Chapter 2 – We miss you

The rest of the week felt like a roller-coaster that only went down. It had only been a couple of days, but the media wanted an explanation from the police. It was prosecutor Yoon who made the official statement. In his statement, he explained that Ko Hyunwoo was the culprit. He killed Do Jaehwan because of revenge for killing his wife and daughter. He also stated that it was Ko Hyunwoo who killed the congressman Seo Wonseok. The prosecutor promised to the public that doctor Joo Young-Hoon, as well as Do Jaehwan’s wife, would pay for their sins. Doctor Joo Younghoon would be sentenced for murder and abduction of children and Do Jaehwan’s wife would have to face charges for complicity with her husband. Not a single word was mentioned about Kim Soohyun.

Youngeun had been so out of it the last few days that no one wanted to burden her with the official statement. She, on the other hand, didn’t even bother to ask. She didn’t want to hear it. She hadn’t slept well in days, she cried for hours when she was alone and if Seulgi wouldn’t bring her food, she would’ve forgotten to eat. Now she was standing in front of the screen in their special unit office watching the statement at the press conference. What was going on? Why was no word mentioned about Soohyun? Youngeun couldn’t figure out what was going on in prosecutor Yoon’s head. When he came into the special unit room later, she confronted him

“What was that about?!”

“What do you mean?” he asked as if he wouldn’t know what she was trying to get at.

“Why didn’t you mention anything about Kim Soohyun?”

The prosecutor sat down at his table and started organizing his papers. “What for?” he asked without looking at her.

“What you said is only half of the truth!” Youngeun said. The prosecutor just kept on organizing his desk without saying anything. “Why aren’t you explaining this situation?”

Then Yoon Jaehyun became really angry all of a sudden. He stood up and screamed at Youngeun, that she was actually scared for a second. “What did you want me to tell them? That the real culprit was someone who had been manipulated his entire life? The public wants someone to blame and not someone to petty! What do you think they would say when his entire childhood story would’ve been revealed and then it turned out that he was dead?! This was the only way for all of us! But if you’re not happy with it go on and tell them what really happened!”. Then he just left the room leaving Youngeun standing there. She had no words. Everyone else in the room was quiet as well.

“Don’t take it to heart” Euisoon said. “He did this for you, you know”

“For me? What do you mean?”

“After all, he was your friend… to be honest I understand his way of thinking. In the end, Kim Sooyhun only tried to protect Seulgi and you. Despite all he has done in the past, I still think he deserved better” Euisoon said. Youngeun stayed in the office for hours going through all the files again. It was through a file that she read all about Kim Soohyun’s childhood. He had met Philip on the smuggler boat that he was supposed to be thrown off from. Philip was the one who noticed that he was still alive and told his father, the smuggler, about it. Due to an uncertain reason, they kept him alive. Philip's father was a criminal. He smuggled all kinds of goods from and to Korea from Russia. Sometimes weapons, sometimes drugs and sometimes even humans. However, he never killed anyone. That was probably the reason why he wasn’t able to finish his job. Arriving in Russia with the smuggler boat, Kim Soohyun got into contact with Pavel. It turned out that Pavel wasn’t doing so well with his health and wanted to have a partner for his wrongdoings. Even though he didn’t want to, Pavel somehow ended up with Kim Soohyun by his side. There Soohyun only learned to treat people as objects. He had no empathy for people whatsoever. He never learned to love, he never learned to think of other people’s emotions and he had never been taught that what he was doing, was simply wrong. Just reading it made Youngeun sick. What was even worse in this entire situation though, was the fact that it wasn’t over. Her adoptive mother asked her to talk to her while she was being questioned by the police. Youngeun didn’t feel like seeing her, but she was still the woman that took her in when she was on the edge of dying. This woman provided for her education and her entire life. As a special officer to this case, the police wards allowed Youngeun to talk to her mother the next day. Seeing her in the interrogation room felt unreal to Youngeun, but she went in anyway.

“How are you feeling?” she asked when she walked in because she didn’t know what else to say. Her mother, however, didn’t reply for quite a while.

“We have given you everything. You have been our daughter for years now and this is how you thank us?”, she confronted Youngeun. Youngeun, on the other hand, didn’t dare to look at her adoptive mother. She felt guilty for mourning about someone who ended her adoptive father’s life. However, he didn’t deserve anything else. In Youngeun’s opinion, he deserved to die like this, which made her question her sanity even more.

