To say that Baekhyun was seconds away from a mental breakdown would be an accurate statement. Baekhyun was aware that he’d been in shock earlier, but now everything was hitting him full force, as though he had been free falling off a cliff towards the vast, open sea, and his body hit the water’s surface hard before drowning. The only thing keeping him together was the thought of his aunt. He couldn't afford his aunt finding out about his arrest; she had enough on her plate. She was busy enough with her job as a tour performance director with the constant stress and traveling; she didn't need the added stress of whatever the hell was going on in his life. He would just have to hope that Haeun would get him out of this before he had to tell her, and he wasn’t looking forward to seeing her for the first time in a while with a glass panel between them.

Despite everything that he had said about Haeun and the way he had treated her (which he knew was completely unfair towards her, but she wasn’t much better than him), he was beginning to get a first hand glance into the reasons why she did what she did, and to be very honest, he was extremely grateful for all of that. Through some amazing of luck, Haeun was assigned as his lawyer, and Baekhyun trusted her that she would make sure he would be freed. He realized that he trusted her with his freedom, and it scared him that he was so prejudiced towards her for so long.

But even besides all of that — he didn't do it, anyways. He could never.

Baekhyun’s head spun, and he bent over, placing his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He closed his eyes tightly, hoping that all of this was a bad dream. He’d open his eyes and find out that he was still in his warm, comfortable bed, and not this makeshift slab made of uncomfortable metal bars. He’d get out of bed, go to the bathroom in the wonderful privacy of his home, and then take a nice hot shower under the pulsing shower head, and not have to use the dirty, gray metal toilet bowl that was out in the open. 

The worst part was that he couldn’t even keep his eyes closed for long. The images that appeared behind his shut lids were worse than what he saw when he opened his eyes. At least when his eyes were open, it was his bleak situation that gave him a headache and not Jaehyun’s death repeating in his mind over and over.

Every time he blinked, every time he let himself close his eyes, all he could see was the blood seeping through Jaehyun's shirt. He could see Jaehyun struggling to breathe through the pain as Baekhyun leaned over him, trying to staunch the bleeding with his hands. He pressed on the gunshot wound with his hands, and Baekhyun winced as his own voice echoed through his ears, screaming at Jaehyun to hold on just a bit longer. Jaehyun simply coughed in response, the blood seeping out of his mouth and down his throat. Baekhyun tried to stop the bleeding. He really did. The sirens rang through his head, and he flinched when he heard them in real life as a police car sped away from the precinct. Baekhyun thought that the sirens would be bringing an ambulance after he’d radioed for backup after Jaehyun went down, but instead he found himself facing a bunch of police officers that had arrested him for the murder of his friend. 

Baekhyun didn't want to look down at himself, knowing that there was a splotch of that blood on his shirt as a reminder of his failure. He was just grateful that he was able to wash the blood off his hands, but sometimes when he looked down at them, he swore he could see the red hue on his hands. However, as he became more aware of how his shirt was sticking to him, his back slick with his sweat, and how he felt like he wanted to rip his own skin off to wash off all the traces of blood, his heartbeat picked up. He could feel his breathing pick up, and he knew he was moments away from a panic attack. 

He failed to find Junmyeon, and he had failed to save Jaehyun. He failed to do his job as a police officer.

He’d even failed Chanyeol. 

Damn it, he promised he’d make progress with Haeun while Chanyeol was away, but he didn’t mean for it to be like this. He was simply going to apologize to her over lunch — only for them to end up talking to her for the first time in nearly a month under blinding white lights in a small room where interrogations were held.

When she walked into the interrogation room that he was so familiar with, it felt like she was an angel coming to rescue him, and while she’d be very pissed off with that analogy, that’s what it felt like. He’d lost all hope, and he couldn’t understand why they had arrested him on the spot so quickly. The interrogation was done in a matter of hours, and he already had a lawyer assigned to him. He knew that asking for a lawyer when he was already assigned was going to be pointless, so he just refused to have the lawyer show up last night. 

He told them that the gun they found wasn’t his.

He told them that he didn’t kill his friend.

He told him, but the evidence argued his every point.

Baekhyun moved from the bed and leaned against the wall, trying to take comfort in how cold the wall was. He leaned his head against the wall as he slid down to the floor, trying to focus on the coolness seeping through his shirt to make his back feel icy. He grounded himself with that feeling as he tried to count backwards from ten. After what seemed like minutes, or maybe even hours — he didn’t know — Baekhyun’s breathing slowed. 

He just couldn’t understand how everything went so wrong so fast. It was supposed to be a stakeout, and that was it. They even had the precinct ready to provide back up just in case. 

Instead, they were led to a dark warehouse with probably absolutely no CCTV, and he still had no idea how he ended up with the gun that wasn’t police standard. His upper arm stung as he remembered how badly he was pushed into the hard, splintered, floor. Judging by the way it hurt everytime he moved his arm, he had to have bruised it really badly, if not fractured it. Baekhyun couldn’t get it checked out till he was moved to the prison tomorrow morning, and he choked back his tears. 

His thoughts wandered back to Haeun and the way she rotated her arm every once in a while during the interview. She obviously had felt the injury, and he wondered if he should’ve mentioned that he had gotten hurt then. He mentioned that he’d been pushed onto the ground, but not that he’d gotten hurt in the scuffle, and maybe he should’ve, so she would’ve figured it out at that point.