[ Sent towards the end of the morning news, after the entire country and all of its investors have been informed of his sixteen-year-old self's narrowly avoided criminal record—the one everyone had assured his father would be completely buried if he exiled his firstborn son to the States: ]
[ The direct contact is unexpected. Sipping his coffee in an office much less impressive than anything afforded by Babel, Vincenzo is nonetheless sitting comfortably. ]
My goal isn't something that easy.
[ He should ignore the text. That would make the most sense. Should. Doesn't. ]
[ He isn't stupid enough to admit to the killing, but this wording should allow for an answer without the implication. ]
But it wasn't committed randomly. Strangulation is a slower death, but a piano wire is unlikely to break so it would be faster than using your hands. It was done from behind so the attacker didn't feel that the victim needed to see him. Since it's a close quarter attack, they probably did talk to the victim while they died, but some kill for pleasure, some for business.
[ The man deserved to die, but it was nothing personal. Another day at the office. ]
Since that should be enough, the turn is mine: killing through your company isn't going to satisfy the urges that you displayed before going to America. How long before you strike out again?
[ He smiles as he reads the account, clearly Vincenzo's own despite the careful wording. True mafia style. He's the real deal.
And he feels seen, almost transparent: Vincenzo knows him because he is, on some level, the same. I'm a scumbag like you, he had said, correctly. There are urges. ]
I don't know. I've gotten better at handling it. Maybe you'll be my first.
I wonder if you're actually brave enough to try. You felt more comfortable coming around before your cover was blown, but since we found out the truth, you haven't tried to attack me yourself. Did you realize your size doesn't give you the advantage against me?
She'll come around. And I answered your question. It's time for you to answer mine. Where are you trying to get? Does she know you're eventually going to leave?
I won't be used as a means to get information about her, but it shouldn't take someone with my experience to tell you that you're delusional. She's not going to return your affections.
She knows I'm leaving once I've finished with you.
[ It starts as reconnaissance, a way to get one over on Vincenzo before he's even truly struck: sitting here close enough to wrap his hand around the frail little woman's throat without Cassano even knowing and relishing in the knowledge of how upset he'd be if he did. The simple joy of violating him in the deepest way he can, all while familiarizing himself with the target to make the kill feel more like his own.
He plays pretend, for the most part, like he always does. He smiles when he's supposed to, furrows his brows and softens his gaze when he's supposed to, expresses the right sentiments in the right order: that must have been so hard for you, I'm glad you're reunited, et cetera. Jang Hanseok has had thirty years to become very, very good at emulating emotions he's never once experienced, when he feels like it.
He's not so devoted to maintaining the image of a normal, likeable young man, however, that he doesn't disclose that his father didn't love him when it comes up. Offhanded, like he's discussing the weather, because that's about how much emotional significance it holds for him. Old bastard's dead now anyway. Her reaction is so disproportionate, so incongruous with his own, that Hanseok has to resist the urge to laugh, instead schooling his features into a faint, appreciative smile. Why the hell should it matter to her? He's a stranger, and feeling sorry for him isn't going to do anything for her. She's a cancer patient, for fuck's sake. It's pathetic.
He'll never understand why the general population doesn't just choose to separate themselves from these feelings, why they let themselves be overtaken. She's pitiful, but he talks to her, anyway. She doesn't insist that no, his father must have loved him, really, like his American peers did every time blandly stating facts made them uncomfortable—interesting. She just sits with the discomfort, and he finds himself vaguely disappointed. Maybe he wanted to unsettle her with it.
She asks about his mother. 'He cheated on her and then she died.' Again, a bland statement of basic reality—and she makes a sympathetic sound, reaches out, rests a hand on his wrist uninvited. 'That must have been hard,' she says, and he resists the urge to answer with No fucking shit, lady.
Oh Gyeong-ja thanks him for listening to her at the end of all of this. Says she hopes they'll see each other again, but she probably won't be around for much longer. Not attempting to pressure him, more observing the obvious to save him time should he feel the need to visit a year from now. She doesn't seem overly afraid of dying.
He does visit her again, a week later. Circling his prey. He wants to get a sense of the person he's going to destroy from afar. It's been too long since he's killed.
