Pass The Time With Me
Title: Pass The Time With Me
Pairing(s): HanChul
Genre(s): warning!dark, angst, highlight for spoilers warning!death
Length: 5304 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In which Heechul is obsessed with Death.
Inspiration(s): I was reading my music history textbook and read that many Romantic composers were fascinated with Death, which influenced their music. Franz Liszt’s Totentanz, for example, is a piano concerto on Death. To greyrosesinjune and stars_in_love, this is the dark fic I was talking about.
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It started when Heechul’s mother died. No, that’s not it. It started when Heechul’s father bought a dinosaur skeleton toolset to keep his son busy while he dealt with the tedious funeral arrangements that came with the death of Heechul’s mother.
For a long time, Heechul remembered very clearly the moment he set his eyes on the box filled with the wooden bone cut-outs. It had a cover that pictured three dinosaurs-the Tyrannosaurus rex, the brontosaurus, and the triceratops-each strong and dynamic and vibrant. And he remembered ripping open the tape and looking inside to find a picture of the skeletons of the three once-almighty creatures that roamed the Earth.
His six-year-old mind worked slowly, and as he looked back and forth between the two images-one of flesh, the other of bone-shock and curiosity and eventually fascination sunk into his young pliant mind.
The child had never thought about the concept of Death until then, and it took him a good long while before he was able to think of anything else. He managed to build the toy dinosaur skeletons by himself, and he believed that they were much more beautiful than the live ones on the cover.
When he attended the funeral procession, he stared down at his mother’s corpse and frowned at it. His mother still had her lovely pale skin and dark hair with blush on her cheeks and lipstick on her lips, looking more like she was sleeping. He wanted to say something (this is wrong, this is not how a dead person should look like, wrong wrong wrong) but his father’s had a strong grip on his shoulder so he just pursed his lips shut and walked away.
Heechul took comfort in the fact that his mother would end up like those dinosaurs one day-all stark bones with no extra frivolous weight.
(do you ever wonder where we go when we die?
no.
really? not ever?
i don’t need to wonder where we go. i already know.
you do? so, where do we go when we die?
absolutely nowhere.)
Heechul met Han Geng in a seedy alleyway behind the club he always frequented on the weekends. The man was doubled over clutching his gut, vomit frothing in his mouth as he retched onto his shoes. Not an unusual sight-the club was known for its over-the-top strong drinks that had even the toughest Russian-Irish bartenders wobbling on their feet.
It was a gruesome spectacle, but Heechul was in no hurry to rejoin the ear-splitting club scene. Instead he opted to lean against the cement wall, take a slow deliberate drag from his cigar, and watch the guy empty out his stomach contents. “Bathroom stalls full again?” he quipped once the dark-haired stranger seemed to come back to himself.
“How would I know?” came the stiff reply.
Heechul dropped his cigar and crushed it with the heel of his expensive black boots. “Well, I just assume that’s where most people go when alcohol detox hits.”
“The bathroom was too far,” the man admitted meekly.
This surprised an amused snort from Heechul. He brushed his long dark hair out of his eyes, careful not to smudge his black eyeliner and lipstick. “Well, I was about to head home anyway. It’s happy hour in there, which means too many people are abusing their livers. Want to share a cab?”
The man shot a look of suspicion towards him, and after a moment’s hesitation he said, “Do you usually invite men you find vomiting out on the streets to share a cab with you?”
Heechul looked him up and down. Dark hair, dark eyes, tanned skin, clad in leather from head to toe. “Only the good-looking ones.”
The man laughed. “I’m Han Geng.”
“Heechul.”
(you really should stop this, you know.
stop what?
all this death stuff. it’s not healthy.
uh-huh, and what do you know about being healthy?
enough to know that surrounding yourself with bones and skulls and tombstones is not healthy.
they keep me company.
i keep you company.
no, you don’t. you bore me.)
The first objects Han Geng noticed about Heechul’s flat were the candles. Then he noticed the eerie black curtains and the painting of the Grim Reaper and the grey tombstone leaning against a rickety old shelf. The inebriated part of his mind thought that this was odd at best. The sober part told him to run away as fast as his wobbly legs could take him.
Heechul must have noticed his unease, because he just smiled and led him to the kitchen where they were met with a sterile whiteness that was almost blinding in comparison.
“Should I be worried?” Han Geng asked as his head spun and he rubbed at his sore temples.
“Maybe,” Heechul shrugged his shoulders and shed his black trench coat to reveal thin tattooed arms. “Depends on what you are worried about. I’m not into murder, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” The man made himself comfortable on the kitchen counter where he ran his hands over four etched marks on the marble surface. “What should I be worried about, then, if not for my life?”
“Well,” Heechul slid up next to him, not too close but close enough to make a point. “For starters, I’m not a great conversationalist so you could worry about basking in boredom for the rest of the night. Don’t get that many visitors, you see.”
“I wonder why. What else?”
“I haven’t vacuumed ever since I’ve moved in. So if you have dust allergies, you should probably get out. Or if you are squeamish about insects, especially spiders. I myself am quite fond of spiders, and I honestly don’t understand why people are so afraid of them.”
Han Geng raised an eyebrow and chuckled lowly. “You’re a funny one.”
Startled, Heechul had a curious look in his eyes. “You’re not afraid of me?”
“I am a little bit freaked out, to tell you the truth.” Han Geng scanned his surroundings carefully. Cobwebs decorated the ceiling corners, death metal albums were splayed on the floor, and a plush winged bat with loose stitching hung from a wire in the middle of the room. “But I’m more curious than afraid.”
“Curious about what?”
“About whether this is how you actually live, or whether you are planning on throwing a Halloween party in the middle of July.”
For the first time in over a decade, Heechul laughed and laughed and laughed.
(do you want to die, heechul?
doesn’t matter whether i want to or not. eventually i will.
if i told you to kill yourself right here and now, would you?
no.
so you don’t want to die?
i wouldn’t kill myself just because you asked me to.)
Shortly after he arrived Han Geng fell asleep on Heechul’s bed and was (in all intents and purposes) dead to the world, which was disappointing-Heechul had not been laid for over a month. After getting over his annoyance, Heechul really had to scoff at how stupid the man was-he could count on one hand the number of people he had brought home who actually stayed the night. Most of his one-night stands, even the drunk ones, left the moment they saw the tombstone. Hell, not even his father could stand being in his room for more than a couple hours, the darkness and the constant reminder of his ultimate fate crushing down on him everywhere he looked. His father had long stopped contacting him. In fact, Heechul was quite sure his father had convinced himself that he had no son at all.
