---

---

Humoring the Witch

The way a witch joked, really, was always quite hilarious.

---

---

 

“I didn’t kill him.”

 

Detective Kim Jaejoong only gave one skeptical glance at the blonde-haired lady who said those words in such certainty. He maintained his gaze calm for a second or two, before he returned his attention back to his laptop and typed some more conclusion he got from this interrogation.

 

Lack of cooperation. The main suspect denies involvement. High level of confidence, but eyes are showing signs of lying. Lack of cooperation.Get the court order to make her take the lying detection-test next time. Arrange time for a second interrogation. Force might be required. Lack of cooperation.

 

“I’m actually trying to cooperate, Detective,” Nana said as she laughed lightly –as if she had a third eye able to see what Jaejoong was typing. “It’s three in the morning now and I am tired as . I could have gone home and sleep and yet I agree for this accusative interrogation. If this is not a cooperation, I don’t know what is,” Nana expressed nonchalantly as she grabbed the cigarette pack on the table, pulled one stick out and lit the cigarette.

 

Jaejoong stopped typing and sighed. Indeed, it was three in the morning, and he certainly had other places where he would rather be as well. Her non-cooperation (and Jaejoong swore he saw Nana glanced at him again. Perhaps she really did have a sixth sense) frustrated him. His coffee cup was empty as well, and he reached out for the pack of cigarette on the table –only to find it empty.

 

The dark-haired man stared at the suspect. “You took my last cigarette.”

 

Nana drew a long drag of Jaejoong’s cigarette and puffed the smoke to his direction. “Sorry. Does stealing your cigarette warrant me an arrest now?”

 

Jaejoong did not look amused.

 

Nana sighed instead. “Fine, fine,” she said as she waved her hands, took a last long drag of the cigarette, before she offered him her (his) quarter-lit cigarette. It had her red lipstick’s stain on it. Jaejoong grimaced but still accepted the cigarette back. There was a mild dampness on the lit stick, but he ignored it and inhaled a long drag himself.

 

The nicotine slightly erased his annoyance on her and after the second inhale, Jaejoong decided to give Nana the luxury of his patience.

 

“Miss Im Jinah,” he started slow.“You were the only one sleeping beside the corpse of Wu Yifan in a close-room situation murder,”Jaejoong reminded as he tapped his empty cigarette pack on the table. “You should be cooperative and admit your crime, so that both of us can go back to sleep and not bother each other.”

 

“You will always bother me after, Detective,” Nana pointed out.

 

“Yeah, but at least both of us could get some sleep before that.”

 

Nana sighed and tightened Jaejoong’s coat around her body. When the detective and the police squad barged into her rented hotel room two hours prior (the supposed crime scene), she had been wearing nothing but her lingerie. Jaejoong did tell her to dress up, but Nana casually only said that Wu Yifan (or the late Wu Yifan) had torn her dress and she had no outer clothes to wear. Jaejoong had begrudgingly lent her his coat, and dragged her out of the hotel room to the police car, and soon, this interrogation room.

 

The hospitality of the young detective did not extend beyond what was necessary. Making Nana at the utmost comfort was never Jaejoong’s intention.

 

 “Could you do something about the temperature first? It’s freezing,” she remarked.

 

He flashed her a quick smile, curt and necessary. “Will you confess after that?”

 

Nana shrugged, but returned the smile. “I will not admit something that I did not do.”

 

Jaejoong chuckled –amused and mortified at the same time. This case was supposed to be easy. All evidence had directed him to her, and truth be told, he saw no point of carrying out this interrogation when the case was crystal clear. It was the police protocol that led him to convene this interrogation, but still, this was not supposed to be this…infuriating.

 

“Your persistence astounds me, Miss Im Jinah,” Jaejoong expressed while he cynically clapped his hands. “Your denial. It’s so goddamn obvious that you killed Mr. Wu Yifan, but you still deny that?”

 

Nana only smiled. “I’m no in denial. It’s the truth. I didn’t kill him.”

 

“How long have you known Mr. Wu Yifan?” Jaejoong asked instead.

 

Nana’s eyes wondered. “Before he died? Two hours, I guess. He’s a new customer.”

 

Jaejoong raised an eyebrow. “Your office records show that he’s been your customer at least thrice in the past four months. And that’s only from the log data alone.”

 

“Maybe,” Nana answered vaguely. “I am always on high demand. I don’t remember each and every of my customers’ faces and names.”

 

“Was he too rough on you? Did he force you? Did he not pay your service in full?” Jaejoong recited almost monotonously. “Why did you kill him?”

 

“I did not kill him.”

 

Jaejoong sighed. “Miss Im Jinah, please ing cooperate and –“

 

“I didn’t kill that man, okay?” Nana repeated. “I know it’s easy to associate me with being a blonde bimbo , but even a blonde bimbo wouldn’t sleep casually next by the corpse of a man she has allegedly murder –“

 

“Trust me, there are lots of questionable motives in this industry.”

 

“Well, that’d still be pretty stupid –“

 

“I don’t know. Maybe you are,” Jaejoong said the insult casually.

 

Even Nana was not offended. “There could have been other possibilities, okay? I know it’s hard to believe, but I told you all the truth. That man requested my service, I gave it. I slept. The next thing I know was that you all barged into the room and he was already dead  –“

 

“ –by your hands.“

 

“You have no trust on me, don’t you, Detective?” Nana laughed sourly. “That man could have killed himself. That’d be more possible.”

 

“I would have considered that possibility had the urine test not shown that you took drugs within the last 24 hours,” Jaejoong recited the result from the paper his assistant gave him. “And numerous testimonies from your co-workers saying that Mr. Wu Yifan was rather obsessive of you. Perhaps you considered him a bother and decided to finish him off?”

