Chapter Text
Yoo Sangah was 3 months into her employment at Mino Soft when she finally snapped. She was great at being perfect. She needed to be perfect at everything, therefore she did the best she could— No, she went above and beyond. She spent limitless free time on countless study, language, and memory apps. Long nights were spent pouring over the latest articles over her career field that could affect her in some or anyway.
She did everything she could in order to be perfect.
On top of that, she was kind. She was the polite office worker who smiled and nodded to everyone, along with knowing their name. It was hard and sometimes she had to cheat by listening in on the conversation just before she walked past a group of people, but she made it. Everyone knew her as a charming co-worker who always smiled and was prepared for everything.
But she had enough. Yoo Sangah was tired of it. She was perfect all of the time, so it was only natural to need to divulge at moments like these, she told her reflection. Murder wasn’t bad when it’s a man like this, her mind screamed.
Before her was Han Myungoh, a relentless sexual harasser. Yoo Sangah had become accustomed to the leery sights of men and their inappropriate timings to ask her out. She shot them down or would even interrupt them before the question could be spoken.
She should have known that she couldn’t hold herself back anymore. It was pointless. The last place she worked at had the same problem. She thought moving back to Seoul would get rid of her homicidal urges to stab the men who asked her out but it didn’t. Not even close.
The man was squeaking now as she approached him. His greasy, slicked-back hair was in shreds as he begged for his life. It was dumb and irritating. How many times had Yoo Sangah asked to be left alone? How much more obvious did she need to say that she didn’t want him near her.
But alas, Han Myungoh continued to try again, again, and again.
It was a late night at Mino Soft. Yoo Sangah normally didn’t work late, especially so on the last workday before a company holiday break, but Han Myungoh cited that she needed to stay with him in order to look over reports.
She knew it was a lie. And he knew that she knew it.
Honestly, it’s his own fault for not realizing that she wasn’t just a random co-worker who would allow herself to be looked at. As soon as Han Myungoh left the useless reports on the table and pushed her against the wall of his office, Yoo Sangah knew what he wanted. It’s what most people wanted from her.
She grabbed the nearest item — a letter opener, if she wasn’t mistaken — and slashed it at the man. Han Myungoh was somehow surprised by the act. He fell backward as she aimed at his face.
That’s where they were now. Han Myungoh was begging her to stop as he searched for something to hit her with. Yoo Sangah simply kicked him away mercilessly.
She then heard the click of a door, but she didn’t register it until she had stabbed Han Myungoh in the neck. The letter opener took a lot of force to do so. She felt the hot, ruby blood spatter onto her face as she stabbed it into the flesh.
A strong metallic scent filled her nose. When she took the letter opener, there was a sloshing sound as the blood from the slightly breathing, almost dead, corpse jutted out with one last heartbeat.
She stood up from her victim, the bloodied weapon in her hand, in order to be met with the person she wanted least to see her. She wiped the blood across her face in hopes of getting it off but all it did was smear across her skin and make her look even more deranged than she was just moments ago. And yet she was calm as she looked up.
Yoo Sangah exhaled in the silent room, her eyes focused on a lone figure with a series of papers in his hands.
Kim Dokja, she knew, was probably the unluckiest guy in the world. He had worked at Mino Soft for 3 years, received no promotion, and kept getting signed onto 1-year contracts instead of being paid the rate of a full-time permanent employee. Yoo Sangah, who had been in some of the meetings about current Mino Soft workers along with the budget for them, knew that it was a way for the company to save money.
Kim Dokja was also the only person she actually liked at work. He was always shy and polite, and not in the I’m attracted to you sort of way. Instead, he met her greetings with short nods and small, hesitant smiles. He helped her out when her schedule was busy by dropping off notes without being asked along with the occasional breakfast bar or tea. Kim Dokja, to put it simply, was not a person she wanted to kill.
A part of her mind was yelling, But he’s a witness! He saw what you did, you can’t let him live! Go for the kill, do it now!
