V. | Minerva.
Suicide Circle
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chapter five
minerva
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03:26; Location unknown.
The broken CCTV cameras are a dead giveaway, the older man sporting bright red horn-rimmed glasses thinks as he lets out a soft ripple of laughter escape his cracked lips. He's walking through a designated hall with thick, flamboyant velvet carpet, gold-rimmed doors and expensive chandeliers dangling loosely above his head. Everything is pitch black though, as he guessed. An admirable trait his successor had inherited from the man was his obsession with darkness. He felt at home when he's bathed in black. Safe, protected, embraced, in his words.
He allows a lop-sided grin to tug at the corner of his lips as his fingers entangle around the golden door-knob, heart pumps over a hundred miles per hour in anticipation. It's been a while, he thinks. And as quiet as he could, he turns the handle and pushes the door open.
Ah, how he's missed those broad, strong shoulders and the way he could see the outline of his spine bulging through his shirt. The boy is crouched down, back hunched over a shriveled body bathed in blood. He could see the victim's intestines wrapped around the killer's shoulders as he continued to devour his inner organs. It's such a proud sight for the man, and he wants to enjoy it just a little longer, just long enough so that he could implement this memory in his mind forever. Oh, how proud he is. His beggar has became a king!
"Didn't I always teach you to never have your back to a door?"
The killer jumps up, whirling around sideways while he holds a red-tinted knife in front of his abdomen. This kid was nearly always on guard, he always had a million ways of defending himself when faced with danger. So if the man hadn't had been his idol, then he would have been coughing blood while the devil ate his life away.
"Oh, it's you." Jongin sighs, tossing the knife to his side and reclaiming his spot next to the victim's corpse. The man takes a few steps closer to Jongin's masterpiece, looking down at it and quietly assessing his work. "You've done a good job, did you cover your tracks from earlier?"
Jongin nods, using a small pocket knife to pick out the skin he had trapped in-between his teeth. "Of course I did. I'm not careless, you know."
"...You left the door unlocked." The man said with narrowed eyes.
"W-Well, that was a one time thing, alright! Jeez, you always underestimate me, hyung." He purses his lips into a pout. Jongin's looks had definitely developed over the years. His boyish good looks had morphed into strikingly attractive charm. Pitch black hair carelessly pushed to the side, plump lips with a hint of red and a thin, black shirt stretched tight over broad shoulders— even the man was impressed.
The man crouches down over the body and uses his hands to slowly open the victim's mouth— only to reveal an already cut-off tongue. He pushes the corpses' mouth shut with an aggravated groan. "Goddamn it Kai! You never save me the good bits."
Jongin grins mockingly, showing his parter two rows of reddened teeth. "Should've gotten here earlier, bro." He leans over the corpse to stick both of his hands deep into it's abdomen, finding his way past the stomach and down to his lower back. "Where is it.. Where is it.. Ah, got 'cha!" He beams, pulling out his hands to reveal a purply-red organ. Jongin's arms are soaked red up until the crease of his elbows, and the way he searches the body for the more delectable parts reminds the man of the five-year old kid he had first met searching the sand box for a missing toy— oh, how times have changed.
"Wanna go halves on the kidney?" He asks, but the man rolls his eyes. "There's two kidneys in a body, idiot. You can have that one, and I can have the other." Jongin shakes his head, up a blood clot that was stuck to the side of his hand. "Nah, I already ate the other one."
The man sighs once more and reaches over to snatch the kidney from Jongin's hands. "Then this one is mine. Besides, I have to tell you something important, so I want your undivided attention."
* * *
11:02, Seoul Central Police Station— Byun Baekhyun's office.
'Come by the office as soon as possible. I have good news.' Byun Baekhyun's text message had everyone on edge, even Jaejoong and Taeyeon. One week had passed since they recruited Taeyeon, and one month in total had flew by since the mass suicide. This was the first glimmer of hope they had left.
Chief of police, Byun Baekhyun's rounded table that was situated in the middle of his office was becoming more of a home to Jaejoong than his own apartment. Jinah had been his temporary roommate ever since that night he saw her on the train, so he had tried to keep his distance by becoming a work-a-holic. Initially he had only planned for her to stay one night, but somehow Baekhyun had found out and he had requested, 'for the sake of the case,' to allow her to stay with him, but to keep a close eye on her. It seems as if everyone was very suspicious of that girl.
Taeyeon lifts her feet up onto the table, adjusts her hips a bit and breathes in, then out. She pulls out her compact mirror, takes out the tube of Alizarin crimson lipstick she had stolen from the 7/11 downtown, and slowly applies it out with delicacy and care. Once finished, she smacks her lips twice then grabs the Sobranie Pink pack from her back pocket, lighting the end and sticking it into .
