It Was Me

Chapter 18

WEDNESDAY

A day before

Jeongguk's birthday

...

Beeping.

Shallow breaths.

Faint sound of cars.

Taehyung slowly cracks his eyes open, seeing bright lights coming through the hospital curtains. He groans and moves his body only to feel that he has something on attached to his hand. He wants to lift his hand but he doesn't have a strength to, therefore he tries another way to see what was this thing attached to him. He lifts his head, his upper body shifting, as soon as it does a stinging pain shot through him causing for him to fall back on his bed with a groan.

"Taehyung-ah?"

His mother's voice came from the other side of his bed.

"Taehyung!"

She wails, holding her son's hand, Taehyung looks at her as she started weeping.

"Mama, I'm okay"

His voice rough, it almost hurts his throat to speak but he needs to make his mother stop crying because the sight hurts more than his physical pain. Taehyung grips his mother's hand in his, reassuring her the best he could.

She nods, her lips still quivering as tears never stopped pouring from the eyes that mirrored Taehyung's.

"W-Who did this to you?"

Taehyung just stopped and stared. His Father. He sighs and refused to look into his mother's eyes as he lied.

"I don't know"

Her mother nods in disappointment. Taehyung's mother was cooking dinner for his son before he comes, but the only thing that came to her home last night was a phone call saying that her son has been stabbed and was admitted to the hospital. It nearly made her faint to see her precious son lying on a stretcher, bleeding so much, it almost seemed like her son was dead.

"Darling, I'm just glad you're okay"

His mother cooes, caressing his hand with her soft comforting fingers. Just then a knock sounded off from the door. Taehyung's mother wipes her tears and fixes her hair before opening the door for the visitor

Jeon Jeongguk and Jeon Chan Hae

The Jeon men stood at their door as his mother greets Chan Hae, they were like family friends ever since Taehyung was a kid. But Taehyung's fiery eyes were only fixated on the older Jeon sauntering into his room shamelessly as if he wasn't the reason why the prosecutor was lying on a hospital bed, immobilized

"Taehyung-ah, I'm pleased to see that you're awake"

Jeon Chan Hae weakly smiled at him as his nephew bowed to show his respect and greeting towards the older prosecutor.

"We brought you flowers and some food"

Jeongguk lifts a bouquet and the plastic bags in both of his hands, placing it on the table.

"Miran, can I please talk to you for a moment?"

For a short moment, Taehyung panics silently in his head as he worried that his mother could be in danger if he was left alone with Jeon Chan Hae. He was skeptic of the man, because he was his person of interest in the cases he's handling but then his nerves soothed when he remembered that there was security and cameras all over the hospital so he puts aside his worry for his mother's safety.

"I'll just talk to your mother, Taehyung-ah. Jeongguk can keep you company in the meantime"

Taehyung smiles back at the older Jeon, fakely, watching them as they both piled out of his room, leaving him with Jeongguk.

"I heard that my uncle found you lying in his office, good thing you were rushed here immediately.."

Jeongguk trails off, opening the food containers they brought. The moment the smell of homemade food made an entrance into the prosecutor's nostrils, he closed his eyes refusing to take a bite from Jeon Chan Hae's offered feast. There could be poison in that for all he— Jeongguk stabs a piece of kimchi from the container and eats it in front of Taehyung's once suspicious but now widened eyes.

"Spit that out!"

Taehyung interjects which startles the younger boy sitting on the chair beside his hospital bed. Jeongguk then spats out the food into the trash can under the table.

"Why?!"

Jeongguk glares wiping his face with some tissue. Taehyung's new found strength suddenly showed as he sat up and gazed directly at the younger boy glaring back at him.

"Listen here, kid. Your f*****g uncle did this to me! And for all I know there could be poison in that food to make sure I'm dead this time!"

"What the f**k is your deal?! We brought you food and this is the s**t we get from you?"

Jeongguk spats still standing to his belief that his uncle is innocent.

"How can you even accuse that my uncle was the one who did this to you? You don't have proof!"

Taehyung's blazing eyes never backed down from the younger boy's.

"When I went to your damned insurance last night, the receptionist called his office and he f*****g said to let me in and when I got th—"

"Taehyung-ah..."

A male's voice that's all too familiar to Taehyung's ears caught the attention of the men in an argument. A tall, dishelved and exhausted looking man stood before them in the doorway. Im Hyung Sik, stood before them.

"Father.."

"T-Taehyung-ah.."

His father drags his shoes across the white floors and walked towards his son's bed. His eyes were bloodshot as Taehyung got a closer look of his father. He doesn't know what to feel, seeing his father who stabbed him.

