Conceal

6.

He never knew it was so chillingly cold in interrogation rooms. In movies, they always seemed very stuffy without a single window in sight, and he always wondered how the suspect felt sitting in an unfamiliar room with at least one camera in the room and three people staring at him through the two-way mirror in the room adjacent.

He could at least stop wondering now, but he was pretty sure this was one of the many things in life that you'd be better off without knowing. Because the thing is, they made him wait. And waiting wouldn't be a problem under normal circumstances, but this was anything but normal. He was an innocent person suspected of something he didn't do. So when he was made to wait, there was nothing to do other than think. And thinking wasn't a good thing at all, because you see, thinking for so long without reaching a conclusion was the most frustrating thing that could happen to anyone. And once he was frustrated, his self-control lowered, and that only made him nervous.

Which isn't exactly how he wanted to be when the police officer finally decided to enter the room.

"Lee Dawon." The police officer threw a yellow folder onto the desk carelessly. Dawon tried not to but he flinched anyway. He feigned indifference but it was hard not to eye the file sitting right in front of him. He wanted to know what was so important in those sheets of paper that were able to drag him into this situation.

The police officer smirked as he took a seat opposite of Dawon. Clearly he enjoyed his job a bit too much. Dawon tried to see what was written on the officer's nametag, but it was angled away from him as if he didn't deserve to know anything.

The officer picked up the yellow folder and flipped to the correct page. Then he pushed it towards Dawon until it was right under his nose. After Dawon had taken a look at the paper, the interrogator said, "Your fingerprints are found on the drugs. You have no alibi for the whole day the drugs were found. In fact, you have no alibi for three whole days before that." He sighed, interlocking his hands and placed them on the grey table as if he genuinely felt sorry. "Keeping silent won't get you anywhere. If you did it, admitting it now would save you a few months of prison. If you didn't do it, say something before you get too suspicious. If you don't tell us anything, there's zero chance for you to be released without a single charge."

Dawon snorted. He didn't believe a thing that came out of that interrogator's mouth. He leaned back in his chair. He knew he would be released anyway once the 48 hours were up, if there were no concrete evidence. But the file staring up at him told him otherwise. They wouldn't have sent someone in without the absolute certainty that something would come out of this interrogation. There was something in that file that would render him helpless, and Dawon, despite having understood his fate, was not ready to just sit there and accept it.

Limbs, the nickname Dawon had given the interrogator due to the freakishly long arms and legs, retrieved the folder and flipped it to another page. He placed it back onto the table for Dawon to read it, but Dawon wasn't mentally prepared for it yet.

It took Limbs two "go on" gesture and one short but demanding glare to get Dawon to finally look down.

He blinked at the words on the paper, trying to make sense of it with the limited knowledge and intelligence he had. There were letters and numbers everywhere, packed together so tightly it nearly filled up the whole page. Dawon had no idea where to start, so he raised his head again, thinking it was much easier to just hear it from somebody else. That way, he could at least pretend it was all just the police and their competence that got them this far into the case, instead of his carelessness that turned the simplest of things into irrefutable evidence.

The interrogator stared at Dawon with contempt. "This is your phone log. The last call you made before we found the drugs," he explained, pointing at the middle of the page. "At 10:43 am, you called Minhyuk, the person that was loitering around your apartment building. And you told him to meet you in front of the building where you live."

Limbs paused to gauge Dawon's reaction. He didn't smile, but Dawon knew very well that the officer was satisfied with what he saw.

Dawon had widened his eyes the moment he heard the word "Minhyuk". Everything on the paper started making sense, as though they were puzzle pieces that were fitted together.

The interrogator had started talking again, but Dawon couldn't hear a thing he said. Instead, his eyes moved from left to right repeatedly, scanning the page and taking in every little bit of information on it. He was looking at the transcript of a phone call he never made, reading the words he never said, and not to mention, to a person he had never seen since 10 years ago.

Limbs must've stopped talking because Dawon was suddenly very aware of the deafening silence surrounding him. It was mocking him to say something, to blurt out everything he saved up till this very moment.

He was still skeptical about what the interrogator had said, but it was the only thing he could hang onto. So he said the truth, even though no one was ever going to believe him.

"I never called Minhyuk. I didn't call anyone that day." Dawon was reminded again of what he did that day, and he almost exposed everything because of the unbearable heartbreak that came back to him every time he remembered. He wanted to share the burden, but everyone had a secret that no one knew about, and for Dawon, this was the something.

He didn't know whether it was out of instinct to convert grief into anger, but that was exactly what he did. Before he could think twice about what he was about to say, the words came rolling out of his mouth.

"Why would I even call Minhyuk? That asshole was the reason I dropped out of school." The words came out unclear through Dawon's teeth, but the message was transferred nonetheless. The police officer raised his eyebrows, intrigued.

"Is that so? What's your relationship with Minhyuk right now?"

Dawon worried he had already said too much. But that was the thing: since most of the story was out now, why not finish it? "We? We hate each other's guts. Well, at least I do. I never did anything to him but all he ever does is try and ruin my life. I'm not surprised if he broke into my apartment and planted the drugs."

"Are you sure you did absolutely nothing to him?" Dawon hesitated, so the officer added, "You know we can easily find out about these things, right?"

That got Dawon to answer. "Honestly, I don't know. I might have offended him somehow, and that started our never-ending war of hate."

"And this is his form of revenge? Planting drugs in your apartment to look like you've done it?"

"Yes."

"Well, I would say it could go both ways. You know what people say: revenge is a tale that never ends."