The other part of her remembered how Kim Dokja saw her struggling with her workload — Yoo Sangah’s perfect and great at her job, so let's pile and stack it onto her — and walked her through the steps. It made Manager Kim yell at him for not getting a report done. Yoo Sangah watched the man yell at Kim Dokja for 5 minutes before sighing and walking away as if he hadn’t verbally assaulted a worker. Kim Dokja barely even flinched from the reprimands, simply sighing before continuing with his workday. All for her, because she wasn’t as perfect as she wanted everyone to believe.
“Dokja-ssi,” she sighed out, almost broken.
She was going to have to kill him in order to remain perfect. It was the only thing that mattered. She knew. It’s all that the world wanted her to be. Perfect, perfect, perfect.
Kim Dokja’s hands ran over the edges of the papers he was carrying. It was a nervous tick as he stared down to the still-warm dead body of Han Myungoh. Yoo Sangah dropped the letter opener, letting it fall onto the tiled floor with a clang. She watched as his eyes twitched at the sound, as if reality was finally setting in.
And then, just as she thought about picking up the pen from the table where Han Myungoh set down his bag, papers, and a pointed pen that could stab through someone’s jugular, Kim Dokja stepped forward.
Yoo Sangah thought that he was going to scream. Or maybe he would pass out or something. Kim Dokja was kind and sweet, always hooked onto his phone whenever he wasn’t busy, which wasn’t that often. But she had noticed it because he always smiled in the break room whenever his eyes read over the screen.
Instead, Kim Dokja asked in a nearly inaudible voice, “Do you want me to find a way to get rid of the body, or focus on the clean up?”
What?
Yoo Sangah expected a cry of terror or an accusation. She didn’t expect Kim Dokja to set down his own papers onto the table and look at her with a fraction of kindness.
He leaned forward and asked softly, “First time?”
Yoo Sangah trembled as she met his gaze. Why didn’t he react the way that he was supposed to act?
She paused. She couldn’t think about this. If Kim Dokja was willing to help her instead of shouting about her crimes for all to hear, then she would allow it. Kim Dokja was the only person who saw her as her instead of a perfect doll who did everything right, looked perfect, and wanted to do everything she could in order to make others happy.
If Kim Dokja would rather be an accessory to murder, than a witness of the death, then she wasn’t going to turn it down.
So, with a steely nerve that she didn't know she had, she announced, “I’ll get rid of his corpse. I’d appreciate it if you could clean up anything you can.”
Kim Dokja took off his jacket and laid it on the table where no blood splatter was. He nodded along to her instructions and said, “I think the maintenance closet has what we need.” Then, he was off as if he didn't just suggest helping her cover up a murder.
That night, Han Myungoh was thrown into the Han River. The small office that was once bloodied was now cleaned to perfection, though Kim Dokja mentioned that it looked too clean, so they roughed it up with crumbs and aired out the bleach smell.
That night, Yoo Sangah invited Kim Dokja to stay with her so they could have an alibi. Or, that’s what she said. What she really wanted was not to be left alone. Kim Dokja brought over take-out and they talked about a horrible reality television dating show that neither of them had really watched before, only seeing clips online or hearing things from the gossip mill at Mino Soft.
She allowed herself to smile and pretend that she didn't have dried blood still trapped between her nail and cuticles.
-
Jung Heewon was an average person trying her hardest to make rent and fall in love. She wondered what Lee Hyunsung would think of her now as she picked up the baseball bat. He would probably be shocked, as she had a high moral compass just as he did. And yet… and yet she still picked up the bat with a certain plan in mind.
It was another night of bartending. Another night of serving drinks to too-drunk customers and too-idiotic middle-aged men who couldn’t take a hint. Jung Heewon had been watching over a certain group of young girls — maybe 19 or 22 max — that had entered the bar for a fun night out. It appeared that they were celebrating. One of the girls even wore a tiara.
Jung Heewon was happy for the group, as they all smiled and joked around with one another. The drinks the girls ordered weren’t that alcoholic, simply mixed drinks that were more sugar than anything else. It was a good start.
It was a normal night up until the men at the corner of the bar called Jung Heewon over, paid her, and ordered her to give each of the girls a whiskey shot on him.
