Silence had fallen after TaeYong's announcement as his intentions were more than questioning and even though you more than wanted to hear what he was about to say, you didn't refrain from making your doubts clear.
"If you really have decided to do so, then go ahead and speak up first. Me nor Mr.Officer here will let interrupt you no matter what. Let's see how much your truth much up with the proof we have collected till now." Your statement let NamJoon understand clearly of your disbelief as well as made him aware that his conclusions related to the case were unknown to the two male individuals in the room and as such you two could easily bluff about your obtained knowledge and possible proof you may have in your possession.
"Acceptable. Before starting though, I would like to clarify that the truth may make you more miserable than you may have already been. Do you still choose to hear it, Y/N?" TaeYong looked at you and you stared back maintaining your proper posture making him understand your reply, before you had the need to speak it out loud.
"Nothing can be more miserable than being in uncertainty. Please go ahead."
"Wait! I am sorry Mrs.Lee but I have a question I would like it to be answered before he goes on."NamJoon spoke up, his words creating confusion to the others as well as Jimin who punched the window of the car out of tension, by the sudden halt he brought while he was eagerly waiting for TaeYong to start speaking.
"What that question may be Mr.Officer?" LeeGuk replied to him and Namjoon made his thoughts concrete.
"What is the reason that you have decided to speak of this now? I am sure you know that your actions are more than suspicious and contradictory and somehow the situation makes me uncertain of the value of truth behind anything that may leave your mouth. Related to that, I hope that you are aware that you are speaking to a police officer and by law, lying to me will end up at a disadvantage and you may get accused of deliberate deception towards the police." Namjoon left out his professional words, wanting to establish a state of fear and a feeling of control from his side which was bound to play a certain psychological role to the person in front of him.
"Thank you for informing me of my situation Mr.Officer but believe me, there are way more risks than this laying for me as I am about to speak. However, no matter how unbelievable it may sound to some in this room, the reason I am speaking about it, is a personal one. I want to get it out of my chest because it's hard living with burdens of the past and a ghost of someone I love, haunting my dreams." TaeYong explained sincerely while looking at NamJoon then turned and faced you, whom he could sense that you were highly doubting him still.
"You could consider this my breaking point Y/n. You wanted the truth and I will give it to you and then you just have to live with it, just like I did from that day on. Because there is nothing you can do."
"Just start talking." You responded a bit abruptly to him as you didn't appreciate the way he spoke to you. It was as if he was telling you just to make you suffer more by being unable to serve justice but there was no way you wouldn't do so. Even if it came to the need to turn the whole world upside down, you were going to discover the truth and bring peace to her soul.
"Me and Miss MinHee were in a relationship which for career reasons it was better to be held private. We dated secretly and we were madly in love with each other." TaeYong started and his eyes closed while his memory traveled back on the days he used to laugh wholeheartedly, enjoying the fact that he was alive to the fullest just because she was there with him. The one and only that ever managed to make his heart beat furiously like that and made his mind so full of her beautiful existence.
"We used to meet up at her house in Busan since it was secluded and as such safer. I had made her swear to me, to not talk about our relationship to anyone and I thought that she had kept her promise." He looked at you as he spoke those words, making it clear that MinHee had not kept that promise as she apparently had talked about it with you.
"Everything was great. I passed the happiest moment of my life with her. I was so into it that I got carried away and forgot that I was not just someone who was allowed to love so casually." His expression showed his sadness as he uttered that bitter reality that was an obvious scar for him and right there and then, for a brief moment, you could relate to him. To the fact of being deprived by things that would be considered normal by other people.
"The night of her death, we had a date. We were supposed to meet at her house in Busan. I arrived there around 9 and found her cooking dinner. He chatting normally and told me that she had been there since five then we just enjoyed each other's company as always. Everything was so natural and the dinner was great as always. I remember telling her that her smile was what made my days less tiring as we both were gathering the dishes to wash them and she smiled brighter for me."He slipped into a personal scene as the sweet moment couldn't help but appear on his mind and he got sunk into his memories, forgetting that he was around people that had their eyes on him.
"And I ..at that moment couldn't help but think that she was the most beautiful scene I had ever seen. She was always someone so different from me. Her spirit was full of light and positivity. Her generous heart and life philosophies, her artistic nature, and the way she loved people. Everything was just so different from me but it was also what attracted me the most to her. It was really a perfect night..till the doorbell rung." His expression changed as he spoke of the sound that had turned to be a significant change in their lovely night. A sound now related to the terror that he has to hear around all his life because it is everywhere.
