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jeongin has always been weird.
there was nothing wrong with him in particular, just lots of small things that made him…seem a little different.
and the way society is, being a little different is…well, i’m sure you know.
jeongin was just a weird fella.
he never bothered anyone except for when he did. but honestly, whenever he did, we just thought nothing of it.
doing weird things included randomly asking people for things they care about.
jeongin would not talk to anyone for actual weeks then suddenly start chatting it up with people, it was weird.
he’d also follow random people around for a while. being certain, it wasn’t just simple following them around on the school’s playground, he’d follow them around even after school.
now maybe this wouldn’t be as weird if he had just asked if he could hang.
it wouldn’t have been weird if the people he was following around knew he was.
somehow, he’d always find a way to subtly wreak havoc.
he was silent most of the time, most people probably didn’t even notice him at school.
he never really spoke up or acted out.
yet whenever something weird happened, things always seemed to somehow trace back to him.
when the school’s kitchen suddenly caught on fire, he was the last person to be seen near it.
sometimes random items would go missing and he’d always be the one to “find them”.
when one of the students had a fatal accident on a school trip and dislocated their rib, i caught him laughing to himself.
now, this wasn’t simply an act of rudeness because he had some sort of hatred for that person, he just thought it was funny.
it wasn’t. poor kid had to be put in the ER.
when he talked, he did it to a decent extent.
i couldn’t even tell you how he talks, there just weren’t enough cases of him doing so…
whenever he did though, it was mostly nice stuff. i’m sure he’d be quite good at holding conversations, actually.
yet something always subtly stood out when talking to him.
he never openly spoke about these things, but it was just real obvious he had some kind of spite for people. sometimes he’d just subtly hint at how much he hates queers, for example. or immigrants. or disabled people.
you get the point.
when we had some interns over for a month, he side eyed the girl in the wheelchair for most of it. it was weird.
i’ve also found that he lied a lot.
yes, everyone lies. its got many reasons and benefits, everyone knows that.
yet he always seemed to lie about the most random things, for no apparent reason.
it was like it was fun to him to just lie about everyday things, unimportant things.
sometimes you have to lie to cover up something, to hide something for example.
but why would you lie about what you had for breakfast? or where you got your clothes?
or what your favorite color is?
it always seemed like he was lying just to lie, no actual reason behind it.
one of the reasons people just didn’t quite get him. why would you want people to know you lie so much? it doesn’t add up.
sometimes he’d randomly be very nice.
for example, offering to share his food or water to people.
one time, some guy in PE forgot to bring his water to class.
poor guy was stressing dehydrated, so jeongin offered him his bottle.
now this seems like a perfectly reasonable and sweet thing to do.
what wasn’t as reasonable was him sitting next to the guy and making sure he’d drink every last bit of it, even offering a second bottle to him.
now again, this could just be him worrying the kid wasn’t drinking enough.
it got a little weird though when he practically forced him to drink the second bottle too.
the kid was a tiny one indeed, basically no frame, and that was definitely a little too much water for his body.
poor thing threw up for half an hour straight and had to be picked up.
now, this isn’t really anything out of the ordinary, believe it or not, there is smart people in this world.
but his level of intelligence had always been real fucking suspicious.
genuinely, everyone thought it was odd.
why are you this smart?
why the fuck do you know so much about that?
we went to school together for four years and in these four years everyone learned things he seemed to already have known about for some unknown reason.
he wasn’t specifically older than the rest of us nor did he seem like he had much experience in life either.
some kids just go through a lot, you know?
imprints a little.
jeongin seemed to always have had a pretty quiet and calm life though.
i mean, of course i wouldn’t know if something had happened at home but i’m pretty sure his parents weren’t that bad.
they showed up to parents days and all, always seemed like kind people.
but yeah, overall, jeongin just wasn’t particularly likeable.
there was nothing he actively did for someone to dislike him with a valid reason, you just…simply didn’t feel comfortable around him.
and though i’ve always tried my hardest to understand even the outsiders in school, i could just not figure that kid out for the death of me. whenever i thought i had him all figured out, he’d just do something that’d screw over all the reasonable information i had gathered about him. he was unpredictable.
and at some point i just gave up on trying to understand him.
because honestly, it was never any of my business anyway, right?
sure, i was curious. some people were.
though most of them just avoided him.
but maybe i should’ve minded my business.
-
i’ve had some sort of suspicion for him for a whole while.
it started when random things would go missing, screwdrivers, kitchen utensils, even whole gas cans and bins.
first of all, how did he manage to take these home without anyone noticing?
sure, a screwdriver was quite easy to just…steal, put into your pocket and take.
but just how does one manage to steal actual trash cans? just like that?
no normal kid just does that.
at first i thought he might just be very creative or something, maybe he’s just interested in building and crafting things.
maybe he just doesn’t have the resources, so he turns to stealing them.
it’s sad, but somewhat understandable.
how else is a kid his age supposed to help himself? he can’t just buy it.
it started getting really weird when he’d show up smelling weird.
and i don’t even mean sweat-after-class kinda weird, not the didn’t-shower-all-week kind.
again, it happens. i don’t know what went down at home. maybe he just didn’t like showering either, you never know.
but at some point, it got disgusting.
so disgusting, our teacher had to call his parents in and ask them about it.
i don’t know what happened to that, i wasn’t there, obviously.
i just know it stopped after.
but it still didn’t justify the nosebreaking smell of…things long rotten he carried around.
so one day, curiosity just got the better of me.
but hey, i was just a kid, okay?
it’s normal for a kiddo to be real interested in things it finds suspicious or interesting.
don’t blame me.
