“When Taemin was accepted into the hospital, did you notice a backlash of some sort?” Siwon asked.

Dr. Kim nodded as he checked his watch. “Of course there was. The city was outraged by his sentence. Now, if you’ll excuse me-”

“What about the other patients?” Haruki interrupted. “How did they treat him?”

Siwon gave her a questioning look, but she ignored him, keeping her eyes fixed on the psychiatrist seated across the table from her. “You understand that, as a doctor, I am under oath to protect my clients,” Dr. Kim said slowly.

“I was just asking for an observation,” Haruki replied coolly.

Dr. Kim rose from his seat and straightened his labcoat. “Excuse me, but I have an important meeting to attend soon. You have my card. If you have any more questions, please feel free to call me.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Haruki said, standing up and shaking his hand. “We’ll be in touch.”

She was pretty sure he glared at her on his way out.

“You have got to stop badgering people, Haruki,” Siwon sighed.

“Me? Badgering? I’m questioning him. That’s my job,” she snapped.

“You know he can’t reveal things about his patients,” he retorted.

“I wasn’t even asking medical questions.” She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “And we can’t afford to look at them as patients, either. They’re suspects. Until we can clear them, everyone in that hospital is a suspect.”

"Patients in a mental institution have certain rights that protect them from the law,” Siwon protested.

“And mental institutions have laws that are supposed to protect their patients,” Haruki retorted. “Who are we talking to next?”

Siwon checked his notepad. “Goo Hara, Taemin’s night nurse. Should be coming in…”

There was a knock on the door and Haruki rose to enter it. A sweet-looking young woman entered with a timid smile. “Ms. Goo?” asked Haruki. The woman nodded. “Please, come in. Have a seat.”

As the nurse seated herself, Haruki opened to ask a question, but Siwon’s gentle touch on her shoulder firmly told her that he was taking the lead on this one. “Ms. Goo-”

“Please, I prefer Hara,” the nurse replied.

Siwon acknowledged her with a nod and continued. “Hara, can you describe your job at Miracle Behavioral Health Center?” Haruki rolled her eyes yet again at the name. Miracle. Right. Because most of the patients admitted were in for life.

“I come into work at 6pm every night and bring dinner and medication to the patients I was assigned to,” Hara replied. “Around 9pm, I bring medication to them again. I take careful records to see if patients are improving or if their medication has side effects. Around 10pm, I check in on them to let them know it’s almost time for bed. I assist them with anything they need, or just sit and listen to them talk.”

“Was this one of your patients?” Siwon asked, pushing a photograph of Taemin towards her.

Hara smiled slightly. “Of course he was. You wouldn’t have called me down here otherwise.”

“Did he ever give you any trouble?” Siwon asked.

“Not at all.” She shook her head. “He always did as I said and took his meds. He went to bed as soon as I came in at 10.” She shrugged. “He was a model patient.”

“Did you ever notice any odd behaviors?” Haruki asked.

“No, nothing out of the ordinary,” Hara replied. Haruki nodded. Dr. Kim had said as much.

“Lee Taemin, also known as The Lobotomist.” Siwon raised an eyebrow at her over his notepad. “Did that scare you at all?”

Hara shook her head again. “No. I knew he wasn’t dangerous. Not…if you ever saw the way he looked, sitting in that hospital room, you would have know he wasn’t dangerous anymore.”

Siwon glanced over at Haruki, who shifted uncomfortably before blurting out, “Do you think he deserved to go to jail?”

"That’s not my place to say,” Hara replied. “I’m a nurse, Detective. My job is to help patients along their path to recovery.”

“But not everyone shared your philosophy,” Haruki cut in. “Did you ever notice anyone treating him badly? Any of the staff?”

“Haruki…” Siwon sighed.

“I-I can’t say exactly…” Hara stammered.

"What about the other patients?” Haruki asked. “Did Taemin have trouble with any of them?”

“Haruki, that’s enough,” Siwon snapped.

“Actually, now that you mention it, there was one patient who always picked on Taemin,” Hara cut in. “Bang Minsoo. We called him C.A.P. He used to pick on Taemin every day, knocking his food to the ground and shoving him around in the hallways. Eventually, we had to keep them on opposite sides of the hospital. I never found out the reason, but C.A.P. hated Taemin.”