"We were watching a movie and I remember the time precisely because we had just finished it and she looked at her phone, suggesting that we should go to sleep. It was 23:32 precisely and of course a doorbell ringing at such an hour was more than suspicious because we weren't expecting anyone." TaeYong continued, his face growing paler as the minutes went by because he was reliving a traumatic moment of his life while speaking of it. He had gotten so deeply involved that he could even feel the same uneasy feeling he felt back then when he stood up and went to check who was it.
"I told her to wait there as I got up and went to the door, planning to just open it a bit while the safety chain was on and just see who was it that was ringing her doorbell at such a late hour...If I knew i might have not done so, really but yet again, there was no escape either way because I later got to know that the house was surrounded." He laughed for a moment, feeling stupid and hopeless as he did at that moment and you just looked at him, feeling the uneasy feeling growing on your stomach as his story wasn't going to anything pleasant.
"I was met with a gun on my forehead and the man ordered me to open the door fully. I initially just froze in place, but soon I started thinking that this may be some kidnapping case or anyone that was after me because of my position so I told them that I could just step out, hoping that they weren't aware of MinHee's existence and as such she was to not be put in danger. However they already knew and the man just kicked the door open, breaking the small chain." You took hold of your knees as he spoke, finding the situation he was talking of anxious and scary, even though you now knew the outcome of it.
"They broke in and I was pinned on the floor in no time. Her screaming voice reached my ears as she tried to run towards me but a guy pointed a gun at her, bringing her steps to a halt, while I just yelled out of fear, to leave her alone...She was trembling as she looked at me and the guns that were now above my head while several masked men had invaded the once peaceful space we shared...I will never forget the fear in her eyes and the fear in my heart of losing her." He smiled in an attempt to cover up his breaking emotions and LeeGuk lowered his gaze, feeling extremely empathetic for his friend at that instant while Namjoon just kept staring, analyzing his behavior and body language that till this moment, was guiding him to the conclusion that TaeYong was really telling the truth as no acting could reach this level of emotional conflict of his persona and his true feelings, that were meant to reflexively battle when someone was to be facing something that they have complex feelings overdoing, and him speaking about it was obviously a decision that he took hardly and was costing on his psychological state greatly.
"I tried to come to an agreement with them. I told them that I was gonna give them whatever was that they were asking for, be it money or anything that could possibly pass by my hand at the position I held. I made it clear that I was going to collaborate and that there was no need for all this violence yet they stay quiet and one of them just approached MinHee." TaeYong left his fist clench together at the memory that filled him with rage.
"He stood in front of her and announced that only one was to step away from this house alive. And then asked of her to watch me and she just stared towards me in shock and fear, feelings I kinda was experiencing myself yet I laughed at his words, calling his words an unnecessary game to play, as his establishment of fear, was unneeded since I was already willing to collaborate with any request that they may have...then...she stepped inside. Her hills echoed and pierced my ears making my blood freeze back then. I had no need to turn and see if it was her, I already knew that the night had no saving for me...Yet my heart thumbed in fear and anxiety, uncertainty. As if there was anything uncertain about death." Jimin felt his chest growing heavy as he listened through the line TaeYong's words that were much quieter for him because of the muffling that the pocket of which Namjoon had his phone into created to the sound, yet since he was into a quiet environment he was able to not miss a word of what was being said in there.
He had currently forgotten about his intentions of scooping around as it seems that it was unnecessary and TaeYong was finally really doing the right thing which was non-other but to face his past no matter how painful it may have been, for himself and not only. He sure was happy that TaeYong was doing something to prove himself as a better individual than he usually seems because he simply could always tell that he carried pain within him. The fear of death in his eyes, and the panicking state he was in while they had taken you to the hospital. It all made sense to him now. Because it wasn't the fact that he had seen death, but it was because he had been hurt by it since he had lost something of great importance to him and honestly at that very instant Jimin couldn't help but feel sympathetic. Who knew how he would have felt if he was to have been, in his state, and lose someone you love as much as his previous words made him seem that he loved her?
"She greeted us as if nothing was happening then extended her hand and ruffled my hair briefly. A touch to which I reflexively pulled away, making her speak up about my action which she called 'funny'...' You dislike my touch now? Oh well, at some point you were asking for it so eagerly though' she laughed and I just looked at MinHee with a desperate gaze. I wanted to apologize to her so badly because I knew now that it was my fault. I was the cause that she got caught up in all that. If only she had never met me she would have been alive today." Regret was dripping from his lips like the raindrops that started clashing one by one at the balcony window that was in the living room.
