Winter Rabbit in Wonderland

Chapter 71

Penetrate—it was the fastest way to become one with another. The other’s blood and skin blending with one’s to become one with them. Is that what they wanted from her? But why? They could not find an answer to the question. When Dum couldn’t answer, Dee hurriedly took over.

“If we tell you to, just listen! We...Oh, sh*t. Yes! We did—so what?”

He shouted that she was too bitter for them to try to eat again, and SoYoon watched him quietly. Seeing this, Dee shut his mouth, turned, and left.

Twins felt the cold night air and felt themselves coming back to their senses.

Yes, I had lost my mind for a bit there, Dum thought. My heart dropped just because I saw that girl’s corpse in a dream? She’s no different than any other girl, so how could her blood be bitter? It’s just all in my head.

Left alone, SoYoon lay on the sofa. Sleep evaded her, however. She stared at the bandage wrapped around her finger and sighed heavily.

Twins didn’t return home even as the day ended. Sensing their presence circling the house, she stayed awake.

Twins had been wandering outside the house all day, unable to return inside. They headed to their office in the early morning and received some unexpected news. Yesterday, someone they would have never expected asked to meet with them.

Today was the chosen day. Dum remembered the rumors that his influence in Wonderland had been demolished. He would be feeling the pressure.

Dum agreed to meet with him. His men warned that it might be a trap, but he hoped it was. He thought that if he could create some chaos, he might be able to rid himself of this suffocating feeling.

***

Cheshire felt uneasy while staying at the hospital to treat the wounds SoYoon had caused and decided to run for it. He found out much later that that decision had saved his life.

He gathered all his men but found that there were only a few left, and many of the ones who were alive were badly wounded. After hearing their explanation of the situation, Cheshire asked who had done this to them.

“It was Mad Hatter? Not Undertaker or Heart?”

The moment he failed to capture SoYoon, he worried about the state of his hideout in Wonderland. It came as a shock to him that not only was his Wonderland hideout destroyed, but even his place in Outhouse was in ruins. Cheshire remembered the rumors he had heard about her when he had been gathering intel.

“They had said that Mad Hatter and Undertaker looked to be something of an item.”

Maybe sleeping with Undertaker was something special, Cheshire thought sarcastically.

And soon after, he had lost not only his influence in Wonderland but all he had in Outhouse as well. Tax evasion, bribery, his alibi as a lawyer, and even his identity as the serial killer Hyde were all put out in the open.

By threatening an acquaintance who worked for the government, he was able to find out that a company that sold magic capsules had released the information. He was then easily able to figure out who was behind all this: Heart, Mad Hatter, and Undertaker.

Undertaker might not have much influence, but he couldn’t compete with the other two. And so, Cheshire searched for another person who would help him take down those two—someone who had enough greed to be jealous of Heart’s reign, who had an ax to grind against Mad Hatter, and who was smart enough to be handled easily.

“You always treated me like trash, so what brings you here now?”

Cheshire’s chosen partner was Twins. Tweedle Dum was smiling from across the table at him. His words stabbed at him, but Cheshire was not in a position to be picky.

“Let’s be partners to bring down Heart and Mad Hatter.” As Cheshire told him this, Dum lowered his blue eyes and hid his reaction. Cheshire was too busy explaining Heart’s and Mad Hatter’s violent behaviors, though, to realize it.

“What’s the reason? Heart and Mad Hatter may act however they want, but there must be a reason for bringing them into this?”

“Reason? Do you think I need a reason? I made a mistake putting in a request to Undertaker, and this is what happened to me.”

“I guess you could call it a request.” It was a request to be captured by him and be Duke’s toy. Although he had used someone else’s name, it was true that it was still a request.

The moment Cheshire uttered the name Undertaker, Dum’s eyes gleamed red. SoYoon had told him yesterday that someone recently had lied about a request. That had been Cheshire. Dum wore a bored expression.

“Undertaker?”

“Yes. Oh, you don’t have any connection with her. She disposes of corpses. There were rumors about her and Heart for a long time, but she seems to have something with Mad Hatter also for him to take part in it.”

Twins thought of SoYoon: her unwavering face that ignored their words, her cold eyes, her hair and blood glistening in the dark. The drops of blood on her finger danced in front of their eyes.

