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Jongwoo can’t sleep.
Jongwoo hasn’t been able to sleep in a long time.
It started when his superior would wake him in the wee hours of the morning with a horn to rattle his eardrums. Jongwoo remembers jerking awake and barely registering the laughter. He remembers having to go through the day with a shrill ringing in his ears.
He remembers sleeping when he shouldn’t have and being forced into a position that put too much strain on his neck and had blood filling his head, leaving him with a pounding ache.
After his military service, he’d turned to sleeping pills that eventually stopped working and had him resorting to herbal tea.
Eden gave him nightmares. Jongwoo didn’t think anything could be worse than his military days, but the just under two weeks he spent at Eden proved him wrong.
And the nights he’s been struggling through since have miraculously been even worse. The worst.
Jongwoo thinks he deserves a break. He should be cut some slack for once in his fucking life.
He hasn’t felt so restless in months.
Tonight, he twists and turns and tries listening to audio-books. He drinks celery soup and chamomile tea, but none of it helps.
He goes for a run in the middle of the night, sprinting laps around the small house 304 had purchased for them on the outskirts of Seoul. That’s what used to somewhat help back when he enlisted. It used to tire him out.
This time, it only gives him a rush of adrenaline.
He takes a hot shower once he’s back, hoping that he’d be exhausted by the time his body has regulated its temperature.
He isn’t.
He ends up sitting in the living room, legs folded to the side and a novel in hand. The lights are out save for the lamp near the couch, illuminating the words enough for him to make sense of them.
He hasn’t been able to immerse himself in reading lately. It’s been a while. A bit too long for his liking. But even now, over thirty pages into a widely-acclaimed book that’s definitely cut out for him, he finds himself losing interest and having to repeat lines and paragraphs and pages.
“You’re awake.”
An observation rather than a question.
Jongwoo licks his thumb and turns the page without finishing it.
“Mm,” he hums shortly. Doesn’t look up.
“Couldn’t sleep, honey?”
Jongwoo swallows thickly and inhales a slow breath before lifting his head. “What’s it to you?”
304 smiles amiably from the doorway. “I haven’t been able to sleep well either, is all.”
“Do we deserve to?” Jongwoo asks back. Breathless. “After everything?”
He puts the book down and climbs to his feet.
Doesn’t really— He doesn’t really wait for an answer because he already knows it.
...
The people whose blood stains Jongwoo’s hands crawl into his sleep the next night, smudging his dreams with red, clawing at his face with chipped nails.
He jerks awake, the phantom of hands squeezing his neck.
His chest rises and falls, sweat on his brow and nape as he tries to calm himself down.
His heart pounds in his ears, fingers curling inwards as he struggles to keep his eyes open. He thinks he doesn’t deserve the momentary rest of a blink either.
304 pushes the door open, and he says, “Honey, are you okay?”
Jongwoo looks at him, mouth parted as he tries to fill his lungs with enough oxygen. With air he has no claim to.
“Get out,” he says, bitten off and clogged with ache. “Get out of my room.”
He doesn’t sleep after that.
...
“Would you like some tea?”
“No,” Jongwoo rasps. His thumb sits comfortably between his teeth, eyes fixed on the screen of a muted television.
“Honey, you look anxious,” 304 says softly. “You haven’t been sleeping well.”
Jongwoo doesn’t respond.
...
A few broken sleeps later, Jongwoo finds his window open, and he’s been calm.
He’s been calm. Since Eden. Since he’d taken years of built up emotions out on the people there.
He thought these past few months have been the aftermath of catharsis, but now he’s beginning to realize that maybe he misunderstood, maybe his rage is recharging. He thinks he’ll never truly escape it.
Because he steps out, and he points behind him loosely, and he says, “Yah. Were you in my room?”
304 looks at him.
“I asked you a fucking question,” Jongwoo grits out.
“I opened your windows,” 304 states. “I heard high temperatures can make you more prone to nightmares.”