He ends up telling her about his exile to the states. 'I was a juvenile delinquent,' he says, without elaborating fully as to the nature of the crime. She's a murderer too, though, and there's a satisfaction in that knowledge. She's clueless, of course; there's no genuine interest in her life, only a vague curiosity as to what will happen if he shares parts of his. How far can he push the accepting veneer before Mother Teresa recoils from the vileness in his very bones?
Five or six visits later and he still doesn't have an answer; she's seemingly happy to be strung along. Vincenzo, too, remains none the wiser, at least until visit number six. Then the consigliere looks up from his phone in the middle of the hallway at the same time Hanseok's passing through it and they lock eyes. What are the fucking chances.
Hanseok comes to a halt an arm's reach away, smiles at him without bothering to affect his eyes. It's meant to be cloying, not convincing. ]
Consigliere. Visiting someone?
Edited 2023-05-23 03:03 (UTC)
@hyeongje / cw emeto mention, nonconsensual drug use, institutionalization
[ 'Combative Patient'. There are words for people like him, an entire fucking word bank of words for people like him as he's learned over the past week, and that's the one they stick to anyone who's justifiably upset with being fucking detained . Combative Patients get Clozapine in the mornings. So do people labelled violent psychopaths.
Hanseok gets good at manipulating the pill with his tongue and quickly stashing it above his gums; the nurses get better at making sure he's not just swallowing water in the morning. Hanseok learns to induce vomiting like the wannabe-idols in the women's ward; his new masters learn to start sending someone to accompany him on the morning bathroom breaks. Corners, corners, corners, constantly backing him into corners. It's infuriating, and the only thing that's kept him from wringing the morning shift charge nurse's fat neck like a fucking pheasant's are the horse tranquilizers they've been shoving down his throat this entire goddamn time. He's smarter than them, stronger, more clever. The only way they can keep him under their thumb is to drug him like a circus animal; the lack of chains is only for optics, no doubt.
He's tired and bored and angry, so, so fucking angry, the only emotion that interrupts the monotony and flatness. There are no visits other than lawyers who talk to him about his coming relocation to the States and the Babel-paid psychiatrist tasked with teaching an utterly disinterested audience of one to act normal and not let the world know - at least until he's informed that at the end of the week his idiot brother will be coming to talk to him for God knows what reason. Dad's probably forcing him to under the misguided belief that his presence will help, that there's some kind of brotherly fucking bond to be had.
Friday comes; he sits at the same kind of table a prison visitation room would have, long arms stretched out on the surface in front of him, hands fiddling with a piece of macrame. At least they don't seem to have many pretenses; the place is a prison and they don't mind pointing that out with the decor.
Hanseo enters the room with that stupid open-mouthed look he always has, the one that makes Hanseok's blood curdle, even now with the dampening of the few things he's still able to feel in earnest. His half-brother sits. ]
Hanseo-ah. [ He gives his best insincere grin. ] Did you miss me? I've been thinking of you.
[ Hanseok opens his hand and slides the unmistakably noose-shaped pantomime of a bracelet in his direction, then adds, as though it not being knit is what will stand out to his visitor: ]
[ He's being made to come because their father doesn't want to be bothered with it. Too proud to entertain the notion of seeing a son in such a state. Both of them will feel the weight of his absolute dismissal in their own way, and then it will be just the two of them again. Always trying and failing at this dance.
The familiar insincerity of Han-seok's smile makes his stomach curdle. They're trying to control Han-seok, and Han-seok does not wish to be controlled. He's just an animal in a cage just waiting to spring loose and bite. That's what his smile says to him. Han-seo's hand inches out to take the piece of yarn.
He knows... his brother must hate this place and he wonders if that's what he really wants. Wonders what it says about him if that's what he really wants. He'll wonder, a long time later, if he can stand to be the one to kill his brother too and go forward on shaky legs.
Now, he runs yarn through his fingers in a nervous circle. ]
[ Hanseok laughs, bitter, muted. Best not to get the charge nurse's attention. That bitch Sun-young. ]
What the fuck do you think, Stupid? It's not a vacation.
[ He's being kept here like an animal, a captive. And all the while their father can't even pretend to care enough to force a single visit for appearances. The erasure of his existence as the man's son starts now, apparently, even though Dad's killed too. Even though he probably killed Mom.