 

“Well, I guess he was a bother,” Nana pouted –remembering that indeed, last night was not the first time she met the dead man. “But shouldn’t his obsession give you more reason to trust me when I said that he might have killed himself? He’s insane. Maybe he’s too obsessed with me. Maybe he kills himself because he knows he can never own me, and he wants to put the blame on me. Men are crazy for me, you know, Detective? This is not the first time, actually.”

 

Jaejoong glanced at her –the fact that the e had oh-so-casually decided to his coat on her. Even without peeking, one would be able to see the black lingerie she hid (no longer) behind his coat. Her intention of seducing him was clear, but he did not fall on that. “You are a beautiful woman, indeed, Miss Im Jinah. But if you think this could make me lower my guard on you –“

 

“It’s cold, Detective,” Nana sighed in a clearly more whiny, fabricated voice. “Why don’t we move to a more comfortable interrogation room?” she said as she crossed her left leg and placed it on top of her right one. She had completely released her grip on his coat and now the sight of her half-state of undress was completely visible to his eyes.

 

Jaejoong butted his cigarette off (which had actually been off for a while) and told the woman plainly. “There’s a camera behind me which records your action. You’re sure you want to give a free treat to my fellow colleagues that way?”

 

Not deterred by his warning, Nana only raised both her arms and crossed them behind her head and leaned back on the chair. She lifted both her legs on the table and her stilettos nearly hit Jaejoong’s laptop (which Jaejoong carefully moved before Nana’s heels could make a scratch on the surface). “If I let your friends see more, will you release me?”

 

Jaejoong stared at the girl before he chuckled.

 

“You’re a scary woman,” he concluded. “But I won’t fall to your tricks, .”

 

Nana still did not look insulted and she just stared at her ruby red-colored nails. “Maybe I did kill him, Detective. They did say that I’m a witch who could kill any man’s sanity.”

 

“Well not mine,” Jaejoong assured her as he glanced at the text on the screen of his phone. His heartbeat accelerated and he read the remaining of the text briefly before he stood up, closed his laptop, and declared, “Detective Choi Sooyoung will handle your case temporarily.”

 

“You won’t be handling my case?” Nana asked in a fake disappointed sigh. “Too bad.”

 

“Temporarily,” Jaejoong stressed. “My wife’s entered the last stage of labor and I have to go now.”

 

“…Oh.”

 

Jaejoong chuckled at the display of her disappointed look. “And that’s why, my dear, none of your trick will work on me,” he declared before he walked pass her and exited the interrogation room.

 

 

***

 

 

“So, Sooyoung told me you still refused to cooperate and still refused to admit anything,” was Jaejoong’s first greeting to Nana four days later. His office had been rather cruel in giving him leaves, and he only got three-day father’s maternity leave.

 

Nana, who was now wearing normal and actually decent clothing, looked up to see him walking and taking the seat in front of her again. She smiled at this sight. Sooyoung had been nice to talk to, but Nana still preferred to see Jaejoong’s handsome feature more. “Jaejoong.”

 

“It’s ‘Detective’ for you, Miss Im Jinah,” Jaejoong reminded.

 

“How’s the baby?”

 

He was taken slightly aback but then sighed and told her, “He’s a healthy baby boy. Very loud, though. Very much like his mother.”

 

“Ah, so Yuri is loud,” Nana remarked and Jaejoong’s eyes narrowed dangerously. Acting innocent, Nana told him, “Sooyoung told me.”

 

Jaejoong made a mental note to reprimand Sooyoung not to share his private life’s information to a stranger –a possible culprit, at that. Well, Sooyoung had been infamous for the biggest gossipper around, Jaejoong was not too surprised, but at the very least, he would have expected Sooyoung not to blabber too much to the suspect.

 

Jaejoong decided to focus more on the work though. The faster he could make Nana confess (or identify her motive –given that it was already clear she was the murderer), the earlier he could go home and see his son again. He grabbed his briefcase and pulled some files from it. He had just received some interesting information from the extra-jurisdictional police, Kim Kibum, and he thought of cornering Nana with it. “Rather than talking about my private life, I’m more interested to know what you’ll say to these, Miss Im Jinah. It is interesting to note that Mr. Wu Yifan was not the first customer found dead in your proximity. You moved towns a lot, and there are two other customers of you found dead. What do you say about that?”

 

“Ask the police handling my case back then. You have all the access and information to that, don’t you?”

 

“Very suspiciously, no detective brought the charge against you for those two murders,” Jaejoong pointed out.

 

“Well, maybe they saw the light,” Nana noted easily. “Maybe you should too.”

 

Jaejoong laughed. “Miss Im Jinah, I’m not interested to know what method you used to coax my fellow detectives to not pursue your case further –“

 

“Well, maybe because they saw that I was innocent as well,” Nana batted her eyelashes equally as innocently.

 

Jaejoong laughed again. He did not know how wide Nana had opened her legs for her fellow detectives, but always so strangely, all her past cases had been dropped. And even if Jaejoong wanted to have more trust on his fellow other detectives who handled Nana’s case previously, he could imagine other ways of how Nana could always escape the prison. He had traced her list of loyal customers and found at least one member of the parliament in there. It would have explained the political back-up this seemingly useless e had, but Jaejoong couldn’t confirm his theory much –the said politician had been reported to be dead as well.

 

If it had been taken in a supernatural context, Jaejoong would even say that Nana was foolish men’s death mistress.

 

“Men do have bad luck with you,” Jaejoong concluded as he looked back to his laptop screen.

 

“I do have bad luck with men,” Nana corrected the stance.

 

The suggestive stare she gave did not go unnoticed. The ‘accidental’ way her feet touched his beneath the table was also not missed. Jaejoong ignored her for the first few minutes, but it got to the point of actually disturbing him, and he extended his arm beneath the table, placed it on top of her knee cap, and told her.

 

“Stop it.”

 

“Why?” Nana asked –seemingly satisfied that she was finally gaining some reaction from him. “Did it bother you?”

 

Answering it in the affirmative would make her have the upper hand. He knew it was childish but he just did not want to see that smug, knowing smirk on her face. “No, but, it’s useless.”

