#jeyong

Jeyong feels his phone buzz in the pocket of his jacket, but he doesn’t need to pull it out to know what’s just happened. Despite all his questions, he’s been pretty sure it was Jii. Maybe he’d argued – a little late – that the quirks of this case may have been a frame job, but there was the clear likelihood that Jii just did a bad job at covering his tracks. More than a likelihood, really.

  He still has one elbow leaned on the table, fingers pressed against his jaw, waiting to see what would happen next. The biggest thing gnawing at him is why. Why anyone would cave for such a weak attempt at pushing them to murder. Why one of the coaches would break instead of one of the actual targets of this thing. Why that coach would break, from their position above the rest of them. Not only does it not make sense, but it all seems kind of…

  What a farce.

  Yeah. It’s all pretty dumb.

  You were a little slow on the draw there.

  He was, and he knows that. He’ll think of it more as a test run. Besides, Jii did actually kill someone, apparently.

  Maybe we should get used to that.

  Maybe he should.

Jii: 16

Jeyong looks back over at Kasurou. “Oh, I didn’t see a phone,” he says, which is true he was inside when the others found it. “But the coaches don’t sleep in our dorms, remember? I didn’t see anything wrong in our dorm, anyway, so, like, why would Cap’n go back in there and toss the phone on his way in? Someone went into the Passion team dorms, right, so I would expect to see the phone by your entrance, not ours. Unless that’s part of the frame job.” He shrugs. “If whoever did this was smart enough to steal that guy’s phone and wash their hands in his dorm instead of their own, then the phone and the knife seem like pretty dumb oversights.”

Jeyong watches things progress with a look of mild distaste. Talk about throwing the trial off the rails. It seems like everyone’s got their hearts set on Jii and are having more fun arguing with the twins about the ethics of playing dress up with a dead body, but Jeyong’s still thinking. Oh, and now there’s something about voting. That’s not great.

  “Hey, like, not to interrupt,” he says, and looks back to the coaches, “But before we get those votes locked in, are we, you know, totally sure it was Cap’n?”

  He tilts his head. “Seriously. Leaving a knife sitting around at the crime scene that can be directly identified as not only something that you own, but that you already used to attack someone, is a pretty dumb move. I can’t vouch for how good Cap’n is at, uh, murder-” that sure feels weird to say “-but it seems like it could also be a pretty easy way to frame someone.” Then he shrugs. “Besides, last time Jii hurt someone, he threw the knife. It looks like whatever happened in the café was up close and personal.”

  He leans his chin onto his knuckles, his elbow resting on the table, and looks over to Jii. “It’d be better if he gave us something more than such a weak excuse, but, you know, it’s worth exploring all our options. Just to be sure.”

Jeyong looks at the twins sitting over at the cute table and belatedly notices he can’t tell which one of them he thought was pretty chill. They just look so similar, and now, sound pretty similar too! He guesses it doesn’t really matter now. He frowns, his right eyebrow cocked. “That’s pretty weird.” Yeah, weird is what you call it when they do… whatever that was.

  Like, yeah, that’s freak behaviour, but there’s really not much else to say here! Jeyong has already expressed his distaste with stringing up the body, and doesn’t feel the need to reiterate it. The twins are creeps, moving along. You’d be forgiven for thinking he didn’t care all that much, and maybe he doesn’t. Like, it's definitely freak shit, but is saying so again going to help out? He doesn’t really know how he should be reacting to this otherwise, so he just doesn’t.

  “So, I guess that solves that. And it means it has to be Cap’n, then. The robot said there were four people in the café – that’s the coaches.” He counts on his fingers. “Then two of them went away. Then the third went away. Then another person came back and then that was it. So, that other person was, uh… one of the twins.” That one, there, with the name. “So that means that the third person who stayed behind in the café killed the coach. Which means… the other coaches know exactly who it is, eh? And it was someone who uses knives. Yeah… not very cool.”

He’s the sort of guy who takes an hour in the bathroom each morning, washing up and putting his face on. It’s kind of annoying, but the process is important to him. Especially today, spending those hours walking through crime scenes like he’d just been dropped into a detective movie had left him in a daze. He still doesn’t know how to react, how to feel, what to think about any of this.

  So spending a ton of time preparing for whatever show the robots wanted them to perform, cleaning up, getting dressed, and spending way too long putting on his makeup really helps ground him. It makes him feel like Jeyong again. It’s something normal and familiar to focus on, instead of thinking about how someone was just murdered and he’s going to have to solve it. Because what the fuck.

  Once he’s back to looking and feeling like himself, its easier to keep the nerves hidden. He sits with the Cool team, elbows on the table, listening to everyone- well, debate is what he would’ve said a few minutes ago, but now it’s just shouting. He frowns.