Anger bubbles up inside of him, somewhat muffled by the thick fog of the Clozapine. ]
[ It's not a vacation, not even for him. Everything is stifled and silent, but just because they've put Han-seok out of sight doesn't mean that Han-seo forgets. He's beholden to his brother to guide the energy of every day; the safety or menace. What is he supposed to do on his own? ]
He doesn't want to see you. But I did.
[ He wanted to know what he'd see in here. If it changed anything. He's not certain at the moment, but knows he feels queasy and detached. He looks down at the yarn in his fingers and murmurs again, ]
I wanted to come.
[ Because it's what brothers would do. Except not for them, and Han-seo still has the gall to sound tragically nostalgic for something that never was. ]
[ It's something of a balm. Fuck, what does that say about him, that he's so fucking desperate that he's almost happy to see the spineless result of Dad's affair? It's probably not even the drugs. But he's too strong to crack in a place like this; he's not fucking insane like his lunatic prisonmates. He's just been cut off from all normal human contact, and while he doesn't like Hanseo's presence, at least the guy's not jacking off in public or talking to himself. ]
You shouldn't have come. We're just going to sit here for an hour and then you can spend thirty minutes on the bus to go home and break the news to Dad that I haven't hanged myself with the bedsheets yet.
[ Not like the nurses would let him. Poor Dad. ]
Don't come back again.
[ He's not sure why he says that, or if he means it. ]
[ His face is stricken at the suggestion. Is that what their father actually wants? Or is his brother just being spiteful because he's very good at it? ]
Hyung.
[ His hand lifts like he's going to reach for him, but hesitates. ]
He's going to send you away.
[ He's supposed to be happy about it, and he supposes maybe he is. But it's also tearing something out of his life by its roots and expecting him not to wince. ]
[ Hanseok doesn't react to the lifted hand, not outwardly. He doesn't know if he wants to be touched or not (although he leans towards not) because nobody's given him the fucking luxury of deciding that for himself - or the time to come to an answer at all - since they put him here. How he feels about the manhandling, even as these idiots are going on and on about "emotional state", is completely irrelevant.
And of course there's his coming exile. He knew already; it crosses his mind to fuck with Hanseo and act as though he didn't to give himself something to do, but he ultimately decides against. Rage still boils up at the prospect, but the Clozapine is making him too damn tired to express it much. At least not as much as he'd like to. ]
Let him. I'll embarrass him there too.
[ The long, somewhat-healed ravine slashed through his arm twinges at its edges, itching around one of the stitches. Hanseok pushes up the sleeve of his pajamas, revealing the lower half of it, and carefully, lightly scratches at the itch with one fingernail. He has no doubt Hanseo will react with surprise, though probably not the level of hysteria he got in the rec room. Gift that keeps giving. ]
[ Shameless is the word their father uses. It's what separates the two of them, despite both being less than desirable. One of them shows his shame all over his face, and the other is still ready to bite.
His eyes drift down with melancholy, only to widen with his most earnest concern. Why his natural inclination is still to be concerned, he couldn't explain. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
@mafiacornsalad
Now you're just trying to annoy me.
no subject
My goal isn't something that easy.
[ He should ignore the text. That would make the most sense. Should. Doesn't. ]
no subject
You want to make a mockery of me. They didn't say everything on the news, though. I'm sure you have questions.
no subject
no subject
[ But also, he's bored and irritated and the opportunity to antagonize this man—
or to receive direct attention from him—has a certain appeal. ]no subject
I won't record anything.
no subject
[ Attached: one of the photos of Vincenzo’s victims back in Italy, a man choked with piano wire lying face down with a C carved in his back. ]
What did it feel like, killing him?
no subject
[ He isn't stupid enough to admit to the killing, but this wording should allow for an answer without the implication. ]
But it wasn't committed randomly. Strangulation is a slower death, but a piano wire is unlikely to break so it would be faster than using your hands. It was done from behind so the attacker didn't feel that the victim needed to see him. Since it's a close quarter attack, they probably did talk to the victim while they died, but some kill for pleasure, some for business.
