Investigation

Chapter 23

Taehyung

"NO WAY," Jihyun yelled out as soon as I came back to the precinct. "YOU CAUGHT HIM?!"

"Yep. Cool, isn't it?"

She then frowned and smacked my arm. "That's so unfair. How could you go catch him without your partner?"

"Hey, you were the one who refused to come," I said while chuckling, making her more mad and smack my arm even harder. "Okay, fine. You get to interrogate him. I'll be standing by your side."

She smiled widely and nodded multiple times. We then grabbed a couple of case files before we came inside the interrogation room.

"So," Jihyun said, "should we call you Mr. Min Yoongi or Mr. Choi Jinyoung?

The man smiled, quite creepily if I must add. "Just Yoongi, sweetie."

"Okay, Yoongi," she continued without feeling bothered, "I see you have murdered numerous young people in the last few months. Were you also the infamous The Tiger Killer from ten years ago?"

"Indeed I was."

Jihyun turned to me for a second and I could guess what she was thinking about. She wondered why this Yoongi guy voluntarily admitted that he was the killer we were looking for and not a single lie had been tried to tell.

"May we know why you did all this, Yoongi?" she asked.

He looked away for a second and hardened his jaws, but he then turned back to Jihyun with yet another smile.

"For years I was scared of my wife, my wife who hasn't come back home to me for more than a week now," he said. "She abused me, mentally and physically. She kept telling me that I wasn't man enough, that I was just like a weak little boy. So, I did all these killings to prove it to her that I'm stronger than she thinks, that I have what it takes to be a man."

"I see," she said. "So you're keeping all these teeth in your basement to be as, like, your rewards?"

He nodded. "Yes, so every time she tried to hit me or downgrade my manhood again, I can show her that I'm not afraid of her anymore and that if she tries to threaten me again, I can threaten her back by telling her that I can do to her what I did to all those people."

She was about to ask another question when he suddenly asked her, "Why? Did you know any of these people, sweetie?"

I noticed Jihyun started to feel uneasy, but she kept her professionalism and talked to him in a peaceful and polite manner until he said, "Let me guess... Park Jimin."

She took a deep breath before she gave him a sharp glare. "Don't you dare say that name."

Oh, no. Jihyun wasn't supposed to feed into his satisfaction. She was supposed to know better than to get lured into his mind games trick.

"You know," he said, smiling satisfyingly, "he was one of my best interns. We talked a lot. Hell, we were friends. He told me so many things about the woman that he loved, which I would guess was you."

"Yoongi, that's enough," I said, trying to put this to a stop before it got worse, but it did.

"Do you know that he knew that you cheated on him?"

I noticed Jihyun started to tremble. "No. You're lying," she said. "He didn't know that."

"Okay, so if I were lying, how would I know about it?" he asked, causing her to tear up. "He told me that he was incredibly devastated when he found out about it and was disappointed because he thought that you and him would be together for a long time despite the long distance."

"You're lying!!" she yelled out as her voice started to raise.

Yoongi, however, was unbothered. He shrugged. "Just ask him if you don't believe me," he said. "Oh, sorry. I forgot that I murdered him already."

And just like that, suddenly everything turned into chaos.

Jihyun literally jumped on him and yelled out things at him while trying to strangle him. I rushed to let her go from him and dragged her outside. Chaeyeon and Seokjin who saw what happened immediately stepped in and covered for us in the interrogation room.

"Jihyun. JIHYUN!!" I yelled out as she tried to rebelled out of my arms. She kept crying and begging to talk to Yoongi again, but of course I had to say no.

It hurt seeing her like this. She had a breakdown in the middle of the day in a police precinct. I wanted to cry together with her, but I had to stay strong for her.

After she no longer yelled at me and demanded to go back to the room, she collapsed onto the floor. She didn't faint, but she didn't have any energy left to stand up and pretended that she was fine. I pulled her into my arms and held her tightly, just to tell her that I was on her side.

---

"Sir, I'm so sorry for causing a scene earlier today."

Captain Kim sighed. "It's okay. It's a good thing that the perp has been caught," he said, "but I need you to step away from this case, Detective Jung. Take some day offs to recover."

Jihyun wanted to argue that she was fine now and that she wanted to finish what she started, but the captain had already warned her before that if she let her emotional distress clouded her judgement, he had to take her off the case. So, she nodded and went out of the captain's office.

"Are you sure you're okay now?" I asked. "Because I can ask Captain Kim to reconsider his decision."

She gave me a reassuring smile. "It's fine, Tae. Maybe I do need to take some day offs," she said as she packed her things. "So... I'll see you soon."

I nodded. She then grabbed her bag and headed out.