 

Nana looked up at him –always with that kind of expression: innocence that was clearly fake as it did not match her naturally devilish face. Sometimes Jaejoong wondered how the men who fell to her trap could be so foolish. It was so obvious that Nana, her gesture and her existence, were all fabricated and calculated. Whatever she thought she was doing to him, it would not work on him. “I know what you’re trying to do, but it’s useless,” Jaejoong repeated.

 

“Why? Because you’re married?” Nana asked.

 

“That, and I’m a loyal husband, but mostly,” Jaejoong leaned closer and smirked to her, “You’re simply not my type.”

 

Nana looked amused. She tilted her chin slightly but kept her faint smile on. “Really?”

 

Jaejoong nodded positively. “Sure, I will admit that you’re very beautiful, Miss Im Jinah. But beauty is not really the only thing that can capture a man’s heart.”

 

“Really?” Nana asked, leaning equally as close –she could see mild surprise on Jaejoong’s eyes, but he remained on his position, and she knew this. The fixation was predictable and Nana knew that she had that talent –always, to draw men in.

 

Jaejoong might have been a slightly harder case, because instead of turning his face away, he actually took her challenge and kept his dark eyes locked at her. Giving her a rather underestimating glance, he cooed, “Positive. Disappointed?”

 

Her hand beneath the table trailed the length of his thigh in a tantalizing movement. Jaejoong did not break the eye contact, but his hand reached beneath the table again and stopped her hand before she could venture closer to his upper thigh.

 

“I love Yuri,” Jaejoong assured her, and he felt foolish having to state this to her. That would turn the table against him. He should not have gone to the extent of restating his love to his wife to this seductress –it would make him seem as if he was desperate for a reassurance. But on the other hand, Jaejoong felt like he needed to draw this line to Nana: that unlike any other men she had tempted, he was happily married and he finally had a child he had been waiting for years. So he told her that. “And with my baby boy now, I don’t need anything else.”

 

Nana smirked. “…You’re sure Yuri’s child is yours?”

 

It was at this comment that something went off a little. Jaejoong did not really remember much, he only remembered when there was a crisp laughter in the room –Nana’s, and that was when he realized she had made him lose his temper –grabbing Nana’s collar and nearly strangling her.

 

“Don’t mind my gibberish talks,” Nana concluded as she released Jaejoong’s clutch around her shirt. “Maybe I was just jealous of your dear wife, Detective.”

 

***

 

The look Jaejoong gave to Sooyoung made the latter actually had the hairs on her nape stood. Stopping herself from sipping her warm coffee, Sooyoung then turned around and faced the grumpy looking Jaejoong staring at her.

 

“What?” the female detective said.

 

Jaejoong sighed. “I respect you, Soo. But please don’t say unnecessary things to our suspect next time.”

 

“What did I say?” Sooyoung defended herself. Her mind traveled a bit and then there was a look of apprehension on her face. “Ah. To Nana? Well, she’s kind of fun.”

 

Jaejoong stared at his colleague without interest. “That doesn’t give you the right to discuss my marriage life to her,” he icily told her. He knew that the office had often gossiped on his marriage life with Yuri –there wasn’t much fun in the police office, you see. Jaejoong had married Yuri for six years and always had difficulty in having a child with her. The fact that Yuri had been the infamous popular girl ever since back then in the days he courted her (and all the rumors of her liking younger boys –like Minho) fueled the gossip in the office more.

 

“Sorry,” Sooyoung said. “Maybe I said some unnecessary stuffs.”

 

“Better be careful next time. I don’t want her to use it against me.”

 

“Noted, it’s just…” Sooyoung finally took a sip of her coffee and stared to the outside of the window. “That woman…there’s just something about her.”

 

“…Something?”

 

“Something rather…” Sooyoung shrugged as she tried to find the term. “I don’t know, magnetic, maybe? By no means I like girls, but even I have to admit that as a woman, there’s just something… captivating about her.”

 

“es are all probably like her,” Jaejoong reminded as he flipped through the pages of Nana’s records. “They have talents to lure people in.”

 

“That’s a cool talent?”

 

Jaejoong stared at Sooyoung and laughed. He knew that Sooyoung had been rather eccentric on her own, but even if he had been the eccentric one, he would not classify Nana’s ‘talent’ as something cool. It was useful, of course, but it was…

 

“Scary,” Jaejoong muttered to himself.

 

***

 

Jaejoong admitted that he had been rather reluctant to get into the interrogation room alone with Nana again. After his latest encounter with Nana whereby she had indirectly insulted his wife, Jaejoong had three or four other sessions with her. And boy, sure the woman loved to drive him crazy. The on his thighs got bolder, the fake innocent gestures were all so exaggerated (the way she bit her plump lips, the way she twirled her luscious blonde hair, the way she whined)…

 

But a job was still a job. And if he asked to be removed from her case, Jaejoong felt like he could hear the rather imaginary laughter and whispers of “I won”coming from her lips. All in all, to grant her such satisfaction did not sit well with him, and Jaejoong decided to show her that he would not be like all those men who had foolishly fallen to her trap.

 

He came to the interrogation room again, but instead of sitting in front of her, Jaejoong stood before her and asked her the same thing over and over again.

 

“Will you admit that you killed Wu Yifan, and possibly those two other men, today?” Jaejoong asked her.

 

“I did not kill them,” Nana continued to affirm.

 

“Fine,” Jaejoong decided as he turned around and headed to the door again.

 

For the first time, Jaejoong’s action made Nana blink rather surprised. “You won’t interrogate me today?”

 

He stopped by the door and turned slightly to her direction. “I won’t interrogate you further unless you confess that you did it.”

 

And with that, he swung the door close.

 

***

 

“The lie detector test’s result shows that Im Jinah was not lying,” Sooyoung said as she ushered the result paper to Jaejoong.