Siwon and Haruki exchanged glances before the latter stood up. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Hara,” she said, shaking the other woman’s hand before walking out of the room.

“No,” Chief Park said simply as he pulled his jacket over his shoulders. “You get your badge back once you prove to me that you’ve earned it back.”

“But I can’t get my job done if I don’t have it,” Haruki argued.

“I’m sure you’ll figure out a way,” Chief smirked as he brushed past her out of his office.

Haruki bit her lip hard, before turning towards her office. She had to go, no matter what, but without her badge, she knew she wouldn't get answers. Male suspects tended to belittle female cops even with a symbol of authority and-

“Hey.” Sungmin came up to her, looking concerned. “You okay? Is something wrong?”

“I have to question a suspect,” Haruki replied. “And Chief won’t let me have my badge back.”

“Where are you going?” Sungmin asked.

“To this neighborhood a couple blocks away,” Haruki told him.

“Let me grab my jacket. I’ll drive you. You can borrow mine,” he replied.

“Sungmin, I can’t-”

He just waved a hand as he walked away. Haruki stared at him for a few moments and smiled, rolling her eyes.

“And so, we’re sitting in the car, keeping as quiet as possible, waiting for the suspect to appear,” Sungmin said. “And right when he does, guess what happened?”

“Ryeowook cheered out loud?” Haruki suggested.

“Almost,” Sungmin replied. “He got so excited, he sat up and leaned forward, pressing both hands against the steering wheel and setting off the horn while cheering out loud.”

Haruki burst out laughing, imagining the elfin detective bouncing up in his seat with an exuberant “Yay!” as the car horn blared.

“But we got him in the end,” Sungmin replied. “You have no idea…Ryeowook is impossible to work with. You’re lucky you get to work with Siwon now.”

Haruki shook her head. “Chief Park only assigned Siwon to me because he asked Siwon to report my every move to him. The rest of you wouldn’t do that.”

“Because we’re gentlemen?” Sungmin smirked as he raised an eyebrow.

“As if,” Haruki rolled her eyes. As they drove by a basketball court, she suddenly sat up. “Wait, pull over. I see him.”

“Yay!” Sungmin deadpanned as he slowed down and pulled over to the curb. “Want me to come?”

“I got this,” Haruki replied. “Badge?”

Sungmin pulled his out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Be careful.”

“I always am.” She opened the car door and climbed out as she headed towards the basketball court. “Bang Minsoo?” she called.

The men on the basketball court stopped playing and turned to look at her. “This one of your ex-girlfriends, C.A.P.?” one asked.

“Nah,” replied another as he stepped forward. “Want do you want, babe?”

Haruki flashed the badge before putting it back in her pocket. “I have a few questions I need you to answer.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” C.A.P. retorted. “Unless you want to put those handcuffs to other use.” The other boys roared with laughter as he smirked at her.

“It’s about a patient you knew while you were at Miracle,” Haruki replied. “Lee Taemin?”

C.A.P. stiffened as he stared at her, eyes narrowing slowly. Before Haruki could blink, he’d lunged forward, lashing out wildly with one fist. “!”

Haruki ducked backwards and blocked his punch with her left arm, before grabbing him by the same wrist with her right hand. She yanked him to the ground and stepped behind him as he tried to grab her with his free hand, twisting his arm around his back until his face was mashed against the ground. “Sorry, these handcuffs only have one use,” she snapped, as she pulled his other hand behind his back and firmly cuffed his wrists. The other basketball players backed up as she glanced up at them.

“Whoa,” Sungmin commented as he slowed down, hand still hovering over his gun.

Haruki pulled C.A.P. to his feet and raised an eyebrow at her colleague. “What?”

Sungmin just smiled. “Good to see you’re back.”

“Get out of my face, !” C.A.P. hollered, nearly lunging out of his seat before Siwon shoved him back into it.

"What happened to his nose, Haruki?” Siwon asked.

“He tried to punch me,” she replied calmly, crossing her arms. “We can do this all day, Minsoo. Why did you antagonize Taemin when you were at Miracle?”

"I didn’t!” C.A.P. snapped.

