Chapter Text
The Trickster loved his new stage. The entity’s realm was his personal record store, filled with various human instrument, although differing in quality unfortunately, ready for him to play with expert fingers and create as many albums, songs, whatever his dark heart desired.
His creativity restricted by only one condition, pleasing whatever… well entity … running this place. Unlike the strange priest lady, he refused to call her a god. Not because he was foolish to believe that she held no power but rather out of pride. ‘God’ was a term he strictly reserved for himself.
The Trickster loved his new stage, yet something was missing that always left a sour taste in his mouth, left him yearning. At first, he did not know what it was but after trial after trial after trial and no cheering voice other then the darkness whispering, he knew exactly what it was.
No adoring eyes on him. The cold crow eyes burning holes into his back while monitoring his every move did not count.
No starstruck fans stuttering and almost fainting in his presence, screaming his name in delight. The squeals and pleads for mercy from the survivors just didn’t feel the same.
No one knew who he was, Yun Jin excluded. He avoided thinking about her all too often for reasons that stayed unknown even to him. Her gaze also felt too hot.
No one besides the entity appreciated his work and sometimes in a quiet moment he resented her for it. Where was the audience she promised him? Even the supply of new instruments was lacking. Same faces, same voices, same fate.
Broken.
Dead.
A stagnating amount of albums to feed the ever hungry store shelfs was never good in the industry. Unlike Ghostface who seemed to show an obsession with knowing every little detail about every singular person inhabiting the realm, Ji-Woon did not care about the other killers or survivors. His ‘colleagues’ where strange to say the least. While he surprisingly got along with most of them they viewed him as just another killer or worse, less. Same faces looking all the same.
Bored.
Broken.
Dead.
The survivors on the other hand, had varying expressions. Looking up after being downed or staring down the hook, many different emotions crossed their faces. Not that he cared about the opinion of his prey. Indifference was the best reaction they could stir in him. Emotions where human. So honest and innocent in nature that regardless what they wanted to express, he could never truly be mad, since he was the one controlling and implanting them after all.
The Trickster wanted to see or rather hear every emotion, every sound.
Despair, as they screamed in pain, emotionally when witnessing the slaughter of their friends or physical when the sharp edge of the hook impaled their chests.
Disgust, as they look at him, considering him a monster, less of a human for indulging into these violent acts for his own pleasure, not realising that he in fact was above them all. A god gifting them with immortality through his art. A forever home in his record store.
Fear, as he finally caught them. Hatred, as he cut them open or gutted their friends.
Or an underlying pitiful, disappointed gaze, as he pinned one of the male survivors against a tree, ready to end the trial as he was the last one standing.
Wait… What?
Ji-Woon suddenly stopped his performance, one of his neon knives already softly piercing through the dark skin of the survivor, leaving drops of blood on the hungry blade. Locking eyes with the survivor with a fire behind them that should have been enough to burn a hole through their head, he double checked. Yes, unmistakably. Although the survivor squirmed a little in the Trickster’s iron grasp, there was clearly a shimmer of something else in his eyes besides pain or hate. For an unexplainable reason, that facial expression impaled itself right into his heart.
The moments of silence and hesitation did not go unnoticed by the survivor who grasped the chance to plead for his life. Yet it was not in a way Ji-Woon expected.
“I kno.. I knew you,” a raspy but clear voice whispered.
Probably scared to speak up too strongly and risk pushing the edge of the blade deeper into the soft skin. What Ji-Woon had paid to at least know the others name. To gain even only a little bit of power back that was stolen from him at that moment. Yet, while these words visibly captured his interest he did not respond, frozen in place. A fan, here? Maybe the entity gave him an audience after all? A flicker of excitement lit through his body.
No.
Something about the other was familiar. He has seen him here before, he recalled with a strange feeling in his stomach.
“What happened to you?”
This broke whatever spell lay upon him and evoked a small chuckle, mostly muffled by the mask Ji-Woon wore this trial.
“What happened to me,” he responded almost mocking, a soft tone laced with venom.
Sharp, punishing but also an invitation for a conversation he usually avoided. They where not necessary, he performed, the survivors died. No need or time for a pleasant chat. But for a fan… For a fan he would make time.
“I.. um,” the other tried to stutter an explanation while avoiding looking him directly in the eyes, clearly intimidated by Ji-Woon’s unmoving, piercing stare.
“What. Cat got your tongue?”
To undermine his words, the Trickster gently lifted the knife from the survivors throat and brushed it over trembling lips. As the man in front of him still made no move to continue his statement, he disapprovingly clicked his tongue and in a swift motion took a step back. Disappointment was a nasty felling. Maybe not a fan but a fake.
“What a shame. I thought this was going to be interesting.”
He reached for his beloved bat, ready to strike, just as the survivor regained his composure and reached out his arm in an hopeless attempt to protect himself.
“Wait! Wait, please. I attended one of your concerts with my students, you left quite the impression.”
That peaked the Trickster’s interest again, who lowered his weapon. An unexpected feeling of warmth filled his chest. Maybe there has always been some sort of audience, he just didn’t pay enough attention. Encouraged by his lowered guard, the other continued with a much more confident voice.
“You achieved so much with purely talent, hard work, dedication and a dream. Always finding a way to overcome the terrible events life threw in your way. It was inspiring and a hopeful message . But now you are here. I do not understand. Shouldn’t you be on our side? What happened to you? How did you end up as a marionette of som…”
“A marionette?” The Trickster who until now had soaked up the praise like a starving plant hissed in a sudden outburst of anger.
His before indifferent expression turning into a dangerous one. Shaking his head in disbelieve, Ji-Woon retorted.
