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Jung Daehyun's POV: 

   My father has his face on again. That's what I notice when I walk inside the room that he's in. 

   When I say so, however, it is not something to be taken in literally. What I meant, whenever I had such a thought as a child, was that my father had that specific expression on his face, that particular stony, crazed look that told me without words that he was plotting something, something that I would rather not want to know about. 

   He is looking at the one photograph of my mother that we possess in our small amount of belongings. It is framed and usually resides beside his mat on the wood floor, when it is not lying clutched in his hands. 

  I've never known my mother before - never in my life had I once heard the sound of her voice, or felt the touch of her hand. The only thing I know of her is how she looks in the photo; which my father rarely allows me to look at. He doesn't even speak of her, no matter how much I inquire after her.

   My father had just come out of prison seven years ago, around the time I was born. My mother had died from giving birth to me, for she was already sick and the pain of delivering was too much for a body so frail. She left a letter for him, however, one that I was never allowed to see. It must have asked him to take care of me and be my guardian, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered to house me at all, that I know for certain.

   "Appa," I call to him. He doesn't look up. "Appa, the food's ready. You didn't eat yet." My voice sounds plaintive and nervous, as it always does when I speak to my father.

   There's a silence before he answers.

   "You go eat by yourself, Daehyun," he says to me. He sounds dangerous. "I won't be joining you tonight."

   "Why?" I ask. As soon as I say the word, I want to punch myself. My father was never one to be privy to questions, and treats them as poison to his ears. I brace myself for whatever he plans on doing.

   But to my surprise, all he does is look to me and smile. It is not a warm smile, but something else entirely. Unhinged. Like a painting with a tear in it. 

   "Because, my son," he says. "Tonight, I am going to pay a visit to someone who was very dear to your mother." 

  It is the only piece of information that I have ever uncovered about my mother. Desperate, I grasp for it, in hopes that he will tell me more. 

   "Who was he? What was his relationship to Umma? Is he her brother?" 

  But he doesn't answer. He just carefully slides my mother's photograph out of the frame and then slowly folds it up. I have to restrain myself from protesting. That is the only picture of her, my mind screams. The only one. But he just slides it into his pocket, not saying another word.  

  There is a black duffel bag at the side of the room, I notice it now, as my father walks towards it. I also notice that tonight, my father is clad all in black clothing, complete with long black boots and dark gloves. Before he slings the duffel bag over his shoulder, he first pulls up his hood, shielding the top half of his face.

   I feel my knees start to buckle, and my fingers begin to tremble at my sides.

   "Appa..." I say softly, nervously. "Appa, are you really going to go visit your friend?"

   He whirls on me, and I jump away from him, my back hitting against the wall of the room with a thud.

   "He is not," my father hisses, "my friend."  

  When he leaves out the door, the only words he tells me is not to follow him. 

*~(~*~(~*~(~*

  The next few days seem to fly past me in a blur. 

  The police officers that are sent to take care of me for a while - one a man, another a woman - let me go visit my father. They set us in a small room separated in two by a series of booths. I can see my father through a slide of glass, and he can see me. I can hear him, too, though we do not say much. I once ask him if he really did kill that couple. He doesn't answer, all he does is grin at me. 

  The police officers let me come to this thing called a "court hearing," as well. The room seems fascinating; it is very big, with a very large, long table in the front of the room where a balding man in a robe sits holding something that looks like a hammer. There are two other long tables that face opposite each other in front of the bald man's table. My father sits in the table to the right, wearing metal cuffs, with a young man in a business suit sitting by him. A tall lady wearing another robe sits at the opposite table. 

  The police officers are kind to me, almost saddeningly kind. They treat me like I am built of glass, like I might shatter at any moment. I do not mind as much. They answer any question I ask. 

  I soon learn that the man sitting beside my father is called a lawyer, and he is there to defend my father, who is called the defendant. The tall lady is called the prosecutor, and she is the one who makes the consequences for my father. I hope that she will be merciful. And lastly, the bald man is called the judge, the hammer is called a gavel, and he is the one who will make the verdict of exactly what kind of punishment will be fit for my father, after hearing both sides. 

   The words that the lawyer and the prosecutor use are confusing, and they explain their points  so quickly that I have no time to process what they mean before another person speaks up again. All in all, I do not follow wherever the verdict is going. 

   "Do you know what's happening?" I ask the female officer beside me, assuming she's just as lost as I am.    

  She smiles down at me gently. Her eyes are lighter than a normal Korean's, hazel and warm.  "Your father is being tried," she explains to me. "There are a few other suspects in this case, but your father seems to be the one with the most evidence pointing towards him. All they are doing is going over that evidence." By the way that she fidgets, I can tell that she does not want to elaborate, probably because she simply does not want me to hear it. I decide to press her just once more.

   "Does that mean that my appa might not be punished for his mistake?" 

   The woman looks down at me, flustered. She opens to answer but is stopped by the officer beside her, so I take it that we're being too loud.

   I don't mind, though. I've learned something. My appa might not have to leave me. He won't have to go to jail for the rest of his life, and eat the disgusting prison food I've seen on TV.  I watch gratefully as my father's lawyer speaks for his side. He talks clearly and confidently.

   They won't take him, they can't. They can just find one of those other 'suspects' that the officer mentioned and leave my appa alone.

  But then, all of a sudden, a girl, who looks to be near my age, is brought up to a small space near the side of the judge. When I ask about her to the police officers, they tell me that she is the daughter of the parents that my father presumably killed, and that she is here to be the witness for their deaths. 