[ The man deserved to die, but it was nothing personal. Another day at the office. ]
Since that should be enough, the turn is mine: killing through your company isn't going to satisfy the urges that you displayed before going to America. How long before you strike out again?
no subject
And he feels seen, almost transparent: Vincenzo knows him because he is, on some level, the same. I'm a scumbag like you, he had said, correctly. There are urges. ]
I don't know. I've gotten better at handling it. Maybe you'll be my first.
no subject
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I don't miss you, but I notice how often you threaten me and how rarely you act on it.
no subject
For all the threats you've made you haven't acted on much either, have you? I'm still here. Alive and well. As I intend to continue being.
no subject
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My turn for a question. What are your intentions with Hong Chayoung?
no subject
no subject
no subject
She knows I'm leaving once I've finished with you.
@mafiacornsalad
He plays pretend, for the most part, like he always does. He smiles when he's supposed to, furrows his brows and softens his gaze when he's supposed to, expresses the right sentiments in the right order: that must have been so hard for you, I'm glad you're reunited, et cetera. Jang Hanseok has had thirty years to become very, very good at emulating emotions he's never once experienced, when he feels like it.
He's not so devoted to maintaining the image of a normal, likeable young man, however, that he doesn't disclose that his father didn't love him when it comes up. Offhanded, like he's discussing the weather, because that's about how much emotional significance it holds for him. Old bastard's dead now anyway. Her reaction is so disproportionate, so incongruous with his own, that Hanseok has to resist the urge to laugh, instead schooling his features into a faint, appreciative smile. Why the hell should it matter to her? He's a stranger, and feeling sorry for him isn't going to do anything for her. She's a cancer patient, for fuck's sake. It's pathetic.
He'll never understand why the general population doesn't just choose to separate themselves from these feelings, why they let themselves be overtaken. She's pitiful, but he talks to her, anyway. She doesn't insist that no, his father must have loved him, really, like his American peers did every time blandly stating facts made them uncomfortable—interesting. She just sits with the discomfort, and he finds himself vaguely disappointed. Maybe he wanted to unsettle her with it.
She asks about his mother. 'He cheated on her and then she died.' Again, a bland statement of basic reality—and she makes a sympathetic sound, reaches out, rests a hand on his wrist uninvited. 'That must have been hard,' she says, and he resists the urge to answer with No fucking shit, lady.
Oh Gyeong-ja thanks him for listening to her at the end of all of this. Says she hopes they'll see each other again, but she probably won't be around for much longer. Not attempting to pressure him, more observing the obvious to save him time should he feel the need to visit a year from now. She doesn't seem overly afraid of dying.
He does visit her again, a week later. Circling his prey. He wants to get a sense of the person he's going to destroy from afar. It's been too long since he's killed.
He ends up telling her about his exile to the states. 'I was a juvenile delinquent,' he says, without elaborating fully as to the nature of the crime. She's a murderer too, though, and there's a satisfaction in that knowledge. She's clueless, of course; there's no genuine interest in her life, only a vague curiosity as to what will happen if he shares parts of his. How far can he push the accepting veneer before Mother Teresa recoils from the vileness in his very bones?
Five or six visits later and he still doesn't have an answer; she's seemingly happy to be strung along. Vincenzo, too, remains none the wiser, at least until visit number six. Then the consigliere looks up from his phone in the middle of the hallway at the same time Hanseok's passing through it and they lock eyes. What are the fucking chances.
Hanseok comes to a halt an arm's reach away, smiles at him without bothering to affect his eyes. It's meant to be cloying, not convincing. ]
Consigliere. Visiting someone?
@hyeongje / cw emeto mention, nonconsensual drug use, institutionalization
Hanseok gets good at manipulating the pill with his tongue and quickly stashing it above his gums; the nurses get better at making sure he's not just swallowing water in the morning. Hanseok learns to induce vomiting like the wannabe-idols in the women's ward; his new masters learn to start sending someone to accompany him on the morning bathroom breaks. Corners, corners, corners, constantly backing him into corners. It's infuriating, and the only thing that's kept him from wringing the morning shift charge nurse's fat neck like a fucking pheasant's are the horse tranquilizers they've been shoving down his throat this entire goddamn time. He's smarter than them, stronger, more clever. The only way they can keep him under their thumb is to drug him like a circus animal; the lack of chains is only for optics, no doubt.
