Chapter Text
This incredible trailer made by Sapphiamur
“I put my heart and my soul into my work, and lost my mind in the process”
- Vincent Van Gogh
⚜ ☆ ⚜
Silk curtains flutter with the morning breeze. As the faintest rays of the morning wash the room with golden hues and highlight the specks of dust in the air. They seem to glitter as they float. It’s a soft scene, almost comforting with the warmth of the sun until the rays reveal the figure, the focal point, deliberately poised on the four poster bed.
The once white fabric is ripped, ruby stains decorate the piece in a mockery of its grandeur. She is a slender woman, just slightly past her prime. Her long black hair wraps around her neck, as if to hide the swell of purple and maroon marring her once lovely skin. The hands are relaxed, fingers curled gently, arms spread wide and when the sunlight kisses the skin, it seems to glow.
The lips are a deep crimson, almost garish and sloppy in its application. Through parted lips gleam white teeth, her skin marred with harsh cuts, bruises both new and old. The tale of abuse long endured. Her soulless eyes stare up, as if seeing past the ceiling and into the heavens itself. As if she can see where her soul had flown.
In an ode to Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ Grande Odalisque, her nudity both embarrasses and entices, ruby droplets and pools decorate her waxen skin and fabric. It’s an ugly scene. Sloppy, messy in the way the blood stains what once was clean.
In the eerie and serene silence of the room, a bird chirps outside.
⚜ ☆ ⚜
Chan wakes with the mother of all headaches.
His cell phone is buzzing incessantly. Clattering on the coffee table, each buzz like a sledgehammer to his head. With a groan, he turns to his side and fishes the cushion from the floor to cover his poor ears.
Perhaps the beer had been a poor choice for a friend last night but at the time it had been his only comfort. He doesn’t know why they call it ‘liquid courage’. There’s nothing courageous about drowning your sorrows in alcohol. Goes in yellow, comes out yellow, the stench is rancid and all it does is dull his memories.
But that’s exactly why he drinks it.
The phone stops and Chan groans as he’s allowed a few seconds of blissful silence before it clatters again. With a pained whine, he puts the cushion down and rolls over. He almost falls off the couch as he snatches his phone from the table. The glare of the screen hurts his eyes but what hurts more is seeing the time right above the name of the caller.
He shakes his head and rolls back into the darkness of the couch as he answers the phone.
“It’s three in the morning, Bin,” he groans. “Unless you have a damn good reason for calling, I’m gonna come into work and shove this phone up your-”
“We caught him,” Changbin’s voice cuts in, urgent enough that Chan is pulled from his sleepy stupor.
Chan sits up, he ignores the throb in his head and blinks as his eyes adjust to the darkness of his living room.
“Caught who?”
“The March Hare,” Changbin says. “We’re almost certain it’s him.”
“I…wh…how?” Chan splutters as he gets up and heads towards his room. “How?”
“Dumb fuckin luck. Or maybe more the fact that he was dumb enough to go back to his crime scene.”
Chan puts Changbin on speaker and rests his phone on the bedside table. He heads to his walk-in closet and rustles quickly through his clothes. He needs to get there, he needs to see what they’ve done - who they’ve caught. Already his mind is spinning with all sorts of possibilities and the frustrating thing is that he simply doesn’t know enough.
“You know that body we found yesterday? Kim Sunhee?” Changbin asks.
“That wasn’t the Hare,” Chan says as he throws a clean white shirt on his bed. “I told you it wasn’t the Hare. It’s January, not March. The Hare only strikes in March. Plus that body was nothing like the ones in March. Too sloppy.”
“Well I still don’t see what’s stopping him from killing all the other eleven months,” Changbin sighs. “Anyway, we’re sure it’s him. The guy we caught, we literally caught red handed.”
“It’s not him.”
“How do you know? You’re not even here!”
Chan throws a pair of freshly pressed pants onto his bed and sighs in exasperation as he turns to his phone as if it were Changbin himself.
“Because we’ve been chasing this asshole for three years now and every single year he’s evaded us completely. His murder sites are immaculate, not the mess that the murder yesterday was and they’re all in March. He attacks in March and every single scene he leaves behind is…it’s not messy. He doesn’t do messy. All this time and he pops up in the wrong month, caught red handed in the dumbest way possible? I’m not buying it.”
“Well, buy this,” Changbin continues. “Our guys raided his apartment. Found pictures.”
Chan pauses, a frown on his face as he folds his arms. “Pictures?”
“Paintings, to be more specific,” Changbin explains. “Paintings of…it’s better if you come see yourself.”
“Give me twenty minutes,” Chan says. He cuts the call off, grabs a towel and heads for the shower.
It’s still dark when he walks into the station. The night administrator hides a yawn behind his hand and waves sleepily as Chan walks in and heads downstairs with barely an upward glance.
Something’s wrong. The March Hare isn’t this sloppy. After all these years chasing the Hare, hounding him relentlessly, Chan can say without a modicum of pride that he knows this killer. The serial killer, dubbed the March Hare by the media, is a ruthless killer who only appears in March. He kills from the 1st to the 31st and leaves scenes that can only be described as art.
There’s no doubt in Chan’s mind, the March Hare is as crazy as his namesake. However, there is a pristine, flawless art in the way he sets his murder scenes. Every detail meticulous and organised, every scene left for the police to find, clean of prints, of any identifying matter. Upon first sight, they would see something truly gruesome to behold and yet - as Jisung so tactfully put it - there was a certain style in his scenes. An artistic eye, a keen love of cleanliness, of art in itself that set him above most other murderers.
The murder of Kim Sunhee was too sloppy for the Hare - for starters. But for another thing Chan is almost 100% certain that the murderer is her ex-husband - who conveniently went missing just after her body was discovered.
As he opens the door to the observation room, he sees Changbin and Jisung already there. Jisung is sitting at the desk, watching the window as in the other room, their suspect sits alone in the interrogation room. On his side, the window is a one-way mirror and on their side they can see every move he makes.
“It’s him,” Changbin announces as Chan leans on the bench and peers through the window. “I’m almost certain of it.”
Jisung hums. “I’m not so sure.”
The boy in the room is tiny. He sits still in his chair, both hands cuffed and set on the table in full view. He’s not much younger than them, large doe eyes look terrified beneath a shower of blonde, almost platinum locks. He’s dressed in a cosy blue knit sweater, dark grey sweatpants and sneakers.
He doesn’t look the type.
Chan is about to say so when Changbin clears his throat and points to the stack of paintings right next to him. They’re all canvases, stacked against the wall and Chan’s eyebrows furrow as he observes the paintings.
Murder scenes. All of them. Oil paintings of murder scenes splashed across every single canvas and what’s worse is Chan recognises every single one of them. The detail is precise, a skilled hand had painted every single piece with barely a shiver. There are twenty canvases stretched along the wall of the observation room and every single one of them had been a murder Chan and his crew had been involved with.
Some of them they’d even solved.
But what catches his eyes are the older ones. The March murders last year and those are vivid. The colours stand out, it’s almost as if the hand that painted those earlier murders had painted these in anger. Although each portrait is that of the artistic scenes left behind by the Hare, these paintings held a tragedy to them. As if the Hare saw his scenes as art and this artist saw them as tragic.
Chan’s head spins.
“These were in his apartment?” he asks, glancing at Changbin who’s already nodding.
“His name is Yang Jeongin - at least that’s what it says on his student ID. The kid hasn’t talked since we brought him in. The paintings are obviously his, he has this one room in his apartment - behind a locked door - and it’s an art studio so it’s unlikely someone’s framing him. We caught him at the scene of Kim Sunhee’s murder with red hands-”
“That was paint, I already verified it,” Jisung corrects quickly. “He didn’t have blood on his hands. He had paint.”
“But he was still there and how do you explain this?” Changbin says with a gesture to the paintings. “Art is one thing but the scenes in these drawings…Chan, not even the journalists saw the murders with this much detail. So it’s not like he got it from a newspaper. The only way he could have seen scenes like this is if he was actually there.”
Chan looks over the paintings and frowns. “Is this all there is?”
“There’s more in storage,” Changbin explains. “He had hundreds of them.”
Chan glances at Jisung but the other just shakes his head. He’s just as stumped. Chan looks through the window again at Jeongin and the other hasn’t moved an inch. Still staring at his cuffed hands with obvious fear in his eyes.
The door opens again and Chan looks up to see Hyunjin enter.
“What are you doing here?” Changbin asks, clearly confused as he’d obviously only called Chan and Jisung for this.
“Got a call from the chief,” Hyunjin explains as he straightens his uniform and swings the door shut behind him. “He said you caught the March Hare?”
Changbin hums. “We did.”
“I still don’t think he’s the March Hare,” Jisung intervenes, much to Changbin’s annoyance.
Hyunjin glances at the boy in the interrogation room, his eyebrows furrowing into a frown identical to Chan’s before he finally notices the paintings. Chan hears his slight gasp as he moves to examine them.
“What on earth…?”
“I know right?” Changbin huffs. “He’s a sick kid.”
“I want to talk to him,” Chan says as Hyunjin leans down to examine the paintings. “Something’s off here.”
