Jiung hesitated— something didn't seem quite right, "Well. God how do I say this…"
Spit it out already, Taeyang thought to himself.
"He's not really our usual suspect. I doubt you'd really know him but he's actually pretty popular around here," Jiung elaborated vaguely.
Why did that matter? Taeyang had investigated one of the biggest known drug dealers in the area in the past. He could handle it.
Jiung then opened the file checking over the details thoroughly, "Age 23, born August 31st 2003. Born and raised in South Korea, his occupation is as an idol—" He handed the file over to Taeyang,
"His name is Hwang Intak."
Taeyang choked on his own spit. What. The. Fuck. Hwang Intak? What. This has got to be some kind of a joke.
"Oh— so you do know him? That's a surprise," Jiung said, amused by his reaction, "Actually I guess it's not really. He is pretty well known…"
"I— yeah. I can't say I haven't heard of him," Taeyang managed to let out.
Him? Of all fucking people! Fuck— Jiung must've figured out Taeyang liked him! Of course he'd manage to find out, he could muster any little detail about anyone. Why'd he have to waste his ability on poking fun at him?
Does that mean Keeho knows too? Jongseob— he's never going to hear the end of it! This is a little too far though isn't it— no of course it isn't! It's Jiung for fucks sake.
But at least he didn't actually have to investigate Hwang Intak— it was all a sick joke.
Jiung huffed, "I can't say I've even seen you like this Mr. Taeyang."
He was playing into it too much, why hasn't he dropped the act yet? Taeyang rubbed his temples with his hand, thoroughly looking over the file Jiung had handed it.
Thank god. It wasn't a prank.
But oh fuck. It wasn't a prank. It was real.
"So what's the deal then?" Taeyang asked nonchalantly, concealing his inner chaos.
Sure, he could just read over the documents and find out himself but Jiung had a knack for summarising things well.
"Theres been countless murders around Seoul, you may have seen frequently on the news. Of course we have been investigating things but each of the scenes had little to no evidence or many irregularities, the culprit must be good at clearing their tracks. But one thing we can say for sure is that they're all correlated, one way or another."
For some reason Taeyang was surprised. Of course he had seen the news, at least once a fortnight there was a new case yet live television was pointless, they didn't give out much information willingly. Of course he had access to the whole police force of Korea and could easily find things out but he was never curious enough to snoop into things he wasn't working on.
"—Though last week we finally obtained one secure piece of evidence."
Taeyang huffed, "And it lead to Hwang Intak?"
Jiung nodded, "He's our lead suspect, but we can't say for sure. That's where you come in."
"What was the evidence you found?" He immediately asked to which Jiung seemed hesitant to respond, "Yah. I'm not going on some wild goose chase you have planned for me over the tiniest DNA sample. Is it so hard for you guys to do a little more work first? An idol— seriously?"
"It has to be him or someone around him— I'm sure of these things. We need you to go to the extra lengths so we can get the right person locked up for good, if I could do my job without requiring all this additional evidence I would. But you're our best bet, you have a job we have a plan and you're going to do it," Jiung replied sternly, affirming his higher position.
"Well fuck me then."
"Watch your tone," Jiung scolded.
"Sorry."
"Well."
"Well?" Taeyang repeated his comment, gesturing him to keep talking.
"You start tomorrow," Jiung stated simply, leaving the room afterwards.