#Had a killer migraine today with college work to top it ;-;

[looplilou]

Yay

Pomni's eyes dilate like a cat :)))

[indigo-stay]

Case File: Who Killed I.N.?

Chapter 1: Standard Procedure

Word count: 1080

Nadine arrived last at Amie’s apartment, letting herself in through the front door as usual. She tossed her coat haphazardly onto the adjacent coat rack, peeling her shoes off as she strode down the front hall. The trio always gathered in the living room for PowerPoint showings. (Thanks to Amie’s obsession with them.)

She threw herself onto her usual spot on the couch, pulling out a bag of sour worms and tossing them to Dasom. The bag smacks her square in the head, but she beams brightly anyways.

“Nadine, have I ever told you that I love you literally more than life itself?” Dasom declares, already ripping open the packaging.

“You could mention it more, I do love praise.” Nadine replies loftily, her serious expression melting into laughter after a second.

“Alright sleuths! Attention!” Amie stands at the ready in front of the second hand projector they had thrifted (garbage picked) last summer. It requires a specific number of magazines to be shoved under the frame to keep it at the right angle, and also sometimes requires some light kicking to turn on, otherwise the screen blinks out. But hey, free projector.

Amie managed to get the screen centered enough that the PowerPoint slides are bright and readable against the blank white wall. The first slide shows only the bolded letters:

SUSPECTS.

Before Amie can begin speaking though, Dasom is distracted. “Amie, since when do you have a pointer hand thingy for this? You look like a first grade teacher.” Dasom points with a gummy worm to the stick in Amie’s hand for emphasis.

“I found it,” she sniffs, “it doesn’t matter, the point of today’s meeting is! Operation Find Innie’s Killer is back on.”

“But we had been guessing before.” Nadine points out. “The police said it was an accident.”

“Fuck the police.” Dasom mumbles from the other end of the couch.

“True.”

“True. Yeah and then they went back on what they said. How is it only now foul play?” Amie says, turning back to her slides.

“So anyways, I spoke to Hyunjin. He knows everything about the school and what’s happening where, so I figured he would have usable intel and I was RIGHT.”

“And we trust Hyunjin now?” Dasom asks, hand half raised.

Amie shoots her down immediately. “No, of course not. He’s on the suspect list too.”

“Amie what the fuck.”

“Listen! His intel was in fact researchable, everything is double confirmed okay? I’m not stupid. But the fact that he knows so much also makes him suspect.”

“Yeah when it comes to Hyunjin you’re neeever stupid.” Dasom sings, giggling when Amie blushes deep red.

“Okay ignoring that, anyways, here are my additional suspects!”

The PowerPoint slide changes to an overview slide. There are seven suspects listed.

“Are the police slides blank?” Nadine asks, pointing at the three names listed with “Police” and no other details.

“Listen I literally just started on this today okay I’ll add them onto the PowerPoint.” Amie clicks off of the presentation view and creates a new slide, typing in the top three ‘witnesses’ of the police’s case.

Kim Dongmin: His Boss, had Jeongin staying after hours often (grade A asshole, I hope it’s him what a pos) Terrible rating on glassdoor.

Goo Minhee: Ex-girlfriend / on and off again girlfriend (at the time they were broken up) He had just started seeing someone new? Suspicious.

Cha Jinhee: His college roommate, last one to see him alive.

She writes POLICE SUSPECTS in bold at the top of the slide.

“Amie! They aren’t suspects! They’re just the people who went in for questioning!”

“Literally what a suspect is,” Dasom mumbles.

“Dasom you are so not helping.”

Dasom shrugs even more unhelpfully. “Well they’re suspect adjacent then, does that work for you?”

Amie backspaces on the title text and types in all caps SUSPECT ADJACENT.

Nadine feels a stress migraine forming just from being around Amie and Dasom, and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Sure, fine. Let’s go with that. Who else are you including in your ‘Sus People’ lineup then?”

Amie cracks her knuckles. “I’m so glad you asked, I’ve created a PowerPoint just for this moment.”

Han Jisung: dated his ex on one of their breaks last year

Kim Seungmin: coworker, strained relationship

Lee Felix: always together but suspiciously not this past month!

Bang Chan: competing for same scholarships, academic rivals

Lee Minho: out of the country, but one of his closest friends

Hwang Hyunjin: the college Knower of Things™ he must know more than he’s letting on

Seo Changbin: coworker, friends

“And let me guess you’ve been stalking all of their social media accounts?”

“Yes, Nadine, what do you think I am some kind of amateur?” She clicks to the next slide where screenshots of all of their social media accounts have been pasted in.

“You know that likely now if the police look at our search histories they’re definitely gonna think we did it.” Dasom

“Dasom never in a million Years would I talk with the police, so jot that down. We need compiled evidence or we aren’t going to solve this you know? And like it’s not the 70s I refuse to print everything out and thumb tack it to the wall.”

“Amie, some of these people are our friends.” Nadine “We can’t accuse every single person in contact with him of a crime.”

“Okay, first of all Nadine, friend is a stretch. You have class with Jisung and Felix, and Minho’s been studying abroad for like two years now.” Amie

“Nadine,” Dasom interjects, “I think what Amie is badly trying to say is that, we have to consider every possible angle, even people we don’t think could have done it. We can rule them out easy, right? It’s not like we’re going to go up to each of them and interrogate them.”

“I guess that’s true,” Nadine reluctantly agrees, “missing a lead because of that would be idiotic.”

“Exactly! Now back to my PowerPoint.” The next slide appears on the wall, filled to the brim with data on each of the ‘suspects’. The text is so small that both Dasom and Nadine lean forward, squinting at the screen.

“Amie is that someone’s ssn on there?”

“Amie how did you even find that?”

“All these questions please! Wait until the end!” She clicks to the next slide that says, “Questions?”

Nadine sighs loudly, pinching the bridge of her nose again. “I need painkillers.”

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[girl-with-the-butterfly-tat-blog]

Jan. 4, 2017

I think that maybe I should start journaling.  Really, I should have started doing this a long time ago, but I figured the new year would be a good time to start so last night I finally went and bought a cute new journal, and here I am.  I would have written last night, but I had a killer migraine and it hurt too much to keep my eyes open.

Anyway, 2016 was, to put it simply, difficult, and I’m really hoping that journaling will finally help me sort through everything that happened so that I can heal.  Last year, I went to Disney World, lost the love of my life, graduated high school, moved like 400 miles away from home, started college, got my first real job, lost my cat, and successfully completed my first semester of college.  I hit a TON of important milestones, and not all of them were good.  On top of that, I went through something like 8 boys, and if that doesn’t indicate I’m in a bad place, I don’t know what would.

My biggest problem, I think, was losing James.  I didn’t see it coming, and I never got an explanation.  How am I supposed to heal when I still don’t even know what happened? I think everyone else is sick of hearing me talk about James, because it’s been like 10 months so I really should be over it by now.  I know that I should be over it by now. But I’m not.  It’s not even that I miss him or that I want him back.  It’s just that I’m confused and hurt and I don’t know what I can do to change that.

I’ve always had problems with healing or fixing thins.  The thing is, I know what my problems are.  I know what is causing me pain nd often what is getting in the way of me getting better  What I struggle with is moving around those obstacles.  A part of me wants to get better, but the other part is comfortable in my misery that it’s okay with staying here.  You can guess which part is winning right now.

On a more positive note, my book is coming along nicely.  I’m hoping to finish Chapter 9 today.  Adam is working on some cover art for me, and so far I really love what he’s doing.  I’ve even begun looking into self-publishing on Amazon, and I think it might be the route I take.