Work Text:
The trek from the alley to the small alcove in the garden takes perhaps ten minutes. Solemn prayers are muttered between grunts and deep sighs as the rimes begin to harden the wooden boards of the box that proves difficult in dragging through the unyielding dead soil. Once the trunk is deposited next to the risen stone slab placed inside the alcove, a partition is established between the gazebo and the opening. It’s a beautiful thing, really, the partition that is. Ancient and beautiful, yet hideous enough to ward off even the most vivacious of onlookers.
Not that anyone would be looking into an alcove at two am in the morning in a garden park with no semblance of any living vegetation. It’s the beginning of winter. People weren’t that stupid.
Yet the poor bugger in the box seemed to be idiotic enough to be caught in the middle of the night, and not really as fit to be running as he thought he would be. An easy catch, even if the exhaustion begins to settle in because of the biting frost.
Time is precious, indeed, but the game is much more delicious. The one brave enough to engage in such business is cooperative with the elements, so once the pieces are properly divided and elegantly wrapped, they’ll be placed into a cooler that will be dumped into the bay overlooking central Stockholm.
And what a beautiful sight that will be when first light filters through the few remaining clouds in the sky. He knows the fisherfolk that make a living off the salmon in the Malaren’s freezing waters will be the first ones to trudge up the empty walkways. And so kind were these fisherpeople, so quaint and content with their simple lives in a city that wasn’t as simple. They would be in their winter gear, hats on their heads and scarves wrapped around their incredibly mundane faces while their arms and hands carried and dragged the necessary material to the choicest spots.
They would be in for a darling surprise, of course.
Yet, the sagacious young thing with such a perilous little hobby has nothing against the fishermen who slave away day after day in the frigid air, merely to provide for the spouses and children who are dependent on the day’s catch. No. The keen-eyed stranger respects these older men and women whose gaunt skin and ferocious determination are the only things keeping them off the streets and in their homes instead.
No. These are not feeble minded people like the ones the stranger has plucked from downtown’s seediest alleys, wedged between old churches and smoky clubs. Yet, there is a point to be noted that, despite the stupidity that the captured souls exuded, they too were of a quaint and beautiful kind.
The fisherfolk are just of the quick and brilliant pack, not of the languorous and dotty bits the stranger likes to pluck individuals from. It prides itself in believing it is of the quick and vivacious lot.
Or so the stranger thinks. In truth, it is not quite sure where its roots lie. Perhaps the vulgar yet exquisite partition between the alcove and the gazebo can tell it. Or perhaps it can’t. The stranger merely shrugs. There is work to be done and a home where the stranger has to return to. It is simply too cold outside for an extra catch tonight. Light would pour through the slits of the gazebo soon enough, and the stone slab would have to be bleached of the blood and viscera and the partition safely put away before the pieces could be dumped and the work to be considered finished.
The cleaver glints in the low moonlight above, beckoning its radiance one last time before it disappears for good. The stranger smiles. It’s one full of relief and longing, an understanding between the deceased and the living. There would be no ghosts haunting the strange young thing, because the strange young thing did not kill with hatred.
It killed with purpose.
***
Wu Fan enjoyed peace and quiet in his spare time. When he wasn’t in meetings debating ethics with his photography team, he liked to find a quiet corner to drink his beverage and read his book if he wasn’t already speaking softly to his mother on his handset. It was a methodical way of living. He woke up at six o’clock on the dot for a shower and an apple. On his way to the firm, he’d stop at the nearby Starbucks and have a venti fill-in-the-blank, so long as it was steaming hot when it was handed to him. He’d take the seat farthest from society. The table he usually used was by the staff door, always opening and closing with the bustling workers, prompting the more sensitive customers to shy away from it. To Wu Fan the table was delightful, almost magical since it kept most of the busybodies away from him and managed to earn him a discount whenever the district manager saw him nestled in the lone chair.
Sometimes Wu Fan got unlucky and had to sit near the windows. He made the chat quick or read only half the minimum, one chapter requirement he had in place for his daily morning read. Afterwards, he was on his way to the station that would drop him two blocks from his firm, and from there on, there was a flurry of activity Wu Fan required Lu Han to keep close note of, so at the end of the work day, he could proudly say he was done and head home for a quiet dinner and a good night’s sleep.
He skipped a proper lunch on the days he worked. A break would mean he would have to find a quiet place in his not so quiet building. Instead of risking a fiasco by eating his sandwich in a closed stall in the men’s room, he removed lunch from his schedule altogether and instead had a bowl of sliced oranges Lu Han procured for him at one in the afternoon. He downed them quickly, finished off a bottle of water, and it would only be 1:10 and the others on the floors below him would just begin getting into their cars or onto the train for their hour or two long lunches before returning to work. The only point they intersected with Wu Fan was the point that everyone had to be home before ten. Yet Wu Fan’s personal deadline was nine p.m sharp.
All of this took place for twenty-eight years. For the first eighteen, the schedule was a bit awry because of infancy and adolescence, but after he was in college and on his own terms, everything in his life took on a uniformity. Mistakes became part of the routine, prompting those closest to Wu Fan to step back and wonder what kind of robot was absolutely OK with being sued for millions over a computer error. Wu Fan lost money, yet he earned thrice as much whenever misfortune struck. Soon, even bad luck shied away from him, and at the tender age of twenty-four, he gained the upper hand.
