Chapter 77

“You were sleeping on the sofa and I had to move you since you rolled and fell off so hard. Doesn’t your head hurt?”

Come to think of it, he had a small bump on his head. Jude tilted his head, touching it with discontent. He doesn’t remember falling off the sofa so far, but it seemed he was a little unstable yesterday. Jude, who turned his neck aloud from side to side, soon scrambles into the bathroom. He thoughtlessly took off his clothes and went into the shower booth where the cold-to-the-bone water flowed out of the showerhead. Jude, who shuddered once, turned the faucet a little harder. It was not until quite a while before the water began to warm up. Drenched all over from his head, Jude remembered what happened yesterday and let out a short sigh.

It was clear where the events that existed like dots led to. The Waynebeck Orphanage would exist at the end of the ghastly memory he saw yesterday, and at the end of the orphanage was his present-day self. And that’s the end of the whole story. It wasn’t bright just like he thought it would be – it was not only miserable but also horrible, but that was all. Although it gave an unknown little anxiety and some sense of loss, it did not shake his mind to the root or bring out such intense emotion to the point of blackout. It was a much more predictable situation than when the pieces about Toby and Jenny first came to mind. It’s just—’that’s not how it should have been’. It filled his heart to the extent that he felt uncomfortable, similar to the regret he felt at the hospital before. But to a certain extent, he couldn’t help it. It wasn’t something he would regret or something to feel guilty about. So why? Jude tilted his head lightly and picked up the shampoo bottle.

Suddenly, the bathroom door opened. Jude looked with suspicious eyes at the figure, which was fuzzily reflected outside the shower booth. Soon, the shower booth door opens and his face appears before he could say anything–“Jude, eggs…”– Jude lifts the showerhead without hesitation and directs it to his face.

“-Pfft, what’s wrong with you?”

Jude shot curtly at Alvin, who hurriedly raised his hand and blocked the stream of water from flying into his face.

“Didn’t you learn that you can’t just walk in when someone takes a shower?”

“Okay, wait, my clothes are all wet. Jude!”

Alvin snatched the showerhead from Jude’s hand, raising his light, laughter-mixed voice. His already wet enough face with water dripping from his head was smiling cheerfully.

“Feel like playing a prank all of a sudden.”

“Are you kidding me, it’s self-defence. Give me that, it’s cold. Close the door.”

“Why didn’t you ask me why I came in?”

“I prefer half-boiled eggs.”

Alvin laughed aloud at the brief reply. Alvin’s eyes, nodding and trying to close the shower booth, paused on one part of Jude’s body. Jude, looking at the way he looked at him with that frown, said curtly.

“You wanna get sprayed with the hottest water? What are you looking at?”

“Gee. Hold back a minute. It’s just, you have a scar.”

Alvin’s fingertips swept slightly around the back of his neck. He always got goosebumps whenever his cool hands suddenly touched him. Turning away from the hand, Jude shrugged his shoulders.

“Of course, it’s a scar on a detective’s body. Fortunately, I haven’t been shot yet.”

“I thought it’s in a weird place, so that’s why I looked at it. If you were confronting a criminal, you’d normally get a wound on your arm or shoulder, you know…… so you’d have it in front of your body. If you were attacked from behind, it wouldn’t have ended with this little scar. When did you get it?”

“I don’t know, I don’t reflect on myself through the scars of glory by looking into the mirror. Get out of here, it’s freezing.”

Shoving him with his bare foot, Alvin answered yes and closed the shower booth. Grumbling inwardly that he’s such a silly guy, Jude sneaked a curious touch on the back of his neck, which Alvin had just touched. I don’t remember getting hurt here. There were not many injuries in itself while chasing people with knives. After all, Jude was a cop with a gun.

“That’s weird…. when did I get hurt?”

He wasn’t the type of person who was sensitive to every injury on his body – since it wasn’t an average job – but he was strangely bothered. He never made a fuss about his injury, but he never forgot about his injury. Except for the wounds from the recent appearance of Hender.

