Beyond the Unreasonable
───────────────────────────────────

"Do you wish to publish this letter as well?" Jungkook asked, and Jia nodded her head.

"I want to publish both the letter and my books under Jang Jia," she said. "I want to keep the name my brother gave me, but I'll write under my given name."

Jungkook nodded as he noted what she said. He then lifted his head and asked, "Did you see the verdict?"

She nodded again. That was all she needed to do. She didn't feel like talking any longer. She wanted to leave it in the past—her brother's murder and the murderer.

Meanwhile, there was still one case missing. The reopening of the Byun Haneul case had received so much attention from the media that the courtrooms were expected to be flooded with cameras on the day of the trial. It couldn't be helped. Everything was set for the trial, but it wouldn't be like any other. Eunha had requested a jury trial this time—as if that could change anything. But then again, she loved the attention.

Finding a jury selection took more than just a few days. The media had covered so much of the case that it was hard to find impartial jurors to attend court. The case was widely known. Byun Haneul was known by many. He was someone that many businessmen looked up to. At last, after almost two weeks, the jury selection was finally determined.

Eunha's belly was growing bigger as time went by. It was very noticeable, but Sunggyu was still unaware of it. He didn't even know Eunha was pregnant. She never shared the news with him because it only concerned the baby's father. As for Jimin, he was worried about the baby but tried not to think about it as much as he could. Whenever he slept with Ara, he made sure to use protection. If he didn't have any, he wouldn't go through with it. He kept trying to remember the day he slept with Eunha, but barely anything crossed his mind. He was sure there was no condom. If there was no condom, there was too huge of a chance. He couldn't just deny responsibility.

The day before the Byun Haneul trial, Ara was moving back to Minji's house. Jimin drove her there, but she could tell his thoughts were distracting him. As he parked the car, Ara looked at him confused and asked, "Are you okay? You've been oddly silent. Is something bothering you?"

He turned to her as if he had awakened from a daydream and tried to fake a smile. Ara knew it wasn't convincing.

"I'm just thinking about the trial for tomorrow," he said. "A jury trial can go either way. Sunggyu already confessed, but there isn't a connection between him and Eunha in this case. All we know is that they were both there that night."

"Does it still hurt you that someone you loved so much turned out to be this way?" Ara asked as he leaned back in his seat.

"I'm over Eunha," he said. "I'm just tired of her being behind everything."

Ara remained silent. She knew he was lying. He was never nervous about court trials, and this one had no particular connection to him, so he really didn't need to feel so worried. Ara knew he thought about something else, but she stayed silent to wait until he was ready to talk about it. She knew it had to do with Eunha's child, which also worried her immensely, but she wanted to be selfish for once. She wanted to focus on her father, finally closing that chapter in her life.

"We'll see what happens in court then," she said. "I'm sure the jurors will see through Eunha."

On the day of the trial, the media made a firm presence in the courtroom, as expected. Reporters focused on Jimin and Ara as they walked inside the building together, bombarding them with questions about Eunha, Sunggyu, and Haneul. They remained silent in response and tried to push their way inside. Eunha and Sunggyu had also received a lot of attention.

On the other entrance, reporters were also interviewing Hoseok, as he was the prosecutor in charge of the case. He presented himself professionally with a black suit and tie as he held onto his leather briefcase.

"Do you believe there's a connection between Kim Sunggyu and Kang Eunha concerning the Byun Haneul case?" one reporter asked.

Hoseok nodded and replied, "Yes. I strongly know that Ms. Kang took part in the murder of Byun Haneul. She didn't just form part of it, but also coordinated the entire scheme with Mr. Kim. She has lied, manipulated, assaulted, and committed murder. There is nothing she can't or won't do. Today, I will prove the connection between Kang Eunha and not only Kim Sunggyu, but Byun Haneul as well. Today, you will learn why Kang Eunha wanted Byun Haneul dead."

In the courtroom, everyone was waiting anxiously for the trial to begin as the jurors took a seat. Ara glanced at them and tried to analyze each of their faces. It was all so ambiguous. She didn't know what to feel. She couldn't read their expressions, so she didn't know what to expect. Suddenly, the judge appeared, and everyone rose to their feet. Ara stood up and immediately felt lightheaded. It was a clear sign it would be a long day.

