[BL] Trick or Treat!

The Other

by Anonymous

 

Premise Tags: Modern Day,

Psychological Horror, Impostors,

Doppelganger, Delusions,

Marriage, Deteriorating Relationship.

Content Warnings: Gore,

Insanity, Murder, Drugging

(but no Dub/Noncon undertones).

 

 

 

“I love you, too,” Ye-jun said, his voice dreamy with oncoming drowsiness. “I do.”

Bong-wo was already half-asleep, so he just nodded. A few years into their relationship, they didn't cuddle or spoon. Just lying side-by-side was enough. That, and several sweet words of love right before sleep.

It had been like this for so long, Bong-wo didn't think of this routine too deeply.

Was it Bong-wo's trust, or his foolishness? Both so perfect for a waiting predator to exploit.

…

Later that night, something felt horribly wrong. Bong-wo didn't wake up yet. But he already felt it.

The clock was ticking. The nightly breeze through the sliver of the open window ruffled his hair, bringing scents of faint decay and the echoes of the empty streets from the eerie November outside.

Ye-jun's breathing rose and fell. But its rhythm was...

...wrong.

This isn't Ye-jun.

Bong-wo's heart clenched. A chill coursed down his spine, his small hairs rising just from the proximity to something he knew was dangerous.

Deadly.

Bleary, he opened his eyes, only to find a face lying next to him on a pale pillow. In the blue hues of the night, anyone would seem gaunt and macabre, but Ye-jun that lay in front of Bong-wo now was nothing like that.

It was the face of a horrible creature.

One nobody should ever see in their own bed, let alone so close.

A haggard, unfamiliar old man Bong-wo had never before seen in his life. With gaping holes for the eyes and the curving, grimace-like smile.

Bong-wo's breath caught in his throat. His mouth dried up. He wanted to jolt up or to shut his eyes – to scream! But he couldn’t move a limb.

It was as though his whole body was paralyzed. His mind, too.

This is a nightmare. This isn't real, he thought.

Even as the minutes went by and his mind gradually dulled with tiredness and sleep, he still couldn't shake the feeling off. He drifted off soon enough, but the thought never went away.

 

 

☠️☠️☠️

 

 

This thing is not my husband.

 

☠️☠️☠️

 

 

“See you later, hon,” Ye-jun told him outside the bus station as each of them departed on their way. Ye-jun had to take the yellow subway line while Bong-wo took the red one. It was the last time they would see each other until the evening. Bong-wo would arrive home first and wait for the other patiently.

As usual.

But not quite.

Bong-wo took the passing kiss on the cheek Ye-jun gave him yet didn't find it in himself to respond. He avoided looking cold or suspicious. He merely appeared absentminded, which was not an issue in a marriage of so long.

Couples grow distant with time. Or at least not as absorbed with each other's thoughts. Thus, Ye-jun didn't notice the change. He patted Bong-wo on the back and ran off to his train.

Bong-wo watched him go, and everything within him churned.

The stranger acted so naturally like Ye-jun, but the truth could be glimpsed if one just tried a little harder.

It was not Ye-jun.

A foreign entity within Ye-jun's body. A parasite.

Even its touch on Bong-wo's back made him cold with dread. Bong-wo wanted to rub off this slimy, creeping feeling – but the passersby went off with their business, and so should he.

At least there were people around, he reminded himself.

It wasn't as scary as being completely alone with the creature. At home in the evening, though...

 

 

☠️☠️☠️

 

 

In the sink in their bedroom, a wet, thick chunk of black hair was lying. Right in the middle of the white porcelain, clogging the sink.

Just next to it, a few perfect drops of red.

Bong-wo watched it, mesmerized. He did not dare ask where it came from or why.

 

 

☠️☠️☠️

 

 

Ye-jun had a habit of laughing till he coughed, out of breath. He had always been such a light, giggly person. Bong-wo knew this habit all too well, but now that he thought about it closely, he realized he hadn't heard Ye-jun laugh like that for a long, long time.