Changbin sighs. With a shrug, he gestures to the window. “Go right ahead. But he didn’t say a word to me or Han.”
Chan heads out of the observation room and into the hallway. He stops before the interrogation room, taking a moment to brace himself before he pushes the door open and strides in with a confidence he doesn’t feel. It’s his mask and it’s a well honed one too. With years and years of practice in the police academy, Chan had perfected the mask he had to wear in front of every potential criminal.
Never let them see you falter, never let them see you confused, angry or scared.
“Good…morning,” he says after a quick check of the time on his phone. He walks to the table and pulls a chair out to sit opposite Jeongin. “My name is Officer Bang Chan. I’m a special investigator assigned to the ‘March Hare Taskforce’. I assume you’ve heard of the Hare?”
Jeongin doesn’t answer, he doesn’t even look up but he does nod ever so slightly.
Chan glances at the mirror and turns his eyes back to Jeongin.
“Would you like some water before we begin?”
Jeongin shakes his head and he still won’t look up. His eyes are almost helplessly glued to his hands on the table. To the metal cuffs around them and Chan looks at them too. Jeongin is too tiny to be any kind of threat, especially unarmed.
“Would you like me to take them off?” he asks. “Handcuffs must be uncomfortable.”
To his surprise, Jeongin shakes his head. Chan frowns, he observes Jeongin’s hair, his sullen face. He looks over his clothes and narrows his eyes.
Jeongin had been caught at the scene of the crime at 2:49 in the morning. A time when most of the population would have been wearing pyjamas and sleeping in their beds. Except Chan hadn’t been and he suspects Jeongin isn’t the type either. Given his stature and the way he’s slightly shaking, if Chan were to take a stab in the dark, he’d say Jeongin is sitting in what he sleeps in.
Something warm and cosy.
“Jeongin,” Chan says gently. “If you want me to help you, I need you to talk to me. We found you in a restricted area where a murder had just taken place and if that’s not enough, we found paintings in your apartment.”
Jeongin just shivers. A tear slips from his eyes before he closes them. Chan watches the tear slide down his cheek and drip from his chin where it then lands on his hand.
“What were you doing there?” Chan asks, opting to go down the easy route first. “That area was cordoned off for forensics. You’d have had to go past several yellow barriers to get to it which means you didn’t get there accidentally.”
Jeongin doesn’t answer. The silence stretches on, filled only with his near silent crying and Chan takes a deep breath. He glances at the mirror again, shaking his head slightly as he gets up from the table and leaves the room.
“Told you he wouldn’t talk,” Changbin shrugs as Chan comes back into the observation room.
“I find it interesting he didn’t want the cuffs taken off,” Jisung says, his eyes narrowed as he observes Jeongin through the window. “Didn’t you find that interesting?”
“What interests me more is why he had paintings of murder scenes in his apartment,” Changbin announces with a shake of his head. “He’s the March Hare. He has to be. No one else knew these scenes so thoroughly.”
“No one else except the forensic analysts, the first responders and the police on site,” Hyunjin reminds him dryly.
“Yang Jeongin is none of those,” Changbin argues. “He’s an art student. He wouldn’t have had clearance to see these after the police got to it so then the only explanation left is that he was there before the police got there. As in, he was the one who did it.”
Jisung looks like he wants to say something but he doesn’t. He looks as doubtful as Chan feels and he’s not wrong for it. Something feels off about the whole thing. Given all Chan knows about the March Hare, all the data they’ve pulled from the last three years of murders, Jeongin doesn’t fit the profile at all.
He’s about to say something when a knock on the door startles all of them. The administrator, a tweedy, stick thin man who only handles the night shifts, sticks his head in and looks at Chan.
“Someone’s here for the suspect,” he announces.
Chan frowns. “You know no one can see him while we’re questioning him.”
“Yeah. I know. It’s just…this person is very angry and very adamant they be allowed to see him,” the man winces, looking both apologetic and pathetic at the same time. “Seriously he’s been screaming at me for the last ten minutes. There’s only so many times I can tell him that no one can see the suspect.”
Chan checks the time. Almost 4am. He nods to the administrator and follows him out. He walks with him down the long winding corridors, towards the entrance where he finds the familiar blonde hair, lean frame and irate scowl of the furious Lee Felix standing in front of the desk.
Chan’s eyes widen. “Lix?!”
“Let me see him,” Felix demands, striding past the almost terrified looking administrator and walking right up to Chan. “Innie didn’t do this.”
“Innie?”
“Jeongin. Yang Jeongin. He didn’t do this!” Felix snaps, irritated. “Your guys have the wrong man.”
Chan blinks. He didn’t even know Felix knew someone like Jeongin but in hindsight it makes sense - if only in the fact that they attend the same university. He feels he shouldn’t be as surprised as he is, given that Felix is the kind of person who knows almost everyone. It’s just who he is.
“We found evidence in his apartment,” Chan explains, delicately stepping over the fact that the evidence was paintings. That is not public knowledge, not even to a friend. “And he’s not talking to us.”
“Of course he’s not talking to you!” Felix says. “He’s scared out of his mind! And your evidence…it’s not what you think it is.”
Chan raises an eyebrow and Felix shakes his head.
“Chan, he didn’t do it. He painted it but he didn’t do it.”
Ah. So Felix does know what the evidence is.
“Lix? What are you doing here?” Hyunjin’s voice comes from behind Chan.
Chan turns to see Changbin and Hyunjin had come out to see what the fuss was. Both of them seem equally surprised to see Lee Felix, of all people, standing out here and raising holy hell for Yang Jeongin. Chan doesn’t miss the way both Changbin’s and Hyunjin’s eyes soften at the sight of Felix. Both for the same reason.
“Yang Jeongin is innocent,” Felix declares. He turns his pleading eyes to Chan. “Just let me talk to him. Please.”
“Too dangerous,” Changbin cuts in with a concerned frown. “Felix, we found evidence in his apartment. Irrefutable evidence that he did this.”
“You found paintings, not evidence,” Felix snaps, temper flaring again as he rounds his glare on Changbin. “Let me talk to him.”
Chan rubs his forehead. It’s not even 5am, he hasn’t had nearly enough caffeine for this but he doesn’t see another option. If Jeongin won’t talk to any of them then maybe he’ll talk to Felix.
“I will be sitting right next to you,” he tells Felix. “You won’t be alone with him. We can’t allow that but you can be in the room with me. Deal?”
“Deal,” Felix nods, ignoring the look of worry on Changbin’s face.
Chan sighs and rubs his head. “I need a coffee. Hyunjin?”
Hyunjin nods, he heads off to the kitchen whilst Chan takes Felix back to the interrogation room with him. They stop just before the door and before they can enter, Changbin leans in and gently touches Felix’s arm.
“Be careful,” he says, his eyes clearly worried as they watch Felix closely. “You might be sure he’s not dangerous but I’m not convinced. Do you really know him as well as you think you do?”
Chan half expects Felix to snap at Changbin again but he doesn’t. Instead he pats Changbin’s shoulder, a tired smile on his face as Changbin steps back.
“I know Innie very well,” Felix assures him. “I’ll be fine.”
Chan opens the door and lets Felix in first before following after and closing the door behind himself. There, at the table, Jeongin still hasn’t moved but he does look up when Felix approaches him.
“Ah, ah,” Chan holds his hand out and points to the chair on the opposite side of the table. “Sit. On your side.”
Felix scowls but he follows the order. He sits down and Chan sits next to him. Jeongin is now looking at Felix, wide eyes still tearful, he’s still shaking but his hands remain perched on the table in full view.
“Innie,” Felix says. “Please tell them you didn’t do this. You know you didn’t do this.”
Another tear slips from Jeongin’s face. He shakes his head and Felix leans in.
“Innie, you did not do this,” he tells him. His voice is firmer than Chan usually hears it. “The man who did, is sick and twisted and perverted but he’s not you.”
Jeongin sniffles, he shakes his head again and Felix looks like he wants to take Jeongin’s hand but he doesn’t because Chan’s in the way. Because Chan won’t let him touch Jeongin when they’re still not entirely sure what or who they’re dealing with.
Seeing a little more life in Jeongin is encouraging and so Chan tries his first question again.
“What were you doing at the crime scene?” he asks, his voice still mindfully gentle. “We’ll start there.”
Jeongin sniffs and Felix meets his eyes. He nods slowly and it seems to comfort Jeongin just a little because his shoulders seem to relax. His hands, at first balled in fists, ease up and it’s because Felix is there. As if his presence alone, his gaze alone, were enough to comfort Jeongin.
“I…I was looking for something,” Jeongin mumbles quietly.
“Looking for what?”
Jeongin hesitates but at Felix’s encouraging nod, he continues.
“Proof.”
Chan frowns, he waits but when Jeongin doesn’t provide any more words, he leans in a little.
“Proof of what? The murderer?”
Jeongin shakes his head and Chan sighs. “You’re gonna have to give me more than that. What were you looking for? Surely you must have known that you weren’t supposed to be there.”
“I knew,” Jeongin breathes, his gaze turning back to the cuffs. “I…I knew but…I had to…I had to see…I wanted to see…with my own eyes.”
