criminal love; jungwon

33

Nanhee's pov.

The cold, sterile air of the courtroom seemed to stifle my breath. It felt suffocating, yet oddly empty. Like I was drowning in a sea of silence, surrounded by a void. The walls around me seemed to be closing in, and I could feel the weight of my own thoughts pressing down on my chest. Everything had led to this moment-the trial. The day I would face the consequences of my actions, the day everything would finally unravel.

But the truth is, nothing in this room made sense. None of it was real.

I stood there, alone, at the defendant's table. I could hear the murmurs of the audience, feel the weight of their stares, but it felt as though I was outside of it all. Like I was watching from a distance, too far removed from the reality unfolding in front of me. The judge's voice was distant, and I could barely make out what he was saying. It didn't matter. None of it mattered.

The charges against me were clear: the murders of Chahyeon, Minji, Hyejin, and danielle. But I didn't recognize those names. They were just words now, disconnected from the life I once knew. Chahyeon had been a part of my life at one point- hadn't he? But now, I couldn't even picture his face without a blur. His existence seemed so foreign.

Minji and her friends-those girls who had tormented me, those faces that had haunted my school days. Their voices echoed in my head, their cruel taunts and laughter. I had wanted to forget them, to erase them from my mind, but they lingered. They always did.

But the truth is, it was never them. It wasn't Chahyeon, or Minji, or anyone else. It was me. I was the one who had done this.

The question was, why?

I closed my eyes, my fingers gripping the edge of the table as if it could anchor me to something real. Something solid. But there was nothing. Just emptiness.

I had killed them all. I had taken their lives, but it was never what it seemed. My mind had twisted the truth, warped it into something I couldn't control. I had run from the world, run from myself, but every time I closed my eyes, I could hear their voices. I could feel their hands reaching out for me, pulling me back. They were all gone now, and I was the one left with the guilt, with the confusion.

I had killed Chahyeon because he had tried to help me. I had killed him because I couldn't stand to face the reality he wanted me to confront. I had killed him because, in my mind, he had become part of my hallucinations. He wasn't real anymore, not in the way he had once been. He had tried to reach me, to pull me out of the darkness I had been drowning in. But I couldn't let him. I couldn't let anyone in.

And then Minji, Hyejin, and the others-they weren't any different. They had been a part of my world too, but they were never the people they appeared to be. I had imagined their cruelty, their mockery, their rejection of me. I had built them up in my mind until they became monsters. I had seen their faces as I ran through the halls of my mind, their laughter chasing me, tormenting me. They were my demons. And I had killed them, just as I had killed Chahyeon.

I didn't want to be trapped anymore. I didn't want to live in a world where everyone was out to hurt me. I didn't want to feel like I was suffocating under the weight of my own existence.

So I ended it.

I closed my eyes again, this time trying to drown out the noise of the courtroom. I could hear the murmurs of the audience, but I couldn't focus on them. All I could hear was the sound of my own thoughts, racing faster than I could keep up. The truth was, I didn't know who I was anymore.

I had been a runaway from my old life, a life that no longer existed in this town. My past was a blur-a fractured memory of who I had once been, who I was before all of this. My family, my mother, my brother, they had all vanished. My mom had worked the night shifts, never home, and Seojun, my little brother, had been too young to understand. They were all gone, left behind when I found myself here. I had created this new life for myself, this new reality, and somewhere along the way, I had lost my grip on it.

But it didn't matter now. None of it mattered.

Chahyeon had been trying to help me. He had cared, and I had killed him. I had killed him because he had tried to pull me from the darkness, from the delusion I had created in my mind.

I had killed him.

And I had killed them all.

I could hear the footsteps of the prosecutor approaching. The click of their shoes against the floor was the only thing that seemed real, the only thing that anchored me to the present. They would ask me questions, but I couldn't answer them. I couldn't give them the truth because I didn't know it myself.

How could I explain this? How could I tell them that I had been living in a world of my own creation? That I had seen Chahyeon as a threat, a figment of my own twisted imagination? How could I explain that Minji and the others had been nothing more than shadows in my mind, distorted by my own fears and insecurities?

I could see their faces now, the faces of the people who had once been a part of my life, now nothing more than fleeting images. Minji, Hyejin, and the others-they were gone. But they weren't really gone, were they? They lived on in my mind, in the guilt that consumed me.

And so did Jungwon.

Jungwon, who had once been my everything. Jungwon, who had been the one constant in my life.

But he was gone too.

There was no Jungwon in this courtroom. There was no one left but me.

I had trapped myself in a cage of my own making. And now, as I stood there in front of the judge, in front of everyone, I had to face the consequences of my actions.

I had killed them.

I had killed Chahyeon. I had killed Minji and her friends. I had killed the person I had once been.

And now, there was only me. Alone. Forever.