"Ga-Hyeon? Would you like to start the day? You can leave after with both Mi-Yeon and Ji-Won." Mr. Yoo - the manager of the hospital - asked after understanding the sleepiness in everybody's eyes through a eye contact with them.
She was once again caught inside the high security prison engaged to the freezing craziness that caused a fear to form inside everyone's chest and Ye-Eun fought with it by holding Ga-Hyeon's hand while hoping Mr. Yoo wouldn't name her. Ga-Hyeon, on the other hand, had her heart on the sleeve, and there wasn't a single worry behind her eyes - she has been working with criminals all her adulthood.
Even so, her fingers played with a piece of paper inside her jacket's pocket, keeping her anxiety occupied while she thought of what she was going to ask the prisoners once she gets inside the interview room. Unlike her teammates, her previous day wasn't filled with fast food inside the office while signing divorce papers. Her legs can recall the tiredness in her muscles everytime she flexes them, for example this exact second she's making her way to wherever Mr. Yoo lead them.
"Here." Mi-Yeon offered her a piece of paper with uneven ends, unreadable questions written in a messy manner. "I guessed you wouldn't have time to do them yesterday so I woke up to think of them instead." she explained, sliding them inside Ga-Hyeon's rectangular bag, then slowing her pace to remain behind, without waiting for the prosecutor's polite «thank you».
"Mr. Yoo?" her voice defeated by the loud screams in the hallway still found it's way to the manager's ears. "I would like to enter first."
"That's amazing! Any preferences?" the man took her under his arm, gaining an annoyed look from Ye-Eun who had to let go of Ga-Hyeon's hand.
"The lady that's been here for the longest time, we talked about her last time I was here."
Mr. Yoo mirrored the two guards accompanying them, and stopped midway to get a better look at Ga-Hyeon's face. Not a single sign of amusement inside her tilted head, nor a laugh waited on her plump distanced lips. The manager was quick to read the room, and without hesitation nodded his head, agreeing with the prosecutor's request.
"Did you not hear her?" he gave the two guards a look, fighting with keeping his voice low inside the echoing halls. "Bring Ye-Seul in the investigation room, we'll meet there. Prosecutor Hwang, may I have a conversation with you before?"
"Sure." Ga-Hyeon simply accepted, continuing to walk as soon as he started again.
"We'll have to secure her arms with something less tight in order to have her comfortable enough to speak." Mr. Yoo explained, his chin up to face the taller woman, his pace faster to keep up with her - he was indeed a short man. "Even so, we a will be watching from behind the hidden room, and the two guards will be present. We don't know when a schizophrenic episode might occur so you'll have to keep a distance, she isn't very fond of skinship nor does she feel safe with others close to her physically."
Hurrying to enter the interview room was an excuse for Ga-Hyeon to skip nodding her head at the manager's guiding, leaving everybody else outside while she made herself comfortable on the chair. With her patience running away, she opened the papers Mi-Yeon got her earlier this morning and her ultimate conclusion was that they were total bullshit. Ga-Hyeon could've used the time spend in reading those for making up her own suiting questions.
Beside Mi-Yeon's files that the prosecutor left open in disbelief, there was another - dark cover with a huge name printed on it - Kim Ye-Seul. It was her patient's name that she was waiting for with such excitement in the leather chair which made a continuous scratching sound that spoke over the silence. To have her background checked in detail, she opened the envelope for a quick lecture.
Kim Ye-Seul
female, born 1970
diagnostic ; schizophrenia, border line personality disorder
background for investigation purposes ; born in a poor family, no studies, has gone through an abortion in 1995 which led her to depressive episodes, has committed homicide ( due to schizophrenic episodes ) ;
behavior since under investigation ; occasional schizophrenic episodes, uses reading as an excuse to skip therapy sessions ;
Then the screams were growing just like the steps, approaching the door.
