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Yoonchae was eleven years old when she first heard about the Menendez brothers.
She read about them, watched videos, fell into endless threads. At that age, she didn’t really understand that these weren’t things she should be consuming yet.
She took notes. A lot of them. Not just about the Menendez brothers—about serial killers in general. Case after case, names, dates, patterns. It fascinated her in a quiet, dangerous way.
Yoonchae hated her parents.
All their attention, all their time, was devoted to her older sister. Usually the younger child is the one who gets spoiled, but in their family it was the opposite. Yoonchae was invisible unless she made a mistake.
They scolded her for everything. They wanted her to talk like her sister. Walk like her sister. Behave like her sister. Be her sister.
By the time she was sixteen, she found a website.
A place where murders were uploaded.
Anonymous users. No names. No faces.
She liked it—the way people suffered, the way the noise slowly faded, the exact moment when everything went quiet, when the soul seemed to leave the body.
Under one of the images, she noticed a comment.
sLvTcVnt: I’d do the same to my parents. I hate them. 17
Yoonchae felt it instantly. She understood.
She, too, would gladly kill her parents… and her sister.
She would be free. Finally.
She replied.
yc.yc: Do you want to talk?
→ sLvTcVnt: Why?
→ yc.yc: You’ll find out.
Yoonchae clicked on the profile.
No photos. No videos. Only reposts of murders.
She sent a friend request.
And now we wait, Yoonchae thought to herself, licking her lollipop as if nothing in the world had changed.
yc.yc: Sometimes I imagine the house being completely silent.
sLvTcVnt: I think about that too. No voices. No footsteps. Just peace.
A few days pass. They keep talking. Every night. Every secret spills.
yc.yc: They never look at me unless I do something wrong.
sLvTcVnt: Same. My parents only see who they want me to be, not who I am.
yc.yc: Do you ever wish they were gone?
sLvTcVnt: All the time. Life would be easier if they were dead.
The words become heavier, darker. Still typed so casually.
yc.yc: I wouldn’t feel bad. Not even for a second.
sLvTcVnt: Me neither. I think I’d finally breathe.
yc.yc: My sister wouldn’t exist either. That sounds freeing.
sLvTcVnt: I’d erase all of them if I could.
Days turn into nights. The hatred binds them closer than comfort ever did.
yc.yc: If we wanted to… we could really do it.
sLvTcVnt: Yeah. We could.
Neither of them says how. They don’t need to. The thought alone feels powerful enough.
___________________________
One day in the city, Yoonchae was hanging out with her friends.
A group of girls stood nearby, laughing loudly. Too loudly.
Yoonchae glanced in their direction.
She’d kill them too. They were annoying. Loud. Unnecessary.
One of the girls noticed Yoonchae staring.
Their eyes met.
Something strange settled in Yoonchae’s chest—uncomfortable, familiar. The girl felt it too. As if they’d seen each other before. As if they already knew one another from somewhere else.
From a screen.
From words.
From hatred typed late at night.
“Yoonchae, hello?” one of her friends called.
The eye contact broke.
The girl turned back to her group, still laughing. Yoonchae looked away, her expression unreadable.
But the feeling stayed.
yc.yc: Do you want to meet me in person?
sLvTcVnt: So you can kill me before I kill my parents?
yc.yc: Don’t joke.
yc.yc: Let’s meet.
Yoonchae doesn’t care about distance. If the girl lived far away, she’d get on a plane without hesitation. She keeps pushing, calm, persistent.
sLvTcVnt: You’re serious.
yc.yc:I am.
Minutes pass. Then a reply.
sLvTcVnt: I don’t even know where you live.
yc.yc: That can change.
They exchange vague details. Cities. Then states.
sLvTcVnt: …Wait. Same state?
yc.yc: Looks like it.
A pause, longer this time.
sLvTcVnt: I hope you’re not someone I know.
Yoonchae stares at the screen, a slow smile forming.
__________________________
They met at an abandoned building.
The walls were crumbling, covered in layers of graffiti, colors peeling over concrete like scars.
Yoonchae stood there with her hood up, smoking while she waited. She didn’t know who she was waiting for.
A man or a woman? Older? Younger? Who were they, really?
She heard footsteps behind her.
“yc.yc?”
Yoonchae didn’t turn around.
It was a female voice.
She flicked the cigarette away, watched it hit the ground, then slowly turned.
“Yes, I’m—” she started, but stopped.
She was staring into familiar eyes.
She didn’t know where she’d seen them before, only that they made something tighten in her chest. Too familiar.
Uncomfortably so.
The girl stood there, just as still, studying Yoonchae’s face.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
As if saying anything at all might confirm what both of them were beginning to realize.
The girl tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing—not in suspicion, but recognition.
“…It’s you,” she said quietly.
Yoonchae’s pulse spiked. “Do I know you?” she asked, though her voice betrayed her. She already knew the answer was yes.
The girl let out a short, humorless laugh. “City center. A few days ago. You were with friends. You stared like you wanted to erase us.”
Yoonchae didn’t deny it.
Silence stretched between them, thick and electric. The wind pushed through the broken windows of the building, whistling like a warning that neither of them cared to hear.
“You’re sLvTcVnt,” Yoonchae said at last.
The girl swallowed, then nodded. “And you’re yc.yc.”
Seeing her like this—real, breathing, standing too close—felt wrong. The screen had made everything flatter. Safer. This was sharper. More dangerous.
“I thought you’d be older,” sLvTcVnt muttered.
“I thought you’d be louder,” Yoonchae replied.
A corner of the girl’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile.
They stood there, two strangers stitched together by shared hatred and late-night confessions, realizing that whatever they’d built online didn’t disappear just because they’d stepped into the same physical space.
“If this was a mistake,” sLvTcVnt said, “you can walk away.”
Yoonchae shook her head slowly.
“No,” she answered. “I’ve never been more curious in my life.”
Above them, the building groaned, as if it disapproved.
Neither of them moved.
sLvTcVnt took a cautious step closer. Not threatening—measuring.
“You don’t look how I imagined,” she said.
Yoonchae shrugged. “You do.”
That earned a real smile this time. Small. Crooked. Gone almost instantly.
They began walking without discussing it, deeper into the building. Broken glass crunched under their shoes. Sunlight slipped through holes in the ceiling, dust floating like something almost alive.
“What’s your real name?” sLvTcVnt asked.
Yoonchae hesitated. Online, names hadn’t mattered. Here, they suddenly did.
“…Yoonchae.”
The girl nodded slowly. “Megan.”
The name settled between them. Solid. Human.
Yoonchae glanced at her again—at the way Megan’s hands curled into her sleeves, at the tension in her shoulders. She didn’t look fearless. She looked contained. Like someone holding too much inside.
“So,” Megan said, breaking the silence, “do you still think about it? After meeting me?”
Yoonchae stopped walking.
“Yes,” she answered honestly. “But differently.”
Megan turned to face her. “Different how?”
Yoonchae met her eyes again. Those same eyes from the city. From the screen.
“Now it’s not just noise in my head,” she said. “Now it’s… real.”
For a moment, Megan looked like she might step back.
Instead, she stayed.
“Good,” she said softly. “I was afraid I was the only one who felt that way.”
The building creaked around them, as if listening.
Somewhere far away, a siren wailed—but it felt irrelevant. Like it belonged to another world entirely.
This wasn’t the end of anything.
It was the beginning of something neither of them had a name for yet.
They were on the roof now.