 

Jaejoong only held the paper but gave on effort to look at the content. His eyes were still fixated at the object of his case –the lady who was sitting alone in the interrogation room. Jaejoong’s eyes narrowed at the way Nana waved to the wall –it seemed that she realized he was studying her from the other end of the one-way window.  Her idleness did not set his mind at ease, and Jaejoong unknowingly crumpled the paper Sooyoung gave him.

 

“There’s no exact accuracy in lie detector test,” Jaejoong opined. “Some criminals are just so good in hiding what they do. And I believe Miss Im Jinah is one of those types of criminals.”

 

Sooyoung sighed. “But what if she really did not kill them, Oppa? Maybe she was right. Maybe those men did kill themselves.”

 

“It’s impossible to have three men commit suicide that way,” Jaejoong reasoned. “Unless it involves supernatural thing, I don’t see how she always found herself in such situation.”

 

“Look at you,” Sooyoung chuckled. “Talking about the possibility of superstitious things. You’re getting out of your mind.”

 

“What else could be the reason?” he laughed bitterly. “I’m starting to think that maybe she really is a witch. One who really brings curses to men.”

 

“Well,” Sooyoung shrugged. “Be careful then. It seems that you can be the next on her line.”

 

***

 

“I did not kill them,” Nana asserted again like a broken record on their fourteenth interrogation.

 

Jaejoong nodded and was ready to leave the room again. Yuri had been asking him to go home earlier to help her take care of their baby boy. And surely, playing with his baby boy would be a better choice than playing in this Witch’s game.

 

But then Nana spoke of something else. “I might not say what you want me to say. However, I might tell you something else.”

 

“Unless it’s related to the case, I’m not interested.”

 

“Well it might be related to the case, depending on how you analyze my information,” Nana said.

 

The trick was old –she was only trying to catch his attention so that he would stay and then she would do her usual seduction method to make him lose against her. If that was what she thought she could do, Jaejoong was not interested. So, without giving her another words, Jaejoong’s arm reached for the doorknob.

 

“I lied when I said I did not really remember Wu Yifan,” Nana calmly declared and Jaejoong’s movement was halted. “You were right. Wu Yifan was really obsessed with me. He sent me numerous love letters. He might have only been recorded to be my customer three or four times in my customer log book, but actually, it’s more than that –he just went unregistered. And he always threw a tantrum whenever he could not book a night with me.”

 

“…Was that why you were so disturbed with his persistence and eventually decided to kill him?”

 

Smiling when she knew she held Jaejoong’s attention, she added, “I could tell you some histories with the other two people you suspected me killing as well. Lee Joon and Kwon Ji-yong. I remember them too.”

 

Jaejoong exhaled a sigh and decided to text Yuri that he would have to come home later that night. Reluctantly, Jaejoong turned around and took his seat in front of Nana. “…Elaborate.”

 

“I have a request before that.”

 

Jaejoong suppressed his will to groan. Nana and her conditions, really. This girl and this case were supposed to be his easy past time. The evidence for her case were all too strong, but apparently, it was not so. Her interrogation had been carried on for too long, and he had not gotten the approval from his superior to press further charge on her. Jaejoong had to learn not to take things for granted. “What?”

 

“Turn off the camera,” Nana said as she pointed at the camera planted behind him. “I will only talk to you, and you only.”

 

“Request denied. That’s against the protocol,” Jaejoong confirmed.

 

“You hold enough rank to break some protocols on your own,” Nana pointed out. “Merits over procedures, right, Detective? You turn off that camera or you will only hear the same line from me over and over again until your superior declares that there is insufficient evidence on my case.”

 

Jaejoong sighed and deliberated. It must have been quite a lengthy deliberation because even Nana sighed in impatience. Snapped to the reality from her long sigh, Jaejoong finally made his decision. He called Sooyoung and requested her to turn off all access to the interrogation room. As expected, Sooyoung had been reluctant at first, but this and that (and the fact that Sooyoung still owed it to Jaejoong for slipping off some information to Nana) made Sooyoung agree to his wish. Jaejoong waited until the light in the camera behind him went off completely before he turned to talk to Nana. “Spill.”

 

“Tell those waiting on the other side of the mirror to leave first,” Nana requested with a smile.

 

“There’s no one on the other side of the wall,” Jaejoong lied.

 

“But there are,” Nana calmly said.

 

Jaejoong laughed tonelessly. “How do you know?”

 

“Because I’m a witch?” For a dangerous remark, she batted her eyelashes rather naively.

 

He chuckled at that, and murmured things such as “crazy” or “this is getting ridiculous”, but at the end of the day, Jaejoong still called Sooyoung and instructed her to clear the area and cut all connection to the interrogation room. This time Sooyoung did not protest as much, although she told him to be careful. Jaejoong thought Sooyoung’s concern was nearly as ridiculous –what was the worst thing that Nana could inflict on him anyway? A part of him was afraid of her, but the rational side of him knew that he had no reason to.

 

After confirming the situation (Jaejoong looked at the screen of his laptop which displayed the now empty area at the other side of the interrogation room), Jaejoong was about to urge Nana to talk, but Nana (as if she really was a witch and as if she really knew that there was no one else to watch them again) talked before he told her to.

 

“You could record this conversation in your phone,” Nana told him and Jaejoong stayed silent because indeed, it had been what he had intended to do anyway.

 

Frowning, he asked her. “You’re asking me to turn off the camera and tell people off, but you’re okay with me recording this?”

 

“Yes. Because that recording is yours, and it will be your discretion whether to reveal it or not.”

 

“What makes you sure I will even hesitate in disclosing it?”

 

Nana smiled secretively and fished her purse for her cigarette packs. She found it, lit it, and felt Jaejoong’s undisturbed stare at her. With one between her teeth, Nana offered the rest of the sticks to Jaejoong. Jaejoong grunted but accepted one from her.

 

To his surprise, after lighting the cigarette, Nana actually fulfilled her promise to recite her story.

