(for everyone) 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer ✸ part 2 of 2
❊ for: everyone
❊ title: 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
AUTHOR’S NOTE: What occurs next is a series of happenings that cannot be understood by any human, alive or dead. It is something complex and intricate that digs at the skin of any human who involves themselves in this risky matter. Any person entangled in this inevitable and most unfortunate chain of events is most definitely doomed for death, instability, or something terrible. Because no one, and I repeat no one, in the history of the seven centuries of its existence has survived this ordeal with a sane mind.
The first happens on a Tuesday. Henry Lau, the heir to a large insurance company and a rather sexually active man, shoves the plastic bag (with ten boxes of condoms) into the back seat of his car. His hair is gelled back, his eyelashes are a pretty length, and his arms, under the sleeves of the suit, are toned.
He stops by a bar, first. His routine is simple. Get some drinks, charm a girl (or a guy), and take them into his car. He would drive into the outskirts and then have his little personal party.
A party. That’s what he calls it.
At 7:15, on a Friday, Henry Lau, age twenty six, struts into “Salem’s Bar” with a high chin and a rather large sex drive.
At 7:30, two girls walk into the bar. Lau eyes one of them, who has a white blouse and skinny jeans wrapping around her robust figure. It takes him approximately 12 minutes to inch himself toward the pair before he makes his first comment at 7:42.
What is spoken, word for word, in the noisy setting at Salem’s Bar is not specifically known; however, it is evident that whatever was exchanged between Lau and the female counterpart was enough to take her into the car two hours later, at 9:50.
At 10:06, they are parked along the side of the road in an area mostly covered by forests and natureful noises. This is a place only visited by people like Lau (of which there are in Jerusalem), uninspired writers, and the occasional hiker (though not at 10 at night).
At this point, I must intervene the narration to point out the existence of Kim Jonghyun, an ex-writer who happened to have been writing a poem at around 8:03. At 8:34, Kim was unable to think of a word that would come after “the,” and thus, decided to take a walk in order to take in ideas from the silent night.
Silent night it was, until Kim found himself near the outskirts of town (around 10:15--it was a long stroll) thinking whether it would be better to describe love as a “hungry forest fire” or a “quiet ripple in a pond.” Just as he was reaching a conclusion he heard, well… the sound of nature.
“Jesus fucking christ!” Kim shouted at the car, which was shaking for natureful reasons. “Have some decency, will you?”
(And then he looked away because he could see--never mind.)
Suddenly, he heard screaming. Alarmed, he hesitated between running away in disgust and seeing what might be happening. He was (like he always is with everything, including choosing metaphors in his own writing) torn between the two choices, unable to come to a conclusion, when the door flung open and a dead body of a female, mostly naked, was thrown out of the car face down. It was night and he did not see blood.
“Holy shit!” It was around 10:20 when Kim ran over to the car.
Lau jumped out, his hands dripping red (but at that time of night it looked more like a mahogany). He grabbed Kim by the shoulders and screamed, “I’ve got you!”
The rest of this story is classified information.
The second is on a Saturday. It is 6:30 in the morning. High-schooler Kim Minseok is jogging along the sidewalks as a morning warm up, thinking about a training schedule for his soccer team. He is the new captain of his school’s soccer team, and his passion for the sport is quite admirable.
At approximately 6:33 in the morning (of the same day), Minseok runs into a man. He is mid-thought, trying to figure out whether it would be too obvious if he assigned lockers and made Lu Han’s adjacent to his when he accidentally bumps shoulders with a man in a green hooded sweater. The man is holding a black plastic bag. A hood covers his face from easy view.
Now here is the heartbreaking truth: if Minseok hadn’t been absorbed in thinking about Lu Han’s face, he wouldn’t have bumped into the man. He would have (other than living quite a happy life as team captain and a future star soccer player at his dream college) simply passed by without contact and perhaps looked back, thinking to himself, “what a sketchy as fuck man.”
But alas, he had not gotten up on the right side of the bed that morning.
And thus, such are the happenings at 6:33 on that particular Saturday: first, Minseok bumps into the man. Then, the man turns around and says “I’m sorry,” with a few indecipherable murmurs. Minseok looks into the man’s eyes and mutters something in reply--sources cannot tell what exactly he has said (and also doubt its impact on the overall situation--he was never quite the socially adept type, anyways).
A wind passes by (just a benign morning breeze), lifting the hood covering the man’s face. His face is revealed.
Although Minseok doesn’t know this, the man he sees is Kim Jonghyun, an ex-author who enjoys sporting leather jackets and black, ripped jeans in his red pickup truck (but not on Saturday mornings, and especially not at 6:33 in the morning).
The rest of the ordeal happens within approximately a minute and forty seven seconds. Kim Jonghyun and Kim Minseok both make physical contact (albeit accidental) at 6:33:04. At 6:33:17, Kim Jonghyun is looking into Kim Minseok’s eyes and is advancing towards him. Kim Minseok, wide-eyed, makes a dashing attempt to flee the scene (bless his young soul). Kim Jonghyun chases after him, now brandishing a knife (from where, I cannot say) (intuition may lead you to assume it was from the black plastic bag).
Now if Minseok had practiced his running even one more week, he would have survived. But, in fact, he had not, and Jonghyun was quite a good athlete. (Not to mention the fact that Minseok had been running for quite some time, and his energy level was considerably more depleted than the refreshed and still young Kim Jonghyun.) So, unfortunately, at 6:34:51, Jonghyun catches up with Minseok, stabs him three times in the chest (from the back), throws the dying body onto the ground, rips his shirt off, and proceeds to stab him even more through his chest until his hands are soaking with blood and he has access to Minseok’s barely beating heart.
I must intervene, at this point, to point out that Kim Minseok died a quick death and did not feel with his own living nerves the consumption of his own cardiac muscles by an ex-author.
This is the story that appears in the news a few hours later--obviously more censored, and obviously less gruesome. But what does not appear in the news (because the reporters are insufferably nosy and not quite good enough with solving unexplained mysteries) is the fact that (1) Kim Jonghyun had a crazed look in his eye as he was doing this and (2) right after this altercation, he ran into the nearest store and talked to the owner who was setting up a “FOR SALE” sign on the front. The conversation went very much like this:
JONGHYUN: What! What! Oh my god, oh my god!
OWNER: Oh, hello there. Do you need help--Jesus Christ, what’s on your hands? Your face? Jesus Christ, get away from me!
JONGHYUN: Oh my god! Oh my god!
OWNER: What on earth is wrong with you? I’m calling the police--don’t get any closer.
JONGHYUN: I just killed a man! I just killed a man!
(Jonghyun grabs OWNER’s shoulders and shakes them roughly, then weakly, then not at all.)
OWNER: Fuck! Get away from me!
