The girl's bedroom was dim, the curtains barely allowing daylight to seep through.
Blood was everywhere.
A trail streaked from the desk to the floor. Her severed hand lay beside a widening pool of dark red, fingers curled unnaturally. Her body had collapsed next to the desk — limp, cold, unmoving.
The wall behind the desk was splattered violently. Coffee had spilled across scattered papers, soaking handwritten notes and documents until the ink bled into nothingness. A laptop lay broken on the floor, its screen cracked beyond use.
Her phone lay nearby, snapped cleanly in half.
Eun-ji, Mi-ran, and Eun-chae stepped into the room slowly.
They pulled on latex gloves.
Without speaking, they began to examine the scene — eyes sharp, movements controlled, every detail absorbed with trained precision.
The silence was heavier than words.
Later, in the bedroom, a member of the forensic team approached cautiously.
"Ma'am," the technician said softly, careful not to disturb the air around them, "there's nothing suspicious so far. We may have to treat this as a suicide."
Eun-ji didn't respond.
Her jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. For a brief moment, her gaze lingered on the scene — the blood, the broken objects, the silence that felt far too deliberate. Then she turned and walked out without a word.
In the hallway, Mi-ran and Eun-chae followed closely behind her.
They stopped in front of the grieving parents. The father stood rigid, eyes unfocused, as though his body had forgotten how to process reality. The mother trembled beside him, barely holding herself together.
"What happened?" Eun-ji asked gently, her voice respectful and low.
The father swallowed hard. "We… we don't know. We just don't…"
Before he could finish, the mother broke down.
"She said she was working on something," she sobbed. "Something big. She said she was tired… She went to sleep and never—never woke up…"
Her knees buckled as she collapsed into her husband's arms, her grief raw and uncontrollable.
Eun-ji watched them in silence. Then she spoke again, her voice steady but sincere.
"We will find the truth," she said. "I promise."
She bowed slightly — not as a formality, but as a gesture of respect — and walked away.
Mi-ran and Eun-chae followed.
In the stairwell moments later, the three women regrouped. Their voices were barely above whispers.
"Something's fishy," Eun-chae said.
Mi-ran nodded. "This doesn't sit right with me."
Eun-ji didn't hesitate. She nodded once, resolute.
"We dig deeper," she said. "Quietly."
They didn't need to say anything more. The decision was mutual.