13

*Trigger warning: strong language.*

“You do realize this is illegal?” Jackson asks, but Taehyung can’t seem to take his eyes off the figure on the other end of the glass. 

Mr. Kim hasn’t moved an inch, back straight, arms by his sides and his face a stoic mask of indifference. Jungkook is sitting across from him, his back to Taehyung and Jackson who are currently in the monitor room, and both men can clearly see how tense the detective is.

“I just- just have to hear-.” Taehyung cannot finish his sentence, brows furrowing when Jungkook’s voice carries through the microphone. 

“How did you kill Kim Jiyeon?” 

Jackson releases a defeated sigh, mumbling something along the lines of “I’m so getting fired”, but Taehyung isn’t paying him any attention, eyes fixed on the interrogation taking place.

“I hit her in the head,” Mr. Kim calmly says, as if discussing the weather and not the death of his own daughter. 

Jungkook’s voice is strained, he’s clearly keeping his anger in check. “With that?”

“A cross.” 

Jungkook’s eyes narrow a little before realization hits him.

The empty slot in the hallway wall leading to the kitchen, the indentation. He had originally thought it to have belonged to a picture frame, but now that he thinks about it, the shape had fit a cross. A relatively big one. 

“Why?” is all Jungkook can ask, because he cannot understand why a man would murder his own daughter. But then again, Mr. Kim isn’t like other men. 

“She was impure.” Jungkook’s blood boils. “Had ual before marriage. What do you think God would do to me if I let that pass? And Sora, she helped her. She kept it from me.”

“How did you find out?” 

“Nothing ever happens without me knowing, detective,” Mr. Kim says, and Jungkook detects a proud lilt to his voice. , chances of him leaving this room with an assault charge are rising tenfold right now. “I saw Sora’s messages before they were deleted. Found the address and put the rest of the puzzle together.”

“She had the abortion two months ago.” Jungkook has to lean back in his chair and cross his arms over his chest to refrain from lunging at the smug man across from him. “Why did you wait this long with the murder?”

“I wasn’t planning on killing her,” Mr. Kim says, “I never was. I knew God was going to punish her for her sins, I knew there was just a matter of time before she got what she deserved. But then, I got a sign from Him. It was in my hands to punish my child for her wrongdoings. It happened after I received a call from Father Yongchul.” 

Mr. Kim goes quiet then, his gaze averting. Jungkook allows him a few seconds of silence before he taps a knuckle against the table separating them.

“What did Father Yongchul say?” 

“That my daughter had been tempting the clergy.” 

Jungkook’s jaw clenches.

He can only imagine the fury Taehyung feels right now as more details are revealed, and he hopes Jackson holds him back if he suddenly decides to physically let his anger out. He wouldn’t judge him, though, heck he’d probably even join in. B

he cannot risk anything getting in the way of sending Mr. Kim behind bars. 

“She had been sleeping with the younger priests, she had been offering them favours,” he spits, face contorting into a scowl, “to gain her position in the choir. I couldn’t keep still. She had to be taught a lesson.” 

“So you decided killing her was the best way of doing that?” Jungkook can’t help himself. His face is probably the definition of furious, but he couldn’t care less. “You decided to murder her before you even knew her side of the story?” 

Mr. Kim’s jaw clenches and he looks away. Clearly, he never knew the reality of the situation, the fact that Yongchul had lied to him about his daughter. 

Jungkook tries not to let his thoughts wander too much. His temper isn't exactly his best trait. 

“So when exactly did you get home for you to have gotten your hands on the cross? You working an extra hour that night was also all a lie, wasn’t it?” 

Jungkook can feel hot anger bubbling under his skin but he keeps it all down, does his best not to lose his cool, especially now that he’s literally moments away from giving Jiyeon the justice she deserves. 

“In fact, now that I think about it,” Jungkook drawls, a wicked but furious glint in his eyes, “there were no signs of the murder happening where she had been found. No traces of the murder weapon, nothing. We blamed it on the rain at first, but something tells me she was murdered somewhere else.” 

Jungkook stares at Mr. Kim, hard, his jaw clenched, shoulders tense, and it takes a few more seconds of silence before Mr. Kim huffs out a laugh.

“She really thought I was going to believe her.” He shakes his head in disbelief, and Jungkook wonders if the reason why he has managed to keep calm for this long is because Taehyung is watching them. “I went to her school when her football practice ended. She was with that girl again, that japanese wench. She must have been the reason why Jiyeon stooped so low, I never saw genuine love for God in her eyes.”

Jungkook wants to remind Mr. Kim of the fact that he murdered his own child, but he allows the man to continue with his monologue. 

“But that wench left a little earlier than the rest. And then there were three other girls with her, I waited for them to leave too. She was surprised to see my car when she left the building.”

Jungkook mentally berates himself for not seeking a permit to examine Mr. Kim’s car for possible evidence. But then again, they would naturally be able to find Jiyeon’s DNA there because she was after all his daughter - she must have been in that car multiple times. 

“I asked her if she wanted to tell me something. She had the nerve to lie to my face.” 

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe she was scared?” Jungkook grits out between clenched teeth, but Mr. Kim angrily scowls. 

“She was a sinner, of course she would be scared,” he snarls, and Jungkook doesn’t say anything else in fear of changing the course of the conversation. “I tried again. Then I told her about the child. She panicked, tried to run from me. She thought she could get away, thought that God’s justice wouldn’t find her.” 

