Memories Of HER

Chapter-2

If Only We Had Met Earlier

Jisoo woke up that day emotionally drained. She had a fight with Jungkook the previous day. How can he ask her to get engaged after high school? They are still kids, they still have a lot to learn about each other. It's not that she doesn't want to get engaged butthis type of committment is too early for her to give right now. And he said some things that hurt her deeply

"Are you waiting for a better option?"
"If you really want to be with me then what's the deal with not wanting to get engaged? It's just a ring"
"It feels like I don't know you at all"
"I don't want to see you anymore"

How could he say that? Did he really mean it? That morning so many thoughts clouded her mind

Two years later

It has been a boring day for Mr. HungSu. All these days are boring to him now. But today, it was supposed to be exciting, it was supposed to be festive. It obviously would've been if that girl was still here, the one with black hair, heart shaped smile. Kim Jisoo, his birthday twin. Of course, he is now old and gray and decaying but she made it a point to celebrate their birthday together, his neighbor. Their entire family would come to his lonely house on this very day with two cakes, one for him and one for the girl and they would blow the candles together right at 12

Everyday reminds him of her disappearance but today is different. Because today is his birthday. And surely enough it was her birthday too.

He was the chief investigator in her case, he could feel chills down his spine when he first heard of her disappearance and made it a point to find her out. Her remains were found and they matched with the DNA but still, he kept searching. He found it hard to believe that she would just vanish like thin air. He wanted to find the culprit but no leads and one year later, he retired on his own. The guilt of not being able to help the girl was enough to take that decision.

But today as he sits alone in his chair by the window anticipating a knock on the door from the girl with a cake in her hand kept crawling into his mind, he found it unsettling that he couldn't bring justice to her. So, he did the inevitable, he made the call.

Kim Taehyung

Kim Taehyung, the youngest detective of CDIAM has just given a lecture on one of his cases that he solved just recently at the Oxford university. He is the youngest detective in Korea's history and has built a rapport already by solving some tough mysteries on his accord in a span of only one year into his career and caught the attention of higher ups. In his free time, he likes briefing students in lectures about these cases, he wants to train them to be the best detectives

Just as he exits the auditorium, he receives a call from his mentor, the person who inspired him to be what he is. He picks up the call, talks for a while and then hangs up

A new case. Death of a teenager. He is usually involved in cases of much larger scale, like human trafficking or black money corruption or spy situation causing an international travesty. He knew he had to say to "No" to this little case but he couldn't just say that directly to his mentor. So, he asked him to send the details of the case and then he'll figure out some excuse and say his apology

As he sits inside his car and his driver starts driving, he receives loads of email, from Mr. HungSu sending all the details

"That was fast" he thinks to himself as he opens them up

There lies a picture of the victim, a teenager smiling right at him with sparkling eyes and the brightest smile. He looks at her picture for a good couple of minutes that he forgets that she is dead, she was murdered.

He becomes curious about the case as he submerges into the details.

Kim Jisoo, in her senior year of high school.

"Just one more year and she would've been able to jon her dream college. If she had any." he thinks.

He himself never graduated from college. It has been three years since he left school and joined the force as a trainee and it has only been a year as a detective. He was a college dropout when he was discovered by Mr. HungSu for his amazing mystery solving abilities and he started working right away, never gave a thought bout college again. But she, this girl, has such good grades. She could easily get into any college she wants to. Then what happened?

He thoroughly reads the reports sent to her. The newspaper articles. The leads that police tried to explore but failed miserably

Kim Jisoo, a teenager staying in a small town in Hampshire, left her home for college on June 8th, 2022. It was the first day of summer and her high school soon would have summer vacation and she had loads of plan for that particular summer. But turns out that she never reached her school. The town doesn't have any CCTV coverage so no traces of her anywhere else, no one remembers seeing her, which is unusual as she is someone easily noticed by people

At around 8 that night, the police department received a call from her father, filing a missing report for her daughter. According to him, she would usually arrive by 2 at max 3 pm because she always had the habit of having evening coffee with him. So, he waited and waited and called her friends, her boyfriend but none of them had any answers. At last, he filed the complaint and the police has been searching for her ever since.

Every time there was a lead to explore, it would be a dead end. Everyone has been questioned, all their alibi match with their statements.

Then the police received a call two days after her disappearance. The call was from a man who seems to have found something strange while walking his dog. His dog was going crazy over something and then he saw it, a bone, "a fucking human bone staring right at me" he described it

Taehyung goes through most of the documents and can tell the police did a trashy job with it. Like headless chickens. They asked terrible questions during their interrogation and the suspects gave such elaboratestatements that were out of his patience to read through.

"How the hell do they call themselves police when they couldn't even find her body two years after it all happened in that small little town?" he thinks and scrolls back to the top

The girl is staring at her, he has to call his mentor back. Tell him that he can't help it, the investigation done for this case is very weak and it has been for two years, whatever little evidence there was before is surely not going to be there now. He dials the number and keeps looking at the picture. At that girl

He hasn't thought much about his love life at all. But the reason why he was struck with so many thoughts the moment he saw her pictures was because she reminded him of someone. The resemblance is uncanny but she actually looks like a particular *her* that used to be in his life.

A lot of women came into his life after that incident but he can't seem to shake her off. So he just focused on his work as a distraction

But right now, staring at the picture of the innocent girl who got caught in the evil design of the universe, a thought just flashes by his head. If he had seen her in a bar, or maybe in a club, if she wasn't, you know, gone, vanished into thin air, if she was just herself sitting on one of the tables waiting for her drink to be served and if he saw her right there at that moment, then maybe, maybe he would've approached her with a warm smile and gotten to know her, something that he doesn't do with women usually.

But then again, she was gone, dead. And he feels a sense of anger at the missed opportunity that this girl had in her life, he feels as though he wants to know the real story, what happened to her.

So, he calls the number

"I am taking the first flight to Hampshire. Open the case again. We need to close it for good this time"

He keeps staring at the picture, eyes unable to move from this one image. Is the resemblance really that good or did he actually see her somewhere? But how could he?

She is long gone.