"Alright, so here is the good news," Byun Baekhyun entered the room, placing a file down in the middle of the table while he sunk into his shiny leather seat. "We have received an anonymous tip that could alternatively change the whole way we think about this case."
Everyone waited in anticipation. Jaejoong put out his cigarette, Kyungsoo leaned forward, Taeyeon even spared him a glance.
"Firstly, although there has only been one mass suicide so far, the girls that had jumped are all apparently members of a club. The anon didn't tell us of the club's name, so we'll just call it the 'Suicide Club' until we have more information. In regards to this, the 'Suicide Club' is run by an infamous serial killer that calls himself 'Deus'." he paused for a second to push the red-coded file closer to his team mates. "I doubt any of you have heard of him, as only the highest and most skilled detectives know of him. We try to keep his information as confidential as possible, because if the nature of his crimes are released to public, we'd have a scared frenzy on our hands. And like this case, his is very difficult to crack.
Jaejoong, Taeyeon and the other two detectives leaned over the table to get a closer look at the file. It was completely blank, except for the word 'Deus' written under the name section and a short description of the noted crimes he's committed.
"Deus is known for committing a series of gruesome crimes. His crimes are characterized by the victim's all having their abdomen sliced twice, vertically and horizontally in such a way that exposes their inner organs. Sometimes, they'd also decapitate the victim." He paused for a moment to take a deep breath. "But that's not the worst part. The victims are all missing organs, pieces of skin, or limbs. And in most cases, their blood had been drained. We've still yet to find the missing blood and organs, nevertheless, we're working hard."
In a matter of seconds, the look on Park Chanyeol's face had changed dramatically. From shocked, to disgusted, to enraged. He was infuriated. "Surely you must have more leads?!" He rose, slamming his fist onto the table. "This person is a monster! You can't just let an abomination like that roam freely!"
Baekhyun sighed and raised his hand, giving the infuriated officer a signal to sit back down. "We don't. He's very skilled with not leaving any traces left behind. But we do have one form of a lead. All of Deus' victims are over the age of seventy."
"He attacks the elderly? This is insane!" Chanyeol was off at it again. He could feel the anger seeping through his pores, slithering down his spine.
Taeyeon glanced over at him from the corner of her eyes, an amused smirk playing on her red-rimmed lips. "Shhh. Calm down, darling. Have you forgotten? Wrath is a sin. God doesn't do sinners." Ever since she first left that cell, she'd been teasing Chanyeol about his religion. A proud Atheist like Kim Taeyeon had never found more joy in dissecting, peeling and obliterating the mere idea of God. Sometimes she believes that she was one of the people that stabbed daggers into Jesus' palms when he was on the cross. Though, Antichrist is she not, she hates the idea of Satan just as much.
Sporting an over-sized pair of military trousers, with a black sleeve-less jacket, thick black boots, and her now (completely) sandy blonde hair tied up in a messy bun on the crown of her head, you could say the sole woman in the team had settled back to her old roots. During a vacation to the Middle East, Kim Taeyeon's parents were brutally murdered by a group of thugs when they had spotted her parent's valuables and tried to steal them. Narrowly avoiding death, she had managed to hide behind some dusted ruins. She was still a young child when this happened, no older than nine. She had to live a brutal life as a solitary street rat in a war-torn country, most of the crime being committed by religious extremists. This was the root of her hatred towards God and religion as whole, solely the reason why she became a terrorist bomber when she grew older.
Chanyeol chose to ignore Taeyeon's witty remarks— which he had come accustomed to over the past fortnight, and sat back down in his chair. Ears red and steaming from the anger. What is wrong with this world today? Have we forgotten the basic requirements to be human? He thinks. Over and over again.
"On a side note, the anon has also told us of a suspected mass suicide event that will happen in the upcoming days," Baekhyun explained, casting a glance at Taeyeon. "This is where I will need your help. Chanyeol and Taeyeon especially. The location is at a hour party a few hours away from inner Seoul. It will mostly be teenagers, who at the end of the party, will all jump off the roof of the estate to their deaths at approximately midnight. I would like the three of you to act as teenagers and infiltrate that party, ask around to find as much information as you can before they kill themselves. As much as we need the leads, their lives are also our priority. So I'll send in a bunch of officers and try to prevent their plans."
Jaejoong had a confused look on his face, "Baekhyun. I'm 28 years old, I don't think I'd pass as an eighteen year old." He stressed, taking a deep drag of his cigarette. Baekhyun shook his head. "Of course not. But age hasn't chipped at your boyish good looks. You'd be more than able to pass for a twenty-one year old. Oh, and one more thing." He stopped for a moment to send Kim Jaejoong a serious expression.
"I want you to take Jinah."
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