At twenty-eight, his best friend was his record keeper and right hand man, Lu Han. Yixing, from finance, handled the books. Two floors below the finance department was the marketing team, run by Zi Tao. Above Zi Tao was Jong Dae, the main photographer, and the thorn that would never quite leave Wu Fan’s side. They were his usual party guests, since he only threw three in the entire year. They were his acquaintances, the ones who knew they would never get fired because Wu Fan liked uniformity and not constant staff refreshers. And yet, they were his friends, the ones that found two or three days out of the week to add a sandwich or a tuna wrap to Wu Fan’s bowl of orange slices because they knew he’d never leave his office for a normal break because of his allergies towards humanity.
This went on for four years. Three weeks after his twenty-eighth birthday, Wu Fan woke up with a cold that forced him to break from his daily routine. It happened maybe four times a year, so it was part of the bigger routine in his life. He texted Lu Han about the specifics of what needed to be done by the time he came back. Then he went back to sleep. He woke up in the afternoon and decided he wanted lunch, so he set out in search of a place that was respectful to both his taste buds and his ears.
He found it at the end of the street.
***
It was a point to be noted that Wu Fan loved his home more than the books that were lined on the shelves in his apartment. Stockholm was where he went to college, where he found his first job, where he kissed his first boyfriend and faced his first lawsuit.
He’d shifted from neighborhood to neighborhood, moved across the province multiple times, ended up in different cities, but by the time the cold began to settle in, he was back in Stockholm’s arms, in hotels during the years he had to work and live outside, and finally in the apartment in Vallingby when he landed his dream job in Kungsholmen.
It was when the first of the frost touched the tip his nose that he remembered to breathe.
It was everything Wu Fan thought he would ever want and need. A cup of coffee, his mother’s soft voice drifting from his phone, knowledge of his continued existence, and his few friends were what made his life worth living. Everything was in order just the way it should have been, and like clockwork, when Wu Fan stepped outside to walk to some discreet hole-in-the-wall for some food, he expected just that.
Not Kim Minseok.
***
And that’s why twenty-eight is the last number of uniformity, according to Wu Fan’s life, and why he’s currently standing in front of three shelves of manga, unable to decide which one of the series he should purchase, wrap, and give to his lovely boyfriend at his Christmas Eve party.
“So what kind of comic book does he want? The Captain America stuff, or yaoi?”
Lu Han is a competent worker, but a terrible gift giver. Last year, he presented Yixing with two tubes of toothpaste and free tickets to a perfume sampling show in Karlstad. Yixing gave him a blazer and a homemade pineapple tart he managed to get Zi Tao’s sister to make him and instantly forgave Lu Han for forgetting he was allergic to most synthetic perfumes. Wu Fan still has trouble figuring out why they started dating.
“He likes to quote some guy named Alucard,” Wu Fan says, lightly scratching his forehead, wondering if he should turn to an online buying platform.
“Who dat?”
Jong Dae pokes his head out of the Erotica section, a lollipop in his mouth. Lu Han shakes his head and the photographer morosely slinks back into his aisle, while Wu Fan begins to bite his nails, a habit he thought he’d gotten rid of back in grammar school.
“Maybe we should get him yaoi,” Lu Han thinks out loud. “They’re still considered comics despite the… hands and stuff.”
“He doesn’t want porn, Lu,” Jong Dae chirps from behind a tall, oak shelf.
“What does he want then, some Spider-Man comics and a pair of privately crafted chopsticks?” Lu Han grins while poking Wu Fan in the shoulder. Then he blinks and recalls the chopsticks thing is actually Jong Dae’s idea for Yixing this year and hastily attempts to make the seed disappear from Wu Fan’s mind because, if the dark lord Chthulu willed it, he’d be able to use them whenever Yixing wasn’t.
“Manga, Lu Han,” Wu Fan finally pleads. “As in, big eyes and abnormal high schools with ghosts, gangsters, and the likes attending.”
Jong Dae finally leaves his post at the Erotica section and makes his way to the graphic novels with three books and a bunch of magazines with dubious covers. “Whatever it is, you better hurry. We still have to pick up dry cleaning and dinner,” he drawls through the sugary treat still lolling around in his mouth.
“I can still internet right?” Wu Fan squeaks, a distinct fear rising in his chest. Lu Han shakes his head and Jong Dae gives him a look graced with utter disappointment.
The photographer shifts his books and magazines around until they’re comfortable in one arm. By now, Wu Fan is panicking and wondering where he went wrong in his life and how that led to him forgetting how to internet. He used to know how to internet so well. He has enough second-hand books to prove his interneting skills, but when it came to a couple of Japanese comics? Wu Fan wondered if his mother was still awake and was just about to call her when Jong Dae shoves him.
“You’re hopeless, you know,” Jong Dae reprimands lightly. His lips then curve into a sharp smile that emits a high pitched squeal out of Lu Han’s mouth. Wu Fan blinks.
And that’s how he leaves the store with a copy of the Kama Sutra wrapped in green paper and a white ribbon.
***
After his lunch at Kim Minseok’s coffee shop in Vallingby, the routine crumbled like jenga towers constructed on the sixth floor conference table on a particularly slow day. Starbucks was replaced. There were texts before coffee in the morning, during his period of orange slices and water, while he was on the bus. Poems and passages were written on the bottom of his coffee cups, which he read after he’d drained the coffee and finished his morning chapter.