"She told MinHee what I did to her. How I used her and then threw her away. How terrible I was for using her heart like that and thinking that she was gonna let me live happily unpunished. She told her how unworthy of her love I was and honestly, I can't disagree now but at the moment I really wanted her love more than anything, cause I was in love with MinHee. No matter how unworthy, you just want and hope for your feelings to be returned, right?... I was no different." He looked down as he spoke of these words and somehow at that very instant he looked the most pathetic you had ever seen him in your life however the fact that he was admitting that it was his fault and that he was indeed the one that had put her in danger had your blood boiling, even though till that moment, you were doing a good job at keeping your self-control.
"She ordered one of her men to bring a rope and they hang it at the ceiling in the living room, on the chandelier that was her favorite as she had designed it herself and then they placed a chair under the hanging rope that at first, I thought that was waiting for me. However that thought of mine was quickly dismissed as she asked of MinHee to make a choice... "
"What are you-"
"She told her that she had two options. Stay and see me get murdered right in front of her eyes or willingly give up her life, and place her neck in that rope." He stated, ignoring your voice that had tried to speak to him earlier, imagining what he was going to say yet finding it absurd and shocking enough to make you speak up, in disbelieve of it being the truth.
"She did not! You are lying!" You stood up as this was something you were not willing to accept not because technically it was her own choice at the end that seemed to have taken her life but because that fact made it impossible for you to accuse anyone by law for her murder.
"Mrs. Lee. Please calm down." Namjoon stood up and gently grabbed your shoulder as he was more than understanding your anger.
"She stepped on that chair and placed that rope on her neck with her own hand and all while she was looking at me..then...she smiled, apologizing to me because she wasn't strong enough to see me die and so she had doomed me instead with that painful view. She said that I should live well and do better. 'I want you to be happy because I love you'" TaeYong repeated her last words before the chair was kicked off her feet and his screams had filled the room while the bodies of many were keeping him down, while he desperately was trying to get to her and get her out of that rope that was taking her life away.
Tears strolled down his cheeks as he felt his heart sinking in misery and you just stood there staring at him, left in shock as well as a mind full of confusion and questions. But mostly you were mad. Angry at how true this could be because she indeed loved him too much and it was just so sad that you were unable to hold back your own tears.
So that was how her life ended? Till the last moment she indeed loved him madly after all. He indeed was the cause of her death even though not exactly as you had assumed him to be and that nameless woman was also at fault as she was the one that put her into that situation of having to choose his life over her own. That woman who clearly never intended to really kill TaeYong had deceived her into making that choice, while still to this day hoping that she could have him to herself and as such now trying to get rid of you too since you were his wife. Such an individual, with such malice in their heart , was somewhere out there, unpunished, living her life normally as if she had never caused the death of an innocent soul. Just how were you supposed to stay calm at this information.
"Tell me, please tell me that there is a way to still legally go after her for her doing." You turned and faced Namjoon, your eyes displaying your desperation while your voice sounded clearly pleading that made Jimin on the other line step out of his car, understanding that you were about to break down.
He was able to detect when you were being emotionally unstable because he had witnessed it before how much of a triggering topic MinHee's death, in general, was to you and he also knew well how much you craved for that justice to come since that was the main reason you were chasing the truth so eagerly, however as he stepped out of the vehicle, he hesitated to proceed as even though he was worried and wanted to be there for you, he knew that he had no place in there.
"Mrs.Lee...We don't have enough proof against her to go legally after her. And the fact that she didn't force her is also something that cannot be ignored. No report was ever filed for this case and as such no case is open and legally those are actions that have no happened since they can't be proven. Even if Mr. TaeYong here, whom was directly involved was to testify about it, having in mind the power of that woman...We would possibly lose the case."NamJoon spoke truthfully even though reality was bitter even for him at the moment but he could not lie to you especially at that moment.
"How do you know that she is a powerful individual? Have you perhaps-?"LeeGuk questioned NamJoon's words and he diverted his attention to him before throwing a quick glance at TaeYong.
"Let's say that a wild thought so happened to pass by in my head one day but as Mr.TaeYong was speaking, I got certain of her identity," NamJoon admitted as now all the pieces had perfectly fallen together in his head.
