Acid Bane (?/?)
“Dude what the fuck, is this really the first time you’re hearing about the Acid Bane?” Baekhyun stopped to stare at Jongdae with a shock expression. They were at Baekhyun’s place, relaxing after another day of dance practice. Not entirely Jongdae’s forte.
“Acid Bane? That sounds like some sort of villain name from a really bad comic book,” Jongdae sneered at the thought though his eyes stayed glued to the screen. “He’s kind of cute though,” he admitted. “You know, if he wasn’t going around splashing corrosive substances all over people’s face.”
“Yeah well, he’s the prime example of the phrase, ‘looks can be deceiving’. I’m really surprised you never heard of him though considering he targets trainees,” Baekhyun said the last part slowly as he looked at Jongdae like he lived under a rock for a while.
Jongdae simply shrugged, “I don’t really watch the news, or pay attention to gossip.”
Baekhyun stayed quiet for a while, watching Jongdae’s unfazed expression as the news channel had shown images of the men whose faces had melted off. “Doesn’t it bother you?”
“What?”
“That this guy doused poison on all these men in the same industry as you, they lost their entire careers because of him. Hell, this probably fucked up their whole lives.”
“… Can’t the government pay for the plastic surgery?”
Baekhyun shook his head and got up from the couch, “The damage done was too much. Some of them lost their sight in the incident. Their eyeballs literally melted and seeped back into their skulls while the rest of their skin hung from it like burnt cheese.”
Jongdae bit his lip, and quietly said, “That sounds bad. The news is a bummer man.”
Knitting his eyebrows together, Baekhyun frowned. “Well yeah, but it’s important to stay informed. If you’re not careful the Acid Bane might come after you.”
For some reason, Jongdae wasn’t too bothered by that prospect.
--
“We only succeed at other people’s expense,” grainy footage from the news showed the Acid Bane speaking into the camera. Back in his own dark apartment, Jongdae was channel surfing when his remote landed on the video, but he couldn’t make himself click away.
There was something eerily intriguing about the male that he didn’t admit to his best friend.
“I am not a bad man. I simply did what it took to get ahead.”
Chills ran down Jongdae’s back at the sound of his voice, and he unconsciously leaned in to hear more of the criminal’s logic. It was so unsettling to know such a soft voice belonged to such a hated man.
“All I wanted was to the wipe out the competition. We live in a capitalist society, one of the goals of any successful person is to eliminate the competition. I am not a bad man. I’ve never killed anyone…”
To Jongdae’s dismay, the footage cut off there and switched backed the female reporter who was covering the case. “For those of you joining us now, that was a video of twenty one year old, Do Kyungsoo. Also known as the famed “Acid Bane,” he has attacked six known victims, and apparently committed no murders, but police filing through missing person reports in case there are connections.”
“Word has gotten out that though that crazed criminal as accrued quite the fan base despite his villainous acts.”
See, Acid Bane is totally a lame villain name. Jongdae thought, but he listened on.
“Apparently among the angrily letters he’s sure to be getting from parents, he’s received quite a bit of love from those who knew him as a trainee, who’ve taken it upon themselves to send letters to his jail cell. Stay tuned, as psychologist Dr. Moon gives insight on why this may be.”
The screen changed to show a fast food commercial and Jongdae lied back into his chair a bit in shock. He had never imagined to be so interested in this story… or to have such a desire to write to this man. He didn’t even write home most of the time, but now his mind was already made up.
Searching his apartment, he had been looking to find an envelope and possibly a stamp. Or maybe he could buy a stamp on the way home tomorrow.
He realized how fucked up this all sounded, but he still found himself reaching for his laptop and looking for the prison’s address…
--
To Do Kyungsoo,
So I just want to clarify that I’m not an obsessive fan, an angry parent, or anything like that. My name’s Kim Jongdae, and I was just interested in you, I guess. I was wondering to hear more of your side on why you did it. Did you really feel it was about competition? I looked up some of your trainee videos and you were a really good singer. I really didn’t think you needed to go so far, so I was wondering if there was some other reason you weren’t telling the media... I promise I’m not a reporter or anything like that. I’m just curious.
Best Regards,
Kim Jongdae.
--
Jongdae wanted to blame the fact that he wrote the letter and sent it on impulse, but the truth was that he was conscious of the decision every step of the way. He fretted over what he would ask Kyungsoo, and consciously made each decision down to how he would sign his name at the bottom.
But it was only after he send it that he realized “Best Regards” wasn’t exactly tasteful. And that maybe he shouldn’t have signed his name in case someone else had to read the male’s mail before he did.
It was too late to really dabble on those things, and for the most part he wasn’t expecting a reply to his letter. The newscasters never reported that those people sending him letters actually got replies. Yet he was still anxious, checking the mail every chance that he could.
It wasn’t long until Baekhyun caught on to his strange behavior.
“Are you alright?” Jongdae had been eyeing the mailman for the good part of the last ten minutes.
