This is a story from my college days—well, about five years ago. There was a junior of mine who never touched a single drop of alcohol, even when invited to drinking parties at our apartments, and would always ride his motorcycle home at 3:00 AM. Even completely sober, he was a fun guy, so we often hung out together late into the night. But he would always message me on LINE as soon as he got home safely. It had become an unspoken rule that once that message came in, the gathering was officially over.
It happened on a Saturday. Having drunk more than usual, I fell asleep before he left, only to be shaken awake at 7:00 AM with the words, "We're going to the police!" Apparently, not only had we not received the usual message from him, but one of the guys who had been drinking with us—let's call him A—had drunkenly confessed that he had secretly mixed alcohol into our junior's drink. The alcohol-induced haze vanished in an instant, and we all rushed to the nearest police station. When we told the officers in the parking lot what had happened, they immediately brought us inside. Just as the questioning was about to begin, we were told that a motorcycle accident matching his description had already been reported.
We were questioned separately one by one, but since I had been mostly asleep, all I could do was explain how things usually went: that he always texted when he got home, that he only ever drank beverages he brought himself, and that he claimed to be completely intolerant to alcohol and I had never once seen him drink. The questioning took less than an hour, but we were kept at the station until past noon. Finally, we were told of our junior's death, and soon after, we received notice of his funeral through the university.
According to the situation at the time, after I fell asleep, there were four people left: A, our junior, and two others. While our junior and another guy were looking for something in the kitchen, A apparently mixed alcohol into our junior's drink. When he left to go home, our junior had seemed completely normal, and because he had a tan, it was impossible to tell if his face was flushed from alcohol.
A few days later, the police and two of the guys came to my house, and I was asked in detail where I had been sleeping, what the other two were doing in the kitchen, and why A didn't go into the kitchen with the others. After that, I was interrogated further by the university and shown traffic camera footage by the police as evidence. All four of us, including myself, were referred to the prosecutors, and we were even called in by the prosecutor's office, but the only one who was actually indicted was A. It seems our junior was also referred to the prosecutors posthumously.
I lost contact with A after that day, and the next time I saw him was in court. The three of us testified as witnesses, but A was handed a prison sentence in the first trial, which was finalized right then and there. All that remains are the feelings of guilt for taking my eyes off A, and the deep regret that I should have looked out for our junior more. Above all, my hatred toward A—who burdened a junior, known for being sincere and friendly, with the posthumous stigma of drunk driving and caused his death—hasn't faded at all; if anything, it only continues to grow. Writing about it here won't make the things I have to carry for the rest of my life go away. Even a single bouquet of flowers left by the roadside has a background like this.
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