Jooheon kept up polite conversation with the locksmith while Hyunwoo tapped his foot, arms crossed against his chest. Even though they'd managed to wait a whole day, the past fifteen minutes had seemed to drag on for hours.

Finally, he heard the smooth sound of the knob turning and the door popping open.

"Stay here," Hyunwoo instructed as he slipped past the locksmith and through the door. As expected, he was met with stairs heading down, and he flipped the light switch on his left before progressing down into the basement. To his right and under the stairs was an unfinished section of the basement, just bare cement and equipment for the house's water heater, plumbing, and electricity. But ahead of him was another door. He twisted the knob but was met with resistance once more.

He cursed and headed back up the stairs. "Did he make a key for the lock to this door?" he asked, and Jooheon went over to the locksmith to check and returned to Hyunwoo with a shiny new key. "Here," he said, frowning as Hyunwoo turned back to the door. "What's in there?"

"Another door," Hyunwoo grumbled before heading back down, this time followed by Jooheon's footsteps.

"That decides it, it's gotta be gold, right?" Jooheon asked as Hyunwoo inserted the newly-created key into the lock, feeling it slide in smoothly. "Or maybe famous paintings? Or-"

The door opened to a sight neither of them expected.

"Go upstairs," Hyunwoo said softly, eyes still ahead of him. "Send the locksmith back, tell him we're done here."

"Okay," Jooheon agreed in an equally quiet tone before turning and heading back up the stairs.

"Hey," Hyunwoo whispered, crouching slightly so he didn't seem as intimidating. "Hey, kiddo? Can you hear me?"

The room on the other side of the door was ten by twelve at most. A closet lined the wall to Hyunwoo's left, directly opposite a bed. Directly adjacent to the closet was a door that stood slightly ajar through which Hyunwoo could just make out the edge of a sink, presumably a small bathroom. Against the far wall was a small desk that just barely fit beside the bed. The walls were painted a pale blue, but there was little other color in the space save a few bright pieces of child's art pinned to the wall.

The boy sitting behind the desk on the opposite side of the room didn't even look up. His back was to Hyunwoo so it was difficult to approximate his age, but if Hyunwoo had to guess, he'd say right around thirteen.

"Hey, buddy?" Hyunwoo asked, taking a few cautious steps closer. He didn't want to scare the poor kid, but there was no way he could just leave him here. Fuck, he'd been locked in for a day and a half now – did he have access to food and water? He could get water from the sink, Hyunwoo reasoned, but what about food? Why couldn't the locksmith have come in yesterday?

It was only when Hyunwoo tapped the kid's shoulder that he startled, flinching so violently that he almost fell out of his seat. Hyunwoo immediately took several steps back, crouching down in front of the young boy.

"Hi, my name is Officer Son," Hyunwoo said slowly, palms facing the boy to show that he meant no harm. But the boy stared at him with wide, scared eyes that were dense with confusion. It was as though he couldn't understand a word Hyunwoo was saying.

"Can you tell me your name?" Hyunwoo asked, but the boy just stared at him.

"How long have you been in here?" he tried, receiving the same blank stare.

"Fuck," he mumbled, standing up just as Jooheon entered the room. The boy shrunk down, eyeing the two of them and pressing himself closer to the corner of the room.

"Hey, kid," Jooheon said, giving the boy a bright smile. "We're here to help you, okay?"

But the boy didn't respond.

"I tried that," Hyunwoo said, sighing as he went over to Jooheon, the two of them keeping an eye on the boy while they discussed what to do. "And – 'hey, kid' ? Really?"

"What do I look like, a babysitter?" Jooheon snapped. "How are you even supposed to address kids?"

Hyunwoo shushed him, not wanting the boy to overhear them. "It doesn't matter, okay. We have to take him back to the station."

"Will he even come with us?" Jooheon asked, looking over at him skeptically. "He doesn't exactly seem to appreciate our saving him."