When had been the last?

Also, Ye-jun's voice. Did it sound so warped and distorted lately? Ye-jun tended to claim his throat was hurting, so he couldn't speak as often as before, but deep inside Bong-wo wondered if it merely meant that the parasite was scared to expose itself.

And thus preferred to keep silent.

 

 

☠️☠️☠️

 

 

Worry was barbed in his belly as he woke up, as he dressed up to work, as he did house chores like wiping the dust and vacuuming their small studio apartment. Days after days.

He did not want to be mistaken. He had to study the monster before acting on his hunches, had to make sure he wasn't being paranoid or simply delusional about it.

Who even believed in monsters in the modern civilized world? Nobody. Definitely not Bong-wo.

And yet...

Today, as he was picking up the homemade bread from the oven, he caught Ye-jun's flat, grim stare at his back.

It was like a touch of something damp and chilly at the nape of Bong-wo's neck. A spectral, invasive sensation.

Bong-wo tensed up. His hands, holding the oven dish, trembled slightly. He had to put it on the stove just to relieve the tension of his arms because he knew he would drop it any second.

The bottom of the dish stood unevenly on the stove grate, and his pinkie got scalded on the hot glass surface. But he hardly paid attention.

With his breathes shallowing, he turned his face to where Ye-jun sat in his armchair, reading his book. The kitchen lights were on, but the living room area was in the dark. The contrast somehow made the sight even scarier.

Bong-wo shivered.

With one leg bent in the knee, Ye-jun sat leaning his elbow on the table, reading. So calm, so carried away.

And yet... just seconds ago, Bong-wo could swear he had been looking the other way. Staring at Bong-wo. Just the way a predator would at their prey.

Bong-wo's eyes dropped back to his oven and the stove, and immediately – he caught the other's gaze on him again. He could not meet it, though. The moment Bong-wo tried to catch him, Ye-jun appeared engrossed with the book.

The book itself was frustrating, too.

When had Ye-jun's tastes in books changed so much? When had his laughter? When had he... himself changed so much?

I am married to a stranger I don't even trust.

“Is something the matter?” the creature asked Bong-wo, slowly turning the page, without looking up.

Bong-wo didn't respond.

Not like his answer would ever matter.

 

 

☠️☠️☠️

 

 

The thought that hurt the most was the realization Bong-wo had one night, lying, his heart heavy, next to the dark parasite that had overtaken Ye-jun's body.

Where is the real Ye-jun?

What had this monster done to him?

The thought jolted Bong-wo as though from a stupor. He could sleep no longer.

An ache he had long forgotten existed within him, awakened.

Ye-jun.

He loved him more than anything. The past few years of the routine marriage might have dulled the emotions and made them appear secure and loyal instead, but this was the deepest truth in his heart.

He loved Ye-jun. He wanted Ye-jun.

Not this stranger he was terrified of.

What did it matter if this dark parasite tricked him well enough into thinking that Bong-wo was paranoid or mistaken? That the parasite could almost pass for Ye-jun at times?

Who cared?

He could not go to work the next day, and could not wait till the monster came back home in the evening.

He might not be the strongest or the smartest tool in the shed, but he had one thing going for him.

His love for his husband.

No monster in the world would ever stop him.

 

 

☠️☠️☠️

 

 

“What are you?” Bong-wo asked the monster hollowly.

It was so late in the night that the somber grey light of day already touched the windows, filtering through the blinds into the dark bedroom.

Bong-wo had taken care of everything.

The monster, whatever kind it was, had to be too powerful for him to overtake. Bong-wo was only human. The moment he would start asking the creature about its identity or about Ye-jun, the outcome would not be fair to a weak human like Bong-wo.

Ye-jun's body was very athletic, too. Far more so than Bong-wo's. Bong-wo could not take chances.

Thus, the bread he had cooked tonight carried a few crushed sleeping pills inside. Just enough to make a fully-grown man fall asleep like a baby.

