Suho almost had to push them past Kris’ compartment. The door was halfway open and on their way Tao could see Yolkov kneeling down next to the single bed, examining a gunshot in the golden haired boy’s forehead. A thick red line of blood s its way down to his closed eyes and further down across his left temple, disappearing into his hair. His beat-up face looked even more distorted than earlier when Yolkov had escorted him from the restaurant.
They were the last of the remaining boys to enter the restaurant and Suho firmly closed the door behind them, before sitting down in the nearest chair without a word.
The silence in the room was so heavy and complete that it felt as if the air itself was pressing down on their shoulders. Tao looked around nervously, careful not to make even the slightest noise as he did so.
Kai had crouched in a corner, his arms tightly folded around his knees and his head bowed down so that no one could see his face in the shadows. On a table in the corner furthest away from him, Kyungsoo was sitting stiff and alone, staring out the window with eyes wide in shock, tears running down his cheeks.
Baekhyun and Chanyeol were sitting together in the same chair, Chanyeol cradling Baekhyun’s shivering body while he softly his shoulder, none of them talking to each other. Lay had immediately sat down by the door, his chest rising and falling hard with every breath as if he had been running. His brown eyes were staring blindly forwards and Tao guessed that he was fighting to find some sort of mental escape from the contradicting mess in his mind.
And on the floor by the wall, Jongdae was lying with his head in Minseok’s lap. His face was dead pale and his eyes seemed to be twitching behind his closed lids. Sweat had gathered on his skin, making him appear almost feverish and Minseok kept his hair with shaking fingers, as if he was afraid Jongdae wouldn’t wake up. It was only then Tao realised that the younger brunette had probably had to give in to his abstinences and that Minseok’s concern was like to be horrifyingly reasonable.
The whole scene was so different from yesterday’s waking nightmare in compartment six, Tao thought, tears stinging behind his eyes. Yesterday everyone had been crying and screaming and utterly desperate. Now it seemed rather as if everyone in the room had been petrified by shock and, perhaps even more, by guilt and Tao knew that they all struggled with the feeling that they just weren’t sorry enough to hear of Kris’ death. As inhumane and repelling as it was none of them probably felt as sad as they would have expected to. In fact he even suspected them of sharing some kind of ghastly relief that they wouldn’t have to have the company deal with him later, and it just made everything worse.
Desperately wishing for some kind of redemption from the whole situation, Tao meekly shuffled over and sat down in a chair next to Chanyeol and Baekhyun.

“How are you feeling?,” he whispered when Baekhyun looked up at him from his nest-like hide in the other one’s arms.

“I don’t know…,” was the timid little answer. His eyes were full of tears, but he didn’t quite seem to understand why they kept forming. “He’s going to think I did it… The Russian. God, I… I wished for Kris’ death so many times because I was so afraid of him and what he might do to me, but now I just feel horrible…”

“I know… so do I,” Tao heard himself confess, his stomach feeling as if it had become filled with stone.

“But you… you didn’t wish for this to happen…”

“No, but the last thing I did for him was breaking his nose, then spitting him in the face… Do you think I’m proud of that now?” He started to feel sick as he spoke. His right hand was shaking in remembrance of the vibrations that had settled all the way up through his arm when he had felt the bone break beneath his knuckles and the image of Kris’ head slamming back into the floor, blood spraying both of them, made the vertigo increase.

“Of course not… I’m sorry.”

Baekhyun looked away, as did Tao. They could hear Kai sniffle once, but otherwise the silence came back.
For something that felt as an insufferable eternity surrounded by mute grief, Tao thought he was going mad, when finally the door was opened and the translator came in, her steps almost ringing in his ears after the long time in silence.

“Tao, Mr Yolkov wants to talk to you again,” she mumbled wearily, her voice raw and her Russian accent audible for the first time. Her eyes were red from crying, but it looked rather as if she had given up on mourning, simply because she was too tired to care anymore.