JONGHYUN: I’m--what do I do? I think I’m possessed. I’m possessed--
(Jonghyun falls to the ground. OWNER calls the police in a frenzy.)
What happens to Kim Jonghyun after this conversation is not much importance to this story. But for closure, I shall tell you that he joined a certain obnoxious, rich, self-centered white Ferrari owner in his jail cell after a great deal of legal trial and debate.
The third happens on high school grounds, at a parent teacher meeting one week later. The meeting agenda, according to Ms. Nam Jihyun’s “SEPTEMBER MEETING AGENDA,” is addressing some sort of new buddy system in the school. And the death of Kim Minseok, a treasured soccer player whom we will never forget (and may even create a memorial for).
“Welcome,” says Ms. Nam Jihyun. It is 8:05 in the evening. She folds her hands and looks around at the sea of faces looking at her expectantly (some quite scrutinizingly). Her neck is sweating (it happens when she is nervous). This is her first time as a Vice Principal. It is quite unfortunate that her first meeting only goes this far, because at 8:06, hell breaks loose once again.
Someone in the back screams.
“A doctor! Someone get a doctor!” The voice rings out into the auditorium. The powerpoint is still on the cover page.
Three hours later, sitting on a police officer’s desk are carelessly strewn photos of a crime scene. A murder scene. In the topmost photo, the picture displays a woman with her shirt ripped and thrown to the side. Her chest is cut open right between her breasts. Blood is splattered all over her clothes and there are feet and fold-up chairs outlining the photo. Any passerby (after getting accustomed to the horrifying scene) would probably comment that it looks like a parent teacher meeting gone terribly wrong.
It is of interest that the store owner (the one that had conversed with Jonghyun)’s store is called “QUIK FOOD,” a local ripoff of the rather big franchise, QUICK CHEK. The day after the newspaper company, The Jerusalem Tribune, sells all of its copies of that day’s daily newspaper (“a compelling headline,” said the boss as he approved the newspaper for printing), QUIK FOOD has a “CLOSED” sign stamped on the door. Beneath it is “FOREVER” written in crude, possessed handwriting, perhaps with a red sharpie or something of the sort.
The fourth happens eight days later. It is a Sunday. At a local McDonald’s fast food restaurant, a man by the name of Wu Yifan is holding holding hands with his son and his niece on each side as he orders “two kids meals and a big mac, please.”
Excited, his son lets go of his hand and begins bouncing around behind him, squealing “Kids meal! Kids meal!” Soon, the niece follows. Yifan struggles to get a coin out of his wallet while trying to calm the children, who are now getting stares (and fond smiles) from strangers.
Nothing is normal. A young boy, age twenty one-ish, is sitting at the corner of the restaurant, watching the entire ordeal. His face is scrunched, and something is unsettling at the bottom of his stomach. He watches Yifan with squinted eyes. He looks at the children.
In the next ten seconds, there is a struggle between fate and destiny. The boy walks to the back of the line, standing behind a woman on her phone (who is standing behind Wu Yifan). Yifan, as if by a force of inexplicable nature, whips his head around to glare at the boy who is incidentally staring in Yifan’s direction. Their eyes meet. Something clicks (not audibly) and the boy lunges forward. A split second later, so does Yifan, but he is too late. The boy has the two children (Yifan’s son and niece) in his arms and he is ushering them out the door, saying “I’ll take you guys home, I’ll take you guys home. Didn’t your parents tell you not to follow strangers?” They resist, so he picks them up and runs out. Surprisingly, Yifan does not follow. The children are crying. The boy shields their eyes as screaming soon ensues inside the restaurant. Unfortunately, McDonald’s glass doors allow the boy to witness the gruesome murder. The children are safe.
The head of Jerusalem’s police department, Byun Baekhyun, is none other than the cookie-cutter stereotype of a lazy, unhappy policeman who has a liking for donuts and sweetened coffee. His hair is always slicked back with some sort of gel they sell at Walgreens, and his face is plump and healthy. You can tell, if you look at him long enough, that he was a good looking boy when he was younger--foolish, flirty, and quite a ladies’ man. Perhaps in his happy youth he took up singing as a hobby, for his voice, contradictory to his general countenance, is still quite soothing and smooth.
In the present, however, he is laying his hand on his protruding stomach, brushing crumbs off and grumbling about “those goddamn crazed bastards.” Because if there’s one thing Baekhyun hates more than glazed donuts (he prefers jelly), it’s murder cases. And a series of serial killings at that.
“Sir,” says Park Chanyeol, the lanky but foolishly passionate policeboy (not yet a policeman in Baekhyun’s eyes) walks into the office, “there has been another death.”
“In flames!” Officer Byun bursts out, and it sounds as if the comment is simply an emphasized part of a quietly uttered string of insults and complaints, “In flames, that’s what this city is! Goddamn bastards, can’t control their pathetic little selves…” He throws a pen across the room.
Chanyeol flinches momentarily before resuming, “It may be a good idea to hire a detective, sir. This is the third case. It is quite gruesome, if I say so myself.”
“In flames!” Officer Byun repeats, fuming. He throws his fist down on the table. “There’s no use! No goddamn use.”
Chanyeol stares. “Sir?”
“Get out!”
Chanyeol obliges, scratching his head and wondering if it might have been a better idea to listen to his parents and become a doctor after all.
♢ ♢ ♢
Sehun throws the newspaper down onto the counter, which has, by now, taken quite a few beatings from the careless cashier. Although nearly a week has passed, neither has addressed what happened on the phone the night Jongin called. Perhaps it’s because Sehun is waiting for Jongin to say something first and Jongin himself is not sure whether he had said it aloud or in his mind.
“This place is in shambles,” Sehun says, nodding at the headline, which reads “WOMAN STABBED TO DEATH BY MCDONALD CUSTOMER”.
Jongin takes a stretch before taking his jacket off. He slings it on the plastic chair and unlocks the cashier’s cabinet. “I was there when that happened.” He throws the keys to Sehun, who catches and pockets it quickly, then does a double take.
“What the fuck?” Sehun leans back, staring at Jongin. “Seriously?”
Jongin sits down. “I was there.”
“So you saw the woman being killed?”
“Kind of.”
“What does that mean, kind of?”
“I was outside.”
“You were outside?”
“I saw him with two kids that clearly weren’t his, so I knew something was up,” Jongin says. “I tried to take them away from him, but they wouldn’t let me. One of them called him daddy.” He shrugs. “I don’t get it.”
“The guy who killed the woman?” Sehun picks up the newspaper and skims through the article. “His name is… Wu Yifan. You know Wu Yifan, the mechanic. He owns Wu’s Machinery right down the street. What are you talking about?”
“No, no,” Jongin says distractedly. “It’s not Wu Yifan. I saw the man. He clearly wasn’t Wu Yifan. He was the Prince Charming guy.”
