(✔️) The Villainess' Secret | Bang Chan

18 | Short Chapter - Extra Member

Short Chapter - Kim Seungmin's POV

Throwback to the day when the boys go to the library

Warning!

Mentioning violence and s*1cid3

—

I was planning to go to the library today, but why should I cancel to help someone's love story?

Enzo just called me, asking me and Zach to come to JJ's office without telling Chan. He said JJ wanted to meet us directly for a secret mission. But unfortunately, Zach was sick so I was alone—just arrived at the place and waited.

To be honest, I was curious, considering we as young students were involved in this big investigation. However, Enzo reminded us to keep lowkey because we never know what the culprit wants. The culprit hadn't been caught and their goals were unclear. And maybe, there would be a time when JJ released a public statement so that Liv could get out of baseless accusations. It was just that, yes, we had to be sure to be ready for the reaction of the culprit.

"Hey, Seungmin. Follow me!"  Enzo just came out of his room and called me. I followed him and entered JJ's private room that I had never seen before. There was JJ sitting on her throne but it was full of piles of files on various sides. There was also a board that I often saw in detective movies with some kind of— I didn't know, like an analytical flow connecting one piece of evidence to another. It was quite complicated, so I chose to refocus on my goal.

"It's complicated, don't you think?" JJ smiled even though she was still looking at her laptop. "Like a tangled red thread, even almost broken, we have to make it straight without any mistakes."

I laughed. "Yes, I can't imagine how difficult it is. But with that said, I'm amazed by detectives like you."

"Thanks for the compliment. Oh, by the way– wait for a moment." JJ moved towards the papers. She took a large envelope with some files inside. It seemed old-fashioned considering that everything was digital now, but crime was also developing digitally. If the data got hacked, it was over, and physical data was sometimes better and unpredictable— because it could be hidden without technological intermediaries.

"So–" JJ paused, showing me a CCTV screenshot. "Kinda crazy, but I think you should know this."

I widened my eyes, had goosebumps all over my body, and my heart was beating fast at what I saw. Liv was bound and covered in blood surrounded by several masked people in a place that looked like– "This– is this our old school?"

"Yes, in the warehouse near the staff kitchen. That's where the fire came from. If you look at the report from people around at the time who saw Liv, compared to the CCTV time in this screenshot, it doesn't match. We can confirm that Liv wasn't the culprit, but we suspect that the masked people framed her, tortured her, and set the room on fire before they escaped. But they themselves didn't tie her up tightly and left the door unlocked."

"Why would they do that?"

JJ sighed, "We call this tactic 'The Villainess' Secret', meaning that whatever a villainess does will be considered wrong. Even though it's actually a nice thing, it becomes a painful secret that only the villainess herself knows the truth about. From the information I got, Liv used to be a bad girl but after a year of disappearing, she changed. Is it true?"

I nodded.  "Yeah, but what does that have to do with this?"

"For the motive and number of culprits, in cahoots or alone, we're still looking for more information.  However, what they mean is, if Liv ends up failing to save herself, then they will pretend to be false witnesses so in the end the police could state that Liv committed s*1cid3 by burning her sins at school which were her last memories. And if Liv manages to escape, she will also get social sanctions as the arsonist who managed to escape. Cruel, isn't it?"