The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Der Märchenclub
Chapter 41
[The Boy Who Cried Wolf]
Heechul did not look like he was in the condition where he could drive properly, so Jessica decided to take the initiative to drive using his car. At the very least, he had relatively calmed down after the shock he experienced. The dejected, depressed expression still lingered on his face, but Jessica could not blame him for that.
“At least… at least Hyoyeon is alive,” Jessica spoke softly after the car exited the hospital parking lot. “It could have been worse.”
Heechul sighed and he buried his face to his palms. “I don’t know whether this is for the best or not. I mean… I am indeed grateful that Hyo is alive, but still…” he chuckled humorlessly. “You don’t know how hard Hyo has been fighting for her dream. She practiced ballet since she was six years old. Ballet is her dream, her life. And I can’t even… whoever the bastard who steals Hyo’s life from her…”
Heechul could not continue his words.
From his mother, Heechul had heard what had happened to Hyoyeon. According to Hyoyeon’s account, she was attacked after she had finished one of her evening dance practices. She had been the remaining person in the dance studio the Kim owned when the unknown man showed up and forced a chloroform-wetted handkerchief to her nose. She recounted that she could not remember anything after, aside from the fact that she woke up due to the severe pain around her legs (or what were supposed to be her legs) and found her legs to be mutilated.
The police had told Jessica the supporting information. They found traces of the strong use of local anesthesia around the knees section. The victim was most likely unaware during the process but the police suspected there was a high possibility Hyoyeon woke up there and then when the axe crushed her muscles or bones.
Jessica had crosschecked the story with Heechul, but Heechul stated that Hyoyeon did not remember anything on the mutilation process. Both Jessica and Heechul were silenced after that, because most possibly, Hyoyeon was trying to make herself forget the pain and trauma that she actually endured. Heechul would not want to force her remember such a horrendous incident. He secretly prayed that Hyoyeon had been totally unaware during the process, because to imagine her being even half-conscious during the mutilation was enough to send dread throughout his system.
From the objective point of view, the police also told Jessica that the cut had been neat –possibly from the use of axe or other very sharp object. Skin, muscles, nerves, blood vessels and bones were chopped off completely from their origins. Blocks of ice were prepared and pressed around the amputated area, erasing doubts of murder. The purpose was only to mutilate, nothing less, nothing more.
Jessica suddenly felt nauseous upon remembering the police’ words.
She did not feel like she was fit for driving anymore, so she immediately moved the car to the side of the road and stopped there. Heechul did not question her.
“I will find that bastard and make him… or her pay,” he slowly slurred.
Slowly, Jessica nodded. “… And we need to find Yoona and Eunhyuk fast. I don’t even want to imagine –“
The mention of Yoona’s name alarmed Heechul again. “Yoona’s first disappearance was caused by herself. The second one was caused by Donghae. What about this time?”
“Most likely a kidnapping event too,” stated Jessica eventually. “The police found her car at the outskirt of Seoul, but Yoona herself was nowhere to be found.”
“…Could it be that this is Donghae’s doing again?” Heechul proposed the idea, and suddenly he had the urge to smack the mentally-ill guy’s head to the wall.
Jessica stared at Heechul sadly. “…I don’t think so. I mean, he’s been kept at the asylum, and I’ve visited him not so long ago. He really did look and sound sane.”
“The problem with mentally-ill patient is that sanity is never a permanent notion,” Heechul pointed out.
“But Donghae cannot –“
“You are biased over him,” accused Heechul. “Love surely gets in the way.”
“That’s not the point!” Jessica insisted. “I trust him. I –“
“I trusted him too,” Heechul coldly interrupted. “Heck, I trusted him as if he was my real brother.”
“Well, here we go again with your apathy towards presumption of innocence –“
“Why don’t we just visit the asylum then? That’s the only way to find the truth out, isn’t it?”
Jessica was silenced.
Heechul demanded more. “Are you in love with him, or with the person you think he is?”
The question did not deter her. “He is exactly what he is. And he’s a good guy and –“
“Are you driving or not? If not, move aside, get out of my car, and I will confront the truth myself,” Heechul icily countered.
