Work Text:
The text comes during work.
Lee Seonghae
Soleumieeeeee
Help pleaseee?
I’m dying with this job ( uT v T u)
Soleum stares at it for a while.
Then, he puts down his coffee. He exits the break room while ignoring his coworkers’ remarks that they have thirty more minutes left, and works with enough speed that allows him to leave early.
It’s located in one of those neighbourhoods this time, the kind where the streets are always empty and quiet, where either everyone stays home, or no one actually lives there.
The wind clings to his skin as he walks out of his car. Harsh and cold, enough that he has to hold down the hood of his jacket to keep it from flying off.
Soleum ignores his nerves when he enters the building. A little old decrepit thing that’s been long abandoned by its former owners. He tries not to stare or think too much about it, at the peeling paint or creaking floorboards, or the fact that it seems like he’s walking straight into a haunted house filled with vengeance ghosts.
This does not remind me of a horror movie. He quickly speeds up at the sound of a chair falling over randomly. This does not remind me of a horror movie.
A metallic smell fills the air; distinct enough to detect it, mellow enough not to gag.
He follows it. His nose isn’t strong or anything, but following the smell usually leads to a trail of blood, and said trail leads to wherever she is.
Like always, Soleum is right.
Seonghae’s face lights up when she sees him. Her doll-like features were filled with warmth.
“Soleum, you’re here!” She says, smiling wide and bright like always. “Did you run a red light or something? Usually, it takes you longer to come.”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, his eyes trail down to her clothes, a clear raincoat covered in fresh blood. Unlike the numerous times he saw her like this, this time seemed different.
“You got attacked.” Soleum comments, a mixture of concern and surprise in his voice.
Seonghae blinks. She looks down at herself and chuckles. “Guess, I did. I almost forgot about that.”
At the sight of his face wincing, she adds, “I already treated myself.” She raises her arm up, as if to show off her muscles. “Don’t have to worry about me, okay? My body’s a temple.”
Her green eyes gleam with delight as she switches her gaze to the lying deformed body on the bed he’s been trying to ignore.
“A body and evidence are needed to be buried, though…”
Soleum sighs, already mentally rehearsing nursery rhymes like Hush, Little Baby.
There was a time when Lee Seonghae and Kim Soleum had simply been ordinary friends.
They worked together when they could during school, when their classes aligned for collaboration. They ate lunch together sometimes, not always, but most times. They’d hang out at the quarry after school; Soleum would ramble about the urban legends of the forest made up by older kids that wanted to scare him, and Seonghae took it in stride, offering her own theories that were more or less sci-fi stories.
During October, there would be a student discount at the local cinema for Halloween movies.
In the dark, Seonghae and Soleum sit together, quiet as a mouse except for the occasional sob and shriek by Soleum. His hand would reach for hers when the killer catches someone, gripping it tightly enough to make anyone wince, and Seonghae would take it with a smile.
She’d tease him afterwards, and he’d reply saying it’s just his nature as a scaredy cat. Despite it, he never rejected watching a movie with her.
It was their own thing.
Then they had a new thing.
“You have to be more careful.”
Seonghae lies down inside the bathtub, humming at Soleum’s words. She wishes the tub were full; the warm, shallow water only reached her feet, and in her bloodied, stained clothes, she could only feel a bit cold.
Besides the tub, Soleum clicks his tongue.
“I’m not kidding,” he murmurs. His hands move skillfully with the thread needle up the wound. Even if she has a high pain tolerance, he’s careful not to hurt her. “What if they managed to escape?”
He doesn’t say kill; he can’t imagine someone ever killing Seonghae. Imagining someone trying to? Of course, he could see that, but to envision a guy or girl killing Lee Seonghae? Never.
It was already shocking to hear she was attacked successfully— victims who fought back were never uncommon— to actually hurt her, though? Now that was rare.
Whoever it was must’ve been really desperate.
“They won’t.” Seonghae’s voice is light and airy, like she’s talking about the weather. “Escape isn’t an option for bad people. They’ll always meet their end one day.”
