House of Cards by: sugamins

Part 25 (End)

"...and that's when you killed him?"

For the past ten minutes Taehyung had been looking at the other man, not really listening to what he had been saying at all. Rather he had been staring at his mouth intently, so intently in fact that he had noticed that he had a chipped lower tooth and that was probably what had demanded his attention, had made him completely zone out and stare rather dumbly. So when he came back around to reality he figured out that he was staring at Yeun rather rudely and the inspector was staring right back. There was no hint of impatience on his face, the other man was rather patient all things considered. Taehyung really didn't know what to say in reply to the question for he had suddenly come over dumb. He moved his gaze slightly to the side to see that Yang was also studying him, eyes rather large behind her rounded glasses and hair pulled up in a severe bun.

Yeun and Yang were the two inspectors left in charge of the case review, the two people that would comb over every single aspect of his undercover work and leave no stone or dead body unturned in the process. They weren't exactly likable but that wasn't because they were cold or judgmental, rather just because they were rigid and unrelenting in their pursuit of information, sometimes doing so at the expense of his comfort levels. They weren't the only people in the room with him, for in the far corner there was Lee, his station-appointed psychologist, and seated adjacent to him at the table was Namjoon. Technically his teammate had to be present because he had overseen his activities whilst he had been undercover, and he was by right of the operation the only person granted access to his now restored police record and the database recordings.

Despite going through this routine nearly every day for two solid months, Taehyung always found his concentration waning over the course of the review hearings. He would be following their words carefully one minute, and then find his mind had gone blank on him without warning. It wasn't a conscious decision but rather an inconvenient problem that kept happening to him. He was aware of the fact that this caused the hearings to drag on as a result yet he couldn't control it. The most irritating aspect of it all was the fact that he didn't lose concentration as a result of his own thoughts. No, rather he just went completely blank and empty.

A quick glance over at Namjoon saw that his teammate was looking at him too, waiting for him to speak. The other man didn't look concerned, didn't look impatient either but he was waiting for him to reply to Yeun. Taehyung dragged his eyes away to look at the camera set across the room, seeing sunlight playing off the lens coming in through the open window. In the beam he saw motes of dust dancing in the air and then he decided to look back at Yeun. The other man had small and intense eyes and he didn't seem to blink as often as he should, and there was a light layer of facial hair on his face.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?"

"I said: "it was at this point that you claimed that you were taken into the warehouse and that's when you killed Kim?"," the man repeated for him, used to this routine by now because he was also aware of his terrible habit of unfocusing on both of them during the hearings. "Kim Jinwoo?"

"Yeah, yeah that's when I killed Jinwoo," he replied as he forced himself to sit upright in his seat. "We were taken from an airport across the city and to a warehouse, a munitions warehouse. Lots of slave labour workers were packing up bullets and disassembled guns to go every-fucking-where; Known Bae, Russia and maybe Brazil? Anyway, I was taken to a back room and there he was. Bae's men had caught him in Shanghai, which makes perfect sense all things considered." He could see them looking at him and trying to figure out what he meant by that but that would come later, after he had explained. "I was taken into a room and after some lovely light-hearted discussion I killed him. I cut his head off."

Yeun looked up from the papers that he had been studying and after a few seconds of study he turned his head to look at Yang. She didn't seem to notice for her own eyes were across the room and looking in the corner where his psychologist was sitting. Lee was eyeing him with concern and he saw that she looked like she might be considering ending the hearing in case he started getting upset. This wouldn't be the first one that she had cancelled but hopefully, if everything went well it could be the very last one she had the opportunity to interrupt. Her hand was up so that she could play with her necklace chain, something that she always did when she was considering becoming vocal.