Heechul was not ignorant. He knew that he looked like the stereotypical serial killer seen on TV shows, the one who played with knives like they were nothing more than sharp silver trinkets, the one who dreamt of warm foreign blood daintily dripping onto the floor like rain. (Everybody dies, you will die, I will die, we will all die die die). Sometimes he found himself wishing that it was that simple, to be able to stop that persistent craving by luring an oblivious victim into his home and slashing his or her neck.
He thought about it while he watched Han Geng sleep. He wondered how it would feel if he were to walk to the kitchen, pull out a knife, and plunge it straight through Han Geng’s lovely little heart and feel it stop beating. He imagined that it would be so thrilling, and entertained the thought for quite a while. But then Han Geng snuffled comically in his sleep and managed to make Heechul smile a bit, and all thoughts of murder would fly out his head and vanish.
Han Geng woke up in the middle of the afternoon with a massive hangover. He blinked and did his best to adjust to the light, and when his vision cleared he realized that he was staring into the empty hollows of what was clearly a human skull. He let out an unmanly scream and tried to sit up on his elbows despite the ringing in his ears. Slowly, as he looked around, bits and pieces of the night before started to return. “Heechul?” he finally croaked, throat sore and mouth bitter from bile.
“Oh good, you’re up,” came a calm reply. “I see you’ve met Siwon.”
“Siwon?”
Heechul came into view with a Tylenol and a glass full of water, which Han Geng downed gratefully. “Han Geng, meet Siwon the human skull. He’s a great listener.”
“I’ll bet,” the hung-over man sniffed, flopping back onto the velvet red bed sheets. “Was Siwon your ex-boyfriend or something?” he asked half-jestingly.
A guttural chuckle. “Close. He was a family friend who committed suicide back in high school.”
“Oh,” Han Geng whispered sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”
Heechul scoffed, picking up the skull and looking at it with a sense of familiarity so strong that sent shivers down Han Geng’s spine. “Don’t be. Siwon is better off than any of us. As he would have said, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1. He loved Shakespeare, especially the tragedies. I imagine that he’s a lot happier dead than he ever was when he was alive.”
“That’s actually a horrific thought.”
“It’s true, though. Siwon was miserable as a kid, to the point where he was taking anti-depressants daily. He was contemplating suicide ever since he was ten years old. Nobody knew, of course. Nobody ever bothered to look beneath the surface-they satisfied themselves by seeing a bright young boy who would one day grow up successful and have his whole life paved out for him.” He grimaced. “His funeral procession was filled with speeches about how happy and optimistic he was. They had no idea.”
“Did you?”
Heechul set the skull down reverently. “Of course.”
“How?”
“It was written all over his face for everybody to read. The problem revolved around the fact that nobody wanted to read it. Most people are squeamish at the idea of Death and like to trick themselves into believing that Death doesn’t exist. It unnerves them somehow.” Heechul smiled. “I never understood why. Death is a natural event in every living thing. It is irrational for people to fear it. Let’s face it, we are all dying, and we are all watching everybody around us die. We face Death every day. Every second that ticks by brings us closer to Death. One would imagine that with all this blatant exposure, we would have gotten used to it and learned not to fear it by now.”
Han Geng mutter something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like I’m too hung-over for this conversation. “So I take it that you do not fear Death?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Then you are lying.”
Heechul stared at him. “Excuse me?”
Han Geng propped himself up and smiled smugly, headache temporarily forgotten. “Everybody is afraid of Death in one way or another. It’s just a simple fact of life. Even those who want to die fear Death.”
“There is no reason to fear Death, though, if you know that it is inevitable.”
Han Geng shook his head. “People fear Death because it is inevitable.”
“But that is irrational.”
“People are irrational. Our irrationality is what makes us human.”
Heechul scowled. “Then I wish I wasn’t human.”
(On very rare occasions, Heechul would dream of dying. He would dream that his skin flaked off like sawdust, that his blood drained out from every opening in his body, one drop at a time, slowly, deliberately, almost lovingly. He would watch as the bones in his fingers slowly start to replace his pale taut skin, white ivory structures that shone like moonlight and cut like steel. He would feel his heart stop, warm blood underneath his skin slowly turning into a wonderful ice that soothed him like the wind did on a hot summer day. More blood would leak from his eyes, his nose, his mouth, his fingernails, trickling down his naked body like a river that caressed him and told him that everything was okay, everything was going to be just fine, nothing hurts anymore, no pain, no more pain
Heechul would wake up with tears in his eyes every single time.)
Heechul eventually got around to introducing Han Geng to the other companions he kept around the room besides Siwon the human skull. There was Kibum the stuffed bat that Heechul hung in the middle of his bedroom (“You already met him. He greets everybody who comes through the door. So naive.”) There was also a rat named Kyuhyun lying dead on behind the kitchen sink (“I found him there a few months after I first moved in,” Heechul described, almost fondly. “I never had the heart to move his body. His tail used to be longer.”)
Han Geng took all of this in stride, staring at Heechul with unmasked attentiveness. “You must be very lonely,” he said contemplatively, curiosity spiking even further when he caught a flash of sadness in the man’s responding smile.
“On the contrary. I find myself constantly surrounded.”
“How so?”
“There are too many people in this world, and sometimes I feel like I can hear all of them clambering and chattering and generally just being complete wastes of oxygen.”
“Is that why you seem to glorify Death so much?”
Heechul took a moment to think. “No,” he finally answered. “At least, not really.”
Han Geng nodded. “Tell me more about Kyuhyun. Is there a story behind it?”
“Kyuhyun and I go way back. He was a good boy. Pain in the ass sometimes, but to be fair he had terminal cancer so I couldn’t really blame him.”
Han Geng’s expression went from confused to sad in a matter of seconds. “Did you meet him in a hospital?”
Heechul snorted derisively. “He would have been the first one to be kicked out of a hospital. He was homeless, you see. Made a living by pickpocketing and selling heroine. I met him while using an ATM. He was ranting about how life was pathetic and that everything we did in our lives was a joke.” A quick smile lit up his face. “And just like that, a friendship was formed. The kid was smart, crazy smart. He had a gift of understanding people. Sometimes he could make out somebody’s whole life story just by looking at them.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yah. He would have had a field day with you.”
Han Geng narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t act stupid. You know exactly what I mean.”
Silence ensued for a while until Han Geng dared to speak again. “How did Kyuhyun die?”