  “Yeah, it might be Cap’n,” he says, and then turns to Jiaoyue. “Hey, uh… you, yeah. Dumb question, maybe, but when Cap’n, like, stabbed you, did you get a good look at his knife?” He rests his chin against his knuckles. “A lot of us are walking around with weapons, now, remember? So if anyone wants to rat out their teammates and tell us if anyone else here is carrying knives, now’s the time. I’ll start! I got an old-fashioned kind of polearm. None of my other teammates back on that obstacle course had knives, either, so that’s three suspects down.”

Jeyong is very much asleep in bed when the announcement from Kira and Doki jolts him awake. First body? What? He almost rolls over and goes right back to sleep, not really processing what he’s hearing. But, ugh, he’s awake now, so he goes to the washroom, and the act of getting up and moving around wakes him up enough to make him realize that, oh, maybe he should be taking this seriously.

  Bleary-eyed, he pulls on proper clothes and heads out of the room. There’s no time to put on his face, so everyone’s going to have to just deal with the fact that, yes, he’s been wearing makeup this whole time, and just like everyone else, his skintone is a little uneven and his eyebrows aren’t actually that sharp. The notch in his left eyebrow reveals itself to be a scar running from just above his eyelid to partway up his forehead.

  But we digress. This isn’t about him. He’s not really sure what he’s actually expecting to find when he reaches the record shop, but somehow it wasn’t an actual dead body. He pauses in the doorway, his brain not quite connecting the dots. That’s one of the coaches, who he has no affection for, but still, it’s also a dead body. He has trouble putting a name to a face.

  The smell of blood makes his head hurt. “That’s… Is that real?” he says, “Not another fake?”

  Of course it’s real.

  Of course it is. He can smell the blood. It’s real blood – Lucifer’s, he guesses.

  Yes, it is. You knew this would happen.

  He knew it would happen. Knew it from the start. Everything he said in the last few days about not thinking anyone would be dumb enough to do it was a bald-faced lie.

  At least you still know how to lie. You’re not helpless.

  Ugh, just leave him alone. It’s too early for this.

  It’s like he doesn’t know how to feel. He’s not sad, not really. Surprised? Yes. Shocked? Yes, but also no. Scared? Not all that scared, no. Maybe he should be. What’s the right way to feel about seeing a dead body? About knowing a murder was just committed, by someone in this room? That it won’t be the last? How should Jeyong be reacting?

  He steps away from the scene, back toward the door, a hand over his mouth. “Just- just a sec.” He doesn’t feel well. His head hurts. He’ll be fine. He’ll pull himself together. He takes a deep breath, and it fills his nose with the coppery smell of blood.

Ugh, finally, something’s actually happening. You know, for all of Idol Planet’s popularity and ratings, it’s a very badly run show behind the scenes, or so Jeyong can’t help but think. Leaving all of the contestants in such a small space for hours both drains enthusiasm and leads to clashes – or maybe that’s to drum up drama. Still, by the time those cutesy mascots call them in, Jeyong’s feeling more than a little annoyed about how he’s being treated.

He pushes toward the front of the group, making sure he’s visible to the cameras. Despite his irritation, he does a good job of looking composed and confident, like the top contender he knows he is. He knows just how to tilt his head, adjust his posture, and construct his expression to look more ready to go than he feels. Surely, this is…

Hey, where are the cameras?

Then it gets bad.

Then it gets really bad.

His mind pushes back against what he’s hearing. He assumes this is a big joke, like Idol Planet is going for a new concept this season. Like, wow, the trainees literally have to survive! Isn’t that intense? That’s what this is.

That’s not what this is. He doesn’t react fast enough. Those two- the bunny girl and the gorilla, he’s already forgotten their names, they’re doing something stupid.

It’s all staged. It’s all staged, right?

He hears the gunshot, and a moment later, feels a little splatter of something hot against his face. They even have fake blood. The special effects are off the chain.

“Is this a joke?” he says out loud. Not that anyone’s laughing.

It has to be staged.

It’s not staged. You know that.

He knows that. He knows it’s real.

It’s real. And you’re not going to die here.

He’s not going to die here. He came here to win.

You didn’t come here to win. But goals change.

Goals change. He’s a survivor.

No, I’m a survivor. So you need me.

Shut up.

Jeyong raises a hand to smear a bit of Jiaoyue’s blood off of his face, and looks at it in the dim, flickering lights. “Alright, you got me,” he says, with a laugh totally at odds, “You’ve picked a fun concept for this season. Real spooky. The special effects are a nice touch.”

He sounds like he believes what he’s saying.

He takes a step back. He doesn’t have any medical training. Besides, if he thinks this is just part of the show, then those two will be wheeled off backstage, right? Right.