It was a beautiful day at the Zoo.

The sun was shining, the clouds were drifting, the skies were blue and the birds were acting like they were on steroids and at the same time.

 

In all, the best day for a date with a nice guy.

 

And the worst day for a date with a stuck-up, snobbish prat.

 

That was exactly the character Kim Bum was aiming to be. The prat of course, not the nice guy.

 

He certainly was dressed the part in his leather riding boots, Levi’s designer jeans, brown Armani coat and white Guess low turtleneck.  Now all he had to do was to add that smirk…

 

He checked his Anna Sui compact. ‘Mmm… good. Now to spray some Hugo Boss Cologne… Perfect.’

 

He kept his compact and then proceeded to purposely lean casually onto a lamp-post. His expression was kept mildly irritated with the perfect eyebrow angle and downwards tilt of lips to denote the expression.

 

‘Now, all I have to do is to criticize her clothing like Leeteuk said. Hmm… it’ll be hard to do that if she wears something really nice.’

 

“Hi, there! You’re the guy I met yesterday, right? You actually came!”

 

‘Here she is. Cheery as I guessed she would be… and… she’s wearing a sack.’

 

It wasn’t true that Soeun was wearing a sack.

 

It was more of those huge recyclable bags housewives use at supermarkets nowadays.

 

“Woah! You’re dressed really nicely! Is that really Zoo attire?!”

 

Kim Bum felt like cheering; she was making this really easy for him. But he kept his outside expression distasteful. “Really. Well, I don’t think yours is Zoo attire either.”

 

Soeun didn’t seem to get it. She beamed at him with all the innocence of a mental retard. “Hmm?” ‘That was really weak.’

 

“Tch...” Kim Bum sneered. Inside he was laughing like he’d just won the jackpot. “I was insulting you, stupid. Okay, I’ll make it clearer. What the hell are you wearing? A sack?”

 

‘Hmm? Getting better...’ But Soeun let her lip tremble, just a little bit. “No… it’s my favourite dress.”

 

Kim Bum barely kept from laughing. This girl was a God-send! “Favourite dress, eh? Well that figures.”

 

“What?”

 

“You’re a mental patient aren’t you? This looks like the uniform of the patients at Seoul Municipal Mental Hospital. Is it ‘let the retards roam free day’?”

 

Soeun appraised it and found the insult satisfactory. ‘Now we’re talking.’ “But… but…”

 

Kim Bum felt an intense satisfaction. Such a small blow and the girl seemed about to fall apart. He decided to take it a little notch higher. He pushed her. “Back, back. Stay… back...”

 

Outwardly, Soeun seemed to be confused at why the nice man she met yesterday was treating her like this. Inwardly, she was close to singing a hallelujah. ‘Oa! Treating me like some smelly dog! And some physical violence too! This is getting better by the moment.’

 

And the two, although neither of them knew it, were extremely satisfied with how the date started out.

 

~*~

 

When a couple went to a zoo – especially with a rich snobbish boy and cute but dumb girl pairing, they always went to the petting zoo first.

 

It was like a sort of holy ritual.

 

And no one messes with holy rituals.

 

Thus, Kim Bum was stuck squatting in the middle of noisy kids, nagging parents and terrified bunnies scampering all around.

 

He made the best of it.

 

Literally.

 

There seriously is nothing more adorable than a cute guy in branded clothes picking up a soft white bunny and it with a gentle touch.

 

About ten girls fainted from nose-bleeds at the sight.

 

They of course, didn’t realized that the bunny was in fact, NOT trembling because it was being held in the hands of a handsome guy. But rather, from fear.

 

Rabbits, have some of the strongest natural instinct.

 

And that poor little bunny’s instinct was pretty much screaming: “DANGER! DANGER! PREDATOR!” at it.

 

Nor did they see the smirk as Kim Bum whispered into the bunny’s ear. “I eat bunnies for breakfast… You guys are delicious…”

 

If bunnies could gulp, this one would have.

 

And on the other side of the petting zoo, Soeun was in an entirely different plane of existence.