The anger drains too quickly. It leaves him out of control. Dizzy on his axis. His eyes sting. He feels messy. A clump of emotions stuffed in a body that just wants rest.
“I never asked you to do that,” his voice wobbles. “I never—”
He turns around and goes back into his room.
And he sleeps. For a few minutes over two hours before guilt wakes him with a bite into his uvula.
He curls up in bed, legs folded to his chest with his arms wrapped around them.
He’s cold.
He thinks he doesn’t deserve warmth either.
Not even that gut-heat of anger.
He leaves the windows wide open.
...
Jongwoo’s making himself something to eat when 304 comes to stand in the doorway.
“How did you sleep?”
“None of your business,” Jongwoo says back.
“What has you so restless, honey?”
Jongwoo chews on his mouthful of food and chases it down with a long gulp of water. “That’s none of your business either.”
He doesn’t let the conversation continue. He puts his sandwich on the plate and brushes past Moonjo to go to the living room, where he quietly eats his lunch.
Later, around the time 304 usually retires to his room, Jongwoo pulls a hoodie on and leaves the house to sit on a swing in the park down the street.
He listens to the squeaking metal, rhythmic and grating, with his head against the chain of the swing.
His eyes drop shut. Exhausted.
He’s exhausted.
The sound of metal chafing metal reminds him of the door to the 4th floor. It puts him at ease.
There’s a brief lag in the to and fro of the swing that reminds him of the landlady’s fan.
He takes a deep breath, and.
“Do you mind company?”
Jongwoo exhales slowly, but he says nothing as 304 sits in the swing beside his.
“I’ve never been on one of these.”
“I don’t care,” Jongwoo whispers. “I really don’t care.”
304’s silent until he’s talking again.
“Deukjong wasn’t always like that.”
Jongwoo stops his idle swinging.
“The landlady wasn’t very nice to him,” 304 goes on. “He was... a failed experiment of hers, let’s say.”
Jongwoo’s hands curl tighter around the chains.
“She took me in when I was nine,” 304 adds. “A neglected child with his parents’ blood on him.”
Jongwoo looks over at him.
“She washed my hands and she gave me pajamas and that was the most care I’ve ever gotten from anyone.
“She saw potential in the blood on my hands. She— hm. There was a boy. Around my age then. Perhaps a little older. He pushed me on the playground, and as any child would do, I ran to her to complain,
“She told me to kill him. She told me he had no one. He had no parents. No one would notice.”
“You killed him.”
“I broke his arm in an attempt to. I tried again when she showed disappointment. The twins already disappointed her by only killing animals, she wanted an accomplice, not an amateur.”
“So what? Did you become her successful experiment?”
“She’d still be here if I did, don’t you think?”
Jongwoo stares ahead.
“Is it guilt?” 304 questions. “Is that what’s keeping you up, honey?”
Jongwoo scoffs. Something wry and mocking.
“I know what you’re doing.”
“Enlighten me.”
“You’re trying to tell me about her crimes so I don’t feel guilty about killing her, so I feel like it was some sort of necessary evil; the world’s better off without her. But, you see…
“I don’t regret any of it.”
“Then what is it?” 304 shifts in the swing to face Jongwoo.
Jongwoo’s knuckles blanch. His toes rub against each other in his shoes. He opens his mouth.
“Is necessary evil a thing or did people make it up to feel better about the crimes they’ve committed?”
He lets the question hang for a moment.
“I didn’t do it because it was necessary.”
He sniggers, shaking his head at his own words.
“It’s not a necessary evil when you enjoy it. Right?”
“No, honey,” Moonjo murmurs. “It’s art.”
Jongwoo purses his lips, but he says nothing.
304 stands up. “Come home when you’re ready.”
He takes a few steps away.
“By the way..”
304 trails to a stop and half turns.
“What’s your name?”
Visibly pleased with the question, 304 does a whole 180, his shoulders sagging. “Seo Moonjo.”
“Is that your real name?” Jongwoo lifts a brow.
