VI. | Luna.
Suicide Circle
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
chapter six
luna
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
________________________________________
21:02, Seoul Central Police Station— Byun Baekhyun's office.
The fan blowing cold, moist air into Kim Jaejoong's face is what almost starts to annoy him more than Baekhyun's ramblings. It's like he was forcing him to stay attached to Jinah, just for the sake of the case. The girl said she couldn't remember anything, so why bother anymore? It just didn't make sense to him. Or maybe it did. Maybe he was just trying to make himself believe that it was pointless. Who knows.
"As usual, keep an eye on her," Baekhyun says in a low voice, as if he was scared that someone was overhearing their conversation, despite the fact that the door was firmly locked. "I still have my suspicions."
As per usual, Jaejoong had a half-finished cigarette dangling out of his mouth. Jinah was waiting for him outside, so he didn't have much time to spare. "Got it." He says quietly, before taking a cigarette out and sliding it over to Baekhyun. "By the way, take it. You look like you could use one." And indeed he did. Over the few weeks they had been investigating the case, the young Chief's wondrous baby face had sunken. The bags under his eyes were a dark purple, the creases on his forehead had notably deepened and his lips were chapping. He looked like a mess.
* * *
Jaejoong said his farewells and walked out of Baekhyun's office. Jinah was waiting there with Taeyeon by her side, as soon as Jaejoong was in sight, she leapt from her chair and in a matter of seconds, the young blonde haired teenager was by his side. "How was it?" She asked, slipping her hand into the mold of his. In the past week, (mostly due to Baekhyun's orders) Jaejoong and Jinah had become a lot closer— they were basically considered a couple in passerby's eyes. And although Jaejoong's part of the relationship was strictly to get information by Baekhyun's orders, he couldn't deny that sometimes when he'd look at her, his chest would feel heavy, his breathing would feel forced and he'd feel like the luckiest guy in the world.
"Fine. Just fine." He says over a fresh cigarette, Taeyeon flips open the lid of her gold-rimmed lighter and lights the end of Jaejoong's cigarette. Jinah frowns. Taeyeon and Jinah haven't exactly been getting along well. Taeyeon's been staying at Jaejoong's house, sleeping on the couch and emptying his fridge, which is fine to Jinah, but she absolutely loathes it when the terrorist would speak to Jaejoong. Jaejoong is hers. Why should she need to share? Is she trying to steal him away from her or something? If it doesn't stop soon, she thinks. She'll have to do something about it.
"So, where to now, honey?" Taeyeon's voice is soft and bubbly, the complete opposite of her face. Jaejoong uses his free hand to rub at his nape, while Jinah automatically hugs his arm protectively.
Unbekonist to Jinah and Taeyeon, Luhan was slowly trailing behind. "I really don't like her. I really, really don't like her Jaejoong." He whispers over and over again in his papery light voice. Luhan's been making comments like this ever since Jinah moved into Jaejoong's apartment. And quite frankly, it's really getting on the elder man's nerves.
Jaejoong sent Luhan a harsh glare, but Luhan stuck out his tongue and threw his doll at his elder. Jaejoong flinched, but the small doll went straight through him and onto the cold, marble floor.
When Luhan was bored, he'd make small hand puppets of the people he saw around him. His first puppet was a woolen one that had strings of reddish-black fluff rising out of the crown of his head, resembling Kim Jaejoong. The second puppet was a thinner one that had long, yellow pieces of wool falling from the head, this doll was made to represent Im Jinah. Over the past few weeks Luhan had also created dolls for park Chanyeol, Byun Baekhyun and Kim Taeyeon. But this wasn't the strange part, the strange part was that over the past few days Jaejoong's spotted Luhan torturing these dolls by injecting strange liquids into their limbs and sticking needles and thumb tacks through the material.
* * *
23:00, The Mansion— Ground floor.
It's an hour until midnight. Careless hordes of bright colors and sticky teenagers and alcohol and all things bad were surrounding Jaejoong, Jinah, Chanyeol and Taeyeon. It was if they were trying to swallow the undercover detectives into a pit of electric lights and indie music.
Baekhyun had instructed Jaejoong to stick with Chanyeol, while Taeyeon stuck with Jinah. Although they were instructed to 'pretend' to be an enthusiastic party-goer, it seems as if the two women of the teem were a bit more engrossed.