After taking a shower, Jude turned his head away from the mirror. There was a thin, long scar on the back of his neck, which could not be seen directly, but was visible through the side eye, as Alvin said. Jude narrowed his eyebrows. He couldn’t understand. Jude, who was tilting his head for a while, forgot to grab a towel when a thought skimmed his head.

-Wait. The back of your neck?

Instead of the cold that comes from being covered in water, a somewhat qualitatively different chill swept through his body. Wasn’t the whole story of the nightmare visible? Jude’s eyes grew bigger with suspicion. It was as if he could hear the projector creaking faintly and turning again. No, it was different. This was a new projector. It was a new nightmare that he didn’t even know at that time.

No way. That’s nonsense. There’s a degree to how delusional you can be. Jude in the mirror was licking his lips naturally. The water vapour formed on the ceiling dripped over his head.

Standing and facing the bathroom mirror for a long time, Jude soon tilted his head slightly and dried his hair with a towel. The intense sense of falsification that just grazed his mind was stuck to one side of his head like a thick gum. But it was only a remote possibility close to impossible, and Jude was able to dress up and come out despite being in an endless cloud of doubt.

The smell of food that he doesn’t even remember when he smelled it in his apartment rushed like a storm. Jude approached the table with a slightly glum face, wrapping a towel around his neck. Bringing two cups of coffee – Jude was surprised that the white coffee-making machine, which had sat dusty, was clean – Alvin sat down, looking over Jude.

“What happened? What’s wrong with your face?”

“What’s wrong with my face?”

“You’re a little pale. Your fever already came down.”

“It’s because the hot water doesn’t come out well.”

Most of the puzzle pieces given by the name of Hender Hill were impeccably clipped together. It got him a great deal of work and very tangled, but not beyond his comprehension. From the moment he flew with Shelly until he escaped the house. It was also true that Alvin provided the glue to attach in between.

He had no further questions about the horrors he saw on the plane. There was not much ambiguity about the orphanage that followed. If there was anything unclear, it was about the three children. Even that was a doubt that came from an unclear “feel” rather than an unclear “fact”. It didn’t matter where he met the children, whether the children’s bones came out of the fireplace or not. Jude saw everything that mattered in the house and thought it was enough – rationally. But there was still something left in the pipes like moss growing here and there. Something that cannot just remain only ‘in the past.’ Jude could never be pleased with that.

“Jude?”

When Alvin’s puzzled voice was heard, Jude shook his head and stopped thinking and held the cup of coffee. The calm smell of coffee at home swept through his face once.

“I don’t know how long it’s been since I drank coffee at home.”

“When did you clean up?”

“Um….. someday.”

I definitely remember it was when the first time I moved in. Jude, who could not bring himself to speak out, answered vaguely.

“You don’t even have a vacuum cleaner at home. What would you do if there’s a swarm of bugs?”

“I’m sorry, Mom. But I’m almost 30 years old now. I don’t think it’s any of your business if I want to raise cockroaches in my room or a family of mice.”

Alvin giggled and tilted his cup of coffee as sarcasm featured with irritation filled his voice unlike when he joked at Tim. There was no conversation until the simple breakfast was almost over. By the time the plate of eggs and bread is empty and Jude is pouring the second cup of coffee from the coffee pot, Alvin looked over Jude and opened his mouth.

“Yesterday, what happened?”

Jude did not immediately respond. The coffee that came into his mouth suddenly seemed to be bitter.

“Just, well, I roughly get it. What happened in the house, to a degree.”

“What happened?”

He couldn’t resist Alvin, who was curiously demanding an answer. Jude clicked his tongue briefly. This was quite an unpleasant situation, but he did not answer and it was difficult to gloss over it. Alvin’s eyes, looking at Jude who was slightly troubled, curled as if to say there was nothing to worry about. Well, he wouldn’t go anywhere and run off his mouth. Eventually, Jude shrugged and recited quickly.