Huffing a defeated sigh, Jessica eventually decided to move the car back to its lane and drove towards the asylum.
Jessica nearly did not want to believe what the middle-aged, female asylum staff was saying.
“Lee Donghae has been missing.”
She did not have the power to question back, but Heechul gladly took the role from her. “Since when?”
“Last evening, last night. The last time we saw him was when the nurse brought him his dinner at around 6 or 7 pm. When the nurse came to his room again to bring him his medicine, at around 10 pm, he was already gone.”
“Isn’t mentally-ill patient supposed to be tied up or something?”
“Lee Donghae has been behaving very well. We don’t treat good-behaving patients like animals.”
“Were the windows or door broken? How could he escape?”
“There was no sign of forced break-out. Everything had been neat –too neat.”
“Who holds the key to his room?”
The staff sighed, evidently tired from being bombarded by the questions. But then again, it was not that she did not want to introspect herself. Having a patient escaping had been her responsibility –if answering these demands could fix her fault, then she would answer as truthful as she could. “The keys are stored in the key room. When the nurses or doctors need to visit a patient room, they would get the key from the key room and then they would return it back after they’re finished.”
“So the key to Donghae’s room –“
“It’s in the key room right now. It’s still there.”
“Well, someone could have borrowed it, right?”
“Only the doctors and the nurses have the access card to the key room.”
Heechul chuckled. Having been deceived by a policeman once prepared him for a similar scheme. “So there is a possibility one of the doctors or the nurses are involved, right?”
“W-we don’t think so. After we found out about Lee Donghae’s disappearance, the management interviewed all doctors, nurses, and staffs. We all had alibis and evidences that we did not even come near Lee Donghae’s room’s wings at the speculated time.”
Heechul narrowed his eyes –trying his best not to trust the testimony. Oh, yes, he was a judgmental person –but one needed to be one in order to save oneself. Naivety at such situation would be the same as suicide. He was about to retort back, but apparently, Jessica had found her voice back to question the staff.
“What about the visitors? You guys keep track on the guest book, right? No guests would be permitted to visit a patient without filling out the forms or something, right?”
“Yes, but we checked, and there was no visitors registered to visit Lee Donghae yesterday.”
Jessica sighed. “What about cameras? CCTV or something?”
Equally as hopeless, the staff only replied, “During 4 pm until 10 pm, there has been no record. I don’t know how, but I think the system was hacked, and the videos were only recorded videos from two days prior. In short, there is no reference to the event occurring yesterday.”
Heechul snorted. “I don’t believe you. I’ll check all the CCTV record and the administrative registrations.”
“I’ll check Donghae’s room,” announced Jessica, before she then turned to Heechul. “After that, I will help you check the recording.”
Heechul nodded.
The staff only stared at the two youths as if they were out of their minds. “Urm, not to be disrespectful or anything. But you two do not have the authority to –“
Heechul glared at the staff, while Jessica crossed her hands in front of her chest.
“I am from the Kim and my family owns Seoul St. Mary Hospital. I believe this asylum is heavily dependent to St. Mary Hospital.”
“As to me, my family has been the largest donator for this asylum every year,” added Jessica, implicitly.
The statements had been the most arrogant one that the asylum’s staff had ever heard, but the implication of power behind the words was unquestionable. After having a mental debate, the staff finally nodded in defeat.
“Very well.”
“I told you Donghae cannot be trusted,” exclaimed Heechul first thing first the next afternoon. The duo had finally satisfied their curiosities of searching for evidences in the asylum. The staff’s testimony had been correct –there were no traces of recording or registration leading up to Donghae’s disappearance.
Jessica massaged her temple as she sipped the coffee she bought from the nearby coffee shop. She had woken up extremely early that morning to go to the asylum and she undoubtedly lacked sleep. Though being exhausted herself, she still tried to come up with a retort against Heechul’s argument. “He could have been the victim himself,” argued Jessica. “One thing we can agree on is that Donghae cannot escape the asylum alone. Someone might have kidnapped him.”
“Or helped him escape, same thing,” countered Heechul.