“Drug transaction gone wrong, I think. I found him curled up in front of a dumpster one morning with a knife in his chest. He looked like he was sleeping, so most people just walked right past him. I knew better, though. Kyuhyun hardly ever slept, and if he did, never in broad daylight. He was too smart for that.”
“Do you miss him?”
“No.”
“Really? Not ever?”
“Nobody misses a homeless boy?”
Han Geng’s eyes trailed towards the kitchen sink where he knew was a pile of tiny white bones being picked clean by maggots. “That’s an interesting way to put it.”
(do you believe in the afterlife?
don’t be ridiculous.
well, do you?
no.
why not?
because the afterlife infers life after death. there is no life after death.)
Quite contrary to popular belief, Heechul loved family. He did not technically love his family, but he certainly loved the idea of a family. Perhaps it was because he never quite had one. His father was almost always out at work and his distant relatives were so distant that all of their relationships could have been done through email.
Han Geng was an only child who had no family other than his mother and father. All of his grandparents died years before his birth, and as far as he knew he had no aunts or uncles or cousins. He grew up very happily up until his mother was mugged, raped and murdered while he was still in university.
“My dad died a week later,” Han Geng finished.
“How did he die?”
“His heart was broken.”
Heechul rolled his eyes. “Bullshit.”
“Fine, he committed suicide,” the Chinese man snapped, features closing up with an almost audible slam of the door. “The man responsible for my mother’s death walked out of court with all charges dropped. There was not enough evidence to prove him guilty, and my dad shot himself in the head out of guilt. Happy?”
“No need to be so defensive. I just don’t see the point in romanticizing things.”
“It is easier for me to think of my father as dying from too much love for my mother, than for me to think of him dying out of shame and torment.”
“That is very irrational.”
“I cared about my parents.”
“Your loss.”
Han Geng blew out a shuddering breath and slowly felt the anger and pain dissipate out of him. “What about you? Are your parents still alive and well?”
“My mother died when I was very young. My father was seldom around when I was growing up. Sometimes he would be gone for so long, I would forget what he looked like.”
“Who took care of you, then?”
“I lived with my uncle and cousin for the most part.”
“Were they nice to you?”
“Kibum was nice enough. My uncle, not so much. He loved the bottle more than he loved us. Then again, I couldn’t complain. He never laid a hand on me, but he used to beat Kibum senseless on the weekends whenever he drank one glass too many.”
Han Geng frowned. “That’s-that’s awful. What kind of father would do that to his own son?”
“That’s just it-Kibum was not his son. He was the end result of my aunt’s adultery. She had an affair with my uncle’s boss that lasted years-the stupid lady thought it was true love or something like that.” Heechul shrugged. “Long story short, my aunt died giving birth and my uncle absolutely loathed the kid. He was a pious man and was convinced Kibum was the Antichrist, hence the beatings. He was always preaching about how Kibum was never meant to be born in the first place and how the only reason why he was alive was that God didn’t smite him yet. I was surprised that Kibum lived as long as he did. Not that it meant anything in the end-when Kibum was seventeen and finally starting to fight back, my uncle went through another one of his violent weekend episodes and threw a bottle at his head.” There was a tight smile on Heechul’s face that made the hairs on the back of Han Geng’s neck stick straight up. “I remember seeing Kibum fall to the ground. It was the first time I have ever seen him so peaceful. Within minutes there was a puddle of blood coming out of his head, and my uncle screamed at him that he was making a mess of the carpet. By the time the ambulance came, he was long dead. I can safely say that it was the happiest day of my uncle’s life.”
“What happened to your uncle? After that?”
“He was promptly locked up in an insane asylum.” Heechul shrugged. “I think he’s still there.”
“What about your cousin? Were you and Kibum close?”
“I was the closest thing Kibum had to family. He thought of me as his big brother-god, sometimes I thought he worshipped me, with the way he always looked at me as if I was Batman coming to rescue him. He once told me that I was the only reason why he continued wanting to live.” Heechul chuckled, doting and sincere as if he was recalling a happy memory. “He was a stupid, stupid boy.”
(kill me.
no.
kill me!
do it yourself.
but i’m afraid.
then you don’t deserve to die.)
Heechul did not know any of his neighbors, but it was not because he was unwelcome. His building was filled with friendly people who helped other inhabitants carry grocery bags up the stairs or held the elevator door open for those in a hurry. When he first moved in, he received housewarming gifts and invitations for dinner and promises that if you ever need our help, just knock on our door.
He never sent thank you notes to those who gave him housewarming gifts. He never took any of the dinner offers up. And he never knocked on any of his neighbor’s doors to ask for help. His neighbors caught on very quickly and never bothered him again.
It was better that way.
As an adolescent, Heechul was feared by his classmates and puzzled over by his teachers. He never spoke to the children his age, and in stark contrast to the other child with a primal desire to move, Heechul could go long periods of time in an exact position, lost in his own world (lost, afraid, go away, help me, shut up, leave me alone, why doesn’t anybody hear me). He was sent to therapists and none of them could offer and explanation to his peculiar behavior.
(“He was polite,” one therapist said, shrugging her shoulders. “Very quiet little boy. I have a feeling that he is just shy. Some children require more time to become comfortable enough to socialize with others.”
“Eerily quiet,” said another. “I would go as far to say unnaturally quiet. Displays some attributes conventionally associated with psychopathy.”
“He is depressed by the death of his mother. Antidepressant pills can be administered.” He was the last therapist he ever went to.)
When he entered high school, he was immediately an outcast. Despite his scrawniness, he was never targeted as a bullied victim. His eyes were darker than darkness itself, his skin was too pale and sallow, and his gaze was cold as steel. Like many teenaged boys trying to act tough, he listened solely to metal bands and screamo music that highlighted shrill guitar and beastly vocals, but unlike the others, he was not that small little boy desperately fishing for proof of his manliness (screams of death, he can hear them, it’s good, it’s terrifying, screaming, so much screaming, not enough screaming). Many girls fawned over his “mysterious” quality, but none of them dared to approach the boy who gave off the impression that he could torture and murder a man without batting an eyelash.
Heechul knew what everybody was thinking, but he could not have cared less. None of those were his problems. He had no questions, nor did he want any, for Death seemed to be an answer to everything.
Death was a natural process, resolutely inevitable, stubborn. Heechul believed that it could solve all of the world’s problems. The living world had too many gray zones, too many masks that distorted the truth and defiled the pure. Politics bored him with their half-assed remarks at freedom and order. Voiced opinions made his eyes roll with impatience. Religion was a hoax created to further shield humankind from reality (there is only one true God, and it is Death). Life was nothing more than a distraction from the ultimate endgame. In the end, nothing mattered.
