Chapter Text
"Cause when she loves
She only shows it through dead deer."
- WHEN SHE SMILES, gigi perez
(how to catch a falling knife; 2023)
Joowon is going to go to jail.
That’s the first thought that hits him as he stares down at his father’s body— his father’s corpse. Joowon has no defensive wounds. Han Kihwan was struck on the back of his head with a wine bottle. There are shards of glass in the man’s skull, red blood mixing with red wine.
Despite his injury, Joowon stares down as if expecting his father to stand up again. To lecture Joowon, to fight back, to do something. Anything.
He doesn’t.
Joowon needs to sit down. His hands are shaking, his vision blurred, and he can feel the lamb he had for dinner threatening to make a reappearance. The feeling of bile in his mouth is enough to make him want to claw out his own tongue.
He needs to do something. Anything. He has been standing here for too long. The picture of his father’s body, half slumped over a leather chair, is burned into his retinas, but he can’t bring himself to move. There’s some part of him, so irrational and naive, that it's certain that if he turns around, Han Kihwan is going to rise from the dead and wrap his bloodied hands around Joowon’s throat.
He decides on a shower. His white shirt is splattered with red drying brown, his hands are sweaty and bleeding, and tears stain his face. The water is burning hot, and Joowon sinks to the marble floor, letting it wash over him until the red water runs clear. He scrubs at his skin until it’s stinging and raw and the water runs red again and he can no longer feel Han Kihwan’s blood underneath his fingernails.
Once he’s thoroughly cleaned, not enough, his father’s blood still runs through him like a river of sins , he returns to the sitting room. Everything is as he left it. He briefly considers hiding the body somewhere. Dropping it into the Han River. Stuffing it into the wall. Cutting it into a million small pieces and slowly disposing of it so that nobody notices. Hosting an elaborate dinner party and feeding the body to his guests as finger food, but with genuine fingers.
I’m definitely going insane , Joowon concludes, and promptly vomits onto the carpet.
He has to take another two showers and brush his teeth four times (as well as one good 10 minute session of staring into the fogged up bathroom mirror and questioning his life choices) before he can bring himself to reenter the room. In the end, Joowon can’t bring himself to touch the corpse without launching himself into another panic attack.
He doesn’t know what to do. He is too often his father’s puppet, the obedient son of the future Commissioner General. What use is a puppet if its strings are cut? He briefly considers killing himself. Proving that he’s just as much a coward as his mother was. Wouldn’t that be the most satisfying “fuck you” to his father? Ruining him and his legacy in one night.
There’s a knife in his hand now. It’s one of his father’s fancy Japanese ones that he got imported last year. The handle is cool against Joowon’s skin, which still feels like it’s on fire. Someone knocks on the door. They must be here to take Joowon away. They knock again. Don’t they know the door’s unlocked?
Joowon carefully places the knife back in its drawer and walks to the door.
“Joowon!” Hyuk greets, lifting up a plastic bag in one hand, “How was your trip? Father messaged that you got back. You should’ve told me! I brought some food.”
Joowon swallowed and moved to close the door on the other man, “Now isn’t a good time.”
Hyuk’s smile falters, and he attempts to look into the house, but Joowon blocks his view.
“Well, in all honesty,” the man says, awkwardly shifting his grip on the bag, “I needed to speak with Father about something. It’ll be quick, I promise.”
And for some reason, that’s the funniest thing Joowon has ever heard, and he’s laughing. He’s laughing and there are tears streaming down his face and Hyuk is staring at him like he’s insane. He’s saying something, but Joowon’s ears are ringing and it sounds like rain. Pouring down, a storm to sweep him away.
The man reaches out— maybe to comfort him, or push him aside, and Joowon flinches— barely, Hyuk shouldn’t even notice, nobody should— and then they’re both silent.
The rain keeps pouring.
Hyuk pulls the door further open and slides past Joowon, who doesn’t attempt to stop him. Joowon stands in the doorway and stares at the faint imprint of mud that Hyuk’s shoes track into the house.
“Joowon—” And now Hyuk is in front of him— when did he get there?— wet hands gripping tightly on his shoulders, and the clean shirt Joowon had put on is bloody again, “Joowon. Joowon, what happened?”
“Don’t touch me,” Joowon says, because it’s easier than saying ‘I killed my father’.
Hyuk, thankfully, listens and drops his hands. “Are you okay?”
Joowon is perhaps the furthest he has ever been from ‘okay’. But from the way Hyuk’s gaze flickers over Joowon, searching him for injuries, it’s clear it’s not Joowon’s mental state he’s asking about. He nods slowly.
“We need to… to call someone. The police.”
We are the police. It’s a joke, a dumb one. The police help people. The Han family has never helped anyone but themselves.
“Joowon,” Hyuk snaps his fingers in front of his face. Joowon blinks. “What happened?”
“I…” he opens and closes his mouth like some sort of strange fish. No words come out.
“I think I killed him.” Joowon says at last.
Hyuk’s expression drops flat, into something completely unreadable. Joowon dreads what he’s going to say. His mind races through millions of possibilities in the span of a few seconds. You’re a monster. How could you? You’re going to prison. You should’ve died instead. You—
“Where are your security cameras?”