It had still taken a toll on Bong-wo to drag Ye-jun's unconscious body to the bedroom and then to strap him to the bedposts with ropes that he had prepared earlier. The bed was the only place he thought of that would not be easily overturned by the enraged monster, like a chair or a bookshelf. The only place in their small apartment that had anything to tie a person to, by each limb.

A modern person like himself was so utterly unfit to deal with creatures of this sort...

By the time the preparations were done and the monster hoisted up on the bed and restrained, Bong-wo was tired, heaving, shaken through with the exertion.

But more so shaken with the realization of what he was starting.

And what he had to do next.

How would one get rid of a monster so dangerous? His eyes dropped to the side of the bed where the hammer, a few kitchen knives, and a heavy clothing iron lay. Such lame, mundane items.

He was not very creative. The only few things he could find in the house that could be used as weapons.

…

Weapons...My god, he thought. Am I insane?

He sagged beside the bed on the chair and rubbed his face with both hands. He needed to gather his strength to do it.

For Ye-jun. For his beloved.

…

 

 

☠️☠️☠️

 

 

Slowly, the monster's eyelids quivered open. His eyes were unfocused, lolling toward Bong-wo's face with a drowsy delay.

“Huh? What... where am... I?”

It sounds exactly like Ye-jun.

It looks like him, too.

But it isn't, Bong-wo reminded himself over and over again. The real Ye-jun is...

Is he even alive?

He had to find out.

“What are you?” he repeated, steadying his voice to be louder.

It took some time for the fake Ye-jun to awaken. Even under the sleeping pills, a person can maintain the clarity of thought and the quickness of mind. If they are properly scared.

Or if they are inhuman to begin with.

The creature tried to shift his legs and arms, and couldn’t. The restraints blocked any of his motions. He even had trouble turning his head to look up at his arms, strapped to the bedposts above him, because Bong-wo had secured his head as well.

Nothing funny this monster could do now, could it?

“Um??? Honey?”

Bong-wo watched with resentment how the parasitic monster snapped to full wakefulness. Ye-jun's voice was so dear to him, he couldn't bear to listen to it when it was sounding so confused and lost. The parasite mimicked Ye-jun all too well.

It was like a knife to Bong-wo's heart.

The monster finally understood the situation he was in. And that Bong-wo was sitting beside him by the bed, watching him carefully. Watching his every move. Ready to strike, if necessary.

The first flicker of fear on Ye-jun's face changed to the expression of humor.

“Oh. Ohhh,” the monster said, his lips quirking up in a smile. “I see, I see. Interesting. Feeling horny?”

…

Bong-wo kept quiet.

What a clever parasite. Playing dumb now.

“I told you we should buy furry handcuffs in that store, didn't I?” Ye-jun continued, trying again and again at his restraints. The tense way with which his wrists turned under the tight ropes made him wince a couple of times. It was clear they hurt. “This isn't remotely as comfy as I thought it would be, huh. But sure... there's something hot in this, too.”

Bong-wo didn't speak.

He listened and observed, as though hypnotized by the perfect way the monster was pretending to be Ye-jun.

But perfection often appears far too artificial. Doesn't it?

“Where is my husband?” Bong-wo asked in an undertone.

He had to be patient. Ye-jun's life was on the line. There was still a chance Ye-jun would come back safe and sound if Bong-wo made no mistakes interacting with this parasite.

And it was all Bong-wo wanted.

To have the love of his life back with him.

Nothing else mattered.

“...huh?”

Ye-jun's face froze in a blank expression. He looked at Bong-wo, blinking slowly. The sleeping pills were still working on him, so he needed more time to understand everything Bong-wo was telling him.

That, or he was playing games, still.

Just like a shrewd monster would.

“Honey, can you loosen up the ties a bit? I think they're cutting off my blood flow,” he said absentmindedly.

He never stopped fussing, both his arms and legs straining at the ropes.

