She watched.
She stared down at her soon to be victim. Kim watched from her perch on the roof, her eyes fixed on her soon-to-be victim. Palm raised to her face, her dainty fingers dragged her satin mask down and let it fall freely down her face, the fabric ruffling around her neck.
Below her, a woman lounged on a porch couch, humming Kim Mi-soo's debut song. Kim found it amusing that her target was also a fan.
"Mummy, mummy", seven year old Kim ran to her mum in fear. "Mi-soo", her mum answered, rushing, also looking for her daughter. The dainty girl screamed as she watched her hand go through the door when she attempted to open it. Staring at her palm intrigued, she realised she could still touch it with no problem. Her mum burst through the door almost knocking Mi-soo over.
With tears streaming down her face, she hastily showed her mum her palm. " Mummy, look!"
With the softness of a feather, her fingers grazed her daughter's palm in an attempt to try and touch her. It didn't, it passed right through. In a daze, she pushed Mi-soo away, making her fall on her butt.
"What is this Mi-soo", her mother screamed in anger, " What witchcraft have you brought into our home"
"Mummy, i'm sorry, i don't know what's wrong with my hand"
Stalking over to her daughter, she grabbed her by her arm, "How can you not know, what's wrong with your arm?", she accused stressing the your.
The moon glowed dully behind a veil of clouds, stars blinking like coloured Morse code. A gentle breeze rustled through Kim's hair. She sat cross-legged, focusing her energy inward. Her black hair, streaked with purple and red highlights, began to glow, and her eyes turned a shade of amber. She could see floating bodies skimming past the bushes, the glow surrounding her fan's body, and the red 'X' mark inscribed on her skin. The woman would explain everything.
Kim Mi-soo leapt down gracefully, landing with a silent thud. She pulled up her mask and turned to face the woman, a cunning smile spreading across her lips as she waltzed over to the sleeping figure. Tucking the fan's hair behind her ear, she patted her cheek. The woman's eyelids fluttered open. Kim wiggled her fingers in a mocking greeting. The fan's eyes widened and she jolted off the couch.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" she asked, backing into her house. Kim ignored her, continuing her advance. The woman hurried inside and locked the door. Kim smiled in disbelief. Did she really think a locked door would stop her? She walked through the wooden barrier as if it were nothing.
Gripping the woman's neck firmly, Kim gently asked her name, though she already knew it. "Jiwoo," the woman stammered.
"You know what's going to happen now?" Mi-soo questioned, playing with Jiwoo's hair using her pocket knife. Teasing a cut on her cheek, she continued, "You know a woman named Jihyo, Lee Jihyo?"
"That's my mum's name," Jiwoo answered, wide-eyed and panting.
"I know," Mi-soo deadpanned. Digging the knife deeper into her skin, Jiwoo flinched as blood trickled down her cheek.
"Who are you?" Jiwoo sobbed.
"Guess," Kim Mi-soo replied, pulling her mask down and grinning.
"Kim Mi-Soo?!" Jiwoo gasped, bewildered.
"Bingo." Kim clicked her tongue and pointed sharply at Jiwoo. "Why are you doing this?"
"You see, you look outrageously similar to someone who's wronged me, and I need to stop that."
"Who?" Jiwoo asked.
"I don't think you would know her," Mi-soo smirked.
"Want to play a game, see if I would spare you if you won?", the young idol asked with a sadistic tilt of her head. Her eyes glowed, not with the almost neon colour they had earlier, but with lust for the lifeline coursing through the fans veins.
Nodding her head, squirming from the cold and peppery glare of the knife edge dancing around on her neck. Jiwoo whimpered embarrassingly, desperately clawing at the hope of someone coming to her aid.
Pushing the fan without a moment's notice, she spun around and swept her arms in the air, signifying the expanse of the dishevelled living room. "Hide and seek", she announced, "We're gonna play hide and seek, you run and hide and I catch you". Stopping momentarily, she turned to face Ji-woo, as if asking for a challenge. The spark in her eyes told ji-woo she was.
Summoning inexistent courage, she asked for the conditions." There are no conditions, because no matter how the game goes, i still get my prize…".pausing to stare longingly, almost hunger-like at the slowly trickling fall of the blood from her bleeding cheek, a crooked smile, brightened the blood lust on her face, before saying in a humourless deadpanned tone, "You"
"When do we start,"Jiwoo asked hurriedly. With a swipe of her hand, Misoo declared the game as begun. Ji woo sturdied herself on her wobbly knees, and ran upstairs to her bedroom in her shared leased house. She hid in the secret crevice her cat had found under her bed.
Just as a glimmer of hope started to wash over her, she felt the cold, unnerving but more importantly, real, presence of Kim Mi-soo behind. Slowly she turned her head. Her idol smiled at her. Misoo dragged her by her collar, and she felt herself dissolving. They were back in the living room. The sharp bite of the dagger announced its presence of Jiwoo's already bleeding cheek.
Taking the knife from Jiwoo's cheek, she positioned the tip of her dagger on Adam's apple and plunged it deep into her cervix. Shock and reality exploded in her throat. Her hand crept upwards to cradle the hole in her throat.
Kim let out a silent prayer for the dead as thrashed around, desperate clawing at an attempt to live. Jiwoo collapsed to the floor, coughing wildly and choking on her own blood, tears mingling with the crimson streams on her cheeks. She made herself comfortable, watching the life, dreams, and hope drain from Jiwoo's eyes. Her hands relished in the fact that they had done that.
From one of the pockets of her cargo pants, Kim retrieved a paintbrush. She knelt down beside the corpse, staring indistinctly at blood pooling around jiwoo's hair, encasing it in a bloody mural of death. Kim Misoo dipped the old paintbrush into the pool of blood beside Jiwoo and dragged it across the palm of her hand, drawing an 'X'. Huffing a heavy breath, she retrieved her knife, she straightened and walked away.
"X has struck again...another victim's corpse has been found lying in a pool of her own blood inside her home," the news anchor read from her paper. A censored image of Jiwoo's body appeared in a rectangle on the upper left of the TV screen. Mi-soo looked up from her catalogue, staring shocked, with the blood drained from her face.
That wasn't the person she killed.