“But at the very least, we can be certain that he was not involved in Yoona’s disappearance. Yoona had been missing before Donghae was missing. So, Donghae couldn’t be associated with Yoona’s disappearance.”
“Yes, but if Donghae’s accomplice was the one who kidnapped Yoona –“
The comment enraged Jessica and she nearly wanted to spill the coffee she had to Heechul’s face. “Stop accusing him baselessly! He’s our friend! He can’t even have a bad accomplice and I am sure he wouldn’t let anyone hurt Yoona. So, it’s impossible for Donghae to –“
“Impossible?” Heechul chuckled sinisterly. “Oh, my Jessica, haven’t we learned to believe in the most impossible thing? Hwang Tiffany, remember?”
Grudgingly, in the end Jessica agreed, “I know. But that doesn’t mean Donghae –“
“Fine, fine, we’ll leave Donghae out of this,” Heechul muttered –having his patience tested enough by Jessica’s persistence. “So, what’s our priority?”
“Finding Yoona. And Donghae. And Hyukjae,” Jessica stated as-a-matter-of-factly. “I will coordinate with Yunho-sshi on their investigation status.”
Upon knowing Yoona’s disappearance, Heechul had employed Yunho and his team, the bodyguards from the Kim, to search for Yoona’s whereabouts. Heechul’s personal priority at the moment was to find Yoona, since unlike the previous incident where Yoona was also missing, this time, Heechul had lost a number of people to help him with the investigation. Kibum had gone missing. Ryeowook was dead. Jessica was still around, but one help from her could not weigh that much either. Heechul decided to choose his usual resort to use the Kim’s intelligence to track the Im girl’s whereabouts.
He nearly questioned why Jessica did not want to contribute her own bodyguards to help the case –or even to protect herself –, but he somehow got a gist of it. Jessica must have not wanted something bad to happen to her bodyguards again –like what had happened to Hankyung months prior.
Heechul still thought that it was a stupid act, to be sentimental at such situation. But he supposed that was typically women –and Jessica was no exception. He had found it troublesome at first, but eventually, he had secretly told Yunho to assign someone else to guard Jessica too. A part of Heechul was itched to tell it to Jessica and to have her be grateful for it (oh yes, he was at least a human for loving praises). But another part of him refrained himself from doing so. He was pretty certain that if Jessica knew Heechul had assigned someone to watch over her, she would tell him to shoo the man away to avoid a similar Hankyung-incident in the future.
“…that you should focus on,” Jessica suddenly said.
Heechul had not been keeping tack on the conversation –and this seemed to be evident to Jessica. In annoyance, the Jung heiress repeated her words. “I’ll coordinate with Yunho-sshi and I will search for Yoona. But I think you have other task you have to focus on.”
Heechul frowned. “And that is?”
“Tiffany.”
Heechul snorted. “Sure, leave the hard part to me,” he sarcastically remarked.
“Because this is the only thing you could do. My parents are dead and my grandmother has not been involved in our parents’ Der Märchenclub’s era. Your family has been dominating the club even in the earlier generation. They must have known something. You have to find out something about Tiffany, about her father, about her father’s death, and –“
The boy only chuckled. “You really leave the hard part to me. I’ll tell you one thing. The Kim could not be –“
“Please, Heechul,” Jessica spoke –and the unlikely begging tone nearly made him blink. “That’s our only way to learn about Tiffany. And this is for Yoona too.”
Yoona…
Exhaling a troubled sigh, eventually Heechul agreed, “Fine.”
Heechul had never been that nervous in his entire lifetime.
He had been standing in front of his father’s study room for nearly 10 minutes, and he still couldn’t find the guts to knock in. He knew that the more he waited, the more he would be eaten up alive by his own curiosity. But despite so, it was still hard, so damn hard, to take that one step in.
Heechul stared at the still door in front of him. If he dared himself to knock, to enter, and to ask his father maybe he would get closer to the truth.
