I'm feeling quite benevolent today, so I decided to post both chapters that I've written earlier today. Plus, I feel like I owe it to you since I haven't updated in a while. Sorry, I've been busy with tests is why, but now that it's over, we're clear. I have the next semester to worry about, though...

The man walks towards the small building ahead of him. Mrs. Han’s Pies, it says. It is the establishment of his old friend and landlady, with his tonsorial parlor and residing space right above it. The emporium is not how he remembers it. Yes, it still looks very much the same as it had been the last time he saw it, the tall, wide glass windows and the green roof-sign bearing the gold letters. It looks quite dusty though, and no one seems to be entering. They used to be such a hit, Mrs. Han’s pies. She was, after all, the best one in town. He recalls the competition she had with another baker, Mrs. Chan. Both were great bakers, but Mrs. Han always won. She was always the one who wound up having more customers.

As he approaches the small building ahead, he wonders at the back of his mind what has happened to her business although it does not show in his facial expression. When he opens, he finds her rolling the dough on her counter, the other ingredients chaotically laying there. The bell above the door rings as he enters; it catches her attention and she gasps. “A customer!” she says, blatantly delighted. Immediately, she rushes towards him and sits him down on one of the chairs near the door and the window and starts talking.

“Would you like to have a pie, sir?” she asks, looking at him as she proceeds to her work. She then pauses and continues, quite embarrassed, “well silly me, of course you do! Why else would you be here?” She grabs a flour-covered plate from under her counter, blows away the flour, and sets down a pie for him. She hands it to him and he observes it. As she proceeds talking, he wonders what has happened in the past fifteen years that he has been away. Mrs. Han’s pies had always looked so scrumptious, so mouth-watering. Just by the aroma of it, one would salivate. Now, it looks so repulsive and moldy. Even the smell of it so...repugnant! Outside, Seoul hasn’t changed too much; it just became seedier than the last time. Even the pie shop has changed – it hasn’t many customers anymore, as it appears. Little wonder why, by the look of her new “cuisine”.

“Do forgive me, sir. Everything’s been so expensive these days. Years pass by, and prices for ingredients increase,” she says as he takes a bite out of the moldy, stale pie. It seems to have been filled with an unknown slimy light-green substance. What the hell, he thinks.

“Is that just disgusting,” she queries. She goes through one of her cupboards to get a mug and she fills it with ginger ale from the drink dispenser. She hands it to him, telling him that he’ll need it.

She comes back to her position and keeps talking, crushing a few bugs that crawl on her table as she rolls the dough.“As I’ve said, sir, times have been so desperate. Can’t buy me no decent meat, so I just settled for that,” she explains, referring to the green goop that filled his pie. “Even fruit has been so expensive to buy – too much for an old lonely woman like meself. Very little wonder why no one’s set foot in this shop for weeks. Used to be the top baker here in Seoul, you know – even better than my competitor down at Ahn Street. Mrs. Chan, that’s her name. Runs a dirty business though, mind you. Quite a nasty one.”

As he continues to drink, he inaudibly sighs. Seoul has changed, he thinks to himself, only a little bit; but it has. If there’s anything or anyone that hasn’t changed though, he reminds himself internally, it’s Mrs. Han. Still talkative as always, running about the most trivial things.

“Lately all them cats in the streets been disappearing,” she continues, “no wonder her business is booming. Poor kitties. She uses them as pie filling, you see. Any strays not careful enough, she’ll be swiping them off, cutting them up. I guess the taste is no different from any other meat. I heard it taste like chicken. But then again, everything else taste like chicken. What’s the difference, right?” She laughs to herself and she looks at him. She notices his disgust and sighs, then walks towards him, motioning for him to get up.

“You deserve much better than that rubbish, dear,” she says to him, “come with me, I’ll give you something a little better.”

She then leads him out of the bake shop and towards her living room. As they walk, the staircase catches his eye and it brings back memories – terrible memories of his wife and child. Thoughts of them immediately flood his mind. How are they now, where have they gone? His dear daughter has surely grown, for it has been fifteen years after all since he last saw her. Where are they? Obviously, they aren’t here. Otherwise, Mrs. Han would be calling them. Then again, she didn’t even recognize him when he walked into her shop. He could have at least heard them, if they were still here. That would have been an indication that they still resided here. Where could his dear Hyorin and Minjung have gone?

Her voice interrupts his thoughts. “Are you just going to stand there, dear?” she asks him. He realizes that he has been standing in front of the staircase. For how long, he does not know. No matter though, for he follows her into her living room anyway.

“Come on, love, sit you down,” she tells him, pushing him down gently on one of the chairs. She pours him a glass of clear liquid from a pitcher. When he tastes it, he realizes that it is gin and he proceeds drinking as she proceeds talking. She sits herself down to another chair across from him.