“Hmm? Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’ve been checking out the mail man’s ass for a while now,” Baekhyun said steadily.
“Not his ass, his package,” Jongdae admitted, realizing too late that his reply didn’t sound any better.
“I’m just waiting for some important mail.”
“From who?”
“Hmm my mother,” he lied. He might have done it smoothly enough to fool any detective, but not his best friend.
“Uh huh. Yeah sure. I might have believed you more if you said it was from the Acid Bane,” Baekhyun scoffed.
“…”
“Holy Shit, what? You’re penpals with the fucking Acid Bane?”
“Shushh!” Jongdae had to remind him to keep his voice low so his whole apartment complex wouldn’t know because of Baekhyun’s loud mouth. “Not penpals, I was just curious.”
“What the fuck is there to be curious about?”
“Just… curious,” Jongdae said, not wanting to admit that he was interested in the criminal’s motive.
“You seem like one of those insane chicks that are really into serial killers,” Baekhyun said, giving him the oddest look. He should have felt guilty, even ashamed but he wasn’t.
“It’s not like that. I’m not one of his obsessed fans or anything like that. I just have a healthy curiosity.”
“That is wrong on so many levels.”
--
The day came where Jongdae received a strange looking letter in the mail, realizing what it was when he recognized the prison’s addressed written on the left corner of the envelope. He couldn’t help admiring how neat, and even cute it was, and he took his time delicately cutting it open from where the saliva (Kyungsoo’s saliva) mixed with the glue kept it sealed.
He opened it and laid it on the table before reading it:
To Kim Jongdick,
Surprising to get a letter from a guy, are you sure you’re not an obsessive fan? Because it sounded like you were getting quite the boner writing to me.
Jongdae read thus far and it certainly wasn’t what he expected. It certainly shattered whatever personality he thought the guy had from his seemingly innocent appearance (besides the fact that he should have known better considering the guy had been charged with dousing six men in acid). He read on:
So for real. What’s your deal? Are you really into criminal psychos or what?
Baekhyun had said the pretty much the same thing to him, and he couldn’t help thinking that those two would have gotten along perfectly.
You sound too stupid to be a reporter, and too genuine to be a writer. Unless you happen to be a good one which I really doubt. But whatever you are, why don’t you try figuring it out for yourself? Pretty sure the news did a good job covering my story.
Best Regards From Hell,
Do Kyungsoo.
For a while Jongdae looked at the letter in shock, almost not believing it was from the same person responsible for the acid attacks or the guy he saw in the videos. He re-read the letter maybe a thousand times before the anger kicked in, and he found himself writing his own retort.
Dear Do Kyungshit,
You don’t sound like the elegant guy from your videos, I’ve figured out that much. I also figured out why you did your crimes, something the media missed. You’re an attention hog. Any form of it you could get. I bet you harmed those men because they stole the spotlight from you. It must have been quite relief when you were caught and exposed to the public. National tv coverage was probably more than you ever asked for. Congrats on being famous dickwad.
Fuck you,
Jongdae.
Easily realizing how much of a difference this letter was from the last one, Jongdae didn’t care as he licked the envelope shut with the letter inside and dropped it in the mailbox. He figured he’d forget about all this as he’d never receive a true answer.
--
He should have been more careful about where he left the criminals letter to him, because the next day when he invited some of his friends over for a movie, Chanyeol happened to notice it.
“What’s this?” his deep voice made everyone’s head turn to see what he was looking at, and it took Jongdae a moment to panic when he realized what it was.
“WAIT FUCK NO DON’T READ THAT,” he yelled, and jumped over his own couch to snatch it away from them but it was too late. Sehun’s curious hands already grabbed it from the table and read it out. He had to avoid death glares from Baekhyun when the room fell silent after Sehun was done reading.
“Jongdae…” Joonmyeon had said his name with such concern, while the rest of the group gave looks of awe, confusion, and the oh so dreaded, “are you out of your fucking mind?” look.
“I told you guys he fell off the deep end,” Baekhyun finally said breaking the silence.
“That’s private property…” Jongdae started, biting his lip as he was inevitably caught. “You’re not supposed to read that.”
“And you’re not supposed to write to criminals…” Jongin said to his discomfort.
Cutting in again, Baekhyun asked, “Just how many times have you written to this guy?”
“Just once… well twice counting yesterday, but I’m done I swear!” Jongdae pleaded, trying to make his case to his friends that he wasn’t a total wack job. “Seriously I was just curious but I got my answer. It won’t happen again. I swear.”
Everyone in the group quietly stared Jongdae down until he felt small under their gaze before Minseok finally said, “I think we need to get him a therapist.”
(A/N) um thank you for reading this. I'm really sorry because endings aren't really my forte. Originally this was a prompt for exopromptmeme Link= http://exopromptmeme.livejournal.com/15559.html?thread=7460039#t7460039
I'd like comments/reviews no matter how harsh they may be. I'm all about improvement, so yeah. Thanks for checking this out.