”Kim Inseong!” Inhye screams the first thing she does as she opens the door to their home.

She gives Milou a quick pat, but is way too angry with her stupid brother to bother playing with the dog. She deserves an explanation. This must’ve been why Inseong fought so hard to make her his lawyer, he had to make sure that the lawyer was biased and didn’t investigate too much. How could he think so lowly of her? She’s offended, as if Inseong expected her to be a bad lawyer. And she did it. She did exactly as he wished. Just for money. She is disgusted with herself.

The sight of her older brother walking down the stairs makes her heart break. God, she do love him so much that her insides ache. How could he? Her own brother. The whole bus trip home she was shaking out of anger, her nails burying into her palm to prevent her from hitting her first into the bus window. This, despite the oh so great make out session she had with Taeyong. She’s been so left in the shadows, hating that she’s the only one not knowing what’s going on. Or, well, that’s disrespectful of her to say since she’s been lying to Taeyong this whole time.

”Inhye? Wow, I’m so glad to see you! You’re already back? How was the trip?”

”Cut the crap,” she spits back at him and his expression changes completely. ”When where you going to tell me?”

”Tell you what?”

”God, Inseong!? What are you not understanding?! I know, I know everything! Taeyong told me what happened in school, how could you hide this from me?”

Inseong’s eyebrows furrows.

”He did? Wow, I didn’t think he would. How did he even have the backbone to tell you everything? Did he tell you about how heartlessly he treated people? Did he tell you about how he treated people? How he harassed them, ually abused them, ruined their lives? Killed them?”

”What are you saying? Inseong YOU ruined his life. Why were you bullying people? All because of grades? Because you can’t stand being number two?” Why did you kill someone? God, she doesn’t know what she wants to believe? That her own brother, who she has looked up to her entire life, is a murderer?

”I can stand being number two, it’s our parents that couldn’t stand it!” Inseong exclaims, slamming the side of his fist into the wall. Then he takes a deep breath, calming down slightly. ”He was never number one, and I was never number two. He was jealous of me.”

He’s lying. God, Inhye has never been able to tell when Inseong’s been lying before because of how good he is at it, but now she can read him clearly. Or is it something else?

Whatever it is, Inseong is right about one thing. Being number two is not an option for him, and so is losing an argument. Inhye has to take advantage of Inseong’s flaws, and find another way around. Besides, if Inhye takes Taeyong’s side they will expose her fake instantly and get Taeyong another lawyer that will throw him in jail without a second thought. Hell, maybe she’ll be put in jail as well because of false identification.

”I-... I can’t believe how he fooled me...” Inhye is feeling tears burn in her eyes. Geniune tears. Her own brother. God, she doesn’t want to do this. She doesn’t want to pick sides. How did she get involved in this and what is the right thing to do? Rat out her own brother or put an innocent man behind bars wrongfully? ”Inseong... Can you forgive me?”

Inseong suddenly smiles, warmly, and jogs down the stairs and embraces her in a hug. She flinches, but he doesn’t seem to notice. ”It’s okay, baby sis, you’ve always been so gullible.”

Another thing he’s right about. She got a lot of backbone but some things really makes her miserable. Her brother and Yuta being two of the main factors. Damn, the douchy men in her life. Some way she’s got to prove Taeyong innocent, no matter what she has to go through. He’s not a murderer, no matter how Inhye looks at it there is no way that Lee Taeyong is a murderer, and she will go through whatever Hell that’s prepared for her to make sure everyone sees him like she does.

•  •  •

”WHAT!? So you mean Yuta and Inhye were past lovers!?” Ten screams.

”God, I’m already regretting telling you guys this,” Taeyong sighs. ”But yeah.”

”Jeez,” Hansol says, pulling his hand through his hair, frustrated. ”I couldn’t tell at all. I feel awful.”

