March 09, Year 2016
Interrogation Room 1

"Do you smoke?"

"No, sir."

"Oh, I would have offered you a stick. Do you mind if I smoke here?"

"I don't mind sir. Yoongi hyung smokes, too."

Dongil stops tapping his packet for a mere second, a stick of cigarette ready to come out. He glances at Jungkook, he's just a boy, barely 19. He looks even younger with his slumped shoulders and blank eyes. Jungkook is not supposed to find dead bodies for breakfast. Dongil almost stops himself from smoking.

Almost.

Dongil lights up the stick in his mouth and inhales, there, now he is more confident to ask questions.

He doesn't normally smoke, but he needs it. At the end of this interview the boy might break down,

And he is expected to turn a blind eye.

No room for pity with the facts.

"Right, Jungkookie. Can you tell me why you were in Min Yoongi's apartment at 7:42 in the morning?"

Jungkook inhales, exhales. The smell of the cigarette comforts him somehow. He just have to think his Yoongi hyung is there urging him to talk.

With the cigarette smoke filling the air, it's easy.

He starts talking, "Hyung is a heavy sleeper—"

"I'm sorry, Jungkook. Can you address him with his name while you talk?"

"Yes, sir... Yoongi hyung is a heavy sleeper. He needed someone to wake him up today. I was always the one to wake him up so I was there at his apartment."

"Why does he need waking up?"

"We were supposed to go on a trip. Today is Yoongi hyung's birthday."

Dongil nods, scribbling on his notebook even though the room is already bugged.

Birthday huh... Poor kid, dying on his birthday.

"So, you came at his apartment to wake him up. How did you enter?"

"We all have an extra key to his apartment. He gave it to us."

"All? Who is this all?"

"The rest of us. There are seven of us friends sir, including Yoongi hyung."

"I see." Keys, Dongil writes it down and encircles it multiple times. "So, you go to Yoongi's apt to wake him for a trip, you use a key to enter, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"And then..? And then what Jungkook?"

Jungkook's shaking becomes noticeable, his knees go up and down in a fast pace, his hands fidgeting. He sweats at the sides of his face, down his neck, through his shirt, but is too distracted by his uneven breaths to wipe them off.

The cigarette smoke is suffocating him.

Dongil reaches out to Jungkook's left side for the smartly placed ash tray, stumping off his half burnt cigarette. Jungkook watches this happen, he doesn't take his eyes off of the cigarette.

Dongil sees and does it slow, taking his time to disintegrate the cigarette in his hands.

It has an effect on Jungkook, something Dongil wanted to achieve. The wary boy stills himself, holding back his breathe, as he watches the cigarette turn to a mangled mess. It looked nothing like it was before. It's just ash now.

Jungkook's eyes start to itch.

"Tell me what happened Jungkook." Dongil leans back on his seat and speaks in a singsong, almost accusing.

Jungkook's eyes flash. He didn't like that.

Jungkook bursts, "I only found him!"

"How? Tell me how?"

Jungkook talks in a panicked rush, "I shouted for him. He didn't respond. I went to his bed. He wasn't there. It looked like he didn't sleep there."

Dongil stayed stoic, unfazed. "That much we can assume on the scene of the crime. Tell me more Jungkook."

"I checked the bathroom next.."

"Yes."

"Hyung was... Hyung was there..."

Bile is rising up Jungkook's throat, his uneven breaths turning into heaves. It echoes around the small room, adding to the force trying to unhinge him.

Jungkook didn't want to hear himself tell it. He didn't want to find Yoongi dead again.

"Sir... I don't think I can continue."

"That's what Yoongi's heart said."

Jungkook didn't even had the emotional strength to flinch at the cruel joke.

Dongil's changes back his tone, satisfied enough. "Jungkook, we both know you're not leaving without this information. Be a good son now... and a good friend."

Jungkook pressed his eyes closed, but opened them immediately, as if terrified.

The blood seemed so red everytime he closed his eyes.

The words crawl out his mouth, "He was sprawled... on the floor... face down. There was blood everywhere."

"What did you do Jungkook?"

"Nothing. I did nothing."

Jungkook's tears started to fall. They fell endlessly, a waterfall of grief and guilt. Jungkook couldn't keep it in anymore, his shell shook enough to break, releasing tears, releasing truths.

It's true. He did nothing.

"I just... I looked at him and I... I couldn't— g od I couldn't believe what I was seeing."

Dongil kept silent. He just watched Jungkook break even more.

"I didn't even turn him around. I was afraid to touch him. B-but the blood... the blood kept spreading on the floor... as if begging me to look."

Jungkook's eyes are unseeing. He isn't in the interrogation room anymore, he's in a trance, brought back to Yoongi's apartment.

Dongil closed his fist to prevent waking the boy. This will traumatize Jungkook, but Dongil needed the information.

Jungkook speaks slowly, uneven breaths in between, "It was Yoongi hyung's blood... H-he was dead... Or dying... I don't know. I-I don't want to know."

Dongil kept his air, "You didn't want to know... so you just walked away?"

Jungkook bowed his head, desperately raking his hands through his hair. He pulls at it, angry at himself. He remembers walking away... he remembers it too well.

Dongil speaks once more, time to lay the facts, "Jungkook, you went to Yoongi at 7:42. You came out fifteen minutes later according to the landlord. Then you phoned 119 ten more minutes after that, and at a payphone, when you could've dialled from your own phone. So much time wasted, Jeon Jungkook."

Jungkook still has his head down when he speaks, he's sobbing uncontrollably now. "What if... What if you..."

"What if I arrest you?"

Jungkook's hands stop moving at once, his breaths also in a stand still. He remembers... He remembers being scared. He remembers standing still for whole minutes, not processing what he is seeing. Yet after the shock of Yoongi's blood, what he remembers next is being flooded with thoughts of jail.

Why... Why did he even think of jail when all he should be thinking about is helping Yoongi?

Why is even more scared of jail?

Jungkook finally looks up at Dongil. With wrung eyes and tear-stained cheeks, he questions his own actions.

Should he? Should he be arrested?

Dongil stares him down, "I hope you understand that what you did just tied you closer to the crime. And I can do nothing but pin you down."

Jungkook swallows, the next words hard to say. "I didn't do it."

"That's what you'll say son. And all the other people."

Dongil stands up with an exhale. He leaves Jungkook alone in the interview room.

Jungkook stays there, staring blankly at the crushed cigarette for the longest time.