Standing at the edge like people about to jump— but what waited in their minds was far bigger than gravity.
The city stretched below them, distant and unaware.
Yoonchae lit a cigarette, the flame briefly illuminating her face. “You want one?” she asked, holding the pack out.
Megan shook her head. “No.”
Yoonchae exhaled smoke, amused. “You wish death on your parents but won’t smoke? Funny.”
“Shut up,” Megan said, then laughed—a quiet, breathy giggle she didn’t seem to expect herself.
Yoonchae noticed immediately.
She liked it.
The sound.
The way Megan covered her mouth like she’d revealed too much.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, close enough that Yoonchae could feel Megan’s presence without touching her.
“Do you ever think,” Megan said slowly, staring down at the street, “that we were supposed to find each other?”
Yoonchae followed her gaze. “I don’t believe in ‘supposed to.’”
“Then what do you believe in?”
Yoonchae took another drag, eyes dark. “Patterns.”
Megan nodded. “Yeah. That makes sense.”
Silence settled—not awkward, not heavy. Comfortable. Dangerous.
People like them didn’t talk about how. They talked about why. About the feeling. The pressure. The fantasy of finally being unseen by the people who hurt them.
Up here, above everyone else, it almost felt like they were untouchable.
Yoonchae flicked ash off the edge of the roof and glanced at Megan. “This isn’t the last time we meet,” she said, not a question.
Megan smiled—slow, certain. “No,” she replied. “It’s really not.”
Below them, life went on.
Above it, something darker quietly took shape.
______________________
yc.yc: This is dangerous.
sLvTcVnt: Why?
yc.yc: Because ever since we met, we haven’t really talked about that.
yc.yc: Instead we talked about how good the hood looked on me
and how cute your laugh is.
sLvTcVnt: …oh.
sLvTcVnt: I knew something was off -_-
sLvTcVnt: But it did look good on you.
yc.yc: So instead of a planned murder you start flirting with me?
sLvTcVnt: I’m not going to pretend I didn’t like you.
A pause. Longer than usual.
yc.yc:That’s exactly what scares me.
sLvTcVnt: Scares you how?
yc.yc: You weren’t supposed to be real. You were just words. Anger. A screen.
yc.yc: And now I can hear your voice in my head when I read your messages.
sLvTcVnt: Yeah… same.
sLvTcVnt: I thought meeting you would make things clearer.
Instead it just messed everything up.
yc.yc: Messed up isn’t the word. It feels like we stepped off the script.
sLvTcVnt: Maybe the script was trash.
yc.yc: We bonded over hate. That’s not exactly a healthy foundation.
sLvTcVnt: Neither of us claimed to be healthy.
yc.yc:True.
Another pause. The typing dots appear. Disappear. Reappear.
sLvTcVnt: Do you regret meeting me?
yc.yc: No.
yc.yc: That’s the worst part.
sLvTcVnt: I keep replaying that moment on the roof. Not the talking. Just… standing there.
yc.yc: Like we were about to jump.
sLvTcVnt: Yeah. But instead we didn’t.
yc.yc: And now everything feels… tilted.
sLvTcVnt: I still hate them. That didn’t magically disappear.
yc.yc: Me neither.
yc.yc: But now there’s something else in the way.
sLvTcVnt:You?
yc.yc: Us.
Megan takes longer to reply.
sLvTcVnt: I don’t know what to do with that.
yc.yc: Neither do I.
sLvTcVnt: But I don’t want to stop talking to you.
yc.yc: Good.
yc.yc: Because even if this is dangerous… I think we already crossed the line where pretending it’s not matters.
sLvTcVnt: So what are we now?
yc.yc: Not innocent. Not monsters.
yc.yc: Just two girls who were supposed to destroy things and accidentally noticed each other instead.
sLvTcVnt: …yeah.
sLvTcVnt: That might be the most terrifying part of all.
________________________________
The argument didn’t explode. It rotted.
It started in the kitchen, under a flickering light.
Megan’s father pointed at the counter. “Why is this still dirty?”
Megan looked at it. One plate. One cup. “I was going to clean it.”
Her mother sighed deeply, exaggerated, disgusted. “You’re always going to. You never actually do anything.”
“I literally just got home,” Megan said, voice tight.
“That tone,” her father snapped. “That’s exactly the problem with you.”
Megan felt it crawl under her skin. “What problem?”
Her mother laughed—short, sharp, cruel. “You’re difficult. You’ve always been difficult.”
“For asking one question?” Megan shot back.
“For existing like this,” her mother replied, eyes cold. “Everything with you is a fight. Why can’t you just be normal?”
Something in Megan dropped. Not broke. Dropped.
“I’m not allowed to be angry?” she asked quietly. “Not allowed to be tired? Not allowed to be anything you don’t like?”
Her father finally looked at her, annoyed more than concerned. “Stop acting like a victim. We give you everything.”
“Except respect,” Megan said.
That did it.
Her mother stepped closer, voice low and venomous. “If you hate us so much, maybe you should remember who pays for your life.”
Megan stared at them.
In that moment, they didn’t feel like parents. They felt like strangers who enjoyed hurting her.
She turned, walked to her room, slammed the door, locked it. Her hands were shaking—not from fear, but from the effort of holding herself together.
She opened her phone.
sLvTcVnt: I just fought with them again.
yc.yc: I'm listening
sLvTcVnt: They talked to me like I’m a burden. Like my existence is an inconvenience.
yc.yc: Say everything. Don’t filter it.
sLvTcVnt: They called me difficult. Said everything with me is a fight. That I should be “normal.”
sLvTcVnt: My mom told me if I hate them so much, I should remember who pays for my life.
yc.yc: That’s vile.
sLvTcVnt: They do it so calmly. Like they’re reasonable and I’m insane for reacting.
yc.yc: That’s emotional control. Not parenting.
sLvTcVnt: I looked at them and felt sick. Not sad. Not angry.
sLvTcVnt: Just… disgusted.
yc.yc: That feeling makes sense.
sLvTcVnt: I hate that they still have power over me.
yc.yc: They only have what you’re forced to give them.
sLvTcVnt: Talking to you helps. More than it probably should.
yc.yc: Then keep talking.
yc.yc: You’re not wrong for hating people who tear you down and call it love.
sLvTcVnt:…thank you.
Megan lay back on her bed, staring at the ceiling, phone warm in her hand.
__________________
The abandoned building smelled of damp concrete and old graffiti.
Sunlight leaked through the holes in the ceiling, catching dust in its sharp, golden fingers.
Yoonchae sat on the edge of a broken ledge, hood pulled low, a cigarette burning lazily between her fingers. Megan leaned against a wall, knees drawn up, shadows cutting across her face.
For a long time, neither spoke. The kind of silence that could suffocate or heal, depending on who was listening.
Finally, Megan exhaled slowly. “You know… when I was younger,” she began, voice low, almost shaking, “I used to lock myself in my room for hours. Not because I was scared of anything outside… but because inside, it was the only place they couldn’t reach me. My parents… they didn’t see me. Not really. Just their expectations. Their disgust. I thought if I disappeared long enough, maybe they’d forget I existed.”
Yoonchae didn’t answer immediately. She just watched Megan’s hands curl around her knees, the way her fingers trembled slightly. The words dug in, raw and unapologetic.
“I never told anyone,” Megan whispered. “Not even… not even people I trusted. Because they’d call me dramatic. Ungrateful. Too sensitive. But I wasn’t lying. I wasn’t making it up. That… that’s what my life was.”
