I had an awful day today so I figured the only thing that cheared me up were the comments and seeing so many subsribers and so I decided to upload a new chapter.

May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.

George Carlin
 

This had to be how actual criminals felt. The rush was something out of this world and it made his entire body burn as if someone had lit him on fire, his mind was hazy as if he got drunk and his body seemed to function purely out of inertia because he felt as if he had zero control over his actions. What exactly drove him to this point? Was it the judge and his call or was it the grin the killer had given him before getting back on his jail bus?

He could recall vividly how the guy looked over the pictures of the bodies, not a hint of emotion whether fear, disgust or joy flashing on his face. It was as clear as looking in the mirror, that look of contempt he was giving the prosecutor every time their eyes met. It was disturbing how natural and casual everything seemed for him, as if it was nothing else but a stain on his shoe or a string on his clothes hindering him and nothing more.

Was there a chance for the guy to be innocent? No way in hell. Kyuhyun had managed to connect five crimes together by the time the perpetrator became obvious and he indicted on that but as soon as the trial began three more possible victims’ surfaces. There were too many things they had to link together and they had very little to prove his theory so he went along with only the first five, thinking that if he gets a conviction for them he can simply work a bit more for the rest and then finally have a second trial and add to the punishment.

It did not turn out like that as one could see. The killer had too much back up and what should have been eligible and enough for a 20-year conviction at least. Evidence connecting the victims to the friends, phone calls between the friend and the killer at around the time of disappearances. The killer disappearing off the radar so coincidently at the estimated time of each murder, connections to clubs that sold drug and others and yet nothing was enough.

He wasn’t crazy. He knew very well that the most likely verdict was going to be a not guilty one and then it was all a gamble. Was he really going to go after his sister? Kyuhyun had a sister, a bit older than him, married and with twin children, recently born. Would have he gone after her, doing to her all that they both knew it had been done to the other 8 girls before?

He was sure it was going to happen. Just as the man didn’t move a hair nor batted an eyelid when seeing those pictures or hearing the accusations brought against him, that devil was more than capable of planning his revenge and being true to his words of making another victim. That couldn’t happen, he would never allow it to happen. Maybe, that was actually what drove him to go and visit a gangster in order to get contact details of a killer for hire. Maybe he had to be honest and admit that it wasn’t his desire to see the man in jail or death but simply the fear or having to fight an enemy plotting to hurt his family that had him drive all the way to the place written on the name card.

Yes, that was the truth. He feared the man. Deeply. Because he knew he was more than capable of doing what he threatened to do. Still, was this the right way? What if the gangster called up anyone, someone and gossiped about a prosecutor coming to his office to get information like that? What if it was all a trap and he was falling into it? What if someone saw him, knew him or came to suspect anything? Money… he didn’t have that much so how could he even hire someone.

“This is ridiculous…” he spoke out loud as he ended up in a back alley, in front of a old phone booth that looked as if it was going to collapse at any given moment.

It was dark, it was cold, yet he felt as if he was burning and his eyes hurt from the normal road lights he could spot around. He had to calm down. Okay, so he could admit it was fear that was driving him to such a resolute decision. He could also admit that he didn’t have the needed cash to hire a killer, not like he knew how much it would cost anyway. If he was caught or at least suspected, he could say goodbye to his job and farewell for all eternity to the possibility of a promotion. And yet every time he found reasons not to try and use the phone booth pay phone to call the number on the card, right in front of him, vividly, he could see that man’s grinning face.

“Let’s…. let’s just see what it takes. Right? Let’s say we are studying… for a book…or a case or something… a study. I am making a study on how easy it is to hire someone to do your dirty work. I am undercover trying to infiltrate a criminal organization…”

By the time he finished that sentenced, he burst into laughter at how ridiculous he sounded. First, he was a prosecutor. He could only coordinate police in related investigations but not be an agent undercover. He was being ridiculous as hell and if anyone who knew him heard him, surely, they would have thought he had gone mad.  Second, it made no sense to make such a study in the first place. His job didn’t require it and it brought him no fame. Maybe if he planned on writing a book about criminals but again, those that knew him knew that he was anything, but a writer and he even had trouble writing his own paperwork, especially when he had to be dramatic and make his closing statements. Legal terms were easier to grasp than normal language.

