Detecting Falsehood

25

He closes his eyes, leaning back in the wheelchair, his expression unreadable. "We found out that she had a genetic disease which caused her body to slowly deteriorate. She wanted to have children, and I wanted to have an heir, which is why we had the boys despite the knowledge of it."

"I did everything I could to protect her from getting worse, and she just had to focus on her sons. On the members, who for a while were our children in her opinion. She didn't seem to care about the fact that she was slowly dying. She would've hated me if she knew what I did to try and save her life."

I frown in confusion. "What did you-"
"I ordered a..trial. It failed, but she would not have agreed with it. And even so, she died in pain. It was so rare, this disease, that she would never have known unless we got her checked out. She was maybe 31 when she died."

My eyes widen. "So young," I mumble to myself. He nods, somehow hearing my words.

"She had something called 'fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva'. They also call it 'stoneman disease', which is a lot easier to say and spell. Have you heard of this, Taehyung?"
"No," I admit, lowering my head. He shakes his head at me.

"I wouldn't expect you to have. It is one of the rarest genetic disorders out there. You get hurt, the flesh that gets hurt turns into bone.  You get excess bone removed, more grows back in its place. It's painful. It's degrading. And it's deadly. We're lucky that the twins didn't get it."

Suddenly, my heart stops, as my mind registers what he said. He ordered a trial. For the benefit of someone with a rare genetic disorder, because he wanted her to survive. The likelihood is that he wanted to have genes played around with, so that his wife was able to live.

Is it possible that I really am linked in to this little family drama?

"That sounds awful," I say after a few seconds, pretending to be shocked by how bad the disease sounds, instead of shocked by my own mental revelation. He nods in agreement, his eyes misting over for a moment.
"That was not how she deserved to go," he mumbles to himself, sounding more heartbroken than angry.

He jolts a few seconds later, clearly realising who he's talking to, figuring out what's going on. "Anyway, enough about her. My turn to interrogate."

I nod, biting my lip and thinking hard. It's not going to be easy to lie, but it's the only way to survive. I know that he was telling the truth, even if I don't know why he chose to do that. It would be an elaborate lie to spin, but it would also be an obvious one. Maybe his honesty is an attempt to get my trust.

I don't know. I'm confused again, dropped into the dark by my own ability. Not for the first time, I wonder what life could have been like if it had never happened. I wonder yet again how my parents decided to enter the trial when they were trying for children.

I need to understand all of it. But I can't. Because knowledge is power, but it's also something people kill for.

I have to find a way to escape. Maybe Jungkook can help me. I have to get out of here before I'm discovered. Those lab technicians went to prison. If this is the same trial, the leader won't be happy that I'm alive, that it all failed. Then again, Jungkook may also hate me if he knew.

Is it actually my fault that his mother died?

"I had my best researchers look you up on national databases," the leader starts, his voice deceptively calm. "They worked for ages. Literally, weeks. And they found nothing. Why is that?"

I take a deep, calming breath. "I am not on them. I was removed."
"By who?"
"People who believed it was better for me to be off."
"And who would think such a thing?"
"The people who removed me from the databases."

He rolls his eyes. "Taehyung, I have upheld my half of the bargain. If you aren't sensible, I will have to make sure you suffer. Am I understood?"
"You're understood perfectly, sir. I just don't know the people who took me off of the databases. I never met them, never spoke to them."

"What do you know about my son?"

Way more than you do, Mr Jeon.

"I know his name, I know who he is friends with, and I know that he's your son," I say vaguely. All of this is technically true, so I'm not breaking my part of the bargain. I never promised to tell him everything. I just said I would give him information. Sure, I know more than that, but he never said to say everything.

This could be my way out of this.

"Why aren't your family on the databases either?"
"The same reason as me, sir."

"And how, may I ask, are you aware of whether I am being truthful or not? How do you decide whether to trust me?"
"Intuition. I may not always be right," slight white lie, "but I do have common sense."

He pulls a rectangular object out of his pocket, one I recognise almost immediately. It's my phone. I did wonder where that was.

"And who, may I ask, is Kim Taewa?"

Shit.