He knew that confronting his father would probably not bring anything back to normal again, but that was not his biggest concern. Heechul was concerned on how this might injure every faith he had believed in. Asking his father might possibly destroy whatever perfect image that Heechul had on the Kim. It scared him because even for someone like him, he still had the lingering insecurity. What would he be without the Kim? The faith that he had on his family was one of his raison d’etre. If that was ripped off from him too, then what would be left for him?
And wouldn’t that be interesting to know? Who determined who? The Kim or Heechul?
The thought made him took a step back.
He was a coward, yes. But so be it. If by being a coward he could preserve his existence as Kim Heechul, then why would he stop being a coward?
“You’re a brave man, Hyung. That’s why I adore you so much.”
His eyes widened.
A sinister chuckle escaped his lips as the voice came back to his mind at the most unlikely time.
He knew he would be an embarrassment to Ryeowook. If Ryeowook was alive, he would stare at him with those expectant, puppy-eyes. Sometimes Heechul wondered what made Ryeowook idolized him that much. There were a lot of other better role models that Ryeowook could have looked up to. Heechul knew that there was something wrong with his mind, because he did not normally concede to this fact.
It was only then that he realized it.
Maybe, the only reason that he had been pretending to be strong enough all these time… was for Ryeowook’s sake. Heechul forced himself to be strong, because he craved the attention, craved the adoration that Ryeowook always had on him. Heechul might have brushed Ryeowook’s brotherly infatuation towards him numerous times, but he could not deny it anymore: it was for Ryeowook that he forced himself to be a better man, a stronger man.
With Ryeowook’s absence now, what was there to protect? What was there to preserve? He could have –
“I trust you, Hyung.”
Suddenly, Heechul wanted to laugh.
Even without his mortal body’s presence, Ryeowook continued to affect him. The deceased red-haired man might not have realized it, but his existence was what probably molded Heechul’s character. So much that Heechul was influenced, that even with only the fragment of memory, Heechul decided to play the role again.
Taking a deep breath, he pretended to be the strong man once again, and pushed the door into his father’s study room before the fleeting moment of empowerment left him.
Heechul’s father didn’t even avert his eyes from the documents he was reading when Heechul made his presence known to him.
“Father, I need to talk to you –“
“If it’s about your daily allowances, you know you can just call my secre –“
“It’s not,” Heechul interrupted –feeling a bit disappointed to know that the only way his father would consider his presence was to ask for money. “It’s something else.”
“Well, as you can see, I’m a bit busy here. Your uncles could not give their full attention in handling the family’s business lately, so they leave all the task to me and –“
“Father, it’s just for –”
“I really am busy, Heechul.”
“I only need to –“
“Heechul, how hard it is to –“
“Father, look at me!” he shouted as he slammed his palms to the wooden surface of the table.
Heechul didn’t even think or even dare to think he would ever use that kind of tone to his father –moreover to use force (though not aimed at his father, but was displayed in front of him). Kim Chunghee, Heechul’s father, also appeared to have the shock of his life. Heechul had always been a troublesome kid, but Heechul had never used that kind of tone towards him. The frown on Chunghee’s aging face deepened.
“What kind of manner is this, Heechul?”
Sometimes, to Heechul, anger worked as the best alcohol. His rage numbed his senses, made the nervousness and fear that had been present not so long ago to momentarily disappear. Determination filled his senses again, and he let the words rolled out of his tongue fast –before the fire died down; before he regretted ever turning his back against his father…
…Before he remembered that for the very first time, Kim Heechul was trying to question his loyalty towards his family.
“Tell me what happened 14 years ago, Father.”
If Kim Chunghee was surprised, he hid it rather well.
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
But Heechul did not want to give up there. It was too late, and he didn’t want to be someone who stopped a job midway. “No. You understand perfectly well what I’m talking about. Tell me the truth, Father.”
“There’s nothing that I’m hiding from you.” Heechul’s father quickly spoke. He busied himself tidying up the documents scattered on his desk –an action that visibly looked superficial –as Heechul knew his father worked best in clutters. Supporting the apparent display of cowering back, Chunghee spoke again, “If this is what you want to talk about, Heechul, then please, forget it. You are wasting my –“
“Is it true that you…that our family killed Yoon Seung Hun?”
Comments