“Seoul is one dangerous place, sir, as you can already see. You see, many years ago something happened here – something not very nice,” she says. “A barber lived upstairs, an old friend of mine; a barber and his wife. A real artist, that man was. He could do anything with a knife with pure grace. Pity though, he’d been transported for a crime he hadn’t done, leaving his pretty little wife weak. A judge wanted her, you see. He was the one who had the poor barber exiled. Every day the sinister judge would drop by, trying to woo her. Didn’t work though; she was too preoccupied, weeping over her loss.  She never came down from upstairs, not even to eat. I had to come up there just to check on her, constantly too, to see if she’s treating herself right. Too busy mourning, the poor thing was. Sometimes her poor daughter would be crying and she wouldn’t even notice.

It wasn’t until one night that the judge’s assistant, the bailiff, called on her. Told her that she had to come to the judge’s residence immediately, and didn’t tell her anything else. Left me with the child for the night. Pretty thing, by the way, just like her mother. She came back the next day, crying her eyes out. She thought the judge has finally repented, for the bailiff had told her how sorry he was for her loss. Turns out the judge had been having a party that night at his house. Didn’t have any idea where he was, and the next thing she knew she had been corrupted by the bastard, poor thing, publicly too! Oh, if only you’ve any idea how much she’s gone through, sir. Poor thing, poor thing. And just when I thought things couldn’t get much worse, the poor little thing poisoned herself! With arsenic, from the apothecary down the next block. Tried to stop her from taking it, I really did! It was no use though, she did it anyway. Had a gun to her daughter’s head, she did. Threatened to kill her own flesh and blood if I didn’t give her the bottle, and then—”

“ENOUGH!” exclaims the man, shooting up from his seat. He can no longer bear what he is hearing. How can his Hyorin, his sweet, dainty Hyorin, do such a thing? Why couldn’t she wait? Surely she would’ve known he was coming back, right? She had to! And threaten to kill their little daughter? Preposterous! Impossible! This woman, this woman must be lying. She has to be lying. The thought itself isn’t even plausible.

“So it is you,” she says quietly, “Kim Junsu. You’ve come back.”

“No, not Kim Junsu. It’s Seo now. Seo Junho. And he will have his revenge.”

Inside, the woman contemplates whether to tell him the rest of her story when he has clearly had enough. Poor man, she thinks, coming back home hoping to hold closely his wife and child, poor man. She wonders whether she should tell him what has become of his wife. She isn’t clearly sure whether she is dead or not; the last time she ever saw her, she was getting dragged away from upstairs, off to bedlam. Maybe she is still alive and she thinks she should tell him. But he has suffered enough, she thinks, I should wait. I should wait until he’s in the right state of mind.

She worries for him, the man who is with her in the room. She pities him, and pities his wife as well. She is worried about his wife. Inside, she hopes that she is still alive. It would be another loss for her if she isn’t. After all, her husband has already left her. He’s somewhere else now; not in the world of the living though, not in the world of the living. In Hell, she thinks, or maybe Heaven? He isn’t half-bad. A cruel man, her Sikyung was. But he isn’t as bad as that vile Judge Jung and that twisted Bailiff Shim. He did treat her well—only in front of other people though. And only when he wanted to make a point – when he wanted to prove to Junsu that he is a better husband. A better husband than he was. Other than that, he treated her like a piece of rubbish. He didn’t hit her – he only did that when he was drunk. He mostly spent his time stuffing himself, until it eventually led to his death. A heart attack was the cause – blocked arteries because of his gluttony. May the Dear Lord have mercy on his soul, she says to herself.

She looks up at the man who is still standing, and she notices the distant yet contemptuous expression on his face. He is probably thinking of his poor Hyorin, she thinks, and his dear daughter. Poor man, she thinks, poor man. Unable to tolerate seeing him as such, she decides to tell him, at least what has become of his daughter if not the possibility of his wife being alive. No use telling him she might be if she isn’t sure herself now, is there?

“Jung is keeping her as his ward,” she informs him, “treats her like his own, I heard. I wanted to keep her here to take care of her myself, I really did. But they took everything, those damned minions of his. Haven’t heard anything else about them since then.”

She receives no response from him, for he only keeps silent, the expression on his face still present.

That bastard, the man thinks to himself, I’ll get you, you damned Judge. I’ll get you—you just see.

She continues to observe him, and sees that he is growing more and more furious by the second – his fists were clenched tighter than they were minutes ago, yet the expression on his visage is unchanged. She sighs and decides to get up from her seat and help him calm down. It may not be the best decision to show him what’s left of his parlor upstairs, and the area where he used to reside with his family, but perhaps, she thinks, it’ll help if he sees the few things she was able to keep for him when those wicked people of Jung’s took away everything else that they owned. She leads him up the staircase, where he had been standing earlier, his arm draped around her shoulder and her arm around his waist. Clearly he is much too shocked to even move, judging by the blank look on his face as she leads him up the stairs. Poor man, she thinks as they climb up, poor man.