“Will you quit it with Prince Charming?” Sehun throws his hands up in dismay. “You’ve got to be kidding me. For the fiftieth fucking time, Prince Charming does not have a moustache.”
“He’s everywhere. I’m telling you. You weren’t there, okay?”
“Why did these people just randomly put his name there, then? It says they caught him. They can’t just decide to call him Wu Yifan when there’s a real one out there fixing cars. And I saw the store was closed on my way here.”
“I saw him. I fucking saw the guy with my own eyes, alright?” Jongin frowns. “There’s something really weird going on.”
“Yeah? Is there really? Obviously you’re obsessed with this Prince Charming guy, whoever he is. Fucking came once, creeped us out, and left with ten boxes of condoms. It’s the last I saw of him, okay?”
“No, no…” Jongin’s eyebrows furrow in frustration.
“The only thing really going on right now is your mind, Jongin,” Sehun huffs, folding his arms. “You’ve been talking about this for days. They’re just murders. You’re not involved. Just get over it.” He nods amiably at the early customer.
Jongin shakes his head distractedly, then throws a furtive glance at the customer. He freezes. Their eyes meet momentarily, and Sehun sees Jongin’s shoulders tense.
“Fuck,” he whispers as soon as the customer disappears into another aisle. “It’s him.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Sehun hisses. His voice rises sharply as he says, “You’re calling every fucking person Prince Charming!”
“Shut up, shut up!” Jongin kicks Sehun’s legs.
Sehun rubs his shins with a frown. “The fuck was that for?”
“That’s Prince Charming. Shut up and listen to me. I know he’s the one who has been killing everyone. I don’t know how. He just is. I’m going to corner him and you are going to call the police. Trust me.” Jongin’s eyes are oddly furious. He grabs onto Sehun’s shoulders with an intensity he has never quite mustered up before.
“A...alright,” Sehun backs away.
I put this next passage after a line break because it deserves one. Although it happens right in succession and in the same place as the passage before this, there is a significant difference between what has happened prior and what will happen next.
What happens next first starts with Jongin making two fists, walking out of the staff’s side of the counter, and stalking off into the aisle that Prince Charming (or whoever the fuck he is) had disappeared into.
Jongin’s heart is beating. Something in him tells him that what will happen next will never be erased from his memory for the rest of his life. Perhaps it’s because his life won’t last too long from these next few minutes. Perhaps it’s because he’ll drop into a coma, or disappear into thin air and reincarnate into an otter, or perhaps it’s because he fears that Prince Charming will slice his heart out just as he did with all of his other victims.
He gathers his lips together, keeping them pursed with a certain degree of determination (and a readiness to say “Sir, you’re under arrest”) when he realizes that he has checked every aisle of the store and still has not found the man.
“Hello?” he calls out feebly, suddenly losing resolve and realizing that his knuckles are hurting from being clenched so hard for so long. He feels oddly like he is in a dark alleyway, not in the aisle of a well-lit gas station store.
No answer.
“Hello?”
He begins to hear Sehun’s voice from the counter, “Jongin, get back here--” when all of a sudden, in front of him, is the customer. The same Prince Charming he had seen a few weeks ago, the same Prince Charming he had seen in the leather jacket, the same Prince Charming he had seen in McDonald’s holding hands with two children that were not his. In all instances, he was dressed completely differently, with completely different auras. But the appearance. The appearance was the same--the same, bulging eyes, the same thick eyebrows, the same thick, eerily heart-shaped lips--
Jongin forgets what he had planned to say. “Sir, you’re under arrest” slips away from his memory. Instead, he finds himself blurting, horrified (but in a whisper), “Who the fuck are you?”
The man leans closer into him. His eyes are (still) a hue of bloodsucking ebony.
They are at the back of the store, and Jongin realizes suddenly that his back is against the wall--glass doors that display an array of colorful, refrigerated Gatorades.
“Wh-what are you doing,” Jongin stammers, grabbing the glass doors behind him. The surface is cold on his palms.
“So close,” his voice rasps, and suddenly he feels as if it is not the body that is speaking to him, but some other vocal chord from another soul that is using this stranger’s body as a tool to live. “But I can’t yet. No, not yet.”
“I--I said, who are you?”
“Call me D.O, call me whatever you want, but it won’t matter, because in a few days, I’ll be you and you’ll be me,” the man hisses with a smile. He bares his teeth maliciously. “You’re the only one who can see me for who I really am, the majestic monster that I can be.”
“What the hell…” Jongin whispers, his eyes widening in horror. “The fuck are you talking about?” The man’s possessed.
“See you soon, Jongin,” the man smiles suddenly. He pushes past Jongin and rushes out the door, turning around only momentarily to throw him a teasing wink.
“Fuck--wait, you--” Jongin runs to the front of the store and then gives up, watching as the man runs away. He turns around to look at Sehun, who is playing Angry Birds.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Jongin shouts. His face is red. “I told you to call the police!”
“He’s an innocent guy, Jongin,” Sehun sighs. “It’s an offense to call the police for no reason.” He swipes his phone screen angrily.
“I--” Jongin is breathless, but for no reason, really, because he had just run a few feet.
“Look, you just cornered some random guy. Leave the fucker alone, alright? He ran out and didn’t buy anything. Poor guy, probably only wanted a Gatorade or something.”
That night, Jongin lies in bed, his eyes closed, thinking about two people: Prince Charming (is he even a person?) and Sehun.
By now, Jongin is convinced that he said nothing on the phone after his little outburst. He thinks that Sehun is saying nothing because Jongin had said nothing. He thinks about maybe telling Sehun tomorrow, apologizing for acting so oddly about Prince Charming. Perhaps their friendship could get along better, now that they are in college. Perhaps Jongin can embrace--
“No,” he says. He thinks about Sehun. To tell, or not to tell. That is the question. To tell or not to tell, to tell or not to tell, to tell or not to tell, to tell or not to tell, to tell or not to tell…
And then, strangely, the face of Prince Charming appears in front of him.
Suddenly, he hears Prince Charming’s voice. Or D.O’s.
In a few days, I’ll be you and you’ll be me.
Or whatever his name is--Jongin can see the man’s white, white teeth on the back of his eyelids. He opens them quickly and stares up at his ceiling. Sehun just… doesn’t understand. There is something wrong with this man. This D.O.
His face turns into Sehun. To tell or not to tell, to tell or not to tell...
You’re the only one who can see me for who I really am, the majestic monster that I can be.
The first headline: WOMAN SUFFERS GRUESOME DEATH IN MAN WITH WHITE FERRARI.
To tell or not to tell, to tell or not to tell...
For who I really am,
The second: HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT KILLED BY EX-AUTHOR.
the majestic monster I can be.
The third: PARENT KILLED BY PARENT ON SCHOOL GROUNDS.
I’ll be you and you’ll be me.