“Stop trying to distract me with chatter,” Bong-wo said. “Be honest and answer my questions.”

It was hard for him already. He was not some kind of a psycho, to derive enjoyment out of a person in an uncomfortable and even dangerous position. Besides, this was a thing that looked eerily like Ye-jun.

No, this was not easy for Bong-wo at all.

“Distract you? From what?” Ye-jun's eyes flickered, left to right like an animal looking for an escape route. A sudden realization hit him. “Did you drug me? How did I end up here anyway, and-- Wait...”

…

“Wait,” Ye-jun repeated quieter as he threw one more cautious look around the dark room.

Bong-wo studied the expressions and agitated motions of the other closely.

Frustration was boiling within him. Frustration at the perfect acting, at the defilement of Ye-jun's body and likeness by this creature. Frustration at himself for being so weak he felt almost... sorry for this monster.

And wrong for subjecting it to this kind of payment for what it had done. Stealing another person's life for himself, slowly corrupting it?

Unforgivable.

But outside, Bong-wo maintained a cold, apathetic demeanor. That must have scared the parasite more than anything.

“Ok-kay... I am starting to not like this type of roleplay,” Ye-jun laughed nervously. He licked his lips, his eyes once again darting from Bong-wo to the door and back. “I have never been able to handle pranks well, and you know it--”

“Do I?”

Bong-wo tilted his head, looking at the other without blinking.

“...”

Panic. It was pure panic in Ye-jun's eyes now.

“What?” he mouthed.

Bong-wo took pity and explained to him, as clearly as he could.

“Sometimes I cannot tell if you are the person I fell in love and married. And lately, I am starting to believe you aren't. Who are you? I don't think I know you at all.”

“Bong-wo.” Ye-jun breathed slower, his voice threading between shaken and the deliberately, forcedly steady one. “What the hell are you talking about--”

“There are these creatures, as you should know from all the books you and I have once read. Dark and sinister creatures,” Bong-wo began, detached. His eyes trailed away from Ye-jun's pale, stricken face. To the window, shut tightly to not let anyone hear in case an actual fight broke out. His voice was calm. Even bored. “Called doppelgangers. Things that rob a person of their identity, of their very self. And then wear it like a costume, to torment the loved ones of that person. Do you still remember such creatures?”

…

Ye-jun stared, unmoving and blank with torpor.

Bong-wo studied the familiar yet somehow alien features of the dear face. The dark and impenetrable eyes that he no longer recognized no matter how much he tried. “Doppelgangers look like the people they mimic. They sound like them. They even try to act like them. But their foreign nature soon overcomes them. And they can no longer pretend. Why pretend anyway? The person they had impersonated and stolen the life from is long dead or gone.

“To a doppelganger, it must surely seem unreasonable, to cherish something they have never cared about in the first place.”

Bong-wo cocked his chin, catching the unmistakeable hue of recognition and shock on Ye-jun's face. He had exposed him.

Exposed the creature. No doubt it was petrified with fear now.

“Too bad there are still people who care, around. I care a lot. Ye-jun is the love of my life. I need him. I want him back, you hear me? So let me ask you again, then. Where is my husband?”

...

“What the fuck. This is not funny. Are you kidding me?” Ye-jun's breathing quickened to the point of hyperventilation. Desperate, he gave the room a wild look. “Release me! Now! Are you fucking insane? What doppelgangers?! What the hell are you talking about?”

“You don't remember. I see. Good deflection techniques, by the way. You almost sound genuine.” Bong-wo's gaze found some of the recent crafting projects Ye-jun had left on the side table by the window. Something bizarrely novel and unlike what Ye-jun would have enjoyed before.

Before he had become... this.

“Your reading tastes changed, didn't they?” Bong-wo turned back to the creature, his eyes narrowing. “Since when? You now read stuff you would have laughed at and mocked alongside me, years ago. Isn't it odd? It's as if you are no longer the person you were.”

Ye-jun kept breathing shallowly and fast, like a fish caught on shore.