He has every cup with a passage or a poem. They’re lined up on top of his book shelves, and when Lu Han visits on the weekends, he stacks them up into a pyramid and then throws peanuts at them until they come crashing down. One could say that there was a new routine in place, one that involved Kim Minseok. Soon enough, there was lunch smuggled into Wu Fan’s schedule. Minseok packed it before he came in for his coffee, and Wu Fan returned the empty bag after work. He still had his orange slices and water, but now there was always something hearty involved, and though the noise still hurt Wu Fan’s ears, Minseok insisted. For the first few months, they spoke softly on the phone while Wu Fan hesitantly scooped spoonfuls of beef stew into his mouth.
Wu Fan put on weight, but the good kind of weight, the type of weight that helped fill out his muscles and tone his stomach and thighs. When he put on his suit in the mornings, he felt more flexible, more comfortable, a bit warmer than the months before when he had just the right amount of vitamin C so he didn’t end up with scurvy.
Wu Fan began to dress better, walk faster, and smile more often, so often that Jong Dae had to take a week off after Minseok and he had been dating for three months. Wu Fan had walked in that day grinning from ear to ear, his eyes wet and shiny as if he was having happy flashbacks to more intimate times. Jong Dae couldn’t take it. He knew that look too well since he flashed the same thing to every person who walked into his floor of the building.
Before the lunches were packed and the kisses were exchanged, Minseok was merely his new barista. After a particularly rough night, Wu Fan decided he’d finish the rest of his work from home instead of risking a missed bus and an unhealthy amount of money for a taxi. The bus pulled over and he got off, intending to make his trek home quick because of the creeping chill and almost blinding darkness, but when he remembered the fresh brew he had that morning and the weeks before, he found himself walking past his apartment and all the way to the end of the street where the shop bordered a small pond and the walkway next to it, a lone stretch of road a few yards farther down that led towards a station that had buses going to Blackeberg.
The shop was quiet and the small parking lot next to it was empty of cars and light. Wu Fan knew he should turn back, but something visceral told him to walk closer, to get to the door and knock.
He didn’t have to. He reached the bay windows and peered through the half tilted blinds. A dim light shone through a small portion of the room, and there he spied Minseok measuring cups of coffee grind before placing them into small packages he would mostly likely put to use the following morning. He worked quietly and earnestly with no one assisting him. Wu Fan looked at his watch and saw that it was well past midnight and that he would need to run home now because almost every street corner in sight was darker than black and he’d lost all his appetite for work and only wished to be behind locked doors and preferably underneath his covers.
But there was something else.
Minseok had caught him before he turned back. The man smiled from behind the window before he unlocked the front door.
“It’s kind of cold outside, wouldn’t you say?” The older man smirked, beckoning him inside.
Wu Fan fell asleep on the sofa watching him work, uncaring of the frost that began to creep up the windows of the shop.
***
“Jesus, it’s getting late.” Lu Han shivers and the other two nod their head in unison.
Wu Fan grips the package tightly in his hand and leads the way to bus stand. In a few hours, daylight would be swept away by an unseen force, and soon enough, a cloudless night would appear. Wu Fan was rarely out after nine for the past few years, except because of work and that happened only once or twice a year. He fondly remembers that the last time he was out after his and Lu Han’s personal curfew was the night he’d slept on Minseok’s first floor divan in the coffee shop. Yet, as pleasant as the memory is in his mind, he knows the dry cleaner would be closing shop in two hours, so the three men gripped their oddities tightly to their chests, and began to hurry to the stand four blocks away.
***
Minseok’s house was situated twenty or so yards away from the Malaren, making it colder than Wu Fan’s apartment when he wasn’t home to heat it. However, once Minseok put the wood into the fireplace and had the flames churning, Wu Fan had to shrug off his winter gear and into a thin t-shirt and a pair of sweats he’d packed for the night.
They played card games and watched a movie. It was what he and Lu Han did on off days when it was too cold to go out for a movie. Ironically, Lu Han was only ten or so miles into the heart of the suburb where he’d grown up. Blackeberg was just like Vallingby, cold and quiet when the snow fell, and soft and glistening when the humidity rose and the leaves turned green again. It was almost the end of winter, and yet the weather was still cold enough to freeze Wu Fan’s bones if he forgot to wear polypropylene underclothes.
There was some hail outside. Wu Fan sent Lu Han a picture of Minseok cooking in his kitchen while he pointed to the small, open window that let bits of the ice clamber in while the smell of sauteed onions and smoke drifted out. Lu Han sent him an emoticon displaying a thumbs up and a promise to bring him condoms when they went into work the next morning. Oddly, Wu Fan didn’t blush as hard as he thought he would, and he see soon realized that it was because everything that came was as natural as the day he’d flown out of Vancouver and landed in Landvetter. It wasn’t a one night stand, and he wasn’t sleeping with his colleague or a classmate or one of the men his mother had specially picked for him to come and meet when he went to visit her during the summer months.
They spent the night together next to the fireplace. Wu Fan woke up curled next to someone who’d lent their arm for Wu Fan’s head. The blanket was thin, but enough, as the embers were still glistening and the heat was still properly conserved in the small house overlooking the lake outside. Wu Fan thought it was love.
***
He knows it’s love, otherwise he wouldn’t be sweating bullets in twelve degree weather and carrying the Kama Sutra with him to the Chinese hole-in-the-wall Jong Dae insisted they go to even though Lu Han craved burgers and Wu Fan chicken wings.
“Warm noodles on a cold night,” the youngest of the three mumbles as he slurps on his ramen. Wu Fan picks at his rice while Lu Han quietly seethes.
Jong Dae pokes the oldest a few times with the ends of his chopsticks until he gives in and digs into the chicken. Wu Fan smiles at the exchange and begins to enjoy his rice and vegetables while the small crowd at the diner begins to thin out.
