Chapter Text
Egg swore he hadn’t meant to kill Wemmbu.
Wemmbu was the best roommate anyone could ever have.He was the kind of roommate who left early and came home late, who never bothered to brush his teeth quietly in the morning, who yelled “Mace attack” at the top of his lungs while gaming loud enough for the whole building to hear, who let his trash pile up until it was fit to fertilize Eggchan’s potted plants, who’d randomly eat Egg’s food from the fridge, and who still owed Egg two months’ worth of water and electricity bills he’d covered for him.
At the thought, Egg straightened his collar, leaned down, and fished Wemmbu’s wallet out of the dead man’s coat pocket, drawing out two bills with elegant nonchalance.
Plan changed. Now he had a perfectly good motive for murdering his roommate. His fingerprints were all over the body, and he still held the murder weapon in his left hand—a blood-stained garden trowel. Egg hated to imagine how easy the U-City police’s jobs would be if all criminals were as careless as him.
But he still had to stress: Wemmbu’s death was an accident.
That morning, Wemmbu had eaten Egg’s daffodils. The weight of those words forced Wemmbu to lay out his defense to Egg, point by point: first, daffodil roots looked uncannily like a certain vegetable; second, Egg had left the daffodil on the kitchen sink after cutting it for a flower arrangement; third, he’d chopped it up and mixed it into egg batter to make a veggie omelet following a YouTube recipe, which meant he’d never tasted the bitter flavor in time.
Egg had a gardening glove on his right hand—he’d only been turning the soil in the balcony greenhouse. He’d come back to find his daffodil reduced to a crumpled mess of outer leaves, and he had three points to make in response: first, daffodils were highly toxic and inedible; second... honestly, compared to the fact that Wemmbu would be at death’s door if he didn’t get his stomach pumped in the next half hour, Egg’s three-step crusade to avenge his daffodil could wait.
“Go get my car keys. And change your clothes, man—if you’re gonna die, you might as well do it in style.”
Setting aside the fact that Egg was trying to save his life, Egg was one of the few people who could get Wemmbu to listen. He trudged toward his room reluctantly, shoving his hands in his pockets, the dinosaur tail attached to his purple fuzzy pajamas swishing back and forth behind him.
With Wemmbu’s commotion shut behind his bedroom door, Egg finally had the quiet Sunday morning he deserved. He picked up the few crumpled leaves Wemmbu had left and buried them in a flower pot, dabbing at his eyes as he laid the daffodil to rest. That daffodil had been as precious to him as family, a new find from the flower and bird market that very morning. But Egg was a good roommate, and despite his grief over the daffodil’s fate, he worried more about Wemmbu’s safety—after all, Wemmbu was slightly less replaceable than a daffodil. Though he was pretty sure with Wemmbu’s seemingly indestructible digestive system, the worst that would happen was him kneeling over the toilet retching his guts out.
“Egg, bad news. I can’t remember where I put your car keys.”
Wemmbu coughed lightly into his fist, stepping up to Egg who was squatting on the balcony. He’d at least changed into a decent shirt, yanking the messy collar out from under his jacket, and had even put his hair up in a high ponytail. He looked like he’d be up and about for a good while before the daffodil did him in.
“What do you mean by—” Egg suddenly realized why his gas gauge had been dropping faster than Wall Street stock prices, “You’ve been using my car?”
Wemmbu shrugged.
“Well, I don’t have my own, do I?”
Egg drove the trowel into the soil again, his frayed nerves thrumming with irritation.
“Uh... what do we do now?” Wemmbu bent down next to Egg, sneezing from the pollen in his gardening haven.
“Your life depends on those car keys. So find them with every ounce of strength you’ve got!”
Egg shot to his feet, pointing toward the living room, completely forgetting he was still holding the small steel trowel. The trowel struck upward, slamming into Wemmbu’s face. Wemmbu gasped, clutching his nose and staggering back—only to step on the car keys he’d been searching for ages. He crashed into the corner of the table, fulfilling the last favor Egg had ever asked of him in the process.
The car keys skittered to Egg’s feet, spinning twice before stopping. The crash of Wemmbu’s fall was so brutal Egg almost felt bad for being mad at him. But he was certain Wemmbu would be fine. After all, it was Wemmbu—wasn’t it?
“Wemmbu?”
Watching Wemmbu’s chest stay perfectly still, a sinking feeling washed over Egg. He stepped forward and patted Wemmbu’s cheek; his head lolled to the side, and Egg’s hand came away covered in nosebleed. Channeling every crime drama he’d ever seen, he pressed two fingers to Wemmbu’s carotid artery, closed his eyes, and focused intently.
He reached a conclusion.
Turns out Wemmbu’s life hadn’t even had a half-hour countdown.
