The Ace (Stray Kids Kim Seungmin)

36

Splashing river water onto her face, Harri attempted to calm down her accelerating heart. Warm tears continued to stream down her cheeks, a sharp contrast to the cold water settling on her face.

The ripples distorted her reflection but she could still see the remorse clinging onto her face. From the way the corners of her lips drooped to the way her usually-bright eyes lacked any vitality, the internal anguish she was facing was evident.

Her innocence was depleted, she had watched it burn in Mel's eyes -- the purest form of innocence embodied a flame as it danced around in her eyes -- only for her to extinguish it with her own hands. And then proceed to use its burnt ashes -- Mel's blood -- as ink, tattooing the walls with grief.

Staring down at her reflection, Harri could hardly recognise herself. The girl painted across the river's surface had large brown eyes that appeared as nothing but two lifeless orbs, rosy cheeks that were red with blood, and blond hair, tangled just as her thoughts as she tried to make sense of her actions.

"Harri?" Someone called her from across the narrow river but Harri refused to burden them with the empty vessel she had become. So she kept her eyes on the ripples and how even they tried with all their might to escape from her.

"Harri? Is that you?" She recognised it as Kayleigh's voice which immediately trailed off when she noticed the blood coating Harri's face and arms and legs and... everything.

"Oh, Harri... What on earth happened?"

Harri only shook her head before immediately bursting out into quiet, suppressed sobs. Her shoulders trembled and she fiddled with her fingers while she tried to scrape the dried blood off her nails.

Her heart felt heavy, weighted as though it had been wrapped around an anvil then thrown into the see. Choked sobs fell out of her mouth and pressure pushed against all sides of her head, mimicking the feeling seconds before an explosion and Harri finally understood in full what it meant to drown in sorrow.

"She asked me to save her..." She trailed off. "I didn't grant her that one lady wish."

"What are you on about? Harri? Did you kill Aira?" Kayleigh examined her, longing to wade through the river and hug her but also repelled by the blood staining her skin.

Harri clutched her fists, clenching her jaw and inhaling deeply before relaxing with a heavy exhale. Averting her gaze from the water, she stared at her hands. Oh, the number of people she killed that day with those two hands. Oh, the sorrow they brought. She wanted nothing more than to saw them off, leave them and their sinful ways behind and never turn back. How she wished she had been killed with Mel, wished the same shovel has been bashed against her head so the two of them would bleed out together.

Bruised with splinters of wood and drenched with a blood and water concoction, her hands had their own story to tell but trembled at the thought of confessing it. The tip of her left index finger cowered, knowing the commands it had been forced to do -- knowing that it had been dipped into Mel's blood to write down the five words Hyunjin ordered her to write: Only one will make it.

"I took her life... Then I dragged her limp body out of the shed and disposed of it in the forest. I just... left it there. No grave, no memorial, nothing. I just left her to rot there like I would do with the leftovers of a wolf." She curled her fingers into a fist to partially hide the blood covering her palms. "She was right in calling me a monster. I'm a beast, Kayleigh. I'm a demon."

"Oh," The Ace of Diamonds released a relieved sigh. "You are talking about Melody. Thank goodness! That's a relief. I really thought you killed Aira there for a second. What a disaster that would be!"

Slowly, Harri raised her head to stare at the older girl blankly, "a relief?"

"Yeah, a relief. Killing Mel was the plan all along, didn't you know? We only killed the others to lure her into the Pen. She knew what we were plotting and was actively doing all she could to stop it. She knew we were trying to kill her so we used the hearts as bait. And thanks to you, we got her! I'll be honest, I thought Aira was just trying to anger me when she brought your name forward. I always thought you were too nice to hurt anyone but look at you. You really are the main character of the day, huh?"

Harri furrowed her eyebrows, mumbling, "bait... Bait?" She paused, tears blurring her vision as it finally dawned on her. "You told me Mel was trying to kill you though... Why did you need to use me as bait if she was already heading towards us?"

"Did I tell you she was trying to kill us? Oops, my bad. I meant it the other way around. We were the ones trying to kill her."

"... You used me..."

Kayleigh smirked, shaking her head at her, "no, Harri. I didn't use you. I wasn't the one who manipulated you into hating Melody nor was I the one who pretended to be an angel so you looked like a devil. I wasn't the one who manipulated you into thinking conspiring against Melody was your own idea nor was I the one who indirectly made you kill all the other hearts. No, Harri, I didn't do any of that. Aira did. She used you, not me. She has been using you all along."