When they finally arrive at his old parlor, he explores the room. It is gray and dusty, unlike how it was before, the cheery color of yellow. His vanity table, where he kept his tools and shaving cream cans, is still at the same place as it had been. Same with his daughter’s crib, which contained her favorite doll. In it is also an object that seems to resemble a book. He knows it isn’t though, because it is made of wood and has a lock. He recognizes it immediately when he touches it. It is a dual picture frame, and inside of it are pictures of his dear wife and daughter, pictures of his Hyorin and Minjung. While he is busy looking at the pictures, the woman is feeling around with her feet, the floorboards, as though looking for something. When she finally finds it, she sits herself down on the dusty floor and lifts one of them, taking out a small box. This catches his attention and he walks towards her. As she unveils the contents, he smiles inwardly. It is his razors, his tools which he used while practicing his profession – the razors, which he used before he was transported in that hellhole, in Siberia. He takes in his hands carefully, one of the silver razors.

“My friends, my dear friends,” he says, admiring the silver tools as though they were children of his own. “You’re perfect, exactly as the way you had been ever since.”

The woman does not smile as she sees him handle the razors, yet she feels a little glad for him. At least one good thing came out of him, she thinks, finally.

“We’ll be perfect together, my friends, it’s the perfect plan. Together, my friends, we shall avenge them. We shall avenge my dear Hyorin, for what that bastard did to her, and Minjung too. You shall drip rubies, my friends, that you shall,” he says. He looks at the woman across from him, who looks back at him as well. A hindrance to my plans, he thinks.

“Get out of here,” he growls, surprising her.

“Mr. Seo—”

“OUT!” he exclaims, sending her to her feet and out the door of his parlor.

“At last, we’re together once again,” he says, smiling ominously as he rises from the floor. “At last, my arm is complete again!”

Down at her living room, the woman is relieved to have the man back. He may not be with her in terms of any kind of relation just yet,  he may not be the same man she met years ago, and he may definitely not be the same man she had befriended as a child, but at least he’s here with her – physically – once again. She is once again able to see his face, and not just imagine it, as she had when they last parted. She is once again, if not able to touch him, at least see him – and that is relief enough for her.

He has come back, but no longer is he Kim Junsu. No, but he is Seo Junho, a man with only revenge in mind, heart, and soul. He has come back to avenge his Hyorin, rescue his Minjung. His purpose, his only purpose, is to assassinate the Judge. He is not here for her, not at all, and he may never be. But she is content anyway. At least, she is able to see him once again. And this time, she hopes that it is forever.

Ah, that was quite long, don’t you think? I feel like I’m writing a Sweeney Todd fic rather than a SuYin too.  Iit’s probably the reason why I’ve been writing in present tense. To be honest, I can’t really see them seriously playing the roles of Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd. It’s pretty hard to imagine, with the both of them having that cutesy image and all. But it should work. I cast them as such after all, did I not? Those annoying cutesy typecasts *pupils begin to dilate, hyperventilates, and takes out a grenade* I just wanna blow all that cuteness out of them! Ahaha, *clears throat* anyway, I hope you enjoyed that chapter. I’ll be back next time with another, I promise.

Sorry, it’s just that I can’t stand cutesy. I’m already having enough of it here where I am right now, with all the tiny voices, over-padded bras, cutesy (if not ty) outfits, circle lenses, and obviously-fake wigs and lashes. I hate where I am right now. It’s one mothering hellhole. I guess Mr. Todd’s right, huh? The world is one big black hole that is filled with , and the vermin of the world inhabit it. In my case though, it’s one big pink and lacy hole—OMG I JUST REALIZED WHAT THAT IS! THAT’S DISGUSTING! SCRATCH THAT!—one big bright cutesy hole that is filled with lacy, cutesy and the cutesy, tiny-voiced, fake lace-clad, circle-lens-and-thick-wig-wearing nuisances and overly-metro-ual-that-they-look-so-ing-homoual vermin inhabit it. Well, at least where I'm at right now. *breaths* Five months, Leah, *breaths* five ing months, and you’ll be out of this mother ing hellhole that is the worst ever excuse for a “beautiful” island. Damn it, I really hate it here.

Anybody know where I am yet? Guess and I’ll gladly give you a grenade to throw at a person you extremely loathe so that the world will be one less of an annoying person better! Oh, and don’t say Japan because I’ll just ask you again, what part of Japan? LOL okay, bye for now! I’ve some cutesy people to blow up.

Comments, as always, will be very much appreciated.