Murderous Lewellyn's Candlelit Dinner

Even if you are in a relationship with a murderer, the world still keeps going on.

The world hadn’t changed a bit after he dated a murderer. Shavonne still had no money. Even if he was called a beggar, my wallet was so light that he couldn’t refute it. No, it was not light, but empty.

The world still gave Shavonne the cold shoulder. There was no publisher who gave him a job. There wasn’t a single place where he would get hired even if he lowered his salary to an unconventional bargain. It was because the editor of Deck Publishing had trouble with Shavonne, and spread the rumor that a ghostwriter named Shavonne was cheap, but his job spirit wasn’t good.

Neighbors argued that they were uncomfortable because of Shavonne. Some people left trash and reported it saying that it was Shavonne’s doing, and others pointed out that if they heard a pounding sound somewhere, it was the psycho living in Room 303.

The seasons still passed by. He thought the whole world would always be spring with a yellowish color, but then turned pale. In late spring and early summer, all the air was fresh with the green on the border.

It was a strange thing. As he dated a murderer, he didn’t know exactly what it, but he thought something would collapse and the world would change, but he guessed in vain as when he was kicked out of the orphanage, went broke, and was called now a psychopath. Maybe Shavonnee wasn’t very good at judging the world.

There was only one thing that changed. What was at his side was his “young, handsome, and unpredictable, but  cute neighbor and murderer” that he could call “lover” instead of that long and complicated relationship.

Even if he was in a relationship with a murderer, the world kept going on. Buds sprout, warm winds blowed, flowers bloomed, fruit got ripen in a poplar tree on the side of the road,, and then every time he saw him, he found himself thinking of the word ‘lover’ first rather than  ‘murderer’.

***

The Ira serial murders, which rocked the entire South Bunch last winter, were over as the investigation ended. Although it wasn’t closed, it moved to a long-term unsolved case, and considering that the rate at which long-term unsolved cases were resolved was as low as the probability of being struck by lightning while walking down the street, it was best to say that it had ended.

The police had nothing to do because they couldn’t find a clue to catch the criminal, and it wasn’t clear whether a follow-up crime would happen or not.

Moreover (maybe, above all), there were too many more important violent crimes. Terrorism and serial kidnappings were such “important” violent crimes because it was aimed at local and foreign politicians staying in Bunch before the small neutral country Bosch’s asylum was granted, and the series of kidnappings were aimed at women across South Bush’s richest street, K Street.

The poorest district in Bunch was South Bunch, and Ira Street was the poorest street in South Bunch. It was natural to solve crimes that were feared to lead to diplomatic and social problems first, rather than a series of murders that took place on Ira Street, which was a  extremely poor slum, and where victims and perpetrators hadn’t been identified.

He wanted to say that all lives were precious as moral textbooks and religious doctrines said, but the reality was too clear. Their life was at stake.

No one knew it and no one should know it, but Shavonne made a great contribution to ending the serial murders in Ira. It was spring. For a moment, he was glad they started dating. Shavonne decided to get rid of Lewellyn’s “work”. Whenever he read a murder article on the first page of The Daily Bunch, passed by the police station, or recalled the hospital’s morgue, Shavonne’s determination weakened.

Of course, Shavonne knew the fact that there was no such thing as trying to change people by using their status as lovers.

But if the problem involved a crime, the story was different.

“I know… you did all that.”

It was the first words that Shavonne could say.

It was one o’clock in the afternoon when the white sunlight deflected into the window. Waves of light rippled across the edge of the bed head and shelf. The typewriter on the desk reflected a sparkle-light. Looking down at the typewriter, Lewellyn turned his head and looked at Shavonne. His face was dazzling in the sunlight.

“That?”

Asked Lewellyn. Shavonne wiped his face. He avoided the word murder because he didn’t want to put it in his mouth, but now that this situation happened, he couldn’t help it.

“Murder.”

As expected, he felt unpleasant while saying it. Only then did Lewellyn make an interesting face. He mumbled “Hmm?” as if he wanted him to keep talking. Shavonne bravely faced Lewellyn.

“I don’t want you to.”

He corrected myself as soon as he spoke.

“No, you musn’t.”

Lewellyn smiled broadly. He raised both hands and said casually.

“Persuade me.”

How should I persuade him? My head is spinning. Shavonne never needed to explain common sense or questioned it. Just as the sun rises in the morning and the moon rises at night, or that when bones are broken, it hurts and you bleed when you’re wounded, humans should not kill people. After much consideration, Shavonne chose the argument of morality.

