NCT : The Dream Lab

XIX : Without You

Somewhere in Gyeonggi-do, early 2016.

The drive by night from Seoul lasted over an hour.

The atmosphere during the journey was tense, to say the least. Both men kept a stubborn silence because they knew that the slightest attempt of discussion would end up in a fight. Doyoung only opened his mouth twice to ask Taeil to stop the car so he could vomit by the roadside.

Thankfully, the suitcase was big enough to fit the corpse in it, although the two accomplices had to twist it and break one bone or two. Doyoung wouldn't have had the guts to cut it anyways. He had always been a coward, unable to assume his responsibilities in Taeil's opinion.

They spent the whole day at Doyoung's place, contemplating all the available options and preparing for the night. They bought headlamps, a spade, a shovel and a tarp. Paying in cash, of course.

Doyoung had to admit, Taeil was the best partner in crime he could ever dream of. In spite of his annoying principles and sickening angelic attitude, the man had a formidable resistance to pressure, as well as the detachment of a psychopath when necessary. He was almost scary.

Almost. Because the scariest was definitely him. The real murderer. He was crumbling from the inside. He already felt this way ever since Jinseo passed away but now, dealing with grief and guilt was far too overwhelming. How could Taeil be that strong ?

He discretely glanced at the waiter who was focused on the road. Even in moments like this, Doyoung was jealous. He was consumed by their rivalry entirely, somewhat conscious that he would always be the weakest.

In the middle of his dull reflections, Taeil parked the car along a pathway lost in the middle of nowhere. The temperatures were negative and the night already very dark, so they wouldn't need to worry about unfortunate witnesses. Or perhaps they'd cross other people doing shady business like them.

He zipped his winter coat, put on thick gloves and braced himself for what was to come. With certain difficulty, they brought the suitcase and the tools to a glade covered by a thick layer of untouched snow. Taeil knew the place by heart since he was a scout monitor during summer camps. He had already brought children there for camping.

Then, they methodically proceeded : firstly, they traced a grid on the soil to carefully remove the grass square by square. After, they dug until exhaustion (or rather, until the hole was over 1,50m deep, which took an exasperatingly long time), taking turns : one digging until his arms couldn't carry the shovel anymore and one on watch.

The silence was complete : it was only them, nature and the corpse.

The wind whispered through the branches ominously, it made Doyoung shiver.

The body was stiffened and also half frozen so it kept its position even when it brutally fell into the hole. They tamped the earth correctly every 10cm and let a slight bump stand out – discrete enough to go unnoticed but big enough to compensate for the future degradation of the body under it. They placed the grass squares back meticulously and sprinkled some snow over it, hoping that it would either melt or snow again soon enough. The remaining earth on the tarp was dispatched a bit everywhere further in the forest.

They never met again after this dreadful night. They kept a low profile with the police and never uttered a word related to shovels, blood, suitcases and glades. And eventually, Doyoung dismantled his coat rack.

No investigation was even initiated about the criminal's disappearance, simply because no one ever reported him missing. The guy was a notorious drug dealer known by the police forces. Therefore, everyone assumed that after being arrested three times in 2015, he just decided to move his business to another city.