He stops talking again and Chan sighs. It’s as slow and excruciating as pulling teeth. He glances at Felix but all Felix can do is shake his head.
“See. What?” Chan asks again.
Jeongin hesitates but at Felix’s nod, he reluctantly continues with the quietest voice.
“See…if the painting was right.”
Chan glances at the mirror where, beyond the one way glass is the paintings they’d collected from Jeongin’s apartment. He turns to Felix but Felix just shakes his head again.
“This would be…your painting?”
Jeongin nods and Chan leans in a little more.
“You wanted to see the crime scene with your own eyes so you could paint it accurately?”
Jeongin shakes his head, another tear slips from his eye and Felix leans forward in his seat.
“It’s okay, Innie,” he says gently. “Chan’s a friend of mine. You can trust him.”
Jeongin still shivers and Felix turns to look at Chan.
“Can you turn off the cameras?” he asks. “And the recording. Turn everything off.”
“Why?” Chan frowns.
“Because what Innie is about to say cannot be recorded,” Felix tells him in a very, very quiet voice. Too quiet for the recording to pick up. “Who’s in the observation room?”
“Han, Bin and probably Hyunjin.”
“We can trust them,” Felix nods. “But turn everything off. Please, Chan.”
It’s against protocol. When the higher ups look over this, they’re probably going to notice the missing timestamps and grill Chan for it but one look at Jeongin and Chan knows they don’t have a choice. If Jeongin has information they need to know, and if he’s not going to say it whilst being recorded, then they have to turn it off.
He turns to the mirror and nods to Jisung on the other side. He and Felix look up at the security camera in the corner of the room and watch as the red light turns off. They then glance at the small recording device on the table and watch as it too goes dark.
“Okay,” Chan says as he turns back to Jeongin. “Everything’s off. The only people who can hear us are people we can trust.”
“You won’t believe me,” Jeongin says with a small shiver. His eyes are still staring down at the cuffs on his wrists. “You won’t believe me.”
“Innie, please,” Felix pleads and Chan can see it, Felix is dying to touch Jeongin. To take his hand and hold it tight to comfort him in the way Felix usually does.
“Try me,” Chan tells Jeongin. “Because right now the evidence is against you. Give me something to take it away from you.”
Jeongin is silent. He doesn’t talk for another minute. He just breathes, as if preparing himself for it. Chan and Felix watch, quiet and patient as Jeongin slowly lifts his gaze and looks at them both. He settles his watery gaze on Chan and meets his eyes directly.
“I went to the crime scene to see if the painting was right,” Jeongin explains quietly. “Because I’d already painted it before I stepped foot in there.”
Chan frowns, thoroughly confused. “How did you paint it with that much accuracy without ever stepping foot in there? All this tells me is that you were there during the murder itself.”
“I wasn’t there,” Jeongin says. “I wasn’t. I have never been in there until today. Just like all the other paintings, I was never there.”
“Then how?” Chan demands. “Did you have someone taking photos for you? Were you working with the killer?”
“No, I wasn’t,” Jeongin shivers and Felix leans in again.
“Innie, tell the truth,” he pleads. “Tell Chan the truth.”
“He’s not going to believe me.”
“I believe you,” Felix insists. “I’ve seen you do it. Tell him.”
“Tell me what?” Chan frowns. “What am I missing here?”
Felix doesn’t say it. He keeps his eyes on Jeongin until Jeongin, shivering and still silently crying, lifts his head to look at Chan. He then speaks in a quiet, terrified voice.
“I painted it in my sleep.”
Chan blinks. “E…excuse me?”
“I…I painted it…I dreamed it and painted it in my sleep,” Jeongin explains. “I painted all those paintings in my sleep. All those murders, I…I saw them all in my dreams.”
Chan glances at Felix but Felix is nodding. He’s serious. This isn’t a joke or anything, it's serious but Chan just can’t wrap his head around it at all. Sleep painting?! Is there even such a thing?! And even if there is, dreams of murders he’s never been near isn’t even in the realm of the sane and real.
“I…I’m sorry, I’m not buying this.”
“It’s true, Chan,” Felix insists. “I’ve seen him do it. He’s asleep the whole time but he walks to his easel and paints in his sleep. And what he paints is a scene that hasn’t come true yet but it does within hours of his painting.”
Chan’s logical mind is struggling with all of this.
Jeongin looks sullen. “Told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Because it’s ridiculous!” Chan chokes. “Sleep painting? Precognitive sleep painting?!”
Felix fumes. “It’s true. I have seen him do it with my own eyes. And when I saw it, I knew no one else could know about it because they’d either throw him in a psych ward or they’d use him for all the wrong reasons!”
Chan stares at him but Felix is very serious and Chan knows Felix well enough to know he’d never joke about something like this. Not in this situation. Not when he knows Chan is trying to catch a killer.
But then what’s the other explanation? He’s telling the truth. The unbelievable truth that Jeongin is somehow…psychic.
Chan finds that equally hard to believe.
“Okay,” he says after a moment of disbelief. “Okay. I want proof then. Paint me a murder that’s about to happen.”
Jeongin looks pained. “That’s not how it works.”
“He does it in his sleep, Chan,” Felix explains. “He doesn’t do it consciously.”
“Then we’ll put you in a bed and watch you sleep,” Chan explains. “I want proof. I can’t just go with this on blind trust.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Jeongin winces. “Most nights I don’t even paint. I don’t paint every murder that happens, I just paint the ones near me. The really bad ones. The worse they are, the more likely I am to paint them and when I wake up I just…I feel really sick. I get migraines. In my dreams it’s like I’m the one holding the knife half the time, it’s….you don’t know what that’s like.”
Chan nods. He doesn’t know what that’s like. He doesn’t want to know what that’s like.
“You’ve gotta give me something here,” Chan says. “You’re asking me to trust that you painted all those paintings in your sleep and that the only reason you were at the crime scene was to verify what you had already painted. No judge or jury is going to buy that.”
“No judge or jury should ever know about that,” Felix cuts in firmly. “I mean it, Chan. His secret doesn’t leave this room or the observation room. It’s dangerous. If people know Innie can paint the future…” he shudders. “No, Chan. Just no.”
“I can’t justify letting him go just because you say he’s innocent,” Chan explains, a little frustrated. “And not giving the evidence or reasons to the higher ups, that’s not going to fly. Even if I did believe your reasoning, you’ve just told me not to use it so what do I tell my bosses when they ask why Yang Jeongin is innocent?”
Felix’s nostrils flare, as they so often do when he’s irritated.
“You tell them that Yang Jeongin couldn’t possibly have been at the scene of the crime during the murder because he has an alibi,” he tells Chan. “He was with me.”
Chan sighs. “Lix, no he wasn’t. You were with me the night of the murder.”
“Innie did not do this,” Felix insists. “He didn’t even know her. He’s not capable of any of the things that was done to her.”
“And even if I did believe that, I still can’t let him go,” Chan argues. “He was at the scene of the crime. He has paintings of past murders. No matter which way you swing it, there is no logical explanation for any of this other than he was the murderer.”
“But you know he wasn’t!” Felix snaps. “You’ve been chasing the March Hare for years, does Innie even come close to fitting your profile?!”
No. Not even close. He might be as crazy as the March Hare but that’s about all he’s got in common with the profile.
“If you put Innie away for this, you’re letting the real March Hare get away,” Felix points out angrily. “Can you really live with yourself if that happens? Can you look Minho in the eye if that happens!?”
“Don’t bring him into this.”
Felix sighs tiredly. “You’re right. I’m sorry. But Innie is not the March Hare.”
No he’s not. Chan feels it in his gut, deep in his bones, Jeongin is not the March Hare. He glances at the security camera, it’s still turned off and so is the recording device. He can only imagine what the others are thinking about this whole thing. Whether they believe Jeongin or not, the fact still remains that Chan needs a solid reason for letting Jeongin go.
Chan turns back to Jeongin and thinks it through.
“How often do these paintings occur?”
Jeongin shakes his head. “They don’t have a schedule. I feel them and I paint them randomly but they’re always worse in march.”
“Because of the Hare?”
Jeongin shudders, he nods and his eyes are haunted. “The way the Hare murders…it’s worse than anything I’ve ever seen. He’s slow, he takes his time and his victims…they’re still alive when he…”
Chan nods, that at least had been published once in the newspapers. (Only once, Chan forbade them from releasing details next time for fear of inviting copycats.) The Hare was meticulous, skilled and highly intelligent. Nothing in his crime scenes was left to chance or accident and yes, some of his victims did live long enough to see and feel what he did to them.
“Okay, well I can’t let you go as it stands right now,” Chan explains, he holds up a hand before Felix can round on him. “Even if I did believe this was a thing, which is asking a lot of me, but even if I did, we would need a lot more to let him go.”
“Put him in a room with an easel and observe him at night,” Felix says. “But make sure the only people who watch him are you, Han, Bin or Hyunjin. He’s not lying.”
“And even if we do see it, even if it is true, what do I tell my boss?” Chan asks, slightly lost. “As far as he’s concerned, we have the Hare right in this room. I don’t think he’s the Hare, you don’t either but we’re not the ones that matter in this.”
Felix falters, he glances at Jeongin and the other looks lost too.
