no body, no crime | SOOBIN

one.

  [ when he died - lemon demon ]

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M O N T H     A G O

dalmi waited for others to leave the classroom as the last bell rang for school, zipping up her bag she step out towards miss yerin, a nervous sigh escaping from her lips. discussing about works and assignments with teachers wasn't really a foreign thing to do for her, she often talked about it one class or another but what made today different from the rest was the topic she had chosen for her extended project qualifications.

“ yes, dalmi? ” yerin spoke, her eyes stuck on the papers she was reviewing. for any normal days dalmi would have replied right after with enthusiasm as that of a galoopy pup however her words got stuck in her throat once her steps halted and yerin obviously noticed it since her gaze slowly travel up to meets the younger. it stayed there for a second moreover dalmi was quick to comprehend what her eyes were asking for.

“ it's the, um my EPQ I've already chosen a topic ” her words quivered, shoes rubbing against each other in back and forth manner.

“ excellent! and I assume it must be something interesting ” yerin eyes relaxed as she lightly chuckled.

“ it's the park ahjung case ”

there was a pause.

the teacher took off her glasses as she placed it onto her desk. she struggled to find words to speak, all dalmi heard was a quite 'oh' that came off like a whisper. it didn't look good for her there were no two ways about it. “ this is an extremely sensitive topic, you know that right? ”

“ of course I do ” she avoided her gaze.
“ and I know I could have gone with any feminist analysis or historical event but, that's just not it ”

“ I get where you are coming from, I do but ” the teacher shifted in her chair.
“ still let me be clear. you'll be refrain to contact either family involved in the case and if you do, your project will be disqualified right at that moment okay? ”

her shoe's motions stop. “ disqualified? that means I'm doing the project? ”

yerin nodded with a small smile as the younger took her time to hand her the form of the EPQ before turning around to make a leave, her shoulders relaxing same if there were heavy weight trying to crush her earlier.

“ one more thing ” the girl spun around.
“ since I owe you one...”

dalmi walked out of the school gate, part of her hair striking against her lips because of the evening breeze as she tucked it behind her ear, waiting for her friend when she saw him outside there too, just few meters away from her, walking home just like she was. part of dalmi's mind wanting to run up to approach him and the other reminding herself the rules, miss yerin warned her about just few minutes ago.

suddenly a hand snaked around her back, fingers cupping her left shoulder. dalmi let out a yelp as her head moved to shot a glare at her friend, chaewon.
“ how's the EPQ? ”

“ I'm going to solve the park ahjung's case ” a smudge smile appear on her face.

“ not this again ” chaewon rolled her eyes, her hand slipping off of dalmi.
“ park ahjung's case is solved, her boyfriend killed her and confessed to it before killing himself too, remember? ”

“ do you know how many people confessed to the murder of charles lindbergh jr.? ” her smile disappeared, brows moving upward.

“ I have no idea who that even is ”

“ two hundred. that's a 199 false confessions besides ahjung's body was never found ” dalmi stopped in front of chaewon, blocking her way as her eyebrows arched inward. “ you knew cheol too, do you really think he did it? ”

her friend sigh, “ if cheol didn't do it, who did? ”

“ I don't know yet but whoever it was might still be out there ” dalmi stated as they arrived at the bus stop and she boarded the bus.

choosing the sixth seat in the left row like usual, she settled into the window seat as she glance back outside to waved at chaewon. she put on her earphones once she heard the rumble of the bus engine beneath her and not too long after the bus started moving, and with that dalmi's train of thoughts too.

she pulled out her phone, typing out the infamous murder case in her browser just to find even a single article questioning the narration of seungcheol being guilty. but there were none, the search engine results were full of articles and blogs calling him a monster, devil every disgusting terms they could think of.

dalmi sighed, she wasn't naive to not understand that this was all a media play caring about clicks and likes rather than the actually case itself, the one who got gaslighted by this were the general public. her doubt became more clear when she saw the same author's name 'RM' on more than eight articles. thankfully so he's email was mentioned right at the bottom of every article.

Back in her room, dalmi started of with watching the clips of police press conference, news reports, and documentaries. gathering up as much information as she could before noting them down on the murder board.

based of the stastic she found online, 80% of missing people are found in the first 24 hours. 97% in the week and 99% cases are resolved in the first year. that leave just 1%.

1% of people who disappeared are never found but there's another course to consider, just 0.25% of all missing cases has a fatal outcome.

and where does this leave park ahjung? somewhere between 1% and 0.25%, fractionally increasing and decreasing in tiny decimal breaths. but by now most people have accepted that she's dead, even though her body was never been recovered. and why is that?

choi seungcheol is why?

dalmi took out her phone as she slided through the screen to open the recording app before tapping the start.

“ Production Log Entry - 1

the production log is intended to chart any obstacles you face in your research, your progress and the aim of your final report however in my production log, I'm going to record all the research I do here, as I don't know what the outcome will be, nor what will end up being relevant. my first stage of the project starts here.

park ahjung, 17 at the time went missing from her home in Cheondang, Ansan on Friday, 20th April 2018. she left home in her car a black peugeot with her phone, but not a single extra clothes with her. police said it was 'completely out of character'

3 days later on Tuesday, 24th April 2018, police discovered a body in the woods identifying it of choi seungcheol, known as coups/cheol to everyone also ahjung's boyfriend. upon investigating his phone they came across his last text message to his dad confessing of killing ahjung. the person who last saw him,

was his younger brother, choi soobin. ”

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