They stayed silent for hours until Garam started to asks some questions that clearly made Namkyu uncomfortable. To that position he is used his only less-rude defense mechanism, pretending to be asleep. Garam could see through that and he left him. At around three in the morning Namkyu took the keys and he went back home.
He brought out three bottles of wine then went to Jinyoung's room only to sit in front of his bed. Despite the richness and vintage appeal of the liquid, he couldn't even drink a single drop because he kept thinking about what a failure he thought he was. He has an awful relationship with his parents, had a horrible relationship with his ex and now he doesn't know where his only priority , namely Jinyoung is . But of all those the latter hurts the most.
So for the whole night, he just stared at a glass of red wine until the sun was up . he went to take a shower but instead just sat under the cold shower flowing down his hair . With his hair wet like that he looked sublime, almost eighteen times cuter than Jinyoung. It was probably for this reason that Jinyoung called his a kid-adult.
He made his way to the living room and found missed calls from the station. The voice mail said that YeongHwan and BomSoek' s team were still working on finding him and Garam is going to recheck the CCTV footage again. It ended with the person addressing themselves as GyeongJa.
For some reason he ended up getting dressed for duty only to regret it while half a mile from work.
Namkyu doesn't want to go to work because he knows that he won't be able to focus when he will potentially be handling peers of Jinyoung. However he also doesn't favour the idea of asking for a leave of absence to work as he doesn't want everyone to pity him. This is mainly tribute he probably has a small idea of where his brother is which is why he asked the station to hold the missing-person campaign. Garam had asked about his parents and though Namkyu didn't want to discuss it , he thinks they could have taken him .
It seems unlikely but it is also practical .
They have tried to do so before and accused Namkyu of denying Jinyoung childhood and a parents' love . But Namkyu said a child tied between custody battles , moving up and down between parents who take every opportunity to degrade each other , might suffer from emotional disorders. Thereof while they are busy fighting,he is going to keep Jinyoung for the time being. Jinyoung also specifically told them that he is not a ball for tossing around.
The plan is that he goes there to check if he is with them but he doesn't intend on telling them about Jinyoung missing.Since he never visits , he doesn't really know how to put it in front of them or what excuse he is going to make for visiting .
Last time Namkyu's father seriously tried to get his son arrested for keeping Jinyoung but thankfully it was Jinyoung who said if they do that he is going to run away. And for this unexpected boldness from Jinyoung, they blamed Namkyu so they are definitely going to point fingers at him this time and call him irresponsible and reckless.
they might even convince him that he is an awful impact to Jinyoung and succeed in getting him arrested for conspiring in ' abducting ' Jinyoung. Those two are capable making some jaw dropping excuse to spin this and make Namkyu the perpetrator. But that won't be helping to being Jinyoung back home.
" A female found dead in bathtub and she seemed to have taken drugs because there is foam inside her mouth. There is also some abrasion on the side of her left shoulder running to her back...",
HyoSon broke the silence as Namkyu was examining the girl that YeongHwan had reported to Garam. He didn't expect them to bring it to their table when they were still handling Jiwoo
" I took her blood to the lab and her stomach contents had some stones and plastics in it. I thought you might wanna open that while I check her for other signs ", her tone was giving a command than a suggestion
Namkyu knodded but he would rather handle her head first.
He checked her eyes and all other parts. Indeed she had overdosed . Cause of death is definitely a relay, organ failure caused her to lose consciousness and fall into the bathtub and the water ran into her lungs. All in all it was the water that killed her and not the pills.
She had left no note and was probably just another depressed teen.
" Her Id show that she was a maths student. Parents wanted her to be a lawyer so they always fought with her. A straight passing student with great activity in the school.", She spoke reading from a tablet
" Can you bring me some UV rays?", Namkyu wasn't even interested in anything she was saying
He used it to scan her and in the next few seconds he shaved her head and checked for trauma. .
" Strange", Namkyu concluded
" If she overdosed, she would want to lie down. So she used the bathtub and wouldn't have this sliding-downwards abrasion. Or if she was seating on the side she would most likely have had the pills with her and the trigger of her suicide but the pills were floating around her from her throwing up postmortem. ", She answered with clear doubt
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
" .. it's also possible that the trigger is next to the container of her pills that were in the medicine cabinet way far from the bathtub ", he corrected her as assumptions can be misleading
" They swabbed the medicine cabinet .we are still waiting to see if there were no tears that could imply her taking them by that place ", she added with a belittling tone
Namkyu agreed when he wanted to be emotional to a teenager secretly killing herself.
He looked through her dentals and requested to get brain scans for her to check for depression.
She went to grab them and said she will bring back the tests results.
He went to her body and it had some self mutilation scars . He blinked away the warm tears and checked any other signs and her genitals were significantly swollen. HyoSon didn't mention this so he took a camera and noted that Jaebin, the intern coroner had been the one who took the pictures
He went to the 'plastic' and opened it. The said stones were just some pills and that was not plastic , it was bathtub lather.
He looked at her body scans and couldn't tell if a lot so he had to put a probe in her.
He saw something inside and by god's grace he pulled it out intact .
It was a wooden handle.
' she must have been trying to kill the child and overdosed, which ended up killing her. But sexual activity seems recent judging from the redness, just some abortion pills would have done the trick'
He checked further and he saw some leaves very deep in her .After he took them out , they seemed like herbal leaves.
In no time he had them sent to the lab.
When HyoSon came back , he gave them to her and she said she will take everything away at once.
" Do you think it was rape?",
" Otherwise wouldn't be this red", he answered vaguely and she agreed.
" I called the station and told them everything. They said that they have already contacted the family and her friends. Apparently she didn't have a boyfriend and was a good student. Must be those cliche stories of sex with the boss for good results . Kids!! ", She commented and didn't even realize that Namkyu was trembling.