 

“BUNNIES! YAY~~~~~”

 

There was about… a 10 meter radius from which ‘dumb’ particles were emitting from Soeun. Parents immediately pulled their children out of that radius the minute it came close.

 

No parent would want their child to become like that crazy girl treating bunnies like they were soft toys.

 

And getting bitten from it too.

 

“Ah! Bunny don’t bite me! Come here~”

 

Kim Bum was so awed by the sight he forgot entirely about torturing the white bunny and let it drop from his hands.

 

The white bunny thankfully ran off, sending a prayer of thanks to the Bunny Gods for sending a seriously crazy girl to save it. Not that it didn’t doubt their choice of saviour…

 

“…” Kim Bum had an extremely high tolerance for nonsense. But this was beyond the weirdness scale. He grabbed Soeun. “Come on, you’ve embarrassed yourself enough for today.”

 

And as Kim Bum began to drag her along like a baggage cart, the girl, of all things, began to wail like a banshee.

 

‘Seriously, it seems like she’s asking for it.’ “Shut up.”

 

More wailing.

 

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll do something horrible to you.”

 

Soeun didn’t shut up, but the bunnies certainly did. All of them immediately stopped bouncing and froze in place.

 

They could feel the inhuman aura radiating from the scary boy-man who just (sweetly) threatened Fluffy.

 

Kim Bum sighed, but was extremely amused. But he kept his adorable scowl on. “See, even the bunnies are smarter than you. And their brains are what, 1/7^th the size of a human brain? Tch.”

 

Soeun shut up.

 

It was already too hard not to let out that moan of pleasure when those words struck her heart like a cannonball onto a sheet of glass, let alone continue to wail like she was miserable.

 

‘Booyah~’

 

~*~

 

They were now standing outside the lion arena.

 

It was a very dangerous place to be.

 

Especially if you’ve been having a date like Kim Bum and Soeun had.

 

A conversation they just a few minutes before was something like this:

 

“So, I haven’t got your name, yet.”

 

“Kim Bum.”

 

“Oh… so, I like… can call you Bummie-oppa? Right? Right?”

 

“… What’s your name?”

 

“It’s Kim Soeun.”

 

“Soeun, eh? Meaning hope and grace.”

 

“Wow! You’re learned!” ‘It’s coming, it’s coming!’

 

“Yes, I am. And you are the total letdown of your name.”

 

“Eh?” ‘Okay, major (and in his own words) LETDOWN.’

 

Kim Bum pushed down some real irritation that was really starting to form in the pit of his stomach. Secretly, he was pleased. Anger made his sadistic tendencies all the more satisfying.

 

He glared at Soeun. “Hope? Please, you’re totally hopeless. What a joke.”

 

‘Oooo! That was GOOD! More, more!’ “What? Why do you say that?”

 

Kim Bum didn’t bother answering. He was on a roll. “And grace. What rubbish is that? You are the total opposite of graceful!”

 

‘Yeah! You’re on a roll, baby!’ “I am too… graceful!”

 

Obviously at this moment, Soeun should trip over something to prove otherwise.

 

And she did.

 

Spectacularly.

 

As Soeun began crawling out from the rubbish bin she had fallen into, she was pretty much praising the earth that Eunkyung walked on. Her friend’s idea was really working!

 

Then to her surprise, Kim Bum was there to offer a hand to her.

 

“Thank you.” She said stiffly.

 

“No problem.” Kim Bum’s gentlemanly behaviour wavered, then lapsed back into prattish. “But you stink. Then again, I suppose rubbish stink doesn’t defer much from idiot stink.”

 

“…!” Soeun’s heart was pounding indignant. And this time, she didn’t manage to stop the grunt of pleasure that came out of her.

 

Luckily, Kim Bum mistook it for a grunt of anger. He smiled, evilly.

 

‘… 10 seconds more and I’m going to melt into a Soeun puddle…’

 

And thus they came to the lion arena.

 

If you still can’t see why it’s such a dangerous place for them at the moment, here’s a little snippet of their thoughts now.

