Hello and welcome back to GMSF!

If you've forgotten the events of how we ended up here, or have a vague idea because it's not like I disappeared for three months >.>, I'd suggest just briefly skimming the last chapter to jog your memory and that should be enough? It just never sits right with me to give up, mid-way, on a mystery/thriller. The conclusion is important to this genre.

Ready?

Oh, I hope you do.

Because this is not going to be pretty.

# TW | sadistic bastard + mentions of violence and incest. Fair warning.

normal = current events unfolding

bold action + bold & italicised dialogue + centre alignment = kit's recording

bold + italicised dialogue + normal action + right alignment = transcripted recounting of the events, narrated by detective moore + a surprising individual

'The Funeral'

Saturday

THE DETECTIVE HAS LISTENED TO THIS RECORDING FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME. And every time, he can't shake the small smile that tugs at his lips at how. . . young and boyish the speaker sounds to his ears. And yet, it's strong. Confident. A young man with thrown back shoulders, a raised chin, and a smile who knew everything with a carefree thought to it.

So different from the boy lying limp on the hospital bed.

The recording stutters with a crackle, echoing almost, but the voice is unmistakable amidst distortion.

"... ahh," he hums. There's movement of padded feet, of cloth against the receiver. "I look really nice in a suit, huh?"

The recording continues, but there's an overlap. A clearer voice speaking through; soft, bright, and determined.

"- it's in his pocket," the voice said, "the phone. It's always so muffled when he's not holding it. He must've put it there to admire himself better with poses in front of the mirror. Kit always makes sure to look his best before leaving, despite how casual he is about it. Never believe him, he always puts in the effort."

Aron Kiurtsch calm, cheery face perk up at it. He admires it, twisting his head, as if he's willing it to speak again.

"- it's- "

"Sunny Finch," Detective Moore rolls her name off like a poem's finishing stanza. "She deigned us to share her side of the story, alongside that of her currently inebriated best friend."

"A story, detective, must be told through a narrator." Her voice was softer then, the side of her face bloomed in bruises of varying degrees, bloating it in uneven parts and had kept her left eye uncomfortably shut. But she sat on the hospital bed with determination; a quiet displacement despite the ragged way she breathed or the continuous shifting of her forefinger on the thin blanket covering her.

She was tracing something he couldn't make sense of.

Sunny Finch was bent forward, gasping in a mouthful of oxygen, voice ever so soft and scratchy, but her one good eye carefully showed through a strength of will that refused to break.

She met his gaze then, the one side of her mouth that she could lift twitching to a ghost of maybe a beautiful, serene smile. A little cheeky maybe. "And this murder should be told by the three narrators, the ones that make up the story. The sleuth, the victim, and the murderer."

"And which are you?" he had asked, unable to stop himself once the question was out. If she didn't send her parents and uncles out, he'd probably be thrown out of the building already. There was something about her that was so. . . normal yet captivating.

Her mouth twitches again. "Isn't it up to the reader- well I guess here, the listener, to determine who I am?"

"You are good looking," a different voice punctures through the recording. It's aged, male, and chuckling a little. There's a thick undertone of an accent in the words. "You take after me, you know?"

Aron Kiurtsch listens, enraptured, at the audio recording. Detective Moore watches at what he's waiting for, and a smile pulls at the end of his lips at Sunny's voice floating once again. The detective's eyes narrow.

There's an obsession there. Maybe. . . a fascination, but one that the detective can't pinpoint where it comes from or where it ends. It makes the back of his neck slither down a cold stream of apprehensive agitation.

"Who's that?" Detective Moore's voice floats through, hearing a click as he paused the transcript.

"That's Kit's dad. Kit didn't have a simple black and white suit so he borrowed his father's. Stepfather. He's bulkier than him so it's thick on his shoulders, but Kit is taller so it looks. . . awkward but good on him?"

"Stepfather?"

There's a hint of fondness in her voice as she answered, "His dad is his stepfather. His biological father is his father. There's a difference."

"I see."

A shuffling noise; the muffled sound is gone and there's a louder sound of tapping.

"Kit is texting Lorcan right now," Sunny hummed. "He has dexterous fingers and the app will continue to record even if he opens a different app. You have to pay for it monthly, but Kit says it's well worth the use. It has a lot of recording options."

"Texting Sunny?" his dad asks.