"He doesn't have any other option," Hyunwoo said. "His parents and brother-" He cut himself short, realizing that there was a chance – a fairly high chance, considering the fact that he was locked in the basement – that he had no idea that his family had been slaughtered just a few feet above his head. "We need to bring him in. Call the station and have them get a medic. He could be injured or malnourished."

While Jooheon made the call, Hyunwoo walked back over to the child and crouched down in front of him. "We're going to get you out of here, okay? Somewhere safe, with food and water and lots of nice people. Does that sound good?"

The boy didn't respond, and although Hyunwoo felt discouraged by his lack of response, he just stood up and held out his hand. The boy looked at Hyunwoo's hand before looking over at the desk, where a sheet of paper lay surrounded by a plethora of worn-down crayons, some of which were just nubs at this point.

"We can take your drawing with," Hyunwoo said, sliding the paper out from beneath the crayon and holding it out to the boy, who grabbed it in both hands. Then Hyunwoo scooped up all the rogue crayons and dropped them into his front pocket, patting it to show the boy that they were safe. He held out his hand once more. "Are you ready to go?"

The boy's eyes darted down to his crayon-laden pocket before he slipped a hand into Hyunwoo's. Hyunwoo closed his hand, encircling the tiny one within it, and led the boy out of the room, only he stopped at the doorway.

"It's okay," Hyunwoo said softly. Jooheon was watching them from the stairs, his eyes dark but his mouth silent for once. "It's okay, you're allowed to leave." His heart ached for this boy who felt that he couldn't leave the ten by twelve square feet that he must have occupied for his entire existence. What did this small boy know of the world? What did he know of anything?

His steps were hesitant, but he allowed Hyunwoo to lead him past the bedroom door, up the stairs, and out of the coat closet, gripping his drawing tightly in his other hand the entire way so that the paper was starting to rumple.

Jooheon had the car started by the time Hyunwoo and the boy got outside, given the slow pace at which they were going. Hyunwoo was starting to get a cramp in his back from having to bend down so the kid didn't have to raise his arm to hold Hyunwoo's hand.

Hyunwoo opened the back door of the squad car and went about moving some of Jooheon's stuff – "Shit, why is my car so messy, we should have taken your car" to which Hyunwoo responded, "How was I supposed to know we were going to find a kid?"

Eventually, the backseat was clear, and Hyunwoo slid in first, gently tugging the kid in after him. Then he reached past the kid to shut the door before buckling him in. The kid didn't resist; in fact, he hadn't looked away from the window since they'd gotten in the car.

The ride to the station was short. Or, more accurately, it was probably about the same time as always, but Hyunwoo was preoccupied by heavy thoughts, and he was watching the boy the whole time. He just stared out the window in silence, his face blank as though he couldn't even begin to perceive what was on the other side of the glass.

They ran into the chief on their way into the station.

"What's going on?" he asked as Hyunwoo continued on past the lobby doors, the boy's hand still in his, but he could feel the boy growing more hesitant. He knew it wouldn't be long now before the boy refused to go any further, so he needed to press on and find the medic before that time came.

"Did you get a medic?" Hyunwoo asked as the chief kept pace with them, throwing frequent glances at the small child trailing behind Hyunwoo.

"He's in interview room two," the chief answered, and when they came to a junction in the hallway, Hyunwoo steered them towards the interview rooms. "Officer Son?"

"I'll explain in a minute," Hyunwoo said, a little frustrated that the chief couldn't understand that he needed to take care of the kid before debriefing anyone on anything.

"Right..." he said, stopping and turning in the opposite direction. "I'll be in my office."

Hyunwoo just gave a small nod, too focused to be polite, and he slipped open the door to interview room two.

Dr. Lee looked up from the table. "Hyunwoo, what did you need me- oh," he said as the kid followed Hyunwoo into the room, silent as he took in the space. His eyes seemed to catch on his own blurry reflection on the metal table.