“Toby killed him, Toby killed Jenny, and Hender killed Toby. And lalala, time to play with fire. That’s it, don’t ask me anymore.”

Alvin really didn’t dig into it anymore. The platinum-haired young man, who answered lightly, just quietly tilted his coffee cup and smiled. He didn’t really like his thoughtful face, and Jude also turned his head without retorting.

“Why Hender was separated from you, do you have any idea?”

Jude’s eyes were shrouded at the casually asked question. The words that came out were vague.

“… I don’t know for sure. I can only guess. And I don’t care, because that will….”

Never happen anymore. It was the vibration of a small device that cut off Jude’s voice, who was trying to make a speech in a messy mood. Alvin’s cell phone on the table suddenly cried. It was a little more intense than Jude’s, and Alvin looked at the caller sign without showing any surprise and picked up the phone.

“It’s me. How was it? Oh, I see. So….. aha.”

Alvin’s nodding movement stopped unnaturally at one point. Perhaps he had heard something strange, but his eyes frowned suspiciously. The voice that came out after a while also contained an unusual surprise.

“Really, is there any other possibility? I see…”

The way he nodded his head dubiously didn’t look very good. Jude stared suspiciously at Alvin, whose lips were still on the coffee cup as he leaned his head to it. Is there any unexpected information? But what the heck is it? If it was this blue-grey-eyed young man sitting in front of him, will he manage to stack up a complete tower with what he just heard and what he investigated the night before yesterday?

“Yes, I understand. Thank you, you did a good job.”

Steadily, responding in a superficially-encapsulated voice, Alvin closed the flip phone and turned to Jude with an unsmiling face. Drinking the last sip of his coffee, Jude opened his eyes wide when he saw that face. It was the most serious expression he’s ever seen.

Jude couldn’t get any positive foreshadowing from that face at all.

“Why? What is it?”

“I told you yesterday, I’ll ask the person who found the bone fragment if he remembers the child who lived with the vagrant or any other children who lived nearby.”

“You did.”

“I just got a call from the person I asked for. Fortunately, the witness was still alive.”

So? Jude looked at Alvin with glaring eyes instead of opening his mouth and asking. Listening to the fact that he had predicted 90% of it makes things certain, but it does not inspire any excitement. He’ll say that three kids were seen hanging around together some time ago. On Jude’s face, who puts the cup down dryly, Alvin looked for a moment as if he was searching. Moments later, Alvin stared at Jude and slowly opened his mouth.

“He was quite close to the dead vagrant. So he knew that the vagrant was picking up a kid and ordering him to pickpocket.”

“Really?”

“It was one person.”

Jude frowned suspiciously at the out-of-the-box remark. What do you mean by one person? He couldn’t understand it, and Jude asked a little bluntly.

“What, all of a sudden. What do you mean, one person? A witness?”

“No, I mean the kid the vagrant had.”

It was not immediately clear to him what it meant. Jude looked at Alvin foolishly. It was un-Judely to ask back certain things over and over again, but he couldn’t help it.

“All of a sudden, what the hell……?”

“He said there was definitely one. About two and a half years before the vagrant died, the man snatched a child who came into the alley. He used the kid to do chores.”

“I’m sure he’s someone else. There are a lot of kids running into the back alley?”

“No, it’s definitely Hender Hill. Remember when you arrived at the Waynebeck orphanage, they published a newspaper article to find your connection? He saw the picture in the newspaper and said it was you. It’s you, he’s sure that was the child who had been there.”

“Then another…”

“Jude, listen up. It was just you. The witness made it clear; you were the only one inside the house at 146th Street. The other kids, and the little girl, he said he didn’t see any of them.”

Just me? Was it just me there? Jude’s head was suddenly in a chaotic mess. No, it can’t be. And what about the ones he saw? The voices of Toby and Jenny, the children who were so distinct? Where the hell did those kids come from and where did they go? The blood they shed, the way they burned? Jude denied in a dazed voice.

“No…. There’s no way. I’m sure they were there.”