And the most recent: WOMAN STABBED TO DEATH BY MCDONALD CUSTOMER.
To tell or not to tell… Jongin’s mind bounces back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth… What to do. What to do.
Something tells Jongin that all of these deaths are related and that in some way or another, they are all directed at him. Him, Kim Jongin, who has, for the past few weeks, been seeing Prince Charming, D.O, creepy-ass guy, everywhere, all over Jerusalem. Things are not adding up. Zero divided by zero, infinity divided by infinity. Something is undefined, something is left unexplained.
Something also tells Jongin “to tell.” Something else tells him “not to tell.”
He hears a rustling beside him in bed. He halts his breath.
His room remains quiet, and thoughts swirl in his head. Is this D.O guy here? Or is it Sehun? Is he hiding under my bed? Is he going to kill me? Is he going to tell me “I know what you really are”? Is this it? His throat becomes parched, even though he is doing nothing but laying in bed, just like he had any day before this.
Jongin never knew silence could be so painful.
“Hello?” he calls out quietly. Nothing.
“Sehun?” And a pause. “D.O?”
Another rustle.
He closes his eyes shut, and sees the man’s teeth baring at him once again. But this time, his face is that of Sehun’s.
It takes a while before Jongin can fall asleep. But when he does, he falls into a deep sleep, one he has’nt slept in a while. In fact, he feels as if he can sleep for centuries… centuries to avoid his problems. Centuries to avoid paranoia. Perhaps he will dream of waves and sharks swallowing him whole, chopping him up and then putting him in a salad for a grinning set of white, shining teeth.
Jongin opens his eyes to the sound of birds and bright daylight and not the screaming beeps of his alarm clock. He stretches slowly before it hits him that it’s bright, and therefore, not 6:00.
“Shit,” he hisses. He jumps out of bed. It’s nine fifteen. Not this again.
He goes through his routine again--turning on the TV, brushing his teeth, running the water, taking a shower. By the time he leaves his house, it’s 9:37.
He runs into the store with his jacket half on and a pant in his breath.
“Sorry,” he bursts into the store. “Alarm clock turned off--or I forgot to turn it on, I don’t know which--I’m pretty sure I had it on though--don’t tell Junmyeon--” he glances up. He gasps.
Sitting in Sehun’s chair, playing with Sehun’s phone, grinning in Sehun’s usual style of clothes, is D.O. Prince Charming. Creepy-ass guy.
Jongin leaps backwards. “Fuck!” He pulls out his pocket knife (pathetic, I know, but what can you say--that’s what he did). “What did you do to him? Is this a dream?”
“To whom?” The man smiles. “I’m Sehun. What are you talking about?”
“Y-you’re not Sehun. You’re lying.”
“I am, though,” the man says most innocently, and for a moment he looks cute, or actually innocent, or perhaps just vaguely benign. (Maybe it’s a trick of the light.) His shoulders are vastly more narrow than the usual Sehun, and his clothes look ill-fitting on the man’s contrasting figure.
“I’m going to--call the police. They’re going to find Sehun. I’m--” Jongin swallows.
“You can do that all you want, you know,” the man/Sehun smiles. “But they’ll see me as Sehun.”
“I don’t--I don’t know who you are,” Jongin pants, his head throbbing. “I’m--I’m going to ask you to leave now and release Sehun.”
“Alright,” the man says calmly. “First, I’ll have to get to you first.”
The man gets up from his seat, sets the phone on the counter, and walks around to where Jongin is.
Jongin leaps backwards. “Get--get away from me.”
“I won’t do anything to you,” the man says soothingly. “Nothing will happen. You see me as me, so why not just make it easier? I’ll be you. You’ll be me. Then you’ll never be confused again. You’re the perfect host, anyways.”
Jongin has no idea what he’s saying. He reaches his arm out. The pocketknife in his hand is shaking. “I--I can kill you, you know.”
“Go ahead,” the man smiles. “It doesn’t matter to me.” He walks closer.
Jongin steps backwards again. “I said--get away.”
“Kill me, Jongin,” the man gives a most amiable smile. “I order you to kill me.”
Jongin closes his eyes shut. He swallows. His throat feels dry again.
Suddenly, he feels the man’s hands around his. The man’s grip is tight. He thrusts Jongin’s hand toward himself. Jongin screams.
“You’re--you’re killing yourself!” Jongin tries to jump back, but the man’s grip is oddly firm around Jongin’s hand. In repeated stabs, the knife punctures the man’s skin--once, twice, three times, four times, five times, six times, seven, eight, nine, ten…
Everything is numb. Jongin can’t feel anything. Blood pours over his hands. He is screaming. Tears are streaming down his face. He looks up, horrified, into the man’s eyes. He is staring right into Jongin, grinning emptily. Through his hands, Jongin can hear laughter, cackling, a stinging kind of mirth that sends chills all through his body. Jongin closes his eyes shut, squeezes them tight.
This is not a good way to start the morning, not a good way to start the morning, not a good way to start the morning…
Everything goes black.
the end.
Attachments:
960903_JerusalemNewspaper_Scan(1).pdf
U3kO30Q7d30DPM.pdf
960903_JerusalemNewspaper_Scan(1).pdf
MAN KILLS CO-WORKER AT GAS STATION STORE.
Jerusalem. -- Kim Jongin has been convicted of the murder of Oh Sehun, a co-worker at an Exxon gas station. Security footage reveals that Kim was suffering from a panic attack shortly before the murder. Oh was stabbed seventeen times with Kim’s pocket knife, eventually dying of blood loss.
Kim Junmyeon, owner of the store, noted that he had never seen much dispute between the two co-workers. “It’s odd,” said Kim, “and heartbreaking. I’d never have thought that Jongin would kill him. It’s most unlike him, actually.”
There were no witnesses at the scene. The murder occurred at 10:00 AM in the interior of the gas station store. Other workers at the station attested that Kim Jongin had been late for his shift.
“He was a few hours late, actually,” said Huang Zitao, a worker at the same gas station. “I saw him walk in, but I didn’t see it all happen. Must have been quick.”
Kim Jongin ran out of the gas station shortly after the murder. Officials are still searching for Kim, who will be charged of first degree murder.
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U3kO30Q7d30DPM.pdf
Three months later, on the other side of the country, Kim Jongin walks out of a hotel room and into an elevator, his hands bloody and his pants left unzipped. His hands are sticky with a mixture of blood and come. He lets out a smile, and his red teeth are caught on camera (with pieces of cardiac muscle stuck between his canines). With a deft move of his fingers, Jongin twirls his knife and swiftly puts it away into his pouch. His leather jacket is spotless, his jeans a little dirtied (but black is a good color and nobody can really tell whether it’s the original design or human blood).
It is 1:03 AM. Jongin stares forward at the closing metal doors of the elevator, peering at his reflection of a smiling, small-shouldered, heart-lipped man.
