The Afterlife

36) Meet me Between the Light and Dark

A death like no other, a pain like no other; I have no forgiveness, and I have no redemption. If blood is indelible on my hands, so I will smear with it the faces that looked at me in the eyes while they ended my life. I will take them with me to the afterlife they made for me.

"First Lee Jaesong, and now Cha Eunju." when Taehyung turned on the news the following morning, he knew he had expected what he would find; while his head definitely spun with the information, it was nothing compared to how they sealed the truth for him. Cha Eunju was found in her own house, pierced with the same three bullets Lee Jaesong fell dead with. "Who do you think is next?"

"Considering we never found the old couple's case culprit," Yeonjun turned the television off when there was not much more to hear; they had no intention to hear about the investigation when Taehyung's team was supposed to be the one handling it. Thanks to Jeonghan, Taehyung was off all the cases they were handling before Sihyeon's parents showed up, "unless Sihyeon found who it is on her own, Kim Namjoon is next- and where are you going?"

Yeonjun looked at Yun and Naeun, who walked out of the room as they talked and made way for the house's exit. When they stopped in their steps, Yeonjun stood from where he had been sitting to meet them halfway.

"Someone should be making sure Sihyeon's last seven years did not go to waste," Naeun shrugged, as if the answer was readable before she even spoke it, "we are going to speak with her team members."

"And what better timing to do so, right?" Taehyung mused from behind, earning the most expected sighs from the two girls. When they rolled their eyes at him, Taehyung stood to walk their way as well, "today, out of all days, Sihyeon's team would be all but furious at her."

"Yeah, since she may or may have not turned one of their mothers into a strainer," Yeonjun added, and he turned from Taehyung back to Naeun and Yun when he spoke next, "you really should not."

"You really think Sihyeon did it?" Yun asked, and for a moment, the light air they all shared was still there, but as soon as her question sank in between them, all of their hearts became heavy with the memory none but the three of them and Mia shared, "you really- you really believe that Sihyeon, my mother-"

"It is not about who says what," Taehyung did not let finish her sentence, not for anything but the fact that he knew he had nothing to say in return; in his eyes, he only saw a child desperate to believe that their mother will eventually return to them, and it was nothing the likes of which Taehyung could guarantee, "it is about evidence and truths, and what the world sees now is that the same murderer made a comeback."

"I would not give a fuck about the world, if you ask me," Naeun's buried ire showed hints of itself to overshadow Yun's hesitance; the older girl was persistent, and she did not look like she was going to look back or ask anymore questions, "I do not know the world better than I do my sister."

True to her the way her eyes spoke, Naeun did not linger for longer to hear what they had to say. In a second she was holding Yun's hand and leading her outside the house, and as much as Yeonjun and Taehyung wanted to put them back inside the room from where they emerged, it was hard to keep the minds that loved to such extent at peace. They wanted to do anything for their family while said family was facing the world on its own outside their haven, and no matter what they thought to do, it would have been deemed powerless in the face of such determination.

Inside the staion, the air was full of just as much determination, except it was for another cause. When Yun and Mia found themselves walking through the doors they did not often visit, their anxiety flared, especially when they saw the state the office was in.

They would have liked to convince themselves that it was merely a winter's cold, but the eyes that landed on them spoke of nothing but a rawness that spread the cores of their hearts, and the sound of papers shuffling endlessly did not  stop even when they tried clearing their throats.