The cigarette smoke curled around Yoonchae like a ghost. Slowly, carefully, she exhaled.
“I know what that feels like,” she murmured. Her voice was softer than usual, almost hesitant. “Not exactly the same… but similar. I… I’ve spent years reading about people—monsters, killers, people who did things no one should ever imagine. I wrote it all down. Every detail. Because… I don’t know… I think it made me feel… safe? Or in control? But it also made me… like I could understand… myself. My anger. My darkness.”
Megan’s eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t look away. “You’re saying… you know the feeling?”
“I do,” Yoonchae said. “And I think… maybe I want to understand it with someone else. Not just alone.”
They stayed quiet for a moment, letting the words sink into the building’s hollow bones. It was a strange, fragile kind of safety. A “safe darkness” that wrapped around them both—simultaneously comforting and terrifying.
Megan shifted, moving a little closer. The tension between them was different now, more layered. Not just shared trauma, but… attraction. Dangerous, sharp, unavoidable.
“You know,” Megan said softly, almost teasing, “I think I like this about you. Not the… scary stuff itself. But how it’s you. How it fits you. The way your eyes light up when you talk about things no one else would dare.”
Yoonchae felt something twist inside her chest—a mix of fear, excitement, and curiosity. Her heart raced faster than it should, but she stayed where she was.
“That’s… dangerous to say,” she whispered, and Megan smiled.
“You think I care?” Megan said. Her voice dropped a little, heavy, intimate. “I think I like it… all of it. You. The dark side. The cold logic. The way you stare at things no one else would notice. It scares me… but I can’t stop wanting it. Wanting you.”
Yoonchae’s lips parted slightly. She wanted to say something clever, something protective, something… safe. But words failed. Instead, she leaned just slightly toward Megan, enough that their shoulders almost touched.
“You’re terrifying,” she said quietly.
“And you like that,” Megan replied, almost laughing, though the sound was soft and brittle.
They didn’t move closer… yet. Not yet. The air was charged with every possibility. Every secret. Every dark thought neither of them dared speak aloud. But the tension was real. Physical. Intimate.
In that abandoned building, with graffiti bleeding from the walls and broken glass crunching underfoot, two girls sat on the edge of something dangerous.
Not just violence. Not just anger. But the electric, messy, frightening pull of each other.
Slowly, Yoonchae reached out just enough to let her fingers brush Megan’s hand. Megan didn’t pull away. She didn’t move closer either. But the moment was enough.
Safe darkness, yes. But also… very, very dangerous.
And they both knew it.
“Yoonchae?”
“Hmm?”
“Can I… kiss you?” Megan asked, voice trembling, almost swallowed by the echoing emptiness of the abandoned building.
“You can,” Yoonchae whispered.
Megan’s hands hovered, unsure where to rest, then finally settled on Yoonchae’s shoulders. The tension in her body was palpable, a coil ready to spring. Yoonchae leaned forward slightly, her hood slipping back just enough to let the light catch her eyes—dark, dangerous, inviting.
Megan closed the small distance between them, and the first brush of lips was soft, almost hesitant. Yoonchae’s hand moved gently to Megan’s jaw, guiding her, anchoring her in the moment. The kiss deepened slowly, deliberately, carrying all the weight of the things they hadn’t said, the anger, the obsession, the quiet thrill of being understood.
Megan’s lips tasted faintly of the energy drink she’d sipped earlier—sweet, metallic, a little bitter. It mingled strangely with the sharp, smoky tang of Yoonchae’s cigarette that clung to her breath. The combination was startling, intoxicating, almost electric in the way it made their teeth brush lightly and tongues find each other in a careful, exploratory dance.
Yoonchae’s fingers threaded through Megan’s hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her closer, feeling the warmth of her skin through the thin fabric of her hoodie. Megan shivered, not from cold, but from the intensity of proximity, the surge of adrenaline, the thrill of danger folded into desire.
They moved together like they were drawing energy from the air between them, a magnetism that felt both wrong and inevitable. Megan’s hands grazed Yoonchae’s sides, tentative but growing bolder as the kiss deepened, dragging them both into that “safe darkness” they had created together. It wasn’t sweet, not entirely. It wasn’t soft. It was edged, sharp, urgent. Hunger and longing, danger and trust, wrapped into one motion.
The taste of smoke and sweetness, metallic and acrid, lingered, weaving through the kiss as if marking it permanent, something tangible in an intangible moment. Yoonchae exhaled softly against Megan’s lips, letting the cigarette residue mingle with the faint tang of energy drink, letting every sensory detail sink in.
Megan’s grip tightened, pulling Yoonchae closer, tilting her head just enough to deepen the connection, to match the intensity in Yoonchae’s eyes. They broke apart for just a breath, faces centimeters apart, foreheads brushing. The world beyond the building ceased to exist: no city, no noise, no rules, only the pulse of their hearts and the lingering taste of smoke and sugar and electricity on their tongues.
“You’re… dangerous,” Megan whispered, her voice ragged, shaky with exhilaration.
“You like that,” Yoonchae murmured back, a small, dark smile curling on her lips.
And in that abandoned building, surrounded by crumbling walls and fading graffiti, their kiss became a secret kind of declaration: messy, dark, thrilling, and utterly theirs.
They stayed like that for a long moment, foreheads pressed together, breathing mingling, the faint tang of cigarette and energy drink still lingering between them.
Outside, the city continued its oblivious hum, but inside the abandoned building, time had twisted, slowed, holding them suspended in a bubble of dangerous intimacy.
Megan pulled back just enough to look into Yoonchae’s eyes, her fingers still resting lightly on her shoulders. “You’re… not like anyone I’ve ever met,” she whispered, voice trembling slightly.
Yoonchae smiled, a dark, slow curve of her lips. “I know. And neither are you.”
The tension in the air shifted. It was no longer just desire—it was something heavier, more addictive. They had shared their darkness, their anger, their traumas, and now their attraction was entwined with all of it, a storm threatening to pull them under.
“I… don’t know if I should feel like this,” Megan admitted, voice low, almost vulnerable. “You… you scare me sometimes.”
“Good,” Yoonchae said softly, leaning closer, letting her lips brush Megan’s ear. “I want to scare you. But I also want you to trust me… at least a little.”
Megan shivered at the duality—the danger and the comfort, the thrill and the safety. She didn’t know if she was terrified or exhilarated… or both.
“I… I think I can,” she whispered.
Yoonchae’s hand slid down Megan’s back, pulling her closer, their bodies aligning naturally, dangerously. Every brush of skin against skin sent sparks through them. The building, the world outside, all of it vanished.
They kissed again, slower this time, deliberate, exploring.
“This… us…” Megan murmured between kisses, almost to herself. “It’s… wrong. Dangerous. But I can’t stop.”
“Neither can I,” Yoonchae admitted, voice low, almost a growl. “We’re… perfect for this. For each other. For the darkness.”
The building seemed to respond, groaning and creaking around them, as if acknowledging the electricity between the two girls. Shadows shifted, dust floated, and in that broken, graffiti-covered space, Megan and Yoonchae surrendered to a connection that was messy, thrilling, terrifying—and completely undeniable.
They didn’t know where this would lead, or if they were ready for it.
But for the first time in a long time, both of them felt alive.
And the darkness had never felt so… inviting.
The words hung between them like poison.
“Do you think I’d get caught if I killed them?”
For a second, Megan didn’t breathe.