Everyone looked at her in shock and then turned their heads to Tao at once, who managed to conceal that he wasn’t surprised at all. In fact he had only been waiting to be called upon again, anxious to get out of the cramped atmosphere in the restaurant. He could feel the other’s looks of pity burning on the back of his head when he rose with a stark nod and stalked out of the room with the plainest expression he could come up with.

“But why him?,” he heard Kai whisper in confused tones and Tao knew they were now all thinking of how he could possibly have been their killer all along. He gulped and was glad when the translator closed the door behind him and followed him into Kris’ compartment where Yolkov was waiting, though she didn’t go inside with him.

A twinge messed up his face and he could feel how the tears were stinging in his eyes when he saw the white cloth covering his leader’s lifeless body on the bed. A dark shadow of blood was coming through the white fabric, weighing it down so that the features of Kris’ face were distinctly visible in a heavy shade of red.

“Do we have to be in here?,” he asked, uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry. But yes, there’s something I have to show you on the body. He was shot like the other two. What does that tell you?”
“That… that it’s the same person?”

“Yes.” He nodded approvingly. “That ought to somewhat relieve you. But there’s just something wrong with the picture… See…,” he lifted the cloth to reveal Kris’ dead face, soaked in blood by now. “It’s a bit difficult to make it out now, but look at where the bullet went through.”

Feeling more nauseous and shuddering than ever, Tao leaned down and took a closer look at the nasty wound in Kris’ forehead.

“What is it that I’m looking for?,” he mumbled, fighting not to get sick.

“Look at the edge of the wound. There are visible burns; it looks as if the gun must have been pressed into his forehead before it was fired. Burns like these only occurs when the gun being fired is extremely close to the skin. If all of you were in your compartments at the time, why didn’t you hear him scream?”
“I don’t know…”
“Surely, if a gun was forced halfway into your scalp you would wake up. The least you would do then would be to scream… So why didn’t you hear it?”

“Maybe… Maybe because he didn’t scream?,” Tao tried, his gaze flickering. He wished that Yolkov would cover up the dead body again so he didn’t have to look at it. It got harder and harder not to cry.

“Exactly. And that is what bothers me. Why on Earth would he stay silent? Also, this murder was committed while you were all asleep in your compartments. Are there anyone, anyone at all that we can rule out in the question of guilt this time?”

The black haired boy bit his lip, a woeful sigh escaping him.

“Jongdae. There’s definetely no way it could have been Jongdae.”

The way his voice was shaking made Yolkov look at him in pity.

“You’re right.” Carefully he shot the body one last look, before covering him up again, rising to his feet. “But who then?”

“Honestly, as angry as we were, I think we were all equally capable of doing it…”
“And yet, you didn’t do it, which means that some of you are not completely without moral. So I need you to tell me who is more likely to have done it. Who has the actual nerve?”

For a very long time Tao just stared blandly at the wall; his head had severe trouble thinking coherent thoughts, but at last he pulled himself together.

“Chanyeol… I guess he could have done it, thinking of how much he cares about Baekhyun. And I guess Minseok, in theory, would also be able to do it, but there’s just no motive, is there? I mean, besides anger.”

“Not as far as I can tell, no,” Yolkov muttered, crossing his arms. “But looking at the motives rather than capability clearly expands the list of suspects… This murder is obviously anger-fuelled. It was risky. Anyone could have seen the murderer go in here or come out again. There’s not the same planning to it…”

“Sir, is there… is there any possibility that we are now dealing with more than one person?”

The sergeant looked surprised at Tao’s uneasy face.

“Why do you ask that?”

