“I think you're just a very disturbed person, insane, if I were to speak in that extreme.”
I looked up and then downwards to the floor again.
“So let me get this all straightened out for you, since you can't straighten your own damn mind.”
I look upwards into the face that is unwelcome to me but is forced to face me because it is paid.
“You were a former journalist; you were investigating a murder and a гɑре and interviewed a couple witnesses. Then out of nowhere, for this reason that you stated, you were bored, and you decided to, out of the blue, kill one of the witnesses. Not only did you kill one of the people that you interviewed, you went on a whole spree of murders. Then to cover up all your tracks, you decided to write this whole practical book explaining your past, reasoning, and good morals in the sake of forgiveness. Forgiveness of yourself. Well, let me tell you what. I think you're just being plain insane. You think that this bullshit of a long excuse, this ғυϲƙ load of waste of time is going to change the fact that you killed someone? Someone innocent, a Mother of a young child with a husband and all that shit. And not just that Mother, but the Mothers and Fathers and Sons and Daughters before her. I'm speechless. Because you don't blame your shit on yourself, you blamed it on someone else. And that person doesn't even ғυϲƙing exist!”
My interrogator was flushed red, as if he finished drinking fine wine as he threw his fist down onto the table.
“Quit smiling like a moron, you are facing a good amount of life in jail.”
I just licked my upper row of teeth.
He flipped through the pages once more and clicked his tongue.
“You used to be a good person, you used to fight for justice, and I know you knew what was wrong. All this, all this is just an excuse built on insanity. Your past, you killed your brother by trampling him over by his own horse. And then you blamed the horse. Goddamnit, you went off and killed your own dog too; at least your Ma told me that you gave him a proper burial. You were completely detached from reality then, and I suppose the cap on the bottle has broken off when you killed Hwang Tiffany right in her home. Jesus Christ, you're a legitimate lunatic. I guess the only truth you wrote to me is the fact you're just looking for a little excitement. Man, if you were going to get high off of something, you should have gone underground speed racing or some shit like that. What crazy stuff do young people like to do nowadays? Ah, forget it. Just looking at you after reading all that just, it's going to give me ғυϲƙing nightmares.”
I just watched him as he rambled on, spreading all my realities upon the table that we sat around.
“And your alibi is this woman named Kim Taeyeon. I tell you, there is not Kim Taeyeon; it's all in your head. All in that head of yours that I don't want to figure out. And she isn't your only excuse to murder, but also your excuse to go grave digging. That grave you dug, that was the children’s' plot! Not only did you go to disrupt the balance of the living, you've gone off and disturbed the peace of the dead children. And what's more to add to this record that stretches from Earth to the Sun and back? You threatened hotel managers with a knife to let you have a free room, you stole from a house on the countryside, claiming it was Kim Taeyeon's shit and burned it down. You slept with a prostitute named Jung Jessica, who was a valuable lead by the way, and thankfully was watched over by Kwon Yuri. And then you go off mixing random crap with half of the kid's ғυϲƙing brain, and then you say it was to create this chemical called Liquid Knowledge. I'm telling you right now, again, Liquid Knowledge is just bullshit, it's your imagination, but I don't think you knew that. So finally we find you in your home, with a bottle of laundry detergent, cooking oil, blood, and brain matter in one hand, and your weapon of choice dipped in the bottle in another. And Hwang Tiffany dead on the floor. I wonder why you went through that whole adventure just to kill someone. But hey, I'm sure you were insane enough to enjoy the goddamn adventure.”
He leaned back in his chair in a huff, his head held up high as if he was proud of himself.
“And that, my crazy friend, is straight from cold hard psychological analysis, background checks, modern technology, and a good team of investigators. Welcome to reality, kid, where we do not write stories.”
I looked away.
But then his eyes went suddenly compassionate, and he gripped a strong hand on my shoulder.
“You had control over your life, but you let the shadows overcome you. That's a real pity, you had some great stuff going back when you were working. But killing people and getting away with it isn't how the world works.”
I shrugged his hand off of me.
“You aren't Taeyeon, Taeyeon isn't you. She can do whatever she wants and get away with it, you can't. Anyway, you knew that you were going to get caught, that's why you wrote this, right?”
He waved my manuscript in the air, with the cover page “Liquid Knowledge” scrawled across the blank page.
“I know you wish to just turn this all around and---”
I spoke for the first time after months, months and months of walking around committing all this, being the center, running away.
I couldn't even remember my own voice in that moment of answering, my voice cracked and was hoarse all over, my throat struggled to form pitches.
“No, I don't.”
His eyes widened at my response, but then he remembered who I was and just shook his head, he even laughed lightly with the whole response.
Even though there wasn't anything funny about it, I began to laugh too.
I laughed through the pain.
He stared me straight into the eyes.
“You're insane.”
He flipped my story all the way back to the front page to search for my name scribbled in equally messy handwriting.
He found his voice when I lost mine.
“Tirraunt.”
“Yes?”