Jinah and Taeyeon were partying at the lower level of the mansion, near the pool. The pool itself is inviting— cool and azure, an luminescent mosaic of versicolored floodlights, starlight and the rising tower's reflections floating atop. Bright blue ripples tickle her ankles while the smell of chlorine nauseatingly bites the inside of Jinah's throat. She's sporting Vermillion tinted high-rise jean shorts, a bikini and retro hooded sunglasses. For Im Jinah, one eye is always on Kim Jaejoong. She can see his outline just barely whisking past under-dressed women behind the shiny glass sliding doors. He's got a bottle of whiskey in his hand but he's not drinking it. Girls are giving him lustful looks, but he turns them down and she smiles proudly.
Her hips sway along the edge of the pool, half-filled can of cherry coke in her hand, she slurps up carbonized sugar through the fun twisty straw. She hears hormone-ruled teenagers rubbing bodies against each other a few meters away, the clicking of beer bottles and the pound of heavy metal. Taeyeon's arms drape around Jinah's collar, lazy and lightweight. Her visage is a mirror, taking the cheap floodlights and painting her face in fine-penned luminance, a kaleidoscope of feverish violets, emeralds, ceruleans and cerise, flecked with shadows of spider legs from her fake eyelashes. She can smell traits of alcohol tainting Taeyeon's breath. Jinah gives Taeyeon's lips a taste of cherry coke, and Taeyeon gives Jinah's lips a taste of cherry Sobranie, both sickly sweet and slices of pink. She her lips clean of excess coke, tongue picks up some streaks of Alizarin lipstick too.
Jinah makes a experimental joke about how blue the water is, and Taeyeon laughs like her stomach's about to split. She's suddenly the funniest person in the world. Definitely drunk, Jinah thinks. And behind the glossy flashing of lights, a small smirk filters past her lips.
"Want to jump into the water?" Jinah asks.
"Of course!" Came the giggle of a reply. And before you could blink, Jinah had tossed her cherry coke onto the pavement, moved her glasses to the crown of her head. Taeyeon carelessly adjusts the straps of her creme peach bikini and tosses her cigarette to the side. They tangle their fingers together, pinch the end of each other's nose and jump. The pool is colder than it looks. Slowly they open their eyes, the chlorine stinking the outside of their eyes.
Taeyeon smiles, sending small air bubbles floating to the surface. She wipes the running mascara off Jinah's eyelids, giggles a little more, a swallows a little more water. They're drifting half-way under the water, like true friends ought to be. But under the liters of water, Jinah's red tinted lips curl up into a sinister grin, and in that second Taeyeon gets a glimpse of the true devil she's facing. Evil, and unholy as only Jinah could be. Her hand extends out, digging her opaque black nails into her Taeyeon's beautiful baby eyes. I'll make you ugly so he won't like you anymore. She digs and twists and scrapes and pulls until she hears a gentle 'pop'. And she smirks. She wouldn't call it bad, she calls it eliminating any threat. It's a survival game in Jinah's eyes. Hunt or be hunted. Eat or be eaten. How many times does she have to say it? Kim Jaejoong is hers.
Taeyeon starts to suffocate, her arms and legs are failing uncontrollably disrupting the gentle serenity of the pool. She keeps taking in deep breaths of water, she'd probably have a good about of water in her lungs now. Nobody is around them though, so Jinah doesn't have to worry about someone seeing her little act. After a few more seconds Taeyeon's limbs start to settle, her breathing starts to cease, and in a matter of time she's completely limp. Jinah smiles to herself, she's always so good with these things. She removes her hand from Taeyeon's nose, and she slowly sinks to the bottom in fluorescent halos of washed out blood coming from the wounds on her now empty socket. It's a comfortable silence, listening to underwater hymns and muffled murmurs of distilled teenage youth. There's two pieces of Taeyeon floating in that pool, and Jinah debates the idea of taking her eyeball home, for her personal display. It would match the others just perfectly.
* * *
23:33, The Mansion— Second floor.
Meanwhile, Chanyeol had his mind set on the job. He was on the second of three levels, surrounded by a group of women with sweaty bodies and barely any clothing. Over the past twenty minutes he had purposefully been feeding them alcohol in hope that they'd spill some valuable information. But it had all felt pointless, until one of the big-mouthed girls spoke up. She had short brown hair that reached just past her chin, her lips were a dazzling red.
"Do you ever think..." She said drunkenly, swirling around the glass of alcohol she had in her hand, "T-That maybe, just maybe.... You don't want to die tonight?"
Chanyeol's head perked up. It was hard to hear what the woman, Sulli if he remembered correctly, was saying when the music was as loud as it was that night. But if he got just a little closer, he could hear her almost clearly.
