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LIE
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Yi-Seo

“How come you don’t have any of Dan Brown’s books here?” I ask the librarian in a disappointed manner, sulking as I scroll through the inventory list, resting my chin on my palm and staring at the list on the screen through the top of my glasses.

“We do have all of Dan Brown’s works, Yi-Seo. Wear your glasses properly,” he comments without removing his eyes from the boring leather-bound book which he seems to be reading all the time.

It has no title, and I’m pretty sure it isn’t an old telephone directory because who would leather-bind that and read it in the first place? But I’ve never been intrigued to find out what it is, even when I’m bored to death as I am today. There hasn’t been a single book to be returned to the shelves today, and from the moment I came here, all I’ve done is listlessly stare at the interlocking rectangular patterns on the parquet flooring of the library.

But the good thing is that, whether there is work to be done or not, I would still get paid, and, fortunately, my thirty minutes are almost done. I prepare to leave by powering off the monitor and rising from my seat, and just then my phone vibrates inside the pocket of my cardigan.

“Eonnie!” My weary mood pipes up the moment I answer Mi-Yang eonnie’s call.

“Yi-Seo, Jimin has located the USB stick, and he asked me to hand it over to you,” the news she delivers further boosts my excitement, and I let out a little squeal within my head as I bow to the librarian and walk out through the library doors, my excitement showing in my bouncy steps.

“That’s amazing, eonnie. I didn’t expect him to locate it so soon. Can I come and get it now?” My question is answered with a quick hum, and I end the call as I stride down the road towards ‘The Park residence’.

Once again, the flight of stairs that leads up to their colossal front door leaves me a little out of breath, and I wait for Mi-Yang eonnie to answer the door while I try to catch my breath.

“Yi-Seo! That was quick. Come in,” she waves for me to enter, and I do so, closing the door behind me.

“I was just leaving the library when you called me,” I answer calmly while trying not to make it too obvious that I practically jogged my way down here, all agog to lay my hands on the USB stick and surf through every file in it.

“I was making tea. Have some first,” she gently places a hand on the small of my back and ushers me to a room on the left which has a gilded door frame, and it happens to be their dining room.

I have to admit that every time I come here, I end up feeling poor—right from my clothes to my shoes to everything else. Perching at the edge of the velvet-covered dining seat, I pick up the cup of tea that Mi-Yang eonnie places in front of me. The bone-China cup looks so exquisite, and it has a golden rim as well, and I’m only hoping that I don’t accidentally drop it to the floor and make a clumsy mess for no reason.

This cup is making me feel poor too.

As I sweep those thoughts under the rug and take a sip of the tea, Mi-Yang eonnie takes a seat beside me and starts speaking.

“Yi-Seo, this USB stick has only read-only files, and you cannot change anything in it. You would also not be able to copy anything to your computer because he has restricted the permission for that as well. Use it only for reference, and you can have it for as long as you need it. I hope his work helps you in some way,” Mi-Yang eonnie softly pushes the small silver-colored USB stick across the smooth surface of the glistening marble top of their dining table.

“Thank you so much for this great help. I will surely try to make the best use of the information available in this, and I will do my best to earn validation for your husband’s work and, hopefully, some kind of peace and justice for Taehyung too,” a small but hopeful smile forms on my lips, and it reflects on Mi-Yang eonnie’s lips.

There is a brief moment of silence after which Mi-Yang eonnie exhales, bringing my eyes on her.

“What is Taehyung like?” She asks as she rests her elbows on the tabletop and leans forward, clutching her teacup between her palms. Her eyes are sparkling with curiosity, and it’s completely understandable because who wouldn’t want to know more about their favorite celebrity through a common acquaintance?

“He’s mysterious, but he’s also struggling, eonnie. Like, visibly struggling,” I stop at that, not wanting to talk more about him without his knowledge, although Mi-Yang eonnie is a harmless human who can be fully trusted.

“You know, the truth is that I’ve always wanted to meet him and talk to him… I’ve felt that so many times because he was someone I absolutely loved, revered, and worshiped even, but I haven’t had the chance to meet him in person. He rarely steps outside, and most of the residents here don’t even know that he lives in the same space as them,” her gaze and her voice soften as she begins talking about Taehyung, and it is making me miss his presence a little.

“He is actually quite nice, but in the beginning, he wasn’t being nice to me. That’s understandable though because he has suffered so much, and I don’t think it is easy for him to put his trust in people anymore. Maybe that’s why he has closed off from society and chosen to enjoy his own company”

“And the company of his bottles and random hook-ups,” she adds, scoffing in a slightly agitated manner.

“You told me earlier that he hasn’t brought in any hookup for a while now,” I shrug, taking a sip of my tea and glancing at her through my peripheral vision.

Her mouth opens and closes, but there’s no answer from her, and she shifts her position to look away from me while taking relaxed sips of her tea. In a little more time, I leave her home after thanking her once again for the tea and the USB stick.

Marching straight up to my home, I directly head to my room, powering up my laptop thereafter. I take off my cardigan and tie my hair up in a bun before I settle down on my bed to read up on whatever Jimin has researched and discovered about the drug scandal, and probably even about the other infamous scandals and rumors that surrounded Taehyung.

The almost ten-minute long wait until my old laptop boots up and gets ready to be used feels like a decade of waiting for me, and when the wait finally ends, I swiftly plug in the USB drive and open up the contents in it.

