Chapter 40 - His love letters

He lays down beside her. She is exhausted. Her tears are dried on her face. She can't move. The blood on the sheet is a clear indication of her lost innocence. He presses her face to his ċhėst. He gently moves his fingers through her silky hair before he pulls them hard.

"Do you still feel pain?"

"No." She doesn't feel anything. Nothing at all. She doesn't know what she should feel. He takes a look at her. Her eyes are hollow. She is looking at him, but she isn't. She feels like something has broken inside her mind. She doesn't know what it is. But, she isn't suffering anymore.

"Only pain can remove the pain." He nips her ċŀɨt with his nails. "Remember that, my dear Hana."

He gives her one final kiss and covers her eyes with his palm.

"Sleep, my dear. When the sun rises, you will become the sun," He tells her affectionately. "You shall become blindingly bright. Nobody shall be able to look at you directly. When the night comes back and you wake up alone, you will find me beside you again."

Ahn Hana falls asleep.

***

Until now. She digs her fingers in her hair and shakes madly in Do Sejin's arms. Jung Kwang-soo and Do Sejin call her name. She hasn't been responding to them. That man. He... That night.

Nothing has been right since that night. Why didn't she say anything to Jung Kwang-soo? Something has been wrong with her. When she woke up the next day, she was alone. She didn't care about the night. She was no longer suffering.

Ahn Hana has never been invincible. She has been broken apart by that man a long time ago. He dissected her mind and rearranged it according to his pŀėȧsurė. He turned her into the sun and filled her with the arrogance that blinded the world. His sun. He has been watching her all this time from the shadows, never making his presence known until now.

The night has arrived. The fear is returning along with the pain. That man will come back for her. She is afraid for the first time.

Do Sejin slaps her. "Hana, look at me."

"What are you doing?" Jung Kwang-soo yells at him. "I have called the doctor. Wait."

"She is in pain." He slaps her other cheek. "Wake up. Come out of it."

The stinging pain in her cheeks wakes her. Her lips tremble. "Do Sejin, it hurts."

"Where?" Do Sejin asks. His heart sinks when he sees her tears.

"Everywhere." She mumbles. It's unbearable. It's smothering her. Ahn Hana takes Noe Kyung-Hee's photo in her hand. "This... I know now... 100 days after the fifth anniversary of that night."

"That night... it was him with you?" Jung Kwang-soo widens his eyes as he receives the mental blow. "The killer?"

"The magnolia flowers are what he took away from me. The blood is what he instilled inside me that night." She reveals it to them with a smile, "Noe Kyung-Hee represents love because she died for love. He wants me to announce the love that he feels for me... to the world."

Jung Kwang-soo and Do Sejin are horrified when the realization struck.

"36 murders are his love letters to me." Ahn Hana shakes her head and laughs wildly. "He wants me to wake up and embrace him."

Nobody utters a word. She collapses on her seat and looks up at the ceiling with a mad smile. A heavy silence falls in the room. Both men don't know what to say or how to approach her. The deranged look in her eyes is keeping them away. One step toward her and she might break.

The silence is broken by Do Sejin's ringtone. He doesn't move to pick it up. Ahn looks at him and commands in her low and hypnotic voice. "Pick it up."

She seems different.

[Do Sejin, Seol A... ] He hears his father's hysterical voice.

"What happened?" A bad premonition envelops him.

"She is..."

***

Seol A, the 17 years old daughter of congressman Do Hwan Seok, is found dead inside a garbage bin in an isolated alley.

Do Sejin takes off the white sheet with his trembling hand. Her sister looks like she is sleeping. Her face is extremely pale under the light. He calls her name. "Seol A, stop pretending to sleep."

"Sejin..." His mother can't see it anymore. She runs outside. His father is still standing behind the door. His feet are frozen. He can't look at his only daughter's corpse. Seol A. Who would do this to her? His enemies?

"Seol A, you can click as many pictures that you want." Sejin cups her face. It's cold as ice. "Please tell me that you are playing a prank."

Outside, Ahn Hana is listening to the detective's words.

"Her mouth was stuffed with socks. She couldn't scream," The detective tells her and Jung Kwang-soo. "He broke her fingers one by one. Then, he sliced across her belly. The organs inside her belly are gone. He drove the knife in her heart after she died."

"When was she found?" Jung Kwang-soo asks. Ahn Hana looks at her fingers. One by one. She can imagine it the sound that Seol A's fingers must have made when he snapped them.

'I am Ahn Hana,' She tells herself in her mind. 'I am Ahn Hana.'

"Around 10 AM." The detective takes a glance at Ahn Hana who is still looking at her fingers.

"She is just thinking." Jung Kwang-soo stands in front of Ahn Hana.

"Oh." The detective eyes her suspiciously, but his view is blocked by Jung Kwang-soo. "She skipped school with her boyfriend. They were planning to watch a movie. The boyfriend went to buy movie tickets. When he came back, she was gone. A few hours later, she was found in the alley by a garbage picker."

Ahn Hana thinks about Seol A, trying to imagine her. She has never met her. She wonders how she must have screamed when he slit her belly. He let her bleed and then, stabbed her dead heart. He threw her in the garbage bin.

A clear message.

Seol A is his revenge on Do Sejin for her.