There's a humorous lilt in Kit's voice when he replies- "It's messaging now, appa, get in with the times." His dad mutters something incorrigible that has Kit laughing for real. "And no, Sunny's not my only friend. It's Lorcan."

"Who's that?"

"A good kid. I think you know his brothers, the Delos Reyes twins?"

The detective frowns as Mr. Kiurtsch gives out a small laugh. He pauses the recording and the young man looks up, a questioning gaze on his face.

I don't like your face, Moore thinks but can't say, though it's clearly projected on his features. Instead, the detective asks with a strained smile, "Penny for your thoughts?"

"Not a lot of thoughts in here, detective," he says languidly, lightly tapping the side of his head as he leans back on his chair with a sigh. "Nothing but. . . amusement."

"'Amusement'?"

"Mhm." His eyes are a light shade of blue. A sky shade of blue. And there is something so unnerving to the innocence in them. "I'm not the only bad guy of this story, sir. 'The Delos Reyes twins'." He scoffs lightly, his eyes roaming around the small room until they land on the one-way mirror. He smirks at it, as if he knows who's behind, watching him like a caged animal.

He narrates his piece all the while staring straight through the dark reflection of himself. "When it comes to twins, there's no individuality, isn't it? You'll always be referred to as a singular person. And if you're identical twins, even your parents can't tell the difference that sometimes, in exasperation, you're called as one unit. 'The twins'. Because you were born this way, and you grow up with your. . . special other half, you can never really see the difference. Not if anybody looked closer and especially, if your individuality is in here."

He points to his head, turning to the detective then, smirking. "You know you're smarter, better in here but you can't prove it. You were raised to love one another and it feels like you're betraying them if you point it out. After all, your other half is the stupider one. Prone to more mistakes, to more fuckups. Wouldn't it just hurt if they make a mistake, and you, you who has always done the right thing, the proper thing, gets scolded in their place just because you look like them? Told to hold back?

Your parents will apologise after, of course, once they realise, ah, it's not the fuckup one. But inside, there's something that'll fester. That until you can show them what you are, you'll always be one single unit and his mistakes will always be yours. It'll burrow deep in your head, in fact, deep enough that you start thinking, 'ah, if I don't leave now, it'll actually be my fault. I'll actually become the fuckup.' Because you're his other half and you, knowing him better than anyone else, should've fucking known."

The detective calmly looks at him. Through his monologue, spittle had flown and one, shiny chain is hanging on his lower lip that he easily cleans with one swipe.

"What're you getting at, kid?"

"It festers," he answers simply, "-it rots. It fucks up your head. But all I really want you to know is that I'm not the only one facing judgement today, because I'm not the only one responsible for all of this, as much as I'd like to stake claim on being the brilliance behind it." His eyes are shiny as he says, "There's the professor... the other twin... I can't be the only one responsible for this."

"No," the detective says, lightly tapping his fingers on the metal table. "you're not the only one responsible. But in this judgement, I'm your jury. Now. Care to hear the rest of it?"

He exhales, eyes crinkled with untold mirth. "All ears for my precious sunshine."

Moore slips; he can't help it. The nickname had brought a steely anger to flicker in his eyes that had Aron giggling stupid.

"Tsk, tsk, detective, you shouldn't care for such a young girl."

It irks him, he can't help it. His reply is colder than he intends. "Like how you cared for your sister?"

Aron stills for a second, just enough for the detective to catch it. He didn't expect that. But he smirks. Languid and teasing. "She's not really my sister, you know. She's my precious, precious cousin. Her family adopted me because I was such a great big brother for her."

The detective can't show it, but underneath the table he clenches and unclenches his fist. The officers would be scrambling behind the one-way mirror right now, with Officer Adebayo most likely the one shouting orders. No one knew that and someone had to pick that apart now, before this entire interview is over.

Cousin. They're cousins?

There's a trail, a string tugs. The woman in the detective's head hums teasingly.

Pull, darling. Pull.

Moore clears his throat. "Shall we?"

Aron shrugs.

The detective presses play.

"-that kid coming with you to the funeral too?"

"Yeah, he goes to the same school as us," Kit replies. "We're meeting up there."

A lull in the conversation.

". . . give the brother my condolences."

". . . Appa, I don't think I'd be coming up to him. We didn't really know her that well."