He threw away everything and said that he is going to the bathroom.
He immediately stormed away as he couldn't breathe and wen he got in the bathroom he was already crying.
He hyperventilated and sobbed with the more he tried to stop the streams from flowing.
He is so worried about Jinyoung and HyoSon keeps making these annoying comments. Of course, she wouldn't do them if she knew how badly they were affecting Namkyu so it seems like fate is trying to mock Namkyu's pain. He has grown so possessive of Jinyoung when he is merely just his brother and with how his parents fought, he thinks that they might be half-siblings but that did less if not more to increase his obsession with having Jinyoung around. He wants to have Jinyoung always him and now that he is not, he is crumbling at the slightest touch.
His phone rang but he couldn't even hear it over the sound of his world falling apart. He felt like the teenage girl resembled a secret life that Jinyoung might have had so much that it is like he is autopsying his own brother. He impulsively picked it up thinking it was HyoSon.
" Check her ears and throat! ", The call was cut and when he looked to it it was his home telephone.
He quickly ran back to lab .
He looked inside her throat and he pulled out nearly ten inches of a wooden whole pipe. In her ears was yet more leaves. And on two leaves was a circle on each leaf.
His feet , hands , ears and eyes went dry. The world went blurry and his temperature skyrocketed. Fifty percent of his back was drenched in fire while the rest was covered in barred thorns that felt like were pulling the neurons crisscrossed over his entire head. He threw everything down and he flew to his car
In a few minutes and nearly overturning his car and killing ten pedestrians ,he reached his house and it was empty. he looked everywhere and checked all the places . The bathroom, under the bed , behind the curtains , inside the wardrobe , all were completely empty. Finally he went near the telephone not really sure why but then he found a smiley face .
He coughed as he choked on air and his tears ran parallel to his face. His eardrum blocked sound and started to violently erupted. Subconsciously he placed his hands on his ears and he dazed back to his car
he went to the station. The same officer who had tended to him immediately jumped when seeing him flying in wearing his uniform.
" Where is Garam!!", he struggled to speak with his whole face and hands red as a cherry
" He is on patrol!", the tender voice answered almost scared to tell him
" Call him , back please!!", He sobbed , boardering breathlessness.
The awestruck officer did as command and just then Garam walked in eating a sandwich. He was still talking to his mother about the 'girl' he wouldn't introduce.
" Garam, I was... The phone is in my house...", He cried at every sentence while vigorously shaking his hands like they were on fire
Garam hung up then pulled him outside before he narrated everything still crying hysterically. he proceed to cup his hands over Garam's and his were incredibly cold
" Wait in the car , I will come right back!!", Garam held his shoulder to ascertain him
Detective Lee went inside and he told a standby team to head to the house and to the coroner's office. He ran up and down the station as if Jinyoung was sighted. Everyone around quickly got dispatched and didn't even understand why , just that Garam looked dead crazy doing so and those who didn't respond would become target practice
Namkyu moved next to his car and he moved back and forth as he watched the cars leaving one by one . For some reason that made him less hopeful and more exhausted.
At that moment a phone call through and it was ringing inside his car in the cabinet. When he opened the door to reach for, his whole face went numb.
It was his brother's phone.
It rang three times and he shook like a leaf as he reached for the device.
Seconds after he placed it on his ear , the same voice that had called him told him something different.
" The password is your birthday. Visit the gallery",
He followed the instructions and he found pictures of a padlock , a toothbrush, a rope , the same wooden handler from earlier and the rock that was in Jinyoung's pocket.
He saw the heavy volume of vomit that was rising out his stomach and as he scrolled,
He found a video to which he pressed it play and the sound of a dreadfilled wail flooded through. He nearly dropped the ambiguously heavy phone on the ground but still managed to hold it . In the next second, three fingers were laid in front of the cameras . The camera angel was transitioned to a wall , revealing a background written in blood . ' You can only tell three people.'
His hands became transparent or the phone somehow lost the ability to fight gravity but whatever happened Jinyoung's phone ended on the pavement
There is no mistaking it. His brain deduced those were Jinyoung's fingers and that was his cry.
He screamed his broken heart , shattered soul and crumbling spirit then forfeited his stability, landing on his knees.
" Jinyoung!!!", He cried and flashes of Jinyoung came running like an avalanche to his head .
He could still hear the explosive bellow in his head.
In the next few seconds, he collapsed in the floor.
Regret!
Why did he take Jinyoung thinking he could give him a better life and have him be this way? Why take Jinyoung away from a safe life and burry him in a life full of hornets? He never wanted this lifestyle. He wanted to be a florist but his father called it the job of peasants. So he changed and only carried on so he can provide for Jinyoung but now he lost him.
He wasn't moving but the tears didn't stop flowing. He wasn't feeling anything but it was like he was being crushed by twelve thousand steel panels and all he can do is try to breathe away the pain. Surprisingly though he was trying to call the air into his lungs , all it did was bullet away.
He recalled all the times that he grew flowers for Jinyoung and he would eat the petals . All the times that he would sell the flowers to the whole neighborhood and Jinyoung would want to eat the wrappings. It was Jinyoung who made him a small stall to sell the flowers, it was Jinyoung who helped him plant some seeds before he would secretly eat them. He would laugh every Namkyu who scold pests for eating seed not realizing Jinyoung is the boss of the company.
For Namkyu, Jinyoung grew flowers and for Jinyoung, Namkyu burned the garden. He forfeited that so he can get a better job ,for Jinyoung.
On the ground, unmoving. On this earth , unfeeling. In his heart , drowning.
" Jin!!", He whispered as the streaks fell from the corner of his eyes