Fifth Vital [EN]: Chapter 328

329. Intuition

“What?”

“Colored pencils. I need colored pencils to draw.”

Seungwoo didn’t dislike drawing; he just needed colored pencils.

Whether at home or at the houses of the neighborhood grandparents, he always drew with colored pencils.

“Ah! Really? Colored pencils. Of course. Teacher will get you colored pencils right away.”

Taekyung immediately brought colored pencils from the waiting room.

“Here! Here are the colored pencils. Now you can draw, right?”

“Yes. I can draw.”

The meaningless swaying back and forth stopped, and his cute fingers, which had been wiggling rhythmically, opened the colored pencil box.

Seungwoo took out one colored pencil without hesitation. Then, he slowly placed it next to the paper he would draw on.

And then he took out another colored pencil, and then another colored pencil of a different color, one after another.

“……!”

At first, Taekyung was puzzled by his actions, but as he watched Seungwoo put down the colored pencils, he understood their meaning.

He was organizing them by color, from light to dark, in stages. And he aligned the heights of all the colored pencils without a single one sticking out.

From always drawing with colored pencils to this action, Taekyung thought it was Seungwoo’s routine before drawing.

“Are you all ready?”

Seungwoo nodded and picked up a brown colored pencil, starting to draw on the white paper.

Not long after he started drawing, Taekyung was convinced that his prediction was correct and couldn’t help but be amazed.

The details in Seungwoo’s drawing were more incredible than he had expected.

“Seungwoo, what is that?”

“This is my house.”

“This is the house Seungwoo lives in.”

Seungwoo drew the stairs going up from the front, and he even drew the burglar bars installed outside the window and the air conditioner compressor installed outside in detail.

Surprisingly, he even drew the number of electric wires on the utility pole in front of the house in detail.

“There’s a utility pole in front of the house, and a blue truck is always parked next to it.”

“Really? The truck is very cool.”

Seungwoo fearlessly expressed the truck with a blue colored pencil and drew the house next door, filling in the brown bricks. And in front of it, he drew an old man sitting on a small chair, and next to it, he drew a building of moderate height.

“There are a lot of clothes here.”

“Yes. This is a clean laundry.”

The drawing was so detailed that he knew it was a laundry, but Taekyung deliberately pretended not to know and asked to confirm.

Seungwoo drew the sign with the words ‘Clean Laundry’ and didn’t forget to draw the phone number below it with precision.

After that, he drew a Chinese restaurant and a hair salon near his house, and he also filled in the signs and phone numbers.

‘Okay. This is enough.’

Taekyung, who was looking at the picture, expressed satisfaction and thought it was a relief.

“I’m done drawing.”

“Seungwoo? What should we do about this? There’s no need to ask; Seungwoo won, right? Seungwoo is really good at drawing, right? It’s really cool.”

“Did Seungwoo win?”

“You won.”

Taekyung called Team Leader Choi and had him put all the stickers on Seungwoo’s drawing to make the child feel good.

“Director, anyone can see that Seungwoo’s drawing is much better, right?”

“Right?”

“I’ll put all these stickers on Seungwoo’s drawing.”

“Then the winner of the game is our Seungwoo. Here! I’ll give you the book as promised.”

“Wow! Wow! Thank you. Can I read it now?”

“Of course. You can.”

Seungwoo immediately opened the book and quickly became absorbed in the content.

Taekyung took the picture and went out of the medical office with Team Leader Choi.

“His drawing skills are no joke. The director’s prediction was spot on.”

“I didn’t know he could draw this well either.”

“But I wonder if the store number in this picture is real……! Director!”

Team Leader Choi, who was looking at the picture and searching on his phone, looked at Taekyung with wide eyes.

“It’s there! It’s there!”

“Really?”

“Yes. Director, please take a look at this.”

Team Leader Choi showed him a photo of the laundry on the street view he had searched on his phone.

“Here, even the yellow tape on the glass window is the same as in the picture. It’s really creepy.”

Seungwoo’s drawing was so elaborate and accurate that he even drew the tape on the broken glass of the laundry.

“He’s a real genius.”

Team Leader Choi looked at Seungwoo, who was reading a book beyond the door of the medical office, and continued with admiration.

“I’ve definitely found the neighborhood, but what do I do next?”

“Next, we need to ask for help from an expert.”

Given Taekyung’s personality, he wanted to go and find her himself, but he couldn’t because he had to take care of patients at the hospital.

“An expert? Ah! Could it be……?”

“That’s right. Detective Kim.”

Detective Kim, who the two were talking about, was Detective Kim Homin, who had helped with Sera’s child abuse case and the high school drug case a while ago.

A little later, Detective Kim, who had been contacted, visited the hospital.

“I’m here.”

“Welcome. Detective Kim, I’m sorry to have asked you to come so late when you must be busy.”

“Director, really. Why are you being so formal with me? There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

“It’s been a while. How have you been? You look happy.”

“I’m always doing well. And thanks to the director accepting the lecture, my nephews and nieces are treating me differently. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”

“You’re welcome. The reason I contacted you so suddenly is because I wanted to ask you for a favor.”

“A favor? If it’s a favor from the director, I’ll do anything.”

“There’s an elementary school boy at our hospital right now.”

“A boy?”

“Yes, please follow me for a moment.”

Click-

Taekyung, who came out of the doctor’s office with Detective Kim, stood in front of the medical office door and pointed inside.

“See that child sleeping in the bed inside?”

“Yes, it’s really a boy.”

