The Perfect Life

Step One

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The body flopped. Shivered, moaned once.

"Bitch!"

Eyes rolled back. A lifeless pair of hands sank into the pool of icy water. The body becoming still with a last thump. The man above her shivered, staring as her long black strands swirled in the water like angry snakes.

"Bitch..." he breathed, tired.

Inhaling, he leaned back on his heels, titled his head up to stare into the gray filtered sky. Clouds were thick and heavy like the vengeance weeping inside his chest. Unwinding his bloody fist, he inhaled again. So cold. His entire body seemed to be becoming one with the frigid weather. The dew drops dripping from his now bald head down his neck and into the shirt he'd stolen from a homeless man a few days ago. That shirt, too, was now blood streaked.

Time to set up shop he figured, if things were to really get rolling. After all, he'd come here for only one woman.

Rising to his feet he stared down at the broken face. Pulpy, blue and purple. Leaning down he snatched the wad of money from between her bulging breasts, a result of extensive surgery. Women, he scoffed. Lighting a cigarette, he blew out smoke while counting out two hundred. Not much, but it would do for him in the meantime. New clothes, a cheap place to stay, and some more batteries for the camera he was carrying around – his treasure, his greatest weapon that instilled fear.

Kicking the unconscious body, he muttered again, "Bitch."

A vehicle rolled by unaware of the incident behind the alley dumpster. Rats squeaked from their hiding place between bags of garbage. Then only the sound of the penetrating cold seemed to pound around them.

"Well," he breathed, tossing aside his cigarette, "we have some time."

Mounting the unconscious, he drew down the zipper of his aged jeans and got to work.

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Sehun...

Sehun...

Was here?

Namjoo ended up staring a little longer unable to tell whether she was having some kind of lucid dream. Sure, she had slept fitfully, had even thought about him here and there but she had not expected to see him in solid form today.

To make sure it was not a trick of the mind, Namjoo rubbed her eye then glanced at him again.

Still here.

Shifting back, she asked interrogatively, "What are you doing here?"

"I heard from Sunu you came to see your brother," he explained.

"I didn't tell him..." Namjoo stopped and bit her bottom lip. Sohee, that big mouth.

His eyes traveled over her shoulder. She wasn't ready to share Junmyeon with him. She wasn't prepared to share any intimate part of her yet. Learning about her father was as far as she wanted him to go. Would he finally leave her if she revealed that she had kept Eunhui's rape a secret for almost two whole years?

"I was going to leave," Namjoo quickly said to cut off his curiosity.

"I heard you didn't drive." He looked at her expectedly.

Keeping her lips pressed together Namjoo refused to ask anything. The real question she needed to ask herself was why she was still standing here under his umbrella with him.

"My car's over there." He pointed at the red SUV.

"That's not your car," Namjoo noted.

"I mean, borrowed," he corrected.