Miho the Killer
Chapter 48: Lily Garden

Chapter 48: Lily Garden

I packed lightly to go to Yangpyeong on Friday night. My colleagues at JJ Systems asked me what I brought my suitcase to the office for, I casually explained that I just wanted to have a little weekend getaway. The boss overheard the conversation somehow as he was on his way to grab a coffee and came up with the brilliant idea that we, as a company - and as a family - should look into renting a pension sometime in the autumn to have a Team-Building Workshop, which was a fancy word for having a weekend company trip with lots of outdoor barbeque and drinking.

I thought it wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.

After the work was over and leaving behind ’Have a good trip’ and ’Enjoy your weekend’ from my colleagues, I took the subway to Wangsimni station - which thankfully was on the same Line Number 2, Circle Line as Seolleung - and changed from there to go to Yangpyeong Station outside of Seoul. The journey by subway and train combined took about one and a half hours, and after that, it was about a 20-minute drive with a taxi to Lily Garden.

I arrived at the pension around 8:40 PM. Right from entering the gate, I loved the place. The front garden had a lot of colorful flowers that my Mom would have loved. The little walk up the hill on a gentle slope to the main building wasn’t too hard with the smooth pavement that somehow managed not to look industrial.

The front door of the reception building had a wooden board sign that read ’Welcome’ and a gentle push opened the door with a little blunt but nevertheless charming sound of bells hung at the top of it.

A friendly-looking woman, perhaps in her mid-thirties, came to greet me and asked for my name and the reservation number. She didn’t seem to need to check the details and immediately guided me through another door that led to the back garden behind the reception building. There was something endearing about the understated beauty of the arrangement of stand-alone lodges, tall trees, and even more flowers - including lilies, of course.

I got room number 9 and was fully satisfied with how clean the room was prepared and the decorations that were kept tastefully minimal.

It was a real pity that I wouldn’t actually be staying here much since Shin would come pick me up in a few hours.

I probably should have taken a short nap but also wanted to walk around and sit in the garden for a bit. I changed into more comfortable clothes and grabbed a cold can of coffee from a vending machine at the reception.

It was a nice evening that now felt more like an early autumn than late summer. It wasn’t cold but was chilly enough that I got back to my room to put on a cardigan.

As I sat there for about an hour and a half, I noticed something odd.

This place was completely quiet.

There didn’t seem to be any other guests at all, and I haven’t seen any other cars on the way here either. This pension was in a completely secluded location. It was hard to understand why a place this pretty and easily found on the major Internet portals had no customers at all on a weekend like this. Also, despite this complete lack of human presence it still didn’t feel eerie or anything like that even after it got dark, or rather, the absence of other guests made it feel more homely.

This was a nice place indeed. I thought about suggesting Lily Garden to my boss for that company Team-Building Workshop weekend he was talking about earlier. I could imagine everyone having a good time here grilling barbeque and endless rounds of cheers well into the late night, ending with an obligatory nighttime snack with Ramen, and waking up the next day wearing a balloon-like swollen face.

The time was a little after 10 and I thought maybe I get two hours or so of sleep before Shin came to pick me up. I couldn’t - or perhaps didn’t want to - imagine what I’d witness in Shin’s Studio but it sure wasn’t going to be pretty. I was shamelessly excited about what was to come but also absolutely drenched in horror and dread. Seeing Kwon die wasn’t in plan, but now that things came to this it felt like I just had to see him die before my eyes. It wasn’t about witnessing horrendous murders anymore. I was a part of the murder, not a witness.

Should I put a stop to it now?

If Shin was going to kill Kwon today that probably meant he’s already squeezed all the money out of him and there was nothing to gain from him anymore. Maybe Kwon had learned his lesson and maybe he’d already gone through a comparable amount of pain and anguish to being burnt alive. There just was no way of telling how far Shin might have taken things.

I still had a chance.

I still had a chance to change the plan and let Kwon live, live as a broken and traumatized man. Perhaps that would be a longer-lasting punishment than any violent end that will release him from any further pain and torment.

Filled with last-minute doubts, I walked back to my room, took off my sandals, and looked into the full body-length mirror that hung on the door of the shoe closet. I remembered how I looked on that night I came home after Minji’s death. My body had violent reactions to the sheer horror I witnessed on that night. And I stood in my bathroom, in front of the mirror, looking into my own eyes.

Have I changed?

I felt like I looked different somehow. My own appearance seemed a little foreign to me. The girl in the mirror had different shades of complexion. Her eyes seemed to have a different glow. The corners of her lips have changed in subtle ways that I couldn’t quite describe. Even the ears looked a little different. I was a very well-made copy of who I was before, but not exactly the same girl anymore.

Can I go back? Will I look the same again?

Then something came to my mind and the girl in the mirror smiled. My mind was connecting points from one compartment of my brain to another. Lines were being drawn between dots of thoughts that chaotically sprawled around inside my head. Each dot shined brightly and a constellation was emerging, taking shape, speaking to me, and drawing me into the mirror. I reached out and opened the closet’s door and there it was.

A small X mark with a circle around it which seemed to have been carved with a knife.

Who am I kidding?

I was marked by the devil.

And that’s who I am now.

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