Loving.

The whole idea of loving someone is just so stupid and overrated to me. I wonder why you need someone to be able to breathe when all it brings is pain. The gut-wrenching pain that will go right through your skin and hit the core of your heart. The misery that will make you live through hell and leave you hollow inside out. Why chase love so much when there's nothing good in the end except suffering and emptiness full of torment?

How can you love someone so much that, even when you know the consequences, you accept your fate? Isn't it foolish to turn a blind eye to your own self?

Love just makes you weak, gives you hope, and then shatters it into millions of pieces like a heartless beast. It is known for its euphoria, which is short-lived and washes off easily, leaving not a single trace behind.

And I won't deny, I have committed the same mistake in the past. I know how it all deems to be. I lost everything-- strength, dignity, self-esteem, everything.

┊??? ᴘᴏᴠ┊ೃ⁀➷

Hemophobia-- the fear of blood.

 The symptoms were first noticed when I was twelve. And after that, I would randomly get panic attacks or would hyperventilate at the sight of it until I turned sixteen. Then it never came back, and thus I didn't pay much mind to it. As if it was gonna be correlating to any situation in my life, anyway. And it wasn't even severe. But now, I think I was wrong.

I can feel my head get dizzy at the mere sight of it, daubed all over my gloved hands. My breathing picks up its pace, and every single part of me shivers. I almost tune out of the world, as if an unknown force was pushing me down the rabbit hole of my trepidations. I want to scream, but the air has a chokehold on my throat, constricting it from uttering even a single word.

But abruptly, everything comes to a stop.

"Soobin-ah, are you okay?" The voice is full of worry, pulling me out of my stupor. I blink, the reality sinking into existence in front of my eyes. "Soobin?"

It is Hwang Hyunjin. He is squatting on the floor beside me, one of his hands holding a DSLR camera while the other resting upon my shoulder. His long blond hair is pulled up into a messy ponytail, his anxious gaze darting towards me. I emanate a sigh and let my eyelids fall shut with sudden heaviness. I open them again and try my best to avoid looking at my hands or the corpse that lays limply on the floor. 

Kim Dayeon-- age seventeen, a junior at Ravenwood high-- was found deceased in a box of dry ice in the chemistry lab's supply room this morning. Her skin is painted with bruises and burns from the effect of the ice, turning it a deep purple with a circle of fading yellow around it. There is a single slit in the middle of her throat deep enough to slash off her oesophagus entirely. Her long silver hair is in a tangle, pooling around her head as if to make a crown. Obviously a case of murder it is. There is no other explanation for it.

I am aware of my condition and how it can affect my job, but the subject to be frowned upon isn't that. My phobia never kicked in ever before, and this is not my first time working on a murder case. Blood was even more common for me, shed during my training like sweat. So, why now?

"I-I think I just need some fresh air. You can continue." I reassure Hyunjin-- my detective colleague who took up the case beside me. But he doesn't seem convinced with my reasoning.

"Are you sure? I can ask Seonghwa to help instead. You can interrogate other students, or maybe look around for potential clues."

I slowly pull at the rubber glove, popping it off my fingers one by one. "Is that okay?"

The blond smiles sympathetically. "Ay, of course it is. You should take care of yourself better." I sniff at the last bit, refraining to show how valid his words were. I mean, I don't think I remember the last time I took a long nap, and that says a lot. Maybe exhaustion is just a reason and not the phobia, I might never know.

I stand up to my feet, disposing off the gloves in a plastic zip-lock and tossing it to our transportable trashcan. Behind me, Hyunjin calls out to our other accomplice, Park Seonghwa, who was busy taking statements from the witnesses. The room is brimming with curious students and teaching staff, and it is a bit suffocating. I loosen my necktie and saunter out of the laboratory and into the long corridor. As soon as I leave that place, I let out a breath didn't know I was holding.

Now, clues.

Ravenwood is known as one of the elite high schools in Seoul. Some even dream to study here, even if the tuition fee is a bit too high. I think I haven't mentioned this before, but I am an alumnus of Ravenwood myself. I know how high the security is on the outer gates. It still doesn't fail to astound me, how someone actually managed to commit murder this brutal on the school grounds. And if it wasn't done here, then it makes it even more impossible to bring a dead body into the school province unnoticed. Not to mention, the girl, Dayeon, was the daughter of an infamous businessman of the city.

Our biggest disadvantage at the moment is the lack of CCTVs near the laboratory corridors. The only CCTV which could've caught anything is the one at the outer gates and hallways. And they've caught nothing. The other ones are around the boundaries but they don't have anything either.

At this point, I seriously need a cigarette break to clear off my mind. I am too caught up with, well, almost everything. With that thought in mind, I continue upon my path to the back of the school-- the only place, I hope, that still is unauthorized.

It is kind of nostalgic-- the same old classrooms, the same uniforms-- almost like I am back in my school days. It is hard to believe that something so tragic happened here, changing its untainted history. So far, I came across many familiar faces. But not all memories that were made here were good. And I fear that I might run into someone related to that. It has only been two years, I doubt they would've forgotten me.

I puff out a cloud of smoke, slowly leaning against the bricked wall. I sense my nerves setting loose, the haze of my head finally clearing up. My throat burns with the nicotine but that doesn't matter. The stress gradually oozes out until there is none left, and I can finally get my thoughts forthright.

"Still annihilating our lungs, are we?" I flinch and dart my eyes to the right, my gaze meeting with a well-acquainted face I knew all too well.

"Taehyun? Is that you?" I lower the cigarette to get a better sight. It really is Kang Taehyun, still with those golden rimmed round glasses and platinum locks that barely covered his unbelievably immense brown eyes. He stands there, looking over the grounds that are barren, his hands buried deep inside his pockets. Then he turns his head around and smirks.

"No shit." 

I continue to stare at him, having an urge to smile. I successfully hide it by slipping the butt of the cigarette through my lips. Another exhale follows, bringing with it another stream of smoke. "You really haven't changed."

The smirk drops into a small, barely visible smile on his face. "Neither have you, Hyung." He shifts and rests beside me, half replicating my posture. "It's nice to see you after so long."

"I am glad to hear that. But I hope I was here for a better reason." I let my shoulders slump, my head falling back against the wall. 

"Ah, yes. I heard about it from my sources. It's something to do with Kim Dayeon whom Miss Jisoo found earlier, isn't it?"

"You still have your sources?"

He chuckles. "I need them to get the latest gossip. You know, all the same, old shit."

If you are wondering, he was always the person who knew all the secrets about the school and the students. Nothing is hidden from him. And his 'sources' are mostly other kids and staff members. My brain suddenly clicks with an idea.

"So, do you have any suspicion? Who could've done this?" I am taken by surprise when I get no answer from the other. I straighten my head and settle my gaze on him. His eyebrows are scrunched in a deep, thoughtful frown, his thumb mindlessly grazing against his jaw. I try again, "Taehyun-ah?"

"I think... I think I do."

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

A/N ¡! "Hueningkai: The world is so unjust!
Beomgyu: What happened?
Hueningkai: You cook one dish, but they won't call you a chef. But you commit one murder and now you are a murderer.
Beomgyu:
Beomgyu: WhAt?

Okay I'll stop now-"