“Did my dear manager not drag my name through the dirt and when she arrived? Happy to be a saviour and feel better about herself to hide her share in what happened, thinking she is above me. Did she not tell you, no, warn you all that I am a monster. That I love what I do. That I am not something you need to pity and treat like a fragile object that just needs a little bit of wood glue to be fixed, to shine again,” he spat, his voice rising with every sentence, “I am above all that. I Have always been. The world was just not ready for the greatness I created, so I needed to hide my true self. I do not need to be manipulated, I am not some marionette. If the entity, my puppeteer, wouldn’t hold me back…” he paused, imagining all the ways to play his human instruments, the knowledge and skill he has accumulated over his creative career “… I would put you all in pains you could never imagine. Make you into something grate even if your pitiful little minds can not grasp it.”
The others face paled and an expression of horror crossed his face. But as Ji-Woon finished his monologue, the survivor seemed to have regained his composure. His brows furrowed stubbornly, reflecting the anger right back at Ji-Woon even though he did not indulge in it.
“Oh she did. Yet, if you are so enthusiastically participating in all of this, why did you loose the spark in your eyes?“ He asked calmly, not impressed by the Trickster’s threat all of a sudden.
Ji-Woon stared at him in disbelieve, too taken aback by this absurd assumption. How dare a survivor, some sheep, to question his dedication to the entity, no to his work, his life?
“You, Ji-Woon,” the mentioning of his name almost felt like a slap into the face, “have always been a person that thrived under an audience, that was most happy in the spotlight…”
“And here I have an audience that finally understands what I create,” the idol almost screamed.
This is getting silly, he should just smash his head open with the blade. Knock some sense into him. But he couldn’t. The survivor just scoffed and rolled his eyes.
“Oh right, because the being feeding and living of pain and misery now also has a sense for music. You are a tool. You are nothing here. And deep down you know that.”
The words twisted deeper than any of his knives ever could. For the first time in an eternity Ji-Woon was speechless. The anger inside of him burned like an uncontrolled fire, yet it stayed inside his body, only setting himself on flames instead of the world around him.
As if sensing that he had hit a nerve, the survivor continued, “And spare me the response that you are not. If you truly want to prove that, let me go, resist her.”
That words broke whatever spell lay upon Ji-Woon and he laughed. Not a happy or amused laugh, a crazy, unhinged laugh that made the survivor flinch in expectation of neon knives impaling his body. But nothing happened. The Trickster just laughed, a hand brushing back loose strands of hair. A hidden attempt to compose himself.
“I see now. You are trying to manipulate me into letting you go. This is why you even care in the first place. You want me to spare you.”
Besides the underlying nervousness about whether or not a knife will be thrown in his direction at any moment, the other man, this stranger, seemed unphased by the accusation.
“Of course I don’t want to die but that doesn’t mean that I do not care. I am not delusional, I can not magically fix or change your mind but maybe you can come to that conclusion yourself. I have seen other killers do it. Or better noticing the influence the entity has over them. This..” he took a wide gesture with his arms “… is not a solution. There must be a way to escape you could help…”
He was cut of by not a knife, but the Trickster’s bat smashing into the tree he was pinned against only a few minutes before. It missed by only a few millimetres that left the survivor wondering if it was on purpose or not.
“Geumanhae!” He screamed as his barely restrained anger finally got the better of him. “I have entertained your bullshit long enough. You are overstepping, you are insulting me. And I don’t like being disrespected. The entity gave me a gift, gave me freedom, gave me all I ever wanted. Now you not only want to take that away from me, you also think that I am an idiot and help you to do so.”
“Then let me go. Prove it. Prove that you are not the one being blind!” He fired back just as heated. The audacity of that man. “If you are so certain of yourself, do something she will dislike.”
Ji-Woon just shook his head. The survivor was clever, he had to give him that. The Trickster did not want to let his prey go but killing him would prove the other’s point, bruising his ego. Now that he had time to take a closer look at the survivor, he actually recognised him. Not only strange familiarity, recognition. One of the kind hearted ones he was. Always making sure the others where safe, even at his own expenses. Always trying to see the good in everything, trying to befriend the killers, appeal to the human side inside of them.
At least so he heard other killers, mainly Ghostface, talk and after today, he had a face matching the stories. And despite horrid things happening to him, he never grew hateful. Proven by a glimmer of softness behind those beautiful, deep brown eyes. Ji-Woon did not know his name but it didn’t matter. Seems like they recognised each other, which was a rare occurrence on his end.
Maybe he deserved to escape this one trial. His screams where not that special anyway. Too rough at the edges, no range, a mediocre instrument. Perhaps better used to read poetry. The survivor looked like the kind to read poems. Would he read one for him?
‘Stop it Ji-Woon, where are these thoughts coming from?' A voice from within him scolded.
‘You are a killer, an artist, a god. Does a god leave it’s audience waiting? Isn’t that your whole purpose, your dream? To be remembered, to be cherished, be loved. Don’t keep your audience waiting.’
The words where intoxicating, they cleared his mind from the confusing thoughts and emotions. The Trickster’s gaze found his own in the reflection of the sharp blade of his aluminium bat, still embedded inside the tree. Piercing yellow, brightly glowing eyes stared back at him. They looked wild, dangerous, excited. They looked like they craved blood. How dare this heretic to question him?
He will make him pay.
A surprised yelp. The sounds of tearing flesh, bones cracking. Ji-Woon barely noticed them.
Silence.
The Trickster was soaked in blood, breathing heavily and shaking from adrenaline, staring dismissively at the body to his feet, barely recognisable.
‘He deserved it. He wanted to use you for his own benefits. He never truly cared,’ the voice whispered.
It was right to kill him. On second thought it took way to long.
Ji-Woon observed his own reflection in the puddle of blood. Tearstained, empty eyes looking back at him.