All I Want

18

"Honey are you ready to go?" My mother asked while zipping her purse shut.

The question was rhetorical since I didn't have a choice, but as far as being dressed with shoes on, then I guess I was ready.

Today was Taehyung's trial.

I've thought about my feelings for this day over and over again but still have yet to conclude anything. My parents are set on me charging him guilty of kidnapping and murder, but, something inside me is telling me not to; they don't know that of course.

The ride to the court house was so quite I felt like I was drowning in an ocean of silence; my parents caught in their own thoughts as I still struggled with the decision I was about to make.

"We're here. You ready to do this?" My dad asked, parking the car.

I nodded and with that we walked inside. We were greeted with some tests and practice questions that my lawyer had made for me. I gave him answers he and my parents wanted to hear, not the honest kind. Then suddenly, it was time. I was escorted inside the court room and sat at one of the two desks at the front, my lawyer taking a seat right beside me.

"If you feel uncomfortable at any time just let me know and we'll take a break, okay?" He assured me.

And right after he said that, one of the few doors to the room opened with security guards flooding out followed by a man in orange.

Taehyung.

He had shackles chained between his wrists and ankles which were both connected by a chain. And as he slowly shuffled behind the guards and to his desk, I noticed his face for the first time since the kidnapping. He was so broken. His eyes puffed and red from crying and his lips chapped presumably from biting them out of nervousness.

"Taehyung?" I murmured.

He was hardly recognizable; no trace of his other side at all, just a boy, a broken boy. As he sat, he did not dare to look at me, it was like he was scared to.

It was time for the trial to begin. But after seeing Taehyung again, I knew exactly how I felt about him and what to tell the jury.

"Mr. Kim, would you proceed to the front." Said the Judge. 

When it was Taehyung's turn to plead his case, after placing his hand on a Bible and swearing to tell the truth and nothing but, he took a deep breath, preparing himself to tell his deepest secret about his double personality.

"Ever since I was a little kid, there was this boy that would always bully me. Only I could hear him and I would sometimes see him when I walked passed a mirror or glass. He was the most mean and belittling person I knew, even more so than my abusive father. Over time, I learned that if I did what he told me to do, he would stop bullying me. So I did. I did everything he asked of me, even killing my own dad for the sake of my mom, or at least that's what he had convinced me. Throughout all of my youth, elementary to high school, he actually stayed pretty quiet. But then I went to university- and met Mai. She was the most perfect human being I had ever laid my eyes on. She was understanding and kind to anyone despite their relationship with her. Saying it was love at first sight would be an understatement. But my infatuation with her only turned him on. His love for her was so harsh and demented. Mine was soft and caring. I genuinely wanted a life with you, Mai, one with a family in an urban neighborhood with friends that came over frequently." Taehyung gulped for a moment, then continued. "But he didn't want to share you, and I was afraid that if I crossed him, his punishment for me would to take you from me, to kill-" he stopped, and looked at me with wide, glossy eyes.

"Mr. Kim, are you saying that this other boy, the one that lives inside you, was going to eventually kill Mai?"

There was a pause. But then,

"Yes."

"Would you have let him?"

"Of course not-"

"Then are you pleading insanity?" His lawyer tried suggesting.

As I looked at Taehyung once more, I could tell he was contemplating his answer. If he did plead insanity, he would end up in the same mental facility he had escaped from. Even though his other side had put him there in the first place, I could only imagine the fear of going back to a place like that.

"I suppose I am. But I really do think I deserve whatever is coming for me. Because- because I couldn't stop him from doing the things that he did to her." Taehyung murmured as his eyes began to water in regret. 

After that, the jury went wild with whispering and gossip. If I'm being honest, I don't think any of them believed him.

"Mr. Kim, you may go back to your seat. Miss. Yung, you're up." The Judge demanded.

The chair squeaked as I sat in front of the court room. And as I looked out, I saw so many foreign faces. Faces owned by people who probably got a kick off of witnessing served justice, I suppose.  I looked at my parents. They watched me eagerly with their hands tightly intertwined with each other. My lawyer preparing himself to stand and ask me questions about Taehyung.

Taehyung.

Right, that's why I'm here, isn't it? Because of Taehyung. My eyes slowly positioned themselves on to him, on a boy scared of a possible life in prison but even more scared of the second option of death. His fate was in my small hands. So, I cleared my throat and began.

"When I first met Taehyung, I was greeted with a helping hand; someone that studied with me nearly every other night and stood up for me in any difficult circumstances. I was completely caught off guard the first time he kidnapped me. That side of him was so, so different. It was like he was a whole nother person. So, I-" I stopped, taking in a breath or two before the reactions of my next statement would flood my ears. "I plead Kim Taehyung not guilty, but insane."

As predicted, the room went up in flames. The jury gasping before they bickered amongst themselves. And Taehyung, Taehyung was in such shock that he couldn't even blink.

"What?! That's not what we practiced!" My lawyer whispered to himself, shuffling frantically through his paperwork.

My mother then stood up, slamming her palms on the desk in front of her.

"Mai! Think about what you're saying! Think about what that monster has done to you-"

"Sit down!" I yelled back, and the room became quiet in an instant. "I'm not finished." 

The atmosphere was dead silent, all eyes fixated on me.

"None of you were there. None of you can say what he is and what he isn't." I then looked towards the jury. "None of you can speak for me or for my experiences with Kim Taehyung. So hear me when I say that the man that is now sitting in shackles, the one you are all so eager to point your hypocritical fingers at, is not the 'monster' that has inflicted so much pain into my life. That man is dead. And I am pleading insanity on to Kim Taehyung so that his other side doesn't get him put down like a rabid dog." I then stood up, and walked out of the court room, leaving everyone behind with their mouths gaped open.

Needless to say, my point was made clear to the judge and jury and Taehyung was sentenced to life in prison on multiple charges of insanity. I visited him a few times for the first couple of months, but eventually stopped. I remember he told me one day that he still loved me and wished that I was finally happy. He kept me updated on the exercises they played in his group sessions and how his new doctor is very nice and funny.

But despite all this improvement for his mental stability, his other side is still there, still trapped in the deepest darkest corner of Taehyung's conscience. And thus he will remain securely locked away from the outside world and from me, his Mai.

The End