They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die. There was no way to know if Wemmbu had that moment of clarity, but Egg could already see his own life ending behind prison bars.
So what now? Egg was definitely going to need the best lawyer in the city to clear his name. A business card slipped out of Wemmbu’s wallet, fluttering down to land on his face. The bold words Zampire Law Firm stared up at Egg as the card slid to the floor. Oh, right. Egg had almost forgotten Wemmbu was a lawyer—and the only lawyer who might possibly defend him in a situation like this was lying dead at his feet, gone for good.
Egg let out a small, animalistic whimper in his head. He was kind, he was young, he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in jail over a harmless accident.
Even though Egg had never imagined he’d one day have to bury his best friend—literally, with a shovel in hand—there seemed to be only one path forward: dump Wemmbu’s body in the lake to feed the fish.
Egg paced anxiously around Wemmbu until his foot stepped on something slimy and strange. He lifted his foot, and a bloodstain on the floor etched the pattern of his shoe sole into the wood. Just because Wemmbu was his best friend didn’t mean this wasn’t disgusting. He stepped back in revulsion, but the sticky feeling clung to him like a shadow. The bright red stain on the floor jolted his memory: before he could move Wemmbu anywhere, he had to clean up the crime scene first.
Even a first-time killer like Egg knew the police used special reagents to detect blood at murder scenes. Wiping the blood away normally was like leaving a hundred entities in a Minecraft trap. The only problem? Egg had no idea how those reagents worked, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to leave a Google search history for how to clean a murder scene. He glanced toward the door.
Luckily for him, Egg’s neighbor was a chemistry teacher.
Egg squared his shoulders at Leo’s front door, making sure his own front door was locked tight—even if Wemmbu came back from the dead, he’d be trapped inside—then knocked.
“Leo,” Egg said, staring straight into his eyes and pulling out his notebook, “do you know how the police detect blood at murder scenes?”
“You mean luminol?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Why do you need to know that?” Leo closed the door halfway, a syllabus tucked in his hand—he was clearly using the weekend to prep for Monday’s class.
“Well...” Egg held the notebook to his chest, drawing out the word in a hesitant hum, “it’s actually Wemmbu who’s asking.”
“Wemmbu?”
“Yep.”
After a guilty silence, Egg heard Leo clear his throat.
“Luminol glows fluorescent green when it comes into contact with even trace amounts of blood, but a lot of things react with it too. The most common is sodium hypochlorite—the main ingredient in most disinfectants...” Leo seemed to finish, then added after a pause, “Tell Wemmbu I wish him luck.”
Leo closed the door. Egg waved, letting out a breath of relief. It was nice having a dead man take the fall for him; Wemmbu wasn’t exactly in a position to be mad at him right now, anyway.
Egg relocked his apartment door and turned around. Wemmbu’s body was still there, waiting for him. For the first time, the reality of Wemmbu’s death hit him. Egg suited up with shoe covers, carefully avoiding the bloodstains on Wemmbu’s clothes as he dragged him over to the couch, leaving him in an undignified slumber. Then he grabbed a bucket of cleaning supplies, dropped to his knees, and sprayed disinfectant everywhere while mopping up the blood. It reminded him of the night Wemmbu had gone out drinking with Zam for work, come home and thrown up all over the living room. Egg had dragged him to the couch the same way, then knelt at his feet, holding his nose as he cleaned up the reeking vomit.
“You picked the perfect time to die, leaving all the dirty work for me.”
He pressed the sponge into the floor, mopping up a layer of red.
Egg’s mask was pulled tight over his face, but the overwhelming smell of hypochlorite still made him gag once. Thankfully, Wemmbu had died a relatively clean death; the only bleeding was from the superficial wound Egg’s trowel had inflicted. Egg had the whole mess cleaned up in ten minutes. Then he sat down next to Wemmbu, like they were both still alive. He let out a long sigh, forgetting the apartment was still thick with disinfectant fumes, and pulled off his mask—only to gag again.
“How long has it been since we sat down and talked like this?” Egg stared at the ceiling, breathing carefully so he didn’t wake Wemmbu. “Ever since you said you were starting your own firm, Zam’s been working you to the bone, and you’ve been tolerating for your bonus. It feels like every time you text me these days, you’re in trouble. I don’t mind bailing you out, really. I just... I’m not good at living a serious life. I wanted to pull you away from all the chaos, but you, yourself is the trouble...”
Egg sighed, resting one hand on the couch back to get comfortable.
“...You know what they say—you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. You’re too quiet now. I kind of miss hearing you yell.”