“But there’s no sign anywhere, except for your words. Not even in the orphanage, and in 146th Street, where you said you were so sure are together. Before this call, I thought it was a little strange, but I didn’t doubt it conclusively, but if there is such a definite testimony, the story becomes strange. I’d like to ask you more about what happened.”

Alvin’s calm voice was not unusual, but rather realistic. He was obviously telling the truth, and Jude had no choice but to accept it. And those were incompatible facts. Jude puffed a few times like a goldfish in a dirty fishbowl. He couldn’t understand. Something is seriously distorted and incoherent. The foundation of the tower, which had been standing for a long time, collapsed little by little. Jude was fed up with what he had just seen in the bathroom. Trace of a wound that stretched thinly behind his neck, a scar as if he was scratched by something sharp and dirty a long time ago.

Just yesterday, Jenny, who he saw at the house on 146th Street. Jenny, who was hurt behind her neck by broken glass. Jenny, a girl who always cried and was affectionate and warm. Why was the wound on her neck in the exact same place as it was on his neck.

Jude was out of breath.

– It wasn’t that I didn’t expect it at all.

When he lost the last person who look after him on the plane and went into the bleak orphanage from a senseless relative’s house, he was already in tatters beyond his control. Yeah, to the point of crumbling like particles of sand without someone’s help. The fact that there is no one else in the world who cares about him has driven the child to an unbearable cliff. After all, it was all a matter of affection. That’s right. It was since then. The fact that a couple of children were by Hender’s side.

They’ve always been together, oddly enough. Even though it’s impossible. Jude’s eyes got bigger. How could that have happened? How did you get out of that impregnable orphanage with this incredibly delicate girl? The tunnel wasn’t that wide, and three at a time, even though the three who were always stuck together escaped, the teachers did not quickly chase after them. Why is that?

Toby, who was in the middle of being beaten up by the man, would spit out vulgar words, and immediately after Jenny cried and asked him to stop, and the man would make a strange expression. As if he feels something wrong, as if he doesn’t understand. At the end of the day, only violence remained, but he still remembers the weird expression on his face.

-This wasn’t the way it should be.

Jude’s cold lips trembled.

– This wasn’t the way it should be!

The words he uttered at the hospital went back in his ears. Even at that time, he didn’t understand exactly what he meant even though he said it himself but he slowly understood that now, and a strange colour of fear that had never been felt before hit his heart. The scream from the deepest part filled his body and seemed to rupture it.

If he had killed someone for some reason, a Jude Green was confident that he would not regret it.

If it was someone else.

– You’re like me. You act as if you are full of emotions, but more than half are imitations.

– It’s not sunflowers; it’s like the smell of bloody grass in the shade. Something that comes from people who have lost or something is taken away.

– That’s what she said. She thinks you’re missing something……

– That’s the kind of smell you have, Detective, but it goes a lot deeper. I’m right, right?

– You’re not being honest. You’ve been living with your head turned.

– You… how could you….. do this to me………?

The words quickly circled in his head like stars spinning in a storm. Yes, their words were right. Their eyes didn’t lie. The dots come together in an instant, creating a cruel line. The line goes around and strangled Jude.

-Thud! Jude slumped from the chair down to the floor. Alvin got up from his seat and knelt down in front of Jude. The heaving did not subside even with the soothing hand sweeping and touching his back. The realization of the inside story of a loss that he was never completely aware of in the past was accompanied by a violent tidal wave. Jude squeezed Alvin’s arm to support him as he forced himself to breathe. He grabbed it hard enough to make the bones look white at the knuckles, but there was no particular light of pain on Alvin’s face. Jude’s green eyes were greyed out.

“I’ve… killed.”

“Who?”

Alvin asked gently. It was clear that he was also guessing. And I didn’t know if he was interested or having fun with that fact. But Jude couldn’t afford to heed such little things. Facing his serene blue-grey eyes with wide-open pupils, the blond detective stuttered and threw up a saturated sound of fear.

“I….. me…. I’ve killed…… I’ve killed and discarded me, myself.”

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