Page 71 of Damian & Jun: Episodes 5-8
Tonight. After this. Then they could touch all they wanted. “We should run, soon.”
Damian’s eyes darkened. “Yes. We should.”
Jun allowed himself a real smile. He nodded and turned away, following Mi Hi’s direction to his seat in the center of the open space in front of the half-circle of chairs. He settled and faced the array of strangers. The lights on his face made it hard to focus on anyone. But again, that was something he was used to.
Someone to the left started to speak, reciting the date, time, place, and persons present. Then the voice addressed him. “Please state your name and age.”
“Do you want my legal Korean age and name or my US one?”
“If you have two legal identities and ages, please state both.”
Jun rattled them off.
A woman in the crowd raised her hand. “Why are the birth dates different?”
“My US records are the ones I know to be accurate, but I’ve lived with my Korean records since I was nine years old. I don’t know why I was assigned a different birth date for those records. My guardians told me they were correct.”
The woman nodded and motioned the questioner to continue.
“Mr. Gang, please tell us, in your own words, what happened starting the night of December twenty-fourth and include any necessary background information from previous events as necessary. Continue through December twenty-seventh. Are those the dates you wanted to make a record of?”
Jun nodded. “Yes.” He closed his eyes and gathered his thoughts. “My manager, Bak Gyeong, gave me an ultimatum…”
It was as if he was listening to someone else talk. Hearing himself recount Bak’s sacking his room, the taking of his phone and key card, the climb out the window, finding Mi Hi, calling Damian, meeting Damian. It all sounded so clinical. He left out the part about running away from the hotel. It wasn’t necessary. He did include when his bandmates joined them. He skimmed over that night in technical terms of sleeping and planning. He referred them to video evidence of the press conference the next morning.
Then he supported his account of the fake arrest by referring them to the video Mi Hi had held on to. Damian played it so it could be entered into the record. Jun didn’t watch. He didn’t want to. And then, when it was done, he kept talking. Distantly, so distantly, as if he wasn’t even listening to his own words anymore about the drive up the mountain, the blindfold, walking on rich hardwood floors, the bath, the clothes, the garden. He was staring straight ahead at a point on the wall beyond the lights, and his mouth was moving, dragging him onward, but there was nothing else. He was speaking from a script he hadn’t even known he had, breaking down each step. Meeting the police chief, the man in black, the conversation, the alcohol, being hit, kicked, and the threat to Su-jin. And then throwing the table.
It went on and on. He was staring at the snow in his mind. His limbs were as cold now as they had been that night. That point on the wall was drawing him forward, and his mouth followed it. The drive, the old man in the house, the fire station, the hospital, seeing Damian again, the plane ride. The difficulty of getting anyone to open an investigation.
“In about twelve hours, someone has threatened to publicly accuse me of murder. No one was listening, so that is why we are here today. So that the story cannot be lost.”
He stopped speaking. There was nowhere else to go. The black point on the wall had run out of metaphorical road to draw him down.
It was done. They would ask questions now. In fact, they were already asking, but the story had been told. He let the technician set up the lie detector. Someone asked him questions. It didn’t matter. He answered with either yes, no, or I don’t know. They returned to his name a few times. He expounded on the confusion. There was no resistance, no weight to any of it.
A few of the questions were in Korean. He’d given his testimony in English so that his defense attorney could understand. There must have been a translator working in the background; everyone seemed to have understood what he said.
The questions stopped. The technician took away the sensors from his skin.
He stood, flexing his fingers, and walked toward Damian.
Damian extended his hand, taking Jun’s in his own. “It’s done.” He rubbed Jun’s fingers. “You’re cold.”
Jun just looked at him. Damian nodded and dropped his hand.
Around them, people were packing up. Some of them were signing things. Copies of the video were being checked. Damian shook hands with a few people. A few people extended their hands to Jun. The video conferences winked off. Mi Hi waved them out, indicating she had everything. They moved down to the first-floor lobby and then to the car. Cedric held the door open.
Jun waited until the tinted doors had closed around them before sagging into his seat and closing his eyes.
“Was it enough?”
“We’ll see.”
“When do we go to the Estate?”
“As soon as we get back to The Residency and get our things.”
Jun pulled off his coat and sat on the floor, petting Artemis as soon as they got through the door. Overhead, Émeric and Damian were talking. It was just sound. He heard them, but he didn’t comprehend. All of it was just sound except for touching Artemis’s soft coat. Damian crouched down beside Jun. “Do you want to bring Artemis with?”