There she stood, watching how the handcuffs strangle her wrists, making the area more red as the two guards kept guiding both her shoulders to different directions until they have reached the opposite chair, then the men made their way back to the wall to watch everything with their presence unobserved.
Ga-Hyeon didn't bother to stand up when the door opened, still even Ji-Won and Mi-Yeon who circled around Manager Yoo had the sense of the prosecutor's kind aura. If they would've been facing her, her smile would've made them melt - an attention worthy expression accompanied by her soft features made Ye-Seul gawk at her utterly dumbfounded. So far, the interview wasn't going as the elder has expected, what was the lovely lady doing inside this rotten world?
Truth to be said, the prosecutor didn't knew either, so she hoped her assuring smile could keep the room frozen for a little longer. Just long enough to notice the slight uncomfortable position Kim Ye-Seul was trying to keep because of the intimidating guards with abominable sticks ready to turn someone's skin as blue as the night sky. How the poor woman was calculating her moves, you could tell she resented the security staff quite a lot.
"Can you bring some tea?" Ga-Hyeon requested, moving her attention to the two. Their lost stares determined her to continue. "Is it not like the office interview? Can't I request food or drinks? This hospital of yours is quite cold, bring some for you too if you want."
"Prosecutor Hwang." Mr. Yoo's dominant voice has come out of the speakers.
But Ga-Hyeon couldn't be bothered. Lifting her arm up to make him eat his less important remarks was enough of an answer for him. Ye-Eun smiled too from the other side of the glass, it was a challenge for her to stand the man.
"Ms. Kim?" the woman finally reclaimed her seat on the noisy chair, leaning back to leave a considerable distance between them two. "I'm Hwang Ga-Hyeon, I work as a prosecutor and as you may know, I requested an interview with you - if you're comfortable and ready to give me your consent."
A slight nod : green light. More like yellow, but it was soon to turn green, that's what matters.
"I do."
"I've heard you like to read, what kind of books are you into?"
Mr. Yoo massaged the bridge of his nose, defeated. Ji-Won got closer to the glass, taking his place, while Mi-Yeon blamed herself - maybe if she would've wrote better questions Ga-Hyeon wouldn't have to showcase her weak improvisation skills in front of half of her workmates.
"Cho Nam-Joo.." Ye-Seul spoke, her dry neck troubling her voice.
"Come again?" Ga-Hyeon dared to lean in closer.
"Cho Nam-Joo."
"Oh!" she exclaimed with excitement. "You must've read «Kim Ji-Young - Born 1982»! Cho Nam-Joo is a great scriptwriter!"
"It's a great book." the patient agreed, breathing out comfortably.
"I'm sure you saw yourself in Kim Ji-Young, you're a strong woman yourself, you've gone through pregnancy and abortion if it's fine for me to mention." Both of them were reluctantly searching for words, Ye-Seul fidgeting with her handcuffs in the process. "Is there a possibility of you telling me about it? Why that happened?"
There was, because even not liking to think about her past she learnt to never disobey what she was told, so her mind went to look through her memories to put them on a plate for the stranger in front of her. Even without her own contribution, Ga-Hyeon could have found out pretty easily from anyone else in the hospital, or even ask Manager Yoo, so what was there to hide?
"I didn't want to raise him alone."
"I understand. I've seen my mother struggling to raise me so I can say it isn't an easy thing to do. Bravery was needed for your decision." the prosecutor was trying to solve a puzzle by finding linking memories for her to relate to Ye-Seul - a connection was needed for the patient to open up.
"Your mom did a great job in raising you. You seem like a polite young lady." Ye-Seul's words were slipping off the tip of her tongue, as she was ready to invest herself in the conversation. "When I was younger, I used to have a passion for music. I was quite good at instruments, and I wished to sing for my babies."
"I wouldn't have guessed!" Ga-Hyeon exclaimed, trying to keep herself from leaning on the table. If anything, she didn't want to destroy her hard work of trying to make the woman open up by scaring her. "Which instruments?"