”That’s... Kind of the point. Inhye already felt like a burden for barging in like this on our ’all boys’ holiday, as my lawyer, after I’ve been in jail for two years. The last thing she wanted was to ruin our Midsummer. She held in all her emotions for our sake.”

They all make confused frowns, feeling horrible about not noticing. Well, except for Jaehyun. That sneaky bastard knows everything. Somehow.

”Do you know what kind of business she had in Seoul?” Johnny asks, chewing his lower lip gently.

Taeyong shrugs. ”No idea, to be honest,” then he thinks. She said she had to leave after he confessed about his crime. Or, well, everything else about his past over and above his crime. ”But I do have a few guesses...”

”Do you want me to drive you to Seoul?” Johnny offers, but Taeyong kindly declines.

”I don’t know what I can do there to help her. Besides, it looked like she wanted to be alone.”

And alone is just what she is. She is sitting in her room, making sure the door to her room is closely shut while flipping through every single law-book she owns. There’s got to be something about evidence, how to prove someone innocent, even if they’re guilty. How to turn the tables, how to prove someone’s innocence despite the odds.

Suddenly, a chapter catches her attention. ‘Source criticism’. She quickly flips pages until she finds exactly what she is looking for.

”Source criticism. Criticism of the sources refers to the attempt to establish the sources used by the author and/or redactor of a final text. You must be able to critically scrutinize and evaluate the information you are about to use in your pieces of work.” Inhye reads out loud. The rest of the chapter mostly contains information about how this is useful when writing essays or for school related stuff, but she does find some useful information.

In the book, two articles from 1939 are featured. They’re about World War Two. One of the articles were published in Great Britain, whilst the other one was from Germany. As she read the two of them side by side, she noticed that they could’ve been about two completely different wars. On the next page, an article from Switzerland was put in attention. ’In cases of biasing, finding a neutral source is the key to getting an overall picture of the situation.’. Another segment about primary and secondary sources catches Inhye’s attention, as she reads an article about allegedly finding Hitler’s diary, which in the end got proven to be a fake one. But that doesn’t change the fact that when discovered, it was a huge deal since it would be a primary source.

”A diary...” Inhye thinks out loud. They’re four, no, five, people aside Taeyong involved. There is no way all five people would be able to pull of a stunt like this guilt-free, and going to talk to someone would expose them. One of them got to keep a diary.

•  •  •

”She’s on to something.”

Inseong, Soohyun, Doyeon and Haeryung are all seated in Doyeon’s basement. It was Inseong who called them in.

”Inhye?” Soohyun asks, confused. ”How?”

”I don’t know, I guess my plan to make her keep an eye on him back-fired. Damn, her job was just to prove him guilty. I didn’t think she’d actually be interested in more than the money.”

Haeryung was visibly bothered by Inseong’s statement. ”Well, let’s switch her out. If she learns too much we might get sent to jail, not him.” She runs a shaky hand through her hair.

”Relax,” Inseong says, gives her a quick glare. ”Inhye is smart, but she is still my sister. She grew up in my shadow and only had me her entire childhood. There is no way she would believe in Taeyong over me.”

”So what are you going to do?” Doyeon asks. ”Obviously she is starting to dig into the matter by herself. Which we can’t have. Should we just not bribe another lawyer? There’s many on the firm that would take the offer.”

Doyeon looks at Haeryung who nods in approval. Haeryung’s family are plenty wealthy, so offering money to keep their mouths shut is no problem at all.

”No,” Inseong says and shakes his head. ”There’s no point now, I know Inhye if we bench her right now there’s no way she’s going to let it go. Just trust me, I’ll plant evidence of Taeyong’s doings into her head.”

None of the other three can say anything against that. Inseong is a lot of things; he is smart, quick, very determined but he can also be manipulative and false. When it comes to games and getting what he wants - there is no way he’ll play fair. Inseong’s got a lot of cards up his sleeves, and he never let’s anything get in his way.

Let's just ignore that it took me a whole year to update and enjoy :-)