Egg didn’t know what he’d been expecting. Dead men don’t answer. But when he shifted his weight to the other side of the couch, the cushion tilted slightly, and Wemmbu’s body began to slide toward him, slow and unnoticeable. Finally, after Egg’s long monologue, he hit the tipping point—and crashed heavily into Egg’s lap, a corpse’s mace attack. Egg screamed, shoving him onto the floor. Wemmbu’s head hit the ground with another thud, and one couldn’t help but be grateful he couldn’t feel the pain anymore.
Egg glanced nervously around the room, then hooked his hands under Wemmbu’s shoulders and hauled him back onto the couch. He needed to get Wemmbu out of here before the downstairs neighbors called the police about the noise.
A generic phone ringtone cut through the silence. Egg let go of Wemmbu, patting his own pockets—then realized the sound was coming from Wemmbu’s body. He fished Wemmbu’s phone out of his pants pocket, stared at the caller ID, and answered it without a second thought, murder suspect be damned.
“WEMMBU! How dare you break into my office and destroy my Zampire castle! I’m gonna kill you and feed your body to my Zampire!” Zam’s voice was shrill, unrecognizable as a law firm partner’s.
Oh. That explained the Lego brick stuck to Wemmbu’s shoe when he’d come home last night. And this tantrum-throwing child was Wemmbu’s boss? Egg held the phone away from his ear, turning the volume down.
“Wemmbu? Wemmbu, are you still listening? Don’t you dare mute me! Do you hear me?!” The silence on the other end seemed to clue Zam in, and his yelling only got worse.
“Wemmbu’s not here. This is his roommate—he forgot his phone,” Egg cut in before Zam’s voice could go any higher.
“Then where the hell is he?”
“He’s... leaving U-City.” Egg stared at Wemmbu, who was leaving the world, not just the city.
“Is Wemmbu on the run?! I’m sending FlameFrags to kill him!”
“That’s a figure of speech, right?”
“No! I’m gonna kill him!”
The line went dead with a click. Prince Zam had hung up first, a childish power move. Egg felt a twinge of relief for Wemmbu—Zam was clearly insane, and his threats would’ve been terrifying if Wemmbu were still alive. But since he was dead, this recording would give the police a reason to suspect Prince Zam first, not Egg.
Egg slipped the phone into his own pocket and walked out to the balcony. He paused, looking down at the street below, surrounded by the gentle sway of his winter flowers. Egg and Wemmbu’s shared apartment was on the second floor, in a quiet neighborhood—hardly anyone came and went from the main building, even on weekends. A blessing for Egg; he could carry a corpse downstairs without running into a soul. He happened to know the fire escape at the back of the building had no security cameras. His plan was simple: park his car at the back exit, stuff Wemmbu in the trunk, and drive away. The only problem? Dead Wemmbu felt like he weighed five hundred pounds. Dragging him to the couch had drained Egg of all his strength. How the hell was he supposed to haul this purple dead weight down the stairs fast?
Five minutes later, Egg was sprinting down the hallway with a camping cart, a picnic blanket draped over the top—one hand hanging eerily out from under it. He yanked the cart into the stairwell, closed the fire escape door, and fumbled with a mask and sunglasses, putting them on in a panic. But when he turned his back on Wemmbu, the cart rolled down the sloped floor—and Egg heard the clatter as it careened down the second-floor stairs, all the way to the bottom. He sucked in a sharp breath, spinning around to face the carnage—only to see the cart on its side, wheels spinning, and Wemmbu’s upper body wedged perfectly in the trunk of his car, which he’d left open earlier.
“Thanks, man.” Egg waved up at the sky. There was no other explanation besides Wemmbu’s ghost looking out for him.
Egg soon learned that moving the body was the easy part. He’d never imagined how hard it was to stuff a grown man into a car trunk—especially a stiff, dead one. He was elbowing the trunk closed when he heard a confused voice behind him.
“Eggchan?”
Egg spun around instantly, pressing his elbow into the trunk and leaning his whole body weight against it, holding the popping lid down.
“Hey, Minute.”
Minutetech lived upstairs from Egg, and he was a traffic cop in the area. He was a nice guy, but he didn’t cut corners when it came to the law—so everyone made an effort to stay on his good side. Egg knew full well his neighbor was half-cop, but he’d completely forgotten Minute was on duty today.
Minute couldn’t miss Egg’s panicked posture. He tilted his body, trying to peer past Egg at the trunk, which was ajar by a crack. Egg shifted his weight, sliding two steps to block his view.
“What are you... uh...”
“Just getting rid of some old junk from the apartment. It’s just... big.” Egg propped himself up on the trunk, giving Minute an okay sign.
“Sure...”
Minute squinted at the trunk lid, which was slowly inching open behind Egg.
“Do you need help?” Minute stepped closer, friendly as ever.
“No!”
“But if you keep your car parked in the fire escape, I’m gonna have to write you a ticket. Let me help you out.” Minute took another step forward.