“Murder is a bad thing.”

“Yes, and I’m a bad person.”

Lewellyn smiled and accepted it. He thought it wouldn’t work, but he was still bitter to see that it really didn’t work. After much consideration, Shavonne chose the argument of ethics.

“You’re going to feel guilty.”

“Shall we bet on that?”

This time again, Lewellyn smiled and accepted it. He thought it wouldn’t work, but he was still bitter to see that it really didn’t work. After much consideration, Shavonne chose the argument of feelings.

“It’s not just killing one person, it’s killing people around him. He was someone’s son, a husband, a father…”

“What if he was a son who killed his parents, a father who sold his wife or a father who sold his child like a dog? Did I hurt them?”

This time again, Lewellyn smiled and accepted it. He thought it wouldn’t work, but he was still bitter to see that it really didn’t work. After much consideration, Shavonne chose the argument of religious doctrines.

“You’ll go to hell if you kill someone.”

“I can’t wait.”

This time again, Lewellyn smiled and accepted it. He thought it wouldn’t work, but he was still bitter to see that it really didn’t work. After much consideration, Shavonne chose the argument of Lewellyn’s safety.

“You will be executed.”

“I’ve experienced worse things than that.”

This time again, Lewellyn smiled and accepted it. He put his chin in one hand and looked at Shavonne with a joyful face.

“Anything else?”

The stories that ordinary people would say didn’t work. In a way, it was natural. If that worked, Lewellyn wouldn’t have killed people in the first place.

You needed to approach a man as a man, and a dog as a dog. Shavonne decided to approach it in a way he had never tried before.

“Let’s break up.”

In an instant, Lewellyn’s mouth was hardened as it still had a smile.

“I’ll leave you and never see you again.”

The part ‘when you kill a person’ was omitted, but Lewellyn wasn’t stupid enough not to notice it.

Lewellyn lowered his hand that held his chin. Lewellyn’s face was so hardened that he couldn’t believe he was smiling just a moment ago. The smile turned so cold that it was unrecognizable. Lewellyn opened his mouth. His voice cracked apart as it was dry.

“You said you liked me.”

“I like you,” Shavonne said calmly. “I’m doing this because I like you.”

Lewellyn didn’t seem to understand. Shavonne started to explain.

“What if you commit a murder and get arrested? Will I be okay if you’re executed? Will I be known as a murderer’s lover? I’m an ordinary person. As I don’t want to be executed or put in prison, I’m not going to like you. If that happens, I’ll have no choice but to hate you, resent you, and regret all the memories I had with you.”

Then, he asked.

“Do you want that?”

There was silence. Shavonne wondered if Lewellyn thought of what he said as persuasion or intimidation. Either way, it was that. The essence of changing something was the same, just the shell was different.

It wasn’t long before Lewellyn opened his mouth. It was a murky and cracked voice.

“I love you so much.”

Shavonne didn’t understand the meaning. He looked up at Lewellyn. Lewellyn said it again.

“I love you too, too much.”

Shavonne didn’t answer. Lewellyn left. Shavonne didn’t get it.

Too much. Left alone, Shavonne pondered the word that Lewellyn said. Unlike what ordinary people use, he chose that instead of others like ‘very’ or ‘a lot’ and those couldn’t be replaced with too much, as that kind of implies a negative tone, like ‘excessive amount’.

Shavonne pondered again. I love you too much.

Shavonne pondered again. I love you too much that I can’t handle you.

Shavonne pondered again. I love you too much that you are harmful to everyone.

Nevertheless, Shavonne didn’t know what it meant to love a person ‘too much’. Maybe Shavonne already loved a person ‘too much’. If he didn’t love ‘too much’, he wouldn’t have dated a murderer. No, he wouldn’t even dare to date him.

Lewellyn, who left the apartment in Ira at 1 p.m., returned at midnight that day. The staggering footsteps were heard through the hall. Shavonne, who was reading John Gray’s novel at home, thought Lewellyn must have been drunk.

A letter arrived the next day. It wasn’t a letter through the post office, as there was no stamp on the envelope. A stamp looked like the ash tree, the symbol of South Bunch, and it was drawn in detail, and the letter Shavonne received only had an Y on the spot where the stamp was supposed to be attached. He later realized that the Y in question was supposed to be a drawing of the ash tree. The sender was Newell y. l. l, the one he was familiar with.

Shavonne was at a loss for words. He would get it if Newell’s identity hadn’t been revealed, but he couldn’t as it was already public that Newell was Lewellyn.