 

“Lee Joon and Kwon Ji-yong’s case were nearly the same with Wu Yifan. Those three were always the customers that held a more…attached feelings to me. Lee Joon was a painter and he often used me as one of his muses, and soon, I was his only muse. As to Kwon Ji-yong, I didn’t even realize he was that infatuated with me until his death. The police told me that Kwon Ji-yong had a full stack of my photographs under his bed.”

 

Jaejoong inhaled the cigarette. “You mean those three men whom you killed –“

 

“– whom were dead in my vicinity,” Nana corrected.

 

“Whatever,” Jaejoong brushed it off. “You mean those three men all had the same pattern and they were all infatuated with you.”

 

“All men are,” Nana said with a smile that was strangely not arrogant –despite the substance. It was as if she was only restating the fact: that she was the Aphrodite lusted by all men. “But yeah, I admit that those three had one thing in common. They were the types of customers that wanted to possess me for themselves. My other customers are always crazy for me too, but they’re willing to share. These three… they won’t share.”

 

“And that irritated you so you killed them.”

 

“You jumped to conclusion.”

 

“What else is the motive then?”

 

Nana smiled and asked Jaejoong, “How’s Yuri?”

 

Jaejoong gave her an unamused look. “This is not about me. So you were disturbed by their attention and you decided to kill them and hid –“

 

“You were out of town during the supposed period,” Nana pointed out.

 

Jaejoong’s lips were parted at that statement. Not even Sooyoung knew that.

 

Pleased to know the extent of her power on him, Nana continued, “You know it, yet you denied it. Calculating from the baby's birth date, that child could not have been yours. Who was it? Minho’s? Yunho’s?”

 

“Im Jinah, if you say anything to offend my wife again –“

 

“But I’m not offending your wife,” Nana said as she stood up from her chair, circled the table, and to Jaejoong’s horror, seated herself on the table instead.

 

“What the ,” he cursed when Nana lifted her legs so that her heels were rested on both arms of the chair Jaejoong was sitting on – trapping him instead.

 

“I’m mocking you, and your inability to keep your wife by your side and –“

 

Jaejoong’s eyes widened and out of reflex, he grabbed the gun he had in his pocket and pointed it to Nana.

 

Nana laughed at the sight of the gun pointed to her chest. As if to stress how his action did not scare her (and gave a silent reminder that instead, it was him being scared of her to the point of raising a gun at her), Nana leaned her face closer to Jaejoong’s and whispered, “Are you afraid of me, Detective? Does my beauty scare you?”

                                                                  

“…No,” Jaejoong replied, though it came more muffled than he had expected it to be.

 

“Well you should be,” Nana gave a small laugh as she brushed her blonde hair. “I’m afraid of my beauty as well, sometimes,” she said as she extended her hand to touch Jaejoong’s hand. He still did not release his grip on the gun, but with the touch, she made him somehow agree to lower it down. “I was born beautiful. So beautiful, even more beautiful than my mother.”

 

Nana’s other hand was reaching out to touch his face and Jaejoong immediately looked away. Nana, knowing that she had (always) control over those she set her eyes to, forced him to look at her again. “My mother was afraid of my beauty, Detective,” she purred as she leaned closer to his ears. “And that was why, she tried to kill me off jealousy,” Nana said as she gave a mirthful, maniacal laugh.

 

 

“…”

 

“I was and am never loved,” Nana said with a  smile, with hands that trailed to his neck, and lower to his left chest –where she could feel his heart beat faster than what he might have claimed it to be. She smirked upon the strings that were latched to his and spoke again, “But I have always been adored and obsessed over. And that’s what I need. People adore me so much, said I have a talent to bewitch people.”

 

“…Maybe you are a witch.”Jaejoong stared at her, a slight fear crept within him. Was it possible for someone to be this…inappropriately confident? He thought he might have seen reasons to all her unjustified denial. It would take one with the utmost belief in herself to be able to erase all those guilt. Jaejoong thought he had read it somewhere, a syndrome where a criminal could escape all the lie detection tests because she believed that what she did was not a crime. The incurable thickness, the absence of introspection from her… it scared him. It scared him how someone could be that…remorseless.

 

(But still you are attracted to the corrupted)

 

“A witch?” Nana echoed. “Indeed,” she agreed. “Maybe I made men do crazy things for me. You included.”

 

Jaejoong grunted and was about to take control of the situation, but Nana’s calm hand on his chest prevented him to make a move. “I don’t –“

 

“You too,” she whispered as she bit his earlobe, and Jaejoong could feel his heart paced (Yuri, he had to think of Yuri. And their healthy baby boy –was it really yours? But he was happy, and he had all he needed, and Nana was only a temptation, a ing good temptation, but he would not give in, and he was stronger than this and –). Nana smiled as she his ears and purred, “You too would fall for me.”

 

Perhaps Nana was really a witch. Perhaps, like she claimed, she had the natural talent to bewitch people. Perhaps for a moment, just for a moment, Jaejoong could understand those men who probably had to die for her –they all gave in for the temporary temptation, the promise of a temporal heaven, but heaven still.

 

All that he could not trace, all that he could not remember –not as Jaejoong lost control of his own body and found his strength back –only to use it for a wrong reason.

 

At the back of his mind, he could hear Nana’s eager laugh when he pushed her back, pinned her to the table, and he left his sanity somewhere, and started to kiss her.

 

Her lips tasted bitter; tasted of tobacco and sin and craziness and everything inappropriate. But there was something about the fact that she was that inappropriate, that it felt almost justifiable when he had the urge to corrupt her –so that she would shut up, so that she would give him the peace of mind he did not know she had denied her from the very first time he laid eyes on her.

 

Nana laughed and laughed as Jaejoong kept her arms together, chained by his stronger grip. He could hear her moan when he kissed her on the nape and when he her there, and he was crazy, she was crazy, and he lost it.