Jung Heewon needed this job. It was one of the best-paying bartending jobs around. She was technically the manager of the bar, too. It’s just that they had not one, but two call-outs that night. So she was forced to man the entire bar herself. It was chaotic but the tips were especially high that night so she pocketed everything she could with a tight-lipped smile.
The girls took the whiskey shots with wide, excited eyes. When Jung Heewon pointed out the man who sent them over, they waved over at him. One of them commented on how hot it was and "oh, this is just like those shows on television." Jung Heewon went back to her place and waited for the night to end so she could close the bar and be done with it.
She still had an hour to go until the end of her shift. It was dreadfully long.
Jung Heewon kept busy by eyeing the customers and deciding that she liked the docile office worker who was typing on his computer as he nursed the same martini he had ordered an hour ago. She offered to give him a drink on the house — he was the politest person in the room, though that wasn’t a high bar for a place full of drunks — but the office worker turned it down.
Jung Heewon noted that the one man who sent the shots to the girls had turned into a two-man team that was chatting it up with the party-hard girlies. She felt disgusted, her gut rumbling uneasily, but she needed to continue on. She couldn’t shut the bar down early simply because she had a bad feeling. The amount of profit that could get lost…
Jung Heewon focused on the office worker instead. He had his earbuds in and talked lowly into the mic. She was able to get a glimpse of his screen in order to see the face of a handsome man — don’t go, Lee Hyunsung, no, she still loves you she just likes to admire others as well, like, have you seen the short-haired girl that frequented the bar in a purple sweatshirt? — with a few scars along his face but still relatively good-looking.
Jung Heewon thought it was a bit weird to facetime someone in a bar but their wifi had a good set up so she didn’t think anything of it.
Time passed slowly as she did menial tasks. The bar would close in 10 minutes. Jung Heewon said so to the customers, receiving complaints and exhausted, slurred yells. She shrugged and led one of them to the door early. It was a regular so they’d be back tomorrow anyway.
As she started to wipe down the bar for the final time, she noticed that someone had fallen onto the floor. She heard loud giggles, which hopefully meant no one was injured. When Jung Heewon looked up, office-worker-man had his bag packed as he slowly sipped down the rest of his drink.
They both turned to see the young girls in the bar help one of their friends stand up and pile her onto the men’s shoulders.
“Thanks so much,” said one of the girls, stumbling as they made their way out the door. “We’ll get a taxi.”
“I don’t think you’ll all fit in one car,” said another man. “Tell us her address. We’ll get her home.”
“You’d do that for us? Dang, you’re so sweet.”
Jung Heewon couldn’t believe what was happening before her eyes. The rest of the patrons of the bar slowly left but she was frozen in her spot. She hated it. Hated everything about the world for a few moments. Why did this type of injustice always seem to exist?
She had locked up the bar for closing and trickled out onto the dark streets without realizing her intentions. Jung Heewon walked around looking for cut-off alleyways. She found her target due to the sound of vomiting. Jung Heewon turned her head down the dark way in order to be met with two men patting the girl’s back as if they were kind.
Jung Heewon walked into the alleyway as soon as one of the men picked up the sick girl and draped her in his arms. She picked up a stray baseball bat — one of the kids along the block constantly threw baseballs into the bar’s window so much that they replaced it with reinforced glass — and tested the metal in her hands.
She knew what she was going to do. A beating wouldn’t suffice. The men were organized and they infiltrated the group easily. It had been done before at other bars. Maybe it had been done at the bar she worked at as well, just on a different shift or at a time when she didn’t pay as much attention.
She was silent as she cracked the metal bat against the skull of the first man. As he splattered onto the dirty alleyway floor, she went for the next man even as he told her, “I have a lotta money, is that what you want? I’ll pull it out. You don’t need to tell anyone about this—!” The second man fought back but as soon as she hit him in the knee, he was done for. Blood leaked down the dirt in rivers before pooling slowly.
When she looked over, the drunk girl — roofied, maybe — had passed out next to a dumpster. Jung Heewon was relieved that the girl was unharmed. Maybe she wouldn’t even remember the alley, or the night in general. Jung Heewon set down the bat after wiping away her prints.