"Today, we are reopening the case of Mr. Byun Haneul's death with a testimony made from the defendant, Kim Sunggyu, in a prior court hearing in which he states he murdered the victim. I must ask now, Mr. Kim, do you confirm that these were indeed your words said in the trial of Mr. Jang Jiyong's murder?"

Sunggyu directed his view to the judge and replied, "Yes, your honor. I murdered Mr. Byun."

The judge then looked over at the jury and said, "The prosecution can use his testimony from the prior court hearing as evidence, but the sentencing in the case of Mr. Jang cannot be considered in this one. From now on, you should only consider evidence presented during these court hearings and completely disregard any information heard from outside the courtroom."

The jurors nodded as the trial officially began. Hoseok stood up and approached the jury as he said, "Ladies and gentlemen. Today, you will hear about Mr. Byun Haneul's unfortunate death—which, five years ago, was ruled to be blunt force trauma caused by a hit-and-run. The first autopsy report was done by Dr. Choi Siwon, a widely known pathologist who once worked in the Kang Hospital, owned by the defendant's company, Kang & Co. Recently, he was arrested for fraud and sentenced for falsifying an autopsy report which—as you might have guessed—was Byun Haneul's. During Dr. Choi's trial, it was revealed that Ms. Kang had ordered him to falsify the autopsy reports so she could hide the real cause of death—potassium chloride."

He pointed to the monitor screen as it displayed the differences between the altered autopsy report and the real one.

"Once Dr. Choi completed the report, he gave it to one of his employees to throw away because it carried a supposed typo. The employee kept it while Dr. Choi created a new one. If you compare both, you can notice multiple differences. Potassium chloride? Recently, Ms. Kang was arrested for possessing illegal drugs. One of them was potassium chloride. Byun Haneul died due to extremely high levels of potassium chloride in his body."

The entire time that Hoseok was talking, Eunha was playing with her fingers. She ignored his words as they came through one ear and left through the other.

"I request to have my first witness, Mr. Kim Namjoon, come up and testify," he said, and the judge accepted the request. Namjoon rose from his chair and walked over to the witness stand. He fixed his suit and sat down as Hoseok walked to him and asked, "Mr. Kim, were you an employee at Kang & Co.'s hospital when Mr. Byun passed away?"

"Yes, I was an intern there," Namjoon replied. "I was also there the moment he died."

Hoseok nodded and then asked, "The night of his murder, did you witness anything strange in the hospital?"

Namjoon nodded as he leaned forward and said, "That day, my supervisor reprimanded me for not doing my work correctly, so I had to do unpaid overtime. At night, I stayed at the front desk answering calls until a young man called asking about his father. The man was Mr. Byun Baekhyun. I told him I would check up on the patient, so I did. On the way, however, I heard weird noises coming from Mr. Byun's room and bumped into a suspicious man wearing all black. When I saw him, he ran away, and I couldn't chase him down because my leg was injured."

"And why did this man seem suspicious to you?"

"Because I could've sworn the hospital was empty," Namjoon said. "When he ran, I confirmed he wasn't supposed to be there. When I went inside the room he ran out of, I saw it was the father of the young man that had called. He was dead."

Hoseok nodded once again, but this time, walked over to Sunggyu and asked, "Was the man that you saw the same height and build as Mr. Kim?"

"He was."

Right after Namjoon testified, it was Jisung's turn. He limped to the witness stand and sat down as he looked at Sunggyu. On the other side, Sunggyu just looked down. He seemed so defenseless, sitting there with his hands chained up. He looked like he couldn't even hurt a fly—like he wouldn't dare to.

"Mr. Seo, were you registered as a patient of the Kang Hospital during Byun Haneul's passing?" Hoseok asked, and Jisung nodded.

"I came at the same time as Mr. Byun," Jisung replied. "I was in a car crash, completely separate from the hit-and-run he went through. I stayed there for a while, so I knew where he was. There was always a commotion outside his room. Many patients wanted to see him, but the doctors kept them out. I saw his son a few times."

Hoseok nodded as he walked closer to Jisung and asked, "Mr. Seo, did you see the man in black that Mr. Kim saw that night?"