  She looks small and delicate, like a porcelain doll. Her hair is pulled up into two pigtails, and wears light, pastel colors on her clothes. She looks too cheerful considering the circumstances of the court hearing, despite the obvious tear stains across her cheeks and the bandage that covers her forehead like a headband. 

    I bunch my hands up in fists. 

  She cannot tell everyone of what my father has done. She cannot. 

   But she does, with her face to the ground, and no matter how much she cries, she speaks to the prosecutor and the lawyer in turn in a clear voice, proclaiming all sorts of accusations towards my father.

   "I know this may be hard, child," the judge says softly to the girl. "But could you please raise your head and look to this man? Are you certain that this is the man who has committed this crime, and not any of the other men we have shown to you?"

   No. Say no.

  Slowly, she raises her head and looks at my father. Although I expect malice or anger on her face, there is just an indescribable sorrow.

   No.

   She lifts a trembling arm, slow but determined, and points a finger at Appa. 

   "It is this man. Jung Min Jook."

   Everything in the court room darkens in that instant, and for a moment all I can see is my father and this girl, her little arm raised like a sword at the monster they call my father.

   I feel something inside me snap. 

   "Shut up!" I shout at her. The sound of my voice echoes around the courtroom. A hum of disapproving voices commence, and I feel the lady officer tug at my arm. I resist her as best I can. "You don't know what you're talking about!" 

   The police officers pull me back into my seat and it is only then that I realize that I am crying. The deed is done, however, and the girl is crying very hard as well. So much that she cannot continue to testify, and so they bring her down from the witness desk and seat her on the far side of the room, as far away from me as possible. 

   My father is smiling at me. It is not genuine - I have never before seen a genuine smile from him - but I take it anyway. I shove my tears away with my sleeve and nod back at him, feeling as hard as stone. 

   The judge and the prosecutor and the lawyer talk some more. They speak as if my outburst had never occurred. 

   When it seems that they are done conversing, the judge slams his gavel against a circular piece of wood beside his elbow. The sound seems to reverberate all across the room. 

  I hold my breath.

   "Jung Min Jook is hereby sentenced to the death penalty." 

 *~(~*~(~*~(~*

  No one attends my father's funeral, but myself, and the two police officers. 

  They dress me up in a tiny suit and give me a flowers to hold, since we could not recover a photograph of him to frame. My father's shrine is covered in flowers. It bothers me; my father had always hated flowers, and seeing how in death he is showered with them, they look too alien, like a bat surrounded by butterflies.

  We stay for a few hours. The police officers offer me food a handful of times, but I decline each proposal with a brisk shake of my head. My stomach feels pained. I haven't eaten in an entire day, that much is true, but this is my penance. On the day of my father's funeral, for not being able to do anything for him, for being too small and hopeless to save him, I will not eat a thing. 

  The funeral is over. There was no particular ceremony, anyway.

   The police officers tell me that we should leave now, that we cannot stay too long. I almost oblige, before I see someone enter the room.

   It is a woman. She is short for an adult, with shortly cropped hair that goes up to her chin and a rounded body. I recognize her from the court hearing.

   The police officers go up to greet her, but they stop when they see that there is someone behind her.

   The girl, the one who had testified against my father as a witness to her parents' deaths, is standing at the back of the woman, holding onto her skirt. She is wearing a black dress, and her hair is set into curls.

    They take off their shoes and bow to my father's shrine. They are the only ones besides the police officers who have done so. 

  When they are finished, the police officers go to them and speak to the woman, who I overhear is the girl's aunt. The girl however, hovers by the woman's side, staring at me. 

  I do not want her to look at me. I do not want her in the same room as my father's shrine. 

  Before I even know it, she is leaving her aunt's side and is coming towards me. She stops directly in front of where I stand. 

  Now that she is closer, I can see that her eyes are red, like she had been crying a long time before she came here. She isn't crying now, but it looks like she wants to. 

  "Hello," she says. Her voice is small and high. 

  I don't answer her back. She continues. 

  "I'm sorry about your appa," she says softly. "I know that he killed my parents, but they have always taught me that no one deserves to die. I also believe that about your appa. And so I am sorry. My name is Park Sa Rang." She holds out a hand to me.  

   Her words feel like knives stabbing into my ears. I slap her hand back and she recoils, shocked. 

   "No you aren't," I spit at her, venom pronounced in ever word. "You're happy. You're overjoyed, in fact. You want to jump for joy." I take a menacing step towards her and she takes a step farther from me, surprise and fear imprinted on her face. "You can keep lying to me about how sorry you are now, but know that I will never believe you. If you didn't want my appa to die, you wouldn't have testified against him."

  The tears she was holding back begin to fall now. 

  "You are a liar," I hiss. "I hate you. I hate your guts. And one day, I'm going to finish what my father started. I'm going to come after you, just you watch. My father won't die in vain." 

  The police officers and her aunt notice the two of us now. 

  They haven't overheard our conversation, that much is obvious. All they do is say goodbye to each other before Park Sa Rang's aunt leads her away. 

  She looks back at me once more before they leave the room. 

  All I do is grin at her, the same grin that my father gave me whenever I would look back at him. 

  Park Sa Rang.

  The name bounces around inside of my brain. 

  I will remember you. And when the time comes, I will kill you.

  Thank you for reading the first chapter of "Love in Murder"! Please leave a comment at the bottom and subscribe if you'd like! 
      ~TheNightCircus~