curtain call • seulmin

v. bubblegum kisses

march 30th, 2014 — 11:49am.

seulgi twirls a dry lock of brunette hair between her delicate little fingers, the pale porcelain contrasting amongst silken dark brown strands. her other hand, manicured well enough for her nails to twinkle like the stars, curls itself around the familiar form of a wine glass. the dark red liquid stirs in the glass as she casually shakes it in her hand, and seulgi glances at the crimson hues with fascination.

she breathes out a sigh, staring up at the flickering lights on the chandelier above her.

park jimin's little apartment is, so to say, less extravagant than she has originally thought it would be. with the way he carried himself, despite his clear derangement, she would've thought that the boy was amongst her class, in the world of the elites. seulgi would've thought that this boy lived in some kind of 20-acre mansion, sunsoaked in precious gold and cutting himself with raining diamonds, just like her.

alas, none of that appears to be the case, and seulgi was surprised for another blue moon in her life as she was brought to a serial killer (artist)'s unexpectedly cozy apartment.

looking around, seulgi notices that the boy's love for art is still prominent in the way the apartment is furnished. paintings riddle the walls, for one— van gogh replicas and classic monet imitations decorating the marble panels.

what stands out from the paintings however, are the small stains of red that appear on each painting, and when seulgi questioned jimin about it, he had only smiled at her charmingly, shaking his head as the morning sunlight crowned him like a blinding halo.

"souvenirs, you could say," he had told her when they first arrived, as he rummaged through several sniper rifles in the storage he calls the 'treasure chest'. "small tidbits from my old works."

blood from all the people he killed, she concludes. she finds it more amazing than most people would.

jimin has gone out a couple hours ago, mentioning something about a 'rehearsal'. since he had explicitly mentioned to turn on the news channel at exactly 11:50am, she safely assumes that he is out to create a new masterpiece, twisted little brain touched by twisted inspiration. as she sits on the couch, idly staring at the red of the wine she spills onto her white sundress, she wonders what kind of enigmatic shakespearean tragicomedy will park jimin create today.

mozart's symphony 40 plays in the background (something he also told her to listen to to 'get in the mood'), and seulgi vaguely wonders why she has never given classical music a try before. she never knew just how much color the sounds of mellifluous instruments could bring, until she had her own taste of heaven on the day she witnessed park jimin create art (since that day, the kreutzer sonata remains on repeat in her playlist).

she glances up at the golden-rimmed clock ticking on the wall right above the old television in the living room, watches as the second hand comes closer and closer to twelve. four, three, two, one. her hands grasp the nearest remote, and the pads of her thumb pressed against the power button.

the television takes some time to turn on, but when it does, a nameless forecaster is calmly babbling on the news, with yet another murder on the headlines.

seulgi smiles, doesn't even care as all the wine in the glass she is holding stains her dress red. the glass is empty now, just a vessel for the void, much like her own body.

"at 11:25 this morning, around the corner of 5th street, just nearing the outermost downtowns of seoul, a pedestrian has come across a brutalized corpse of one 24-year-old jung chanmi in a closed barbershop. from all the obvious signs and hints, the perpetrator of this crime is none other than the renowned serial killer of seoul, ace. this time, the murderer has named this new grotesque piece 'the black swan'. images will now be viewed on screen. do be warned that the images will be highly graphic and viewer's discretion is highly adviced..."