PSYCHO → SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

Chan stared at himself in the mirror. It was three days after Mingyu's horrifying death. He didn't know what to do with himself. He slept longer, he didn't eat as much, and life seemed to have come to a standstill. He wanted his freedom back. He just wanted to go outside. He wanted to leave his city once and for all.

Seungcheol was a wreck. He couldn't sleep. He couldn't eat. He couldn't even breathe properly. His lungs felt weak, but his organs were working just fine- his doctor said so. He tried to take sleeping pills, but they didn't really work for him. Nothing was working. Sometimes, he would think about what Mingyu said and considered killing himself. He would rather he died by his own means than in the hands of the Psycho.

Jeonghan conducted his own research. He looked up all of the Psycho murders and tried to figure out if there in fact was a pattern in the deaths other than the notes and the fact that the Psycho was targeting all of his friends. For a brief moment, he considered that the Psycho killing all of his friends was a copycat Psycho and that the real Psycho killed random people that had no correlation. Regardless, there was a Psycho out there.

Jeonghan couldn't tell his dad about his findings. His dad still refused to talk to him after what happened with Seungkwan's death. He really wanted to work with his dad, but he physically couldn't. He couldn't even send in tips to the police- his dad took away his phone again after he heard what had happened to Mingyu and what Jeonghan said to him.

There was a note left on the crime scene of Mingyu's death. "Time is ticking." Jeonghan was listening to a conversation that his dad was having with the other officers and found out that they had a piece of evidence that had a figure dressed in black running away from the scene, but it turned out that the figure was actually a robber who had stolen a bunch of wine from the grocery store. That guy was definitely not the Psycho. Jeonghan still feared for his life.

Seungcheol sighed to himself as he laid down on the sofa in the living room. His older brothers looked at him and frowned. They had never seen their brother so downcast. They gestured for their mother to come to the living room, and she immediately frowned when she saw her poor son. She walked over to him and gave him a hug. Seungcheol didn't respond to the hug. He just laid there.

"Do you want to take a nice, hot bath?" his mother asked him softly.

Seungcheol looked at her, confused.

"I'll make the bath nice and hot, and I'll add some bath salts to help you relax," she smiled at him. "It'll make you feel a little better."

Seungcheol only nodded and let his mother drag him upstairs. He watched her with wary eyes as she filled the tub with hot water and then added bath salts.

"Okay, take a bath, and then rinse yourself off once you're done. I love you," she brushed his hair out of his face before leaving the bathroom.

Seungcheol sighed and stripped down. He entered the bath and nearly jumped out because it was a little too hot for his liking, but he slowly got used to the temperature and slowly sunk into the water. He could feel his stress start to melt away as the aroma of the salts filled his nose and as the heat of the water loosened all of his tight muscles.

Chan zipped up his hoodie. He looked at himself in the mirror. His face seemed dead. The corners of his mouth slowly started lifting, and Chan giggled to himself. His giggling turned into cackling. He laughed loudly in the bathroom and threw his head back, his eyes closed.

"How funny," Chan whispered to himself as he looked back in the mirror, a smile lingering on his face.

Chan put on his face mask and climbed out of the window in his bathroom.

Seungcheol was still sitting in his parents' bathtub. He was swishing the water around. It was still warm, but Seungcheol was starting to get wrinkly with the water. He considered getting out of the water, but he was so comfortable. He hadn't been this comfortable in a while.

The bathroom door opened. Seungcheol thought it was his mom and immediately covered himself up, but no one entered the bathroom. Seungcheol leaned over to see who was standing in the doorway, but it seemed as if no one were there. Suddenly, a figure appeared, and before Seungcheol could react, they threw something in the water.

The lights went out in the house. Seungcheol reached around in the bathtub for the object that was thrown in there, and the second he touched it, he felt an electric shock run through his arm. Seungcheol screamed, then he fell unconscious. The figure approached Seungcheol's body and pushed his head under the water before exiting through the bathroom window.

Seungcheol's mother ran upstairs. She used the flashlight on her phone to shine it around her bathroom. She screamed as she saw Seungcheol's lifeless body in the bathtub. She was so traumatized that she didn't even think to dial for a paramedic. Moments later, Seungcheol's brothers entered the room. One brother immediately called the paramedics while the other brother hoisted Seungcheol out of the tub and tried to resuscitate him, but it was of no use. Seungcheol was dead.

Chan removed his face mask as he climbed back through his window. He dumped all of his black articles of clothing in a bag next to the toilet and wore his nightclothes before leaving the bathroom. He immediately went to his bedroom. He left the lights off as he crawled into bed and checked his phone. There was still no news about Seungcheol's death, but that didn't matter to him because he knew Seungcheol was dead. Chan laughed to himself as he locked his phone and set it on the nightstand next to his bed. Seungcheol was definitely dead. Chan killed him.

Chan was the Psycho.