(Everything is equal when dead. All people are the same the moment Death takes them-everything that ever defined them is stripped off and their true self is laid bare for all to see.)
Heechul attended university with this continued mindset and found himself being waved off as merely a gothic kid who took his death metal music too seriously. Most people still avoided him like the plague, but the ones who tolerated him thought him cynical. Heechul disagreed-he wasn’t cynical, he just hated bullshit, and life was (unfortunately) balls deep in it.
In his second year, despite his high grades and academic scholarship, he dropped out.
“Why?”
“I was bored.”
“So that’s it? You were bored so you just dropped out because you could?”
“Pretty much.”
Han Geng shook his head and knit his eyebrows together. “Don’t you ever think that you may have given up too easily? There are always great things out there that you can do-so many opportunities you could have taken advantage of.”
“Motivation speeches don’t work on me. Save your breath.”
“I’m just trying to understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand,” Heechul drawled. “I went to university because I could. I got bored in all my classes and dropped out because I could.”
Han Geng smiled sadly. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It was that simple.”
“Is Death simple to you?”
“Of course. Death is the simplest concept-the empirical formula of all things, if you will.”
“How so?”
“Death does not lie. It’s the only thing in the world that is completely incapable of deceit. Everything else is just an illusion.”
“An illusion?”
“A distraction, a magic trick, a veil, a bucket of bullshit, whatever else you want to call it.”
“I call it Life.”
“Suit yourself.”
Han Geng tilted his head in confusion. “Do you not believe in Life?”
“No.”
“Why not? Life is full of wonderful things. You know, like rice balls and good wine and sunny days and falling in love.”
“All of those things are just ways to pass the time before Death comes.”
“So you’re just passing the time right now, talking to me while counting down until you breathe your last breath.”
“Pretty much.”
“Seems quite pointless to me, to be completely honest with you.”
“Life is pointless.”
“Life is what you make it.”
Heechul snickered. “Again, save that motivational speech bullshit for somebody who cares.”
Han Geng shrugged noncommittally. “I care.”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. You’re just too afraid to admit it.”
Heechul rolled his eyes. “Don’t try to go all psychiatrist-like on me. I had been taken to so many therapists in my lifetime that I became fluent in psychobabble bullshit.”
“Then how come you’re still alive? How come you don’t speed up the Death process by slitting your wrists and getting it over with?”
Heechul frowned. “And why are you so interested?”
“Because I care about you.”
“You’ve known me for less than twenty-four hours.”
“Doesn’t matter. I still care about you.”
“Then you are a fool.”
“I’m a fool who strives to live a meaningful life.”
“And if, despite your best efforts, your life turns out to be as meaningless as any other of those meat suits in the world, what then?”
“Then life goes on without me. But I sure as hell get props for trying.”
Heechul let out a long exhale, thin frame deflating even further as he ran his fingers through the ripped stitches of his stuffed bat (Kibum was miserable, sad, lonely, he wanted to live, didn’t he, no he died, he’s happier dead, yes, death is happiness). “How do you people go through life like that? How can you saunter through your day, oblivious to the fact that nothing will matter once your time here runs out?”
Han Geng threw him an affectionate but exasperated smile. “Because I’m an optimist, and I believe that there is hope for everybody.”
“Don’t bullshit me. You were hardly an optimist when I first met you. You were in a club trying to drink yourself to death, and you blindly followed me home despite the fact that I was a complete stranger with a sketchy background. You were trying to die yesterday. You wanted to die.”
Instead of looking shocked, Han Geng only looked sheepish. “A part of me wanted everything to stop, even if it was just for a little while. Things were, you know, getting too much to handle.” He ran a hand through his hair and a brilliant grin suddenly graced his face, leaving Heechul next to breathless. “You saved my life.”
“I did no such thing.”
Han Geng brushed a stray lock behind Heechul’s ear and sighed. “You made me realize that while people die and tragedy strikes, life can still continue. If that’s not life-saving, I don’t know what is.” He let his hand fall onto Heechul’s shoulder. “I want to see you again. Is that alright with you?”
And although every fiber of his whole being screamed in protest, Heechul did not have the heart to refuse him. Han Geng left that night and Heechul watched him until he disappeared into the dark streets.
(heechul, do you even care?
care about what?
about me?
sure.
just sure?
well, what do you expect?
nothing. forget it. pretend i never asked.)
Two days later, a policeman showed up at Heechul’s door in the dead of night, blearily holding up his badge. “Excuse me sir, sorry to bother you, but we are in the middle of an investigation of a hit-and-run accident that involved a man who we think was heading towards this apartment.” He fished through his pockets and pulled out a photograph. “Do you recognize him?”
The bleary photo was of a smiling (unhappy, depressed, miserable, suicidal, why couldn’t people see that, it’s right there, right on his face, just look) man with dark hair and even darker eyes, clad head to toe in leather. “What was his name?” he asked with no inflection in his voice.
“Unknown. He did not have any ID on him.”
Just another meat suit, just another meaningless life, just another John Doe, that’s what everybody is in the end. “Sorry, officer, I don’t know him. I apologize for not being of much help.”
“It’s alright. Thank you for your time.”
Heechul offered a thin smile and closed the door. Immediately, he walked towards his kitchen and took out a knife. With it he carefully carved a line, cutting straight across the four etched lines found on the marble counter to complete the tally of five. He wiped the debris off the sides and paused to admire his work. He then strode to his bedroom and sat on his bed, unable to do anything but stare at the painting of the Grim Reaper that hung on the wall (you understand me, don’t you, a mother always understands her child, you are the only one who understands me, right). In the corner of his eye, he spotted on his desk the half-empty (half-full, optimist, he was an optimist) glass of water that Han Geng used to swallow a Tylenol. Heechul held it to his face, feeling the cool glass brush against his cheek, cold and smooth and comforting.
He kissed it tenderly, smiled, and named it Han Geng.
End notes: This was a very difficult fic for me to write. I have no experience with the concept of murder ( not unless you count the many times I have killed the mosquitos/spiders in my room), and the only death I have ever witnessed was when my dog got hit by a car (you are still missed, Daisy). Therefore, I have no idea if there are people like Heechul. I wrote him as a highly complex and paradoxical human: he wants to die but is too afraid to, he does not mourn his loved ones by pretending they live on in inanimate/dead objects, and he hates bullshit despite the fact that he lies to himself every moment of the day. Please let me know if you had trouble understanding this fic-I am happy to clear anything up and edit my fic accordingly.