 

Kim Bum glanced at his date, then at the tempting opportunity that lay before him. ‘Maybe I should just push her in. It’d be a lot of fun… and there’d be a lot of blood…’

 

Soeun was thinking along the same lines, staring at the sharp canines of the lion as he yawned. ‘Ooo… all this emotional pain is fun, but truthfully, sometimes what you need is plain old carnivore biting… and there’d be so much blood…’

 

‘Tempting…’

 

‘Naw. Let’s just follow Leeteuk-hyung’s/Eunkyung-unni’s plan.’

 

“Let’s go.”

 

“Okay.”

 

And the duo moved off, albeit reluctantly, from the possibility of the lion arena.

 

Unbeknownst to them, two very relieved individuals sighed in unison.

 

~*~

 

The day flew past, and before the two knew it, closing time for the zoo was near.

 

Already, Kim Bum had insulted Soeun’s every action, wondered why he had agreed on this date in the first place, and stated very meanly that someone must have peed in Soeun’s mother when she was pregnant with her.

 

(By the way, when Soeun heard that last statement, she pretty much could have died and gone to heaven there and then.)

 

Soeun of course, had done all the things she could to get Kim Bum to insult her, including climbing into the monkey cage and acting the exact imitation of one (Kim Bum said that he nearly lost her, since he couldn’t distinguish between Soeun and the monkeys).

 

In short, they both had enjoyed themselves immensely.

 

It was thus extremely ironic that both thought that this date had gone sour enough and it was time to bring on the dramatic ending that Leeteuk/Eunkyung had thought out.

 

1…

 

2…

 

3…

 

“I hate you!”

 

At Soeun’s outburst, everyone around them paused, their eyes wide at the sudden proclamation.

 

“Not as much as I hate you!”

 

“Oh yeah?! I hate you so much that I could… could… cry!”

 

“Huh. Well, I win then.”

 

“How did you figure that?”

 

“Because I hate you so much I could kill you.”

 

Soeun glared at Kim Bum, “Prove it.” ‘Ooooooo…. Interesting.’

 

Kim Bum paused, staring at Soeun’s angry face, as if in contemplation of something. Then he smiled.

 

It was a smile that sent shivers down Soeun’s spine. “So, you want me to prove it…?”

 

Unsure now, Soeun took a step back. “Y-yeah! Prove it.”

 

‘This girl… ahhhh… perfect.’ Kim Bum’s eyes widened, a maniacal gleam taking over. “Fine, I will.”

 

There was a loud gasp that circulated around as Kim Bum pulled out a knife from his pocket. A child started crying, and was immediately shushed by its mother.

 

But no one was lifting a finger to stop the horrible scene.

 

… Hey, it was good entertainment!

 

Soeun snorted at the knife that Kim Bum held. It was, technically, a letter opener, ornate and decorated with paste stones. “That’s a just a letter opener. What are you going to do? Poke me to death?”

 

Kim Bum suddenly was at Soeun’s side, grabbing her thin neck. She gasped.

 

“Hmph. Did you know that there are many ways to kill with a letter opener?” Kim Bum traced the slim blade across Soeun’s neck. “Here…. Is the jugular vein. One slice and you’ll bleed like a stuck pig.”

 

“Or here…” Kim Bum painfully wretched up Soeun’s arm. She cried out in pain. “There’s a vein right here in your smooth armpit, that once pricked, you’ll run out blood so fast you’d die before you even had half a scream out of your mouth.”

 

“And here.” He spun her around, placing his hand over where her heart was. He could feel it thumping hard in her chest. “Just two inches in the right place…”

 

Soeun couldn’t stand it any longer. “THEN DO IT! DO IT!”

 

Kim Bum’s eyes widened, a mad smile on his face. Dramatically, he began to raise the letter opener.

 

In that moment, brown eyes met black. And each saw the raw desire reflected there.

 

“Do it…” Soeun whispered.

 

“… Good night, sweet one.”

 

And the dagger swung down in a deadly arc.

 

Someone screamed.

 

~*~