❊ title: 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
AUTHOR’S NOTE: What occurs next is a series of happenings that cannot be understood by any human, alive or dead. It is something complex and intricate that digs at the skin of any human who involves themselves in this risky matter. Any person entangled in this inevitable and most unfortunate chain of events is most definitely doomed for death, instability, or something terrible. Because no one, and I repeat no one, in the history of the seven centuries of its existence has survived this ordeal with a sane mind.
The first happens on a Tuesday. Henry Lau, the heir to a large insurance company and a rather sexually active man, shoves the plastic bag (with ten boxes of condoms) into the back seat of his car. His hair is gelled back, his eyelashes are a pretty length, and his arms, under the sleeves of the suit, are toned.
He stops by a bar, first. His routine is simple. Get some drinks, charm a girl (or a guy), and take them into his car. He would drive into the outskirts and then have his little personal party.
A party. That’s what he calls it.
At 7:15, on a Friday, Henry Lau, age twenty six, struts into “Salem’s Bar” with a high chin and a rather large sex drive.
At 7:30, two girls walk into the bar. Lau eyes one of them, who has a white blouse and skinny jeans wrapping around her robust figure. It takes him approximately 12 minutes to inch himself toward the pair before he makes his first comment at 7:42.
What is spoken, word for word, in the noisy setting at Salem’s Bar is not specifically known; however, it is evident that whatever was exchanged between Lau and the female counterpart was enough to take her into the car two hours later, at 9:50.
At 10:06, they are parked along the side of the road in an area mostly covered by forests and natureful noises. This is a place only visited by people like Lau (of which there are in Jerusalem), uninspired writers, and the occasional hiker (though not at 10 at night).
At this point, I must intervene the narration to point out the existence of Kim Jonghyun, an ex-writer who happened to have been writing a poem at around 8:03. At 8:34, Kim was unable to think of a word that would come after “the,” and thus, decided to take a walk in order to take in ideas from the silent night.
Silent night it was, until Kim found himself near the outskirts of town (around 10:15--it was a long stroll) thinking whether it would be better to describe love as a “hungry forest fire” or a “quiet ripple in a pond.” Just as he was reaching a conclusion he heard, well… the sound of nature.
“Jesus fucking christ!” Kim shouted at the car, which was shaking for natureful reasons. “Have some decency, will you?”
(And then he looked away because he could see--never mind.)
Suddenly, he heard screaming. Alarmed, he hesitated between running away in disgust and seeing what might be happening. He was (like he always is with everything, including choosing metaphors in his own writing) torn between the two choices, unable to come to a conclusion, when the door flung open and a dead body of a female, mostly naked, was thrown out of the car face down. It was night and he did not see blood.
“Holy shit!” It was around 10:20 when Kim ran over to the car.
Lau jumped out, his hands dripping red (but at that time of night it looked more like a mahogany). He grabbed Kim by the shoulders and screamed, “I’ve got you!”
The rest of this story is classified information.
The second is on a Saturday. It is 6:30 in the morning. High-schooler Kim Minseok is jogging along the sidewalks as a morning warm up, thinking about a training schedule for his soccer team. He is the new captain of his school’s soccer team, and his passion for the sport is quite admirable.
At approximately 6:33 in the morning (of the same day), Minseok runs into a man. He is mid-thought, trying to figure out whether it would be too obvious if he assigned lockers and made Lu Han’s adjacent to his when he accidentally bumps shoulders with a man in a green hooded sweater. The man is holding a black plastic bag. A hood covers his face from easy view.
Now here is the heartbreaking truth: if Minseok hadn’t been absorbed in thinking about Lu Han’s face, he wouldn’t have bumped into the man. He would have (other than living quite a happy life as team captain and a future star soccer player at his dream college) simply passed by without contact and perhaps looked back, thinking to himself, “what a sketchy as fuck man.”
But alas, he had not gotten up on the right side of the bed that morning.
And thus, such are the happenings at 6:33 on that particular Saturday: first, Minseok bumps into the man. Then, the man turns around and says “I’m sorry,” with a few indecipherable murmurs. Minseok looks into the man’s eyes and mutters something in reply--sources cannot tell what exactly he has said (and also doubt its impact on the overall situation--he was never quite the socially adept type, anyways).
A wind passes by (just a benign morning breeze), lifting the hood covering the man’s face. His face is revealed.
Although Minseok doesn’t know this, the man he sees is Kim Jonghyun, an ex-author who enjoys sporting leather jackets and black, ripped jeans in his red pickup truck (but not on Saturday mornings, and especially not at 6:33 in the morning).
The rest of the ordeal happens within approximately a minute and forty seven seconds. Kim Jonghyun and Kim Minseok both make physical contact (albeit accidental) at 6:33:04. At 6:33:17, Kim Jonghyun is looking into Kim Minseok’s eyes and is advancing towards him. Kim Minseok, wide-eyed, makes a dashing attempt to flee the scene (bless his young soul). Kim Jonghyun chases after him, now brandishing a knife (from where, I cannot say) (intuition may lead you to assume it was from the black plastic bag).
Now if Minseok had practiced his running even one more week, he would have survived. But, in fact, he had not, and Jonghyun was quite a good athlete. (Not to mention the fact that Minseok had been running for quite some time, and his energy level was considerably more depleted than the refreshed and still young Kim Jonghyun.) So, unfortunately, at 6:34:51, Jonghyun catches up with Minseok, stabs him three times in the chest (from the back), throws the dying body onto the ground, rips his shirt off, and proceeds to stab him even more through his chest until his hands are soaking with blood and he has access to Minseok’s barely beating heart.
I must intervene, at this point, to point out that Kim Minseok died a quick death and did not feel with his own living nerves the consumption of his own cardiac muscles by an ex-author.
This is the story that appears in the news a few hours later--obviously more censored, and obviously less gruesome. But what does not appear in the news (because the reporters are insufferably nosy and not quite good enough with solving unexplained mysteries) is the fact that (1) Kim Jonghyun had a crazed look in his eye as he was doing this and (2) right after this altercation, he ran into the nearest store and talked to the owner who was setting up a “FOR SALE” sign on the front. The conversation went very much like this:
JONGHYUN: What! What! Oh my god, oh my god!
OWNER: Oh, hello there. Do you need help--Jesus Christ, what’s on your hands? Your face? Jesus Christ, get away from me!
JONGHYUN: Oh my god! Oh my god!
OWNER: What on earth is wrong with you? I’m calling the police--don’t get any closer.
JONGHYUN: I just killed a man! I just killed a man!
(Jonghyun grabs OWNER’s shoulders and shakes them roughly, then weakly, then not at all.)
OWNER: Fuck! Get away from me!
JONGHYUN: I’m--what do I do? I think I’m possessed. I’m possessed--
(Jonghyun falls to the ground. OWNER calls the police in a frenzy.)