“We have already gone through the paperwork. You only need to sign the adaptation reversal”, she said. Youngeun was confused by the meaning of this. Was her adoptive mother going to cut all ties with her? “After you sign it, there is no need for us to see each other again”. These words hit Youngeun hard. Even though she never had an affections relationship with her adoptive family, she was still thankful to them. They took her out of the hell called Hansol and gave her a good life with all opportunities. However, this was all going to end now. Her adoptive mother had already signed the paper, which made Youngeun wonder. She decided to sign the paper as well and she didn’t even feel bad about it. Honestly, she felt released. She was released from the chains that made her feel guilty all the time. Even though she was thankful to them, she could never forgive her adoptive parents for what happened. She didn’t want to live in resentment for the rest of her life. It was better this way. After the paperwork was done, they didn’t exchange another word. It was as if they erased each other from each other’s life. Seulgi even congratulated her. “You know I’m experienced. If you don’t have anyone left, you don’t have to worry about anyone”. Seulgi was right. It was time for Youngeun to care for herself from now on. Just like this, weeks passed by without remedy. The reports were pretty much written and the case was pretty much closed. Life went on…

The next day Youngeun picked up Seulgi from school. They wanted to go see Kim Soohyun. On the way to the cremation facility, no one said a word. It felt weird to go there. It felt as if one of them would actually say it out loud, they would finally accept Kim Soohyun’s death. They arrived faster than they wanted to, but they had to visit him at least, as there was nothing else they were able to do for him anymore. It didn’t take long for them to find his urn. It was so sad to see it, that Youngeun’s heart almost ripped again. Besides his urn there was nothing. No pictures, no flowers, just nothing. Just thinking about it Youngeun didn’t even have a picture of him. She regretted so many things. She regretted never taking a picture with him and she regretted never realizing her real feelings for him. If she would’ve realized earlier, maybe she would’ve been able to change his actions, but now it was too late.

“Can you manage to get the key for the door? I want to make it pretty for him”, Seulgi said quietly.

“I’ll talk to them” Youngeun promised. Philip Ahn’s urn was right below Soohyun’s. It was just as sad. Both of them were people who lived in the shadows of law and justice. However, both of them were unable to break out of that vicious circle of blood and death. It was the way they had been living because they had never been introduced to another way. Youngeun wasn’t sure if they deserved to be saved, but she at least wanted to try when she still had the chance to.

Back at work they finally finished up the case. In the evening Youngeun went over all the files again after everyone was gone already. Just reading everything in the file was still disturbing, however, the official press statement was so different from the truth. Youngeun couldn’t think straight. Something was not right. Why would they not even mention Soohyun in the statement? It would’ve been the easiest thing to just blame him for everything. However, not even mentioning him made no sense. On the one hand, she couldn’t understand. On the other hand, she was glad. She didn’t want people to hate him even after his death. She tried to get more info about it the next day from prosecutor Yoon, but he was not cooperating.

„You don’t need to know“, he told her. „It’s better for you to just finish up with this case. All reports are written, the statements are made and the people to blame for are either dead or behind bars. Do Hyunjin, I beg you to move on“.

Youngeun couldn’t even answer him before he just left the office room. The next couple of weeks prosecutor Yoon acted as nothing was wrong. The case was wrapped up in a hurry and everyone got back to their old selves. Youngeun felt as if she was the only one that was still thinking about it.

She went to go see Soohyun every weekend, hoping she would stop dreaming about his last moment. She woke up every day in the middle of the night shivering. Ever since she did not have one night of good sleep. Youngeun had also gotten a letter from the prosecution, where she had officially been deleted from the family register. Do Hyunjin had died, and Lee Youngeun was left alone again with no family and no one to turn to or to rely on. From now on she was an orphan again. She wanted to share her pain with someone, but the only person she could talk to was Seulgi, who she didn’t want to burden even more. It was tough for Seulgi as well. She had no friends in school, she had no family and people bullied her for being the way she was.

Youngeun didn’t feel like going home so she stayed in the office cleaning up long overdue papers. She needed to move on but she couldn’t throw away Kim Soohyun’s mug shot. How was she not able to recognize his eyes right away back then? She probably didn’t want to accept that it could be him. Youngeun decided to bring all remaining things down to the basement where the police stored their evidence. They had a new modern System with digitally operated storing boxes. Each officer would need to log in with their password first in order to open the boxes. Youngeun had done this many times, so it was nothing complicated for her. When she tried to open the box related to this recent file however, it didn’t work. She had no access to the box. She called prosecutor Yoon on his phone to ask if there was something wrong with the system.

„You purposely don’t have access. I didn’t want you to think about this incident again“, he said.

Youngeun was getting angry. „Don’t you think that’s for me to decide?“. She just hung up. She was frustrated. What was so wrong for her to see these things? She in fact needed to see it in order to move on. Therefore, the next day she barged into prosecutor Yoon’s office to demand access.