"Hey," Hyunwoo said softly, crouching down next to the boy. "This is Minhyuk. He's going to help you, okay? He just needs to take a quick look at you to make sure you're healthy. Is that all right?"

Again, no response.

Hyunwoo sighed before standing up and shrugging at Dr. Lee. "He hasn't said a single word since we found him."

"That's concerning, but there are a few possible reasons," Dr. Lee said, frowning before crouching in front of the boy. "My name is Minhyuk! I'm going to make you all better, okay?"

He stood back up and gave Hyunwoo a nod. "I'll give him a checkup, see if there are any other causes for concern and if any immediate treatment is needed."

"Great. Thank you," Hyunwoo said before patting his pocket and pulling out the kid's crayons. He set them on the table, observing as the boy's eyes tracked them. "I think he likes coloring. I'll grab some more paper on my way back. If you guys finish up before then, he's got a drawing-" Hyunwoo nodded to the paper clutched in the boy's right hand. "-that I think he's still working on."

"Great. Give me fifteen minutes to see what's up, and then we can talk," Dr. Lee said before turning back to the boy.

Hyunwoo could tell that he'd been dismissed for now, so he gingerly slipped his hand out of the boy's, feeling his heart squeeze at the absence, but then he left the room and headed to the chief's office, where Jooheon was already waiting for him.

"You found that boy at the Yoo residence?" the chief asked immediately, making it clear that Jooheon had already caught him up to speed.

Hyunwoo cleared his throat before shutting the door behind himself and turning back to face the chief. "Yes, sir. We found a hidden door behind the coat closet leading down to a locked room in the basement. That's where we found the boy."

The chief was quiet. "How long was he locked in there?"

"We can't say," Hyunwoo said. "Dr. Lee is taking a look at him now, but...I don't have any hard evidence to support it just yet, but I think he's been in there for as long as he's been alive."

The chief stared at him with skepticism clearly written across his face. "That's a bold assumption, Officer Son. Do you realize how difficult it would be to hide away the existence of a child for that long? There's documentation and hospital records. Not to mention that the kid had to come from somewhere, and no one asked about his absence?"

"The Yoo family had an older son," Jooheon spoke up after a moment, and both the chief and Hyunwoo turned to look at him. "A few years before Kihyun was born. But the baby was a stillborn – dead at the time of delivery. There was a televised funeral. It was a national tragedy."

"Unless he wasn't," Hyunwoo said softly. "Unless they wanted people to think he was dead, then bought a new house with a hidden door so they could lock him away from the world."

"But why would they do that?" the chief asked before amending, "I'm not saying that it's not a possibility. But Mr. and Mrs. Yoo were doing well – they were more than comfortable financially, they had a sterling reputation, they were in no shortage for work. I just don't see that they could have had a motive for faking the death of their own child."

"Whether they faked their child's death or not," Hyunwoo contested in a quiet voice, "they knowingly kept a child locked in the basement."

When the chief was quiet, Hyunwoo felt his frustration amplify.

"You don't mean to suggest that the boy was already locked inside the house before they purchased it and that he maintained a sustainable source of food and water for the past thirteen years? Or perhaps the people responsible for murdering the Yoo family decided to drop off a kid at the same time?"

"I'm not saying that," the chief replied gruffly. "It just seems far-fetched to suggest that the Yoo family actively neglected a child. I think we need to be very careful with how we handle this information." He gave Hyunwoo and Jooheon a sharp glance. "It would be best if this new development didn't reach the ears of the media."

Hyunwoo clenched his jaw but didn't reply. He understood the position the chief was in; if allegations of neglect were incorrectly leveled against beloved public figures who were recently murdered, the police station would come out on bottom, and they would be publicly vilified until something worse happened.

"Find out what you can from Dr. Lee. I'll do a little digging of my own, but let's all agree that this information stays exclusively on a need-to-know basis. I trust your discretion."