After a moment, Jeongin turns to Chan. “I could…help you catch-”
“No,” Felix cuts in firmly.
“I feel the Hare every time he kills someone,” Jeongin continues boldly. “I feel everything he’s feeling. I paint the scenes hours before he does them, I could help you catch him.”
“No, Innie!” Felix frowns. “It’s too dangerous!”
“The alternative is I get done as the Hare,” Jeongin sniffs, rounding his big doe eyes on Felix. “Which…I know I’m not but sometimes I…sometimes I think…”
“You are not the Hare, you’re not any of the murderers you sense,” Felix says, a touch of softness returning to his voice as he sees Jeongin begin to shiver again. “It’s not your fault you can sense them, Innie.”
Jeongin shivers, tears slip from his eyes and Chan tries to think through his offer. If - and it’s extremely unlikely but IF Jeongin was telling the truth and he could somehow sense the killers, he might be their best hope to find the Hare. He dreads March. Everyone does. March is when the Hare comes back, when the most gruesome of murders occur and it’s been three years now.
The public need answers, they need someone to string from the highest tree. The higher ups need answers too, the fact that the Hare has continued to evade them has made them look like idiots. Made the entire police force look like idiots.
This will be year four of the March Hare’s terror and they have to find him and stop him.
“Excuse me,” he says to Jeongin as he gets up.
He taps Felix on the shoulder and Felix dutifully follows him out of the room and straight into the observation room. As they enter, they meet the varied expressions from Jisung, Changbin and Hyunjin. Hyunjin hands Chan a mug of coffee and steps back, his eyes flicking to the window where Jeongin sits as still as before.
“Well?” Chan asks. “What do you guys think?”
“I think he’s insane,” Changbin states right away. “Lix, I get that he’s your friend but I’m having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around an artist who paints in their sleep. Much less paints murders they’ve never seen before.”
“I’ve seen him do it with my own two eyes and I understand none of you know him or have any reason to trust him but all of you know me,” Felix frowns, his eyes looking at every single person in the room. “Why would I lie to any of you about this?”
Changbin isn’t the only one who looks doubtful, Hyunjin shifts where he stands as well.
“You sure he didn’t just drug you one night and make you think that’s what you saw?” he asks, pretty eyes looking Felix up and down suspiciously.
Felix groans, exasperated and Jisung looks up.
“I think I want to give this theory a shot,” he announces. “My gut is telling me this kid is not the March Hare. He doesn’t fit the profile at all and it was way too easy to catch him. What sort of idiotic criminal goes back to the scene of the crime and gets caught the way he did?”
“One who doesn’t want you to think he’s the March Hare,” Changbin insists.
Felix looks disturbed and conflicted. He looks through the window and shakes his head when he sees Jeongin still sitting in the same spot.
“I want you to believe me on this,” he says, his eyes looking over the officers in the room. “But I don’t want Innie involved with anything to do with this. It’s too dangerous. If anyone else found out what he can do….those who don’t believe him will throw him in a straitjacket and those who do will use him. There is a reason I haven’t talked about him before.”
“How do you know him?” Jisung asks.
“I met him at an art gallery years ago and he’s in the art program in my uni,” Felix explains with a wince. “Well…he was. He managed about half a year before his anxiety and ability got the better of him. He’s a brilliant artist, it's just…he hasn’t been able to pick up a brush for fear of what he’ll paint in the daylight. He blames himself for these murders sometimes, he thinks he causes them by painting them but I swear, all he does is sense them. He is not the March Hare.”
Changbin and Hyunjin look doubtful, Jisung seems to believe. Chan doesn’t know what to believe but if he has to trust his gut instinct, then Jeongin is not the Hare.
“Hyunjin, set up a holding cell with an easel,” he instructs. “We can’t let him go but we can observe him under strict conditions. If he really does paint in his sleep, then we’ll see it.”
Felix looks terrified. “Don’t let anyone else see it,” he pleads. “Only you guys, I mean it.”
“That’s what I meant by strict conditions,” Chan says with a small reassuring smile. “We’ll take it in shifts and watch him through the night. No recording devices, no cameras, no one but us.”
No one argues, though Changbin looks like he wants to. Hyunjin leaves to set the room up and Chan takes a deep breath. If they’re going to catch the Hare, they better be certain it’s him.
He can feel it deep in his bones. Jeongin is not the Hare.
⚜ ☆ ⚜
Jeongin sits on the end of the state-issued single bed and watches as Hyunjin sets up the easel on the other side of the cell.
It’s not what he imagined a ‘cell’ would look like. For starters, there’s no bars. Only a glass wall he suspects is probably unbreakable. His room is a little bare, save for the bed, the door leading to a bathroom and the easel Hyunjin is fiddling with in the corner. On the other side of the glass, Felix is talking to Chan but he can’t hear them.
Soundproof as well.
Hyunjin makes a small sound of exertion as something doesn’t click in properly. Jeongin hears him swear quietly and leans in a little.
“I can set that up,” he offers. “I um…I have several easels at home, I know how they’re set up.”
“I’ve got it,” Hyunjin tells him. “Stay where you are, I don’t want Bin to shoot you for moving.”
Jeongin pales, he looks to the other side of the glass where the man he was introduced to, Changbin, is watching him steadily. Next to him, Jisung looks slightly curious, a little more open to the impossible idea of a sleep-painter. More open to it than Changbin at least.
Sighing, Jeongin ignores the slight headache and looks back at Hyunjin.
The other is quite tall and slender, his uniform is slightly different to the others, indicating he’s not quite on the same level as them. He’s wearing the same uniform all police wear but the badge on his chest shines under the light and Jeongin can see the initials MHT glinting back at him.
Hyunjin’s blonde hair is tied back into a short ponytail but strands still hang over his eyes as he focusses on holding the easel in place. He’s handsome, beautiful even, Jeongin finds himself surprised by that. He hadn’t imagined someone so pretty would be working with the police.
Jeongin hums. He remembers Felix telling him about his friends. His friends who worked in the police and he didn’t imagine he’d meet them under these circumstances but it is nice to finally put names to faces. Especially Hyunjin’s.
Something in the easel finally clicks into place and Hyunjin makes a triumphant noise as he steps back and wiggles it to make sure it’ll stay up. He then grabs the fresh canvas from the corner and sets it in place.
They’d raided Jeongin’s apartment again. Jeongin can tell because the paints they bring in are straight from his studio. Hyunjin sets them in the corner of the cell along with the brushes, palettes, everything Jeongin could possibly need. Jeongin feels his heart ache at the sight of them.
There’s a reason he kept his studio locked. Aside from all the incriminating paintings, there was also the fact that his love for art was painful. When he was a child, he loved painting, he had an eye for it. A talent. He embraced art and it kept him sane, kept him going through multiple bouts of anxiety and depression.
But then he started painting in his sleep and the scenes he painted scared him. Up until now, only Felix knew about it and Felix had embraced him so completely. Helped hide this ability from the world.
Until now.
“Do you need anything else?” Hyunjin asks, he turns to look at Jeongin and finally notices the silent tears streaming quietly down Jeongin’s cheeks.
Jeongin doesn’t answer, his eyes are honed on the bare canvas and he feels his chest ache. How cruel it is to have something he loves, something he viewed as his escape, snatched from him so cruelly and perverted with murder. Now every time he looks at an easel, all he feels is pain. Pure pain.
Hyunjin approaches him slowly. He kneels down next to the bed and Jeongin doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t even notice him until he feels Hyunjin’s finger wiping a tear off his cheek. Jumping slightly, his eyes widen as he finally notices Hyunjin there and there’s something unreadable in Hyunjin’s eyes. Unreadable but warm.
No wonder Felix liked him.
“I’m sorry,” Jeongin sniffs, rubbing his face with his sleeve and he can’t help the feeling of embarrassment that flares in him. His cheeks turn pink and he can’t look at Hyunjin.
It’s strange, he hates crying and especially crying in front of people but he never thought himself the type to get flustered and shy about crying in front of someone beautiful. There’s something about crying in front of someone like Hyunjin that makes it all the more embarrassing.
Hyunjin looks like he’s about to say something when Changbin’s sharp voice makes both of them jump.
“Hyunjin,” he calls. “If you’re done in there, get out and leave the psychic alone.”
Jeongin thinks he hears Hyunjin mutter something under his breath. Hyunjin manages to shoot him a small smile before he gets up and leaves the cell. He joins Changbin and Jisung and as they talk, Chan and Felix walk into the cell.
Felix comes up to Jeongin, he leans down and pulls him into a hug that Jeongin leans into gratefully. He’s not the kind who really relies on physical touch but this morning has been a nightmare. First with the painting two days ago, then with his stupid idea to walk onto the active crime scene.
He shouldn’t have done that.
“I’ll be here the whole time,” Felix assures him as he holds Jeongin tight in his arms. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.”
Jeongin shivers, he pulls back a little from the hug and looks up at Felix with wide, worried eyes.
“What if I can’t?” he asks quietly. “What if I can’t do it?”
“We’ll figure something out,” Felix promises. “You’re not the Hare and we know it.”