The building creaked softly, wind pushing through broken windows, as if even the walls recoiled. Megan pulled back just enough to look at Yoonchae’s face—really look this time. Not the sharp smile. Not the confidence. The eyes underneath it all.
There was no excitement there.
Only exhaustion. And something cracked open.
“Yoonchae…” Megan said quietly. Not shocked. Not angry. Just scared in a way she hadn’t expected to be. “That’s not a hypothetical question, is it?”
Yoonchae didn’t answer. Her jaw tightened, fingers flexing at her side. Smoke still clung to her clothes, but the warmth between them had cooled into something fragile, unstable.
“I’m not asking because I want advice,” Yoonchae said finally. “I’m asking because the thought won’t shut up.”
Megan swallowed. She stepped closer again, slower now, grounding. She placed her hand over Yoonchae’s wrist, feeling her pulse racing under her skin.
“That thought?” Megan said softly. “It’s fear dressed up as control.”
Yoonchae let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” Megan replied. Her voice trembled, but she didn’t pull away. “Because I’ve thought the same thing. Not the how. Just the… silence afterward. The idea that everything would finally stop hurting.”
Yoonchae’s eyes flickered.
“But it doesn’t work like that,” Megan continued. “It doesn’t erase anything. It just turns the pain into something that never lets you sleep again.”
For the first time since they met, Yoonchae looked unsure.
“What if I don’t care?” she asked.
Megan’s hand tightened around her wrist. “Then you wouldn’t have asked me.”
That landed harder than anything else.
They stood there, close but no longer touching with hunger—touching with restraint. With fear. With something that felt dangerously close to caring.
“I don’t want you to disappear,” Megan said quietly. “Not into them. Not into that.”
Yoonchae looked away, jaw clenched, throat tight. “I don’t know how to stop being this.”
Megan stepped closer, resting her forehead against Yoonchae’s. No kiss this time. Just contact.
“Then don’t decide anything tonight,” she whispered. “Stay here. With me. In this stupid broken building. In the dark—but not alone.”
Yoonchae closed her eyes.
The question still existed.
The darkness was still there.
But for the first time, it hesitated.
Megan lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling.
The room was dark except for the faint glow of her phone screen on the nightstand. Every shadow felt louder at night. Every thought sharper.
Yoonchae was… more than she’d expected. Not just angry. Not just broken.
Sharper. Colder. Braver in the worst way.
Megan knew it now, with an uncomfortable certainty settling in her chest: Yoonchae wasn’t just thinking about it.
She was already planning.
That was the difference between them, and it terrified Megan.
Megan had thoughts—ugly ones, intrusive ones, flashes of wishing people would disappear. But they came and went like storms she waited out. She’d never mapped them. Never shaped them into something real.
Yoonchae did.
And what scared Megan wasn’t the idea of her parents being gone.
That thought barely registered anymore.
What scared her was losing Yoonchae.
Losing her to police lights and prison walls. Losing her to headlines and rumors and whispers. Losing her to a version of herself that Megan couldn’t follow.
Her throat tightened.
Because the truth—the most shameful, terrifying truth—was that she didn’t just fear losing Yoonchae.
She feared Yoonchae herself.
The calm way she asked that question. The lack of panic in her voice. The way the darkness in her didn’t flinch when spoken out loud.
Megan turned onto her side, hugging a pillow to her chest like an anchor.
‘I should run’ she thought. ‘I should cut this off before it gets worse.’
But her mind betrayed her immediately.
Yoonchae’s laugh. The cigarette smoke clinging to her clothes. The way her eyes softened—just barely—when Megan spoke.
She wasn’t a monster.
She was someone who had gone too long without being seen… and had found power in places Megan was afraid to look.
That scared Megan almost as much as it pulled her in.
“I like her,” Megan whispered into the dark, as if confessing a crime.
She liked her voice. Her intensity. The way being near her made everything feel vivid, sharp, alive.
And maybe that was the most dangerous part of all.
Because even now, lying safely in her own bed, Megan knew one thing with painful clarity:
If Yoonchae fell… she didn’t know if she’d be strong enough not to fall with her.
Her phone buzzed softly on the nightstand.
Megan didn’t look at it yet.
She closed her eyes instead, caught between fear and longing, knowing sleep wouldn’t come easily—not with Yoonchae living so vividly in her thoughts, both comfort and threat, desire and dread tangled into one impossible feeling.
While…
Yoonchae sat on the floor of her room, back against the bed, knees pulled close to her chest.
The light was off. She didn’t need it.
Her notebook lay open in front of her—not a checklist, not instructions. Just words. Circles. Arrows that led nowhere specific. Thoughts that refused to stay quiet.
People always imagined planning as something neat. Logical. Clean.
For Yoonchae, it wasn’t.
It was fragments.
She wasn’t thinking about how in the way movies did. Not weapons. Not steps. What obsessed her was the idea of removal. Of making something unbearable simply… stop existing. Of herself disappearing inside the act, leaving nothing behind that could point back to her.
No fingerprints of the soul. No proof she’d ever felt this way.
She hated the word guilty.
Not because of prison. But because it implied remorse.
She pressed her thumb into the page until it hurt.
‘If I do this’ she thought ‘I can’t exist as the girl they know anymore.’
That was the point.
She imagined herself hollowed out, clean of history. A version of her untouched by expectations, by comparison, by the constant feeling of being wrong just for breathing.
Her phone buzzed nearby.
She didn’t look at it.
Because the moment she did, the image shifted.
Megan.
‘Oh Megan…’ she thought.
Megan’s voice on the roof. Megan’s hesitant hands. The way she’d looked at Yoonchae when she asked that question—not horrified, not impressed.
Afraid.
Not of the idea.
Of losing her.
That was new.
Yoonchae closed her eyes, jaw tightening.
This was supposed to be simple. Anger always had been.
But now there was something else lodged inside her chest—something warm and inconvenient and dangerous.
Attachment.
“If I disappear,” she whispered to the dark, “she disappears from me too.”
That thought disturbed her more than any consequence ever could.
She flipped the page in the notebook, slower now. The writing changed. Less sharp. More hesitant.
What if being careful wasn’t about escaping punishment… but about not becoming someone Megan couldn’t recognize?
The thought irritated her.
And grounded her.
Yoonchae leaned her head back against the bed, staring up at the unseen ceiling.
She wasn’t scared of blood. She wasn’t scared of silence.
She was scared of one thing only:
That in trying to erase the people who made her feel invisible,
she might erase the one person who had actually seen her.
Her phone buzzed again.
This time, she picked it up.
She didn’t open the notebook anymore.
________________
The weekend folded back into itself like a bad habit.
Same place. Same time. Same noise.
Yoonchae sat with her friends, half-listening, half-existing. The city buzzed around them, familiar and irritating. And then—there they were again.
The same group of girls.
Too loud. Too close. The kind of noise that used to make something dark curl pleasantly in Yoonchae’s chest.
She looked at them again.
But not with the same thought this time.
With recognition.
Megan.
Megan stood among them like she didn’t belong to her own body. She laughed when they laughed, nodded when they spoke, but it was wrong—too delayed, too practiced. Like she was wearing a version of herself that didn’t fit.
Yoonchae felt it instantly.
Megan isn’t Megan like this.
Megan was Megan on the roof. In the silence. In the dark.
Not here.
She noticed the way the girls leaned in, whispering into Megan’s ear, giggling, nudging her shoulder. Megan smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
Then Megan looked up.
Their eyes met.
