EVALUATION RESPONSE:
The response from the evaluation nominee will be presented underneath the cut.
on the evening of august 2nd, at sixteen minutes to eight, sungyeol waited outside the library. it was late, dark, and only a couple of lost souls were still around.
there wasn’t anything unorthodox about a student sitting outside the library for no apparent reason. students on campus did weirder things than that.
sungyeol twiddled his thumbs and crossed his legs. the foot that constantly tapped against the cement ground belied his calm exterior. he plastered a smile on his face anyway as soon as he saw the doors swing open to let a familiar figure out.
i’ve been looking forward to this, he said, standing up and hiking his bag over his shoulder. light as it was, the weight still pressed down on his back.
even after the days sungyeol put in trying to get closer, the journalist’s eyes were still calculating and cautious. they held a level of intelligence to them and sungyeol knew he wasn’t easy. he couldn’t give a damn about director kang and the journalist’s conspiracy theories, but it was do or die.
it began with first seeing the small man out on campus grounds, handing out leaflets. sungyeol took one, and his head tilted in curiosity as he prodded the man for answers to his queries. what’s this? is it true? can you tell me more?
there was suspicion and clipped replies when sungyeol asked too much and asked too personal, but the prospect of dragging someone else into his line of work was too enticing.
it progressed into meeting up at the journalist’s discretion, and always at crowded places where there were eyes all around.
sungyeol thought he did a decent job of feigning interest: asking questions and nodding at the right time, putting in his two cents whenever appropriate. he was good at that. and he did just that as the two of them their way off the school grounds. there was nothing strange about two university students, possibly friends, going out for a drink.
the street they walked down on was devoid of any other wandering souls, which would be a plausible reason for the quickness of the third year journalist’s steps, as well as the way his gaze darted around every now and then. he must have decided he didn’t like this anymore, and lifted his head to look at sungyeol, mouth opened as if ready to say something.
surely it would have been curious to be in the journalist’s shoes at that moment. to suddenly see someone a whole head and shoulders taller than him spin around to come right at him. surely surely it would have been curious to feel the journalist’s shock gradually be replaced with panic as he struggled against the grip around his neck, as he swung his arm up in a (futile) attempt to get away, the brief moment of satisfaction as the ends of his bony knuckles met with soft flesh, where a grunt was heard right before everything went black.
sungyeol stood there with a limp body propped up in his arms, its head lolling around on its shoulders. he took a quick glance around before moving off, dragging the journalist along with him, to the alley behind Club Seokjeon, not that far of a walk away.
his heart thundered in his chest. i’m really going to do this, he muttered as he propped the unconscious form against the dirty brick wall. sungyeol took the bundle of cloth out from his bag, unwrapping it to pull out the knife that lay hidden inside.
even in the dark, he could see the blues and reds blooming around the journalist’s neck. sungyeol took the knife in hand, gripping it tight. he slit his throat.
slash.
until his head was hanging on by a mere strip of skin. there was blood everywhere. blood on the floor, blood on clothes, blood on sungyeol’s hands. a little more wouldn’t hurt.
sungyeol went on to sawing off the journalist’s right hand, his writing hand, through the skin, flesh and bone until it came off. he wrapped it up in the cloth he’d brought along, not bothered at all by the red stain quickly spreading over it as he placed it in his bag and zipped it up. his eyes fell on the dumpster only a few feet away as he grabbed the corpse and lifted it up to throw it in, trying not to mind the way its head lolled around more loosely than before. it landed with a clatter of empty beer bottles and crinkles of trash bags. it smelled like shit. as sungyeol drew back, a sharp pain sliced down his forearm. he glanced down to see a thin line of red running down half his forearm, probably from the shards of a broken bottle that had been peeking out from the top of the dumpster. it didn’t matter anyway, there was so much blood around that no one would be able to tell the difference.
sungyeol grabbed his bag from the ground and hiked it up onto his shoulders to make his way to the next destination: the Cupid’s Garden, all the way back on campus.
the contents of his bag made sungyeol feel so out of place even on the familiar grounds of the university. his steps were light, made on the tips of his toes, like he was sneaking into his own home. but he didn’t know if he could actually call this place ‘home’ anymore.
a few moments later, he was standing in front of the cupid statue in the garden. sungyeol remembered clearly the instructions given to him, down to the very last letter. he took the roll of cloth out of his bag, which had begun to colour red on the inside. no matter. it made him sick to touch the severed piece of flesh, even through the thick cloth, but he placed it at the foot of the statue anyway, cringing on the inside all the while.
he dipped his fingers into the blood that had pooled inside the soaked cloth, writing down the message that he’d committed to memory days before.
my eyes and ears are everywhere. beware.
sungyeol’s hands shook as he stared at his handiwork. he was careful to make his handwriting as generic as possible. he wondered if the blood would ever fully come off?
it took him a few moments to realise that he was dawdling, and immediately got back onto his feet, grabbing his bag as he went. he gave a quick once-around the place to ensure he hadn’t left anything that he wasn’t supposed to behind before quickly leaving. just before the statue disappeared from sight, sungyeol glanced over his shoulder quickly. even in the dark, the bloody message was glaring.
his steps were now quick, bringing him back to the ‘safety’ of his own room. he forcefully thrust his bag under his bed, pushing it to the darkest corner before flopping on top of the mattress. glancing at the clock on his wall, he realised the whole thing had only taken him two odd hours. but myungsoo was safe. he was safe, and nothing would happen to him. he wouldn’t have to know anything about this either. as the only thing that truly mattered to sungyeol in the whole of his life, it felt like a big weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
the journalist? who gave a fuck about him? his friends weren’t sungyeol’s friends, and they wouldn’t be.
sungyeol held his hands above him, staring at his palms. he felt like he could still see faint hints of red on it even after scrubbing them off hard with soap and a cloth. his whole body was still tingling with the adrenaline of it all and as his mind recalled the experience, the pounding of his heart, the pain in the journalist’s eyes and the way the light left his eyes, sungyeol realised something.
he would do it again.
——–
flaws!!!
a shred of sungyeol’s shirt sleeve torn off at the dumpster behind Club Seokjeon a thin strand of dark brown hair below the palm of Takeru’s severed hand sungyeol seen getting closer to takeru days prior to the murder
um (not rlly) key points and sjdjd!!!
-takeru in terms of cm is only like 167/168 which is so tiny idk and sungyeol is 183 give or take so i’m assuming it would have been really easy for him to knock him out (probably smashed his head against a wall) -it was all really gory and messy especially the hacking off of the guy’s hand and his throat bc sungyeol isn’t a professional
