„On the roof again,” SolHi whispered, while standing next to the edge of it and looking in the distance. It’s already night and all the lights of the city are on, but even so, she doesn’t feel that it somehow calms down the anxiety inside her.

“Why did she say that the 23rd of January was the black hole of her life? She was just a kid yet. How can a child write something like this about something that she lived?”

“And again, you are talking to yourself, while being alone here,” SolHi heard DooSan’s voice and when she turned her head, she saw him approaching her with his hands in his pockets. “Something bothers you?” but catching her glance, he warned her: “not a word about what happened yesterday or I swear…”

“Don’t worry … it has nothing to do with your car.”

“Then, with what?”

“Han SoRa … I found in her laptop a note or better to say it was a status on her social networks, like a kind of message she wanted to send.”

“Message? What kind of message?”

“The black hole of my life,” and SolHi emphasized the words to such an extent that even DooSan felt how on his skin a lot of small creatures were running chaotically. “Let’s show you! If you see it … maybe together we can figure out what it means.”

***

Already in the office, only the two of them there, SolHi and DooSan, are staring at the screen of Han SoRa’s laptop. “For a depressive girl, how her colleagues described her, she’s too warm.”

“Too warm? What do you mean?”

“Look at these pictures: all of them are reflecting that she was full of life, happy, despite everything that happened to her at home. But it changed on the 23rd of January.”

After saying this, SolHi showed him two different photos … in one SoRa was laughing happily, while playing with a dog, and in the second one she was wearing black clothes and, in her hand, they could see a lit cigarette.

“Did SoRa smoke?” DooSan wondered.

“I didn’t ask her friend, but I think no. It can be only for show. Or maybe not.”

“Change the pictures. Maybe we can find some other details in...”

“There’s nothing else after this photo.”

“Nothing? How nothing?” and, taking the mouse from SolHi’s hand, DooSan tried to find something else on her account, but there were only those photos they already saw there. “And there is definitely nothing else left.”

“I told you. It seems that she deleted all the other posts. I mean all she posted after the 23rd of January.”

DooSan stretched his body and started to walk around, while with his finger he was tapping his temple, trying this way to force himself to think. “Or maybe not SoRa deleted them all. There can be someone else who had access to her account.”

“Maybe, but I’m more tempted to think that she did it and from what I could see on her laptop she did it after she had been deleted from her school chat. The same day she died.”

“What? She had been deleted from the school chat, why? Don’t tell me: booling? School violence?”

“If they didn’t delete her from there, I could have checked it, but…”

“What about Cha Yoon? She still has access to that chat. I think we should…”

“I doubt that there’s still something left there. If it really has something to do with SoRa’s death, they “cleaned” everything already. And don’t even say that we can ask to restore it… the new hackers nowadays … are terrible. You find nothing after their work.”

“Damn it!”

“So do I say! Wait a minute…”

“What now?”

“She posted: The Black Hole of My Life on the 25th of January.”

“But you earlier said that it was on 23rd of January.”

“It's because I was thinking about the day doctor Gi told us that SoRa and that young man, who is supposed to be her boyfriend, showed up at her clinic, but she posted it only on the 25th. It means she did the abortion on the 25th and not on the 23rd as we thought and this means that we must find out what happened to her before this date.”

“It can be everything: from a love affair to a party, because parties nowadays might end with such surprises. Take inspector Yu with you and make a visit to Cha Yoon’s house. We must find out where and with whom Han SoRa had been for at least three weeks before the 25th of January.”

“Yes, sir!” SolHi said in mockery and, taking her notepad, she left the office. DooSan grimaced behind her, but when he turned to his place he whispered again: “He’s not stupid at all!”

***

SolHi is waiting in front of the Prosecution Building. A few minutes later inspector Yu stops the car and honks to make her react from her daydream and to approach the car.

After she entered the car, inspector Yu started the engine and the car moved at slow speed. “Where are we going anyway?”

“First - to Han SoRa’s house: we must find out when she went missing from home, during the night, before the 25th of January, and…”

“It was on the 14th of December! She spent that night in her friend’s house and you know that friend: Ko Cha Yoon.”