Seungwoo, who had been absorbed in the book, was already sleeping in bed.

“I called the detective because of that child.”

Taekyung quickly explained everything that had happened so far to Detective Kim, who was wondering what was going on, and showed him the picture.

“So, you want me to find the house based on this picture drawn by a child named Seungwoo and see if his sister is okay?”

“Yes, that’s right. There shouldn’t be such a thing, but I thought it would be good to check because what Seungwoo said earlier might be true.”

“That’s right. Especially in Seungwoo’s case, it’ll be harder to lie, as the director said. I met an autistic person during a case, and that was the case for me.”

“An autistic person?”

“Yes. A long time ago, during a murder case, there were several witnesses, but the only person who told the truth was an autistic young man.”

It was when Kim was a rookie detective and was investigating a murder case with his senior.

It was a murder that occurred accidentally in a bathroom in a building full of bars and cafes.

Two men who were drinking together had a slight argument, and the man who was upset followed his companion to the bathroom and committed murder.

Because it was an accidental case, there were three witnesses, including the person who was about to enter the bathroom and the two people inside.

Two of them were people who were drinking at the same bar, and the other was an autistic young man who worked at a cafe on the first floor.

The person who committed the murder claimed that he was so drunk that he didn’t remember anything at all. Moreover, he even bribed the witnesses with money.

But there was one part he overlooked: the autistic young man.

He looked at the young man’s peculiar behavior and speech and thought of him as a fool with low intelligence and didn’t pay attention to him.

However, during the police investigation, the autistic young man, who happened to witness the situation from inside the bathroom stall, testified in such detail that everyone was surprised.

Eventually, based on that testimony, the police were able to reconstruct the case and find evidence to prove the man’s murder and lies, and he was arrested.

“You had such an experience?”

“Yes, when the director said he had autistic tendencies, that friend suddenly came to mind. I’ll go find him right away. He’s the only family member of such a young friend, so I have to help.”

“Thank you. Detective Kim. I know you have a lot of work to do, but I’m indebted to you again today.”

“Don’t mention it. This is also what the police should do. And if I were really busy, I wouldn’t have been able to come to help you, so don’t worry too much. One lecture is enough for me.”

“I understand. I’ll help you well too.”

“Then I’ll check and contact you right away.”

“Yes, go in carefully.”

“Director?”

Detective Kim, who was about to leave after saying goodbye, quickly turned around and called out to Taekyung.

“Yes. Detective.”

“Director. And this is my intuition as a detective. I have a feeling that Seungwoo’s sister might have been a patient.”

“I actually thought about that too. But there’s no information about his sister, so there’s no one who comes to mind.”

That wasn’t wrong.

There were countless people coming and going to the hospital every day, and it was difficult to connect them to Seungwoo without knowing anything.

“I see. It’s difficult without knowing her face or name. That’s why information is so important. Anyway, I’ll find out some information. It’s too late now, so I’ll move as soon as I open my eyes tomorrow.”

“Thank you. Detective.”

After Detective Kim left the hospital, Taekyung went into the medical office and sat next to Seungwoo, who was sleeping in bed.

“He’s sleeping soundly without knowing that the hospital is turned upside down because of him.”

Taekyung smiled as he looked at Seungwoo, who was sleeping soundly because he was tired, and his eyes went to the kangaroo bag next to his head.

That bag was the bag that Seungwoo had been carrying on his shoulder all day, and when he thought about it, he had taken it with him when he went to the bathroom earlier. He probably cherished the bag that much.

He decided to open the bag in the hope that he might find some information about his sister.

“I hope something comes out…….”

But unlike his earnest heart, all that came out of the bag were a cube, emotion cards, stickers, a handkerchief, and a pencil case containing pencils and an eraser.

“There’s nothing. Seungwoo, have good dreams and sleep well.”

Taekyung looked at the child’s face for a while, turned off the lights on the side of the bed, left the medical office, and headed to the emergency room.

* * *

The next day-

Kim woke up early and went to Seungwoo’s neighborhood before going to work.

It wasn’t difficult to find the neighborhood thanks to the laundry’s sign and phone number.

And as he followed Seungwoo’s drawing, focusing on the laundry, he was able to find the siblings’ house right away.

“His drawing skills are really amazing.”

Kim, who arrived at a small villa with several households, went up to the second floor as Taekyung had told him and rang the bell.

“Hello?”

As expected, there was no response from inside the door, so this time he knocked on the door, but it was the same.

“I need to see inside to know if they’re home or not…….”

Kim, who had gone back down to the first floor, was about to open the siblings’ mailbox to see if there was anything that could be a clue when-

“Who are you?”

The grandmother, one of two elderly people who were holding hands and entering the villa, glared and asked.

“Who are you rummaging through other people’s mailboxes?”

The grandmother, who was glaring at Kim’s face with a slightly sharp tone, was the neighbor grandmother who usually liked the siblings.

“Grandma. Calm down. Who are you?”

“How can I calm down when a stranger is spying on the children’s house?”

“Do you know anything about the siblings in 202 [apartment number]?”

“…….”

“Ah, elders. I’m not a strange person. My name is Kim Homin, and I work at the OO Police Station.”

Kim handed over his business card as he looked at the two people who were silent in response to his question with suspicious eyes.

“Are you a detective……?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“But why is the detective looking at the 202 mailbox?”

“Do you know a child named Seungwoo who lives in 202?”

“Of course.”

“Of course.”

The grandmother and grandfather answered at the same time and looked at Kim.