Seungri’s vision was blurred. Maybe it was because his eyes were constantly streaming as a result of the incessant bright lights. Maybe he had taken one too many blows to the head and done some damage to his optic nerves. Maybe it was just because he was so damned tired that even thinking straight was a chore.

He squinted, but that only served to degenerate his vision even further. One blurred paper cup became two – possibly even three – severely out-of-focus cups and his stomach threatened to expel whatever might have been left in it.

Seungri wiped one hand across the back of his mouth. He needed the water to dispel the roughness in his throat; the stale taste left by his heaving. He no longer worried about being drugged – he'd long since passed the point where he could even consider the option of not drinking.

There didn't appear to be any food with it and he was mildly thankful for that. His stomach couldn't take it any more.

He continued to hold onto the basin for some semblance of balance, but his knees were weak and his legs felt like jelly. The moment he let go of the ceramic edge, he almost collapsed again. He had to lean heavily against the cell bars to make any progress at all.

As one uncertain step followed another, Seungri's eyes narrowed – but it had nothing to do with his compromised vision. There was no paper plate alongside the cup, but there was something else on the floor of his cell. It looked like a blank sheet of paper.

Curious, confused and afraid, Seungri finally reached his goal and collapsed onto the floor of the cell. The water was momentarily forgotten as he reached a trembling hand towards the piece of paper – which seemed more out of place than something so mundane really should.

He could see through the thin paper that there was something on the other side and his heart began to race as he turned it over.

His mother's face smiling back up at him was the cruellest – and most devastating – blow dealt to him so far.

It was a picture off their website – the one that he and his hyung had set up together. It was nothing to do with investigations; made no mention of the detective business. The website was only devoted to friends and family. To happy times.

There were pages devoted to each of them – to the whole family and all of their close friends. The picture of his mom was a recent one – she looked exactly the same as she had the last time Seungri had seen her. He tried to remember if she was even wearing the same sweater. He knew it was one of her favourites.

Then the images from his nightmare slammed back into his mind – vivid and terrifying, even though they weren't actually a memory. His mom's dead face dominated his mind's eye; but he couldn't see if her sweater matched the one in the picture, because it was covered in blood…

The memory of the nightmare dominated his entire existence and even the printed picture blurred as tears trickled from his eyes and dripped onto the paper – which he clutched in his fists as though his life depended on it.

He didn't even register the noise suddenly being silenced for a brief moment. But he did notice when the speakers blared back into life – and deafened him with a new, sickeningly repetitive message:

Mother-killer.

Mother-killer.

Mother-killer.

Seungri leant his head against the bars and curled up into a ball. His final, tiny piece of resistance crumbled into dust and he was left completely broken. Sobs shuddered through him and he clutched the picture of his mom to his chest; as though he was somehow giving her one last hug. Rational thought scattered and he began to rock, gently. And all he could do was cry.

They had taken the chair out of the 'interrogation room'. When Arashi and his partner dragged Seungri in there, he was forced to stand. It took his partner’s strength – utilising a hefty grip on both his arms – to keep him upright.

Arashi – as had become habit – began to pace in front of Seungri.

"I have some more questions for you, Seungri," his tormentor said, but his tone was a lot calmer than it had previously been. "Simple questions – a yes or no answer will suffice."

Seungri didn't answer; he barely even heard the words. He just looked at his tormentor through red-rimmed and bloodshot eyes.

"First question." Arashi was unphased by the zombie-like stare of the boy in front of him. To him, it was a sign of success. "Has your brother ever had a car accident? Ever had put a dent in your parents' car?"

Seungri's eyes dropped and fresh tears spilled down his cheeks. He didn't have the capacity to answer the question and his thoughts were fragmented and almost formless. His brother smiling at him from the driver's seat; His hyung helping him to learn to drive; careful and methodical in everything he did. He didn't even know that he was shaking his head, until Arashi spoke again:

"How about your dad? I'm not talking about high-speed chases here – but just normal, everyday driving. Like…" He paused for sadistic effect: "Like grocery shopping, maybe?"

More broken and detached memories came: "If you get so much as a scratch on the car…" Sailing through a green light. "You can drive to the shelter…" His mother's dead face. Her eyes opening. Her corpse's smile. "It was an accident…"

Seungri sagged in his captor's grip – but Arashi’s partner merely readjusted and hauled him back into some semblance of being upright.

"There was nothing, Seungri." Arashi picked a tan folder up off the table and leafed through it. "Nothing. Not a police report, not an insurance claim. Nothing. And then you got behind the wheel." He closed the folder and used it to tap Seungri gently on the chest. "And so that brings me to my next question – and I want you to think very carefully about this one: if anyone but you had been driving the car, do you think that your mom would have died?"

Seungri heard those words – somehow they penetrated through the fog in his mind. He did more than hear them; he felt them. He felt them like hammer blows to his battered psyche and he knew the answer somewhere deep within his soul.

Mother-killer.

He had killed his mom. Seungri unconsciously shook his head and Arashi's twisted truth – that he had no way of trying to deny – threatened to rob him of breath; to rob him of the very will to live.

His eyes drifted downwards – away from the triumphant sneer of his captor – and they alighted on the picture of his mom. He had held it so tightly that Arashi’s partner had torn it from his grasp as they entered the room. Now it lay crumpled and torn on the floor.

His mom's face was distorted and unrecognisable. Even in the picture, she was dead.

And he had killed her.

He vaguely heard Arashi mockingly ask: "How can you possibly believe it wasn't your fault?"

The answer came to him without thought. It was in the agony that spiked through his heart; the guilt that seared his soul.

He had killed his own mother. How was he supposed to live with that?

TBC...