“And you know this because…”

“Because I was there with detective Kan. When you called me, I was just leaving their house. So, let me guess - our next step is at Ko Cha Yoon’s house.”

“Did I tell you already that I love smart guys?” SolHi joked, but it forced Yu to grimace unhappily.

***

“On the 14th of December, last year?! Let me think! Yes, I remember that SoRa spent the night here, because she and Cha Yoon were preparing for an exam. But, why are you asking, detective? Does my daughter have something to do with what happened to SoRa?” Cha Yoon’s mother asked SolHi and Yu, with a vivid preoccupation in her gaze.

“We don’t know this yet. For this we are here: we want to ask Cha Yoon if she knows something about SoRa’s boyfriend. The matter is that SoRa got pregnant approximately around the 14th of January and we think that Cha Yoon must know that guy.”

Ms Ko stared at them in amazement. “SoRa got pregnant? Are you sure? Cha Yoon never told me anything about this.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to reveal it or maybe she didn’t know this. If we can just talk to her…”

“The night she spent here … it isn't for sure the day when she got pregnant, because I went to sleep about 3 o’clock in the morning, for a project I was working on, and before going to sleep I checked them and they were already sleeping.”

Cha Suk, a boy about 13, shows up in the room. He has in his hand a juice from which he is drinking loudly. “And still, that day SoRa wasn’t home when you went to sleep,” he said, taking the adults by surprise.

Ms Ko approaches her son: “Cha Suk, what happens? Do you know something?”

“Mmm, you were in the shower when Cha Yoon helped SoRa to leave the house without being noticed. I saw them and SoRa was wearing Cha Yoon’s clothes then … those she’s using while going to the club. I think it was already past 12.”

“Wait a minute. What clothes and what club?” Ms Ko asked Cha Suk, staring at him in amazement.

“Those Cha Yoon bought with the money you gave her for books. She keeps them inside of that big bear toy in her room.”

The boy didn’t even finish talking, when Ms Ko left the living room and headed toward her daughter’s room. SolHi followed her when You made a sign to her that it was necessary for the two of them to be there too.

***

With a lot of clothes in her hand and with many other things scattered on the floor, Ms Ko slapped Cha Yoon, who was yelling at her that she was wrong to enter her room without permission.

When Ms Ko was about to slap the girl for the second time, Yu grabbed the woman’s hand: “Ms Ko, I don’t think that it will make her talk. It will be better if we allow detective Ian to talk to her. May we wait in the living room?”

Ms Ko, still not convinced about what’s wrong and what’s right at that moment, released her hand, but before exiting the room she told Cha Yoon: “that’s not the end of our conversation, girl. After you talk with the detective, we’ll have a very serious conversation, young lady. And then you’ll listen to me.”

After Yu closed the door, when he exited after Ms Ko, Cha Yoon started to gather her things from off the floor. SolHi waited for her to talk to her, while standing next to the door.

“Why are you here, detective Ian? I thought that I told you everything that day, in the coffee shop.”

“But I’m not that sure. I know that you are hiding things about SoRa and exactly about the night of the 14th of December.”

SolHi’s words made the girl stare at her for a few moments, but when she caught SolHi’s insistent glance she looked elsewhere and, in the end, throwing the things back on the floor, she stood up, approached the bed and with her palms covering her face she sat down on the bed. “I told her that it would be bad, but she didn’t listen to me.”

SolHi took a chair and approached it of the bed, sitting on it right in front of Cha Yoon, who in the end raised her head and looked at the detective. “She met someone a week before the “accident,” how I started to name that day, and because she liked that guy a lot, she decided to meet him that night.”

“Where did they go?” SolHi asked the girl.

“He told her that they’ll go to the Cinema, but I’m not that sure that they’ve got there.”

“To the Cinema? At 12 o’clock in the night?”

“I also thought that’s weird, but SoRa wasn’t listening to anybody then. And … somehow, she was right not to listen to anybody, because she had been controlled by others all her life. She wanted to do something by herself.”