He's tired and bored and angry, so, so fucking angry, the only emotion that interrupts the monotony and flatness. There are no visits other than lawyers who talk to him about his coming relocation to the States and the Babel-paid psychiatrist tasked with teaching an utterly disinterested audience of one to act normal and not let the world know - at least until he's informed that at the end of the week his idiot brother will be coming to talk to him for God knows what reason. Dad's probably forcing him to under the misguided belief that his presence will help, that there's some kind of brotherly fucking bond to be had.
Friday comes; he sits at the same kind of table a prison visitation room would have, long arms stretched out on the surface in front of him, hands fiddling with a piece of macrame. At least they don't seem to have many pretenses; the place is a prison and they don't mind pointing that out with the decor.
Hanseo enters the room with that stupid open-mouthed look he always has, the one that makes Hanseok's blood curdle, even now with the dampening of the few things he's still able to feel in earnest. His half-brother sits. ]
Hanseo-ah. [ He gives his best insincere grin. ] Did you miss me? I've been thinking of you.
[ Hanseok opens his hand and slides the unmistakably noose-shaped pantomime of a bracelet in his direction, then adds, as though it not being knit is what will stand out to his visitor: ]
"No sharps on the ward."
no subject
The familiar insincerity of Han-seok's smile makes his stomach curdle. They're trying to control Han-seok, and Han-seok does not wish to be controlled. He's just an animal in a cage just waiting to spring loose and bite. That's what his smile says to him. Han-seo's hand inches out to take the piece of yarn.
He knows... his brother must hate this place and he wonders if that's what he really wants. Wonders what it says about him if that's what he really wants. He'll wonder, a long time later, if he can stand to be the one to kill his brother too and go forward on shaky legs.
Now, he runs yarn through his fingers in a nervous circle. ]
...Are you ok?
[ His voice is shrinking, small. ]
no subject
What the fuck do you think, Stupid? It's not a vacation.
[ He's being kept here like an animal, a captive. And all the while their father can't even pretend to care enough to force a single visit for appearances. The erasure of his existence as the man's son starts now, apparently, even though Dad's killed too. Even though he probably killed Mom.
Anger bubbles up inside of him, somewhat muffled by the thick fog of the Clozapine. ]
I bet Dad made you come.
no subject
He doesn't want to see you. But I did.
[ He wanted to know what he'd see in here. If it changed anything. He's not certain at the moment, but knows he feels queasy and detached. He looks down at the yarn in his fingers and murmurs again, ]
I wanted to come.
[ Because it's what brothers would do. Except not for them, and Han-seo still has the gall to sound tragically nostalgic for something that never was. ]
cw heavy ableism, suicide mention
You shouldn't have come. We're just going to sit here for an hour and then you can spend thirty minutes on the bus to go home and break the news to Dad that I haven't hanged myself with the bedsheets yet.
[ Not like the nurses would let him. Poor Dad. ]
Don't come back again.
[ He's not sure why he says that, or if he means it. ]
no subject
Hyung.
[ His hand lifts like he's going to reach for him, but hesitates. ]
He's going to send you away.
[ He's supposed to be happy about it, and he supposes maybe he is. But it's also tearing something out of his life by its roots and expecting him not to wince. ]
no subject
And of course there's his coming exile. He knew already; it crosses his mind to fuck with Hanseo and act as though he didn't to give himself something to do, but he ultimately decides against. Rage still boils up at the prospect, but the Clozapine is making him too damn tired to express it much. At least not as much as he'd like to. ]
Let him. I'll embarrass him there too.
[ The long, somewhat-healed ravine slashed through his arm twinges at its edges, itching around one of the stitches. Hanseok pushes up the sleeve of his pajamas, revealing the lower half of it, and carefully, lightly scratches at the itch with one fingernail. He has no doubt Hanseo will react with surprise, though probably not the level of hysteria he got in the rec room. Gift that keeps giving. ]
no subject
His eyes drift down with melancholy, only to widen with his most earnest concern. Why his natural inclination is still to be concerned, he couldn't explain. ]
What happened?!