“We have reports from a nurse that you were always pushing him around and knocking his food trays to the ground,” Siwon replied. C.A.P. scowled. “Care to explain that?”

The young man sighed as he tugged on his restraints. “If I do, will you let me go?”

“Depends,” Haruki replied.

He glared at her. “I wasn’t talking to you. You hate him, just like the rest of them!”

“Them?” repeated Siwon.

“Those es at the hospital! They were the ones bullying him, not me!” C.A.P. snapped. “I was protecting him.”

“Cute story,” Haruki retorted, leaning closer to his face. “That doesn’t explain what you did to him.”

“Of course it does,” C.A.P. shot back. “Are you stupid? I said I was protecting him. They’d try to trip him in the hallways, so I shoved him right past them. They’d spit or put other disgusting things in his food, so I knocked it on the ground. I was helping Taemin, not bullying him. They’re the ones you should be questioning. They probably killed him, not me.”

He smirked as he caught the look of surprise exchanged by the two officers. “What? You think I’m dumb? You think I don’t follow the news? I know he’s dead! And I know those es killed him!”

“That’s what you say,” Haruki replied. “Why should we listen to you? There’s no evidence that those women ever mistreated him.”

“Because you always treated him so well, right?” C.A.P. asked with a nod. “I know who you are. You’re the girl who broke his heart.”

“That’s enough!” snapped Siwon, but it was too late. C.A.P. smirked as Haruki looked down at her feet and abruptly left the room.

“You didn’t kill me even though I know you could have. I knew you wouldn’t because I know you better than anyone else.”

Despite the sunlight coming through the windows of the cafeteria, Haruki felt a chill run down her spine as she absentmindedly poked at her salad.

“When the time came for my trial, I was excited. It was the first time I got to see you since that little incident. I watched you throughout the entire trial, though you kept your eyes on the judge as if your life depended on it. Your annoying friend, that Jessica, held your hand throughout the whole trial, while those lawyers you always turn to, Tiffany and Hyoyeon, mercilessly grilled me. They painted me as an obsessed stalker who had crossed the line to serial killer because I couldn’t take “no” for an answer. I could see all of our colleagues in the crowd, watching the trial. I saw pity and anger and horror, but most of all, I saw guilt. Oh, it was funny, really. Everyone blamed themselves for what happened.

"And then your turn came up and you took the stand. You had to sit there and look everyone in the eye and explain that it was your words that made me a murderer. And when asked the important question of why you hadn’t killed me, all you could say was, ‘I don’t know.’ I wanted to raise my hand like a good little boy and answer the question. Because I knew, even if you didn’t.”

Haruki slammed the journal shut and brushed her bangs out of her face. The entire notebook was filled with his ramblings about her and how well he knew her. She wanted to call them delusional, but she couldn’t. She opened it again, skipping to the next page.

“It’s been six months since they locked me up in this room, where none of the other patients even dare to talk to me. They’ve heard the stories and they’re scared of what I’ll do to them. In fact, the only people I regularly see are my nurses and my shrink. My shrink is the one who urged me to keep a diary of my thoughts and feelings. He says it’s better than keeping them bottled up. He calls it part of my therapy.

"But I know he doesn’t read them because he isn’t interested in the ramblings of a ‘crazy kid.’ So I ignore his orders and fill these pages with letters addressed to you. It’s been six months and you haven’t come to visit me, not even once. But that’s okay, because I know you’ll come to me. And when you do, I’ll give you this, so you’ll know that I’ve been thinking about you this whole time.”

“Damn it,” she muttered, feeling tears come to her eyes. When he was writing this, she had been obsessively changing the locks on her doors and windows, terrified that he’d get out and come back for her. But now, reading his thoughts, her heart almost ached for him. He sounded so lost and lonely, like the kid that she’d befriended on the first day.

How could one person make her feel such a mix of emotions?

“Detective Morita?” Haruki jumped at the sound of her name and looked up to see a younger girl smiling at her. “Hi.”

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“It’s me,” the girl said. “Well, you probably don’t remember me. We met about a year ago. You talked to me, remember? I’m Eunjung.”

Haruki frowned slightly. The name was familiar, but she couldn’t exactly say how. “Hello, Eunjung. What brings you here?”