…though i do.
-
that one very day, i was the one following him.
call me crazy, but i followed him home.
yes, that might be very questionable and i shouldn’t have done that but again…
i was curious.
so when he jumped over his fence to enter through, seemingly, a back door in his house’s garage, i sat in that bush for an hour, just silently watching.
now, i didn’t really see anything.
i was in a bush, he was inside…you know.
but anything else would’ve been dangerous, he would’ve noticed.
but it was enough.
enough for me to hear the absolute gruesome, horrible sounds coming from inside.
at first i thought it was a tv just playing something weird, some horror movie.
it sounded like screams, sqeaks.
at first i wasn’t even able to identify them, just thought it was the tv, after all.
but soon after, i realized it wasn’t.
it was animals.
now, me sitting in that bush after school, backpack still on and everything…i didn’t quite get it at first.
i thought maybe one of his pets, whom i didn’t know of, just acted out a little.
maybe he was just playing with them a little too hard.
it happens. my dog squeaks around all the time, complaining about whatnot. happens.
but what doesn’t happen is animals screaming so terribly loud and tortured, you can quite literally hear their voices go hoarse.
what doesn’t happen is just hearing actual body impacts, as if something were to hit you and break your bones altogether.
the very first crush i heard was also when the first terrific scream echoed through.
i didn’t quite know what animal it was, it sounded like some sort of bird screeching.
but at this point, it could’ve been anything.
what i was sure of hearing though was the noise of something dropping and the earbreaking sound of something cracking.
not a lot later the noises died down.
at that time, i wasn’t even sure what i heard was actually…what i heard.
i couldn’t have known.
it was some after school afternoon and i was sat in a bush in front of this kid’s house, come on now. i couldn’t have known.
when i heard a door open again, i remember jumping out that bush in panic, running for my life. i couldn’t be caught dead spying on him…
i thought about it all night.
what were those noises? why and what had been screaming so terrifyingly?
i couldn’t figure it out.
knowing it now, it’s stupid just how obvious everything was.
but back then, it just wasn’t.
considering i was just a kid going to school every day, the only thing i was worrying about being my pocket money at most…
that’s just what kids that age did, no?
that’s what i thought, at least.
most of my friends were like that.
jeongin wasn’t.
jeongin was weird.
but something about that was so interesting.
so interesting, i did it again.
i’m really not proud of it, but i followed him home again.
and again.
a few times.
and it was only on about the fourth day i finally understood what really went down inside that very garage.
it was only when i physically watched him drag a squirrel inside, watched him come back out to get rid of, i assume, evidence.
and i very clearly saw the blood staining both his hands and shirt.
jeongin wasn’t playing with the animals, he was killing them.
-
i ran.
as fast as my little legs could.
i ran, ran until i couldn’t anymore, physically couldn’t anymore.
i remembered all of the little things about him, all these odd fucking things.
and when i realized just what the disgusting smell had been this whole time, i threw up.
the disgusting thought of him coming to school like this, not even bothering to shower or change his clothes after…
and just the fact i had been going to the same school, the same class as him all this time…
it messed with me.
so bad, i couldn’t even tell anyone about it.
because who would believe me anyway?
but it really wasn’t the fear of adults not believing me.
it was the fear of him.
from that moment on, i started fearing him.
started respecting him even more, always trying my best not to piss him off.
because in the back of my head, he had earned himself that role, the role of someone dangerous.
just how could a child even get to doing things like these, possibly enjoying them?
it was crazy, insane even, but at some point i feared for my own dog.
what if i pissed him off some day, what if he’d go and do something to my beloved?
it was a fight against myself, over and over again, a fight over telling someone and staying silent, choosing to just keep letting it happen.
the guilt was eating me up.
because seemingly, no one knew.
this whole time, no one knew.
but i did.
i knew, and i could have done something.
at some point, i felt responsible.
living beings were slaughtered and i looked away, i pussied out.
…but can i really blame myself? i was a child.
and i was really fucking afraid.
i was really fucking afraid, so i never did anything, never said anything.
instead, i just hoped, hoped and prayed.
and things just went on.
life went on normally.
jeongin was still weird, everyone thought so.
and really no one cared, because he’s always been weird.
except i cared.
i knew, and knowing made being in his presence really hard.
it was like i was keeping the secret with him, like i was part of it, guilty.
-
as it turns out, my fear was groundless.
we graduated and i left the school, progressing to university.
i don’t know where jeongin went after that.
i don’t even know if he still lives here, but silently i hope he doesn’t.
nothing happened.
this whole time, nothing had happened.
at least not to any of us.
i’m guessing he carried on with his hobby in silence, just like he did before.
but still, i could never see things the same.
even when just seeing squirrels outside, it’d feel disgusting.
disgusting, knowing; you could be next.
disgusting, knowing…
what if it doesn’t stay limited to animals?