Author’s Note:
All names, characters, and events in this story are fictional.
Any resemblance to real persons or works is purely coincidental.
This story is an original work and is not copied or adapted from any existing novel or manhwa.
---
Moonlight slipped through the wide windows—
too calm, too gentle,
as if it refused to see what was happening inside the room.
Its pale glow settled on the boy’s faded blond hair,
turning it into lifeless strands of silver.
He repeated the same sentence,
his voice low, steady, untouched by fear.
“You shouldn’t have seen it.”
His pale sky-blue eyes lifted.
No sparkle. No shock. No regret.
Just emptiness—
like a sick sky before a storm.
In front of him, a woman stood frozen in terror.
In his hand—
a knife.
Its blade was stained with blood.
Still warm.
At his feet lay a man’s body, eyes gouged out, mouth open in a scream that never finished.
A pool of blood slowly spread beneath him,
as if the floor itself were bleeding.
“You shouldn’t have seen it.”
He said it again.
The maid—Joanne—
the elderly woman who had served him for years—
collapsed to her knees.
She cried.
She gasped.
Her trembling hands clutched the edge of his coat.
“Master… please…”
“Please forgive me…”
“I didn’t mean to— I wasn’t going to tell anyone, I swear!”
Her voice shattered,
as though the words themselves were afraid to exist.
But he didn’t look at her.
Blood smeared his cheek.
A single drop slid from his chin and hit the floor.
Soft.
But audible.
And his eyes?
They didn’t shine.
They held something worse.
Pure terror—
not the terror of a victim,
but the terror of someone who doesn’t understand why fear should exist at all.
“You shouldn’t have seen it.”
Joanne screamed.
“I’m the one who gives you your medicine every day!”
“I took care of you when your mother abandoned you!”
“I—I never hurt you! Not once!”
Only then…
did he turn to her.
He looked at her
the way one looks at something meaningless.
“And?” he said.
Her breath stopped.
“That’s your job, isn’t it?”
“Taking care of me. Giving me medicine. Staying here.”
He took a step closer.
“What’s different now?”
She cried harder.
Begged.
Pressed her forehead to the floor.
“Please… stop… please, Master Adrian…!”
But the knife moved.
Not in rage.
Not in haste.
It was a simple decision—
calm,
clean.
The blade sank into her body.
And Joanne fell.
Like a duty
that had finally ended.
The boy stood among the blood, breathing evenly, his features disturbingly gentle—
as if nothing had happened.
As if the room had not witnessed two deaths in one night.
That was Adrian.
The Marquis’s only son.
The sickly noble.
***
—Then—
A sharp female gasp tore through the silence.
“Kyaaaaaaaaaah!”
A slender hand flew to her mouth.
Her eyes filled with tears—
not from fear,
but excitement.
She was a girl with soft pink hair falling in a pleasantly messy way, and sea-green eyes that sparkled with passion more than terror.
“Thank you… thank you, Hansio!”
Her voice came out hoarse as she wiped her tears with the back of her hand, then lifted her phone high, as if saluting the heavens.
“This— this is real tragedy!”
Her name was So-Rin.
A college student, just back from an exhausting day.
Her bag hung loosely from one shoulder, her face worn with fatigue—
yet her eyes were burning with life.
In her hand was her phone.
On its screen: her favorite novel.
The Smile of a Killer Angel
She devoured chapters as if they were air.
She waited for updates like a madwoman.
She read while walking, while laughing, while crying—
nearly tripping more than once.
She descended the stairs slowly, still lost in the words, seeing the universe not through her own eyes—
but through the eyes of the author, Hansio.
“Oh my God… how can someone write horror this beautifully?”
She whispered to herself, lips trembling with admiration.
That serial killer.
That sickly noble.
That angelic face that didn’t match his hands.
Adrian.
Or, as written in the novel:
Adrian Laurent von Valent,
son of the House of Marquis von Valent.
Born an “angel,” they said.
Weak-bodied. Pale. Sick since childhood.
But—
A killer.
A killer who kills because he enjoys it.
Because it comforts him.
Because… that’s simply how he is.
So-Rin stopped halfway down the stairs, rereading the final lines—
where the maid Joanne stood before him.
“This chapter… this chapter in particular…”
She whispered, pressing a hand to her chest.
“Hansio… you’re a genius.”
“But…”
Her brows knit together.
“Why didn’t you explain his desire?”
“Why don’t we know how he grew up?”
“Why did he become like this?”
“Why does killing feel… natural to him?”
She lifted the phone closer, eyes narrowing in focus.
“He’s selfish, yes.”
“He loves killing, yes.”
“But he’s not a random madman…”
She took a slow breath.
“There’s something missing.”
“A reason.”
“An origin.”
“A wound that hasn’t been revealed yet.”
A faint smile curved her lips, as if she were speaking directly to the author.
“If I were you…”
“I’d make him sicker.”
“And lonelier.”
“And far more dangerous.”
—She stepped onto the street.
The night air was cold.
The road was half-lit, distant car noises fading into irrelevance.
She took one step—
then stumbled.
“Ah!”
Books spilled from her arms.
White papers scattered like frightened birds.
Her phone hit the ground and slid away.
“No— no, no…!”
She dropped to her knees, scrambling like a madwoman, rushing from one spot to another, gathering everything with shaking hands.
Her science textbook.
Her notebook.
Loose pages filled with equations and messy doodles.
A broken pen.
“Damn it… damn it…!”
She finally grabbed her phone and pressed the screen desperately.
Safe.
She exhaled in relief.
She didn’t notice the sound.
She didn’t notice the white light flooding the road.
She didn’t notice the truck.
Brakes screamed through the air—
a metallic cry, too late—
Her eyes widened.
“Huh…?”
A small, lost question.
With no time.
And in the moment she understood—
It was already over.
Metal slammed into her body without mercy.
She flew, fell, hit the ground like a broken doll.
People gathered.
Screams.
Panic.
Voices crashing into one another.
Warm blood spilled from her head, spreading dark across the asphalt, mixing with her lecture papers—
with knowledge—
with ordinary, ridiculous life.
Her vision slowly turned black.
The noise disappeared.
The light vanished.
And in her final thought—
She laughed.
“…What a stupid way to die.”
She said it to herself, without pain, without fear.
“If Adrian saw me…”
“He’d laugh until he cried.”
Then—
The curtain fell.
Comments (0)
See all