What happens to Kim Jonghyun after this conversation is not much importance to this story. But for closure, I shall tell you that he joined a certain obnoxious, rich, self-centered white Ferrari owner in his jail cell after a great deal of legal trial and debate.
The third happens on high school grounds, at a parent teacher meeting one week later. The meeting agenda, according to Ms. Nam Jihyun’s “SEPTEMBER MEETING AGENDA,” is addressing some sort of new buddy system in the school. And the death of Kim Minseok, a treasured soccer player whom we will never forget (and may even create a memorial for).
“Welcome,” says Ms. Nam Jihyun. It is 8:05 in the evening. She folds her hands and looks around at the sea of faces looking at her expectantly (some quite scrutinizingly). Her neck is sweating (it happens when she is nervous). This is her first time as a Vice Principal. It is quite unfortunate that her first meeting only goes this far, because at 8:06, hell breaks loose once again.
Someone in the back screams.
“A doctor! Someone get a doctor!” The voice rings out into the auditorium. The powerpoint is still on the cover page.
Three hours later, sitting on a police officer’s desk are carelessly strewn photos of a crime scene. A murder scene. In the topmost photo, the picture displays a woman with her shirt ripped and thrown to the side. Her chest is cut open right between her breasts. Blood is splattered all over her clothes and there are feet and fold-up chairs outlining the photo. Any passerby (after getting accustomed to the horrifying scene) would probably comment that it looks like a parent teacher meeting gone terribly wrong.
It is of interest that the store owner (the one that had conversed with Jonghyun)’s store is called “QUIK FOOD,” a local ripoff of the rather big franchise, QUICK CHEK. The day after the newspaper company, The Jerusalem Tribune, sells all of its copies of that day’s daily newspaper (“a compelling headline,” said the boss as he approved the newspaper for printing), QUIK FOOD has a “CLOSED” sign stamped on the door. Beneath it is “FOREVER” written in crude, possessed handwriting, perhaps with a red sharpie or something of the sort.
The fourth happens eight days later. It is a Sunday. At a local McDonald’s fast food restaurant, a man by the name of Wu Yifan is holding holding hands with his son and his niece on each side as he orders “two kids meals and a big mac, please.”
Excited, his son lets go of his hand and begins bouncing around behind him, squealing “Kids meal! Kids meal!” Soon, the niece follows. Yifan struggles to get a coin out of his wallet while trying to calm the children, who are now getting stares (and fond smiles) from strangers.
Nothing is normal. A young boy, age twenty one-ish, is sitting at the corner of the restaurant, watching the entire ordeal. His face is scrunched, and something is unsettling at the bottom of his stomach. He watches Yifan with squinted eyes. He looks at the children.
In the next ten seconds, there is a struggle between fate and destiny. The boy walks to the back of the line, standing behind a woman on her phone (who is standing behind Wu Yifan). Yifan, as if by a force of inexplicable nature, whips his head around to glare at the boy who is incidentally staring in Yifan’s direction. Their eyes meet. Something clicks (not audibly) and the boy lunges forward. A split second later, so does Yifan, but he is too late. The boy has the two children (Yifan’s son and niece) in his arms and he is ushering them out the door, saying “I’ll take you guys home, I’ll take you guys home. Didn’t your parents tell you not to follow strangers?” They resist, so he picks them up and runs out. Surprisingly, Yifan does not follow. The children are crying. The boy shields their eyes as screaming soon ensues inside the restaurant. Unfortunately, McDonald’s glass doors allow the boy to witness the gruesome murder. The children are safe.
The head of Jerusalem’s police department, Byun Baekhyun, is none other than the cookie-cutter stereotype of a lazy, unhappy policeman who has a liking for donuts and sweetened coffee. His hair is always slicked back with some sort of gel they sell at Walgreens, and his face is plump and healthy. You can tell, if you look at him long enough, that he was a good looking boy when he was younger--foolish, flirty, and quite a ladies’ man. Perhaps in his happy youth he took up singing as a hobby, for his voice, contradictory to his general countenance, is still quite soothing and smooth.
In the present, however, he is laying his hand on his protruding stomach, brushing crumbs off and grumbling about “those goddamn crazed bastards.” Because if there’s one thing Baekhyun hates more than glazed donuts (he prefers jelly), it’s murder cases. And a series of serial killings at that.
“Sir,” says Park Chanyeol, the lanky but foolishly passionate policeboy (not yet a policeman in Baekhyun’s eyes) walks into the office, “there has been another death.”
“In flames!” Officer Byun bursts out, and it sounds as if the comment is simply an emphasized part of a quietly uttered string of insults and complaints, “In flames, that’s what this city is! Goddamn bastards, can’t control their pathetic little selves…” He throws a pen across the room.
Chanyeol flinches momentarily before resuming, “It may be a good idea to hire a detective, sir. This is the third case. It is quite gruesome, if I say so myself.”
“In flames!” Officer Byun repeats, fuming. He throws his fist down on the table. “There’s no use! No goddamn use.”
Chanyeol stares. “Sir?”
“Get out!”
Chanyeol obliges, scratching his head and wondering if it might have been a better idea to listen to his parents and become a doctor after all.
♢ ♢ ♢
Sehun throws the newspaper down onto the counter, which has, by now, taken quite a few beatings from the careless cashier. Although nearly a week has passed, neither has addressed what happened on the phone the night Jongin called. Perhaps it’s because Sehun is waiting for Jongin to say something first and Jongin himself is not sure whether he had said it aloud or in his mind.
“This place is in shambles,” Sehun says, nodding at the headline, which reads “WOMAN STABBED TO DEATH BY MCDONALD CUSTOMER”.
Jongin takes a stretch before taking his jacket off. He slings it on the plastic chair and unlocks the cashier’s cabinet. “I was there when that happened.” He throws the keys to Sehun, who catches and pockets it quickly, then does a double take.
“What the fuck?” Sehun leans back, staring at Jongin. “Seriously?”
Jongin sits down. “I was there.”
“So you saw the woman being killed?”
“Kind of.”
“What does that mean, kind of?”
“I was outside.”
“You were outside?”
“I saw him with two kids that clearly weren’t his, so I knew something was up,” Jongin says. “I tried to take them away from him, but they wouldn’t let me. One of them called him daddy.” He shrugs. “I don’t get it.”
“The guy who killed the woman?” Sehun picks up the newspaper and skims through the article. “His name is… Wu Yifan. You know Wu Yifan, the mechanic. He owns Wu’s Machinery right down the street. What are you talking about?”
“No, no,” Jongin says distractedly. “It’s not Wu Yifan. I saw the man. He clearly wasn’t Wu Yifan. He was the Prince Charming guy.”
