Bong Yi felt numb after the trial. Intellectually she knew that 6 months in prison wasn't a big punishment, but still it left her feeling cold and empty inside.
After she had said a tearful "I'll visit you as soon as I can" to her grandmother, she had barely been able to thank her lawyer and intern for the work they put in.
She was grateful that Ba Reum had taken the time to bring her home, because she couldn't really focus on anything now, but she barely acknowledged his existence when he did so. He bid her farewell and she just walked away without looking back.
He seemed to understand her grief and just let her go. Good, she didn't feel like company right now.
She closed the door and turned on the light, looking around in the house and seeing every sign that this is where she lived with her grandmother. It made her feel empty.
She couldn't even muster the energy to break down crying. She took her cell phone out and powered it down, not wanting to be contacted now.
She went to her bedroom and opened her closet. There at the bottom, hidden from her grandmother she had stashed several bottles of So Ju some weeks before. She had stashed it there because when she finally made friends they decided that they would hold a party after graduation and everyone was responsible to bring some drinks with them.
Now she found that she didn't want to keep the liquor anymore for any party, and she started to drink by herself, and drink and drink.
She drank to forget her misery. She drank to not feel cold and empty anymore. She drank until she passed and when she woke up and vomited she drank again until she passed out again. She ignored all the background noise, not even taking notice of the sound of ambulances and police cars coming through earlier that night.
It had taken 8 full minutes before the ambulances and police cars arrived at Ba Reum's home, waking up all the neighbours because of the noise.
The paramedics rushed in through the open door just when the first few neighbours had put on their sleeping gown and went to stand outside to find out what happened. They started to cluster to each other and asked everyone if they knew what happened.
The paramedics entered the house, and came on the scene of a crying panicked Ba Reum, who was desperately holding his sweater to the open gaping wound that was inflicted on his mother, a knife sticking out of the body.
Ba Reum's hands were wet with her blood, and his own blood was slowly coating the back of shirt, running from the headwound that he had sustained when he was knocked down. He was pale and sweating, muttering under his breath, his eyes unfocused.
"Please don't leave me. Please don't leave me. Please don't leave me."
The paramedic went to sit on Ba Reum's opposite side and gently took Ba Reum's hand in his and pulled it to the side.
"Let me have a look." He said. Ba Reum stared at him, his pupils wide. He saw the paramedic and nodded and fell back exhausted, but not moving more than that. He wanted to keep his mother in sight.
The paramedics quickly administered first aid, and took his mother away on a stretcher as quickly as possible.
Ba Reum tried to get up to follow him, but someone held him back. He looked up confused.
"They need the room in the ambulance." Another paramedic said, this one from a second ambulance.
"Now, let me take a quick look at you."
They flashed a light in his eyes, making him recoil because of the brightness.
They asked him some basic questions, which he tried to answer to the best of his ability, but his brain felt fuzzy, his ears were ringing and the scene felt as if it was happening in slow motion. He felt the first signs of nausea when he turned his head a bit too quickly.
"I suspect you have a concussion. We'll take you to the hospital as well." The paramedic stood up and gestured to someone near him.
Ba Reum tried to get up as well, but he collapsed immediately, the paramedic barely fast enough to break his fall.
"Easy now." He said and guided Ba Reum to the floor.
Anxiety, blood loss and a concussion weren't helping him for the moment.
They put him on a stretcher and made sure that he was covered by a blanket.
They gave him a kidney dish in case that he felt sick.
"How is my mother?" he asked the paramedic once they were loaded in the ambulance.
"We don't know. She was still breathing when my colleagues took her to the hospital. We'll check as soon as we get there." The man tried to pat his shoulder in comfort, but Ba Reum knew that his mother was in critical condition. The amount of blood she had lost was enough to send anyone in shock, and then there was the damage to her body.
His mind was going a 100 miles an hour. His mother was still alive, and whatever he did now, nothing would change what happened to her and neither would affect if she lived or died. He swallowed nervously, his mouth felt dry. Nothing he did now would affect his mother, so he tried to take his mind of his mother and closed his eyes, trying to memorize what he had just seen before. He would find out who had tried to kill his mother and he would made sure that they wouldn't be able to try a second time.
He closed his eyes and thought back, his memory hazy.
He had entered his home, and the first thing he saw was a figure hunched over his mother, it had been very small and lithe. Was it a woman? He thought harder. The image seemed distorted in his mind.