“What? What--”

He seemed unable to comprehend.

“And your interests. You go softball-ing. What a joke. You? Softball?” A meek laugh erupted from Bong-wo's lips, sudden and maddened. “This is actually insane. You have always been such a charming, little thing. Like a little bird, honestly. Now you go to the gym and hang out with the guys at your work. With that new guy from Singapore... Mark, was it?”

It was as though a revelation dawned on Ye-jun.

“Is this about Mark? I... honestly don't even know him that well. Bong-wo, are you--”

Bong-wo winced. “Don't be so melodramatic. Do you really think I would be so caught up with jealousy? When my literal lover is changing into a stranger right before my eyes? Who would I be jealous of? Ye-jun would never cheat on me anyway. He wouldn't even look at someone like Mark twice.”

Or have these new hobbies, or change his tastes so much Bong-wo sometimes found almost no common topics to talk to him about.

Seriously.

He must have been blind to not see the truth for so long.

“You have completely obliterated Ye-jun,” Bong-wo said, hollow with misery. He looked up, his eyes aching with tears that couldn't come. “Who are you? Why are you like this? And where is my husband? The man I loved...?”

Ye-jun.

Tears shone in Ye-jun's eyes, though. They never fell, but they shone there, so faint in the pre-dawn light of their shadowy room.

“Bong-wo, are you crazy? I am right here. I--”

“Stop it.”

It hurt to speak. Hurt to even try to talk sense into this foul monster.

“Do not you dare defile Ye-jun's image with your lies.”

“People change,” Ye-jun whispered, lost, as though talking to a child. “I am still me. I am still Ye-jun. How can you not see that?”

Yes, people change.

But not so drastically and not so completely.

“Enough with the lies.”

“I am not lying! I am me – and so what if my tastes changed a little? It's been fourteen years together, for fuck's sake! Do you expect people to stay the same throughout their lives?!”

“I am the same I have been when we married,” Bong-wo replied simply. “And I'm sure the real Ye-jun would also be. He knows I didn't fall in love with some stranger I cannot even agree with or understand. He knows. It would be a betrayal of my trust if he changed so much, I could no longer recognize him. No?”

“Who told you that this figment of your imagination you supposedly fell in love with was the real me?” Ye-jun cried out, beyond himself with panic. “What if this is now the real me and you just... cling to whatever you think you saw in me back then, and--”

…

How dare it.

Fury rose so abruptly, Bong-wo saw red in the flash of pain that erupted. His hearing gave up for a moment, and the only thing that remained was the ringing agony in his hand as he lifted it up.

It shook from the tension, but more so the hammer that his fingers were holding.

Only after his focus came back could he also hear the splitting screams that the parasite was making.

“Ahh... ARGH! You-- you--! Oh god!”

Full of cascading tears, Ye-jun's eyes snapped up to Bong-wo's. His lower lip cracked and bled a thin stripe of red, giving him an even more nightmarish, haunting image.

Words mixed up with wails as he tried to shift his leg with a broken knee-cap, some small white glimpse of bone peeking from within the flesh and the torn pajama pants. Ye-jun was trying to move it away from Bong-wo. As though still hoping the leg could be saved like this.

The blood beneath it started pooling on the pristine white sheets, making Bong-wo ache again. His and Ye-jun's sheets...

He knew he shouldn't have used the bed for this.

“Are you suggesting Ye-jun lied to me when we fell in love and married? That he pretended to like the same things I did, to have the same interests as me, to have the same goals -- for... what? To trick me? To hurt me like you do in his place?” Bong-wo spoke, deathly calm. “He would never. I know him better than anyone.”

“This is insane, this is a dream. This is... not real, not real,” Ye-jun repeated on and on. “It can't be.”

He wasn't even listening to Bong-wo anymore.

“I thought so, too. Living with you, these last years. Being terrified of coming home and seeing you in Ye-jun's place. But I woke up from this nightmare. Lucky me,” Bong-wo spat, bitter.

