Empty Space | BTOB LMH

Chapter 16

"Even when I wished,
And wished,
there are things
that ultimately
don't work out."
ㅡBTOB, Climax
_____________________

Chapter 16
The Way You Looked At Me

LEE MINHYUK

Trying to ignore the fact that Harin might have been thinking of her late husband when we got to Jinho's house, I focused on the fact that he found something about my brother.

But the smile on Harin's lips and the glimmer in her eyes when she was lost in thoughts still haunted me.

It feels dumb to be jealous of a person who's gone from the world.

"I found this while I was working on a different case. I've looked at Lee Changsub's picture long enough to know that this might be him." Jinho said, and I quickly leaned closer to the screen and squinted my eyes, searching for Changsub's face.

The picture was quite blurry, but the person in the picture was tall and lean. He was wearing black, all black. He was holding a black cap on his one hand while the other was run through his hair.

My body went rigid.

Even if his eyes were blurry, the form of his nose and lips, the shape of his jawㅡ

A gasp escaped my lips. "T-This..."

Harin held my hand under the table where Jinho couldn't see.

Jinho shook his head lightly. "We were working on a case, following a lead that brought us checking CCTVs on a particular location, looking for suspicious people." He sighed and grabbed a brown envelope. "I can't reveal much because it's a confidential case, but we're suspecting him, Lee Minhyuk-ssi."

"What? How?" I asked in disbelief.

He slid the envelope towards me. "These are screenshots from the CCTVs of the lead we were trailing. The only guy who was in all the locations we suspected was him."

With trembling hands, I opened the envelope and checked the pictures, all of a sudden praying it wasn't him.

Changsub couldn't have...

My thoughts were cut off when I looked at the first picture. I frantically spread out the pictures on Jinho's desk. My heart hammered wildly in my chest. Tears welled in my eyes.

The pictures were so much clearer. He had lost so much weight it seemed like there were holes on his cheeks. Dark shadows surrounded his tired looking eyes. But it was him. My brother that's been missing for years. Lee Changsub.

"These aren't even taken from CCTVs. They seemed somehow deleted. They're from a car's blackbox." Jinho informed.

I shook my head. "I... I know my brother. He wouldn't, wouldn't do anything like-"

"A crime?" Jinho cut off, narrowing his eyes at me. "But he might have. You don't know how he'd been for the past years, Lee Minhyuk-ssi. People are so much more than what they show you sometimes." He said the last sentence while looking at Harin.

"What do you-"

"That's all I have for now. We'll identify him as Lee Changsub. I'll call you, if I find out more."

I nodded, still couldn't quite believe everything. "Thank you." I said.

"Harin noona, can we speak alone? Just the two of us?" Jinho asked Harin who looked at me worriedly. I nodded at her to say it was alright, and then I left the room and went to the shore.