"Taehyung-ah, I'm sorry.. Appa is very sorry"

His father sobs as fresh tears burst out from him, his head hung low in shame and sadness. He reaches for Taehyung's hand with a dextrose cord connected to it, but to his disappointment, his son's hand flinches away. Hyung Sik's form noticably deflated from his response. The eldest of the three sighed and reached towards the back of his pocket, hidden beneath his crisp black coat. He pulls out a gun, his figure unstable as he turns the gun in his hand as if inspecting it for the first time. The two boys' eyes almost bust out of its sockets as they saw the shiny, probably loaded fire arm.

"You!"

The deranged looking man suddenly aims the gun towards Jeongguk, who had backed himself quietly to the corner of the room the moment Im Hyung Sik entered. Jeongguk's startled figure shakes as his eyes were as wide as saucers, staring at the gun in sheer terror.

"F-Father, what are you doing?"

Taehyung shakily asks, as he cautiously reached his hand further to try and block the gun. He put Jeon Jeongguk under a protection program, yet here is the person he was trying to protect, on the brink of his death just one pull of the trigger away.

"You! It's all because of you! I almost killed my son because of you!"

Hyung Sik seethes his eyes red as his nose flared in anger, his hand gripping the gun and his finger teasing to pull the trigger, aiming at Jeongguk's head. Jeongguk couldn't utter a word, as terrified tears poured from his eyes and his breath supressed by his own doing.

"Father, put the gun d—"

"You should've just died in that car crash!"

As soon as these words left Taehyung's father's mouth, both boys' breaths halted at the revelation.

The car crash..

Jeongguk suddenly finds the courage to look at Hyung Sik's face.

His father...

His mother..

Jimin..

"Y-You were the one—"

Jeongguk's weak utterances were suddenly cut off by a strange laugh coming from the man holding the gun. Both Taehyung and Jeongguk look at the obviously unhinged man..

"Yes, Little Ggukie. I killed Mommy and Daddy because your f*****g greedy, petty uncle wants all the riches to himself.."

Hyung Sik mocks, a sinister smile displaying on his face as he peered into the terrified boy's face. He raises his gun once again coming closer to Jeongguk's frozen figure, the minute his gun makes contact against the said boy's throat. He yelps in pain as the searing tip, burns his skin. Jeongguk closes his eyes praying for everything to be over.

His uncle killed his parents.

His uncle wanted him dead.

Jeongguk's tears spilled from his cheeks, shouting as he presses his forehead onto the gun.

Pain, betrayal and false hope.

That's what his uncle has given him. He thought he could finally live a normal life with his uncle turns out, it was all too good to be true.

"You should've just been a good boy and just f*****g died with them!"

"Do it! Just f*****g kill me!" Jeongguk growls.

"Father! Don't!"

A gunshot fired and a body fell limp on the hospital floor, his head bleeding and staining the white tiles. Taehyung's hung open mouth trembled as his hand shakily went its way up to cover his mouth in shock, as he looked at the dead body lying on the floor of his bed. Blood splattered on both of their shirts. Taehyung's eyes watered in shock, as both of the survivors of the gunshot stared right back at each other's eyes. Taehyung rises from his bed with the little strength he has and lets his feet step into the pool of blood, he crouches down beside the corpse.

As he reached out a hand to caress the dead person's head...

"F-Father..."

Taehyung squeaks touching his dead father's hair. The moment he does, he bursts into tears, calling desperately for his father's name, hoping for Hyung Sik to suddenly wake up.

A security guard had shot Im Hyung Sik in the back of his head just as he was about to pull the trigger on Jeongguk's head.

"Sir, can you hear me?"

The male guard who shot Hyung Sik asks Jeongguk who was solid frozen against the wall, breaths uneven as he stared at the dead body at his feet.

"He is in shock, get some more people in here!"

A male nurse shouts as more people piled into Taehyung's room. Two male nurses and a security guard attempt to pull away Taehyung from his father's corpse but the prosecutor wouldn't budge swinging his arm, slapping anyone's hand that touches him.

"No! Father, please!"

Taehyung cries as he was pulled off of his father, his feet kicked as he was straped onto a wheelchair.

"Taehyung-ah, please stop"

His mother sobs as the nurses and her wheeled her son out of the crowded room as he shouts continuously for his father's name in the halls, gathering attention from passers-by and other patients. Back in the room, Jeongguk was sat by one of the nurses on a chair in the room as people waited for police to come and get Im Hyung Sik's body.

"Jeongguk!"

His uncle engulfs him in an embrace to which he doesn't even respond to.

"He's in shock, he can't speak for now"

The nurse getting Jeongguk's vital signs informs his uncle. But Jeongguk's fine, he was perfectly fine. He just doesn't want to speak, he felt numb, emotionless and just wants to sit there and stare into the walls of the room forever. Only one thing was clouding his mind that Im Hyung Sik said that he still couldn't wrap his head around..

My uncle murdered my family.. He tried to murder me..