“I swear to god, if you don’t stop twitching, I’m going to stab this pencil into your hand.”

“I see the violent tendencies don’t go away even when you’re inside the courtroom.”

Haeun turned to look at him and sent him a sickly sweet smile coupled with a glint in her eyes that told him that if he messed with her, she’d respond fittingly. “I see that your tendencies to pick a fight with me in the courthouse don’t go away even when you’re on trial for murder.” 

Baekhyun opened his mouth to retort further, but she shut him up with a glare that seemed to say ‘try me, I dare you’, so instead, he simply rolled his eyes. He had to admit that she had a point — it probably wasn’t a good idea to get into an argument right before his trial. He was also grateful for giving him a distraction. It was easier to think about her in order to avoid thinking about Jaehyun and the trial which had made him absolutely, awfully, jittery. 

Although the last week that they had spent working on his case together involved the bare minimum of speaking between the two — because talking about anything else just brought about an air of pure awkwardness that neither of them knew how to deal with —, Baekhyun knew that they had silently formed a semblance of a truce. Because he was suspended from work without pay, he had spent most of his time either in his apartment with Chanyeol, and occasionally Wendy, keeping him company, or with Haeun at her law firm office where he had ended up getting to know Siyeon fairly well when Haeun would kick him out of her office to focus.

He was also very well aware that they would need to talk things out if she managed to win the case, but that was a thought for another time. He also knew that he would have to talk to her about their relationship — or rather, the lack of it — at some point; he was still sporting a few thin, straight lined bruises on his fingers that came from Haeun’s inability to turn papers carefully.

The argument they had was simply a month ago, but it felt like eons had passed since that moment. He wasn’t even sure how to bring it up anymore. What would he say? 

Baekhyun opened his mouth to say something, anything, just to try to convey that he was truly grateful no matter what the trial’s result ended up being, but they got interrupted by the prosecutor walking up to them. Baekhyun resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the smug look on the man’s face. He was wearing his prosecutor uniform — a black and purple gown over a black suit that was not unlike his own — while Haeun was simply wearing business wear. He stopped his eyes from wandering over from the man standing in front of them to the woman next to him to admire the black blazer form fitted to her extremely well which matched her black slacks and white blouse.

“Has the lover's spat become public?” the prosecutor sneered. Baekhyun glanced over at Haeun only to see her rolling her eyes as she flipped through her notes, and he recognized the prosecutor as the one that was there the day that Baekhyun and Haeun had their argument, and he stopped himself from wincing at the reminder.

“Have you finally realized that you don’t have a life beyond work?” Haeun retorted without bothering to look up at the still sneering man.

“You’re just scared that you’re going to lose.” Haeun finally looked up at him from underneath her lashes, and she sent him a smile that made the one she gave him earlier look normal in comparison.

“Are you sure that you’re not projecting your own fears onto me? I mean, I did win the last case,” she responded, flipping her hair over her shoulder. Baekhyun pressed his lips tightly, trying to control the urge to smile. Haeun was clearly taking no from this man, and he admired her for that. She had the need to always stand her ground, and he found that amazing, and he knew he felt the same way even when it was against him.

It was clear that Hongjoong didn’t have a response when he placed his hands flat on the table and leaned in close to hiss, “We’ll see, Lawyer Na. We’ll see.”

“Don’t get overconfident, Prosecutor Kim. You’ll find that it’ll only do you no good.” Hongjoong simply walked away, and Baekhyun let out a small chuckle. Haeun turned to look at him with an eyebrow raised.

Baekhyun didn’t feel like explaining how he found it just a tad bit attractive when she was confident in herself, so he just sent her a small smile. 

“Nothing.” She looked at him inquisitively for a beat longer before turning back to her paper. A strand of loose hair fell into her face, and Baekhyun’s hand twitched to push it back behind her ear, but thankfully, she moved it before he could do that. The lack of sleep was definitely getting to him, and he knew he had to get a grip on himself. 

He looked away from her and instead looked at his own hands. He was slowly getting better at looking at them and not seeing the red blood that stained his palms in the small amount of time that had passed since Jaehyun’s death, but it was harder to control his mind when he was asleep. The nightmares were relentless, and they always started out with the gunshot echoing through his ears, but they ended differently as more and more time passed. Sometimes it was Jaehyun dead on the ground, sometimes it was his aunt, and other times, it was Chanyeol. The ones that seemed to horrify him the most were the ones where he couldn’t make out the face entirely because it was covered in blood and scratches, and yet he was just about able to make out the navy hair that flared out on the ground, slowly becoming a strange tinge of purple as the blue mixed with the red from the blood. 

It was no surprise that it was barely noon, and he had already gone through three cups of coffee. 

At the reminder of his nightmares, his hands started feeling clammy, and he rubbed them on his pants, trying to get rid of the moistness.

“You’ll be fine,” Haeun murmured next to him. She extended a hand towards him, as though she were about to hold onto him or maybe pat his arm, but she retracted it and placed it on the table. “I think we have a solid case here.”

Baekhyun didn’t trust himself to respond verbally, so he nodded.

He just wanted this to be over. 

He scanned the jury — sitting in a separate area of the courtroom behind the prosecution — as they chatted amongst themselves while waiting for the judge to arrive before finally taking a glance at the people he knew were sitting in the third row of the seats. Chanyeol, Eunji, Wendy, Jeonghan, Dongwoo, and Jieun had all made time to come to the trial, and while he was grateful for the support, he wasn't sure he was going to be able to look at them if the trial ended up going badly. Rather, he wasn’t sure he could deal with looking at their grim expressions when his brain was more than enough to come up with the worst-case scenario endings. Needing a distraction quickly, he sighed with relief when the bailiff walked in. 

“All rise,” he spoke, and everyone in the room rose as one. The judge walked into the room and sat down in her seat. “The court is now in session. Judge Kwon Boa presiding; please be seated.”

There was a sudden increase in murmur at the female judge, and Baekhyun rolled his eyes as he settled back into his chair. With a female lawyer in the room, he figured that it wouldn’t be so surprising that the judge could also be a female, but people loved their backwards thinking. 

The judge cleared once, and immediately a blanket of silence covered the room. “Good afternoon,” she spoke in a clear, strong voice. “Ladies and gentleman of the jury, today’s case is regarding the the murder of Detective Jung Jaehyun. The prosecutor and defense attorney may begin their opening statements.”

With that, the trial began, and Baekhyun felt his heart beating in his throat, and he had to stop himself from throwing up his breakfast.

The prosecutor stood up first to speak, and Baekhyun finally noticed his name. “Your Honor,” Hongjoong spoke, first looking at the judge before turning his eyes to look at the jury, “and ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defendant Byun Baekhyun is charged with the murder of Detective Jung Jaeyhun on December 15th, 2020 at 11:43PM. The evidence will prove that the defendant is indeed guilty. The prosecution pushes for a first degree murder charge with an incarcartion of life without parole as he, himself, was a fellow detective.”

He sits down only for Haeun to stand up and walk around the table to face the judge and the jury to address them before she continued speaking in a clear tone, “My client, Byun Baekhyun, has been wrongly accused of murdering Detective Jung Jaehyun, and thus pleads not guilty.” She thanks them and goes back to her seat, and Baekhyun slowly starts feeling detached from his own body.

The words of the opening arguments f