And Megan started walking toward Yoonchae.
Panic bloomed sharp and sudden in Yoonchae’s chest.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked herself. ‘Don’t. This is stupid. This is dangerous.’
“Hii,” Megan said casually when she reached them.
Yoonchae didn’t answer.
One of Yoonchae’s friends did instead. “Hey.”
Megan shifted her weight, playing the role perfectly. “You don’t happen to have a lighter, do you?” she asked. “My friend left hers at home.”
She laughed—light, careless.
Fake.
Yoonchae’s friends immediately looked at her.
Yoonchae looked at Megan.
For half a second, Megan’s expression flickered. Something honest. Something nervous.
Yoonchae reached into her pocket and pulled out her lighter, extending it without a word.
Megan took it.
Their fingers brushed.
The contact was brief—barely a second—but it hit Yoonchae like static. Warm skin against warm skin. A jolt that traveled up her arm and settled uncomfortably in her chest. Not soft. Not gentle.
Electric.
Megan felt it too. Her breath caught almost imperceptibly, her grip tightening just a fraction before she pulled the lighter away.
“Thanks,” Megan said quietly, eyes still on Yoonchae. “I’ll bring it right back.”
Yoonchae nodded once.
‘Don’t do this.’ she thought desperately, watching Megan turn away. ‘This is too risky. Too public. Too real.’
For a moment, it felt like Megan slowed—as if she’d heard the thought.
Two minutes passed.
Too long.
Yoonchae’s mind spiraled. Every possible outcome stacked on top of the other. Someone noticing. Someone asking questions. Someone connecting dots that were never meant to exist.
Then Megan came back.
She handed the lighter over, their fingers brushing again—lighter this time, but no less charged.
“Here,” Megan said.
Yoonchae closed her fingers around it.
Their eyes met once more.
Nothing was said. Nothing could be said.
Megan turned back to her group. Yoonchae turned back to hers.
But something had shifted.
The city was louder now. The air heavier.
Yoonchae pulled her phone out, jaw tight, eyes never leaving the space between them.
yc.yc: Have you completely lost your mind???
sLvTcVnt: You’re the one using this app while sitting next to your friends.
yc.yc: That was DIFFERENT.
sLvTcVnt:No, it wasn’t. You just didn’t like that I did it.
yc.yc: You walked straight into my space. In public. Do you understand how stupid that was?
Megan’s group laughed loudly. Megan didn’t. She stared at her phone.
sLvTcVnt: Nothing happened.
yc.yc: That’s not how risk works.
sLvTcVnt: You don’t get to lecture me about control.
yc.yc: Yes, I do. Because I’m the one who thinks ahead.
sLvTcVnt: No. You’re the one who wants to decide everything.
Yoonchae’s fingers trembled. She could feel Megan there, breathing the same air, pretending not to exist.
yc.yc: You put us both in danger.
sLvTcVnt: You’re acting like I kissed you in front of them.
yc.yc: Don’t joke.
sLvTcVnt: I’m not joking. I’m tired of you acting like I’m stupid.
yc.yc: Then stop doing reckless things.
sLvTcVnt: Stop acting like you own me.
That hit harder than it should have.
Yoonchae glanced up—Megan was laughing now, fake again, loud enough for her friends to hear. It made Yoonchae feel sick.
yc.yc: You weren’t like that with me.
sLvTcVnt: And you weren’t this cold.
yc.yc: I’m trying to keep you safe.
sLvTcVnt: From what? You?
An eyecontact. 2 seconds, that’s it.
yc.yc: You think this is a game.
sLvTcVnt: No. I think you’re scared you’re not the only dangerous one anymore.
Yoonchae swallowed.
yc.yc: Don’t come near me like that again.
sLvTcVnt: Fine.
yc.yc: I mean it.
sLvTcVnt: Good. So do I.
Yoonchae locked her phone, heart pounding, anger burning hot and sharp in her chest.
A few meters away, Megan slipped her phone into her pocket too.
They didn’t look at each other.
“Yoonchae, where are you going?” one of her friends asked as Yoonchae suddenly stood up.
“Home,” she said simply.
No explanation. No hesitation.
She shoved her phone into her pocket and started walking, her shoulders tense, every muscle tight like she was bracing for impact. The city noise felt too loud, too close. She didn’t look back at her friends.
She walked straight past Megan’s group.
Too close.
She could feel it before she saw it—Megan’s presence, sharp and magnetic, pulling at her attention whether she wanted it or not. The girls were still talking, laughing, filling the air with noise that scraped against Yoonchae’s nerves.
Megan noticed her instantly.
Her smile faltered. Just for a second. Enough.
Yoonchae kept her eyes forward, jaw clenched, pretending Megan was just another stranger in the crowd.
But Megan turned slightly as Yoonchae passed, her body angling without permission, like something instinctive had taken over. Their shoulders almost brushed. Almost.
The space between them crackled.
Yoonchae walked faster, breath shallow, anger and something dangerously close to regret twisting together in her chest. She hated that Megan could do this to her—could make her feel unsteady without saying a word.
Behind her, Megan watched her go, hands curled into fists at her sides, expression unreadable to everyone except herself.
Yoonchae disappeared into the flow of people, swallowed by the city.
But the argument didn’t end there. It followed them— in the silence, in the distance, in everything they didn’t say.
And for the first time since they met, both of them felt the same thing at once:
Not desire. Not hatred.
Loss—hovering just close enough to be felt, but not yet real enough to touch.
Four days of silence.
________________________
Four days where nothing stayed the same.
For Yoonchae, the house turned hostile.
The argument didn’t rise slowly—it detonated. Voices collided in the kitchen, sharp and familiar. Her parents talked at her, not to her, the same accusations recycled like they always were. Useless. Difficult. Wrong.
Her sister tried to step in.
“Stop,” she said. “You’re making it worse.”
That was the moment something snapped.
Yoonchae shoved her.
Not hard enough to seriously hurt—but hard enough to knock the breath out of her, hard enough to make her stumble. The room froze for a split second.
Then, just like always, the attention shifted.
Her parents rushed to her sister.
'Are you okay?
Did she hurt you?
Come here.'
Yoonchae stood there, invisible again, her hands shaking—not with regret, but with clarity.
All three of you, she thought distantly.
'I’ll end this. All of it.'
It didn’t feel like rage anymore. It felt like a conclusion.
Days. Just days.
____________________________
For Megan, the silence was unbearable.
The slap came out of nowhere.
Her father’s hand, sharp and sudden, the sound louder than the pain. Her mother’s voice followed immediately—yelling, blaming, stacking guilt on top of shock until Megan couldn’t tell which hurt more.
She locked herself in her room afterward.
The quiet there wasn’t peace. It was pressure.
Yoonchae’s absence screamed in it.
She missed her voice. Her intensity. Even her anger.
Especially her anger.
Megan turned inward. Too inward.
She hurt herself in small, desperate ways—not to die, not to disappear, but to feel something controllable. Something that was hers. Her body bore the quiet evidence of it, hidden under clothes, hidden under silence.
She didn’t cry loudly.
She suffered quietly, teeth clenched, breath shallow, Yoonchae’s name echoing in her head like a prayer she didn’t believe in anymore.
If she were here, Megan thought, this wouldn’t hurt like this.
That scared her.
Because somewhere deep down, she knew this wasn’t just missing someone.
This was dependence.
And while Yoonchae’s thoughts were drifting toward something final and violent, Megan’s were collapsing inward—slow, suffocating, dangerous in a different way.