“No,” Seo Moonjo replies. “But it’s the closest to one I have.”
…
Jongwoo knew the landlady was evil; she killed and ate people for God’s sake. But it’s one thing being hurtful to strangers, and a whole different thing being hurtful to those who consider you family.
So despite everything, it placates Jongwoo knowing she was a dreadful person. Knowing that no one really loved her, no one misses her. The world is indeed a somewhat better place without her.
It makes sleep come easier but last just as shortly.
He hears Moonjo on the other side of the wall, listening to Mozart and shuffling around the room.
It puts Jongwoo at ease, knowing he can’t sleep either.
...
“You’ve strangled someone before, haven’t you?” Jongwoo asks. “...‘The heat of a thousand degrees’... that was from hands-on experience, wasn’t it?”
“I have,” and, “It was.”
Jongwoo turns his brightness down and looks up at Moonjo.
It’s past midnight.
He thinks they should be in their respective rooms by now.
He thinks they’re both seeking comfort in each other’s insomnia.
“How did you feel?”
“Godly.”
Jongwoo blinks at him.
“It was someone who was devoted to me,
“I sedated him, but…
“I don’t think I needed to. He wouldn’t have struggled either way.”
“Who was it?” Jongwoo questions.
“The man from 302.”
Jongwoo nods.
Looks at his dimmed screen.
“Was he your first… after your parents?”
“Mm.”
Jongwoo waits a beat before asking his next question.
“Have you ever thought about killing me?”
“No.”
Quieter, Moonjo confesses,
“But I think about your hands around my neck.”
Jongwoo breathes out steadily.
“I don’t think I’d struggle either. You strip me of my survival instincts, honey.”
And,
“I’d feel just as godly dying at your hands.”
Jongwoo wordlessly goes back to his document.
…
Jongwoo dreams later that night. It’s short-lasting, flashes of hands and skin and breathless pleasure. A choked-off jagiya before his eyes snap open.
The windows are still open. Jongwoo wouldn’t have survived if it had been summer. Mosquitoes are a different breed of nightmares.
The windows are still open, and Jongwoo’s burning up. It’s not a fever. It’s the influence of a dream. The heat of a thousand degrees and long fingers encasing his throat. Of his own fingers encasing a throat. He reaches under the covers, and he gets himself off with his mouth parted on a whisper of the closest thing to a name 304 has.
…
“How do you want me to do it?”
“Slowly,” Moonjo answers. Falling in with Jongwoo’s thoughts as if they’re his own.
“With my hands?”
“With anything you want,” Moonjo’s reply comes. Small. Devoted. He’s already to Jongwoo what 302 was to him.
“Do you want me?”
Moonjo takes his time. Jongwoo sees the way he lets the question rest on his tongue. Twists it. Presses it to the inside of his teeth and swallows it letter by letter.
“What an absurd thing to ask.”
“Do you?”
Moonjo looks at him. A smile tilts his mouth upwards. “Yes. More than I deserve to want anything.”
Jongwoo’s throat bobs, nails picking at each other uselessly.
“And if—
“When you get sick of me? What’ll you do? Sedate and kill me? Eat me?”
Moonjo smiles.
“Hm. I’d rather it be the other way around,” he says lightly. “You’re complete. I’m merely a finishing touch.”
…
He’s expecting it. The nightmare that night. The concerned knock followed by the, Are you okay, honey?
He’s still dazed from barely-acquired sleep when he tells Moonjo to come closer. Jongwoo thinks he might still be dreaming when he feels Moonjo’s mouth on his, his hands on his skin, ghostly cold. The sheets rip in his grip when Moonjo sinks down on him. He shifts his hold onto Moonjo’s hips and makes himself part of him until the sound of their joint pleasure drowns out the sound of bone meeting flesh and metal hitting enamel.
He leaves scars deep enough to sink through the material covering Moonjo’s hips in loose black. Moonjo’s nails slice into his knuckles as Jongwoo spills inside him.
