“All rise for Judge Min Kyunghoon,” the bailiff called out, his voice echoing through the courtroom as everyone collectively stood up. The chattering that had filled the room had died out as the judge walked in and took his seat, calling the trial to begin.

Baekhyun clutched her hand tightly, and she squeezed back, avoiding looking at Junmyeon, who was sitting next to his lawyer on the defendant’s side of the courtroom. With the case deemed high priority, the court had pushed up much earlier than it normally would’ve been, causing everyone to work long hours and cut down quite a bit on sleep. The last few weeks were a blur, a whirlwind of getting things ready for today. While Haeun had been doing her job and dealing with paperwork, she had also been helping Jeonghan put together a solid case without any potential holes for Junmyeon to slip through while Baekhyun, Chanyeol, Wendy and Eunwoo did their part of also helping put together the evidence. 

She and Baekhyun had also submitted witness statements about what had happened the night they had been attacked, but only Baekhyun would be going up to the witness stand to speak about it because he would need to explain what had happened when Jaehyun had been murdered. 

When Heechul had been arrested on charges of murder, drug trafficking, and blackmail and taken in for interrogation, he had confessed to his connection with Junmyeon and to where his son was hiding from the fear of an increased jail sentence, as compared to one where he would be going to jail for corruption and blackmail.

At first, Haeun didn’t know where the blackmail charges had been coming from — no one had mentioned anything to her that Heechul had been blackmailing anyone till the arrest. It wasn’t till she had seen the evidence list against him that she had seen that Heechul had been blackmailing the chief of the drug department, Lee Sungmin, to ensure that Junmyeon’s gang would remain as inconspicuous as possible. Lee Sungmin’s affair had been found by Heechul, and Heechul had taken full advantage of that in order to ensure that the wrong information about The Shuí would reach the detectives. Using Sungmin’s influence, Heechul pushed that the detectives would focus on the minor drug dealers in the areas nearby, but far enough from Junmyeon’s areas of focus. From this, the drug department was able to make arrests, but Jaehyun had picked up on the inconsistencies between drug users and the number of arrests. 

After digging through Heechul’s drawers in his office, papers in a folder labelled by Jaehyun had been discovered that encompassed the information he had drawn up about the arrests, tips about drug dealers, and the rate of drug usage and overdoses in each region. He had realized that despite the increase in arrests, there was still an increase in the drug usage, which didn’t make sense until he traced down one of the dealers that worked for Junmyeon. When Jaehyun mentioned checking it out to Baekhyun, who then mentioned it to Chanyeol and Jieun, Junmyeon received word about it from Jieun. 

“Kim Junmyeon already had a grudge against Detective Byun after what had transpired during their academy days, and once Lee Jieun had informed him that Detective Jung and Detective Byun would be looking into the dealings, Kim Junmyeon had taken advantage of the situation to murder Detective Jung while framing Detective Byun,” Jeonghan explained, looking between the jury and the judge as he paced back and forth through the courtroom. He was projecting his voice powerfully through the room, and Haeun knew that it made him seem much more convincing to the jury about his case.

Jeonghan moved up to the computer that had been set up to project the screen to a bigger one in the courtroom to open up a map with locations marked on it by red circles.

He turned to face the jury while he waved a hand to the screen and spoke, “On the screen here are locations of where The Shuí members have been found to be dealing with and here,” he said, moving closer to the screen to point where a green dot was placed, “is the building in which Jung Jaehyun was murdered. It is simply 100 meters away from the spot where over 60% of their collective sales occur according to the ledge that was found in Kim Junmyeon’s townhouse. The warehouse in which Detectives Jung and Byun had first spotted the dealing go down was another one of their popular dealing spots for more private customers such as celebrities or politicians, also mentioned in the ledger. All of these areas are fairly connected to each other for the ease of transport and sale of the drugs, including the warehouses that are used for storage and production.”

Once the police had seized all of Heechul’s documents from his home and office , it took them a day to confirm that Heechul had gotten rich very quickly by investing in apartment buildings and eventually buying them. His finances had shown the growth was fairly great and dependent on these buildings, but he had also gotten into buying several smaller plots of lands. When investigated further, the plots contained empty warehouses that hadn’t remained empty for much longer. 

Warrants were obtained for everything that Heechul had owned, including his apartment buildings and plots of lands, so when the police searched the warehouses, they found the storage and production sites for the drugs that were circulated by The Shuí. 

“The plots of land on which these warehouses are located are owned by former chief of the homicide department, Kim Heechul, who is also the defendant’s father,” Jeonghan announced, pulling up Junmyeon’s birth certificate onto the projection screen from the laptop. Heechul’s name and signature were clear despite how faded the paper looked on the screen, and as soon as people had finished reading what was on the screen, faint murmurs filled the room quickly, everyone surprised at the new revelation. Haeun resisted the urge to snort; she knew that specific feeling of utter surprise. 

One quick glare from the judge had the courtroom silencing, and Jeonghan continued speaking. “According to other