„If you’re not going to give me access I might think you’re hiding something!“ Youngeun argued. Eventually, he gave in and let Youngeun have access but he made sure to tag along. Youngeun thought it was strange but as long as she could get access she didn’t mind. She just wanted to clean up her desk and get rid of the memories she couldn’t handle. She didn’t want to forget him, but she only wanted to remember the good memories of him. While going into the storage room, Youngeun regretted a little how she talked to the prosecutor. „I’m sorry for the way I talked just now. I was just having a hard time the last couple of weeks“, Youngeun tried to argue.

„I know and I’m sorry for what happened“, he said.

Youngeun was a little surprised. „It’s no one’s fault. It would’ve happened anyways… I wasn’t able to stop him.“

„It wasn’t your job to stop him though“.

„But I wanted to…“ Youngeun said while opening the system to get access to the storage box. As the police station renewed the entire system just a few months ago, the storage boxes had different shapes and sizes and were rolled out of the shelves automatically. Kim Soohyun’s box was rather small. As Youngeun opened it she noticed that all the weapons the police had confiscated weren’t there, except for one. It was the pistol Soohyun had held in his hand just before he died. It was the weapon that changed Youngeun’s entire life. She took it into her hand and looked at it for a long time. She felt tears forming in her eyes. She put it back quickly and put in the documents she was here for. There were many folders, however, she didn’t really care as something else captured her eyes. It was the little keychain with an airplane. Youngeun had left it at the orphanage for her childhood friend to find. When she found out that it was Kim Soohyun, she was happy, but she was even happier when she realized that he had that keychain by his side.

„Is it possible to keep some of these things? I would like to give something to Seulgi“, Youngeun asked.

„I don’t think that’s a good idea…“

„Please… and I want something as well“.

A week later the request Youngeun filed was finally approved. She had gotten the Keychain for Seulgi and the Pistol for herself. She couldn’t exactly explain why she wanted it, but she somehow felt less alone with the pistol by her side. It was the only thing that was left from Kim Soohyun. The cruelest thing he was best at… Youngeun and Seulgi were getting back on track. Seulgi started to get better grades in school and started to become happier, or at least she pretended to be. As it was lonely for both of them, they ate breakfast and dinner together every day. In the morning Youngeun drove her to school and then went to work. Somehow it was peaceful, but only because they stopped talking about the thing that hurt the most. They also decided to not visit Kim Soohyun together. Seulgi wanted to be alone while visiting him and Youngeun liked it as well. She could tell him her thoughts without anyone listening. It was so weird. She had visited and talked to him so much more than when he was still alive. It made her sad but there was nothing she could do. The next time Youngeun visited him she noticed that Seulgi managed to put the little Keychain inside of the glass box. How did she do it? The two weren’t able to get the key for it as none of them were real relatives or had any kind of relationship that could be proven. Therefore, the key remained at the police station, where they denied Youngeun the access as well. Youngeun always felt as if something was fishy about it. Why did she never get access to anything concerning Kim Soohyun? Why was everyone so eager to forget about him and the case? Sure, the public was happy as they had the culprit and the victim all sorted out and behind bars. However, Youngeun knew the truth. Or course she didn’t want anyone else to find out as she wanted Soohyun to rest in peace at least after his life hadn’t been peaceful at all, but still, it was weird. Just thinking about the police and the law itself lying to everyone was disgraceful. That day she visited Soohyun again, had marked six months. Six months ago, Youngeun had to experience the worst day in her life and on this day six months later she felt so many things at once that she wasn’t able to describe it. She felt sick and betrayed but at the same time, she had a little ray of hope inside of her. She had asked the guard of the building how it was possible to put things inside of the glass box. He was a really cute and old grandpa. He told Youngeun that he wasn’t allowed to do so but he still had a master key for everyone. Seeing Seulgi and Kim Soohyun’s empty box made him feel empathy and opened it for Seulgi. Youngeun wanted to put something inside as well and agreed with the guard to bring the key back right before she would leave. As she was a police officer, the guard agreed. Youngeun took her time to open the box and to arrange it nicely. She had been carrying a letter in her bag that she wrote to him for months, but she never had the opportunity to open the glass box so far to put it in. Now she was finally able to put it where it belonged. While arranging it nicely, she also put flowers inside. By accident Soohyun’s urn almost fell over, but Youngeun was able to catch it. To her surprise, it was very light. Weird thoughts went through her head at that moment. All thoughts came back to Soohyun’s face covered in blood with him reaching out for her hand. That one touch, Youngeun could never forget. She knew she wasn’t supposed to check, she knew she should have trust in prosecutor Yoon. However, his behavior had been odd for months now. Youngeun couldn’t wait, she needed to check! Her heart was beating like crazy, she stopped breathing but eventually opened the urn. It was empty…