 

it. There was no one to witness this anyway.

 

 

***

 

“Drop the case.”

 

Jaejoong diverted his attention from the record of Nana he was reading (. He was reading the same material again and again. Had he fallen too deep into the whole level of madness that Nana promised him?). He looked at Lee Soo Man, one of the top men in their agency. Stammered by the unlikely visit, Jaejoong quickly dropped the papers, stood, and bowed. “Sir. I didn’t know you’d be –“

 

“Im Jinah,” Soo Man said instead as he read the name of the subject in the paper. Soo Man knocked his index finger to her file and instructed. “Don’t meddle with this woman any longer.”

 

“But I’m almost –“

 

“Drop the case, Jaejoong.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because there are things that you couldn’t and shouldn’t into.That woman included.”

 

Momentarily forgetting the fact that Soo Man was his senior, his boss, and the only person in the police agency that he should have been afraid of, Jaejoong scoffed. “What’s that? Why does she get a special treatment?”

 

“Political call,” Soo Man answered easily. “It seems that my retired superior took a liking of this woman. And while factually he holds no power in the police agency, but he’s on his way for the Major election, and frankly,” Soo Man shrugged. “I want to keep him happy.”

 

“But the evidence!” Jaejoong protested. It was impossible to drop a case where the evidence had shown too many relations to the suspect. “And her past records! She always escapes jail. I’m not having that, not when she’s under my authority –“

 

“Well, from now on, she’s no longer under your authority,” Soo Man reminded; his tone was final. “Or tell me, Jaejoong. Do you have any other reason why you personally want to attend to her case?”

 

Gritting his teeth and suppressing himself from getting into a deeper problem, Jaejoong replied, “… No.”

 

 

***

 

“…What did you do?”

 

“This?” Nana replied as she lifted her lips from his torso. “I’m making you enjoy yourself.”

 

Jaejoong groaned and pushed Nana’s body off her. Again. He had fallen again. This was the third time that he allowed lust to take over his rational mind, to allow the witch corrupt him. There was a pang of guilt and self-loathing when the image of Yuri and his son popped into his mind, and he swore he would not have done this again with Nana, but he did. “No,” he groaned as he buttoned up his shirt. “What did you do to our ex police commissioner? You choose to seduce him instead because you know seducing me will not get your wish granted?”

 

“Which one?” she asked rather earnestly. “I only remember the names of my memorable customers,” she shrugged. “I’ll remember your name, Jaejoong.”

 

“I’m not your customer,” he drew the line and his breath hitched slightly when she teasingly grabbed his .

 

“I’ll remember you still.”

 

“I don’t want to remember you.”

 

Nana laughed. “But you will,” she promised. Cooing, she whispered next to his ears. “That’s my curse. No man can forget me, no man can escape my charm. Soon, it’ll be my face you’re imagining when you’re ing your wife –“

 

His reflex got the best of him. Before he could even stop himself, Jaejoong had his hand around Nana’s neck, his fingers could have snapped her thin neck if he wished so, and there was hatred, a passion to hate someone (yet the same passion to defile someone) that was so incurable; it was eating him alive, and he hated her more and more because of that.

 

Nana knew this; Nana saw this. She smiled happily even when the hand around her neck tightened, because she knew that instead, she was enclosing Jaejoong tighter and tighter within her grasp.

 

“Witch,” he hissed. “I will not have anything to do with you and your corrupted soul any longer,” he promised, yet his hand left her neck, and trailed to her blonde hair instead, crumpling her within his fingers. As pissed he was that an easy case was being robbed off from his hand, Jaejoong thought that there was a merit in dropping the case against Nana. Nana’s soul consisted of sin, and corruption, and the worst part about it was that it was infectious. He had been disloyal to Yuri, but Nana was not comparable to Yuri, and no matter how tempting Nana was (ravishing, oh, how he wanted to ravish her), Jaejoong would choose his family above anything else.

 

“They all said that,” Nana reminisced rather fondly, before she sighed. “Well, all the good things must end sometimes. You too.”

 

“…”

 

“A goodbye kiss?” she offered. “Come on. You said it yourself, you would not have anything to do with me after this. Let’s make it memorable for the last time, okay?”

 

“I love Yuri.”

 

“Geez, I know you do,” Nana said as she rolled her eyes. “I’m just asking you to kiss me, not to love me.”

 

He frowned. He did hear this from her before, but it still baffled him how apathetic she was to the concept of love. Jaejoong thought that romance was what any girl wanted, but with Nana, what she wanted was not something as pure. It was not lust per se, either. He knew what she wanted was just that acclamation; the knowledge that she could get a hold of yet one of countless men; her satisfaction was nearly shallow, and for the briefest while, he pitied Nana, the woman who needed no love, and would forever live knowing none.

 

“You’re pathetic,” he concluded, disgusted with her and her corrupted idealism.

 

She nodded idly. “But you still want me.”

 

it. it. He was losing himself again, and she knew it.

 

But it would be the last time, his mind coaxed. Just one kiss, just one last time…

 

Jaejoong said not a word, but he pulled her hair roughly lower, as his lips descended down to claim her.

 

At the back of his mind, Jaejoong knew that this would not end up simply with a kiss.

 

***

 

 

“You’re early,” Yuri exclaimed in surprise when Jaejoong came back later that night. “Ah, but too bad, Jiwon has just fallen asleep, so I don’t think you can play with –“ her words were interrupted because Jaejoong dropped his bag and grabbed his wife and kissed her there and there, against the wall, the door to their house was even still open.

 

“J-Jaejoong?” Yuri questioned in mumbles but laughed lightly, not abhorring the idea of her suddenly passionate husband. “It’s not like the usual you. Miss me so much?”

 

Jaejoong ignored Yuri and closed his eyes and continued to kiss her.

 

Not enough. Still not enough to get rid of that ’s feel on his lips.

