Work Text:
There’s a strange man following me. He stumbles when he walks and sways with every step, yet there’s persistence in his shaky pursuit, as if he’s guided by some invisible force in my direction.
I don’t have time for drunk weirdos like this.
Stupid bastard. Why is he still straggling on? He looks like a beggar with his touselled hair covering his eyes and undershaved face and his glasses slightly astray upon his face with one lens shattered, as if he uses his sight so little that the loss of half his vision doesn’t even bother him. He looks so dirty.
Should I take a swing to his face? Maybe then I’ll feel better. Today’s my birthday and I’m still working in this forsaken place, the only mark of such a day being when that brat… That fucker…
I really can’t take this shit anymore.
“Stop right now.”
The man halts, staggering. He smells of something sharp and pungent and it’s piercing my head, worsening my headache.
Why is it so familiar?
“Do you think I’m blind? Stop fucking following me!”
The man stays silent, shaking with every breath like a mute dumb puppet, and maybe I should feel bad but instead I just keep yelling, feeling the words erupt like lightning out of my already parched throat like divine retribution, as if the way they fall like rain upon the sweltering night’s silence can calm the ugly ball of something sinister that simmers in my guts, bubbling in the deepest crevices of my being until it explodes like lava and I’m screaming, shouting, until the dark, twisted shadows within the vertigo of the rundown stalls converge and I’m so, so, so angry I can’t breath and-
Timid arms encircle my torso. They’re shaking and their owner, too, he mutters something I can’t quite hear.
“...sorry..”
The man’s glasses have fallen off his face. He’s crying, but the tears are dark red.
“...I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. I’m…”
“Shin Subin… I’m sorry, I love you, it’s my fault-”
Blood trickles out of his mouth, from under his hair. The man sputters around me and I can feel his tremors through his clothes.
You should be sorry, you bastard. How has life been treating you? Have you been well? Look at you now, muttering something no one can understand, eyes bloodshot and dripping and crazy.
It’s kind of funny. How long has it been since I last laughed like this?
The hilt of the dagger pokes my stomach from where it’s embedded into his stomach. He nestles closer to me, murmurs with his face to my chest, lips brushing my collar, and I watch as it digs deeper into his flesh. He’s using me to twist it deeper inside of himself.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
Nam Wooji chokes when my hands find his bare neck and he places his hand on top of mine, a weak clawing action, but it falls as the final dredges of oxygen are cut off from his brain.
There’s a number on the inside of his wrist. It says 153.
The sirens in the distance are like a chorus. As gloved hands lock around my arms, pull me away from him, I feel cold air upon my bare hands once more.
Cold handcuffs, chaining my hands together, a shark tug as I’m led towards the police car. An ambulance sounding in the distance
As they take me away, I watch his fallen figure.
They’ll give him the best treatment they can get. They’ll pump him full of medication worth more than ten years of back breaking labour and as he sleeps they’ll stroke his hand whilst placing balm upon the morbid ring of bruises on his white neck. But only I'll know it’s too late, for my hands have already stolen away his last breaths. My fingers that claimed his life, his futures, felt it burst from his throat into the empty night air, quiver with the stain of severance.
I can still feel his arms around me, the way they were slightly warm.
I still can’t stop laughing.