Hyunwoo and Jooheon both nodded, and then they were dismissed. As promised, Hyunwoo snagged some paper from the printer before returning to interview room two to find Dr. Lee watching the boy color intently. When the door opened, he looked up to meet Hyunwoo's eyes and nodded to the mirror, indicating that they had things to discuss in private.

"Jooheon, can you keep an eye on him?" Hyunwoo asked, and Jooheon nodded, slipping into the chair next to the boy as Hyunwoo followed Dr. Lee out into the hallway and then into the observation room, where they could see Jooheon and the boy through the mirror.

"What did you find?" Hyunwoo asked, turning his eyes away from the boy to focus on Dr. Lee for the moment.

"He seems to be in good health," Dr. Lee offered up. "From what I can tell, he hasn't eaten in some time – two days, would be my guess. I already flagged down someone and asked them to bring me something from the break room." He gestured to the assortment of edibles on the table.

Hyunwoo nodded; that was consistent with what he'd guessed. "Any injuries?"

"Nothing recent. He has a scar right about here-" Dr. Lee paused to trace a line over his own abdomen. "-and what's odd is that Yoo Kihyun – the boy that was murdered – has an almost identical scar in the same location. I have a theory about that, but I'll need some time to verify."

Hyunwoo frowned but nodded. "Anything else?"

"Oh, yes. One other thing. He's deaf."

Hyunwoo blinked, his mouth falling open. "Deaf?"

Dr. Lee nodded. "I believe he has prelingual deafness, meaning that he's been deaf since before the age of one. He may have even been born deaf, which would be congenital deafness. That's why he hasn't been responding to you. My assumption is that, even if he heard you, he wouldn't know how to respond since he would have gone deaf before learning language patterns. He doesn't have a hearing aid, and he doesn't seem to be able to read lips. I'm not fluent in sign language, but I tried a few basic phrases, and he displayed no recognition."

"So, no one ever taught him how to communicate?" Hyunwoo asked slowly.

Dr. Lee gave a slow shake of his head. "Doubtful. He probably developed his own mechanisms for communicating and understanding the world around him, but it's impossible for us to know what those mechanisms are without being able to ask him. So if you needed to question him for your investigation, I'll state right now that I don't think that would be productive for you or healthy for him."

Hyunwoo nodded as he kicked his foot against the ground, trying to figure out where to go from here. "Can he read? Write?"

"I didn't check," Dr. Lee said with a small shrug. "Did you see any books in the area he was kept?"

Hyunwoo pictured the room in his mind before shaking his head. "No. And if the people responsible for him-" He was hesitant, given the chief's warning, to name the Yoo's specifically. "-couldn't bother to communicate with him, then I doubt they took the time to teach him to read." He was quiet for a long moment. He didn't often get angry, but when he did, it was a heavy, unstoppable tide. It was difficult for him to calm down again. "Dr. Lee, is there any way for you to tell how long he was in captivity for?"

There was no other wording that Hyunwoo thought fit quite as well, even if it made the boy sound like an exotic animal.

Dr. Lee frowned and ran a hand through his hair. "That's hard to say. I don't know that there's any way to determine that just from his physique. If we could ask him about his containment..." Dr. Lee sighed. "But that seems to be a dead end."

"Is there any way we could get a speech pathologist to work with him?" Hyunwoo asked, looking back out the mirror. The boy was intent on his coloring, largely ignoring Jooheon despite his attempts to start conversation. "Is that even the right sort of specialist for a case like this?"

"I'm not sure, but I'll check around," Dr. Lee agreed. "I'd like to see him again. Little kids are much more entertaining than cadavers."

"I think that would be best. Thanks again," Hyunwoo said, pulling open the door. "And Dr. Lee? Your discretion would be much appreciated on this matter."

Dr. Lee held Hyunwoo's eye contact for a long moment before nodding to indicate that he understood. "Got it. And no need to thank me, Hyunwoo. I'll get back to you once I know more."