 

“Jaejoong, goodness, slow down!” Yuri giggled. To her, it was funny. To him, it was anything but that. This was no longer funny. The game Nana had made him play…none of it was funny anymore.

 

He didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He had to love Yuri, now, now, and fast. He had to convince himself, and prove Nana wrong, and God, why was he thinking of her again? This was Yuri, and she was his wife, and he loved her, and his mind should have been crazy of the thoughts of Yuri –

 

–and not Nana; not the way her blonde hair tousled when he wrecked her –perhaps the other way around.

 

“Soon, it’ll be my face you’re imagining when you’re ing your wife…”

 

Jaejoong’s breath hitched. He pulled himself off Yuri and stared at her in horror. This was Yuri. This was Yuri. Nana did not exist, and was not supposed to exist in his life any longer and –

 

“What’s the matter?” Yuri asked, dumbfounded with the suddenly stopping man, the look of complete terror (of realization) on his face.

 

“What’s the matter, Detective? Can’t get me off your head now?”

 

He clutched his head and shut his eyes –but even then, the image of the blonde-haired witch never left his mind.

 

***

 

The man was there again in her apartment when Nana returned. It did not surprise her, but it still annoyed her. She had not even made any actual physical with this man –the man who held authority like no other, but Yang Hyun Suk was obsessed with her already. Nana could recall that she only gave him some polite smiles when they passed each other in the police’s headquarter (her, having escaped just another frustrating interrogation with Jaejoong, and him, visiting his ex office), but Nana knew she was dangerous enough that literally one glance from her could make people obsessed over her. First, the big bouquet of flowers from Hyun Suk had been pretty harmless, then there were these friendly requests for dinner dates.

 

Nana would have accepted those –Hyun Suk was an easy target: rich, powerful, and the type who could easily fall into women –her type especially. But perhaps Nana thought teasing Jaejoong had been more fun, Nana actually did not really see the thrill in responding to Hyun Suk.

 

Asking the man how he got in was quite useless –a man as powerful as him always had his ways. Nana dropped her bag, fished for the cigarette, lit it and asked the man. “Why are you here?”

 

“Don’t I get a thanks?” Hyun Suk asked back. “The idealist detective has dropped the case against you, hasn’t he? Or has he not? Should I do something about it?”

 

Nana took off her shoes and walked to the living room of the penthouse not any could afford (but she was always of a different class) where Hyun Suk was at. He offered her a drink but Nana shook her head, keep inhaling her cigarettes instead. “You only did the unnecessary, Sir. The Detective will never press a charge against me. I could have handled him myself.”

 

“Don’t be conceited, Woman,” Hyun Suk chuckled as he gulped the drink instead. “You still owe me your freedom.”

 

Nana smiled, angelic and intact –but her reflection was always something else. “I owe nothing to any men,” she confirmed her position. “To be honest, it’s not my fault men are obsessed with me and want to do things for me. I never ask for it.”

 

Hyun Suk laughed lowly, warningly. “But we still gave everything to you.”

 

Dropping her body on the sofa, she casually only the television and looked at it without exactly watching it. She could feel Hyun Suk’s shadow was lurking behind her. She did not flinch when she felt her long, wavy blonde hair was being swept aside, and his aging fingers were trailing her collarbone. Something heavy was latched to her. She did not need to look down to see that Hyun Suk had given her a piece of necklace. The jewelry glimmered in the dimness of her penthouse. It was of exquisite quality and the diamonds that could probably even afford her place alone, but…

 

…she was used to this.

 

She was bored of this.

 

Hyun Suk did not need to look at Nana’s face to know what she was thinking. The lack of reaction, the lack of gratitude… It irked him and he roughly grabbed a fistful of her blonde hair and whispered dangerously next to her ears. “Even this is still not enough?! What do you want, Witch?!”

 

What she wanted? What she wanted really? It was nothing special.

 

“What do you want?” Nana asked instead. “If you just want my body, say so. If you just want to sleep with me, you don’t have to beat it around the bush,” Nana declared as she lunged forward slightly to put the fire of her cigarette down. When she leaned back to the sofa again, Hyun Suk had already walked around the sofa and knelt before her instead.

 

“I’m not like other men,” he gritted his teeth. “I don’t just want your body,” he assured (and Nana laughed internally –did he think she did not see where his eyes were looking?). “I want you. Your love.Your devotion. Be mine forever. I want your heart.”

 

Nana chuckled, because that was an impossible request.

 

“But a witch has no heart to give,” she reminded, a smirk on her face. “And even if I do, I won’t give it to you,” she paused to add something that she remembered Jaejoong was saying. “You’re just not my type.”

 

When Hyun Suk lost it and pushed her down the sofa, straddling her, Nana was almost amused. Almost. Men’s obsession on her always fascinated her, and she was nearly curious to know to which extent Hyun Suk would go.

 

“I can be your everything!” Hyun Suk screamed and begged. He had to beg. There was hardly anything sound in his head lately. Ever since he laid his eyes on her, she was all he could think off. He swore he was not imagining things but this siren was the first one who seduced her. Well, whether that was part of his imagination or not did not matter. All that mattered to him was that he had to either get rid off her from the insanity in his head, or own her.

 

Nana laughed. Nana collected souls, and a witch. And she was everything sinful and wrong. She was insane and she made people insane.

 

But Hyun Suk, it, he still wanted her.

 

“You can’t,” Nana casually spoke –disregarding the tears that fell from Hyun Suk’s eyes as he buried his face on her chest. “You can’t be my everything.”

 

The man –formerly known as South Korea’s most iron-hand police commissioner – had been degraded to a pitiful existence of a man. Nana should have been flattered, but she then gazed at her ceilings above and felt like… it was not enough.

 

“Why?” Hyun Suk asked as he continued to sob on her.

 

The witch almost pitied him; but then again, she always nearly pitied all men whose sanity was robbed by her. “Because your obsession to me does not run hard enough.”

