#hannin

"You don't know what my family was like," you screamed at the boy. You'd been caught and cornered, by an elementary school brat of all things. You continued your rant, "My father always yelling at me, telling me I'd never amount to anything, telling me I was destined to get in trouble. My mother always telling me not to do things, never telling me I should do anything. My brothers never interested in anything I would do, wanting nothing to do with me, excluding me from everything. And my sister. My fucking sister. Always preaching at me to do good, do the right thing, while she, she would do the opposite and blame it on me, the damn angel of the family. All of them older than me looking down on me, the unexpected and unwanted baby."

Even as you were yelling at the boy, you knew you had done it though. You'd finally murdered them all. All those that laughed at you, all those that insulted you, all those that had wronged you. That one coworker who always called you slow, that woman from college that had always mocked your clothes, then finally your family. And you'd been getting away with it, throwing enough random victims in along the way who treated you slightly wrong. You'd been patient too. 

You knew you couldn't kill your family all at once. So you chose deaths appropriate for each of them. You had made your brothers' deaths seem like normal accidents, everyday tragedies, things that the newspaper wouldn't even care about. They hadn't cared about you so the world wouldn't care about their deaths. An embolism here—he'd always been at risk—a car crash there—he'd been drunk and always a heavy drinker—and the world looked away.

You're mother, always no no no, well you flipped the tables on her. That authoritarian no had turned into a no please, please no, no no, a wail of despair. A mugging at night, and her cries did nothing to stop the man you'd hired, before he bashed her head in with rock lying in the park. You didn’t mind anything he took no matter how immoral.

You're father, yelling at you that you'd never hold a job down, well you'd had him killed in a freak workplace accident. Most people would be surprised at how many common office items were suitable for a murder. Sure they'd cried foul play, no way that would happen, but they never even thought to blame it on you, out of the country at the time. You'd laughed at how gruesome it had been, even more than you could imagine. 

But your sister, oh your sister. You had saved her for last, her death the most gruesome of them all. Crucifying her with a knife like the saint she pretended to be, carving jagged wings into her back like the fake angel she was, and then, then, stitching her mouth closed so she could never tell you to be good and then turn around and spout lies again, your signature move. You knew it was risky, that stitching her mouth shut like the others would give you away, but you needed to. 

And it had worked! You'd actually gotten away with it for a while! You played the "overemotional" kid your family had always called you when he heard of her death, regaling people with how good she had been. Why would someone do something so cruel to her, you cried. You made your grief proportional to your loss; she was your last family member left, now you were all alone. 

And what glee that aloneness brought you. No one had known it was you; you continued your menial jobs, not a soul even suspecting your talents! You were alone in your knowledge and such joy that it brought. You had fooled the world, smarter than them all, finally amounting to something that the nation wouldn't stop talking about. 

So you'd continued. The murders were described as chaotic, never quite the same thing. Some were simply stabbed, some shot so many times the gun must have been reloaded, even some dismembered or viscera removed. But one thing remained the same, their lips were sewn shut so they could no longer disparage you.

At first they'd called you crazy but now they called you smart. You kept getting away with it, evidence always neatly disposed or erased. The police couldn't pin a trail down on you. The narrative had changed: if you were in this much control, rather than an uncontrolled murder, than you had to be too smart to be crazy. 

But this boy, somehow this boy had figured out that you had caused the latest murder. And it had broke something inside of you. If they caught you here then they would be able to trace all the other murders back to you. And so you were yelling, someone who had never raised their voice back at anyone before. But he just stood there, remorse gone from his eyes. 

"Go on, say I'm twisted, say I'm crazy, but you're wrong. I've always bested the system, I'm smarter than anyone else, I've become something. Go on, I dare you to say I'm twisted, I can still easily kill you before anyone else can arrive."

The boy just shook his head. "No, you're just sad." You were about to retort when he continued, "You're mourning what you didn't have and taking it out on others who make you remember but you did have, that nothingness and disdain from your family. You just chose the wrong path."

You wailed, enraged and harmed to your very core. He was wrong, wrong, wrong. Your path was the right path, the correct path, the only path. It gave you the acknowledgement from the world you couldn't get otherwise. So you rushed at him, a knife in one hand. Next thing you knew that grey world, which you had made shine a brilliant ruby red, had gone black. You were knocked out.

Conan shook his head. At last the most prolific serial killer in Japan's modern history, would be brought to justice. But it wouldn't bring anyone any joy. 

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