Free of Charge // Baekchen

Prejudiced

Chapter Five: Prejudiced

prejudiced: a judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge

~*~

The brothers were separated into two different rooms. Prosecutor Do decided to stay with Baekhyun to ease the young boy's tension. The high school student swiped his sweaty palms against his pants as he tried his best to look Prosecutor Do in the eyes. The man flashed a quick smile, "Are you thirsty?" Baekhyun quickly shook his head, he just wanted the interrogation to be over with.

The prosecutor cleared his throat and took a deep breath, "Well Mr. Byun, may I see your watch?" Baekhyun unwillingly removed his wrist watch and placed it across the table for Kyungsoo's father. "I noticed that you and brother have the same ones."

"Yeah," Baekhyun replied, horrified at the sound of his own voice. He cleared his voice before continuing, "it was a gift from him." He nervously wet his lips as the prosecutor inspected the watch.

"Do you mind if I take this with me to get the serial number checked?"

"Of course not."

The prosecutor got up and left Baekhyun alone in the room. Shortly after, he returned and began questioning Baekhyun, beginning with, "Where were on the 25th of July, the day of the Yoonkyu Fire."

"D-Do you want what I did the whole day?" Baekhyun fidgeted in his seat, quickly recalling back several weeks and praying his memory didn't fail him.

"Yes, that would be helpful."

As he prepared to go over his events, Baekhyun instantly remembered what he did that evening. He stopped short, unable to speak. That night was a blur, but he knew extremely well what he did just before he lost consciousness, just before the approximate time the school caught on fire. He would have to tell of his day carefully.

"Well, I went to school the majority of the day and came home the usual around 5 to 6 o'clock. After that, I started studying."

"On a Friday night?" Prosecutor Do raised a brow.

Baekhyun nodded, "We had a test coming up in two weeks and my last score wasn't too good so I had to study hard to improve. But of course, because of the fire, the test was pushed until this coming Friday."

With a nod, the prosecutor continued, "Did you do anything else after that?"

Chewing his lower lip, Baekhyun nodded, "Not much that I can remember."

"Were you alone?"

"My parents went out, but I was with..." Baekhyun hesitated for a brief second, his heart rate increasing as the man he knew as Kyungsoo's father stared from across the table. He cleared his throat, "Sorry, I'm just trying to remember."

"That's all right," Prosecutor Do flashed a quick smile.

"Umm, it was Kim Joonmyun. I was studying with Joonmyun. He's really smart, you know?"

Sorry Joonmyun. You better stick to our story or I'm going to get hell for this.

---

"Where were you on the evening of the Yoonkyu Fire?" Detective Cho questioned, hands folded on the table's surface. "The 25th of July."

Baekbeom kept his eyes on the table. He wanted to reveal everything he knew, yet he knew he couldn't. He remained silent and it highly frustrated the detective. It also gave the detective a miniscule amount of reason to believe Baekbeom had something to do with the Yoonkyu Fire.