"Thank you," Hyunwoo said, and Dr. Lee nodded before returning to whatever he'd been working on before. Hyunwoo gave himself a few moments to take a deep breath before heading back into the interrogation room. "All right, so we're just going to-" He cut himself off when he remembered that it didn't matter what he told the boy; his words would never be heard. But he needed to find a way to communicate with the kid, to assure him that he had good intentions. He'd uprooted him from the only life he'd ever known, after all, with no way to explain what was happening. Hyunwoo imagined that the boy must have felt very scared at all the abrupt change.

Jooheon looked up when it was clear that he wasn't going to continue. "Hyunwoo?"

Hyunwoo ran a hand along the back of his neck. "Dr. Lee said he's deaf, and that's why he hasn't been responsive to our questions."

"And here I thought he just didn't like me." Jooheon seemed momentarily perplexed. "Well...what are we supposed to do?"

Hyunwoo shrugged, trying to push the dismay off. "See if he can read and write, I guess. Otherwise...I'm not sure. Dr. Lee is checking on something for me."

Jooheon tugged one of the sheets of paper Hyunwoo had brought closer, and he picked up a crayon. The boy stopped coloring to look over at Jooheon, curious, and it was only then that Hyunwoo saw the drawing. It was of the boy's room, and it made him profoundly sad that the boy's imagination was limited to a single room when he could be drawing anything on that sheet of paper.

My name is Jooheon. What's your name?

Jooheon dropped the crayon and held the sheet of paper in front of his chest before passing it over to the boy and setting the crayon down on top of the paper.

The boy stared at the letters for a long time before picking up the crayon. Hyunwoo took a breath and held it, trying to just be still and observe. But then he remembered – again, in the span of five minutes, he'd forgotten twice – that the boy couldn't hear him and therefore wouldn't be startled. It was hard to remember that.

The boy began writing on the paper, and Hyunwoo felt a pressure build in his chest. What could the boy tell them? His name, whether or not the Yoo's were his parents? How long he had been essentially imprisoned?

But when the boy pushed the sheet of paper back to Jooheon, Jooheon just held it up with a sigh, eyes meeting Hyunwoo's with defeat.

Underneath Jooheon's handwriting was new writing, considerably shakier like the wobbly legs of a newborn giraffe.

My name is Jooheon. What's your name?

"I think it's safe to assume that he can't read or write," Jooheon said, setting the paper back down on the table with a long sigh.

"But he can copy pretty well," Hyunwoo said. It was disappointing, but it gave him a little bit of hope. The boy had only seen the letters once, and yet he'd managed to reproduce them rather well. The writing was still clearly that of a child, but it was impressive for a first attempt. "Why don't you take a break," Hyunwoo suggested. "Get some coffee, maybe follow up on some of our leads earlier. See if the other teams found anything, track down the original builder of the house to see if the Yoo's purposefully had that hidden compartment installed and if they knew what it was for."

Jooheon nodded, scooting back his chair and wincing as it gave a metallic shriek. "Sorry," he said before looking at the boy, his mouth hanging open for a moment before closing as he realized, like Hyunwoo had, that he hadn't bothered the boy, couldn't bother the boy. But the boy did look a little startled; maybe he'd felt the vibrations from the floor. "What are you planning to work on?" Jooheon asked, mainly so they didn't overlap too much on chasing leads.

"I'm going to work with him a little longer," Hyunwoo said, still watching the boy, who grabbed a new sheet of paper and began tracing shapes nearly identical to his first drawing; he was creating the room, again. Hyunwoo tried to remember whether or not the drawings on the wall of his room had also been of the same image; he couldn't' say for certain, but he had a sinking feeling that they were.

"All right," Jooheon said gently, turning to face the boy. He opened his mouth to say goodbye, but after a long moment of hesitance, he just gave an awkward nod and turned to the door. Then it was just Hyunwoo and the boy.