“We should get going,” Wu Fan says after they’ve bowed respectfully to their server and received their coffee.
Jong Dae burps and hastily mutters a quick apology. “My train doesn’t leave for another hour, so I’ll have to flirt with the subway attendant until my ride shows up.”
Wu Fan is about to ask if he wants him to call him a taxi, but Lu Han slaps his hands down on the table before he can get a word out.
“It’s almost eight, we’re going to my place,” he huffs proudly.
Jong Dae blinks distastefully, knowing the doe eyed coordinator will put soy milk in his morning coffee as vengeance if he follows along. “I say nay,” he says, motioning an ‘X’ across his chest. The tremors haven’t plagued him these past few months, judging by his upbeat mannerisms. Wu Fan knows that once he and Lu Han have departed, Jong Dae will go home for a quick change of clothes before engaging in a long night of clubbing before stumbling back home at odd hours of the morning. When they return to work after the holidays, he’s going to continue his ritual partying and stumble into work on time, half grinning and half twitching with a bottle of orange juice in one hand and his work duffel bag in the other.
But Wu Fan shakes his head. He needs Jong Dae lucid tomorrow morning. “Lu Han’s right. It’s too late now.” Wu Fan gets up to pay, only to have Lu Han put a firm hand on his wrist.
“You’re coming too,” he says seriously. Wu Fan shrugs, since his apartment is only twenty minutes away if he takes the local bus. Besides, the party isn’t until the following night, so Wu Fan guesses he can spare a few hours lounging on Lu Han’s too-comfortable-for-its-own-good sofa.
But he has the dry cleaning and Lu Han has christened one of his drawers in Wu Fan’s name, so he knows he probably won’t be going back to his own apartment for a while. But like everything that’s happened since he’d come to terms with his happiness, he’s OK. He’s absolutely, perfectly fine.
“Boss,” Jong Dae calls seriously. Lu Han and Wu Fan turn to the young man staring at something past them. They follow his gaze to a small television set up in the corner. The volume is muted, but the words are captioned at the bottom as the reporter speaks quickly yet informatively.
Suddenly, Lu Han’s apartment seems like a godsend.
***
Minseok met Lu Han and Zi Tao during a company meeting Minseok insisted he cater. Wu Fan was too busy rereading his documents to notice the food being set up until his eyes finally rested upon an exceptionally cool Zi Tao and a rather flustered Lu Han cornering Minseok at the far end of the third floor conference hall.
For one, Lu Han was never flustered while on the job. In fact, if there was one person that could be counted on, should Wu Fan slip into a coma or break his leg while jogging on his treadmill, it was Lu Han. Lu Han was the epitome of calm and collected when profit margins were involved. He knew the difference between it-can-be-done-next-week and it-should-be-done-yesterday. There was no in between.
So why then had his cheeks flared up at the sight of his boyfriend?
Zi Tao casually answered Wu Fan’s questions after Minseok had left after setting up the food and bowing discreetly. Apparently, Minseok smelled like the coffee Yixing had in the morning.
Apparently Yixing bought coffee from Minseok’s place. Apparently, Lu Han had thought he’d found another love rival.
Of course he was wrong and Yixing had given him the stinkeye and established a no-touch policy for a good week before things returned to normal. Needless to say, Zi Tao and Lu Han ended up really liking Minseok and vice versa. Yixing was more than glad to keep going to the coffee shop, now that Minseok teasingly slipped in a discount because of “family” purposes. All was well.
Except with Jong Dae.
Unlike the others, Jong Dae didn’t do friendships and love based on coffee roast and sweet sex by the living room fireplace. At least, not according to what Wu Fan saw. Jong Dae was a former soldier who’d done four tours over the course of six years in various localities in Afghanistan. He was half Korean and half American, and once he’d finished his rounds, passed his psych evaluation and finally gotten his pension, he clocked out of both of his home countries for good and went to find his true calling.
Wu Fan found him taking photographs of scenery and people in Boras on a cold autumn morning. Jong Dae had a Cheshire grin plastered on his face when he snapped a picture of Wu Fan sneezing into his tissue. They bonded over old Coldplay songs a few hours later.
No one but Wu Fan and Jong Dae’s various string of lady loves had seen the scars that were riddled down his back and chest. Wu Fan only witnessed their presence when he’d walked in on Jong Dae pulling on a dry t-shirt after a particularly rough game of water polo in Yixing’s swimming pool. Jong Dae had smiled. Wu Fan was struck silent. He only managed to stir after Jong Dae gave him a light pat on the shoulder and walked past him.
So in truth, there was an aura of roughness around the man, and his exterior was as flashy and funny as it was cunning and cutthroat. Minseok, on the other hand, was sweet and calm, so quiet and easily prone to light laughter that there would always be a twitch in Jong Dae’s eyes or in his hands whenever the coffee shop owner was around.
But Jong Dae was still one of Wu Fan’s oldest and most precious of friends.
Jong Dae was an enigma wrapped in a bundle of slyly disguised PTSD tremors and makeup covering the dark bags underneath his eyes after long nights of unnecessary reminders of his past. Minseok was an answer surrounded by a hundred types of coffee beans and delicate foods and desserts that only served to add more healthy weight to Wu Fan and his friends.
But not Jong Dae. Jong Dae neither touched a drop of coffee nor a bit of food. Wu Fan knew Minseok knew, but there seemed to be a quaint understanding between the two man, an understanding Lu Han and Wu Fan observed after a company dinner.
