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[Bills ] - [Enhypen]

Vienna sat in the interrogation room, her body slumped but her expression unreadable. The dim light cast shadows across her pale face, and her eyes, heavy with fatigue, stared blankly ahead.

Every question, every accusation hurled at her, she deflected with quiet precision, her voice steady and composed, as if she had rehearsed this moment a thousand times.

"Where were you the night Hana disappeared?"

"Do you know why the suspect did this?"

Each inquiry was met with calm denials.

"No," she would answer, her tone neutral, eyes unblinking. "I don't know anything."

The officers circled her like vultures, their voices growing sharper with each failed attempt to break her. But Vienna remained unshaken, her exhaustion hidden beneath a veneer of practiced calm.

They pushed harder, searching for a crack in her facade, but Vienna had learned to build walls no one could breach.

Inside, though, her heart raced with fear and uncertainty. The weight of it all pressed down on her chest, suffocating her, but she couldn't let them see that. Not now. Not ever.

Placing the tip of the pen at the bottom of the transcript, Vienna hesitated for a moment before beginning to ink her signature. Each stroke felt heavier than the last, as though the weight of her choices had transferred into the pen.

Vienna she wrote, and the irony of her name stung—Vienna, brave like the city, yet she felt anything but brave.

She stared at her signature, the name that once felt like hers now foreign, distant. The longer she gazed at the word "Vienna," the more it morphed into something unfamiliar, as if it didn't belong to her at all. The letters blurred together, shapeless, meaningless.

In that moment, the person she thought she was felt further away than ever.

In the other cold, sterile room, Ni-ki sat with a blank expression, his eyes dull as the interrogation dragged on. His silence had initially been unsettling, but now he was answering every question thrown his way without hesitation, as if resigned to his fate.

The police had already found key pieces of evidence—his burned yellow raincoat and a bloodstained shirt. But the murder weapon was still missing.

"What about the first victim?" the detective asked, his voice sharp. "What do you remember about her?"

Ni-ki's face remained impassive, as though discussing something mundane. "Not much," he replied flatly. "She had... big breasts, I guess." His eyes flickered briefly, but they were void of emotion. "I was nervous—it was my first time. She was scared. Didn't even try to fight back... just kept begging me not to hit her."

" Why do you wear a raincoat?"

"In order to avoid leaving any evidence at the crime scene," Ni-ki said calmly, his tone chillingly matter-of-fact. "I didn't want them to fight back. I was afraid they'd leave something behind—scratch me, tear my clothes, anything that could be used against me."

His words betrayed an eerie level of calculation. Every move he made had been meticulously planned, each step taken with caution to avoid detection. He wasn't reckless—he was deliberate, almost surgical in his approach.

The officers shifted in their seats, unnerved by his detachment. Finally, one of them spoke, steering the conversation toward Hana's murder.

" When did you start paying attention to Hana? Before her, your victims all had something in common—innocence, obedience. But Hana was different. She wasn't obedient. She wasn't innocent."

Ni-ki's lips twitched slightly, not quite a smile but something close. "She caught my eye because she wasn't like the others," he admitted, his voice low. "She was a challenge... unpredictable." He leaned back in his chair, his eyes glinting briefly. "And that made her interesting."

"Were you tailing Hana the day she disappeared?"

Ni-ki's eyelids fluttered for a moment before he met the interrogation officer's gaze, his voice eerily calm. "Originally, I planned to follow her for a while, figure out her routine, where she went, who she saw. I wanted to wait until the right moment, after dark, when it would be easier."

He paused, his gaze drifting for just a second as if reliving the memory. "But when I caught her alone behind that hill near her school, in broad daylight... I couldn't wait. It felt like the perfect opportunity."

Shotaro, the lead interrogator, was focused, barely blinking as he took in Ni-ki's words. The fluency with which Ni-ki recounted the events was chilling—there was no hesitation, no remorse. Just cold, clinical precision.

"So, you committed the crime on that hill?"

"Yes. Right there, where no one would find us until it was too late."

The air in the room thickened, the brutality of his words cutting deeper with every detail.

"Why did you murder Hana?" The officer's voice was steady, but the question cut through the air like a blade. After all, Ni-ki had never killed any of his previous victims after the assaults. It wasn't part of his pattern.

Ni-ki's face remained expressionless, as though recalling a trivial memory. "It wasn't my intention to kill her," he began. "I wore a mask that day, but during the struggle, she tore it off. She saw my face, recognized me immediately. She said she'd report me to the police. At that moment, I didn't think. I acted purely out of instinct."