But he can still paint scenes he has no logical way of knowing. Jeongin glances at Chan and the other is just watching him, no hint of fear, anger or any emotion other than slight curiosity. He seems like the kind of person who is trustworthy - even if it does take a long time for Jeongin to trust anyone. Felix had taken years.
“Rest,” Felix tells him. “If you need anything, we’re right here.”
Jeongin nods and Felix leaves the cell again with Chan. The glass slides to the wall, locking him in and Jeongin shivers. He looks up and on the other side of the glass, Chan, Felix, Jisung, Changbin and Hyunjin are trying not to make it obvious that they’re watching him but they all are.
Jeongin feels a cold shiver rush through his body, he closes his eyes and lies down on the bed.
On the other side of the cell, the easel seems to taunt him.
⚜ ☆ ⚜
The afternoon glow of sunlight shines into the small room, illuminating the small chessboard perched right next to the window. Sitting at the table, Lee Minho gazes out of the window, watching the hues of purple and pink streak across the sky. The dying orange of daylight seems to glow behind the backdrop of the city.
As the sun sets and night begins, Minho’s bedroom grows darker and darker. He watches as the light of the sun disappears and the dark skies begin their watch. Had it not been for the city lights, he’d have seen stars up there.
Pity.
Just outside his room, Chan looks in through a small window. He notes, with some pain, the relaxed way Minho appears in his seat. He glances at the rook piece still in Minho’s slender fingers. As if he had the intention to play but was distracted by the world outside.
The psychiatric hospital is quiet on this end. It has to be for the sake of its patients. Chan leans against the wall and watches Minho even as he hears the familiar steps of a doctor walking up to him. He knows without looking who it is.
“He’s doing well today,” Seungmin says as he stops in front of Chan. “The new regime seems to be working.”
Chan doesn’t take his eyes off Minho. He shakes his head and takes a deep breath.
“That’s what you said last time,” he reminds the doctor. “And he tried killing himself.”
“You know as well as I do that most of these drugs are trial and error,” Seungmin reminds him. “But I’m hopeful about this one. He didn’t have nightmares last night so that is a really good sign.”
Chan nods. He watches the way Minho turns his eyes from the window and back to the chessboard. Minho leans over to flick the lights on in his room and when he can see the board again, he moves the white knight to take out the black bishop on the other end. He’s calm now but it’s an illusion.
It always is.
Seungmin has the decency to look somewhat regretful. He’s one of the youngest psychiatric doctors in this hospital and yet he was the perfect fit for Minho. He’d been determined and intelligent enough to break through most of Minho’s internal barriers and he’d earnt Minho’s trust. He’s the only doctor Minho won’t scream at and although Chan doesn’t always understand his methods, he is one of the few people Chan would ever trust with taking care of Minho.
“I…don’t think I need to tell you this but…while we’re still breaking in the new medicine it would be best if you-”
“I don’t intend on letting him see me,” Chan assures him, finally taking his eyes off Minho to look at Seungmin instead. “I know how this works.”
“I know you do,” Seungmin winces. “I’m hopeful about this one. If we can get him into a routine with this new medication, keep him calm, then it might be safe to bring you in. It won’t be like last time.”
Chan shivers. Last time still haunts him. Minho had been placed on a new medication (after the last one didn’t work) and they’d done everything to the letter. They’d put him on a routine, kept him calm, kept him on that medication for a few weeks and then they finally brought Chan in. They thought Minho would remain calm but what happened was that Minho had taken one look at Chan and screamed.
It had taken them days to calm him down after that. It had only taken a few seconds of a guard looking the other way for Minho to somehow escape his room and lock himself in the bathroom with a shard of broken glass he’d taken from a window he’d broken.
By the time Seungmin and Chan got to him, Minho had almost taken himself out.
“We’re taking it slow this time,” Seungmin assures Chan. “And security has been maximised for him. What happened last time will not happen again.”
Chan closes his eyes. Minho’s blood had been warm on his hands as he’d clamped them around the open wounds on Minho’s wrists. He remembers screaming for help and angrily telling Minho not to leave him. It had been a nightmare and it still haunts him.
“We may have found the Hare,” he says, watching as Seungmin’s eyes widen in surprise.
“Oh?”
“Well…I don’t actually think so but if he is who he says he is, he might be able to help me find the Hare,” Chan clarifies with a small shrug. “It’s a shot in the dark but…it’s something.”
Seungmin nods, sympathetic.
“Well…it’s already January,” he says. “Less than two months to go. If you can cut him off before we get to March…”
Chan nods. That’s the plan.
“Focus on Minho,” he tells Seungmin. “I’ll get the son of a bitch who did this to him.”
Seungmin nods but he looks worried too.
“Just be careful,” he says. “Don’t let your emotions cloud you. I know what he did to Minho is awful but you need to catch the guy - not kill him.”
Chan has been told this before. When they created a special taskforce specifically designed to catch the March Hare, Chan hadn’t been in it at first. Given what the Hare had done to Minho, Chan was deemed to have too much of an emotional investment in finding the Hare. Some feared he’d kill him on sight.
But Chan had fought for a place in the taskforce and he was finally accepted on the condition that Changbin and Jisung, his oldest friends who were already on the taskforce, be there to supervise him.
Now three years down the line and they were a small taskforce. Comprised of himself at the head, Changbin right behind him, Jisung, their forensic specialist and (unofficially) Hyunjin. Many others had quit or been killed by the Hare himself.
And Minho…Chan glances at him again and observes Minho’s frame seated at the chess table. Minho had been kidnapped by the Hare two years ago. He’d been feared dead like all the others. Chan had nightmares that he’d find Minho one day, stuck in one of the Hare’s ‘artworks’ , his body mutilated beyond recognition all for the sake of the piece.
But Minho had come out of it alive. The Hare had given him back. Dropped him off in the middle of nowhere and Chan remembers running into the hospital to see him.
Minho had been starved, he was thinner than Chan had ever seen him. He’d been abused, burn marks, bruises and scars that will never fade but when Minho had seen Chan, all he’d done was scream. He screamed every single time he saw Chan.
Jisung surmised the Hare must have conditioned Minho to fear Chan.
It wasn’t often but every now and then, Minho seemed to come back. Seemed to return from his tortured mind and recognise Chan. He’d remember he loved him and he was always horrified that he’d been scared of Chan and had screamed at him. He was always apologetic, kissing Chan’s face and telling him over and over how much he loved him but when his mind took over - as it always did - all Minho felt towards Chan was fear.
Pure, blinding fear.
“I’ll be careful,” Chan assures Seungmin.
With one more look at Minho, Chan endures the ache in his heart as he has to force himself to pull away. No matter what, Minho cannot see him.
“Look after him,” he says and with one more nod, Chan heads back down the hallway towards the exit.
Seungmin watches after him. Worry clawing at his mind as he wonders, not for the first time, what the Hare will do to Chan if he ever gets his hands on him.
⚜ ☆ ⚜
It hadn’t been easy. Especially in such a foreign room but despite the cold of the air and the eyes watching him, Jeongin had somehow managed to fall asleep.
Sitting in the observation area, Chan watches Jeongin’s sleeping form and takes a deep breath. Felix is sitting in the corner of the room, his eyes pinned to Jeongin’s form. Hyunjin is on the other side looking over the canvases they’d taken from Jeongin’s studio. Jisung and Changbin sit side by side, both of them watching the cell.
“I feel like we should…I dunno, attach things to his head to read his brainwaves,” Jisung comments after a moment. “Not that we’d understand the data.”
Changbin looks like he wants to say this is a waste of time but out of consideration for Felix, he holds his tongue. Instead he exhales loudly and leans back in his seat. A whole night of watching Yang Jeongin sleep. There’s no guarantee he’ll even paint tonight.
Hyunjin leans down to examine a corner of one of the pieces. As he does, Chan turns to watch him.
Each piece is meticulous. There’s no doubt of the skill behind each and every single one. As gruesome as each piece is, it’s brilliantly captured. Chan himself had never really been one for fine art but even he could tell when he was looking at a masterwork.
He’d rather not though. He’d been in every single one of those crime scenes in person. Seeing them captured on canvases was just a new kind of weird and disturbing.
“He was so different before he started painting these things,” Felix comments quietly.
Jisung turns to look at him curiously.
“So he didn’t do this all the time?”
“No,” Felix shakes his head. “This only started four years ago.”
“A year before the Hare appeared,” Changbin hums, turning to look at Felix as well. “What was he like before this started happening?”
“Very different,” Felix says, his eyes slightly haunted at the thought of it. “Innie used to smile a lot. He’d make jokes, he had friends all over the place. He was really popular and he was so, so talented. I think he was always depressed and anxious but he found it easier to cope with back then.”
Felix glances at the canvases and the others follow his gaze. Artwork after artwork of what can only be described as evil and insanity. Murder after murder, torture, mutilation, rape, all the darkest things a human can do to another captured in paint. Jeongin had been through them all, felt them all, no wonder he was a nervous wreck.
“After the nightmares started and he started painting in his sleep, he withdrew from everyone,” Felix recalls. “It took me a long time to get him to trust me enough to show me these. He thought I’d think he was the murderer. He was scared I’d turn him in when I saw what he was doing but…”
Everyone else knows the truth. All of them know Felix well enough to know that Felix would have tried helping Jeongin in any way he could. Even if that meant helping Jeongin become a complete hermit for his own sanity and safety.