"Still. Respect is important, especially since it's his sister who died. In a bad condition too. Tsk, tsk. Pick some flowers at the shop before you go."

"Okay."

The recording beeped, alerting the finished piece. There was a shuffle in the background from when Sunny shifted. She coughs slightly and Moore handed her a glass of water.

"Thank you." She cleared her throat. "I went there with my mother and Uncle Terrence. My dad couldn't come- he and Uncle Charles were following up on a lead. I couldn't find out what it was. We all piled into my uncle's car. My thoughts couldn't settle. Everything about the case so far was jumbled- like I'm looking at them in a small fishbowl. All these evidences, these facts, the occurrences. The people. Something was making me worried but I didn't know what. We got there and the service had already started- Sasha's grave was a little ways in the middle of the cemetery. Kit had waited at the bottom of the steps for us, and he bowed formally- he always did - to greet my mom and uncle."

Sunny inhaled raggedly, her exhales in spills of rough breath.

"You okay, kid?"

"I'm fine."

"We can stop."

Moore can remember how vehemently she shook her head.

"No, it's okay. Hmm. Kit didn't record until we got there. We stood just a row behind the priest- there were no seats, just a cluster of people surrounding the grave site. Everyone looked somber, listening to the priest's strong rumbling- his voice carried far and loud. I recognised a few people from school, but most from town. Lorcan was there with his mother and two brothers. Oh, and his niece. She was a cute little thing. Small with big, owlish eyes. Pollux held her as the priest droned on."

Sunny played the recording, and though muffled, a strong, grave voice was delivering a sermon.

"Aron Kiurtsch," Sunny started, and her voice is loud in the tiny space of the four-walled room. The young man in question sat up at the mention of his name. "He had a buzzcut and he was standing opposite of the priest, facing the white casket from there. His head hung. . . low. It was hard to make out his expression, and I don't know why, but I just. . . couldn't keep my eyes off him. There was something about him that. . . itched my fingers."

". . . Can you please explain why you mean by that?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I've just always had these feelings, tingles. My head was already clouded, but looking at him turned it all into a white-noise. It was still scrambled, but now it was loud and unnerving. An omen of a kind."

She laughed through a scratched throat. "You can ignore this as the sinister mutterings of the already known future but. . . I didn't know why I kept staring at him then.

"What's funnier is that I'm on the shorter side. Taller than my mum, but only through a small blessing of my dad's genes. We were behind by a couple of people and I was partially behind Uncle Terrence- he's a tall guy with broad shoulders and a very serious face. He can look. . . a bit mean without meaning too. But he's very good looking that people tend to stare. But I was sure, once or twice, I caught his eye. And then his face sort of dips."

"Dips?"

"His chin. And then his face would soften. It was. . . pitying. As if it was an acknowledgement of the stare." Sunny breathed again. Moore can remember how she had straightened herself, only to stop and wince when she moved most of her tenderer parts. Before he could call in for a nurse, she was already exhaling, leaning back on the pillows. "There's not a lot in this record. Just the very muffled sermon. Oh, I think this was when we were supposed to lay the flowers. There were white lilies and pink tulips. Her favourite flowers. I know her through little facts and gossips. She was a few years older and was well-known around. Cheerful, the word they used. Some girls called it 'fake'.

A few really ugly ones were 'slut' and 'whore' written on the school's bathroom, but popular girls' names were always in the public bathroom. Isla's had been there a few times. She'd written replies to them. I do know that she was nice, Sasha. Or she just liked cats. I saw her once, feeding a stray cat in the middle of class. I went out to the bathroom and I don't know if she skipped, but she was outside, just on one of the side exits by the chain link fence, and she pulled out cans of cat food.

I knew her house was in Lang-Air Road. I knew she lived with her brother and that her mother worked in the city. She came home once a month and gave them money. Her favourite shirt was this pink sweatshirt with a lemon in the middle because I heard her say it in the cafeteria. She would bring her ukelele sometimes too, though she isn't part of any musical club."

Now Sunny looked hesitant, uncomfortable. She fiddled with her thin blanket, breathing moving faster.

"What is it, Ms. Finch? Are you okay?"

"I am, I'm okay. When it comes to investigations, I know that everything I know is important, yes? Everything I've seen, heard, and witnessed?"

Moore had shifted in his seat then. "Of course. Anything you know is important to this investigation. Relevancy can be picked apart later."