There are many folders that have been named with certain timestamps, and I decide to scroll down further to find one folder that has the date of Taehyung’s last concert. When I open it up, I find seven pdf files that are numbered sequentially. There are two video files and two audio recordings as well, but I decide to check out the pdf files first because those would most definitely have some pointers about what to expect in the video and audio files.

Naturally, I click open the first file, and it has an image of the scanned copy of Jimin and Mi-Yang eonnie’s concert tickets, and Jimin’s soundcheck ticket as well. It brings a smile to my face seeing how he has treasured even the smallest things about the concert, and it also shows the extent of adoration that the couple had for their most favorite idol.

The second file is a detailed description of what Jimin witnessed at the soundcheck, and I read it diligently only to find out that it parallels the facts that I already know—Taehyung had slipped and fallen on stage and then wheeled out of the spot for emergency care at the nearest hospital. Only this description is extremely vivid with added details about Jimin’s exact position in the pit and how close he was to Taehyung when he saw him fall.

The third pdf file has an elaborate chronological report of what happened during the concert, and as I read it, I discover that Taehyung had actually been limping on stage, leaning heavily on his right foot and grimacing in pain every time he had to move his left foot for the dance moves or even for walking around on stage. It only seemed to have been getting worse as the show progressed, and finally Jimin recounts how Taehyung appeared on his encore stage with bloodshot eyes and a crack grin on his lips. He had abruptly collapsed in under a minute, and there is also complete textual coverage of everything that followed his blackout.

The fourth pdf file has a copy of the prescription that was given to Taehyung when he was treated for the ankle sprain, and my eyes widen in shock when I see it because I never expected Jimin to be able to gain access to something as confidential as a patient’s prescription from a hospital. He sure knows that the world operates on money, and it isn’t surprising that he emptied his pockets trying to gather all this information.

But it could also be that these evidences were revealed in court since Taehyung’s case was handled legally.

The hand-written prescription clearly states that at the hospital, according to his body weight, Taehyung was intravenously injected with a single shot of 2mL of Morphine Sulfate, with a total strength of 6.2mg. Furthermore, Jimin has added that this injection would have started acting within ten minutes and it should have provided him satisfactory pain relief for at least four hours, but it seemed like it wasn’t the case. Apparently, Taehyung didn’t get any relief at all even after getting the injection at the hospital, as seen from how much pain he was in while performing on stage.

As per his research and calculation, the injected strength of the drug would leave a fading trace of about 20 nanograms of morphine per milliliter of blood for about a day or two, and there would also be faint traces in urine and saliva. There’s an entire tabular column to support these facts, and I’m rendered speechless seeing the amount of effort he has invested into getting down to this level of detail.

The same prescription also states that the second dose of the same strength, if needed, was to be taken by Taehyung after an interval of four hours from the first injection, which, as creepy as it may sound, perfectly aligned with the planned timing for his encore stage.

I have already been educated that this second injection was the one that Taehyung did on his own and that it was also the one that apparently had a heavy concentration of morphine in it.

Jimin’s report has the serial number of the injection canister that was handed over to Taehyung at the hospital, and it isn’t even surprising to me at this point that he has even added a snapshot of the purchase bill copy for the same.

The bill clearly states that the medicine for the second shot that was purchased and handed to Taehyung also had the same strength as the first one that he was injected with at the hospital. But he has also included the serial number of the actual injection canister from which Taehyung had injected himself, and it does not match with the original one claimed to have been handed to him at the hospital.

At the end of the pdf, Jimin has added his inference that he suspects a planned foul-play at the hospital itself since the two canisters weren’t even the same to begin with.

Going by the events of the day, Jimin insinuates that Taehyung wasn’t injected with a morphine shot at the hospital and that it was most probably just some filler injection that wouldn’t provide him any relief and, ultimately, forced him to get the second injection done.

And even though the bill states that the medicine had a normal concentration of morphine, the actual medicine which Taehyung took most definitely had a very high strength of Morphine Sulfate. According to his instincts, Jimin strongly believes that there had been some kind of mix-up which was also most definitely planned.

Based on the differing serial numbers on the two canisters, the media reports had projected that it was Taehyung who deliberately used heavy drugs for injecting himself with, but Jimin has put his foot down, disagreeing and asserting that it was all plotted against him. He strongly believes in Taehyung’s innocence in this matter. However, his footnote states that he is yet to discover how the medicines got switched, when the hospital claims to have handed him only the legal dosage along with strong proof to back the fact.

I’m nodding my head in agreement as I read every word of his report very carefully, and I also screenshot the pages and save it to my laptop. Technology is always silly, and whoever invented screenshotting, clearly was a crook who did it with not the best kind of intentions.

The fifth pdf document has details about the doctor and nurses who attended to Taehyung when he was taken to the hospital after the soundcheck injury. It is a supposed Dr Han Woo-Seong and two female nurses who had treated him.

There’s a copy of Dr Han’s medical license, and at the bottom of the report, there are three labeled photographs that belong to the doctor and the nurses, and my eyes narrow when they take in the image of the doctor that’s displayed on my screen.

His face is very familiar, his eyes are distinctive, and it takes me not more than five seconds to put two and two together, and my eyebrows shoot skyward when the realization hits me like a fucking truck.

It’s Se-Young in the photograph, but why is he having a different name here?

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Got any hints? Theories? Links?

Doubts? Ask away!!
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Published on : 01/30/2023