Did it hurt? they wondered. It must have hurt. We bit through her skin. When we return home, should we try to explain ourselves again? That we don’t intend to eat or hurt her? She needs to trust us.

They were mulling over these thoughts in the middle of the night when they came to a strange realization. They had taken turns coming out to speak to her. And yet, she just watched them as if this was normal. Does this girl...?

While lost in thought, Twins heard Cheshire and his men talking to each other.

“I heard that Mad Hatter and Undertaker were an item. Is that true?”

“You can’t even tell if it’s a girl or a guy. Would you want to do that?”

“F*ck, everyone shut up!” Inside Dum, Dee yelled furiously. Dum’s anger was also boiling. He gripped the chair tight with his fist.

Even though he had already assumed this much, hearing it from someone else felt like sh*t. His desperation to have her, his disappointment upon each failure, her deep relationship with other men— no, this is. This feeling is sh*t.

Dum laughed out loud lightly. At first glance, it sounded soft and gentle, but within it was a viciousness that all there felt. He spoke to Cheshire’s tensed-up gang.

“It’s quite obvious. You probably set a trap for Undertaker, no? Heart’s involvement is obvious too. Mad Hatter’s was, well...probably some part-time work. But...”

SoYoon had asked them why they were acting like this. The fact that they had been unable to answer previously was obvious: you can’t answer something you don’t know. The Twins had been so naive that they did not know that this rage was due to jealousy, and the reason for the jealousy only just hit them.

They directed their eyes to the gang in front of them and smiled.

“I’m another one of those guys who want to be with that person who you can’t tell is a girl or a guy.”

The second after he said this, Twins kicked the table at Cheshire. He took out his knife, and it sliced through the air and slashed at the surprised expression on Cheshire’s face.

Twins were overwhelmingly victorious over Cheshire and the rest of his men. Cheshire had lost a majority of his men and ran with a scar on his face.

Inside, Dee clicked his tongue. We should have cut his life short so that he couldn’t mess with that girl again, he thought. Realizing their actions revolved around a single person, they finally came to the epiphany at what their head and heart had been trying to tell them all along.

We are in love with this girl, they realized

***

Twins ordered their men to clean up after them and ran back to their home where SoYoon was. It was a path they walked each day, but as they got closer, their heart beat loudly in anticipation. No, they realized, this was not strange; this was obvious: they were in love with this girl.

In front of the house, they gathered their breath and straightened their hair. When they open this door, she will be there, they thought. They reached for their keys but realized that the door they hadn’t locked was open and put them back.

“We’ve really let down our guard.”

Muttering to themselves, they opened the door. They saw SoYoon sitting on the sofa.

“Oh, Undertaker.”

Dum stepped inside with a bright smile.

“Have you eaten...? The chef’s already been by. That’s a relief.”

He sat opposing SoYoon after glancing over at the dining table. A cold sweat drenched his hands as they rested on his lap. He coughed.

“First, um, I’m sorry about yesterday. I had been dreaming, and it must have affected me. I hope you will trust me when I say something like that will not happen again.”

Dum observed SoYoon’s expression. She wore the same emotionless expression she always had. After seeing her nod, he smiled widely.

“Thank you. How’s your wound?”

“It’s okay.”

“That’s good.”

Dum looked her straight in the eye. Her bangs were pinned back so her entire face could be seen easily. It made it hard for him to breathe. He immediately wanted to avoid her gaze, but this was not the time to do so. He continued to speak in an almost feminine manner.

“We were a bit taken aback by yesterday also. Because we didn’t realize that you knew that we were one person.”

The calm brown eyes suddenly widened. They seemed to say, I made a mistake. Ah ha, they thought; she knew about them.

Getting up from the sofa, they walked around the table and sat next to SoYoon. She was reacting to them. They had already felt as if they were flying, but her reaction made them feel even happier.

They smiled as they looked at her and said, “I like you.”

The sound of their heart beating throbbed in their ears. The whole world was in black and white other than the one person who glowed with all the colors of the rainbow. This is what it meant to like someone. With their fairytale prince looks, they smiled brightly like a small child.