I’m Not That Obsessive

Chapter 32

“No… it’s not a question.”

I stepped back and cleared my throat. As memories of what happened in the exercise room yesterday quickly invaded my mind, I took another step back. Getting closer to Mitchell was good, really good, but I still needed mental preparation for having that part grabbed.

“It’ll be better if you adapt quickly.”

Mitchell left me frozen and entered the dressing room. Soon reappearing in a black t-shirt, he suddenly brought his face close to mine.

The aggressive speed, giving me no time to blink, truly made me feel for a moment that I would be devoured by him. At the same time, a cool advice poured out along with hot breath next to my ear.

“Because we’ll have a lot to do together from now on.”

Mitchell flicked my chin with his finger and immediately walked past. Soon after, the sound of the coffee machine was heard.

***

“Wow, I’m going to go crazy at this rate?”

Seimon, hiding in the thick bushes, held his breath. The Asian man with black hair lingering in front of the house seemed a bit strange.

“How can he just contact for one day and then cut it off completely?”

He wasn’t acting, and there was no one to hear him, but that Asian kept muttering endlessly as if he’d lost his mind.

“If you don’t have time to look at your phone, can’t you ask someone else? Is that so difficult? Is it that hard to contact every two hours?”

He got angry.

“Ah, right. It can be like that. It can be. It must be so difficult to contact in between. I understand it all… He’s not doing it on purpose. There must be unavoidable circumstances. Of course.”

Then he calmed down again.

“But if it’s difficult, it’s difficult. Can’t you just say it? ‘I can’t contact from now on.’ Can’t you just say that one thing? Huh? I really don’t understand, is that so hard? Is that so difficult?”

Another repetitive outburst.

The Asian man groaned, clutching his head. Then he alternately looked at his phone and the distant iron gate. His shoulders shook with anger.

“Wow, am I really going crazy?”

He seemed to be waiting for someone. Even so, his waiting behavior was quite abnormal. Seimon licked his lips as he watched the man.

Seimon, in fact, is a murderer. A serial killer who killed 8 people over 2 years while traveling across the country.

Recently, after finishing his 9th murder in this area, he tried to escape to another region, but the police investigation net was too tight to break through easily. Anxious that he might get caught at this rate, Seimon survived thanks to a stupid Asian.

An Asian who couldn’t speak English let Seimon in here without any suspicion.

The man he met at the gate let Seimon in without any responsibility, even though it wasn’t his house. Thanks to that, Seimon was able to hide here, avoiding the eyes of the police.

After the 9th murder, the criminal’s identity was specified and switched to a public wanted notice. Since his face became known due to a small mistake, he couldn’t move around freely. So, coming here was a great stroke of luck for Seimon.

From what he gathered, this place was surrounded by a fence far from two mansions at its center. The forest was so vast that it was perfect for a criminal like him to hide.

Moreover, this was the house where Mitchell Cronenwirth lived!

Seimon saw Mitchell leaving in the morning with his own eyes.

He is a person starved for blood and, literally, an attention seeker who desperately wants people’s attention. He wanted as many people as possible to know about his deeds.

So sometimes he beautifully displayed the dead, or killed them so cruelly that it was unbearable to look at. How angry were people when he killed a child not even ten years old? The ninth murder. Just thinking about that time still made his whole body tingle with thrill.

If he killed Mitchell, he would receive incomparable attention to now. The bright red blood and people’s attention constantly excited the murderer.

Seimon left the empty cabin for his tenth murder. He didn’t know how many people lived in those two big mansions, but he planned to kill them all, including Mitchell.

After that, he intended to take over the house. Being like a fortress, he thought he could stay quietly for a few days.

Gripping the knife he always used for his work, he headed towards the house. That’s when he encountered the man talking to himself. The unfamiliar man was muttering alone like a madman.

“Are you in your right mind? You should be home by now, Mitchell? You’re not going to pull an all-nighter today too, are you? No contact either. Are you really trying to drive me crazy? Is this some kind of training? Am I being trained right now? Woof woof? Fuck.”

Seimon glared at the crazy man talking to himself and organized his thoughts. Are there only two people here – the stupid man who opened the door and this insane man talking to himself? Or are there more people in the house?

Surprisingly, the crazy man just grumbled for over 30 minutes. He didn’t seem like he would go into the house at all.

Just then, the lights in one of the two mansions went out completely. Past 2 AM, Seimon judged that no one would come out to fetch the crazy man lingering on the street.

‘I’ll have to take care of him here.’

Seimon gripped his knife tightly. When the man moved into the yard attached to the house, Seimon hesitated for a moment, having missed the timing.