The content was as expected. It was more like a diary than a letter, and there was one sentence that caught his eye.

『It’s hard, loving someone to the point of losing yourself. 』

Shavonne felt the same way. It was hard to bring Lewellyn into Shavonne’s life at the expense of Shavonne himself.

But…

Shavonne sent the mail. The sender was Shavonne, the recipient was Newell, and the location was from 303 to 302 apartment houses in Ira. Shavonne sent only one passage in Newell’s letter, which was followed by a text and correction.

『It’s worth trying to love someone to the point of losing yourself.』

To begin with, that persuasion worked for him. At least Shavonne thought so.

***

On a rainy evening, Shavonne suddenly opened his mouth as he looked over the window at the foggy drizzle. It was like a Q&A.

“Why did you kill them?”

Lewellyn didn’t answer. Shavonne looked away from the rain and looked back at Lewellyn. A dim room. Sitting at his desk, Lewellyn looked down at the floor and remained silent. Shavonne sighed inwardly. Shavonne was his lover, not an interrogating detective. He couldn’t force a person who wouldn’t answer.

“Who did you kill them?”

It was a formal question. There was no expectation in the first place that there would be an answer. Unexpectedly, however, Lewellyn replied to that. Am I mistaken? Lewellyn’s face feels ice-cold.

“Because they needed to die.”

Shavonne didn’t ask any more. The sound of rain was loud.

Shavonne contributed greatly to ending the serial murder in Ira. It was obvious, but it was something no one knew and no one else should know.

***

Work was part of everyday life. That was true for the men Shavonne dated. Shavonne’s boyfriend, who may be the seventh or perhaps eighth, was a chimney cleaner, and the standard for him to choose his lover was whether there was a chimney at home. The chimney cleaner claimed that if there was a chimney, it would be so annoying for him that he couldn’t concentrate on his lover, thinking whether it was dirty or not.

The typesetter, his tenth boyfriend, always protested when he found a stain on the printer, and his 13th boyfriend kept grinding his teeth when he saw the gas lamp.

Shavonne was no different, and as a writer and proofreader, he couldn’t miss the word with the wrong spelling. That’s why he corrected Lewellyn’s spelling, new yeer, as new year. Is that only it? He also said that he loved Shavonne “too much”, which would not have meant much to ordinary people, but ‘too’ wasn’t ‘so’.

What you did was used in your everyday life. If you watch the way someone lived, you could tell if that person was a chimney cleaner, typesetter or whatever. Shavonne thought it was an absolute rule that couldn’t exist as an exception. At least until he dated Lewellyn.

There was nothing that reminded him that Mr. Lewellyn was a murderer in his daily life. He wasn’t a normal murderer. Of course, Shavonne wouldn’t be able to give a clear answer if someone asked him what a killer’s routine was like. A murderer didn’t eat human flesh, live in a house decorated with human bones, or wear bloody clothes that looked suspicious.

But…

“What’s all this?”

“Onions.”

“I know that, but…”

“It was being sold at half price at the market, so I couldn’t miss it.”

Lewellyn had a basket full of onions and smiled proudly. Shavonne thought. There is no one who can think of the word murderer as ‘this’.

But even if he atet an onion salad instead of human flesh, even if he lived in a house decorated with a red circled calendar instead of human bones (“What happened the 23rd?” “It was the day Shavonne confessed to me” ” Ah” ” Why do you say ‘ah’?” “I didn’t think you’d be a person who celebrates your anniversary, so it surprised me”), and even if he was wearing a nice suit instead of bloody clothes, a murderer was a killer. The law that worked was used in everyday life had never been wrong. Lewellyn would be no exception.

Shavonne was determined to confirm the flip side of the killer from the ordinary-looking Lewellyn. Rather than coming, it was a sense of duty and a sense of responsibility rather than curiosity.

He accepted Lewellyn because he thought he was the only one on ‘his side’. It was absurd that he didn’t know what kind of person was at ‘his side’. It was of course scary that at “his side” there was a (current or former) murderer, but what scared Shavonne was the fact that Shavonne himself didn’t figure out what “his side” was.

The first attempt was the Ronin mystery novel. It was a popular mystery novel of the time, and the story was a typical one: a detective looking for a criminal, but the narrative was different.

If it was a conventional mystery novel to describe, “There was a dead body,” Ronin’s mystery novel described, “He must have been dead, but the man’s eyes were moving. When I looked closely, his eyes were not moving; the swarms of white maggots were wriggling into the small pieces”.