The officer's eyes flickered, recalling the post-mortem report. Fibers consistent with mask material had been found under Hana's fingernails, confirming Ni-ki's version of events.

"How many times did you stab her?" the officer asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Once," Ni-ki responded coldly.

"Where?"

Ni-ki placed his hand over his liver, gesturing to the side of his torso. "Here."

His account matched perfectly with the forensic evidence.

As he continued, his voice remained unnervingly calm. "I panicked when I realized she was dead. I knew that if anyone found her, the consequences would be catastrophic. So, I buried her at Gojo Bridge. It was raining that night—figured no one would notice. And I was right."

Shotaro's eyes bore into Ni-ki, searching for any signs of humanity beneath the surface. But Ni-ki sat there, detached, as if carved from stone. His blank expression offered nothing—no remorse, no fear, no anger. It was like trying to draw blood from a statue. Aside from the steady stream of his words, there were no clues for Shotaro to latch onto.

Ni-ki's body language betrayed nothing. He wasn't fidgeting, wasn't tense—he simply existed in that space, indifferent to the gravity of what he was confessing to.

Having concluded their interrogation regarding Hana's death, the police officers pressed forward, diving into the next line of questioning. Shotaro wasted no time.

"How did Vienna come to your attention?" he asked, his voice sharp, cutting through the air like a blade.

Ni-ki's blank stare faltered for a moment before a smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth, an eerie transformation from the stoic front he had maintained. The Ni-ki sitting before them now wasn't the cold, detached boy they'd been questioning moments before—this was the notorious delinquent, the streetwise thug known to all.

"Once," Ni-ki began, his voice laced with a dangerous kind of nonchalance, "I was hanging around with some friends by the roadside, minding my own business, when I heard someone speaking with a stutter. It got me curious, so I looked over. She was... pretty." His smirk deepened, the glint in his eyes more menacing now, feeding off the discomfort in the room.

Shotaro watched him closely. The shift in Ni-ki's demeanor was unsettling, as if he'd slipped into a mask—one that allowed him to relish in his reputation. A chill crept into the interrogation room, as the police officers braced themselves for what came next.

"Why did you bring Vienna back to your house?" The officer's voice was low and pressing, cutting through Ni-ki's casual front. "Before her, your crimes were always committed outside. What made you change your pattern this time?"

Ni-ki leaned back in his chair, the smirk on his face lingering as if he relished the memory. "The old routine was getting... dull," he replied, voice slick with casual malice. "I wanted to feel something new. Something more thrilling. Kidnapping her in broad daylight, locking her up in my own space—that gave me a rush. She looked like one of those obedient types, you know? The kind that would just sit there, take it. I figured she'd be easy to control, not much trouble."

He paused, eyes narrowing slightly as he recalled his initial assumptions about Vienna. "She was just some clueless girl. Bullied, struggling with her studies... the kind who wouldn't stand a chance against anyone, let alone me."

Turns out, she wasn't as weak as he thought. She was smart—way more resilient than he expected. Stubborn too. She was more compatible with him than he originally gave her credit for.

"Were you intending to kill Vienna?"

"I'll keep her alive if it suits me."

"Why? Vienna saw your face too; she could identify you easily. If killing was your motive for Hana, why not for Vienna?"

Ni-ki's gaze sharpened as he met Shotaro's eyes, a calculated calm settling over him. "She won't report me."

"Why not?"

"I overheard a conversation between Hana and her friend. They were discussing Vienna. It turns out Vienna is so used to being bullied that it's become her norm. Reporting me would be pointless for her—she wouldn't get any real protection from the police," Ni-ki said, his voice steady and controlled. He slowed down only when he spoke about Vienna's plight, a hint of something more complex in his tone.

Ni-ki's words struck like cold, deliberate jabs, each one landing with a clinical precision that seemed almost personal. It felt as though Ni-ki was deliberately laying out Vienna's struggles, as if he knew about Shotaro's connection to her. But how could that be? Ni-ki was a stranger to Shotaro before this. It must be Shotaro's imagination running wild.

"Do you harbor hatred towards women?"

"Maybe you could say that."

"Can you describe what was going through your mind during the assaults on your female victims?"

"I didn't think much about it. I just knew it was something I wanted to do."

"Do you think this 'desire' is a result of your mother's influence?"

"How would I know?"

"What are your feelings about your mother?"

"I wish she were dead."

Senior Yang paused briefly, then shifted the focus. "And your father?"

"He died a long time ago."

"I'm asking what you think about your father."

"It's probably for the best that he's dead."

"You never even met your father."

"Yes, but his role in my conception was significant enough."

Another brief pause. "So, you despise your own existence?"

"Yes. I see no purpose in it."

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