Pairing(s): HanChul
Genre(s): warning!dark, angst, highlight for spoilers warning!death
Length: 5304 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In which Heechul is obsessed with Death.
Inspiration(s): I was reading my music history textbook and read that many Romantic composers were fascinated with Death, which influenced their music. Franz Liszt’s Totentanz, for example, is a piano concerto on Death. To greyrosesinjune and stars_in_love, this is the dark fic I was talking about.
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It started when Heechul’s mother died. No, that’s not it. It started when Heechul’s father bought a dinosaur skeleton toolset to keep his son busy while he dealt with the tedious funeral arrangements that came with the death of Heechul’s mother.
For a long time, Heechul remembered very clearly the moment he set his eyes on the box filled with the wooden bone cut-outs. It had a cover that pictured three dinosaurs-the Tyrannosaurus rex, the brontosaurus, and the triceratops-each strong and dynamic and vibrant. And he remembered ripping open the tape and looking inside to find a picture of the skeletons of the three once-almighty creatures that roamed the Earth.
His six-year-old mind worked slowly, and as he looked back and forth between the two images-one of flesh, the other of bone-shock and curiosity and eventually fascination sunk into his young pliant mind.
The child had never thought about the concept of Death until then, and it took him a good long while before he was able to think of anything else. He managed to build the toy dinosaur skeletons by himself, and he believed that they were much more beautiful than the live ones on the cover.
When he attended the funeral procession, he stared down at his mother’s corpse and frowned at it. His mother still had her lovely pale skin and dark hair with blush on her cheeks and lipstick on her lips, looking more like she was sleeping. He wanted to say something (this is wrong, this is not how a dead person should look like, wrong wrong wrong) but his father’s had a strong grip on his shoulder so he just pursed his lips shut and walked away.
Heechul took comfort in the fact that his mother would end up like those dinosaurs one day-all stark bones with no extra frivolous weight.
(do you ever wonder where we go when we die?
no.
really? not ever?
i don’t need to wonder where we go. i already know.
you do? so, where do we go when we die?
absolutely nowhere.)
Heechul met Han Geng in a seedy alleyway behind the club he always frequented on the weekends. The man was doubled over clutching his gut, vomit frothing in his mouth as he retched onto his shoes. Not an unusual sight-the club was known for its over-the-top strong drinks that had even the toughest Russian-Irish bartenders wobbling on their feet.
It was a gruesome spectacle, but Heechul was in no hurry to rejoin the ear-splitting club scene. Instead he opted to lean against the cement wall, take a slow deliberate drag from his cigar, and watch the guy empty out his stomach contents. “Bathroom stalls full again?” he quipped once the dark-haired stranger seemed to come back to himself.
“How would I know?” came the stiff reply.
Heechul dropped his cigar and crushed it with the heel of his expensive black boots. “Well, I just assume that’s where most people go when alcohol detox hits.”
“The bathroom was too far,” the man admitted meekly.
This surprised an amused snort from Heechul. He brushed his long dark hair out of his eyes, careful not to smudge his black eyeliner and lipstick. “Well, I was about to head home anyway. It’s happy hour in there, which means too many people are abusing their livers. Want to share a cab?”
The man shot a look of suspicion towards him, and after a moment’s hesitation he said, “Do you usually invite men you find vomiting out on the streets to share a cab with you?”
Heechul looked him up and down. Dark hair, dark eyes, tanned skin, clad in leather from head to toe. “Only the good-looking ones.”
The man laughed. “I’m Han Geng.”
“Heechul.”
(you really should stop this, you know.
stop what?
all this death stuff. it’s not healthy.
uh-huh, and what do you know about being healthy?
enough to know that surrounding yourself with bones and skulls and tombstones is not healthy.
they keep me company.
i keep you company.
no, you don’t. you bore me.)
The first objects Han Geng noticed about Heechul’s flat were the candles. Then he noticed the eerie black curtains and the painting of the Grim Reaper and the grey tombstone leaning against a rickety old shelf. The inebriated part of his mind thought that this was odd at best. The sober part told him to run away as fast as his wobbly legs could take him.
Heechul must have noticed his unease, because he just smiled and led him to the kitchen where they were met with a sterile whiteness that was almost blinding in comparison.
“Should I be worried?” Han Geng asked as his head spun and he rubbed at his sore temples.
“Maybe,” Heechul shrugged his shoulders and shed his black trench coat to reveal thin tattooed arms. “Depends on what you are worried about. I’m not into murder, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” The man made himself comfortable on the kitchen counter where he ran his hands over four etched marks on the marble surface. “What should I be worried about, then, if not for my life?”
“Well,” Heechul slid up next to him, not too close but close enough to make a point. “For starters, I’m not a great conversationalist so you could worry about basking in boredom for the rest of the night. Don’t get that many visitors, you see.”
“I wonder why. What else?”
“I haven’t vacuumed ever since I’ve moved in. So if you have dust allergies, you should probably get out. Or if you are squeamish about insects, especially spiders. I myself am quite fond of spiders, and I honestly don’t understand why people are so afraid of them.”
Han Geng raised an eyebrow and chuckled lowly. “You’re a funny one.”
Startled, Heechul had a curious look in his eyes. “You’re not afraid of me?”
“I am a little bit freaked out, to tell you the truth.” Han Geng scanned his surroundings carefully. Cobwebs decorated the ceiling corners, death metal albums were splayed on the floor, and a plush winged bat with loose stitching hung from a wire in the middle of the room. “But I’m more curious than afraid.”
“Curious about what?”
“About whether this is how you actually live, or whether you are planning on throwing a Halloween party in the middle of July.”
For the first time in over a decade, Heechul laughed and laughed and laughed.
(do you want to die, heechul?
doesn’t matter whether i want to or not. eventually i will.
if i told you to kill yourself right here and now, would you?
no.
so you don’t want to die?
i wouldn’t kill myself just because you asked me to.)
Shortly after he arrived Han Geng fell asleep on Heechul’s bed and was (in all intents and purposes) dead to the world, which was disappointing-Heechul had not been laid for over a month. After getting over his annoyance, Heechul really had to scoff at how stupid the man was-he could count on one hand the number of people he had brought home who actually stayed the night. Most of his one-night stands, even the drunk ones, left the moment they saw the tombstone. Hell, not even his father could stand being in his room for more than a couple hours, the darkness and the constant reminder of his ultimate fate crushing down on him everywhere he looked. His father had long stopped contacting him. In fact, Heechul was quite sure his father had convinced himself that he had no son at all.