When he wakes in the middle of the night, Moonjo’s in the kitchen.
Jongwoo stands there for a handful of disoriented moments before he says, How did you sleep?
“I managed a few hours,” Moonjo says. “What about you?”
“What do you think?” Jongwoo asks back.
Moonjo blinks at him. He smiles. “Going by the sounds you were making, I’m sure you slept well.”
Jongwoo does a double take.
He opens his mouth. He closes it. Looks at his hands. At where the imprints of nails should be.
Aren’t.
“I thought you were having a nightmare,” Moonjo admits. “You see, fear and arousal are hardly distinguishable.”
Heat drops shamefully in the pit of Jongwoo’s belly.
“What do you dream about, honey?” Moonjo puts the knife down. “Who hurts you?”
“It’s—”
Jongwoo feels gutted. He feels turned inside out. He can’t fucking hide. Not from 304.
“They’re dead,” Moonjo assures. “All of them. The disgusting man who terrorized you outside his room, and the twins who taunted you, and the landlady. Even the boy down the hall—”
Moonjo stops, and he moves in closer. “Is it me? Do I visit your dreams?”
“No,” Jongwoo lies. At least not the bad ones.
“Are you afraid of me?”
“No.”
Moonjo’s mouth curls up, and Jongwoo’s about to open his own to say something, to say anything.
A deafening bang explodes outside the house, scattering in sparks into the sky and flashes behind Jongwoo’s eyelids.
A grenade trapped between his jaws. Laughter. Jo Kanghyun. The loss of control. His fists ripping open.
He steps back. Almost stumbles trying to leave the kitchen unfazed.
…
“Hi.”
The man stills. His back is to Jongwoo, shoulders stiff under the fishing jacket.
He turns his head, side-eyes Jongwoo to make sure he’s there before he goes back to gutting a fish.
Jongwoo shifts.
“How— How are you?”
The echoing silence isn’t a surprise; Jongwoo knows he lost all his teeth and can’t really form words that don’t sound like a jumble of slurred letters.
Ahn Heejoong.
That’s his name.
Jongwoo swallows.
“...You started a fishing business,” he waves a hand and shifts back on his heels, trying his hardest to break the tension. “Congratulations.”
The cleaver slams down, lodging into the chopping board.
Jongwoo blinks at Heejoong, who glares right back. His scar looks darker in this weather.
“I’m sorry.”
He’s not expecting the shift in expression. He’s not expecting the barely perceptible kindness in the former thug’s eyes.
“And I’m…” Jongwoo sniffles, rubbing his septum as he looks away. “I’m glad you’re alive.”
Heejoong scoffs. Laughs and shakes his head and enunciates a word that vaguely sounds like, gae saekki.
Jongwoo purses his lips and steps back, clapping his hands together with finality. He’s about to leave. But Heejoong reaches for a vest, and he throws it at him, and Jongwoo catches it on instinct.
He eyes it. Confused, then not.
Overwater, he gains two fish for dinner and the closest thing to a friend he’s had in a while.
…
The house is eerily quiet when Jongwoo steps inside.
He stops at the door, halfway through toeing his shoe off as he peers in.
It’s dark. But Jongwoo can sense 304’s presence inside. He slowly finishes taking his shoes off, then his jacket. Any thought of showering to scrub the stench of fish off him is gone by the time he’s in the living room’s doorway.
“What—”
His eyes are frantic, moving to and fro between Moonjo and the man tied to the chair in place of the table usually centering the room.
“What is this?”
Moonjo’s sitting on the couch, legs spread and head tilted back, eyes closed with a knife loose in his grip.
Upon hearing Jongwoo’s voice, he hangs his head to the side and looks at him.
“You’re home.”
“I asked you a question,” Jongwoo grits out. “What the hell is this?”
Moonjo’s chest rises with an inhale.
“It took some digging,” he says passively. “To find your year of enlistment. To find the name of your superior…”
Jongwoo’s heart drops.