"I didn't mean it," she said quietly.

The Detective Moore now reaches over the phone and raises the volume so that every word she speaks next is loud and clear. Aron gives him a curious look, but the detective only sets his jaw and tries for that strained smile again.

He hates this. He hates this young man, he can feel it in his bones. For what he did to these girls, for what he did to his own sister. Cousin.

"I never mean it. It's just when something catches my eye, I just stare at it. See what happens. People are like books- they write themselves, flip each page, see new chapters. And they're very interesting, and in that empty hallway, looking at Sasha was interesting. People are so different when they think no one else can see them, yes?"

She breathes raggedly. "There was a car honk. It was loud, it startled the cats. It made me jump. Sasha's face- pale and heart-shaped - turned pink. She glared at the person who did it, but she collected her things, leaving the cans she already opened and stuffing the rest that she couldn't back in her bag. She was quick then, her eyes glancing back and forth to the school.

People cut class all the time. There's no security guard in the vicinity and not a lot of teachers really care, but still. To honk that loudly- even Sasha was annoyed. I wanted to see who she was skipping with, picking her up without caring. Or maybe they just wanted to tease her, you know? She was by no means called a 'saint', but she didn't seem like the type of person who'd skip class just for the hell of it. Plus, she was always with her friends and it didn't seem like her friends from school.

I walked to the side, careful not be seen, and I peeked. It was a familiar car. A sort of gray-blue car. It looked old. Sasha was annoyed, knocking on the back of it- she wanted to put her things in the trunk. I could barely see the driver until he stepped out.

It was Aron. He sighed with exaggeration, rolling his eyes as he came around the back. He sort of fumbled on the lock for a bit before he pulled- hard. I think the trunk was broken. She was saying something as she placed her things, moving other things around- there were a lot, and she looked annoyed, ranting. Aron just stared at her the entire time, watched her face. It's as if he was. . . committing her face to memory. No, no. I think? Hm."

Sunny had squeezed her eyes at this part, trying hard to remember something. "It wasn't like he was watching another person. It was a very. . . neutral expression. But he was. . . studying her as she ranted. Then he turned her- like took her hand and spun her. He pushed her, not hard, so she would lose her balance and she'd end up sitting on the trunk. The look on her face was. . . weird. She looked surprised at first, but not shock. And when she looked up, he bended down, saying something, his lips were barely moving."

She retched lightly, and it alarmed him, but she only shook her hand. She turned pale, Moore remembered. Sweating too. Once she began breathing rapidly, her heart monitor going wild, he pressed for the nurse, telling her it was going to be okay when he didn't even know it was true.

She was breathing so shallowly, you could hear it in the phone now. She had grasped his hand just before the nurses came.

"He kissed her. And brothers aren't supposed to do that, right? Brothers and sisters? I was shocked- it was like a horror film you couldn't look away from. They- they broke away when he slipped his hand further down her skirt and she pushed him. She looked flustered but not surprised. Like it happened before. Like it happens often. Like it's normal. She said something, spat- spat something. It was something harsh, the way her face contorted. But Aron only stared at her. She shot the school a look before scrambling for the passenger's seat door. Aron shut the trunk and lazily walked back. Then they drove away. Ah. Ah. That's it."

The nurses had came now, along with the doctor, but the detective couldn't move away at the cleared look on her face. She had found something- a thread for her thought.

"What is?" he pressed, he couldn't help it. The nurses were trying to pull him away then, but Sunny Finch still answered.

"His gaze then, at the funeral. Surely an expression like that isn't the expression of someone who had lost a sibling? Or a lover?"

"What expression?"

"As if he didn't care. Of course now we know why. But that expression then. That was the first clue, I think. For me. There was no sadness, no. . . no deep-seated grieving. There was a pitying look to him, yes, but it felt like an emotion he just. . . wore. That's the best word for it- he wore pity. But there was no agony. It was a very simplistic expression. It was a very. . . matter of fact expression.

I just couldn't shake the white-noise in my head. A white noise that quiets down when I look at Aron Kiurtsch.

And then the funeral ended."

Oh. Hi?

How are you?

How was that storytelling style? There's a story within a story within a story. Kit's recorder, Sunny's transcript, and the current events between Detective Moore + Aron Kiurtsch.

The murderer.

The victim.

The sleuth.