Not for the first time, Chan is reminded that Felix has the uncanny ability of knowing almost everyone. He’s so friendly to everyone and he seems to just weave himself in and out of everyone’s friend group with little to no effort on his part. Even a case like Jeongin.
The night wears on, Changbin and Jisung eventually fall asleep leaning on each other. Hyunjin heads out for food and drinks as Felix pulls a seat up next to Chan and observes Jeongin’s sleeping form on the bed.
Chan glances at him curiously. He looks to the door where Hyunjin just left and turns back to Felix.
“Is that still going on?” he asks.
Felix looks confused for a second before he looks at the door and realises what Chan is referring to.
“Ah, no,” he says with a small smile. “Hyunjin and I are over. It was nice, we split pretty amicably but…yeah, it’s over.”
Chan hums. “I’m sorry about that. I know you were pretty happy with him. He seemed happy too.”
As happy as he can appear anyway. Hyunjin isn’t the most open person, especially about his private life. Given that Chan is technically his superior at work, there’s no reason for him to tell anyone about his life. The only reason Chan, Changbin and Jisung know about it is because they’re all friends with Felix.
“It just wasn’t working in the end,” Felix admits with a small wince. “I know you might not be able to relate, given that you’ve only been with one person, but I need a click when it comes to relationships. Hyunjin and I got along really well but we didn’t have that click.”
Chan grins. He may not know what it’s like dating more than one person - given that he’s only ever dated Minho and Minho was a done deal as far as he was concerned - but he does know what Felix is referring to about the ‘click’.
The spark, the flame, whatever the poets say to describe the intangible knot of attraction that binds one person to another for the rest of their lives.
He pats Felix’s shoulder. “You’ll find it.”
“One day,” Felix sighs wistfully. “But my love life aside, what’s going on with Hyunjin anyway? Have you managed to get him on the taskforce yet?”
“Not yet,” Chan admits, a twinge of regret spreading through him at the thought. “I know Hyunjin wants to join and we’re so short for people after what happened last year. But the chief won’t hear it. He doesn’t want Hyunjin anywhere near the Hare. If he even knew that Hyunjin keeps helping us and involving himself in the cases anyway, he’d have my head.”
“Which is why Changbin never asks Hyunjin to join,” Felix finishes with an understanding nod.
“Exactly,” Chan says. “The Hare killed 19 of our own last year. It’s a dangerous place but Hyunjin wants to help. He wants to be part of this taskforce and I want him here too but the person who has the last say is the chief.”
The chief who doesn’t want his nephew anywhere near such a dangerous case. The chief who, in the interest of protecting his nephew, assigns Hyunjin to menial tasks in the force like parking tickets and booking low level criminals.
Officially, Chan cannot ask Hyunjin to do anything involving the Hare’s cases but since Hyunjin keeps inserting himself into their cases anyway, the best he can do is ask Hyunjin to do low level tasks. It’s not much better than what the Chief is doing to him and Chan does hate asking Hyunjin, an officially and specially trained officer to do something as menial as getting coffee, but at least that way, Hyunjin is with them.
However much Changbin disapproves because Changbin doesn’t like seeing Chan get reamed by the chief.
Out of the corner of his eye, Chan notices Jeongin move. He and Felix stop talking, silence drawing over the room as they watch Jeongin slowly sit up, pull the blankets back and turn until his feet are on the floor.
Chan leans in. Jeongin’s eyes are open but he’s staring straight ahead, as if he’s not even there mentally. Felix leans over and shakes Jisung’s shoulder as Jeongin slowly stands and makes his way towards the easel.
Jisung and Changbin groan, both of them bleary and confused but when they wake and see what’s happening, they stop and lean in to watch.
Jeongin is not awake. Not really. He seems to be in a trance. The four of them watch, none daring to breathe as Jeongin reaches for his brushes and paints. He doesn’t trace an image, he doesn’t set anything aside, he reaches for the colour he wants as if the entire thing had been preplanned.
All he does is take the colours he wants, the brushes he needs and he begins to paint.
“Fuck me,” Changbin breathes. “Is he awake?”
“No, he’s not,” Felix says. “I’ve seen him do this. He is not awake.”
Jisung turns to his laptop, he taps into the security cameras installed in the cell and zooms in for a closer look. He examines Jeongin’s expression, the dullness in his eyes, the way he’s not even really focussed on what he’s doing.
Felix, Chan and Changbin observe as Jisung zooms in to watch his hands, his eyes and his mouth. Jeongin seems to be mumbling to himself but for the life of them, they can’t make out a single word.
“He’s showing signs consistent to sleepwalkers,” Jisung observes. “The mumbling, the zoned out look, does he remember any of this in the morning?”
“No,” Felix says. “What he remembers is the nightmare itself. Not the painting.”
Jeongin starts painting and as the group observe him, the door opens as Hyunjin comes back in with a few shopping bags in his hands. He hands them out to the others, pausing as he notices Jeongin is actually awake and painting.
“Woah…”
“Yeah,” Jisung agrees.
Chan focuses on the painting itself. It’s like Jeongin already has an image in his mind long before he sets the brush to the canvas. There’s practiced ease in the way he holds the brush, the way he paints and with each stroke he mumbles and babbles complete incoherence.
None of them talk, none of them move. Time seems seamless as they watch Jeongin painting in his sleep. Chan has to admit, he hasn’t ever watched a painter at work but he doubts it’s anything like this. Jeongin paints as though he has a deadline - and technically he does, he won’t be able to do this whilst conscious - his strokes, his pace almost maddeningly desperate and yet still undoubtedly skilled.
Changbin tilts his head, he squints at the painting and hums. “Is that an…alleyway of some sorts?”
“Looks like it,” Jisung agrees. “Like a narrow alley between two buildings.”
“Think we might be able to track it?” Hyunjin asks and Chan shakes his head.
“Maybe, but not without something distinguishing.”
Jeongin continues to paint, completely unbothered by the eyes watching him as he works. It’s over an hour before he starts to paint the focal point, the centrepiece of the entire thing.
“It’s an alley,” Jisung determines. “Right between two buildings…seems to be center city and…”
“What is that?” Changbin asks, pointing at a billboard just at the corner of the canvas.
The group lean in. It’s hard to tell what it is but contrasting the dark hues of the buildings, the shadows and the lights, the blue right in the corner appears almost out of place. At first glance, it appears to be a quarter of a circle with blue on the outside and white on the inside.
Jisung gasps. “I know what that is!” he says, his excitement too much for him to handle as he starts jumping up and down in his seat. “That! I know what it is! It’s an ear!”
Felix frowns. “An ear?”
“For that thing! That animal thing!” Jisung exclaims, flapping his arms around as his brain struggles to recall the name. “You know the thing, Lix, we had lunch there not too long ago!”
“We have lunch together all the time,” Felix reminds him gently. “Be a little more specific.”
“You know, that place we went to,” Jisung continues, a little frustrated Felix can’t just read his mind and pick out the area. “Remember? The one with the sandwiches and they put eggplant in yours and you had to send it back because-”
“Oh!” Felix exclaims, he too jumping out of his seat at the realisation. “Oh shit! What was that place?!”
“I know right?! It’s on the tip of my brain!” Jisung says, grabbing Felix’s hand as they both try to recall the area. “It was right in the middle of the city too!”
“How is that an ear?” Hyunjin asks, pointing to the blue thing in the corner of the easel.
“It’s a bear,” Jisung explains, he pauses and frowns. “No wait, it’s not a bear. It’s like a cartoon thing. It’s really big and it’s part of a group…fuck I can’t remember a thing.”
“Try calming down and recalling where you were,” Chan advises, his hand on Felix’s shoulder as he sits them both down. “Did you write it down anywhere where you went?”
“No, we don’t plan these things,” Jisung admits regretfully. “We kind of just meet up and pick a place at random. And I heard about this sandwich place from a friend and I really wanted to try it.”
“But they were closed so we went to another place,” Felix recalls. “And we forgot the name of that place too.”
Changbin takes his eyes off the screen and looks over at the cell. Jeongin is painting a body hanging upside down. As he reaches the details, his hand doesn’t shake when it paints what appears to be electrical cords wrapped around the body, cutting into the skin.
Someone in the alley is hanging upside down, held up by cords attached to both buildings.
“I remember there’s a Lush store nearby,” Felix says as Jisung frantically pulls his phone out and searches for addresses.
“The smell…I wanted a bathbomb,” Felix continues, wracking his mind for memories. “It was really hot that day and we wanted to find something cold…and we walked past that Lush place and right next to it is um…what’s that place? It’s full of cartoons.”
“Line?” Chan asks. “Disney Store?”
“Kakao Friends store?” Hyunjin adds, eyebrows furrowed in mild confusion.
“That’s it!” Jisung gasps. “The ear! The thing in the corner, it’s a koala! A blue koala! And see, look there,” he points to another area in the painting. “Innie’s drawn a billboard. See the red? That’s the character with a love heart for a head. The one with the really long arms. Line is just down the road from Kakao.”