It’s Soleum’s turn to hum at her words, listen, and nod, never fully taking it in.
“Even if it’s jail and not death?”
“Jail is a good alternative, rotting away in an enclosed space, a daily reminder of their wrongdoings…” Her smile drops, staring into space for a moment. “But, I think death is definitely the better ending.”
“I think it depends a bit.”
He avoids eye contact when he says it.
Seonghae stays silent.
The rest of the time Kim Soleum spends stitching and bandaging Seonghae back up is spent in silence.
Lee Seonghae, by all means, was sloppy back then.
She was lucky, unbelievably so, for it to have gone as long as it did without anyone catching her in the act. Part of her knew that, knew that her quick decisions were far less calculated than the ones she’d see on the big screen. She never intended for anyone to find out, and if they did, she didn’t intend for them to ever run their mouths freely.
Still, looking into Soleum’s eyes, she couldn’t bring herself to do so.
Kim Soleum is a good person. Lee Seonghae cannot kill a good person, couldn’t try if she wanted to, and why would she? Why kill good people when society is burdened with the bad ones?
He stood there, pale, frozen, unblinking, and shocked with fear visible as far as the eye can see.
He looks like a deer in headlights, she thought. The blood was still fresh and warm on her hands.
She expected it to be the end of her judgment; she’d be sent away in handcuffs and a smile on her face, thinking that at the very least, good had been the one to punish her.
But then, Soleum, despite all his unshakable fear, asked with a calm voice;
“Do you need help?”
And Lee Seonghae had never smiled brighter since.
Soleum would offer being the one to do it sometimes.
“I could do it,” He says, body snuggled underneath the warm quilt Seonghae’s aunt had once gifted him on the sofa.
The late-night news anchor yaps about another disappearance, about the missing reports that’ve increased in this area and that, and then mentions that god-awful lame nickname they gave Lee Seonghae’s murderer persona that should’ve been way cooler like Jack the Ripper and The Night Stalker— Soleum switches the channel for the sake of his own blood pressure.
Seonghae’s hands freeze at the top buttons of her jacket. She’s supposed to go to work immediately, yet she stays still in place at the door.
She turns, blank-faced at Soleum.
“No, you can’t.”
It’s almost stern, the way she would say it.
Kim Soleum doesn’t really want to kill; he doesn't have the desire or strength that Seonghae has.
There are times he’s felt that it was justified, yes, even by his standards, and that those dead bodies would be the exact evil characters made purely for the enjoyment of watching them die in horror stories.
But the axe feels unnatural in his hand, and after the first attempt, Seonghae remained firm in her stance.
Maybe it’s out of politeness that he offers. Over the years, it truly seems like Seonghae needs less and less assistance cleaning up and destroying tracks that Soleum feels like he's not pulling his own weight in... whatever they have.
There’s a saying that the people you surround yourself with influence you. Seonghae likes to think she hasn’t made Soleum into someone like her.
Soleum may think they’re alike, placed in the same group in the eyes of the law; a murderer and their accomplice are both equally guilty, aren’t they?
It’s not, though; Soleum is a good person, and Seonghae was a good person before, but then she became a necessity.
An enforcer of good and evil can’t be one or the other. It’s as simple as that.
So really, even when Soleum offers to help in more ways than cleaning and giving her an alibi, and it’s cute, she gets a bit annoyed.
“Soleum-ah, you should just be yourself.” She pecks a light kiss on his forehead. “Don’t force yourself to be something you’re not.”
He may kill himself. The guilt would eat him alive, and he’ll turn into someone who can’t recognize himself in the mirror, someone who wouldn’t be afraid of horror movies and monsters, and that won’t be him anymore.
Seonghae would never do that; there is nothing negative she feels when she’s killed a bad person, nothing but a feeling to live longer, to continue plucking out the bad seeds.
However, if she killed a good person, then she shouldn’t live. There’s no other path to walk than death when your hands are stained by the innocent.
Kim Soleum can guide the shooting, can convince or even orchestrate it, but he can never be the one to pull the trigger.
In the end, it’ll be Seonghae who’ll do so.