He changed his plan to attack when the man entered the house, in case the door might be locked. Just as he was about to follow right behind, at that very moment, the crazy man suddenly turned around.

“Huh?”

The crazy man opened his eyes wide and took a step back. Seimon didn’t have the ability to subdue a man taller and bigger than himself. That’s why he always attacked from behind or targeted relatively weaker women or children.

This was the first time he was caught with a knife by a strong man. The flustered Seimon quickly tried to swing the knife, but the crazy man’s mouth opened first.

“You bastard, you’re a stalker, aren’t you?”

The crazy man seemed very angry. But the direction of his anger was a bit strange. Instead of confronting the person who intruded into the house without permission, he was inexplicably treating him as a stalker. It seemed too dark for him to see the knife in Seimon’s hand.

“You’re Mitchell’s stalker, right? You are! Fuck!”

The man was already out of his mind. Whatever made him so angry, the crazy man screamed at Seimon with all his might, truly like a madman.

“You touched Mitchell, didn’t you? Right?”

“What…”

A stalker of Mitchell… Come to think of it, it was already well-known that Mitchell had several stalkers. Seimon understood that the crazy man’s misunderstanding was somewhat reasonable.

But at the same time, he was angry. He was a person who had gained a terrible reputation as a serial killer. Being reduced to merely a celebrity’s stalker was a great humiliation for him.

Seimon moved his arm downward to stab the knife into the crazy man’s stomach.

It was so dark that it was hard to make out faces, so the crazy man didn’t realize a knife was coming at him. He just lunged at Seimon with his eyes half-crazed.

‘Foolish bastard.’

Although he had never faced a man bigger than himself, Seimon was skilled with a knife. He thought it wouldn’t be too difficult to subdue someone who was recklessly charging at him. Just as he was about to thrust the knife with all his strength,

Whack!

The Asian’s long leg suddenly extended and struck Seimon’s face.

“Ugh!”

Seimon took the hit before he could properly extend the knife and rolled onto the lawn. A dull sound burst from his face.

The knife fell somewhere. Seimon felt as if he’d been hit in the face with a hammer. As his skull was ringing, he heard the crazy man’s voice.

“This is what we call a roundhouse kick in Korea! You son of a bitch. How dare you try to take what even I haven’t properly had!”

Seimon couldn’t understand what the crazy man was saying at all. He seemed unaware that Seimon was a murderer, but why was he angry at him, why was he spouting nonsense? The world was just spinning around him.

***

Mitchell quietly sighed while checking his wristwatch. It was already past 2 AM.

He hadn’t contacted Geon-woo even once today. It wasn’t intentional, but the situation was unavoidable.

During the day, due to a sudden change in filming location, he couldn’t use his phone left in the car, and by the time he returned to the car in the late afternoon, the phone battery was already dead.

He left the phone charging in the car while having a late meal with the actors and went straight into the next shoot.

That day, the supporting actors’ performances didn’t meet the director’s expectations, resulting in several NGs. As the mood on set became heavy, Mitchell forgot to contact Geon-woo.

The filming finally ended past midnight. If he were to stop by where his car was parked before going home, it would take at least another hour.

Although his phone was in the car, Mitchell gave up on his own car and got into a friendly staff member’s car. Since they were heading in the same direction, he planned to get off along the way.

At this point, he thought he should have a personal staff to drive and take care of his belongings. The company always assigned an employee for each shoot, but he had declined this time thinking it wouldn’t be necessary. It was due to Geon-woo’s sudden appearance and the fact that they were only filming within LA.

“Good work today, get home safely.”

“Yeah. Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

Mitchell got off in front of the iron gate and exchanged brief greetings with the staff. Then he quickly entered the passcode and opened the side door.

Although it was dark dawn, the surroundings were bright due to the lights installed along the streets.

Despite feeling sleepy, his body aching, and his wrist that he injured during filming throbbing, his mind was filled only with thoughts of Geon-woo.

He was busily thinking whether to tell the truth as it was or to make up a shabby excuse. Given the late hour, he planned to talk before the filming tomorrow, assuming Geon-woo would be sleeping now.

Just as he was sighing, feeling uncomfortable about not keeping his promise, the house came into view.

And he also saw people fighting nearby.

…People?

At first, he thought it might be Geon-woo and his brother. But the other person seemed a bit smaller than he remembered Geon-woo’s brother to be.

Before Mitchell could figure out who it was, Geon-woo charged at the other man, shouting that he was a stalker.

Whack!

With a loud sound like a watermelon splitting, the man fell down.