He looked up at the name card he had received. N.A. Didn’t that meant Not Applicable or Not Available or something like that? What on earth did this mean when added to the address written below? the phone booth sure looked not available. Maybe this was simply the gangster guy trying to get revenge on him by sending him on a fool’s guest or something.

“I don’t think I am going to find someone to kill that son of a in this god forsaken place.”

So why was it so hard to leave? Why was he still outside that wreck of a phonebooth as if it was the book of answers and he just had to step inside to be enlightened? As messed up as things were, a part of him hoped this wasn’t some sick joke and that in reality that was some secret meeting place where he could anonymously voice out his hidden desires and hopes. Still, it seemed that after the madness that had taken over him there was finally some peace at the horizon. Enough to stop him from his frenzy of getting a killer but not enough to make him walk away.

Even if he couldn’t go through with it, he was intrigued enough to pick up the receptor and see if it was functional. It turned out that the phone could be used at any given time. It made him glance quickly over the written number on the very bottom of the card. What was going to happen if he called? Was he going to be directed to some hotline or police station or something? He really wanted to know if someone would indeed pick up. There was no real justification for wanting to call other than his curiosity and his now muffled need to get rid of the killer.

He took a deep breath and then placed the name card down, one button at a time as he dialled up the number. The weirdest thing happened right after someone seemed to have answered. Kyuhyun could swear he was hearing a small buzz coming from somewhere nearby but no matter how he looked around, he just couldn’t spot anything that could make a noise other than the phone itself. What really scared him was what happened next. From what was supposed to be the display showing the dialled number came this bright light.

It instantly clicked in his head as he heard the next sound. Somehow, someone, had made it so the device could snap a photo using flash. That ensure they would get a good photo of the face of the caller even in the middle of the night. Who ever imagined a phonebooth phone could snap a picture?

If he had been too frantic in his attempt to put a stop to his potential worst nightmare before now he was scared of the unknown consequences. How was that photo going to be used? Was he going to end up in the newspaper or maybe on some weird site connecting him to some creepy people? He had to get out of there and pretend he never went to the TW headquarters in the first place. He had to pretend nothing had scared him, that he had never even imagined how it would be like to kill that serial and to completely delete out of his head this entire event.

It never happened. It had to be erased.

Maybe he was supposed to be scared. If not of what could happen because of his outburst then because of how easily he put it off his mind right after ripping the name card and then throwing it out. It couldn’t have been normal to go from upset to frantic to almost obsessed to doubtful and then to curious and finally scared only to just brush it all off and be as unwavering as he had always been. Maybe there was something very wrong with him as well. In the back of his mind, he felt like he was supposed to at least not get a good night sleep, to toss and turn and have some nightmares and yet he had easily figured out a way of keeping himself calm and proceeded to making it happen.

Maybe he had what it took to just not who any emotion at the next trial hearing when he would definitely not get the desired outcome. If he simply got some security protection for his family he could just go on with his life as if nothing had happened. After all, every day was about the same: wake up, go to work, stay late, go back home. If his family stayed safe, nothing else was going to change. And it was surely going to be more affordable to hire a bodyguard than to hire a killer. Kyuhyun should have been afraid of how easily he seemed to have wrapped up his emotions after such an explosion of emotions that seemed so unlike him.

It had been a bit too easy for him to forget that he ended up in a shady place with a shady phonebooth that just snapped a picture of him. Maybe he was a bit of a psychopath himself. He looked absolutely normal to everyone else and no one seemed to notice anything at all different about him so he was back to being his same old self in just a matter of days. It was a lie and he knew it. He was simply really good at acting as if he never did something so out of character and proved to have a will like none other by refusing to let the situation steal away from his nights and rest and clarity of mind to do his job.

One day and nothing changed. The second day and everything was just the same. A third day only brought him closer to the hearing date a week later. But there was a change. Even if he could successfully mask his inner fear, even if he could keep the beauty of his nights and rest by the use of his will alone, in the back of his mind, like an echo, from time to time, there were signs of the rampant him who thought only death can avenge the victims and prevent turning his sister into the 9^th victim.

And then real change happened.