"Gayageum was my first love, but I switched to piano, it had a calming effect on me."
Lies.
But Ga-Hyeon couldn't tell because of the smoothness of her forehead as she spoke lies, the sugar coat in which she hid the untruthful sentences before serving them on a plate.
Ye-Seul hated piano's from the bottom of her heart up to the end of her throat where disgust was stuck everytime she had tone. She loved it at first, but at some moment in time she learned to hate it. She burned the pages of painful memories turned into music - if the woman hadn't put her heart in those pages, nobody would've been able to destroy it.
"You could've been a famous singer."
"I guess some people just have disaster in their blood."
"I would have to disagree." Ga-Hyeon contradicted her with a hurtful smile brought on her dry lips over which she walked her tongue. "It's just like calling something «luck». It cheapens all the work and effort put in it."
"You might be right." the corners of Ye-Seul's mouth relaxed pointing back to her chin. "You remind me of a character in a book I once read. She was hardworking and never let a thing escape her eye. She didn't have a father, so if she wasn't able to become her daddy's princess, she became her mother's survivor. She ended up calling every phone number dialed on her father's phone to find the culprit, I bet she would've been disappointed if someone called her hard work lu.."
The two guards made it back with the tea sooner than Ga-Hyeon calculated when she requested it. Her hand aimed for the cup when Kim Ye-Seul stopped talking, but it only gave her a red skinned finger contoured by a hiss to stop her mouth from letting out swear words. She had to bite her tongue, but eventually succeeded.
Abandoning the undrinkable liquid, her eyes met the patient's. The joyful expression marked on her squished eyes was left a blink behind, now her small pupils fought with the light bulb and her eyebrows touched together were falling just down enough for her lashes to touch them.
"How do you feel lately? I wonder if your schizophrenic episodes trouble you a lot, or distract you from doing certain things." Ga-Hyeon thought out loud, lifting her right leg to rest over the left one. "I heard you skip therapy so it mustn't be that severe."
"I am not schizophrenic! I don't need therapy! I don't need to be in here." the woman's words came harshly out of her mouth, as if they were ripped off her red neck by a knife of suffering.
"You killed someone because of it. You said the voice told you to do so, you have to be here for safety reasons."
"I never said the voice was in my head! It was never just a voice! I don't hear voices!" her hands moved against the handcuffs, opening layers of her skin - but not because she was fighting with it, she was in fact trembling, and her raised voice made the guards now alert.
"Then could you tell me whose voice it was?"
She couldn't, for reasons Ga-Hyeon has figured out already. She was, after all, in a mental hospital and didn't expect her sweet talk to get more out of Ye-Seul's mouth, but she enjoyed to test the water, and it was obvious the woman she has faced today was an angry ocean waiting for a little breeze to cause her waves to turn into tsunamis.
Ye-Seul swallowed one time, eyes moving from left to right impatient. Her hands slipped under the table, flipping it over along with the hot tea that had a great time soaking Ga-Hyeon's suit. Even through the anger testing the prosecutor, as the patient's sleeves had revealed her hands, she could notice her skin was carved with scars someone else earned - they weren't hers to carry and it was no wonder she ended up where she is now.
Ga-Hyeon pitied her.
"I am not crazy!"
"Take her back to the cell." Manager Yoo has ordered from the other room, closing both the speakers and the air conditioner as the woman was taken out.
"No!" the guards struggled to get her off the chair to which she seemed glued, leaving the door open for another man to enter.
It was Manager Yoo, this time accompanied by her two co-workers - Ji-Won and Mi-Yeon - who portrayed identical horrified expressions while avoiding to stare at her chest.
"That's what they all say." Manager Yoo stated, turning his head to the side while Ga-Hyeon covered her shirt with her blazer. "At least no one died today."