Jong Dae would stay out of Minseok’s way if only he did the same.
***
Lu Han’s walls are painted baby blue and lavender. The assortment of furniture and the way it’s all set up makes the tenth floor flat look like a married couple’s developing nest for a larger family. There are already photos hung up in the hall, of him and Lu Han when they were still in college and in ripped jeans and too large t-shirts. Then there are photos of office get-togethers, Polaroids of Jenga towers that were made on Wu Fan’s various conference tables, and finally, past the coat rack and shoe shelves, photographs of he and Yixing.
They’d only been dating a few months, less than the time he and Minseok had, and yet they’d fallen in love as if they’d known each other forever. In a way, they did. All the heads of the floors, he and Lu Han, following Jong Dae, Zi Tao, and Yixing had started together and built the firm from bottom up. Now they had their own floors, their own conference tables, and now their own places on Lu Han’s wall. There’s even a photo of Zi Tao kissing his girlfriend that’s near a photo of Jong Dae passed out on Wu Fan’s shoulder after a particularly stressful night.
And right at the end, right before the hall curves into the den, there’s a framed picture of Lu Han kissing Yixing in front of the glistening Malaren.
“Stop staring at my man,” Lu Han mock-snipes at him, dragging him towards the large, neatly kept room overlooking a host of spruce trees outside.
“Remember when he went out with Tao-chan’s cousin?” Jong Dae yells from the guest room.
“Do Kyungsoo is nothing, do you understand!?” Lu Han screeches, prompting Wu Fan to flinch.
Lu Han huffs and puffs and goes into a rant in Mandarin, which he forgets Jong Dae is fluent in, along with the four other languages he’s picked up in his years. The photographer snipes back in Pekingese, prompting Wu Fan to duck into the kitchen while a full on war erupts in the den. He ends up in front of the fridge and digs out a bottle of lager to celebrate a job well done in escaping the battle.
His eyes fall on the iPAD Lu Han’s left plugged to the charger. He clicks the home button and taps in the passcode before settling down for an article.
What he gets is “breaking news.”
The article features a picture of one of the smaller islands stationed in the Malaren. The sky is white, warning snow and ice for the days to come, yet the most striking element of the photograph is the Malaren itself.
The lake is hardly calm. Wu Fan can see it licking at the rocks that have no doubt frozen with the sediment underneath them. By now the waters should have begun to freeze over in some places, but he assumes the picture was taken some time in the morning or the afternoon when the winds were still high and the temperature still above freezing conditions.
They’d found another piece.
The Malaren is home to many things. Bodies, unfortunately, are not the most uncommon thing to wash up on rocky shores or come up during fishing scoops. Sometimes it’s a drunk, sometimes it’s a debtor whose feet and hands are bound and fastened with concrete blocks that should have sunk them all the way to the bottom of the lake.
But for the past six years, it has been home to the Piper’s friends.
The Piper, or officially known as the Midnight Piper, had been haunting the city of Stockholm even before Wu Fan had acquired the funds to start his firm. His work had been discovered when Wu Fan was still finishing his graduate work and working for a magnate who served on the university’s council. There were only two killings that first month- one of a twenty-three year old college student and the other of a thirty year old father of two.
The bodies were sliced neatly, each cut as precise as the next. They were supposedly wiped down and drained of fluids and most of the viscera before being wrapped in brown paper and clear wrap. Then they were dumped.
Always in the Malaren.
At least, the first sixteen were. The first two were of men who’d been frequent club-goers. Their intersection point was that they both spent months circling an establishment geared towards folk music lovers. It was much smaller, much more quaint, and someone would always be playing a flute somewhere nearby.
Their teeth were removed and pins would be placed in their empty sockets. The police still didn’t know where the eyes and the teeth were. If it hadn’t been for DNA and missing persons reports, the bodies would have never been identified.
Of the first sixteen bodies, only twelve of the heads were found, the rest presumed to be under some rock or buried in the sand at the bottom of the lake. Still, they were able to place identifications on two of the headless while the other four remained unclaimed at the morgue.
The first sixteen murders took place in the first year of the Piper’s tenure. Wu Fan was twenty-three.
Today, while Wu Fan and his friends were shopping and dining, a piece of one of the headless bodies was uncovered by a local on one of the islands. A hand, Wu Fan reads. It’s a hand with rotted nails. There’s a colored photograph of the evidence. The brown wrap is gone, but the remnants of the clear wrap is still attached to some parts of the rotted and bitten flesh. Wu Fan knows the marks are that of fish and animals, not of the Piper. The Piper didn’t cannibalize. Wu Fan and the rest of Sweden learned that little tidbit in the second year.
The curfew emerged after the first appearance of a body on land. It wasn’t an official curfew, to the say the least. There could never be an official one, not in a city as vast as Stockholm. It would be bad for business, worse off for official police work.
It was that of a man, just like the other sixteen, somewhere between the ages of twenty-two and thirty-five. This one exceptionally close to home for the late night users of a the central Stockholm station because it was one of the regular junkies who occasionally sang for money.
He was impaled on one of the spokes of an iron fence bordering one of the small garden parks near a bus station. The park had a small gazebo and multiple alcoves that overlooked one of the nearby piers. Two blood analysts went in for a routine sweep and found a recently bleached stone slab in one of the alcoves. Upon further analysis, traces of blood and milk were discovered. Dogs were brought in the sniff out the area for further checking, and seventeen wooden crates filled with fertilizer were discovered underneath the crooked soil.