The fourth day of everything being the same as it had been before, leaving his office a little bit before midnight, just as he was approaching his car so that he could finally drive home, enjoy a glass of wine and fall asleep at his desk while looking through his papers for the next case. It was easy to notice the man standing against the streetlamp, obviously waiting for something. It was easy to notice the approaching black car; one he could already tell was going to stop right in front of him.

For a moment, he wondered if the car was going to stop in a hurry only to have the stranger run up to him and push him inside the car and then just dash away like it happened in movies. Then he thought that was ridiculous because movies were movies and reality is reality, but he had seen things worse than what movies or dramas displayed so maybe he wasn’t being crazy about it. Then again, maybe he was just imagining things and he just had to ignore his instinct of running away. After all, the car was not dashing through the night but moving at a rather normal pace, not ignoring traffic signs.

His heart stopped when the car stopped in front of him. Could it have been his boss? Or maybe it was someone from TW thinking he could use the information to his advantage. In the worst-case scenario, it was either someone on behalf of the killer preparing to make more threats or someone on behalf of the criminal he had wanted to contact but eventually did not because of fear. Whoever it was, it became clear it wanted to talk to him, hopefully, given how the car stopped in front of him and the back-seat passenger door opened.

It was just like in the movies. A strange guy in the car, sitting as if he was on top of the world, only tilting his head just enough to let the black haired know he was supposed to get inside. The leaning against the lamp guy had moved as well, walking towards them and opening the front passenger seat, keeping the door waiting as if he was waiting for the prosecutor to enter first. It didn’t look like he had plenty of options at his disposal. Without knowing exactly who those people were, any sudden move could have led to chaos.

Maybe the best thing he could do was to just get inside, put on his prosecutor persona, keeping cold blooded and impassive as to not look vulnerable or easy to blackmail. He was a prosecutor. Even if he indulged in the thought of having someone killed, even if he felt the energy it had brought to life inside his body to be on a quest for someone that could kill that man, at the end of the day, even after all that, he was a prosecutor. Until the day he was fired or stripped of his position, until death, he had to be calm, clear headed, to at least pretend he was better then those he wanted to hire in the first place.

The tinted windows were not helping him figure out exactly where he was going, and he disliked feeling small and helpless. Maybe that was what awoke the rage he felt for the in the first place: a dire desire to not let anyone play him for a foul. Messing with his family was an afront, messing with his head was a challenge, and the fear he kept feeling at the thought of his family being in real danger was making him feel like suddenly there was someone else living inside his body.

“Go inside.” The man inside the car spoke, signalling once again for the car door to be open.

Now Kyuhyun could clearly see it was a restaurant. In fact, it looked too much like a restaurant to raise even the slightest suspicion. Was someone simply being far too dramatic about asking him out to dinner? Surely that couldn’t be it, not when inside, standing as straight as a pole, was the same TW guy who had handed him the name card.

“We should go this way.” The guy opened his mouth, a completely different demeanour about him this time around.

There was only one reason why someone as smug and flashy as a gangster would turn into a little sheep, so calm and docile. Someone there was higher than him in rank and power and one single misstep was going to cost far too much. It meant there was someone scary there, someone that did not accept frivolous acts, that wouldn’t put up with others speaking out of place and someone that wanted to be the only one to control the people and the situation.

It terrified Kyuhyun because of one simple fear. What if that person, so powerful even a gangster would look like a priest was somehow connected to the very man he tried to kill and is still trying to convict? It wasn’t very plausible but given the many movie like events in the past week, anything could happen, right?  Patted down, searched for guns, wires or who knows what else, the prosecutor had to make up his mind about how he was going to proceed past the staircase they were leading him to.

He could either pretend to be fishy and hope it was enough to get him out of there and from there he was going to figure things out or… he could keep his cool. He could simply be a prosecutor that had no idea why he was being asked for and that wasn’t going to accept to be tied to anything outside the law. Hypocrite, given how he had almost hired an assassin but necessary if he wanted to survive. And something told him he had to be very careful of his words and actions once he stepped deeper inside the restaurant.

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it felt so nice to see the comments. I hope I am able to return and get your attention again so that many would read, comment, inspire and challenge me. 

I am curious what are your thoughts so far and if you like such a topic.

I am also curious...what would you find cliche or what would you dislike reading.

let me know.