That person had been wearing a dark jacket, black? They were also wearing a mask and cap, which made it difficult to distinguish features. Short hair, he thought, and small, perhaps 1m50 or shorter? It was hard to tell because he hadn't seen the figure standing up.
Then the other person. He had been standing up when he entered, must have hidden near the door.
He put his hand on his head to feel the wound.
"Everything okay?" a voice asked and he opened his eyes startled. Right they were in the ambulance.
"My head just hurts." His speech was slightly slurred.
"We'll take care of it soon."
He closed his eyes again. The wound was rather high on his skull, and, he tried to think back, he hit me from above.
So he should be around my height, perhaps slightly taller. Was it a couple that was doing these killings?
Moo Chi had been relieved after the trial. Halmoni only got 6 months. It must seem terrible long, but she could have gotten much more, and seeing her age it could mean that she would have spend the rest of her live in prison.
He was in a good mood and when he came home, he kicked of his shoes and went to lie on his bed.
He barely had fallen asleep when his cell phone started to ring. Swearing, he looked at the screen and pick it up.
"Detective Sang, this better be something important." He half-growled through the phone.
"There was another attack of the womb-stealer." This got his attention and Moo Chi sat up immediately.
"Where, when?" he demanded.
"Just now." A pause "the victim lives." Moo Chi's eyebrows rose.
"That's good! Where is she, I'll come immediately." Another pause on the other side of the line.
"She's in the hospital. They are operating on her now, so she is still unconsciousness. They don't know if she's going to make it."
Moo Chi heard the hesitancy in Shin Sang's voice.
"Something else important?" he asked, trying to coax out the information.
"It was Jung Ba Reum's mother."
Detective Sang put down his phone and entered the house. It felt weird that he would enter his colleague's house like this. It felt a bit like an invasion of his privacy.
He made sure that the evidence was bagged and tagged correctly and tried not to stare to much at all the bloodstains. He went through the different rooms of the house, trying to see if there was anything that seemed out of place.
It didn't seem like the murderer had stepped in anywhere but the living room. He would try to get the CC TV from the neighbourhood, but he wouldn't get his hopes up.
This hadn't given them any help with the other victims either.
Ba Reum had been put under observation at the hospital. His current injury had clearly been affecting his thinking process and the doctor had taken one look at his medical history and nearly had tied him to the bed.
Since he had suffered a brain injury in the past, which still affected him today, they wanted to make sure that nothing worse happened.
They had taken a scan to be sure and had scheduled a second one in two hours to see if they missed some slow process or something.
They had informed him that his mother was currently in surgery. She had lost a lot of blood and some of her organs had been damaged from the knife wound.
It was a good thing that he had left the knife in the wound, because if he had pulled it out, she would have lost too much blood and it would be likely that she wouldn't have held out long enough for the ambulance to arrive.
An hour or so after he had arrived Moo Chi arrived in the hospital and made his way to Ba Reum.
When he entered the hospital room he saw Ba Reum sitting on the bed, his head bandaged and dark circles were starting to appear underneath his eyes.
"Are you okay?" Moo Chi asked. Ba Reum looked at him, his eyes having some difficulty focusing.
"'m fine." He slurred. Not only his head injury was causing the slurring, but they had given him an IV with some of the good painkillers in there, making him feel floaty.
"What happened?" Moo Chi asked him.
"Someone hurt mom." The voice sounded so small and lost. "Is she okay?"
"They were still operating. Can you describe what happened?"
Ba Reum did his best to tell him what happened, often loosing his train of thought and asking if his mother was okay.
"Is there anyone I can call for you?"
"It's 'kay. Don't have to bother no one." Ba Reum's eyes were starting to slip closed, the medication and the stress was not helping.
He went to the nurse to tell them that Ba Reum was starting to fall asleep.
"Did he have his cell phone with him?" Moo Chi asked.
"The paramedics took it with them. Just a moment, I'll go get it." The receptionist said.
"Here it is."
Moo Chi nodded his thanks and started browsing through the numbers he called most often. He saw Bong Yi's name on top of the list and tried to call her, but he was sent to voicemail immediately.
He tried the second number in the list, Na Chi Kook.
"Ba Reum, do you have any idea what hour it is?" came the sleepy voice on the other side of the line.
"Excuse me, this is detective Ko speaking. Something happened to Ba Reum and his mother. We are trying to find someone that could help them." He said. Chi Kook was awake suddenly.
"What happened?" he asked in a panic.
Moo Chi didn't give any details, but said that they have been attacked.
Chi Kook said that he would come immediately. Moo Chi was relieved that at least someone would be with Ba Reum.