Fertilizer that had remnants of viscera and all the eyes, but still no teeth. At least the proposed theory about the teeth being the trophies was strengthened.
After that, the bodies alternated between water and land. If there were two land corpses in a row, that mean there was a lake corpse that hadn’t yet been discovered, so there would be cops searching the waters until an arm, a leg, or even a head was discovered that wasn’t already part of the recorded bunch.
One hundred and ninety four in the last six years, and still counting. It had been four months since the last murder. It was a grounded corpse found neatly propped against a trash can near one of the fishing docks, the head cleanly sliced off the body’s shoulders and placed primly in its lap, the eyes gone and the teeth plucked out.
Wu Fan had lost his appetite that day and gave his meal to Lu Han before returning the canteen later that day.
“Stop it.”
Wu Fan jumps, almost dropping the lager still in his hand. Lu Han pushes the power button, and the pictures and words soundlessly disappear. He guiltily lowers his eyes.
“No more depressing shit,” he hears Jong Dae mutter, who then swipes the lager out of his hand unceremoniously takes a long gulp. “Let’s get shitfaced,” he suggests after a minute of awkward silence.
Wu Fan can see Lu Han weigh out the pros and cons in his head before nodding. “Yes, wasted hijinks, I approve.” He begins to pull out the lagers from the fridge and then hurries over to the expensive spirits and liqueurs he keeps in the glass cabinet in the den.
“I want the absinthe,” Jong Dae whines and yells simultaneously, earning a bark from the older man.
Wu Fan stretches and gazes over to the clock hanging over the entrance of the kitchen. It was only eight p.m and already the world was ending.
Then he thinks, when wasn’t it ending?
Jong Dae pats his shoulder and pulls open another lager. “Not worth it,” he says. “Eventually they’ll find him, or maybe he’ll expire before they can catch him. These things last for a while, make national news, and then disappear.”
“It’s gonna be two hundred people soon,” Wu Fan whispers. His ears ring. The pain is still there. He still can’t spend more than twenty minutes inside a crowded shopping mall without feeling faint.
“It could be three hundred, and still no one would care,” Jong Dae says truthfully. And Wu Fan knows Jong Dae is right.
“I’m gonna fuck the hell outta Xing-Xing after the party tomorrow,” Lu Han crows, barging in with a bottle of vodka and tin full of peanuts. Jong Dae gives the Beijing native a coy look and swipes the vodka and slides past him before the man can figure out where the hell the vodka went.
“JONG DAE!”
Wu Fan peers into his first bottle of lager and sees that Jong Dae emptied it out. The second is still in his hand, but within thirty seconds, its contents are emptied in his stomach, and he hoists himself up so he can begin making the peach martinis before Lu Han finishes off the schnapps and starts to cry about Yixing not wanting him because he had wrinkles around his eyes (Luhan was twenty-eight and Yixing was still twenty-six and exceptionally wrinkle-free).
“HUZZAH!”
Wu Fan hears Lu Han shriek and he guesses Jong Dae has finally gotten his hands on the absinthe at the very top of the beverage cabinet.
We smiles to himself, thinking that the monster probably didn’t have the kind of happiness and love in its life like Wu Fan did.
***
“MERRY CHRISTMAS, BITCH!”
While Jong Dae projects his inner Jesse Pinkman by screaming well wishes and hugging all the attendees at the party, Wu Fan lazily slips another truffle into his mouth, savoring the chocolatey goodness as if it was the last vice left on earth.
“You’re giving ge ideas,” Zi Tao drawls, taking another sip of his eggnog.
Wu Fan turns towards Minseok, who’s stationed behind the shop’s bar, whipping up warm, alcoholic beverages for fools like himself and Jong Dae.
He huffs. “He’s not even looking at me,” he mutters morosely, plopping another one of the chocolates into his mouth.
“He’s serving twenty people without throwing his hands up and going home; I think he deserves a medal.” Suho is Minseok’s best friend from college and a corporate attorney. It’s a bit of a doozy for Wu Fan because Minseok went to culinary school, but apparently so did Suho. Even Zi Tao gets confused sometimes with the order of their lives’ events.
“He took my gift, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and then went back to making lattes,” Wu Fan recounts. Then he gulps. “He doesn’t even know it’s the Kama Sutra.”
“You got him the Kama Sutra?” Sehun disrupts, his eyes wide and a bit scared.
“What’s a twelve year old doing here?” Wu Fan drawls.
“I’m eighteen!” Sehun squeaks, but Jongin manages to sweep by in time and take the boy away by the collar.
“No, really,” Wu Fan asks, “what’s he doing here? There’s alcohol in every drink besides the water.” Wu Fan knows very well Minseok wouldn’t let his brother touch a drop without the boy risking a serious ass whupping.
“Relax, Boss,” Jong Dae chirps, slinging an arm around Wu Fan’s shoulder. “Min-chan made hot chocolate in various flavors for the tweens and has caffeinated soda and smoothies in case either of them starts to whine.”
Wu Fan is glad Jong Dae is having fun, but he can see that the alcohol he has in his free hand, and in his system, are from the bottled spirits and liquor everyone else brought as part of their gifts for the host. Wu Fan thinks Minseok may have purposefully left the cork opener out so Jong Dae wouldn’t have to subject himself to his homemade drinks.
That all means Jong Dae is working on an empty stomach, and that there will probably be an early morning hospital trip to get his stomach pumped.
“Hyung has cots set up for everyone on the second floor,” Suho announces, taking a sip of his red wine. “No one gets to leave tonight.”