“Tracking him down was easy,” Moonjo twirls the knife in his hand and waves it loosely at the tied up man. “Not many Jo Kanghyuns were investigated for abuse of power and violence in the military.”
Jongwoo’s hand shakes when he reaches for the light switch and turns it on.
A breath rocks out of him.
“Yah—”
Small, breathless. Weak.
“Would you like to do the honors?” Moonjo holds out the knife.
Kanghyun screams behind the tape wrapped around his lower face.
Jongwoo rushes over to him and rips the tape off.
“Who are you people?!”
Jongwoo’s efforts to undo the rope from around his former superior’s legs loosen once he hears his voice.
Close your eyes.
Head down.
I said close your eyes, moron.
Psycho.
What a small voice.
Head down.
Let go and you’re dead.
“What are you doing?” Kanghyun hisses. “Untie me.”
Jongwoo pulls his hands away. Steps back and coils them into tight fists.
“There you go,” Moonjo murmurs.
The knife in his grip seems to be there to serve more than one purpose.
It’s there to kill Jongwoo’s nightmares. But it’s also there to slough off Jongwoo’s facade once again. It’s growing back.
Time to molt, honey.
He looks at Moonjo. The pride in his eyes. His own growing godliness echoed in depthless irises.
“Psychopaths,” Kanghyun spits, lurching in his chair.
“People usually pray,
“Is this your idea of praying?” Moonjo asks him. He pauses, blowing his hair away from his face as he shifts. “Not that your God can help you, but desperation would be a nice look on you, Kanghyun-ssi.”
“This is a crime!”
“Is it?” Moonjo tilts his head.
“And what you did wasn’t?” Jongwoo asks.
The question peals loud in the room.
“Huh?” Jongwoo breathes, ears ringing as he stares at the man. “Do you know who I am?”
Kanghyun looks at him, fear starting to bleed into his eyes.
“Do you even remember me?”
And there’s something heinous about it, about the complete lack of familiarity. How many people has this man tormented? How many fucking people is Jongwoo forgettable to?
Jongwoo had fought back. He’d beaten him to a goddamn pulp.
Right?
He’s sure he did. He’s sure—
He’d almost killed him.
How can this pathetic excuse for a human being not remember him when Jongwoo had fucking— fought back?
“Let’s play a game,”
Jongwoo’s gaze shifts to Moonjo. He shakes his head. “We’re not doing this,” he’s snatching the knife out of Moonjo’s hand. “We’re not doing this.”
“But I haven’t even explained the premise, honey.”
There’s a pout in Moonjo’s voice. This is all just— just fun to him.
Art.
“Please.”
“Shut up,” Jongwoo hisses at the abductee.
“I have a family.”
“I said shut up,” Jongwoo grits. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Think about it,” Moonjo says quietly. “He has a family. What do you have, Kanghyun-ssi? A mother? A brother?”
Kanghyun nods like he’s just going along with anything being said to him, garnering as much sympathy as he can. “A fiancée—”
“Ah, a fiancée,” Moonjo nods, smiling softly. “Of course.”
Jongwoo’s heart is in his throat.
“Think about it,” Moonjo repeats. He’s closer, his voice a brush of lips against Jongwoo’s ear. “What do you have, honey? Do you think it’s fair?
“After everything he’s put you through, he’s living his life.”
“Shut up,” Jongwoo utters.
“With his fiancée,” Moonjo laughs the emphasis. “Does he even remember your name?”
Kanghyun looks between them. “It’s— It’s Yoon, right?” he blurts. “Two years ago. You slept during your night shifts—”
Head down. Close your eyes.
Are you deaf, byeongshin? Yah!
A jab to Jongwoo’s temple, a slap to his cheek, a derisive laugh.
Jongwoo blinks, sight blurred.
“—I’m sorry.”
“Shut up,” Jongwoo croaks.