Four days.
No messages.
No voices.
Just two girls unraveling in opposite directions, both convinced the other was slipping away—
and neither knowing how close they were to doing something irreversible.
yc.yc: Can we meet at 6 PM?
sLvTcVnt: So you can tell me again how stupid I am?
yc.yc: Please, Megan.
sLvTcVnt: Don’t write my name here.
sLvTcVnt: 6 PM.
The place looked exactly the same.
Cracked concrete. Peeling paint. Layers of graffiti bleeding into each other like unfinished thoughts.
“You came,” Yoonchae said.
“I came,” Megan answered.
Silence.
Yoonchae stood rigid, her hands hidden behind her back, shoulders tight. She wasn’t looking at Megan properly—like she was afraid of what she might see reflected back at her.
Megan noticed something.
A small cut at the corner of Yoonchae’s lower lip. Fresh. Careless. The kind that came from biting too hard or not caring enough.
“You’re hurt,” Megan said quietly.
She stepped closer before Yoonchae could stop her.
Megan lifted her hand and gently brushed her thumb along the corner of Yoonchae’s mouth, barely touching the cut. The contact was light, careful—more concern than intimacy.
“What happened?” Megan asked.
Yoonchae flinched, just slightly, then shook her head. “That’s not why we’re here.”
She inhaled slowly, deeply, like she was preparing to step off a ledge.
“I was cruel to you,” Yoonchae said. “I made you feel stupid. Like you didn’t matter. Like you were reckless and I was… above you.” Her voice cracked—not loudly, but honestly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I was scared, and I turned it into control. And you didn’t deserve that.”
Megan watched her closely, eyes searching her face for lies. She found none.
Yoonchae swallowed, then slowly brought her hands forward.
Between them appeared a small bouquet—not roses. Wildflowers. Soft colors. Chamomile, baby’s breath, a few pale lavender stems. Something quiet. Something meant to say I’m trying, not I’m perfect.
“I didn’t know what flowers say ‘I messed up but I care,’” Yoonchae said quietly. “So I chose ones that don’t scream. Ones that apologize.”
Megan stared at the bouquet. Then at Yoonchae.
“I don’t want to lose you,” Yoonchae continued. “Whatever this is between us—dark, messy, complicated—I don’t want it to end. Not now. Not because I couldn’t say sorry. Not because I was afraid.”
Her voice dropped lower.
“Whatever happens… I want you here.”
For a moment, Megan didn’t move.
Then she reached out and took the flowers. Her fingers trembled.
“You scare me,” Megan said softly. “But when you’re gone… everything gets worse.”
She looked up.
“So don’t disappear.”
Yoonchae nodded once. No promises she couldn’t keep. Just presence.
The building creaked around them, graffiti watching silently as the space between them softened—not healed, not erased, but held.
And for now, that was enough.
“My parents and my sister are leaving for Germany tomorrow,” Yoonchae said quietly. “I was supposed to go too—but… I couldn’t leave you here.”
Megan lowered her gaze to the bouquet, lifting it to her face, breathing in the soft, calming scent like she needed proof that something gentle still existed.
“You’re inviting me to your house?” she asked carefully. “Isn’t that… too personal for us?”
Yoonchae’s voice dropped. “We crossed that line a long time ago.”
She looked at Megan then—really looked at her.
Silence stretched between them, heavy but not hostile.
“Why are they going—” Megan started.
“To arrange my sister’s university,” Yoonchae cut in. “They’re bribing a few people. Pulling strings.”
Megan’s jaw tightened. She hesitated, then asked the question she’d been holding back. “Do you still have those thoughts?”
Yoonchae didn’t look away.
“They’ve been the strongest these past few days,” she said evenly. “The thoughts about killing them.”
The words landed hard. Not shouted. Not dramatic. Just… stated.
Megan’s chest tightened. She didn’t argue. Didn’t lecture. Didn’t ask how or when or why.
She chose silence.
She stepped closer instead, the bouquet pressed lightly to her chest, her presence steady and grounding. The abandoned building seemed to hold its breath with them.
Megan’s silence wasn’t approval. It wasn’t fear either.
It was something heavier—concern tangled with care, dread wrapped tightly around attachment.
She looked at Yoonchae, searching her face for cracks, for regret, for anything human enough to hold onto.
And she stayed.
In the quiet.
That night, Megan didn’t sleep.
She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, the room dark and too quiet, her thoughts loud enough to hurt.
Her parents crept into her mind first. Their voices. Their rules. The way the house never felt like it belonged to her.
Then Yoonchae.
Yoonchae was frightening.
Not just in one way— in too many.
Yoonchae was frighteningly kind. Frighteningly beautiful. Frighteningly good at kissing, in a way that didn’t feel practiced but inevitable, like gravity deciding where Megan should fall.
It scared her how Yoonchae could look at her and make her stomach flip painfully, how a single glance could undo her thoughts. It scared her how Yoonchae would gently tuck a loose strand of hair behind Megan’s ear, and how Megan felt like she could dissolve into that touch, like her body forgot where it ended.
It scared her that they met in the cold, breath fogging the air— and yet Megan’s chest burned warm because of Yoonchae.
That kind of warmth didn’t feel safe. It felt permanent.
Yoonchae had changed everything without asking permission.
Before her, Megan had been so sure. So certain of her hatred, of her thoughts, of the darkness she carried. It had felt justified. Simple. Clean.
Now it wasn’t.
Because if she did something irreversible— if she got caught— she would never see Yoonchae’s soft smile again. Never watch her eyes light up with something unreadable and dangerous. Never feel her lips, never hear her quiet humming when the world fell silent between them.
That thought terrified her more than losing her parents ever had.
And that scared her the most of all.
Because somewhere between fear and longing, Megan realized the truth she hadn’t dared to say out loud:
Yoonchae wasn’t just dangerous. She was becoming everything.
yc.yc: [address]
yc.yc: Screenshot it. I’ll delete this message after.
sLvTcVnt: Saved.
Megan arrived just after sunset.
The house stood quiet, almost too neat—lights off in most rooms, curtains drawn like the place was holding its breath. It didn’t look haunted. It didn’t look warm either. It looked… paused.
Megan hesitated at the gate.
For a brief, irrational second, she wondered if this was a mistake. Not because of danger—because of meaning. Crossing this line felt heavier than any argument, any message, any kiss on a rooftop.
She rang the bell.
Almost immediately, the door opened.
Yoonchae stood there barefoot, hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands. Her hair was slightly messy, like she’d run her fingers through it too many times. She looked tired.
And relieved.
“You came,” Yoonchae said.
I said I would,” Megan replied softly.
They stood there for a moment, just looking at each other, like neither of them quite believed the other was real in this space.
Then Yoonchae stepped aside. “Come in.”
The house smelled faintly of cleaning products and something floral—artificial, like an attempt at comfort that never quite worked. Megan stepped inside carefully, her footsteps too loud in the quiet.
“It’s… big,” Megan said, unsure what else to say.
“It’s empty,” Yoonchae corrected.
She locked the door behind Megan. The sound echoed.
For a moment, that was all there was—the click of the lock, the realization that it was just the two of them now.
“No one’s home,” Yoonchae added, unnecessarily. “They won’t be for a while.”
Megan nodded, fingers tightening around the strap of her bag.
They moved into the living room. Everything was in its place. Photos on the walls—family smiles that didn’t quite reach their eyes. Megan noticed Yoonchae didn’t look at them.
