An honest lie | Kim Taehyung (editing*)

- Last look -

XXXVII

Eyes seemingly staring at nothing, hands placed on either sides of the seat, and legs smoothly moving the little wheels supporting the chair, Taehyung had been spacing out for quite some time now as the ticking sound of the clock hanging from the wall next to him resonated in his home office after he came back from his therapy session with Eda.

His body was clearly on display of reality but his mind had other plans, falling to bits and pieces of every detail he could gather up to not miss any of the fascinating characteristics that the young woman in his head had labeled as her own little area of thoughts and memories up in his thick skull.

His orbs traveled around the room after he exhaled a loud sigh and caught his reflection in thes library opposite him. It took him a moment to realize what kind of expression he had been wearing the whole time he spaced out because of the lack of lighting and the double reflection of the glass and books placed behind it.

Was it a smile? He could not say for sure, but what had him astonished was the different look his face morphed into after the little visit he paid to the psychologist. Taehyung knew for sure this wasn't just a simple coincidence of a mood change or the fact that he was happily back home in his comfort.
He pressed his lips together while still staring at his reflection and shook his head at himself.

"Stupid. Idiot. Brain dead moron." He repeated as he cringed at his behavior and thoughts. Then he stood still, other thoughts running through his mind to which he rolled his eyes and ruffled his hair while growling.

Not the time. Not the right time.

Shaking his head, he composed himself and pushed away every distracting thought to go back to his research. He pulled his laptop closer and regained his concentration by reading the first thing that popped after he typed down on the search pad.

"Palazzi News Center: Biggest success and progress over the past three years."

Apart from a couple of scandals and discreetly covered failures that had spoken for some untitled newspapers and stories, the company had exceptionally good feedback and had gone up to the highest rank of News Agency in the city. Hardly anything had come to notice to the detective except for the little mess Jeff had caused back in New York to which Taehyung didn't have written proof of or any person who had known of the incident actually placing Jeff as the main character to blame for those assault cases.

Apparently, he was innocent and some women had pressed charges on him to receive money but Taehyung knew there had to be involved a good lawyer to bust his ass out of the trouble. And since he was one of Leo Palazzi's employees and even 'friends', the latter would never let someone with a back case like that roam around him.

Then the accident popped into his head and realized how off things seemed. The car that belonged to James Cardican, apparently had been under repairmen the day Leo got hit and according to witnesses James was home dead ass drunk the whole day. So that would mean the car had to be stolen and then set back for the owner to retrieve it by the mechanic. Which meant that they had no lead as to whom the mysterious man at the company was or if he was by any means related to the car accident.

What's worse is that Ellen was still missing and the only information they had was the 100k withdrawn by her the day she disappeared. That made Taehyung wonder whether she had been actually dating him for the money. But according to his assumptions that hypotheses wouldn't make any sense. If she was truly pregnant why would she leave when she most needed help? The reasons could be infinite. Maybe she wanted to abort it? Or the baby wasn't his.

Taehyung shut his eyes at the thought and sighed.

~

Jimin's thumb moved to scroll down his list of contacts until he stopped at a certain name. His finger wavered on it for a while before pressing it as he slowly lifted the phone to his ear. He gulped hearing the beeping sound never ending before a voice mail ringed in his eardrum.