Zi Tao snorts. “I hope not. I don’t feel like getting gutted after getting out of my cab.”
“The boys get sleeping bags though,” the lawyer adds. The “boys” are Sehun and Jongin, the lisping gnat-like one being Minseok’s baby brother, while the shy one is the best friend.
“I heard Princess Sehun has a crush on Taozi,” Jong Dae says seriously, slinking in from thin air.
Zi Tao gags. “Let us not.”
There’s a ripple of well meaning laughter before the volume of the Christmas music is increased and “Christmas Day” by some boyband called EXO starts to blare through the speakers. Couples begin to gather on the emptied lobby-turned-dance floor, and Wu Fan can spy Lu Han tenderly cupping Yixing’s cheek before pulling him into a kiss. Zi Tao bids his farewell and slips his hand into Marija’s, the head of their newly established legal department. Even Suho and Jong Dae find companionship in Wu Fan’s mutual friends, and then there’s only Wu Fan and Minseok, who’s still enamored with the espresso machine quietly chugging away.
Wu Fan slips out of his seat and heads upstairs.
***
The shop, in reality, is four levels tall, with one main floor, a basement, a second floor overlooking the first floor, and a third level overlooking all the way down to the first floor and its abundance of couples, drinks, and food.
Wu Fan trails around the second floor, looking at the cots and divans set up for the guests. There are twenty in total, though Wu Fan knows only half will be utilized. He finds aspirin and bottles of water, along with packets of crackers and juice boxes on a table. They’re stacked next to a bin full of plastic bags reserved for the pukers.
There are two sleeping bags in the corner, but Minseok knows they’re there as warnings for the boys to be on their best behavior. So far, so good.
He makes his way up to the third and final floor, the one usually cut off from the customers. There’s no obstruction in front of the stairs today, however, so Wu Fan hesitantly takes the stairs up to the dimply lit area. When he steps onto the hardwood floors, he’s met with simplicity. There are books lines up against most of the walls, and besides that, the area is pretty much empty. There’s a table and a chair on one side, but from below, it’s obscured from view. He’s about to turn back downstairs before something at the far corner of the floor shocks him into stillness.
It’s folding screen, mostly likely used as a dressing screen because of the wooded contours and marble legs. There’s a serpent’s head (or is it a dragon?) etched into the middle fold consisting of hardwood, probably oak or cherry wood. The one on the left is marred pink and red and encrusted with different jewels, and the right is an unappealing combination of dark green and pastel blue stripes inlaid over a painting of a bird. The thing glistens like a beam even in the dim lighting, and Wu Fan knows that the only reason he didn’t catch it before because it was so intricately placed beside an overstuffed shelf.
It looks like something Jong Dae would install on his floor for kicks. Wu Fan doesn’t know what possesses him to approach it, but he does.
He circles around the screen. It’s almost as tall as him, but not quite. In fact, it looks to be about Minseok’s height, so it clicks in his head that this was probably where he would get changed before heading down to work. But why so ugly?
When he gets behind it, he understands.
The work behind is all marble. It’s a pale grey marble at that, kind of like the shirt Minseok is wearing his black and white striped suspenders over. It’s chalky but pretty and it glistens much more ethereally than the front of the screen. Wu Fan drifts his fingers over the pearly sheen and gasps at how smooth the material is.
He doesn’t notice the figure until arms wrap around his waist and pull him into a back hug.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Minseok hums, nuzzling Wu Fan’s neck while standing on the tips of his toes. Wu Fan can only nod blankly as fingers begin to undo the buttons of his red shirt. “But not as pretty as you.”
That breaks him from his reverie, and he lightly elbows the man. “Don’t kill the mood,” he chuckles.
“But it’s true,” the latter whispers almost inaudibly. A cold wind chills the air and Wu Fan wonders if there’s a crack in one of the small windows.
“Where did you get it,” Wu Fan asks.
Minseok chuckles, massaging his shoulders before letting his hands roam over the warm skin of Wu Fan’s chest. “I made it.”
Wu Fan slowly turns around to meet wet, brown eyes. “How?” He wants to know. He wants to know what, and whom, this thing represents. Who taught him to carve marble and wood into pictures?
“It wasn’t culinary school,” Minseok swears, his fingers tugging his ears, a toothy smile on his lips. “It’s a hobby.” Wu Fan doesn’t want to believe it, but then he remembers the man’s best friend has a degree in food as well as a degree in making people he dislikes go bankrupt. He decides further inquiry will only make his head hurt more.
Wu Fan kisses him as a signal that their conversation isn’t worth continuing, and Minseok complies as his tongue slips into Wu Fan’s mouth. There are hands on his belt, undoing the straps and touching the smooth skin underneath. Wu Fan’s hand shake as they begin to undo Minseok’s suspenders, and he’s only halfway done with the man’s shirt, when his wrists are grabbed.
Minseok is on his toes again, and this time he gently licks the shell of his ear before whispering airily into it. “I saw your little present. I’d love to put it to good use, but the guests downstairs need attending.”
Which means Wu Fan has five minutes, ten at most if the brats can keep the partygoers busy while they personally celebrate the evening. He gulps one last time before smashing their lips together.
It’s history, is what Wu Fan thinks when he’s pushed up against the wall. Teeth gnash together, hands touch and grope places appropriate only in bedrooms, but Wu Fan doesn’t have a single fuck left to give because Minseok is sucking the nape of his neck while rubbing twin buds of flesh over his red shirt. When the hands leave his his nipples and the lips detach from his neck, he squawks in protest before he feels his pants and boxers go down in one, swift motion. Wu Fan wastes no time in hooking one leg behind Minseok’s waist, letting his pants hang from the other leg.
