The Witness ➳ Taegyu

1. Scythe

A/N: Like usual, the chapters will probably vary in length. I just wanted to get the first chapter out as soon as possible lol.

"Hey, Beomgyu, can you help us carry some things to our dorm?"

Beomgyu looked at his two friends and squinted his eyes. "You two strong men can't carry a couple of boxes to your dorm?"

The teasing tone he held for Yeonjun and Kai was, indeed, very justified. It was just yesterday that they boasted about the fact that they both beat him at arm wrestling, and now they needed help for the multiple big packages they ordered.

"Can you just stop being a menace and help your best friends?" Yeonjun asked, making Beomgyu stick his hand out in an attitude-filled manner.

"Nah. You guys did say you are the strongest people on campus. You can prove that now. Anyway, on to more important matters, where's Soobin? I'm supposed to study with him."

He looked down at his phone to see if their other friend had texted him, just for his hopes to be shot down when he didn't have a single notification. They both had an English class together, and as it was a language that Beomgyu struggled with quite a bit, having a friend in that class was a huge help.

Well, it was a huge help when Soobin actually showed up.

In the study hall that they normally worked in, that was connected to the mail room, Beomgyu stood there angrily texting Soobin while Kai and Yeonjun got all their boxes.

"Can you at least open doors for us?" Kai asked. Beomgyu just side-eyed him while still typing away on his phone and Kai thought for a moment. "I have garlic bread. Would you like some?"

Slowly, Beomgyu put his phone away and turned on his heel. "Allow me to open all the doors for you." He finally started giggling and all three of them continued laughing while heading to the dorms.

***

After Beomgyu told the police how his morning went, he was questioned about the events leading up to the crime and the events during it, but he couldn't make it far without getting too upset.

Once they finally ended up asking about the appearance of who did it, he teared up and the detective questioning him handed him a tissue, but his hands were too shaky to take it.

"There was something that I saw," he whispered in a trembling voice. "It was a trait that they all shared."

Even if the thought was terrifying, traumatizing, and just plain sad, he did want to get justice for Mrs. Park. He witnessed the death of this woman, and no matter how much it hurt him to think about, he had to remember everything so he could tell them.

That was the only way for this to be settled.

"They all had a tattoo on their neck. I don't know if the tattoos were real or not, but they all had the same one. It was of a scythe."

The man went silent for a while, and it freaked Beomgyu out. What was so wrong about that fact that made him so worried?

"How many of them were there?" He asked in a quieter voice than he had been using.

"I-I couldn't really tell. At least four."

"Did any of them see your face?"

Beomgyu gasped when one of the women looked at him and he ran away as fast as he could with 112 talking on his phone and loud sirens coming closer and closer.

"She saw me on the phone with the police," he gasped and held his hand up to his mouth. The detective didn't say anything else and hurried out of the room, not doing anything to settle Beomgyu's nerves or tears.

All he wanted to do was talk to his professor about an assignment. Sitting in the room alone didn't help his growing guilt over it either. She wouldn't have been in that place at that time if Beomgyu didn't need her help in the first place.

He started full-on crying now and a therapist came in to talk to him, but all he did was hug her. He wasn't able to speak right now after thinking about that and the woman was kind enough to let him sob on her shoulder for a while.

Multiple detectives were discussing everything he disclosed earlier, one of the original cops who spoke to him being the first person to speak. "Choi Beomgyu. Age twenty-two. He's currently in his fourth year in psychology at SNU, and our victim was his ethics professor. He said he was on his way to speak with her about an assignment when he witnessed the murder happen."

They all looked through freshly printed out paperwork about her career, history, and social media profiles to begin analyzing any clues or patterns with any certain people. It was her public posts about her ex-boyfriend that caught their attention, and they started digging into that man to find out his address, until...

"Sir," the man who was just talking to Beomgyu rushed over to the homicide captain who was leading this meeting. "It was the Black Reaper group. There were multiple killers and Beomgyu saw their symbol."

The captain's eyes widened and both he and the detective went to the questioning room, seeing that Beomgyu had finally calmed down and was talking to the therapist. "Beomgyu, my name is Lee Taeyong. I'm the captain of the homicide division within Seoul's police department. Can I ask you about the symbol that you saw? It was a scythe, wasn't it?"

Beomgyu nodded and told him everything that he told the detective. After voicing his appreciation for Beomgyu's explanation, the two of them left and went back to the meeting room. "Captain, it's that gang?" One of them asked. "They haven't done anything in a while though."

Taeyong sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "No, they might just be trying to hide it like they used to. But if they know that somebody caught them, and they remember his face, then we have a bigger issue on our hands."

"You're saying that they saw Beomgyu?"

They all started talking amongst themselves, unsure of what to do in this situation because of the urgency and danger that was present. The Chief of Police entered the room a few minutes later and Taeyong explained everything to him, leading the man to quiet the room and get their attention.

"Everyone, continue gathering information on the crime scene and ask around the campus. If it was Black Reaper, she must have had ties to them somehow. They wouldn't have staged such a murder with multiple members on a crowded campus if it wasn't important. She had an ex-boyfriend before that you were all looking into, right? Figure out why her name is "Mrs. Park" and not "Ms. Park"."

Following the chief to his office, Taeyong sat in the chair on the opposite side of the man's desk to wait for further instruction. The chief just looked at him for a moment though and once Taeyong understood what he was thinking, they gave each other a knowing nod before he grabbed the phone on his desk.

"Yes," he said after the receptionist answered his call. "I know it's his day off, but it's an emergency witness protection situation. Call Captain Kang in."

A/N: What do we think so far?