Ice-cold realization filled her to the brim. She killed two people and she didn’t feel bad. It felt right, as if there had been justice. And there was, she reminded herself. Those men deserved to die. How many people had they done this to in the past? How many times had they gotten away with it? How many more would suffer because of them?
And then, just as she calmed, she saw the flash of a white collared shirt. It was the office worker from the bar. He looked panicked as he ran across the alley. As soon as he saw the blood, though, he sighed in relief and said, “Thank fuck.”
That was a strange reaction to seeing the murderous scene but she would take it.
“But I— I just killed those men,” she felt herself say.
“You killed two rapists,” he said flippantly. “I think you’re fine. I was trying to find where they went so I’m– I’m glad you got rid of them.”
Jung Heewon realized that the random person before her understood what she was trying to do. He recognized the men for what they were.
“We’ll take the bat with us,” he said nonchalantly. “If you pretend to be my date, we could get away with this, I think. The cameras around here are shitty. The blood on your clothes won’t be visible. We could make it back to the bar or even your place unseen if it’s not far off.”
Jung Heewon picked the bloodied metal bat back up. The unknown man took it from her and stashed it in his jacket. They walked back to her place with intertwined hands, and fell over one another just in case someone saw them.
That night, she learned his name was Kim Dokja. He worked at Mino Soft, assisted in the accessory to murder before, and had killed his own abusive father with a kitchen knife when he was 8-years-old. He understood that some people had to be stopped or else they would become worse.
The next morning, Kim Dokja left with a small note about visiting the bar with a friend later. Jung Heewon smiled at the rabbit face drawn next to it before continuing on with her day.
She saw the news talk about a double homicide. The only witness was a young college student who was taken to the hospital for drug testing. Since Jung Heewon wasn’t in cuffs, she would say that she got away with murder.
Lee Hyunsung dropped by for lunch and Jung Heewon smiled knowing that he and her were different but they both tried their hardest to maintain safety. She did hers with a moral compass that knew when things were too far. He did his duties in order to protect everyone he was capable of. It was give and take but Jung Heewon thought they still fitted together alright.
-
Lee Gilyoung was fighting for his life. He was going to die but he was determined to live for a reason that he didn’t truly have. A man on the train saw him, alone and vulnerable. Lee Gilyoung knew that he was an easy target. Small, young, thin, and bony. He also didn’t have a travel companion and gave off a weak and innocent vibe.
Lee Gilyoung was followed into the bathroom. He was washing his hands when he looked into the mirror. Before him was a tall man in a hoodie. He tried to scream but by then a gloved hand was over his mouth. He kicked and clawed at the hands around him to no avail.
He was dragged into a bathroom stall. Lee Gilyoung knew there was cruelty in the world. His parent’s deaths proved that. His childhood since then had too. His classes at school were full of bullies, or teachers that pitied him up until they hated him.
Lee Gilyoung had no weapons to use. All he had was his body. He wasn’t strong, especially not compared to others in his grade. He was always outside, though, searching for interesting things. He really wanted to be outside currently but he couldn’t leave. Not when there were hands up his shirt and hot, sickly breath against his ear.
And then it all stopped. The body holding him against the door of the bathroom stall fell down onto the toilet before colliding with the floor. Lee Gilyoung sucked in a sharp breath before looking around.
That’s when he saw the head of a man above the stall wall. It was a man on the same train that Lee Gilyoung got off of earlier. It was the man that sent him a worried look at a person his age traveling on the subway train alone.
“Kid,” asked the stranger, “you good?”
No, but also yes. The man who tried to hurt him was knocked out cold. No more harm would come to him. Lee Gilyoung silently nodded his head before unlocking the bathroom stall.
He stepped out on shaky limbs. The man from the next stall over also left and smiled down at him. A slow hand approached him before Lee Gilyoung nodded. The stranger patted his head, ruffling the slightly curly locks on his head. Then, the stranger ushered him to the sink.
As Lee Gilyoung ran the water over his hands, he heard a crack. When he looked over, the stranger had left the bathroom stall. Lee Gilyoung had many questions with no answers but he remained silent.