"You spoke of use. That you used her heart for beneficial reasons. Knowing that you have no need financially that leaves us only with one field which at the time you were still rising into. Politics. And there is only one female, powerful enough to secure you any position you may have wanted, level you up like a miracle. Making you the prodigy young politician that you are today."NamJoon went on with his explanation and Jimin's and your eyes grew wide simultaneously at the thought that crossed your heads.
"That's right...I was romantically involved in an affair with Oh HaNeul. I sold love to the wife of the prime minister of our country..." TaeYong admitted, his words literally making your world come to a stop for a moment.
"It was an action-driven by his ambition that he came to regret. He broke up with her right after he got what he wanted, knowing that she could not really threaten him with the affair since if it was to surface it would harm her too and not just him. He basically closed her mouth skillfully however we never thought that she would go this far. She grew obsessed with having him no matter what and truthfully, no matter how much we have thought of this, there is no solution that wouldn't take us down as well." LeeGuk clarified further as he didn't want to let you think that TaeYong was dating your friend and her simultaneously because yes, he may have done many foolish actions, but his love for MinHee was something that him as his friend knew, that was uncountable and as such wanted to defend that statement.
"It is highly risky of us to speak of it as we are equally involved however TaeYong has suffered enough living in this state. I urged him to speak of the truth in search of redemption as something that could possibly ease his soul. I hope you don't judge him harshly." He concluded and you turned your sharp and deadly gaze at him before you marched closer to TaeYong and just left your hand rise and collide with force on his cheek.
The room grew quiet of your sudden action as everyone was caught unprepared of your reaction considering how proper and well mannered you always were and how well you used to manage your self-control. A thing that was long gone as your emotions had taken full control of you at that moment as you stared at him sternly, with teary eyes and wet cheeks.
"Judge?Redemption? You are feeling guilty? You damn right should be!" You yelled at him and only Jimin that was outside was the one that instead of shocked was carried a sad expression on his face, understanding your reaction well enough.
"Because of your stupid ambitions, someone lost their life! Because of your inability to calculate the consequences of your own actions, someone lost their only daughter! I lost my only friend!" You yelled again , tears escaping from your eyes as a raging expression had now taken over your usually collected face.
"And you still dare stand before me like this? You dare threaten me and scheme to destroy my life? How can you ever think that you can be forgiven when every action you do is so undeserving of it!" TaeYong lowered his head at your words as he knew that you were right and even though he had done nothing but try to survive and put his life back together since then, he was also aware that he had done nothing deserving of anyone's forgiveness mostly because he didn't care of what others were to think of him. All he ever wished for was MinHee's forgiveness but somehow at that moment, under that stare of your full of anger and pain, for the first time in his life, he found himself, feeling guilty towards you as well.
"Y/N Wait!" LeeGuk called after you as you just turned around and stormed out, not wanting to have his face in front of you, not even for a second more.
You opened the door and just rushed out till you took notice of Jimin that was standing right there in front of you as some mere feet distance. He looked at you with a gaze full of understanding and sympathy and you really hated that at that instant because it really made you want to throw yourself at his arms at that moment and let his warmth engulf you in this painful for you, moment.
"Y/N" He called your name, so delicately and caringly that just made you feel a slight pain in your chest and as he took one more step towards you and he reached his hand out to touch you, all you could do was stare at his eyes full of worry and whisper for him to stop.
Jimin instantly brought his movements to a halt and his eyes searched in yours as if he was begging you to accept him at that moment and let him soothe your pain, in any way he could possibly manage. He was willing to do anything, after all, to change those eyes of yours that looked so sad and broken at that moment simply because he couldn't take the pain of seeing you like this. His heart ached in ways he could find it impossible to explain.
"Don't call my name. I don't need you. I don't need anyone."You told him as you held your head high, pretending as if your tears were invisible.
"I have no need of anyone's sympathy nor pity. For I will bring justice no matter what to her soul. Do you hear me?! I won't let her live unpunished. Even if it costs my life!" You stated firmly as the determination was burning like wildfire in your eyes.
How were they expecting you to really just stay still and live your life after this? How were you supposed to give up just because just was impossible to be placed upon her? It was too much of an injustice to accept. It was too long of a time suffering and swearing to make it happen. How could they really expect of you, to take back your words and betray your friend like this?
"Y/N. Please don't say that. You need to live." Jimin told you and you just stepped at the side and passed him by before letting your last words reach his ears.
"But she doesn't."
---To be continued...
{4367 words. I hope your eyes didn't get tired and that the chapter even though long, wasn't boring. It's past midnight here so Good Night to you all. I really hope you enjoy this chapter. See you soon~ Stay healthy~}