“Will you quit it with Prince Charming?” Sehun throws his hands up in dismay. “You’ve got to be kidding me. For the fiftieth fucking time, Prince Charming does not have a moustache.”
“He’s everywhere. I’m telling you. You weren’t there, okay?”
“Why did these people just randomly put his name there, then? It says they caught him. They can’t just decide to call him Wu Yifan when there’s a real one out there fixing cars. And I saw the store was closed on my way here.”
“I saw him. I fucking saw the guy with my own eyes, alright?” Jongin frowns. “There’s something really weird going on.”
“Yeah? Is there really? Obviously you’re obsessed with this Prince Charming guy, whoever he is. Fucking came once, creeped us out, and left with ten boxes of condoms. It’s the last I saw of him, okay?”
“No, no…” Jongin’s eyebrows furrow in frustration.
“The only thing really going on right now is your mind, Jongin,” Sehun huffs, folding his arms. “You’ve been talking about this for days. They’re just murders. You’re not involved. Just get over it.” He nods amiably at the early customer.
Jongin shakes his head distractedly, then throws a furtive glance at the customer. He freezes. Their eyes meet momentarily, and Sehun sees Jongin’s shoulders tense.
“Fuck,” he whispers as soon as the customer disappears into another aisle. “It’s him.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Sehun hisses. His voice rises sharply as he says, “You’re calling every fucking person Prince Charming!”
“Shut up, shut up!” Jongin kicks Sehun’s legs.
Sehun rubs his shins with a frown. “The fuck was that for?”
“That’s Prince Charming. Shut up and listen to me. I know he’s the one who has been killing everyone. I don’t know how. He just is. I’m going to corner him and you are going to call the police. Trust me.” Jongin’s eyes are oddly furious. He grabs onto Sehun’s shoulders with an intensity he has never quite mustered up before.
“A...alright,” Sehun backs away.
I put this next passage after a line break because it deserves one. Although it happens right in succession and in the same place as the passage before this, there is a significant difference between what has happened prior and what will happen next.
What happens next first starts with Jongin making two fists, walking out of the staff’s side of the counter, and stalking off into the aisle that Prince Charming (or whoever the fuck he is) had disappeared into.
Jongin’s heart is beating. Something in him tells him that what will happen next will never be erased from his memory for the rest of his life. Perhaps it’s because his life won’t last too long from these next few minutes. Perhaps it’s because he’ll drop into a coma, or disappear into thin air and reincarnate into an otter, or perhaps it’s because he fears that Prince Charming will slice his heart out just as he did with all of his other victims.
He gathers his lips together, keeping them pursed with a certain degree of determination (and a readiness to say “Sir, you’re under arrest”) when he realizes that he has checked every aisle of the store and still has not found the man.
“Hello?” he calls out feebly, suddenly losing resolve and realizing that his knuckles are hurting from being clenched so hard for so long. He feels oddly like he is in a dark alleyway, not in the aisle of a well-lit gas station store.
No answer.
“Hello?”
He begins to hear Sehun’s voice from the counter, “Jongin, get back here--” when all of a sudden, in front of him, is the customer. The same Prince Charming he had seen a few weeks ago, the same Prince Charming he had seen in the leather jacket, the same Prince Charming he had seen in McDonald’s holding hands with two children that were not his. In all instances, he was dressed completely differently, with completely different auras. But the appearance. The appearance was the same--the same, bulging eyes, the same thick eyebrows, the same thick, eerily heart-shaped lips--
Jongin forgets what he had planned to say. “Sir, you’re under arrest” slips away from his memory. Instead, he finds himself blurting, horrified (but in a whisper), “Who the fuck are you?”
The man leans closer into him. His eyes are (still) a hue of bloodsucking ebony.
They are at the back of the store, and Jongin realizes suddenly that his back is against the wall--glass doors that display an array of colorful, refrigerated Gatorades.
“Wh-what are you doing,” Jongin stammers, grabbing the glass doors behind him. The surface is cold on his palms.
“So close,” his voice rasps, and suddenly he feels as if it is not the body that is speaking to him, but some other vocal chord from another soul that is using this stranger’s body as a tool to live. “But I can’t yet. No, not yet.”
“I--I said, who are you?”
“Call me D.O, call me whatever you want, but it won’t matter, because in a few days, I’ll be you and you’ll be me,” the man hisses with a smile. He bares his teeth maliciously. “You’re the only one who can see me for who I really am, the majestic monster that I can be.”
“What the hell…” Jongin whispers, his eyes widening in horror. “The fuck are you talking about?” The man’s possessed.
“See you soon, Jongin,” the man smiles suddenly. He pushes past Jongin and rushes out the door, turning around only momentarily to throw him a teasing wink.
“Fuck--wait, you--” Jongin runs to the front of the store and then gives up, watching as the man runs away. He turns around to look at Sehun, who is playing Angry Birds.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Jongin shouts. His face is red. “I told you to call the police!”
“He’s an innocent guy, Jongin,” Sehun sighs. “It’s an offense to call the police for no reason.” He swipes his phone screen angrily.
“I--” Jongin is breathless, but for no reason, really, because he had just run a few feet.
“Look, you just cornered some random guy. Leave the fucker alone, alright? He ran out and didn’t buy anything. Poor guy, probably only wanted a Gatorade or something.”
That night, Jongin lies in bed, his eyes closed, thinking about two people: Prince Charming (is he even a person?) and Sehun.
By now, Jongin is convinced that he said nothing on the phone after his little outburst. He thinks that Sehun is saying nothing because Jongin had said nothing. He thinks about maybe telling Sehun tomorrow, apologizing for acting so oddly about Prince Charming. Perhaps their friendship could get along better, now that they are in college. Perhaps Jongin can embrace--
“No,” he says. He thinks about Sehun. To tell, or not to tell. That is the question. To tell or not to tell, to tell or not to tell, to tell or not to tell, to tell or not to tell, to tell or not to tell…
And then, strangely, the face of Prince Charming appears in front of him.
Suddenly, he hears Prince Charming’s voice. Or D.O’s.
In a few days, I’ll be you and you’ll be me.
Or whatever his name is--Jongin can see the man’s white, white teeth on the back of his eyelids. He opens them quickly and stares up at his ceiling. Sehun just… doesn’t understand. There is something wrong with this man. This D.O.
His face turns into Sehun. To tell or not to tell, to tell or not to tell...
You’re the only one who can see me for who I really am, the majestic monster that I can be.
The first headline: WOMAN SUFFERS GRUESOME DEATH IN MAN WITH WHITE FERRARI.
To tell or not to tell, to tell or not to tell...
For who I really am,
The second: HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT KILLED BY EX-AUTHOR.
the majestic monster I can be.
The third: PARENT KILLED BY PARENT ON SCHOOL GROUNDS.
I’ll be you and you’ll be me.
And the most recent: WOMAN STABBED TO DEATH BY MCDONALD CUSTOMER.