“Do you want something to drink?” Yoonchae asked. “Water. Energy drink. Whatever.”
“Water’s fine.”
Yoonchae handed her a glass. Their fingers brushed, brief and electric, like always. Megan felt it all the way in her chest.
They sat on opposite ends of the couch at first.
Too much space.
Yoonchae broke the silence. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”
Megan looked at her. “Do you want me to leave?”
“No,” Yoonchae said immediately. Then quieter, “I want you here.”
Megan shifted closer.
The couch dipped slightly under her weight, the distance shrinking until their knees almost touched. The house creaked softly, settling around them like it was listening.
“This place doesn’t feel like you,” Megan said after a moment.
Yoonchae huffed a small, humorless laugh. “It never was.”
Another pause.
Then Megan spoke, carefully. “You scare me.”
Yoonchae didn’t flinch. “I know.”
“But you’re also… the only place I feel calm lately,” Megan admitted. “And that scares me more.”
Yoonchae turned toward her fully now. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I know,” Megan said. “That’s why I’m here.”
Silence again—but softer this time.
Yoonchae reached out slowly, giving Megan time to pull away. When she didn’t, Yoonchae’s fingers gently hooked around Megan’s sleeve, grounding, asking without words.
Megan leaned in.
Their foreheads touched.
Outside, the world kept moving—cars passing, lights changing—but inside the house, time felt suspended. Two girls sitting in the quiet aftermath of everything they’d said and everything they hadn’t.
Whatever this was, it wasn’t safe.
But neither of them moved away.
Megan inhaled, her fingers tightening in the fabric of Yoonchae’s hoodie.
Megan started quietly. “I’m not sure anymore about—”
Yoonchae cut her off.
“I’ve thought it through,” she said.
Her voice wasn’t rushed. That was the frightening part. It was steady, deliberate, like she’d rehearsed it alone in her head a hundred times already.
She talked about timing. About absence. About how things could be made to look inevitable rather than intentional.
She spoke in careful abstractions—never names, never specifics—but the meaning was unmistakable. This wasn’t fantasy anymore. This was structure. Control. A future that had already been rearranged in her mind.
“I wouldn’t be there when it happened,” Yoonchae said quietly. “I’d make sure of that. There would be nothing that leads back to me. No loose ends.”
She looked at Megan then, eyes dark but intent, almost hopeful. “It would be over,” she added. “Clean. And after… I’d finally be free.”
She waited.
She waited for Megan to nod. To say it’s smart or you’re careful or you won’t get caught.
But Megan said nothing.
The silence stretched, heavy and wrong.
Yoonchae’s jaw tightened. “Say something.”
Megan still didn’t speak.
Instead, she leaned forward.
Her hands came up to Yoonchae’s face, gentle but urgent, thumbs brushing her cheeks like she was trying to memorize them. And then she kissed her.
Not softly.
Not carefully.
She kissed her like it was the last thing she’d ever be allowed to do.
Like the world was already ending and this was the only thing she could save.
Yoonchae froze for half a second—surprised—then melted into it, her hands gripping Megan’s sleeves, pulling her closer. The kiss was desperate, uneven, full of everything Megan couldn’t say out loud.
Fear. Love. Loss.
When they finally pulled apart, Megan rested her forehead against Yoonchae’s, breathing hard.
Her voice was barely a whisper.
“I can’t tell you it’s a good plan,” she said.
Yoonchae looked at her sharply. “Why?”
The word cut through the air, simple and demanding.
Megan opened her mouth—but nothing came out. Her thoughts tangled, fear and affection pulling in opposite directions. How do you tell someone you care about that the thing keeping them alive is the thing destroying them? Yoonchae stood up abruptly. The couch creaked as the space between them widened. She dragged a hand through her hair, pacing once like a caged animal.
“You think I’m crazy,” Yoonchae laughed, but the sound was thin, almost pitiful. “Right? That’s what this is.”
“Yoonchae, I’m not—” Megan started, rising halfway before stopping herself.
“Megan, this is what binds us,” Yoonchae snapped, turning back to her. “This is our dream. The thing that made us understand each other when no one else did.”
Megan’s voice came out barely audible. “It’s only your dream now…”
“What?” Yoonchae asked.
She stepped closer. Too close. She bent down until her face was level with Megan’s, her presence overwhelming, eyes searching Megan’s like she could pull the truth straight out of her. “Say that again.”
Megan swallowed hard. Her heart was pounding so loud she was sure Yoonchae could hear it. Slowly, she stood up, forcing herself not to step back even though every instinct screamed to.
“It’s only your dream now,” Megan said again, her voice shaking but firm. “Okay?”
The word okay landed like an insult.
Yoonchae stared at her, stunned—not angry at first, but wounded. Like something precious had slipped through her fingers without her realizing it was falling.
“So that’s it?” Yoonchae asked quietly.
“I just—I don’t want this to be the thing that destroys you.”
Yoonchae laughed again, but this time there was no humor in it at all. “It’s already destroyed me,” she said. “You were the only part of it that felt… human.”
The room felt smaller. The walls closer. The quiet unbearable.
Megan reached out, then stopped herself, her hand hovering uselessly between them.
“I don’t want to lose you,” she said softly.
Yoonchae’s eyes darkened.
“Then don’t ask me to let go of the only thing that ever made sense.”
They stood there, facing each other in the half-lit living room—two girls holding the same pain, no longer holding the same future.
Megan’s eyes burned with tears as the truth finally settled in—not all at once, but slowly, painfully. She understood it now. They weren’t walking toward the same future. They never had been.
For Megan, Yoonchae had become everything. The center. The reason. The warmth in the cold.
But for Yoonchae…
Megan was something else.
Not a future. Not a choice.
Just proof that she was still human. A handhold in the dark. A support—nothing more.
Megan swallowed, her chest tight, her heart breaking quietly instead of loudly. She didn’t beg. She didn’t ask Yoonchae to stop her. She knew there was nothing left to say that would change anything.
So she turned around.
Each step toward the door felt heavier than the last, like leaving something vital behind. Her fingers brushed the handle. She paused—just for a second—hoping, stupidly, desperately.
Yoonchae said nothing.
Didn’t call her name. Didn’t move. Didn’t stop her.
The door closed softly behind Megan.
And Yoonchae remained where she was, alone in the silence, having lost the last piece of herself that still wanted to stay.
One and a half months later.
It wasn’t planned.
That was the worst part.
Yoonchae didn’t know what she was doing—only what she suddenly was.
Sitting on the floor of her bedroom. Knees pulled tight to her chest. Her room dark, untouched, frozen in time like she’d stopped living inside it weeks ago.
Her clothes were stained. Her hands too. Blood.
There was a small cut at the corner of her lower lip again, raw and angry, the salt from her tears burning into it every time she inhaled too sharply. She didn’t remember when it happened. Only that it hurt.
Everything hurt.
Her chest seized without warning.
Too tight. Too fast. Not enough air.
She clawed at her own sleeves, breath breaking into short, panicked gasps. The walls felt like they were closing in, the silence screaming so loud it made her dizzy.
Her fist slammed into the wall.
Once.
The sound echoed, ugly and final.
She barely felt it at first—only later the pain bloomed, sharp and deep, her hands trembling uncontrollably as she pulled them back to herself. Red smeared across her skin, her fingers shaking so badly she couldn’t even wipe it away.
The only sound in the room was her breathing.
Ragged. Desperate. Her fault.