Heechul was not ignorant. He knew that he looked like the stereotypical serial killer seen on TV shows, the one who played with knives like they were nothing more than sharp silver trinkets, the one who dreamt of warm foreign blood daintily dripping onto the floor like rain. (Everybody dies, you will die, I will die, we will all die die die). Sometimes he found himself wishing that it was that simple, to be able to stop that persistent craving by luring an oblivious victim into his home and slashing his or her neck.
He thought about it while he watched Han Geng sleep. He wondered how it would feel if he were to walk to the kitchen, pull out a knife, and plunge it straight through Han Geng’s lovely little heart and feel it stop beating. He imagined that it would be so thrilling, and entertained the thought for quite a while. But then Han Geng snuffled comically in his sleep and managed to make Heechul smile a bit, and all thoughts of murder would fly out his head and vanish.
Han Geng woke up in the middle of the afternoon with a massive hangover. He blinked and did his best to adjust to the light, and when his vision cleared he realized that he was staring into the empty hollows of what was clearly a human skull. He let out an unmanly scream and tried to sit up on his elbows despite the ringing in his ears. Slowly, as he looked around, bits and pieces of the night before started to return. “Heechul?” he finally croaked, throat sore and mouth bitter from bile.
“Oh good, you’re up,” came a calm reply. “I see you’ve met Siwon.”
“Siwon?”
Heechul came into view with a Tylenol and a glass full of water, which Han Geng downed gratefully. “Han Geng, meet Siwon the human skull. He’s a great listener.”
“I’ll bet,” the hung-over man sniffed, flopping back onto the velvet red bed sheets. “Was Siwon your ex-boyfriend or something?” he asked half-jestingly.
A guttural chuckle. “Close. He was a family friend who committed suicide back in high school.”
“Oh,” Han Geng whispered sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”
Heechul scoffed, picking up the skull and looking at it with a sense of familiarity so strong that sent shivers down Han Geng’s spine. “Don’t be. Siwon is better off than any of us. As he would have said, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1. He loved Shakespeare, especially the tragedies. I imagine that he’s a lot happier dead than he ever was when he was alive.”
“That’s actually a horrific thought.”
“It’s true, though. Siwon was miserable as a kid, to the point where he was taking anti-depressants daily. He was contemplating suicide ever since he was ten years old. Nobody knew, of course. Nobody ever bothered to look beneath the surface-they satisfied themselves by seeing a bright young boy who would one day grow up successful and have his whole life paved out for him.” He grimaced. “His funeral procession was filled with speeches about how happy and optimistic he was. They had no idea.”
“Did you?”
Heechul set the skull down reverently. “Of course.”
“How?”
“It was written all over his face for everybody to read. The problem revolved around the fact that nobody wanted to read it. Most people are squeamish at the idea of Death and like to trick themselves into believing that Death doesn’t exist. It unnerves them somehow.” Heechul smiled. “I never understood why. Death is a natural event in every living thing. It is irrational for people to fear it. Let’s face it, we are all dying, and we are all watching everybody around us die. We face Death every day. Every second that ticks by brings us closer to Death. One would imagine that with all this blatant exposure, we would have gotten used to it and learned not to fear it by now.”
Han Geng mutter something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like I’m too hung-over for this conversation. “So I take it that you do not fear Death?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Then you are lying.”
Heechul stared at him. “Excuse me?”
Han Geng propped himself up and smiled smugly, headache temporarily forgotten. “Everybody is afraid of Death in one way or another. It’s just a simple fact of life. Even those who want to die fear Death.”
“There is no reason to fear Death, though, if you know that it is inevitable.”
Han Geng shook his head. “People fear Death because it is inevitable.”
“But that is irrational.”
“People are irrational. Our irrationality is what makes us human.”
Heechul scowled. “Then I wish I wasn’t human.”
(On very rare occasions, Heechul would dream of dying. He would dream that his skin flaked off like sawdust, that his blood drained out from every opening in his body, one drop at a time, slowly, deliberately, almost lovingly. He would watch as the bones in his fingers slowly start to replace his pale taut skin, white ivory structures that shone like moonlight and cut like steel. He would feel his heart stop, warm blood underneath his skin slowly turning into a wonderful ice that soothed him like the wind did on a hot summer day. More blood would leak from his eyes, his nose, his mouth, his fingernails, trickling down his naked body like a river that caressed him and told him that everything was okay, everything was going to be just fine, nothing hurts anymore, no pain, no more pain
Heechul would wake up with tears in his eyes every single time.)
Heechul eventually got around to introducing Han Geng to the other companions he kept around the room besides Siwon the human skull. There was Kibum the stuffed bat that Heechul hung in the middle of his bedroom (“You already met him. He greets everybody who comes through the door. So naive.”) There was also a rat named Kyuhyun lying dead on behind the kitchen sink (“I found him there a few months after I first moved in,” Heechul described, almost fondly. “I never had the heart to move his body. His tail used to be longer.”)
Han Geng took all of this in stride, staring at Heechul with unmasked attentiveness. “You must be very lonely,” he said contemplatively, curiosity spiking even further when he caught a flash of sadness in the man’s responding smile.
“On the contrary. I find myself constantly surrounded.”
“How so?”
“There are too many people in this world, and sometimes I feel like I can hear all of them clambering and chattering and generally just being complete wastes of oxygen.”
“Is that why you seem to glorify Death so much?”
Heechul took a moment to think. “No,” he finally answered. “At least, not really.”
Han Geng nodded. “Tell me more about Kyuhyun. Is there a story behind it?”
“Kyuhyun and I go way back. He was a good boy. Pain in the ass sometimes, but to be fair he had terminal cancer so I couldn’t really blame him.”
Han Geng’s expression went from confused to sad in a matter of seconds. “Did you meet him in a hospital?”
Heechul snorted derisively. “He would have been the first one to be kicked out of a hospital. He was homeless, you see. Made a living by pickpocketing and selling heroine. I met him while using an ATM. He was ranting about how life was pathetic and that everything we did in our lives was a joke.” A quick smile lit up his face. “And just like that, a friendship was formed. The kid was smart, crazy smart. He had a gift of understanding people. Sometimes he could make out somebody’s whole life story just by looking at them.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yah. He would have had a field day with you.”
Han Geng narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t act stupid. You know exactly what I mean.”
Silence ensued for a while until Han Geng dared to speak again. “How did Kyuhyun die?”
