----Chapter Thirty-One----

"...two witnesses saw a man fitting the defendant's description leaving the premises..."

"...found locked in a small storage room in the defendant's apartment..."

"...tied hands, blindfolded...a microphone..."

The well-articulated voice of the prosecutor seems so distant even though he's pacing right in front of her, giving his opening statement with a confidence that should reassure her, but instead it does nothing to settle her worries down.

Chaeyoung knows she should concentrate on his speech, but her mind is completely blank. Instead, all of her energy is centred on trying to subdue her shaking body without much success.  She's having difficulties breathing normally, the atmosphere in the courtroom feels almost suffocating

He's staring at her. From across the courtroom, she knows he's staring at her. She won't allow herself to look his way to see if her sixth sense is right, but there's no doubt in her mind. Her body is frozen on her seat, hands clenched painfully on her lap. No point in trying to sugarcoat it, Chaeyoung is petrified with impregnable fear.

She's as terrified as she was when she woke up in that tiny room, immersed in darkness. She may now be free from blindfolds and bindings, but she's just as much of a prisoner now, sitting on that chair with other people on her sides.

He'swatchingmehe'swatchingmehe'swatchingmehe'swatchingme

She wants to appear strong, to show him he hasn't succeeded in ruining and terrorizing her life even after his arrest.

Morosely, she can admit that she probably fails at showing a strong side to him, since she's cowering in her seat and it's probably evident to all that are watching her that she isn't in control.

Still, she tries.

She barely registers when the prosecutor ends his statement and the defence attorney takes his place, bowing to the judge before starting. She doesn't want to know what the older woman says because everyone already warned her; the defence will use anything to degrade her, will use any weaknesses against her, anything that could be twisted to their advantage.

Still, Chaeyoung tries to listen, more attentively than before, because maybe anger will help reduce the fear.

The attorney, with a stoic expression, begins talking and Chaeyoung soon realizes, with the woman's choice of words, the road she's chosen as the best defence for the trial.

Using her status as an idol against her, as if that was an invitation to get kidnapped while trying to portray the defendant as a weak man; a victim.

The prosecutor team had speculated a long time about the possible tactics the defendant's lawyer would use, and this was one of the possibilities they laid down.

She tries to keep a neutral face throughout the attorney's speech, only her toes curling in distaste and repulsion at the degrading way the older woman is describing her job.

An entertainer.

She isn't subtle with the pejorative nuance she injects in the word she chose to use too.

Like idols are lesser beings than singers.

Idols can be great singers too, she wants to scream but instead, she has to hold back her anger.

Does she sleep well at night, degrading women like that, Chaeyoung wonders, or maybe her paycheck erases all her morals.

Next to her, one of the prosecutors is taking notes, and she curiously wants to peek, but the eyes of the lawyer, suddenly on her as she talks, holds her in place.

They're so cold.

Her father used to say that the court is like a playground where they're all playing a role, all in the name of a verdict in their favor, that nothing said and done there is a reflection of the values of the people behind those words and actions.

So Chaeyoung knows deep down she shouldn't take it to heart.

But it's not as easy as he made it sound.

After the opening statements are over, she once more loses what's being said until she hears the female lawyer state the words 'mentally unstable'.

Her eyes widen. She knows what that means. They've talked about that possibility after all. It would mean that he might avoid jail if they win, landing in psychiatric care instead.

Without thinking, her head snaps in the direction of the defence's bench.

Her eyes meet two pools of utter darkness, piercing through her. She freezes, forgetting where she is, what is happening.

She's in that room, huddled in a corner with him hovering over her, his eyes a black hole, everything bright, leaving only a dark emptiness.

The memory of the past is even more powerful now that she knows what he looks like, what it feels like to have his eyes on her.

"You're worthless. I'm asking you to sing, not to screech like a dying seal. It's your ing job, it shouldn't be this hard for you to do!"

"I-I can't, I sang t-too much. My throat hurts," she pleads, desperate for the earth to swallow her away from this place.

"Excuses! Filthy liar! You're ing fake!" He spits out, reaching to grab a handful of her hair, pulling her off the chair she was previously sitting in. She almost falls down from the sudden movement, her legs weak. 

She's a lifeless doll under his control as he pulls her forward, and it's terrifying, that she doesn't know what's happening.

Why is he suddenly so angry? What's going on? What-

She cries out, her worries interrupted by an intense pain as her head smashes against a solid surface. Hard. 

Her teeth clatter from the hit and she whimpers as her head throbs in pain, but she remains otherwise quiet. She won't cry, never in front of him. Never let him see her tears.

"You don't get to rest, you hear me? Keep singing. If I can't hear you, I'll hurt you. I don't want to, but you gotta learn to obey, don't you?"

He drags her roughly, and her body follows without any choice. She's limping behind him, barely keeping up. It hurts, a pulsating pain she feels all the way down to her toes, and the fact that her body is weak from the lack of sleep isn't helping either. 

A door opens, and he throws her inside hard enough for her head to hit a wall, her body limping down to the ground.

The door closes.

She whimpers, longing for her hands to rub her temples, anything to soothe the pain, and she even tries, her mind so blank that she forgets for a moment that her hands are tied. But she remembers when they jolt against their restrain. 

She whimpers again. 

Her head is spinning and it takes her several minutes to start breathing normally again.

She groans silently, sliding down on her corner, blinking.

And that's when she realizes her blindfold has slipped off slightly, probably from the collision.

It's almost blinding, to see something else besides darkness.

Her eyes move upward, where there's a sole lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

It flickers.

On and off. On and off.

She tries to observe her surroundings whenever the light is on.

It looks exactly like a closet. The carpet is an ugly pale brown that might have never been vacuumed in its life, and the walls are a depressingly dark grey.

There's nothing else.

She stares at the door, wondering what he'll do when he realizes her blindfold slipped off. He's definitively going to think it's her doing, and not because of his own violent action. He might even grow angrier than he is right now, and she wishes he could keep that door close forever so she'll never have to find out what will happen.

Why is the light even on?

She thought she would appreciate it after all that tim