“What do you even want from m-me?” Ye-jun whispered, tears swallowing most of his words. “Please, please stop. Please let me go, we can talk--”

“Why would I talk to you? What about? I just want my husband back, and I am starting to realize you would never tell me. Is he even alive? Will I ever see him again?”

That beautiful smile, those soft eyes, just a little bit of mischief hidden deep within. Dear Ye-jun. He had been like a breeze of fresh air, so lithe, so graceful, so youthful and brimming with life and joy.

Pure-black hair, full lips. It hurt all through Bong-wo when he remembered, vividly, that gorgeous man. That one person in the whole world he would give his life for.

On the contrast, the fake, shadowy Ye-jun broke down completely. He sagged against the restraints, sobbing with full abandon, blinking up at Bong-wo only sometimes as though still hoping to find a leeway, a trick he could use to get out of this.

“It is not a crime, to change. You changed, too, Bong-wo. You are... killing me...”

…

“Yes, in fact I am.”

Bong-wo accepted this as a fact. A life for a life.

This monster deserved nothing else. How much had it made the real Ye-jun suffer as it had gradually stolen everything from him and then had taken his place in this house?

He watched the other one with not a shred of pity left. Only resentment.

“You have never loved me to begin with, did you?” Ye-jun murmured as though solely to himself. “You have fallen in love with someone else. Someone you named Ye-jun and based on my appearance only. Have I mattered so little to you that you have never cared to look deeper and see me... inside?”

Bong-wo blinked, indifferent. “Why would I love you?” he said. “I don't even know you.”

The hammer didn't even feel that heavy in his hand the second time he lifted it.

“I am married, forgot? To Ye-jun. You are the only thing standing between me and him – between our love. Don't you see that?”

…

 

 

☠️☠️☠️

 

 

“I do see that, Bong-wo. I do.”

 

 

☠️☠️☠️

 

 

Bong-wo half-thought he imagined those last words the parasite had told him. How odd, he commented to himself.

It almost made it sound like a marriage ritual between him and the monster.

Too bad Bong-wo didn't care, so this broken “I do” fell on deaf ears.

 

 

☠️☠️☠️

 

 

Hours later, in the brisk, rainy light of day, Bong-wo was sitting by the dining table, waiting for Ye-jun to come back to him and hold his hand just like they used to, back when they had begun.

He was cold and hungry, but could not find motivation to walk to the kitchen and concoct something. He had worked hard the entire morning, with the cleanup in the bedroom and all...

He hadn't gotten any sleep tonight. He needed it, heavily.

“Bong-wo?”

The voice had a lighter tone, without any raspiness or the recent reluctance to speak as before.

Ye-jun's voice.

The real Ye-jun's!

Bong-wo turned, gasping with shock and giddy happiness at the sight before him. In the swirling early light waving in the quiet room, there he stood before him.

His love.

Gentle as a breeze, sweet and lithe and ethereal. Just as Ye-jun had always been.

Ah, how happy Bong-wo was to hear him. To see him. At last... after all these years with the clingy, invasive stranger in Ye-jun's rightful place.

His cheeks scalded with hot tears as he threaded his fingers through Ye-jun's and held the other's hand to his heart. The hand was so real, he knew for sure he hadn't been paranoid or delusional or just plain wrong as the fake Ye-jun had implied.

This was real. This... reunion.

Like his love for Ye-jun. Pure and real and endless.

“I did it, Ye-jun. I got rid of the doppelganger,” Bong-wo told him, weeping through his wild, insane grin. “We can finally be happy together, just you and me. Like we promised each other. Remember?”

Ye-jun smiled back.

His fingers were cold and lifeless in Bong-wo's hand, and a few drops of blood dripped on Bong-wo's shirt from the cut-off wrist.

“I do, Bong-wo,” Ye-jun said, faint as an echo. “I do.”

 

 

☠️

 

 

Author wishes to remain anonymous.