The room goes quiet. The anger in Mr. Kim’s eyes slowly dies down, his chest heaving with quick breaths before he closes his eyes, jaw clenched. 

“The cross had been a gift from Father Yongchul,” Mr. Kim breaks the heavy silence, gaze distant, “I had taken it with me a couple of days before that, to get it blessed. I did it every Sunday. But I had forgotten it in the car.”

Jungkook stares.

Taehyung and Jackson are no longer the only ones in the monitoring room, Namjoon, Jimin and Hoseok have also arrived, all of them intently listening. 

“It was like a sign. God made me forget to take it back home because he wanted me to seek justice in his name.” Mr. Kim swallows. “I followed her down the street, she must have heard the car because she suddenly took a shortcut. Mrs. Choi saw me then, saw the car. So I parked it near her flowershop and followed Jiyeon. It had been a dead end, the alley, and-and I just struck her.”

Jungkook feels his heart drop to his gut, his fingers shaking where they’re tightly clasping his thighs under the table. He cannot be sure, but Mr. Kim looks guilty suddenly. 

“I know Mrs. Choi saw me leave the car, she didn’t see Jiyeon but she would be able to put two and two together. So I threw the cross in a puddle, got rid of the blood and then buried it at the bottom of the trash container placed there.”

“How did you get Jiyeon to your neighborhood?” 

“I carried Jiyeon back to the car.” 

Jungkook’s jaw clenches. “What about the blood?"

“Her hoodie. I put it on her. I wasn’t planning on taking her back to our street, but I took the wrong road and realized it would look less suspicious if she was found near our house.”

“Why were you trying to avoid coming off as suspicious if you were merely carrying out God’s orders?” Jungkook asks, anger at his senses.

, it’s been a while since he has felt this riled up over a case. 

Mr. Kim gives him a hard stare. “God works in ways us humans cannot decipher. He chose to protect my family from backlash caused by her horrible sins.” 

“What about your sins?” Jungkook snaps. “You just admitted to having killed your own daughter, Mr. Kim. Not to mention the violence you have subjected your wife and your son to throughout their lives.”

Mr. Kim’s eyes narrow dangerously before a disgusted look frames his face. 

“You’re like him,” he mutters, “you’re both tainted. Missguided.”

Jungkook sees, in that moment, the face of a man brainwashed to the point of insanity. Mr. Kim has been acting with such conviction that Taehyung probably thought himself to deserve everything that happened to him.

An irrational surge of anger hits Jungkook. 

“Have you laid your hands on him?” he asks, his voice low, the final few ounces of patience in him slowly dissipating with each second that he has to share air with the er in front of him. 

Mr. Kim scoffs humorlessly, but there’s disgust in his tone when he speaks. 

“Why, you’re gonna protect that ?” Jungkook’s blood runs cold. “I always knew he was one. Saw it in his eyes since he started elementary school, maybe it was because it was an all-boy’s school, maybe it was because the devil claimed his soul before God could. Whatever it was, that disgusting boy had to be put in his place. Whether I hit him, starved him or locked him up doesn’t concern you.”

Jungkook is positively shaking with rage right now, and he clenches his hands around his thighs, nails digging into the jeans material and brain clouded by pure, hot fury. 

“People like you are a shame to the world,” Mr. Kim snarls, leaning forward on the table, “people like you are scum and deserve to be wiped off this earth. If I had gotten the chance, I wouldn’t have thought even for a second before killing that piece of-.” 

Jungkook thought he would snap.

He thought he’d be leaving the small interrogation room in handcuffs, Namjoon and Jackson holding him back from possibly murdering the man in front of him while Taehyung watched in fear. 

But what actually happens is something he wouldn’t even dream of imagining. Because Taehyung enters the room in a flurry of tears and anger, and then Mr. Kim is on the floor, a surprised gasp leaving his lips when his son barrels his fists against his face. 

Jungkook is shocked to his core, but his brain acts on muscle memory and he jumps to pull the boy away from a bloodied Mr. Kim. 

“You murderer!” Taehyung screams, voice hoarse and filled with pain and anger and fear, “you murdered Jiyeon! You ing killed my sister, you murderer her! You- you monster-.”

Jungkook pulls Taehyung further away from Mr. Kim when Namjoon and Jackson enter the room in a hurry, the two of them quickly helping the older man to his feet.

“She deserved it,” Mr. Kim spits, blood trailing down his chin, and he looks delirious for a moment as he watches Taehyung with a wide grin on his face, “and you do too, Taehyung. God will give you what you deserve for sinning, for following the dev-”

“Okay, I think we’ve had enough dramatics for today,” Namjoon says loudly and clamps a hand over Mr. Kim’s mouth. “Kook, get Taehyung out of here. Jimin, call nurse Jieun before this pathetic excuse of a human being bleeds out. We need him alive for the court case.”

Jungkook leaves before Namjoon has finished talking, arms tight around Taehyung’s waist as he pulls him down the hallways. He gets to his office in no time and locks the door after them for good measure before letting go of the boy. 

Taehyung manages to stay upright for three seconds before he falls to his knees, completely breaking down.

And Jungkook falls with him, arms naturally pulling the boy close as they both let the reality of what just happened hit them.