That wasn’t enough, but it also contained illustrations, which reminded him of a close-up picture of how precise it was. Children, elderly, pregnant women, as well as adults with fine limbs, often fainted while reading Ronin mystery novel. Shavonne was like that. He challenged the Ronin mystery novel five years ago and he had nightmares for three months straight.

Shavonne lent him the Ronin mystery novel. It was based on this calculation that a murderer would not be afraid of it. If he wasn’t scared, he would have fun with it.

It was only a day after Shavonne lent him Ronin:

“Here you are.”

Lewellyn put the book on the table. 

“…”

Shavonne glanced at Lewellyn’s face. Lewellyn didn’t have any significant expression. It was neither scary nor fun. Shavonne asked under the guise of being calm.

“How was it?”

“It was fun,” Lewellyn replied, shrugging his shoulders. “Until the table of contents.”

Lewellyn pushed the book with his fingertips to the end of the table and added.

“You know, I’m kind of weak.”

He didn’t look like a murderer. Of course, if someone asked what a killer looked like, Shavonne couldn’t give a clear answer, but definitely not someone a little weak.

Shavonne wanted to ask how a weak person who couldn’t even read the novel was able to murder someone, but then he was afraid that Lewellyn would get an answer that Shavonne couldn’t even imagine (“The novel is exaggerated. It’s actually worth doing it”).

“But if I read with Shavonne’s knees as a pillow, I feel like I can read it completely.”

“You don’t have to go that far to read it.”

“You’re heartless.”

“Did you notice just now? “

The second attempt was to draw blood. It was based on the calculation that a murderer would like blood. Even if he didn’t, he would be used to it.

Shavonne bought raw meat that had just been slaughtered at the South Bunch slaughterhouse. He put it in his bag because he had nowhere to put it, and by the time Shavonne arrived at the apartment in Ira, blood was leaking from raw meat, so the bag was red.

As soon as he knocked, the door of room 302 opened. Lewellyn’s face was white, slipping through the open door. “Someone else did it this time, and it was Mr. Shavonne,” he laughed and added. “I know why you came.”

There was no way he could know, but he said he did. Shavonne had a brusque face. “Why did I come here?”

“That’s because Mr. Shavonne loves me” replied Lewellyn with a smiling face. His voice was full of conviction. “Because you missed me… you thought you’d go crazy if you didn’t see me. Right?”

“….”

Here we go again. 

Shavonne decided not to show any response because he would seem cold-hearted if he denied it.

The bag in his hand is heavy. The bag was red because of the raw meat. Shavonne’s idea headed for raw meat in his bag and bag by itself. He had to talk about it to see Lewellyn’s reaction, but now that he was there, he couldn’t figure out how to show him the raw meat. He wouldn’t believe that Shavonne took out raw meat and put it in front of his eyes. Just imagining it was a strange picture.

Shavonne felt a throbbing sensation in his head. He felt pathetic about himself while knocking on Room 302 without even preparing a decent excuse.

Redemption was done by Lewellyn.

“What is it?”

Before he knew it, Lewellyn was looking down at the bag. To be exact, the bottom of the bag, which was wet with blood.

It was a good moment to get his act together. Shavonne pulled raw meat out of the bag. Instead of telling the truth and saying ‘it’s a tool to help me’, he said.

“It’s a gift.”

There was silence. The only sound was a ttuk, ttuk sound. It may have hardened or dried while coming from the slaughterhouse to the apartment, but blood was still dripping from raw meat.

“Thank you, but…” Lewellyn started talking. “Can you cook it for me?” He shrugged lightly and added. “I’m not that tough of a person.”

He didn’t look like a murderer. Of course, if someone asked what a killer looked like, Shavonne couldn’t give a clear answer, but definitely not “Thank you but can’t you learn how to cook it?”

Shavonne said while stuffing the raw meat into his bag.

“Let’s have dinner together.”

At dinner, the two had a heated debate over how much meat to grill, and Lewellyn said it should be well-done, while Shavonnee said rare was the best taste. It was Lewellyn who stepped down first from the heated debate. “If you give me a kiss, I think I’ll like it, too.” 

” You don’t have to like it. Let’s cook it well-done.” 

“Meanie.” 

“You’re right, I am a meanie.” 

After all, their dinner was half burnt and half well-done.

I already said it in the foxaholic discord, but I’m busy rn;; As soon as I’m finished with my exams and work projects (around early february?) I’ll try to update as soon as I can.