Wheels Have Each Other

40. The jury finds the defendant...

"I-I can't believe this," Jeongyeon whispered after a couple of minutes of silence. "Dohyeon?! Aunt and Uncle too?! Oh god, I so can't believe this..." 

She kept her eyes glued to the table just like Jeongguk, but Taehyung could clearly hear the utter shock and guilt in her voice. 

A fleeting thought passed his mind, about why the detective was still not entering the room, seeing as it had been more than twenty minutes now, but he pushed the thought down. An important talk was going on, after all. 

Jeongguk didn't reply. He just took a deep breath and continued staring at the table. After looking at the two of them for a few seconds, Taehyung cleared his throat and took the initiative to get them to talk more. 

"S-So you only knew about the times when he attacked hyung?" he asked. 

"Yes," Jeongyeon said, throwing him a momentary glance that was filled with guilt and hesitance. "Only them and the time when he was going to your house to use you to get to Jeongguk."

Silence prevailed again as Taehyung didn't know what to say anymore, but it didn't last for long. Not when Jeongguk and Jeongyeon looked at each other at the same time to say 'sorry'. They immediately looked back down at the table when their eyes met. 

"Y-You go first," Jeongyeon stuttered and Jeongguk took a deep breath again. 

"I...." he cleared his throat, "I'm sorry, Jeongyeon. I know a sorry will never cut our loss, but believe me, not a day has passed without me regretting what happened that day, because trust me or not, I did love her. A lot. And her loss was really a huge blow to me. 

I know I'm to blame for that, of course, but believe me. If I had the chance, I would definitely die in her place or spend my whole life at her feet, proving to her that I didn't mean what I said that night. But it's too late now and I don't know what to do, Jeongie. I truly don't," tears ran down Jeongguk's face, but he didn't attempt to wipe them away. 

Jeongyeon scoffed slightly, her own tears falling down on her lap. "You are finally calling me by my nickname, huh? Took you long enough," she sniffled. "And I'm sorry for everything that happened to the people around you because of Yugyeom oppa. I truly didn't know he did all of that and I have a feeling you are understating what happened...."

Jeongguk nodded vigorously at that. True. He couldn't put a lot of what happened into words, but a lot had happened and he had played a lot of it down while describing it to Jeongyeon. 

Taehyung gulped and watched as the two cousins hesitantly looked up from the table again and looked at each other before looking back down. 

"But you can't blame Yugyeom oppa's anger and actions in any way. He lost his sister and his best friend hid from him for three years that he was the reason why his sister died. You were one of the very few people he trusted blindly with his life, you know? It was a very huge blow to him. Neither you nor I have siblings. We would never be able to understand him and his anger towards you. The only thing we can do now is to let all of this go and move on after you undergo whatever punishment you get for killing him. We shouldn't forget them, though. Just forget all of this. That's what I feel."

Neither Jeongguk nor Taehyung spoke for a while, silently mulling her words over in their heads. After a while, Taehyung began to nod slowly and Jeongguk followed suit. 

"You are right," Jeongguk said and looked at her again. This time, Jeongyeon held his gaze as intensely as she could. 

"Okay," the detective from earlier opened their door and clapped his hands once to get their attention, "we got what we need now. Jeongyeon-ssi, you will be put in another cell for being directly involved in the multiple murder attempts on Mr Jeon. And Mr and Mr Jeon, you two will still stay under custody until the court's verdict," he said.