"That's your standard?!" Ye-Eun has jumped on Ga-Hyeon, digging her nails into her shoulders.
"Let's go back to the office, I'm skipping today." Mi-Yeon brought her to the exit, leaving Ye-Eun behind with her eyes burning holes through Manager Yoo's skin.
Ga-Hyeon followed her, with distant eyes and a overworked mind filled with thoughts. If the kidnapping case wasn't enough to bother her sleep, now Ye-Seul's words were a bonus worry to keep her up at night - not that she had time to close an eye anyway.
Having to visit the prison for studying interview methods made Ga-Hyeon remember of her school years, and that was very much not to her liking. This afternoon, the feeling of her insides drowning in pain and agony wasn't very much to her liking either, so the hot sun rays warming her stomach was very appreciated as soon as she left the shadow of the building behind her flipping hair, with her legs touching for the assurance that a pair of light colored pants wasn't a bad decision.
"We should order lunch already so we won't have to wait when we arrive to the office." Ji-Won suggested, straightening his back with his rectangular bag in his left hand. The sun seemed like fuel for his fifty years old legs that struggled to keep up with the two lovely co-workers he had.
"Mi-Yeon, you do it, I can't make any calls." Ga-Hyeon passed the responsibility, following the older man to the closest bench to refresh her mind.
The psychiatric yard has drained all the energy she has stored for the day, making her understand the white hairs that fought to reach the surface of Ji-Won's head. She just wishes hers would fall instead of turning grey.
"What do I order?"
"You choose." the prosecutor left her stomach in Mi-Yeon's hands, as the later joined a taller tree under which she could make the call in silence.
Taking in consideration both how Ga-Hyeon loves to hold grudges and her temper who usually goes from zero to prison when the menstruation brings swords to practice archery with her uterus, Mi-Yeon was forgiven easily after getting on her bad side yesterday by requesting to take the case. Maybe the questions for interviewing the patients she wrote last night for Ga-Hyeon made the prosecutor leave everything behind, or maybe she didn't have enough energy to hate anyone today.
"Are we supposed to take the bus?" Ji-Won asked her, pressing his hands over his knees as his head turned to watch the bus leave the station. "Should we call an Uber?"
"I brought my car today, so no worries." she assured him, inhaling her own perfume which she sprayed on the edges of her wrists this morning. "I wouldn't be able to call one even if I wanted. I still haven't got time to recharge my phone credit. Yesterday night I barely found an Uber."
"But you said you visited Kim Min-Sik so he could make a call?"
"Oh?" Ga-Hyeon's eyebrows run to the end of her forehead as she recalls the events happened the other day. "You're right. He told me he'd call his grandmother, I left after he did."
"Well, try and call her back? You may need to pay her a visit before the police does."
So she did. Her fingers skate on the screen, dropping her off to the phone calls history. Ga-Hyeon remembered quite well that she needs a recharge at the end of every month as her mother always scolds her when she doesn't, so the woman didn't bother to try and call anyone after. The supposed number was happily leading the list.
"I don't think it's an available number.." her voice slipped out of her mouth in a confused tone. Fixing her hair initially messed up by the playful wind, she moved closer to the man, reading out the contact. "3 1 13 5 18 1. It's not even the right number of digits."
"If it's not a phone number then what would it be? And why would he dial it instead?"
Ga-Hyeon was sure there was a reason hiding behind the strange digits chilling in her phone calls list, because even if Min-Sik's speech seemed unorganized and cheap...well, there was no because, but she was overall to overworked and desperate to think of another reason, so her eyes didn't move off the screen until she understood the meaning behind. But when it did hit her, she couldn't even feel the asphalt under feet.
"It's a code! Three is C, one is A...it spells C. A. M. E. R. A.! Shit!" her hands went to scratch the back of her head, the hand phone holding on the end of the bench. "Take Mi-Yeon and run to the car, tell her to end the call, ain't none of us eating lunch today."