“It’s just… I spoke to Lay before we were taken to the restaurant.” He took a deep breath, determined and looked up from his nervous study of the floorboards. “He told me something. He confessed that he and Kris hadn’t been together during those two hours in which Sehun and Luhan were killed… Kris came to him afterwards, begging him for an alibi so that you wouldn’t suspect him.” Feeling how the tension was staggering up in his throat, he gulped a few times to clear his voice. “You were so sure it was Kris who killed Sehun and Luhan, and you suggested yourself that he was lying earlier. What if… it really were him? He could have hidden the gun instead of throwing it away. In that way it would be possible for someone else to find it and use it against him. I mean, he wouldn’t exactly have been fit for putting up much of a fight, after…”

The words died on his tongue when he tried to say “after what Chanyeol and I did to him”, but Yolkov didn’t seem to miss out on the point.

“Right you are. Then, if we think about it this way-“

He was cut off by the door abruptly opening and their translator stepped inside. It looked as if she used all her energy on just standing up straight with her eyes open.

“Will you have any further need of me?,” she mumbled at Tao, her shaky voice incoherent and blurry. “Because if not, I really wouldn’t mind a bit of sleep…”

“No, it’s fine. You can go,” he quickly said, feeling bad for her at once. Had he ever looked as tired as she did?

“Thanks, because it’s…,” she looked briefly at her watch, “6 P.M, which means I have been awake for more than thirty hours. I’m sorry, but I can’t take it anymore.”

“It’s okay, just go get some sleep. And actually, it’s closer to 7 P.M…,” he added, a slight bleak smile curling his lips. She sighed.

“Guess I forgot to set it forth when we switched time zones… Anyway, thank you. I’ll be off then.” She closed the door behind her as she left. Tao shrugged at Yolkov, who hadn’t been as lucky as to get any translation this time.

“She was tired so I sent her to bed. Anyway, you were saying?”
“Oh. Right, so… If we assume that it was indeed Kris, who killed Sehun and Luhan in order to make them shut up, then why not kill Baekhyun off as well when he had the chance?”

Tao let out a defeated sigh and threw his hands up.

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I… Damn it. I’d hate to drag Ilyin in here again, but I guess I’ll have to do the questionings all over again.” He, too, sighed and let his fingers run through his short hair. His voice was raw.

“Ilyin?”
“Your translator, boy. Elena Ilyin. Good thing you know the names of your employees.”

“Well, she’s not exactly our employee… Hold on…” His eyes grew wide when a sudden thought struck him in a fearful mocking voice, laughing away in his head. It was as if someone had poured icicles all over him, making him shiver and wince.

“What is it?”
“There’s something we’ve overlooked, from the beginning… Everyone got on the train at midnight and then some of us gathered in the bar a little less than one hour later, right? Around 1 A.M… The train stopped thirteen minutes past one and we found the bodies two hours later. During that time Kai was outside on the platform, Lay was in the shower, Kris was in his room and the rest of us were in the bar,” he quickly summed up. “Now, we know that Kris was lying when he said that he had been with Lay in the shower during that time, right?”

Tao’s stomach felt as if it was trying to squeeze as much pain out of him as possible when Yolkov nodded. With a shrill trembling excuse of a voice he slowly continued.

“That leaves Kris and Kai without alibies, but also Lay… Lay was alone in those two hours as well. And… Miss Ilyin’s watch was one hour wrong. She just said so, she didn’t set it forth when we arrived from Athens and there’s a one hour difference in time zones between Greece and West Russia. So when she met Lay on the aisle it wasn’t at 1 A.M, it was 2 A.M…”
“And she told me he was definetely on his way to the shower when she saw him.”

“Oh, but why would he ruin his own alibi if he really did it?” The sound of his own words were so infinitely relieving that it took him several seconds to realise that Yolkov was shaking his head. “What?”

“I’m sorry, Tao, I am really, really sorry…”
“But what? What exactly?!”

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Author's Note: Guys, I'm so sorry, I had trouble uploading yesterday, so this chapter is a bit delayed! D:
I should have just called this chapter chit-chat I have no imagination any more

Right now I'm rather desperate, because honestly I haven't finished next chapter. So, yeah, I hope I'll make it within this week so that you can have it Sunday, but I won't promise anything just yet. I'm doing my best though, so I really hope I'll be finished soon. Please look forward to it! ~