Yoona was still waiting for Yuri to finally start talking and it had already been thirty minutes; the older woman had been fidgeting, crossing and uncrossing her legs multiple times in order to calm her nerves. She knew how difficult it was to open up, especially when Yuri was used to keeping everything in. If only she had persuaded Yuri to share her frustrations more often in the past, they might not even be in this state.

It would always be a regret to Yoona.

Yuri was so scared; she could feel the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She couldn't predict Yoona's reaction no matter how hard she tried, and that only heightened her fear of letting Yoona find out the truth. Yoona might think of her as a monster and start to avoid her instead.

“Yul…” Yoona whispered and scooted closer towards Yuri, taking Yuri’s face into her smooth palms, “I’m still here, aren’t I? I’m here because I want to listen to you… and I know there’s a reason why you left me, which I’m going to find out right now.”

“What if you get scared of me?”

Yoona shook her head and grabbed the back of Yuri’s neck, pushing her face into the crook of her neck, “I asked you to tell me because I’m ready to hear whatever you have to say. Even if I’m not, I will try my best to accept it because you did it for me.” Yoona meant those words with all her heart; Yuri had done so much to protect her and make sure nothing would ever go wrong for her future.

“Really?”

The tone in Yuri’s voice made Yoona’s heartstrings tremble and tingled uncontrollably; perhaps she didn’t make Yuri feel secure enough back when they were dating. For the fact that Yuri was shaking and trembling in her arms, it told Yoona way more than she needed to know – Yuri was as insecure as a child who just heard news of getting a younger sibling and that she wouldn’t be the baby of the family anymore.

Yuri forced her saliva down and took a deep breath, pulling back to look at Yoona in the eye – she was ready. 

“Years ago… remember how I tried to make you stay away from the circuit with everything I had even though you wanted to see me race so badly?”

Of course, Yoona remembered. It was also for that same reason that they had gotten into such a big fight which almost caused them to break up during their first year together; Yoona really wanted to show Yuri that she supported her no matter what she did for a living. Back then, she thought Yuri was seeing someone else behind her back because of the amount of effort the latter put into keeping her out of her racing life.

To think it was the complete opposite…

“I was already receiving threats from Taecyeon and his team… saying that they would do anything to take you away from me; they even tried to force me into making a bet - if I lost, I had to give you up and if I won, he would never bother me or have designs on you anymore.”

Yoona was about to say something when she remembered Nicole's words to her that day: Taecyeon never loses a game, even if he has to do it the dirty way. Now it was all coming together; Yuri had been keeping Yoona away from the circuit all because Taecyeon was making snide remarks and was harbouring ill designs on her. Yuri had been trying so hard to protect Yoona from him. 

“The night before the competition…”

Yuri’s gaze was starting to turn exceptionally fearful and she tensed up visibly; the night before the competition was one of the scariest as well as the most traumatic experience she had. Yoona didn’t know whether to fear for herself or Yuri and it was starting to scare her bad; Yuri doesn’t get scared often but to see her being shaken up like this… it meant more than just an ordinary threat. 

“Yuri, baby…” Yoona shut her eyes as she placed a kiss on Yuri’s forehead; Yuri was so thoughtful to the point where Yoona didn’t even realise how terrified the latter was, “we’re already at the crossroad, time to come clean with me.”

“To make things short…” Yuri whispered and looked up at Yoona with tears steadily rolling down her cheeks, “I killed him.” 

Hyoyeon and Sunny stood in front of the huge door in front of them, preparing to question a certain young man who’s supposedly the most likely suspect to poison Yuri in the hospital. Sunny managed to get a search warrant with the help of her uncle’s contacts and now they were finally in front of the suspect. Hyoyeon sighed and rapped her knuckles on the door; she was ready to face it head on.

“Hello?”

A handsome, tall, young man now stood in front of them; though he was significantly younger, he was clearly capable of doing something like disguising himself as a doctor.

The two women immediately held their hands up with their cards proving them to be professionals, “we need to search your house for anything that can help us with our investigations.” Though the young man was slightly taken aback by the sudden visit, he allowed them in and even offered them a cup of coffee each. As Sunny started to question the young man, Hyoyeon started to snoop around the house and gather as much information as possible.

“So, what is all this about?”

Sunny took out a picture of the screen capture from the hospital's CCTV the other day and her eyes shot to the young man’s immediately, trying to decipher if he was starting to falter or not.

“Where were you last Friday? At approximately 2 to about 5am?”

“I wa