“Drug transaction gone wrong, I think. I found him curled up in front of a dumpster one morning with a knife in his chest. He looked like he was sleeping, so most people just walked right past him. I knew better, though. Kyuhyun hardly ever slept, and if he did, never in broad daylight. He was too smart for that.”
“Do you miss him?”
“No.”
“Really? Not ever?”
“Nobody misses a homeless boy?”
Han Geng’s eyes trailed towards the kitchen sink where he knew was a pile of tiny white bones being picked clean by maggots. “That’s an interesting way to put it.”
(do you believe in the afterlife?
don’t be ridiculous.
well, do you?
no.
why not?
because the afterlife infers life after death. there is no life after death.)
Quite contrary to popular belief, Heechul loved family. He did not technically love his family, but he certainly loved the idea of a family. Perhaps it was because he never quite had one. His father was almost always out at work and his distant relatives were so distant that all of their relationships could have been done through email.
Han Geng was an only child who had no family other than his mother and father. All of his grandparents died years before his birth, and as far as he knew he had no aunts or uncles or cousins. He grew up very happily up until his mother was mugged, raped and murdered while he was still in university.
“My dad died a week later,” Han Geng finished.
“How did he die?”
“His heart was broken.”
Heechul rolled his eyes. “Bullshit.”
“Fine, he committed suicide,” the Chinese man snapped, features closing up with an almost audible slam of the door. “The man responsible for my mother’s death walked out of court with all charges dropped. There was not enough evidence to prove him guilty, and my dad shot himself in the head out of guilt. Happy?”
“No need to be so defensive. I just don’t see the point in romanticizing things.”
“It is easier for me to think of my father as dying from too much love for my mother, than for me to think of him dying out of shame and torment.”
“That is very irrational.”
“I cared about my parents.”
“Your loss.”
Han Geng blew out a shuddering breath and slowly felt the anger and pain dissipate out of him. “What about you? Are your parents still alive and well?”
“My mother died when I was very young. My father was seldom around when I was growing up. Sometimes he would be gone for so long, I would forget what he looked like.”
“Who took care of you, then?”
“I lived with my uncle and cousin for the most part.”
“Were they nice to you?”
“Kibum was nice enough. My uncle, not so much. He loved the bottle more than he loved us. Then again, I couldn’t complain. He never laid a hand on me, but he used to beat Kibum senseless on the weekends whenever he drank one glass too many.”
Han Geng frowned. “That’s-that’s awful. What kind of father would do that to his own son?”
“That’s just it-Kibum was not his son. He was the end result of my aunt’s adultery. She had an affair with my uncle’s boss that lasted years-the stupid lady thought it was true love or something like that.” Heechul shrugged. “Long story short, my aunt died giving birth and my uncle absolutely loathed the kid. He was a pious man and was convinced Kibum was the Antichrist, hence the beatings. He was always preaching about how Kibum was never meant to be born in the first place and how the only reason why he was alive was that God didn’t smite him yet. I was surprised that Kibum lived as long as he did. Not that it meant anything in the end-when Kibum was seventeen and finally starting to fight back, my uncle went through another one of his violent weekend episodes and threw a bottle at his head.” There was a tight smile on Heechul’s face that made the hairs on the back of Han Geng’s neck stick straight up. “I remember seeing Kibum fall to the ground. It was the first time I have ever seen him so peaceful. Within minutes there was a puddle of blood coming out of his head, and my uncle screamed at him that he was making a mess of the carpet. By the time the ambulance came, he was long dead. I can safely say that it was the happiest day of my uncle’s life.”
“What happened to your uncle? After that?”
“He was promptly locked up in an insane asylum.” Heechul shrugged. “I think he’s still there.”
“What about your cousin? Were you and Kibum close?”
“I was the closest thing Kibum had to family. He thought of me as his big brother-god, sometimes I thought he worshipped me, with the way he always looked at me as if I was Batman coming to rescue him. He once told me that I was the only reason why he continued wanting to live.” Heechul chuckled, doting and sincere as if he was recalling a happy memory. “He was a stupid, stupid boy.”
(kill me.
no.
kill me!
do it yourself.
but i’m afraid.
then you don’t deserve to die.)
Heechul did not know any of his neighbors, but it was not because he was unwelcome. His building was filled with friendly people who helped other inhabitants carry grocery bags up the stairs or held the elevator door open for those in a hurry. When he first moved in, he received housewarming gifts and invitations for dinner and promises that if you ever need our help, just knock on our door.
He never sent thank you notes to those who gave him housewarming gifts. He never took any of the dinner offers up. And he never knocked on any of his neighbor’s doors to ask for help. His neighbors caught on very quickly and never bothered him again.
It was better that way.
As an adolescent, Heechul was feared by his classmates and puzzled over by his teachers. He never spoke to the children his age, and in stark contrast to the other child with a primal desire to move, Heechul could go long periods of time in an exact position, lost in his own world (lost, afraid, go away, help me, shut up, leave me alone, why doesn’t anybody hear me). He was sent to therapists and none of them could offer and explanation to his peculiar behavior.
(“He was polite,” one therapist said, shrugging her shoulders. “Very quiet little boy. I have a feeling that he is just shy. Some children require more time to become comfortable enough to socialize with others.”
“Eerily quiet,” said another. “I would go as far to say unnaturally quiet. Displays some attributes conventionally associated with psychopathy.”
“He is depressed by the death of his mother. Antidepressant pills can be administered.” He was the last therapist he ever went to.)
When he entered high school, he was immediately an outcast. Despite his scrawniness, he was never targeted as a bullied victim. His eyes were darker than darkness itself, his skin was too pale and sallow, and his gaze was cold as steel. Like many teenaged boys trying to act tough, he listened solely to metal bands and screamo music that highlighted shrill guitar and beastly vocals, but unlike the others, he was not that small little boy desperately fishing for proof of his manliness (screams of death, he can hear them, it’s good, it’s terrifying, screaming, so much screaming, not enough screaming). Many girls fawned over his “mysterious” quality, but none of them dared to approach the boy who gave off the impression that he could torture and murder a man without batting an eyelash.
Heechul knew what everybody was thinking, but he could not have cared less. None of those were his problems. He had no questions, nor did he want any, for Death seemed to be an answer to everything.
Death was a natural process, resolutely inevitable, stubborn. Heechul believed that it could solve all of the world’s problems. The living world had too many gray zones, too many masks that distorted the truth and defiled the pure. Politics bored him with their half-assed remarks at freedom and order. Voiced opinions made his eyes roll with impatience. Religion was a hoax created to further shield humankind from reality (there is only one true God, and it is Death). Life was nothing more than a distraction from the ultimate endgame. In the end, nothing mattered.