She slid down further, forehead pressing to her knees, tears falling freely now. This was the quiet she’d chosen. The emptiness she’d defended.
And she couldn’t survive it.
With shaking, bloodied hands, Yoonchae reached for her phone.
The screen blurred as she unlocked it. She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t think. She went straight to the place she hadn’t dared to open in a month and a half.
One name.
The name that still made her chest ache in a way nothing else could.
Someone she hadn’t spoken to since everything fell apart.
Someone she wasn’t human without.
sLvTcVnt—
Megan.
Her fingers hovered for half a second.
Then she typed.
Messy. Desperate. Unfiltered.
She begged.
She told Megan to come to her.
Or she would end herself.
The message sent before she could stop herself.
Yoonchae dropped the phone like it burned her, curling in on herself as another wave of panic tore through her. She didn’t know if Megan would answer. She didn’t know if she deserved it.
She only knew she couldn’t be alone anymore.
Miles away, Megan’s phone lit up.
One message.
One name.
And that was all it took.
She didn’t hesitate.
Didn’t ask questions.
Didn’t think.
She grabbed her keys and left.
Immediately.
Megan pushed the door open.
The house was too quiet.
Not the normal, empty kind of quiet—but the kind that presses against your ears, that feels deliberate. Like the house itself was holding its breath.
“Yoonchae?” she called softly.
No answer.
Her heart started racing.
She stepped inside, the door closing behind her with a dull click that sounded far too loud. The hallway lights were off. The air felt cold, stale, untouched. Megan’s skin prickled with fear as she moved forward, every step hesitant.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
She followed the familiar path down the hallway, her chest tightening with every step. The closer she got to Yoonchae’s room, the heavier the air became, like walking into something she couldn’t undo.
Her hand trembled as she reached for the door.
She opened it.
Yoonchae was there.
On the floor.
Her clothes were stained dark, her hands smeared, her body curled in on itself like she was trying to disappear into the carpet. Her face was pale, eyes unfocused, the small cut at the corner of her mouth split open again.
Megan froze.
“Oh my god,” she whispered.
She rushed forward, dropping to her knees in front of her, hands hovering uselessly in the air, afraid to touch, afraid of what she might feel.
“Yoonchae… look at me.”
Yoonchae didn’t respond.
Megan’s eyes flicked around the room then—taking in what her mind had refused to see at first. The silence wasn’t just emptiness.
It was absence.
No voices.
No movement.
No life elsewhere in the house.
Understanding hit her slowly, cruelly.
This wasn’t a breakdown.
This was after.
Megan’s breath caught painfully in her throat.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “No, no, no…”
But she already knew.
She didn’t need to see anything else. Didn’t need proof. The stillness said everything. The weight in the air said everything.
Yoonchae had crossed the line.
She had done it.
Her family was gone.
Megan’s hands finally moved, gripping Yoonchae’s shoulders gently but firmly, grounding her.
“What did you do?” Megan whispered, her voice breaking—not in anger, but in terror.
Yoonchae didn’t answer.
She just sat there, bloodied, shaking, eyes hollow—no longer planning, no longer dreaming.
Only surviving what she’d already destroyed.
Silence.
Thick. Suffocating.
Megan didn’t speak. She didn’t move. She just stayed there, kneeling on the floor in front of Yoonchae, the weight of the house pressing in from every direction.
Then—finally—
Yoonchae breathed in sharply.
Her lips trembled. Her hands clenched in her sleeves like she was trying to anchor herself to something real.
“I—” she started.
Nothing came out.
She swallowed hard and tried again.
“It… it started in their room,” she said, her voice uneven, breaking between words. “I didn’t mean to— I wasn’t planning—”
Her eyes darted to the wall, anywhere but Megan.
“My dad—” She flinched. “He got angry. He always did. He— he hit me. Again.”
Her breath hitched violently.
“My mom was there,” Yoonchae continued, shaking her head. “She didn’t say anything. She never does. She just… watched.”
Megan’s chest tightened painfully.
“I ran,” Yoonchae whispered. “I just— ran. I didn’t think. I didn’t think at all.”
Her hands started shaking harder.
“I went to the kitchen,” she said, the words tumbling over each other now. “And then I went back. And then— then everything happened too fast.”
She pressed her palms against her temples like she could stop the memories from leaking out.
"Yoonchae, what are you doing—" her father couldn't finish.
Yoonchae stabbed her father twice, in the stomach and upper arm. Her father collapsed to the floor, but he was still alive.
Her mother screamed and tried to leave the room, but Yoonchae grabbed her by the hair and pushed her to the floor.
She stabbed her twice in the side, then in the palm of her hand. "Yoonchae—" was all her father could say when he saw his wife's gruesome death.
Yoonchae finished off her mother first, then stabbed her father again—three times. In the chest.
She climbed down from her father's hips and let out the tense air she had been holding inside.
"You deserve this," she said quietly, then looked at them.
“I didn’t stop,” Yoonchae sobbed. “I didn’t know how to stop.”
Her voice dropped even lower.
“I went to my sister’s room. She had her headphones on. She didn’t even hear me.”
Yoonchae broke then.
Yoonchae heard humming coming from her sister's room and immediately turned her head toward it. "Damn it," she said, startled.
Yoonchae pulled the knife out of her father's chest and walked over to her sister's room. She opened the door slowly. Her sister was facing the wall, headphones on her head.
She didn't see or hear Yoonchae come into the room.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, and then...
She killed her.
Her sister and her bed was covered in blood.
Her shoulders collapsed inward as she cried—not loud, not dramatic, but raw and animal, like something torn out of her chest.
“They’re still here,” she whispered, terrified. “They’re still in their rooms. I can feel them. I didn’t mean for it to be like this. This wasn’t— this wasn’t the plan.”
Megan finally understood.
Yoonchae wasn’t crying because they were dead.
She was crying because it wasn’t controlled.
Because it wasn’t clean.
Because it wasn’t the version she’d imagined.
This wasn’t escape.
It was chaos.
And Yoonchae was sitting in the middle of it, shaking, bloodied, haunted by something she could never undo—while the rest of the house remained unbearably, unforgivably still.
Yoonchae’s hands were still shaking.
“I want you to kiss me,” she said suddenly, her voice barely holding together.
Before Megan could react, Yoonchae reached up with her bloodied hand and cupped Megan’s face. The touch was wrong in every possible way—too warm, too real, too stained—but it was also desperate, clinging, like she was afraid Megan might vanish if she let go.
Megan sucked in a sharp breath.
“Yoonchae… this is ao fucked up, but—” she tried, but the words tangled in her throat. Nothing she could say felt strong enough, clean enough, right enough.
She stopped herself mid-sentence.
Because Yoonchae was looking at her like she was the last thing anchoring her to reality.
Megan leaned in.
The kiss wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t romantic.
It was raw and shaking and full of everything they couldn’t survive—fear, attachment, guilt, need. Megan’s lips trembled against Yoonchae’s, her eyes squeezing shut as if that could erase the world around them, the silence in the house, the truth in every other room.
Not long ago, painful screams had filled the house, but now it was filled with the sound of passionate kisses and moans.
They climbed onto Yoonchae's bed, the bloody clothes were removed from Yoonchae, and the clean ones from Megan, but Yoonchae's bloody handprint was still there on Megan's face.
"So fucked up—" Megan moaned as they started scissoring.
But neither of them would have thought that they would be having sex next to dead bodies on their first time.
And neither of them would have thought that they would be so turned on by the situation and enjoy it so much.