“Hunger.” Haruki’s eyebrows shot up as Kim Hyoyeon, Tiffany’s partner at the law firm, approached her table. “Hi, Haruki. It’s been a while, huh? Heard you got a new case.” She smiled. “Looking forward to working with you on it.”

“Hyoyeon…why are you here?”

“Tiffany and I are representing Eunjung’s case,” Hyoyeon replied. “The jury’s out now, so we came here for lunch.”

“I really wanted to meet you again,” Eunjung told Haruki with a bright smile. “You have no idea how much you helped me come clean about what happened. Thank you so much.”

“You’re…welcome?” Haruki’s confused frown deepened.

“Mind if we join you?” asked Hyoyeon. “Eunjung, why don’t you tell Tiffany where we’re sitting?”

“Okay.” The younger girl dashed off as the lawyer seated herself beside Haruki.

“She means it, you know,” Hyoyeon said quietly. “After she reported her assault, she was too terrified to explain what had happened. Eunhyuk was the first to meet with her and said she wouldn’t speak to him or any of the other officers. He brought you in, hoping that you could get her to open up and you did.”

Haruki nodded. She vaguely recalled Eunhyuk asking for her help questioning a victim who refused to speak to men while she was embroiled in the midst of her own investigation about a year ago.

“She was inspired by a strong woman like you to fight back against her attacker,” Hyoyeon continued. helped her move forward. "And we’re all here for you if you need us.”

“How do you feel about the case?” Haruki asked, pointedly ignoring her last sentence. She’d been wondering when that would come up. Haruki’s throwing a pity party. Everyone’s invited to point and whisper.

"Tiffany’s closing statement may have been a bit off-putting,” Hyoyeon replied. “She takes these things personally, you know? I’m afraid that might scare off the jury, but I’m confident in the evidence. The facts don’t lie.”

“Out of fries, but I got you onion rings,” Tiffany announced, setting a box in front of Hyoyeon as she slid into the seat across from Haruki, Eunjung sitting beside her. “Hello, Haruki. Good to see you again.”

“Likewise,” Haruki replied. “Please let me know the outcome of the case. I’d like to know how everything turns out.”

"Can you come, actually?” Eunjung looked down at her lap, twisting her hands together. “I’d feel better if you were there. You helped me at the beginning…a-and I’d like it if you could see it through to the end.”

Haruki force herself to smile. “Of course.”

Same hard wooden seats, same cold white walls.

It’s not the same thing, Haruki.

Same image of the nervous prosecution witness, the confident defendant, the lawyers blocking them from each other's view. Same gut-twisting tension as the jury filed back into the courtroom, one by one.

It’s a different case. You’re not here for yourself. You’re here to support someone else. Haruki took a deep breath. Completely different.

“Mister Foreman, has the jury come to a decision?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“What is the sentence, please?” Haruki swallowed hard and crossed her fingers in her lap.

“Not guilty.”

“What?” Tiffany demanded, leaping to her feet as several similar shouts rang out from behind her, but it all blurred into one cacophonous buzz in Haruki’s ears. The defendant, known to her as G.O., straightened his collar as he stood up and shook hands with his attorney. He caught Haruki’s eye and smirked, but she barely noticed. Eunjung was hunched over in her seat, burying her face in her hands, shoulders shaking, just like-

The flash of a camera bulb jerked her back to the present and she glanced behind her to see rows of reporters and cameramen, some leaning forward, some standing over their seats, all eager to capture the victim's distraught reaction.

Wolves, rushing in for the kill. Her eyes narrowed as she stood up to block Eunjung from their view, placing her hands on the younger girl’s shoulders in an attempt to comfort her, though she knew there was nothing she could say or do to change the situation.

A loud crack rang out from behind Haruki and as she glanced back, there was a muffled cry from the defendant’s box. She looked over just in time to see G.O. fall to the ground, red streaks blossoming across the wooden floor underneath him.

A/N: Finally, a little action. It's about time!

Thanks to everyone who's been subscribing and commenting! I've been writing only when inspiratino strikes and when I'm not swamped with school, so I haven't been checking this site as much. Updates will come sporadically. Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!