(Everything is equal when dead. All people are the same the moment Death takes them-everything that ever defined them is stripped off and their true self is laid bare for all to see.)
Heechul attended university with this continued mindset and found himself being waved off as merely a gothic kid who took his death metal music too seriously. Most people still avoided him like the plague, but the ones who tolerated him thought him cynical. Heechul disagreed-he wasn’t cynical, he just hated bullshit, and life was (unfortunately) balls deep in it.
In his second year, despite his high grades and academic scholarship, he dropped out.
“Why?”
“I was bored.”
“So that’s it? You were bored so you just dropped out because you could?”
“Pretty much.”
Han Geng shook his head and knit his eyebrows together. “Don’t you ever think that you may have given up too easily? There are always great things out there that you can do-so many opportunities you could have taken advantage of.”
“Motivation speeches don’t work on me. Save your breath.”
“I’m just trying to understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand,” Heechul drawled. “I went to university because I could. I got bored in all my classes and dropped out because I could.”
Han Geng smiled sadly. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It was that simple.”
“Is Death simple to you?”
“Of course. Death is the simplest concept-the empirical formula of all things, if you will.”
“How so?”
“Death does not lie. It’s the only thing in the world that is completely incapable of deceit. Everything else is just an illusion.”
“An illusion?”
“A distraction, a magic trick, a veil, a bucket of bullshit, whatever else you want to call it.”
“I call it Life.”
“Suit yourself.”
Han Geng tilted his head in confusion. “Do you not believe in Life?”
“No.”
“Why not? Life is full of wonderful things. You know, like rice balls and good wine and sunny days and falling in love.”
“All of those things are just ways to pass the time before Death comes.”
“So you’re just passing the time right now, talking to me while counting down until you breathe your last breath.”
“Pretty much.”
“Seems quite pointless to me, to be completely honest with you.”
“Life is pointless.”
“Life is what you make it.”
Heechul snickered. “Again, save that motivational speech bullshit for somebody who cares.”
Han Geng shrugged noncommittally. “I care.”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. You’re just too afraid to admit it.”
Heechul rolled his eyes. “Don’t try to go all psychiatrist-like on me. I had been taken to so many therapists in my lifetime that I became fluent in psychobabble bullshit.”
“Then how come you’re still alive? How come you don’t speed up the Death process by slitting your wrists and getting it over with?”
Heechul frowned. “And why are you so interested?”
“Because I care about you.”
“You’ve known me for less than twenty-four hours.”
“Doesn’t matter. I still care about you.”
“Then you are a fool.”
“I’m a fool who strives to live a meaningful life.”
“And if, despite your best efforts, your life turns out to be as meaningless as any other of those meat suits in the world, what then?”
“Then life goes on without me. But I sure as hell get props for trying.”
Heechul let out a long exhale, thin frame deflating even further as he ran his fingers through the ripped stitches of his stuffed bat (Kibum was miserable, sad, lonely, he wanted to live, didn’t he, no he died, he’s happier dead, yes, death is happiness). “How do you people go through life like that? How can you saunter through your day, oblivious to the fact that nothing will matter once your time here runs out?”
Han Geng threw him an affectionate but exasperated smile. “Because I’m an optimist, and I believe that there is hope for everybody.”
“Don’t bullshit me. You were hardly an optimist when I first met you. You were in a club trying to drink yourself to death, and you blindly followed me home despite the fact that I was a complete stranger with a sketchy background. You were trying to die yesterday. You wanted to die.”
Instead of looking shocked, Han Geng only looked sheepish. “A part of me wanted everything to stop, even if it was just for a little while. Things were, you know, getting too much to handle.” He ran a hand through his hair and a brilliant grin suddenly graced his face, leaving Heechul next to breathless. “You saved my life.”
“I did no such thing.”
Han Geng brushed a stray lock behind Heechul’s ear and sighed. “You made me realize that while people die and tragedy strikes, life can still continue. If that’s not life-saving, I don’t know what is.” He let his hand fall onto Heechul’s shoulder. “I want to see you again. Is that alright with you?”
And although every fiber of his whole being screamed in protest, Heechul did not have the heart to refuse him. Han Geng left that night and Heechul watched him until he disappeared into the dark streets.
(heechul, do you even care?
care about what?
about me?
sure.
just sure?
well, what do you expect?
nothing. forget it. pretend i never asked.)
Two days later, a policeman showed up at Heechul’s door in the dead of night, blearily holding up his badge. “Excuse me sir, sorry to bother you, but we are in the middle of an investigation of a hit-and-run accident that involved a man who we think was heading towards this apartment.” He fished through his pockets and pulled out a photograph. “Do you recognize him?”
The bleary photo was of a smiling (unhappy, depressed, miserable, suicidal, why couldn’t people see that, it’s right there, right on his face, just look) man with dark hair and even darker eyes, clad head to toe in leather. “What was his name?” he asked with no inflection in his voice.
“Unknown. He did not have any ID on him.”
Just another meat suit, just another meaningless life, just another John Doe, that’s what everybody is in the end. “Sorry, officer, I don’t know him. I apologize for not being of much help.”
“It’s alright. Thank you for your time.”
Heechul offered a thin smile and closed the door. Immediately, he walked towards his kitchen and took out a knife. With it he carefully carved a line, cutting straight across the four etched lines found on the marble counter to complete the tally of five. He wiped the debris off the sides and paused to admire his work. He then strode to his bedroom and sat on his bed, unable to do anything but stare at the painting of the Grim Reaper that hung on the wall (you understand me, don’t you, a mother always understands her child, you are the only one who understands me, right). In the corner of his eye, he spotted on his desk the half-empty (half-full, optimist, he was an optimist) glass of water that Han Geng used to swallow a Tylenol. Heechul held it to his face, feeling the cool glass brush against his cheek, cold and smooth and comforting.
He kissed it tenderly, smiled, and named it Han Geng.
End notes: This was a very difficult fic for me to write. I have no experience with the concept of murder ( not unless you count the many times I have killed the mosquitos/spiders in my room), and the only death I have ever witnessed was when my dog got hit by a car (you are still missed, Daisy). Therefore, I have no idea if there are people like Heechul. I wrote him as a highly complex and paradoxical human: he wants to die but is too afraid to, he does not mourn his loved ones by pretending they live on in inanimate/dead objects, and he hates bullshit despite the fact that he lies to himself every moment of the day. Please let me know if you had trouble understanding this fic-I am happy to clear anything up and edit my fic accordingly.