"Who wanted us to die tonight anyways? Sorry, I keep forgetting." The undercover officer chuckled and "embarrassingly" knead the back of his neck. Sulli giggled and pecked Chanyeol's cheek, "Pabo. Pabo. Pa~bo~ nobody knows who wanted us to, silly." She giggled once more and took a long sip of her alcohol. "W-Well, the leader wanted us to, of course. But but but.. What I mean is, nobody knows who the leader is.. He just tells us to do stuff on the website.."
Park Chanyeol's eyes were as wide as satellites, "Website? What website?"
"You really are a big pabo tonight, aren't you oppa?" She paused for a moment to pull out her phone, hiccuping in the process. She opened her browser application and pressed her phone close up to Chanyeol's face, he had to lean back a bit to get a more focused look at the illuminated screen.
"Haikyo.com" She grinned. "It's like, totally great!" Chanyeol nodded at her words, taking a pen out of his pocket and quickly scrambling the website onto his palm. Once he had finished he then looked up at the drunk woman. "Sulli, I want you to do me a favor okay?" Sulli looked up at him with glassy eyes, nodding obediently. 'Channie's so, so, so cute' she thinks.
"I'll show you my car outside, I want you to sit in there for the next half an hour until it's passed midnight. Don't leave the car though until I come back." He explained, and she just kept nodding.
"But but but.. Channie... I have to j-jump at midnight.." She shifted her gaze to the ground. "I don't want you to jump, Sul. There's so many great things such a beautiful woman like you can do with your life." He said this all in a rush, grabbing the woman's elbows and rushing down her down the stairs and out of the mansion.
The chilling pre-midnight breeze is comforting compared to the steamy hot tension coming from inside the club. He wishes that he could just lay down on a blank patch of grass in the middle of some vast field and just let the calming breeze take him to another place. He hears a soft hiccup come from his side, so he looks down at Sulli. For a few seconds they looked silently into each other's eyes. He never knew she was that beautiful. He never knew how great her skin looked in the moonlight, or how pure her brown eyes refected into his. Or that silk bold red bow wrapped around her small head, and the luminescence lights kissing her lashes with light.
It's in that moment when he suddenly feels like a man who, after straining his eyes to peer into the remote distance, finds what he was seeking at his very feet. He did not know he had been lonely before. But now he knew. All his life he had been looking over the heads of those around him, while he had only to look before him to find what he was truly looking for. 'Sulli's so beautiful, oh so beautiful' he thinks.
* * *
23:50, The Mansion— Second floor.
It's a mere ten minutes to midnight when Jaejoong starts to worry. Jinah's by his side, hand-in-hand but he can't seem to find Taeyeon and Chanyeol anywhere. He's in panic. The teenagers slowly, ever so slowly, begin to make their way up to stairs and to the top of the mansion. Even when they're drunk they still keep their goal in mind.
But soon enough, a horde of police barge in through both the back, and the front entrances. A wave of blues, blacks and whites rush into the house, draining out any of the remaining color that inhabited it. They trap kicking and screaming teenagers in-between their big arms, they're wailing and crying and even coughing up a fit. "We'll never be reborn!" and "God will despise us if we don't go!" were most of the dominating screeches that could be heard from the mansion.
Jaejoong decides to go look for Baekhyun, hopefully Chanyeol and Taeyeon would be with him. He rushes past the police and teenagers, his eyes desperately scanning the messy crowd. "Baekhyun! Baekhyun! Byun Baekhyun!" He's getting angry now. Angry and scared. Why is he like this? He doesn't know. Just a mere few months ago he wouldn't had cared if they were missing, why was it such a big deal now?
"Just forget about them, Jae." It's Jinah who's speaking now. "They'll be fine. Lets just go home, just the two of us. Besides, It'll be nice not having anyone around." She says with a smile. But Jaejoong doesn't hear her. Or rather, he doesn't care. "Shut up." He mouths. "Shut up and start looking."
Jinah frowns a deep, hatred seething frown. It's truly bitter, ugly, cynical and terrifying. It's the fuel to nightmares and boogeymans and goblins alike. Something only a true monster like her would be able to concoct.
Luckily in the distance, Jaejoong spots that familiar caramel-haired man. And he swears, for in that second, he allows a relief grin to tangle his lips.
"Baekhyun!" The man's head whips towards the source of his name, and the wave of relief is mutual. "Ah, Jaejoong. Good to see you're okay. Where are the others?" He asks, and Jaejoong shakes his head. "I don't know. I really don't know. I was just about to ask you. I can't seem to find Chanyeol and Taeyeon anywhere."
Baekhyun's face morphed into something else. Something akin to regret, sadness and utter disappointment. "We've already found Taeyeon.." He sighs, "But we don't know where Chanyeol is."
________________________________________
Comments