To tell or not to tell… Jongin’s mind bounces back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth… What to do. What to do.
Something tells Jongin that all of these deaths are related and that in some way or another, they are all directed at him. Him, Kim Jongin, who has, for the past few weeks, been seeing Prince Charming, D.O, creepy-ass guy, everywhere, all over Jerusalem. Things are not adding up. Zero divided by zero, infinity divided by infinity. Something is undefined, something is left unexplained.
Something also tells Jongin “to tell.” Something else tells him “not to tell.”
He hears a rustling beside him in bed. He halts his breath.
His room remains quiet, and thoughts swirl in his head. Is this D.O guy here? Or is it Sehun? Is he hiding under my bed? Is he going to kill me? Is he going to tell me “I know what you really are”? Is this it? His throat becomes parched, even though he is doing nothing but laying in bed, just like he had any day before this.
Jongin never knew silence could be so painful.
“Hello?” he calls out quietly. Nothing.
“Sehun?” And a pause. “D.O?”
Another rustle.
He closes his eyes shut, and sees the man’s teeth baring at him once again. But this time, his face is that of Sehun’s.
It takes a while before Jongin can fall asleep. But when he does, he falls into a deep sleep, one he has’nt slept in a while. In fact, he feels as if he can sleep for centuries… centuries to avoid his problems. Centuries to avoid paranoia. Perhaps he will dream of waves and sharks swallowing him whole, chopping him up and then putting him in a salad for a grinning set of white, shining teeth.
Jongin opens his eyes to the sound of birds and bright daylight and not the screaming beeps of his alarm clock. He stretches slowly before it hits him that it’s bright, and therefore, not 6:00.
“Shit,” he hisses. He jumps out of bed. It’s nine fifteen. Not this again.
He goes through his routine again--turning on the TV, brushing his teeth, running the water, taking a shower. By the time he leaves his house, it’s 9:37.
He runs into the store with his jacket half on and a pant in his breath.
“Sorry,” he bursts into the store. “Alarm clock turned off--or I forgot to turn it on, I don’t know which--I’m pretty sure I had it on though--don’t tell Junmyeon--” he glances up. He gasps.
Sitting in Sehun’s chair, playing with Sehun’s phone, grinning in Sehun’s usual style of clothes, is D.O. Prince Charming. Creepy-ass guy.
Jongin leaps backwards. “Fuck!” He pulls out his pocket knife (pathetic, I know, but what can you say--that’s what he did). “What did you do to him? Is this a dream?”
“To whom?” The man smiles. “I’m Sehun. What are you talking about?”
“Y-you’re not Sehun. You’re lying.”
“I am, though,” the man says most innocently, and for a moment he looks cute, or actually innocent, or perhaps just vaguely benign. (Maybe it’s a trick of the light.) His shoulders are vastly more narrow than the usual Sehun, and his clothes look ill-fitting on the man’s contrasting figure.
“I’m going to--call the police. They’re going to find Sehun. I’m--” Jongin swallows.
“You can do that all you want, you know,” the man/Sehun smiles. “But they’ll see me as Sehun.”
“I don’t--I don’t know who you are,” Jongin pants, his head throbbing. “I’m--I’m going to ask you to leave now and release Sehun.”
“Alright,” the man says calmly. “First, I’ll have to get to you first.”
The man gets up from his seat, sets the phone on the counter, and walks around to where Jongin is.
Jongin leaps backwards. “Get--get away from me.”
“I won’t do anything to you,” the man says soothingly. “Nothing will happen. You see me as me, so why not just make it easier? I’ll be you. You’ll be me. Then you’ll never be confused again. You’re the perfect host, anyways.”
Jongin has no idea what he’s saying. He reaches his arm out. The pocketknife in his hand is shaking. “I--I can kill you, you know.”
“Go ahead,” the man smiles. “It doesn’t matter to me.” He walks closer.
Jongin steps backwards again. “I said--get away.”
“Kill me, Jongin,” the man gives a most amiable smile. “I order you to kill me.”
Jongin closes his eyes shut. He swallows. His throat feels dry again.
Suddenly, he feels the man’s hands around his. The man’s grip is tight. He thrusts Jongin’s hand toward himself. Jongin screams.
“You’re--you’re killing yourself!” Jongin tries to jump back, but the man’s grip is oddly firm around Jongin’s hand. In repeated stabs, the knife punctures the man’s skin--once, twice, three times, four times, five times, six times, seven, eight, nine, ten…
Everything is numb. Jongin can’t feel anything. Blood pours over his hands. He is screaming. Tears are streaming down his face. He looks up, horrified, into the man’s eyes. He is staring right into Jongin, grinning emptily. Through his hands, Jongin can hear laughter, cackling, a stinging kind of mirth that sends chills all through his body. Jongin closes his eyes shut, squeezes them tight.
This is not a good way to start the morning, not a good way to start the morning, not a good way to start the morning…
Everything goes black.
the end.
Attachments:
960903_JerusalemNewspaper_Scan(1).pdf
U3kO30Q7d30DPM.pdf
960903_JerusalemNewspaper_Scan(1).pdf
MAN KILLS CO-WORKER AT GAS STATION STORE.
Jerusalem. -- Kim Jongin has been convicted of the murder of Oh Sehun, a co-worker at an Exxon gas station. Security footage reveals that Kim was suffering from a panic attack shortly before the murder. Oh was stabbed seventeen times with Kim’s pocket knife, eventually dying of blood loss.
Kim Junmyeon, owner of the store, noted that he had never seen much dispute between the two co-workers. “It’s odd,” said Kim, “and heartbreaking. I’d never have thought that Jongin would kill him. It’s most unlike him, actually.”
There were no witnesses at the scene. The murder occurred at 10:00 AM in the interior of the gas station store. Other workers at the station attested that Kim Jongin had been late for his shift.
“He was a few hours late, actually,” said Huang Zitao, a worker at the same gas station. “I saw him walk in, but I didn’t see it all happen. Must have been quick.”
Kim Jongin ran out of the gas station shortly after the murder. Officials are still searching for Kim, who will be charged of first degree murder.
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U3kO30Q7d30DPM.pdf
Three months later, on the other side of the country, Kim Jongin walks out of a hotel room and into an elevator, his hands bloody and his pants left unzipped. His hands are sticky with a mixture of blood and come. He lets out a smile, and his red teeth are caught on camera (with pieces of cardiac muscle stuck between his canines). With a deft move of his fingers, Jongin twirls his knife and swiftly puts it away into his pouch. His leather jacket is spotless, his jeans a little dirtied (but black is a good color and nobody can really tell whether it’s the original design or human blood).
It is 1:03 AM. Jongin stares forward at the closing metal doors of the elevator, peering at his reflection of a smiling, small-shouldered, heart-lipped man.