“Okay,” Changbin sighs. “Now we know the ‘what’, we just need to know the ‘where’. Where in town has a Kakao Store and Lush right next to each other?”
Hyunjin pulls the address up on his phone and hands it to Chan who logs it into his own phone.
“Let’s go,” he announces.
“Wai- what about Innie?” Felix asks, pointing to the cell where Jeongin is still painting.
“You and Han stay here,” Chan says as he grabs Hyunjin and Changbin with him. “Keep in touch via text, let us know if anything changes.”
They rush out of the room and when they’re gone, Felix and Jisung look over at Jeongin. The other paints, seemingly unbothered by what’s happening outside his cell. Sitting back down, Felix and Jisung let out identical exhales as the previous excitement and tension of ten seconds ago leaves them all at once.
There’s a moment of silence before Jisung speaks again.
“Next time we have lunch, let’s keep the receipts.”
Felix nods, he slaps Jisung’s palm with his own and watches Jeongin paint.
⚜ ☆ ⚜
When Jeongin wakes, he feels the familiar ache of his post-painting experience. It’s become a normal thing now. He always knows when he’s painted a murder because his body just aches. His head pounds, the muscles in his arms and legs ache like he’s been abusing them all night with needless exertion.
But the nightmare lingers in his mind. He’d seen it so vividly, smelt the scent of burning exhaust fumes in the air. The neon lights of billboards and shop signs almost hurt his eyes as he watched the body strung up high above himself.
It had been a young woman, snatched from a night out with her friends. Jeongin had felt pure jealousy course through his veins. This woman had spurned him…the murderer…they seemed one and the same. He’d taken her right out from the bathroom and dragged her here where he strangled her with an electrical cord.
Then, with frightening and maddening precision, he’d wrapped those same cords all around her. Tight enough to cut skin, he hadn’t cared. He’d wanted her to suffer, he’d wanted all women to know what happened when they rejected him. He pulled her hair, spat in her face, called her all the names under the sun for rejecting him. For making him feel so small.
Jeongin didn’t know if the murderer had known her or not, all he’d felt was humiliation, dejection. He felt angry and it’s a sick feeling because anger tends to linger in the blood long after the nightmare is over.
Opening his eyes, Jeongin turns in his bed and looks at the canvas. Sure enough, the painting is complete. A woman, suspended in midair, hung by the cords attached to both the buildings she’s hanging from. He feels a familiar lurch in his stomach and rips the blankets away as he stumbles to vomit in the toilet.
The glass door opens, Jeongin hears steps coming towards him as he empties his stomach into the bowl. With an exhausted sigh, he flushes the toilet and looks up to see Felix crouching beside him.
But Felix is smiling, he’s not worried at all.
“You did it,” he says.
Jeongin frowns, he gets up and goes to the basin to wash his mouth out first. As he does, Felix follows him and helps him hold his hair back.
“What did I do?” Jeongin asks when he finally lifts his head again. “I painted a murder.”
“You stopped the murder,” Felix tells him, his lips wide in a grin as he takes Jeongin’s hands. “Chan and the others recognised the area and went to investigate. They found that man halfway through strangling the poor girl. They managed to save her.”
Jeongin blinks. Confusion washes through him and he’s sure Felix is lying because he’d dreamt about it all to completion. He’d seen that man kill her and string her up, he hadn’t been interrupted.
“But I…” he stammers, mid thought. “I dreamt he’d killed her. I finished the painting.”
“Yes but they saved her,” Felix tells him as he brings Jeongin to sit on the bed. “She’s alive. You saved her life, Innie!”
Jeongin glances at the completed painting. It’s strange to think it depicts a death that hadn’t happened for once. But when he glances out of the glass barrier, he sees Jisung smiling at him, Changbin looks tired but relieved. Behind him, Hyunjin shoots a small smile at Jeongin as well.
Jeongin turns back to Felix.
“Where’s Chan-hyung?”
Felix just smiles. “He’s getting you out.”
⚜ ☆ ⚜
The chief’s office has never been the nicest place in the station. Long ago, when someone built this place, they’d made the incredibly stupid decision of placing the chiefs office right in the middle. Which, theoretically made sense but it also meant the poor man didn’t have any windows that looked outside.
His room was the darkest and coldest room in the entire station. A result of poor planning, poor execution and a long line of chiefs who refused to just move to a nicer room because tradition.
Chan keeps his hands behind his back. He schools his face into the same unreadable expression he always needs to wear around his boss. When it’s anything aside from his own nephew, the man is not unreasonable. Chan would even go so far as to say he’s a good chief, he’s a good man and he runs the station smoothly.
Hyunjin is his blindspot and Chan has already learnt not to step on that if he can help it at all.
“So,” the chief says, his eyes rounded on Chan. “We have a bonafide suspect, one with concrete evidence against him and you’re telling me you’re certain he’s not the March Hare?”
“He is not the Hare,” Chan replies calmly. “The paintings are another matter entirely but he is not the Hare. I’m certain of it and so is my team. What this man can do is help us find the Hare.”
“How?” the chief frowns. “We found those paintings in his apartment. He was at the scene of the crime, how is that explained away?”
“The profile surmises that the March Hare is, for starters, bigger than Yang Jeongin,” Chan says. “He’s not stupid enough to wander onto a crime scene - especially not one he was responsible for. From all the data we’ve gathered over the last three years, nothing points to Yang Jeongin. But what I’m certain beyond a shadow of a doubt he can do is help us.”
The chief looks unconvinced, kind of like Changbin was but this is different. Chan cannot tell him the truth, not when he knows that the chief has the ear of a lot of people who would - as Felix fears - lock Jeongin up or use him for all the wrong reasons. What if the media got hold of him? What if the world knew? What if the story got out that the police were so desperate they’d started using a psychic to solve mysteries? They’d never be respected again.
“The real March Hare is out there somewhere,” Chan tells the chief. “You know I have a very personal reason for wanting to catch this guy. Despite the evidence stacked against Yang Jeongin, I know he’s not the Hare. But he can help me find the Hare.”
“And…for this mysterious reason you’re not telling me, you’re requesting that we let Yang Jeongin go.”
“Yes.”
The chief doesn’t ask for more and Chan doesn’t provide it either. It’s almost like there’s a silent agreement between the two that whatever reasons Chan has for believing Jeongin is innocent, he cannot tell the chief and the chief believes in Chan enough to know better than to ask for it.
“Very well,” he states. “But let’s be quite clear about this. The March Hare is on the lips of every media outlet in the world. When March really rolls around, all eyes will be on us. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Yes sir, thank you sir,” Chan bows.
He’s almost out the door when the chief speaks again.
“Oh, and Officer Bang?”
Chan pauses and the chief levels him with a steady look.
“Keep my nephew out of it.”
Chan nods and leaves the room, an uneasy feeling pricking at the back of his neck.
⚜ ☆ ⚜
Jeongin’s apartment almost looks the same as he’d left it. As he steps inside, he looks around at his living room, his bedroom and kitchen. The officers had either been considerate when they looked through everything or someone - probably Felix - had come along and cleaned everything afterwards.
Either way, Jeongin feels relief at the sight of his apartment, his safe space once again.
The only thing that is really different is the studio. The door is open - unusual considering Jeongin keeps it closed and when Jeongin peers inside he finds the white area completely bare.
“Police are keeping the paintings,” Felix explains as Chan and Hyunjin walk in after him. “Sorry, Innie.”
“They can burn them,” Jeongin shudders as he comes back to stand in front of Felix. “Only reason why I kept them was because I couldn’t find a place to burn them without people asking questions.”
“Thank you for your help last night,” Chan says with a small bow. “Thanks to you, that poor girl was saved.”
“I didn’t do anything, I just went to sleep,” Jeongin mumbles.
“You saved a life,” Hyunjin reminds him kindly.
Jeongin’s ears burn from the attention and he wonders how long it’s been since he’s felt attraction towards anyone. Long enough that he’s not used to the physical symptoms of an early crush.
“Now, you have your freedom but when you have a dream you need to call us right away,” Chan says as he hands Jeongin a card. “That’s my personal number. Call me any time, night or day if you need anything or if you dream anything.”
Jeongin looks over the numbers and slowly nods. It feels strange to be left alone now, after being monitored all night, but he’s glad for it. He can return to his hermit life, he hardly ever leaves the apartment anyway.
It’s a strange feeling. He’s gotten so used to his nightmares hurting him, dreams of murder that he never thought he could actually save anyone. He never thought anyone other than Felix would believe him but here Chan and Hyunjin added to the small group and they both believed him. They’d both seen him in action.
It’s just a weird feeling to be believed, to be trusted even with such an unbelievable trait.
“Thank you for getting them to let me go,” Jeongin adds as he pockets the card.
“Don’t thank me just yet, Innie,” Chan winces and Jeongin wonders when everyone got used to using that nickname. “I know you don’t like the nightmares but they could help save lives. Just remember to take care of yourself, alright?”
Jeongin nods. He meets Hyunjin’s eyes again and feels a flutter in his stomach. Shit. Weirder than being believed about his weird ability is having a crush on this pretty guy he barely knows. He quickly looks down and clears his throat.