The stranger said, “Let’s get you home. Where do you live?”
Lee Gilyoung didn’t want to say.
“Alright,” sighed out the stranger. “Then let’s get some food. What’s your favorite place?”
That afternoon, they went out to a greasy fast-food chain and talked. By the end of the hour, Lee Gilyoung knew that the man before him, his hyung now, was actually Kim Dokja. He was an office worker at Mino Soft who had helped murder people before, but this was the first time he had done so all on his own since he was a kid. Lee Gilyoung nodded his head and realized that a stranger risked being caught so that he wouldn’t get hurt.
The next day, Lee Gilyoung was transferred from his old foster home into a new one. He was shocked to see his hyung again so soon. Kim Dokja wrapped him in a hug and the strange man lurking in the kitchen brought out sliced apples with a grunt.
Lee Gilyoung still loved his hyung, and he loved the apples, but he thought the gloomy kitchen man was a bit odd.
-
Kim Dokja got off of work. He nodded and smiled at Yoo Sangah, who walked with him. She normally biked to and from work but she was walking home with him instead today. They dropped their things off at his apartment before heading over to the bar. Jung Heewon greeted them with enthusiasm before introducing Lee Hyunsung, her sort-of-a-thing live-in partner. The man was a puppy in disguise, truly.
-
Kim Dokja went home in order to be met with Lee Gilyoung talking to a cage of grasshoppers. When he asked why, the boy said that the grasshoppers were better company than the ‘snooty bastard.’ Kim Dokja sighed as he left the living room after patting Lee Gilyoung’s hair.
He entered the master bedroom in order to see Yoo Joonghyuk pouting as he played on his hand-held gaming device. Kim Dokja placed a kiss onto his husband’s forehead before slipping onto the bed and ushering him outside.
Kim Dokja took a shower only to return to the living room in order to see Lee Gilyoung watching Yoo Joonghyuk capture a butterfree from Pokemon on his screen. Bugs. Kim Dokja smiled as he watched them both smile in happiness at the score.
-
Kim Dokja saw a group of teenagers beat up an innocent kitten in the park. Then he saw a girl surrounded by a pack of larger dogs. At her command, the army of dogs attacked the teenagers. He watched on and wondered if Yoo Joonghyuk would be upset with another stray.
-
Yoo Joonghyuk rolled over on the bed. He let out a small, whining noise. He tried to be silent but Kim Dokja stirred next to him. The office worker’s eyes filled with concern before he turned on the lights and helped Yoo Joonghyuk into a more comfortable position. Kim Dokja rubbed his fingers delicately over the wound that was left there.
He whispered, “Your last job was too high risk. You should have turned it down.”
“Dokja-ya,” responded Yoo Joonghyuk, a bit gruff and rough.
“Hyuk-ah, that tone won’t work on me. You’ve been taking more jobs lately. You should slow down. We have enough money between my overtime and your savings.”
He remained silent. How was he supposed to tell his beloved that the reason he took jobs was so that they could live in peace later on and retire somewhere where murder couldn’t happen from time to time? A retirement plan before they were old. A place where they could spend their days away from any harm.
“You should stop helping people cover up murders,” he responded.
Kim Dokja shrugged as a soft smile overtook his face. “They’re good people.”
“That’s what you said about me.”
“Was I wrong?” He raised a brow. “You’re good.” His hand pressed down on Yoo Joonghyuk’s chest. “Just because of your job… You’re good. Good to me and Gilyoung-ie, too.” Kim Dokja took out an alcohol wipe. “Stay still.”
Yoo Joonghyuk had his wounds cleaned and redressed before Kim Dokja laid back down. The lights clicked off and Yoo Joonghyuk reached out an arm. Kim Dokja nestled into his shoulder, his breathing evening out quickly.
God, how in the world did he fall in love with this idiot he was supposed to kill?
Yoo Joonghyuk sighed away his emotions. He basked in Kim Dokja’s warmth and inhaled his subtle scent. When he drifted off to sleep, it was a slow, unruly process. His fingers wrapped around Kim Dokja’s wrist in order to feel the constant, rhythmic heartbeat. It lulled him into calmness.