Jisung nodded and pointed at Sunggyu as he said, "It was him. I saw his face clearly. I was walking around the halls when I heard someone yelling. I believe it was Mr. Kim. A second later, I saw a man in all black. When he stopped running, he took off his mask as he was out of breath, and I saw his face. When he saw I was there, he panicked and ran after me, but I hid."

"Did you see anything else suspicious in the hospital that night?" Hoseok asked, and he nodded again.

"Ms. Kang," he said. "She had walked into a security room earlier that day, and I never saw her walk out. I stayed there for a while, but I never saw her leave. I don't know what was happening in that room, but she was there for a long time, and I'm sure of this because I waited outside the room for a long time. It was the Kang Eunha. Of course, I wanted to meet her too, but she wouldn't come out."

Hoseok turned to the monitor and displayed a few pictures on the screen. He then turned to the jury and said, "This is inside the hospital security room. All the cameras and recordings of the hospital are in one single place. The cameras and recordings that Kang & Co. had altered when they released the 'real information' behind the leaks from the Park Corporation. Kang Eunha locked herself in the security room and erased every recording from that day that the police did not find the following morning. Why was there no footage? Because the 'cameras weren't working'. If the recordings were erased, then, of course, she wouldn't have noticed Mr. Seo standing right outside the door, waiting for her to come out. She surely would've seen him if the cameras were on, which they always are. However, she never saw Mr. Seo. In addition, Kang & Co. magically got their hands on the 'real footage' of that night as soon as the leaks happened in order to discredit them. The 'real footage' was not even the camera footage from that night in the hospital. It was all a big cover-up."

The jury seemed to understand his words and the correlation he was trying to make. They seemed to lean towards his side, which left him relieved. He turned to the monitor and pressed the remote to change the evidence on the screen, demonstrating a video. It displayed a man in black entering the hospital and exiting in a rush. They were the cameras from the building in front of the hospital. Suddenly, Eunha appeared on the recording as well.

"Ms. Kang had arrived earlier that day to give a speech to her fellow employees but didn't leave the hospital until after this man left," Hoseok said as he turned to face Sunggyu and asked, "Mr. Kim, are you the man in black on the screen?"

Sunggyu looked over at the screen and then at Eunha. She was still playing with her fingers. Without turning to face Hoseok, Sunggyu replied, "Yes, that's me."

At that moment, shivers went down Ara's spine. All of it seemed like a made-up movie. The man who killed someone but was never caught until he slipped up. She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled as Hoseok continued.

"Ms. Kang, do you confirm that this is you in the footage and that you exited the hospital right after Mr. Kim did?"

Eunha turned to the screen and nodded as she saw herself on it, but then she said, "If you knew anything about what I did that night, then you'd know very well that I had nothing to do with that bastard. I met with my patients that day. I greeted most of them in their rooms. The room Mr. Seo probably saw me in was most likely a patient's room. Also, let's not forget that he was a patient in the hospital, too. He had an accident and underwent surgery because of it. Obviously, he wasn't in a proper mental state to have witnessed anything."

Sunggyu scoffed as he rolled his eyes. The jurors were noting the crucial facts that Eunha was bringing to light. Jisung's words could not be trusted so easily, as he was a patient in that hospital. He was brought in because he was not stable. It was an essential point Eunha had made, which she knew very well.

"You're saying Mr. Seo's testimony should not be trusted?" Hoseok asked, and she nodded. "What explains the falsified autopsy report? The extremely high levels of potassium chloride found in the body? Dr. Choi has confirmed that you contacted him to falsify the report."

Eunha chuckled and leaned back in the chair as she replied, "That's easy. The falsified report? I already said it. That wasn't me, that was my mother. You can't trust that doctor's words. He's pure evil—a literal criminal. He has worked with my mother for ages. I never worked with him. Why would I? Potassium chloride? That's all Sunggyu's. I only ever used valium. That was it."

As each second went by, Sunggyu grew even more upset with her words. Once again, he was getting blamed for everything. Eunha wanted to ensure that he would also be gone for good.

"You have no reason not to believe me. You can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I had any involvement in this case. I had worked with Sunggyu, yes. I was at the hospital, yes. But was I committing a crime? Hell, no. Why would I have anything to do with Mr. Byun's death? You have nothing against me. Just admit it. Absolutely nothing against me."

───────────────────────────────────
• 2700 •
Update #1 for Feb. 7.