“I’ll be careful,” he promises.
“We’ll let you rest,” Felix says at last, pulling Jeongin into a hug. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?”
Jeongin leans into him, he nods and when Felix lets him go at last, they finally leave. Hyunjin leaves last, Jeongin meets his eyes one more time and feels something warm rush through him at the sight of Hyunjin’s smile before the beautiful man closes the door.
And at last, he’s alone again.
He’s grateful for it. Jeongin makes himself lunch, he locks the door to his studio again (knowing that he’ll open it in his sleep if need be) and he settles himself in the living room to watch TV. He naps in the afternoon, cleans the rest of his apartment, makes himself dinner and by the time the night rolls around, he feels somewhat semi-normal again.
After all, he’s been alone in his apartment so long that he’s not used to being around people if he can generally help it.
As the night draws late, he showers and settles in his bed. He answers some messages from Felix, a few from his mother and when he finally feels the pull of sleep dragging at him, he flicks the light off and settles into his bed to sleep.
⚜ ☆ ⚜
Waking with a gasp, Jeongin knows something is wrong the moment he finds himself on the floor of his studio and not in his bed. Paint litters the floor around him, open cans leak paint onto the tiled floor.
His heart is racing, quick, rabbit-like pulses as his vision focusses and he looks around. There’s paint in his hair, on his clothing, coating his hands but as his gaze focuses on the artwork before him, he feels his heart stop.
It’s him. He’s the next victim. His head is laid out on his pillow, a grotesque and horrifying image that reminds Jeongin of Théodore Géricault’s Severed Heads. His body is nowhere to be found but what Jeongin can remember from his dream had been simple anger. Pure, furious anger at him, at what he could do.
Scrambling up from the floor, he ignores the familiar clench of his stomach as he races out of his room and for his bedroom.
He needs his phone. He can grab his phone and lock himself in the studio. He painted the image, that means he still has time.
He bursts into his room, heart racing and hands shaking as he grabs his phone from where it had been charging on the bedside table. Just as he’s making his way back out, he takes one step out into the hallway when a shadow appears just at the corner of his peripheral. Someone’s at the end of the hall already and moving silently.
With a gasp, Jeongin ducks back into his room and looks around. If he runs out to the studio now, the intruder will find him before he gets to the door.
Panicked and scared, his blood rushes past his ears as he gets down to the floor and crawls underneath his bed. It’s the best chance he has, his closet isn’t big enough for him and there’s no getting out of the window on the seventh floor.
He wriggles underneath his bed and taps into his phone. He can hear his own heart thundering as he finds Chan’s number and calls him.
Footsteps. Firm and loud, echo just outside his room. Jeongin holds his breath and curls in as tight as he can, paranoid that his feet are sticking out of the bed as he looks over and sees the bottom of his door open and boots enter his room.
Jeongin feels tears slip from his eyes, he can’t stop shaking, he’s sure he’s breathing too loudly as he watches the boots slowly walk around his bed.
Then the phone clicks and Chan’s voice, louder than Jeongin realised it would be, answers.
“Innie?”
Before Jeongin can answer, two hands grab his ankles and yank him out. He drops his phone, a scream escaping his lungs as he’s forced out from under the bed. His hands scrape the wooden floorboard desperately but his attacker is so much stronger than him as he grabs Jeongin by his middle and practically throws him onto the bed.
“No!” Jeongin is screaming, scrambling on the sheets as his attacker holds him down. “No! No!!”
His attacker rolls him onto his back and Jeongin looks up. The man hovering above him is wearing a black mask that covers everything from the neck up. He’s dressed in black, he’s wearing gloves, there is nothing distinguishable about him aside from his body - which in his panic all Jeongin can recognise is that he’s stronger.
Somehow he manages to yank a hand free and push his attacker off. The man obviously hadn’t been expecting it because he actually falls off and Jeongin uses his moment to vault himself off the bed and rush for his door.
He just barely manages to get out into the hallway before a gloved hand grabs his hair and yanks him back into the room. Jeongin can barely scream as his face is slammed into the doorframe and pain, blinding pain, sparks from his nose and his forehead. His vision blurs, he barely has the time to recognise how much pain he might be in as his attacker throws him back onto the bed.
Jeongin whimpers. Everything is a blur, through tears and blood trickling down his forehead, he looks up to see the figure above him. The man is holding something shiny and…is that a knife?
Then there’s a weight on top of him, the man is sitting on him and Jeongin can recognise the cool kiss of a sharp blade gently grazing down his cheek. His attacker is toying with him, one hand on his chest and the other holding the knife that he seems to be taking great pleasure in teasing Jeongin’s face with.
Jeongin grabs his wrist but the man is far too strong. He gasps as the blade finally cuts his cheek. The attacker hums quietly, his head tilting in what could be fascination as he watches the blood slip down Jeongin’s cheek.
“Pretty,” he says. “You’re so pretty.”
The blade cuts further down his left cheek and Jeongin gasps. Tears slip from his eyes as his nails dig into the attackers wrist. The man doesn’t budge at all.
It’s terror that stops Jeongin from fighting more. Pure terror of the knife and of angering his attacker more. He wants to move, wants to shake his attacker off his body and run but for the life of him he can’t force his body to move, can’t force his lungs to scream when all that comes out is a terrified squeak. He’s lost his voice, lost his ability to move, he’s completely paralysed as his attacker tilts his head back to expose his neck.
The blade kisses his throat and Jeongin sobs, this is it. They’re going to come into his apartment and find his head on the pillow. Just like the portrait. He could save that girl yesterday but he can’t save himself.
The blade doesn’t have the chance to sink into his skin when a distant bang makes both of them jump in surprise. That was the front door.
“Innie!”
Chan. It’s Chan’s voice.
Jeongin feels the weight on him release as the attacker quickly gets off him. Jeongin’s vision blurs, he thinks he feels the caress of a hand on his face but he can’t tell. All he knows is that there is finally air filling his lungs and he uses it to scream.
His bedroom door bursts open and there are hands on him, Jeongin looks up to see Chan’s wide eyes and he almost cries at the sight. His hands shake as he reaches up for him and Chan is already pulling him up and into his chest.
“I’ve got you, Innie,” he breathes, holding Jeongin tight to himself. “I’ve got you.”
Jeongin looks up to see more of them, policemen everywhere barging into the room. They’re fully armed and spreading out in all the rooms but Jeongin’s eyes flick to his open window. The attacker, his would-be killer, is gone.
“Window!” Chan is saying. “Bin, the window!”
The room is in chaos with officers looking out the window and more running out to try and catch the attacker on his way down. Jeongin clings and lets Chan walk him out of the room and into his living room. Chan sits him down but Jeongin can’t let go of him, his hands grasping Chan’s shirt as his breath comes in short, terrified bursts of panic.
“Innie, Innie, look at me,” Chan says as he kneels in front of Jeongin and takes his helmet off so Jeongin can see his face. “Innie, look at me. Breathe. You’re safe now, I’ve got you.”
Jeongin can’t stop shaking. There’s a voice in his head, the rational side perhaps, that keeps saying: Stop. Stop, you’re safe now. He’s gone, you’re safe. But he can’t stop, his cheek stings from the cut, his vision keeps blurring every now and then and his nose is hot to the touch.
Jeongin leans forward, he hides his face in Chan’s shoulder and wraps his arms tight around him. Chan doesn’t hesitate, he holds Jeongin close to himself and rubs his back, repeating over and over again that he’s here. He’s here and he’s got him.
The rest of the night is a blur. Jeongin is eventually taken downstairs where paramedics look over him, fix up what they can and advise he be monitored for a possible concussion. He’s sitting in the back of an ambulance, a blanket around him when Felix finally appears amongst the chaos of police cars and curious neighbours.
Jeongin watches as the blonde rushes past police barriers, his blonde hair the most visible part of him as he runs straight for Jeongin and wraps him into a tight, shaking hug. The familiar scent of his hair, his warmth all around Jeongin is all it takes for Jeongin to hide his face in his neck and cry like he hasn’t been able to since the attack.
Distantly he hears Changbin and Hyunjin telling Chan that the attacker got away. He feels a shiver rush through him and he clings to Felix. Over his shoulder, through the lingering chaos of blue and red lights, he catches sight of Chan talking to Changbin and Hyunjin. All three of them decked in riot gear.
As if feeling his eyes, Hyunjin looks away from Chan for a moment and locks eyes with Jeongin. His eyes are unreadable and although he’s almost too beautiful to look at, Jeongin can’t look away. He stares even as he feels Felix’s hand rubbing his back, Felix’s comforting whispers in his ears and all he can see is Hyunjin.
After what feels like forever, Hyunjin looks away when he sees the police carrying out the canvas Jeongin had been painting. Hyunjin, Changbin and Chan pale at the horrifying image of Jeongin’s severed head in the centre, painted to masterful perfection. Each terrifying detail immaculately placed to show the full horror of what could have happened tonight.
Hyunjin looks terrified, his eyes meet Jeongin’s again and Jeongin has to close his eyes. A tear slips down his cheek and he holds Felix tighter.
Pretty, you’re so pretty. It echoes in his mind like a taunt but for the life of him, he can’t recognise the voice.