“Yah, hear me out. I was stupid back then. I didn’t mean it, okay? Just let me go—”
“Shut up,” Jongwoo’s voice swells. “Shut your mouth.”
He squats down to start cutting his ropes.
Kanghyun sags, laughing breathlessly with relief. “You’re doing the right thing.
“Look, I’ll give you a job– I can smell that stench of fish on you. Are you still working with your mother? I’ll find you a job in my dad’s company, yeah?”
Jongwoo stares up at him, hand easing off.
“What are you doing?” Kanghyun wiggles in his restraints. “Untie me.”
Jongwoo’s grip on the knife tightens.
Look at him. Moron. Smells like his mom’s disgusting little corner shop.
“Aish, you son of a bitch,"
Kanghyun reels forward with a snarl.
“Untie me! I’ll give you everything I have, you-”
It’s done in a blink.
Jongwoo lifts the knife and lodges it in flesh. He’s not sure where at first, too blinded to be precise. But he pulls it out of Kanghyun’s cheek and lunges it back in a beat later.
And again.
Blood pours out of Kanghyun’s mouth, along with his last breath before he sags.
Gone. Just like that. Just-
“Always so artistic, honey.”
“Shut up,” Jongwoo heaves. The demand shakes, hand releasing the knife.
Moonjo shuts up. He takes Jongwoo to the bathroom.
“How do you feel?”
Jongwoo scrubs his hand raw beneath the faucet. The blood seems to have sunk into his dermis, ineffaceable and red. So fucking red.
Moonjo takes his hands. “Easy,” he coos.
“Is he dead?”
Moonjo picks the blood out from under Jongwoo’s nails. “I sure hope so. Otherwise he's defaced at best.”
“Why did you bring him here?”
“For you,” Moonjo directs his efforts to the blood on the teeth ringing Jongwoo’s wrist. “I want you to sleep well.”
“You could’ve killed him yourself,” Jongwoo bites back.
“Mm,” Moonjo agrees. “He hurt you too much to be killed by me.”
“Then why didn’t you kill her?” Jongwoo pulls his hands away from Moonjo’s and turns to look at him.
Moonjo opens his mouth. Hangs his head and sighs out his nose.
“She hurt you, didn’t she? Why did you make me do it? What? Were you too much of a fucking coward to do it yourself?”
“I thought it was romantic to let you do it for me.”
“Bullshit.”
Moonjo huffs an amused breath from his nostrils.
He laughs like he’s saying, You got me. But his next sentence is in the same vein,
“I wanted to give you everything I have.”
Jongwoo frowns at him.
“I took everything from you,”
And, lower, softer,
“It’s only fair that you do the same.”
Jongwoo lets out a weak breath.
“I’ve given you my family,
“My status,
“My visibility.”
Jongwoo huffs an attempt at flippancy from the side of his mouth, looking away.
“To the world, I’m a dead psychopath who killed his found family,” Moonjo tilts his head. “But what about you? What am I to you?”
Exactly the same.
A fucking devil. A prison. An unfeeling corrupt antonym of humanity.
“Will you look at me, honey?”
Jongwoo does as asked, harshly, teeth clenched together. He hates it, the way Moonjo’s looking at him. The very contradiction of the definitions Jongwoo’s given him.
“Do you want me?” Moonjo asks.
Jongwoo stares at him. Wants to mock him, wants to– to shove past him and tell him he needs to shower. To clean up. To get rid of the fucking body tied to a chair right outside.
Moonjo doesn’t ask again. He’d never ask again if Jongwoo told him not to.
He can tell him not to. He can. But then the yearning meant for two will be an agony caged in a single body, and Jongwoo’s always been selfish.
His shoulders unthaw, and he swallows past the lump in his throat. He parts his lips, glances away then back to eyes meant only for him.
Moonjo looks back. From his eyes to his mouth then his eyes again.
Jongwoo sniffles and moves past him. Waits till he’s at the door, back to 304. He stops for a single heartbeat before he lets his words worm out.
“More than you deserve to be wanted.”