Minseok laughs airily, gently letting his pants drop only halfway before ripping open a packet of lube with his teeth, thumb, and index finger. Wu Fan hikes his legs as high as his gangly body will allow, and finally feels the pad of thumb circle his entrance before slowly slipping in. Wu Fan grunts and Minseok captures his lips as he works his fingers.
“When I first saw you, I wondered how it would feel having you bent over the bar.”
Wu Fan moans as a finger brushes against his prostrate. It takes him a second to remember that they’d christened the bar with their love just last month.
“Then I wondered how it would feel having you wrapped around in my arms in my backyard,” the latter chuckles, three fingers in and scissoring Wu Fan so efficiently he thinks that this could end without anyone needing a condom.
“And then my bed.”
Wu Fan’s eyes are closed and his breaths are hitched, but he can still hear wrappers tearing and Minseok tugging on the latex pouch before he sheathes Wufan’s as well. He finally opens his eyes to see the deadly flare Wu Fan only sees when they’re caked in each other sweat and semen, rough and relentless against the bedframe, the wall, the floor, the bar, and wherever else they can manage when their blood runs hot.
Wu Fan guides him inside until he’s settled on the hilt of his cock. Minseok’s fingers brush over his erect member and they stand still for ten seconds as something passes between them.
“I wanted you.” Wu Fan whispers, voice cracking. “I wanted you before I loved you.”
Minseok sighs. “And look where that got us.”
Wu Fan rocks with his thrusts, their eyes never leaving each other for even a second. It’s a silent promise they'd made the first night by the fireplace. There was no need to close their eyes, even when they weren’t looking at each other. Wu Fan wasn’t fucking a classmate while high on weed and struggling to finish a Lit. paper. Minseok wasn’t just imagining scenes in his head. This was real. This is real. Wu Fan’s shirt is bunched above his waist and he’s grunting and pushing down on someone’s cock, but it’s not just someone, it’s Minseok, and Minseok’s eyes don’t leave his for a second even while he’s pounding Wu Fan against the wooden wall and shaking books loose from their shelves. Wu Fan’s blunt nails dig painfully into Minseok’s shoulders, and Minseok knows he’s close, so a shaky hand wraps around Wu Fan’s member and tugs while Wu Fan screams into Minseok’s hand while Minseok screams into one of his.
Marry me.
Post coital reveries are wonderful, Wu Fan thinks, letting his eyes slip shut while Minseok is still buried deep inside him, albeit spent and heaving.
“I mean it,” Minseok huffs, and Wu Fan has to blink a few times before he can focus again.
“Huh.”
Minseok rolls his eyes and kisses him softly before slowly pulling out. A gesture of protest escapes him and Minseok smirks. “Marry me.”
It’s fucking Christmas and Wu Fan is likely partially drunk and very attentive of his boyfriend’s excellent impromptu lovemaking skills.
“Why the hell not,” he drawls, sliding off the condom and throwing it in the trash pail that was obscured from his vision before. He pulls up his pants and winces at the sharp pain that travels up his spine.
Minseok tosses his condom as well and finishes buttoning himself up before helping Wu Fan tidy up and look presentable enough to show up again downstairs.
Wu Fan smiles, and it’s one that radiates love. “Give me your ring size once you figure it out,” he jokes.
Minseok shrugs something out of his pocket, which isn't, miraculously, another condom. It’s a velvet case, and before Wu Fan knows it, Minseok is on his knees, and not in the way Wu Fan thought he would be in.
“Kris Wu, Chinese name Wu Fan, affectionately known as Fannie, and occasionally known as Boss, will you do me the honor of being my lawfully wedded husband?”
Oh.
“… yeah.” A silver band with diamonds wrapped around the middle ends up on his ring finger. Wu Fan stares at it for a second before looking at the man who’d risen. “You’re not joking.”
Minseok pouts. “Why would I?”
Sehun screeches for them to come downstairs because the guests wanted cake. Wu Fan looks at the ring and realizes this is as normal as yesterday’s lager.
“You wouldn’t,” he breathes, and then, “yes. Yes, I will marry you.”
Lu Han’s on the second floor and whistling for them to come down before he comes and gets them in whatever state of nudity they’re in.
But there’s a question that’s creeping around the back of Wu Fan’s mind. The dressing screen is still pretty from this vantage point, even if it’s hideous from the other.
“What the hell is that supposed to be?” Wu Fan asks seriously, pointing at the folding screen. “Do you change behind it when you come in for work or stay over night? And if so, why don’t you just put it in your office downstairs instead of walking up every day? Wait, is there an elevator I don’t know of?”
The first part of Wu Fan’s answer is a kiss. By then, Lu Han and Jong Dae are angrily stomping up the stairs. Sehun’s snickers are audible all the way on the fourth level.
“Of course not silly,” he whispers into his ear, sending a shiver up his spine. Before he can finish, Lu Han has Minseok in a headlock and as soon as Jong Dae spies the rock on Wu Fan’s finger, he howls in delight.
They’re downstairs in minutes, people are cooing and gushing, and Minseok is back to being the dutiful host and wonderful boyfrien- no, fiance.
“-tion,” Wu Fan hears.
“What?” He asks, taking another long swig of his straight lager.
“It’s a partition,” Minseok confides. “For when I need a break.”
***