“She was 16, Cha Yoon. At this age it’s normal that your parents control your life.”

“No. Your parents must be next to you, supporting you and guiding you, not controlling you and beating you all the time as SoRa’s father did when he thought that she’s not listening to him.”

“Maybe you’re right, to a certain point, Cha Yoon, but I’m not here to discuss with you about how a parent should educate his kid. Tell me about what you know about that night and about the guy SoRa met then.”

“He’s older than us. Actually, I think he’s a student at Hankook University. Second year, Theater and Film. I think so or at least it was what he told us.”

“Did you know his name?”

“No. He told us his name then, but I don’t remember it now.”

“All right then. What about the school chat: why was SoRa deleted from that chat?”

Cha Yoon took a deep breath, trying to avoid the answer, but in the end, she understood that this is useless. “I was the one who deleted SoRa from that chat. It was painful for her.”

“Painful? Why?”

“A few days before she did what she did, someone published in our chat some photos of her kissing some guy on the street and with those photos it was written that she did an abortion too.” Cha Yoon again covered her face with her palms and she started to cry. “Oh, Gosh, even if we were upset, I never wanted her to suffer. It’s because of this I deleted her from that chat.”

“And … can I see those photos?”

Cha Yoon nodded in denial. “It had been deleted too. The day she died. But I could save this…” and Cha Yoon turned on a video on her mobile where SolHi could see how So Ra is mocked by the students, who throw trash on her and push her from one to another.

“Just look at her, she doesn’t even oppose when we push her to each other,” said one of the guys, while laughing completely happy.

“Of course, she doesn’t oppose … she likes trash. She’s one of them now. The same class of beetles,” told her a second one and he pushed her to the ground.

A third guy took a banana shell and put it on SoRa’s head, hissing through his teeth: “used … like you … trash.”

Cha Yoon stopped the video and looked at SolHi, who was so astonished with what she saw. “Trash … did they really know what the trash looks like? If not, I’ll show them this,” SolHi said furiously and she took the mobile phone from Cha Yoon’s hand: “I’ll take this. Don’t worry you will have it back when everything it’s over” and SolHi left the room, while Cha Yoon was staring behind her and again, she started to cry, while squeezing the bear toy in her arms.

***

Exiting the building, SolHi ran toward the bushes and vomited, while from her eyes - tears were shedding on her cheeks.

Inspector Yu, not understanding what happens to her, approached SolHi and waited next to her till she finished to vomit, but she didn’t stand up , as she didn't go toward the car … she just moved to a clean place and, sitting on the ground, she started to cry again.

Yu squatted next to her and again waited for her to be the one talking to him. And she did it, after a long while of crying: “Why are people so cruel, inspector? How can someone call another person “trash” without knowing what really happened?”

“Are you talking about Han SoRa now or about you?”

“I’m talking about both, because both of us go through it, without having someone close to us with whom to talk about what happened.”

“And still you had your friend then, detective Ian. SoRa had nobody.”

“Inspector, yes, I lived with Mina at that time, but I couldn’t tell her about all the shits people did to me. And do you know why? Because I couldn’t tell her how they looked at me, while I was walking on the street. I couldn’t tell her how they were throwing eggs when they were seeing me somewhere and what’s worse … I couldn't tell her that I was stabbed, because I dared to enter a small supermarket to buy water.”

Yu stared at her, stunned. “What? Did someone stab you?”

SolHi lifted her T-shirt and showed Yu a small scar on the left of her belly. “It wasn’t deep, but still, I have this “memory”. They told me then that I have no right to drink water, because the dead one can’t drink too. And, one of them just took a sharp instrument and … he just stabbed me.”

“But … I never saw such a report. You…”

“I never complained, inspector. I felt guilty all my life for not remembering that night. And … I’m still feeling guilty that I survived then and that prosecutor Han YuSan didn't survive. But … Why should I be thirsty for just because I'm alive? Why should I die, when I still breathe? What did I do wrong to be treated like this?”

SolHi is shuddering with all her body, while Yu doesn’t know what to do. In the end, he just took touched her shoulder and SolHi cried a lot in his arms.