 

Hyun Suk lifted his face. “I love you! I am crazy about you! I am obsessed with you!” he screamed. “What else –“

 

“It’s not enough,” Nana smiled regretfully as she tenderly combed his hair, almost apologetically. “Your obsession is not enough.”

 

Men’s obsession to him had rarely been enough. There had been some exceptional cases, but even that were still not enough: Wu Yifan dared to throw everything he had for her (his bright career as an internationally-acclaimed model, the scandal that followed him and destroyed his career overnight) and Kwon Ji-yongtoo (the delinquent rebel who had been free and unattached. It had sent Nana the biggest satisfaction when she was able to tame his wild heart). Lee Joon had almost been the perfect one. The way Lee Joon’s eyes were fixated at her when he painted her, craved the image the ideal of her in his canvas had sent Nana thrill like she had never ever felt before…

 

A desperate tear escaped her eyes and a crazy laugh escaped her lips.

 

“But it’s still not enough,” she whispered.

 

Hyun Suk continued to bawl his eyes. “Then what is enough?”

 

Nana sighed, looked at the ceiling above her again, and thought about it. “For example, a bloody desire…”

 

“…Huh?”

 

Thump.

 

Blood splattered to her face. Ruby red, vermilion and rosy blood. Red was her favorite color, and Nana smiled because he always knew how to bring her favorite flower.

 

Pieces of the now broken vase slightly scratched her face, but it was nothing in comparison to the damage Hyun Suk received when the vase was collided to the back of his skull. His eyes widened in horror and pain and terror, and Nana thought Hyun Suk looked best with those kind of eyes.

 

“…The eyes who sold me to abyss, the eyes who captured my soul and loved to imprison me in there forever,” she continued calmly, as she felt Hyun Suk’s weight was roughly being pulled from her body. She physically felt lighter, but she knew that her soul was weighed more –the sins that followed her, the curse that never left her, the man who always chained her down…

 

“Y-you?!” Hyun Suk screamed in rage when he recognized the one who had hit him from behind…

 

…and who would soon pierce his heart with the knife he carried.

 

“The lost soul who would bear my sins for me,” Nana continued her monologue calmly as she watched the (nostalgic) scene being replayed again and again: how Jaejoong crushed the man’s (men’s: Jiyoug’s, Lee Joon’s, Yifan’s) heart.

 

“A jealous lover who would think of me and me only…”

 

(You are mine. Every inch of you is mine. No men could have you. No one but me. Only mine)

 

Hyun Suk never could scream for the dagger was piercing his vocal chord as well. Jaejoong was young, and skillful, always skillful. Hyun Suk was not as strong as Kwon Ji-yong had been –this had been rather easy. Jaejoong easily lifted his former boss’ body and slammed it to the floor again, and again, and again. The soul and the life had long deserted the former police commissioner’s body, but any man who dared to claim Nana as theirs always deserved a worse punishment.

 

Nana closed her eyes and tilted her head aside. There was a trail of Hyun Suk’s blood on her face. Her index finger touched it, smeared the blood longer –because at least, this was the only way she could pay respect to those who nearly made it –to those who nearly claimed her heart (but didn’t you say you had no heart to give, witch?).

 

There was silence then, but her heart cried and her mind laughed in the mixture of everything: of the cycle that was never interrupted, of the obsession that was incurable, of the things that she had wanted and she got more than she could ever handle.

 

“Nana…” Jaejoong’s voice was hoarse as he cupped her face within his grasp. “Nana,” he breathed needily as he claimed her lips to his (only his, could only be his…)

 

The witch opened her eyes and saw her very own monster: the fruit of her spell, the karma that would never leave her, the curse that would haunt her forever. She could not run, but she loved being chased. She was afraid of the extent of things he would do, but she was always eager to find out to what extent he would prove his obsession for her. She was tired of him, yet she yearned for him.

 

“Yes, Jaejoong,” she whispered as she opened her arms and embraced the monster within her grasp; the corpse laid forgotten near her feet. “I’m yours, and only yours,” she whispered as she calmed his breaking soul, his tired mind, his sinful body. He bore her sin for her, and she would bear his sin for him. It was reciprocal, and it was deranged, but a witch and her monster could not have it any other way.

 

***

 

Jaejoong stared at the woman in the utmost irritation as she unilaterally decided to claim his cigarette as hers again. He thought that her thickness was incurable, really. Did she just love being interrogated so much? She had been miraculously freed from the charge of Wu Yifan’s murder, and now Im Jinah just had to invite herself into another case again.

 

“There’s a body of the late police commissioner, Yang Hyun Suk in your apartment,” Jaejoong recited in the interrogation room. “Your fingerprints were found on the shards of vase suspected to be his killing object. You were alone in the room, and you still deny you killed him?”

 

“I didn’t kill him,” Nana declared. “That man’s already dead when I woke up. I know nothing.”

 

“I am seriously astounded by you, Miss Im Jinah,” Jaejoong expressed as he shook his head. “It’s all so obvious, and yet you still have the audacity to deny it. You must be crazy. The level of confidence you have in yourself, the extent of denial, you’d gone to…” Jaejoong groaned, tired really. Why was he assigned to handle Im Jinah’s case again?

 

Nana smiled. “Denial, eh?” she murmured as she took a greedy inhale of tobacco. Perhaps it was not tobacco she was inhaling, perhaps it was morphine –because everything was so funny, so funny that she just had to laugh. Jaejoong told her once how a criminal could, at the very bottom of her heart, believed that she was not a criminal.

 

Talk about hypocrisy, talk about --

 

(No, it was not hypocrisy. It was just --) 

 

--naivety.

 

“Why are you laughing?” Jaejoong grumpily asked.

 

Nana ceased her laughter and wiped the excess of water from her eyes (it was so funny, she just had to cry).

 

“You’re funny, Detective,” Nana smiled innocently, secretively. “You’re so funny.”

 

 

---

---

End

---

---

Hope this is fitting to celebrate Valentine? hehe