Egg’s whole body broke out in a sweat. In a split second, he slammed the trunk closed with all his might. He swore he heard a suspicious crack—but the trunk finally clicked shut, latched tight.
“See? It closed.”
The force of the slam triggered the car’s alarm, and the blaring siren cut through the apartment complex’s quiet. Minute stopped in his tracks, covering one ear, wondering how Egg could stand the noise and stay perfectly still.
“Alright, well. You better turn that off before the people upstairs start throwing water down.”
“Right, right. Let me just find my keys...”
Egg fumbled through his pockets slowly, taking his time. Minute was in his neon safety vest, and he had a whole day of patrolling ahead of him—he had no interest in standing there waiting for Egg to shut off the siren. Once Egg watched Minute walk far enough away, he pulled out the car keys and silenced the alarm. He tapped the trunk twice, making sure his secret was sealed tight, then climbed into the driver’s seat. He buckled his seatbelt, glancing at the empty passenger seat and backseat. This car had only ever driven Egg and Wemmbu. Turns out Wemmbu was with him even in death.
Egg’s hand closed around the steering wheel.
It reminded him of a rainy night, Egg answering a call from Wemmbu, asking him to pick him up from the law firm.
“Zam is bullying you.”
“I know, okay? He made me work overtime, then cut the power and locked me in the office. I was fumbling for the keys in the dark till two in the morning, and now I can’t even get a freaking taxi.” Wemmbu had curled up in the backseat, his stomach hurting from staying up all night.
“Then why don’t you quit?”
Wemmbu had fallen silent. After a few minutes, he started to ramble.
“Because... he’s... it’s not like I want to stay. I promise, once I get that project bonus, I’m out. Alright?”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.” Egg had yawned, “It’s your call—at least until you make me drive tired and we run someone over on the highway. I’m not gonna stop you.”
The handbrake creaked as Egg pulled it up. A sliver of light slipped into the pitch-black trunk. Egg got out of the car, lifting the automatically popping trunk lid with one hand. He stared at Wemmbu, his body twisted in an unnatural angle. Instead of the primal fear of a corpse, a wave of nostalgia washed over him first. He leaned in close.
“I’m sorry I called you a handful. Truth is, now I’m causing you way more trouble than you ever caused me.”
Egg stared at Wemmbu’s pale, blood-flecked face, and felt a surge of gratitude that he’d died before the daffodil could make him vomit his guts out. Thanks to Egg’s rough handling, Wemmbu’s high ponytail had come half undone, tangles falling across his cheeks and neck. His eyes were closed, and he looked like he was finally getting the rest he’d always deserved.
All things considered, Wemmbu’s body was intact. The car trunk lid, on the other hand, had a dent in it from Egg’s slam. Earlier this day, when dealing with Minutetech, the crack had made Egg’s heart drop, but it seemed Wemmbu was tougher than his car.
“I never doubted you’d make it big, you know. A guy like you could succeed at anything. But you can’t have it all. We were never gonna get back to the way things were... I just wanted to say that...... running away isn’t so scary. You always had a way out, if you’d just taken it. I would’ve had your back, always... I really should’ve told you this when you were alive.”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Egg thought that if he’d talked Wemmbu into quitting sooner, Wemmbu never would’ve eaten the daffodil this morning. And none of this would’ve happened. Though it was still Wemmbu’s fault for shoving random things in his mouth.
He lifted Wemmbu out of the trunk, draping his arm over his shoulder one last time, then wrapped an arm around his back and pushed him into the lake with all his strength. The momentum sent Egg stumbling forward two steps, almost falling in after him.
“Goodbye, Wemmbu.”
Egg’s heart was pounding out of his chest. He clapped his hands together to brush them off, gasping for breath as he sat down on the grass, picking grass clippings off his clothes. He thought Wemmbu’s death deserved a proper grieving, but he’d already cried enough tears over his own misfortunes today; his brain was numb. After a long moment, a single tear fell from Egg’s eyes.
“You deserved a more creative death than this. I’m sorry it was me who killed you, and not FlameFrags, or Prince Zam, or even Lettuce, who’s always saying you’re single-handedly driving down the apartment building’s property values... Jeez, you had a lot of enemies, man.”
Egg finished his eulogy as the ripples from the body finally faded into the lake’s thick reeds.
He patted his pants legs and stood up, ready to leave—when another splash, different from the one he’d made, came from behind a cluster of bushes. Egg turned slowly. Wato’s figure emerged a few meters away, wearing a hideous turtle-green fishing hat. He was carrying a small folding stool, a fishing rod slung over his shoulder, and his tackle box had fallen into the water in his shock. And Wato had clearly seen everything—because he was now fumbling for his phone, dialing 911, his face white with terror.
Oh—fucking hell. Egg thought.