Murderous Lewellyn's Candlelit Dinner

When he realized it, it was already morning. Shavonne ran out into the street. He couldn’t sleep at all, so his face was puffy from not sleeping. He came back in 30 minutes.

“Here.”

As usual, the man was sitting on the stairs. He handed what he had just bought on the street to the man who peeled onions. It was a scented candle.

“If you light it, it won’t smell like onions.”

The man looked at the candle, looked at Shavonne, looked at the candle, and looked at Shavonne again. Shavonne kept talking.

“Didn’t you tell me you peel onions here so your house doesn’t stink?”

“Thanks.”

How kind, the man smiled. When Shavonne looked at him, he found his hand holding the candle. It was so delicate that if someone asked him to touch him, he would. White, smooth, long…

The next moment, Shavonne’s eyes stopped.

“…”

His nails looked strange. It was as if they had been heated with a poker and bent until they broke. They were ugly. Although ‘horrible’ fit them perfectly.

“Mr. Shavonne.”

The man called out to him. Shavonne regained consciousness and looked at the man. The man was still smiling. For some reason, he had a smile that didn’t feel as bright as always.

“Would you like to join me for dinner?”

When Shavonne couldn’t answer to his offer right away, the man smiled and added.

“It’s polite to return a gift, right?”

As if it were nothing. As Shavonne says, it is a delicate thing. He had an uneasy feeling and it was nothing more than an unfounded feeling.

“Isn’t it?”

He was eyesmiling. Shavonne had just noticed that the man’s eyes were yellow. He had often seen brown eyes, and some bright enough to call them orange, but he had never seen such a yellow color as the man’s.

“Thanks for your suggestion, but…”

That alone should have been understood that he was rejecting him, but the man seemed to act as if he didn’t know knew and kept going.

“But?”

Either he’s trying to be considerate without reading the environment, or he’s pushing me, Shavonne thought as he looked at the man, unable to decipher what he was thinking.

“Not that I expect something in return for the gift.”

“So, you think I’m rude?”

“No, it’s not that. I just…”

“Fine then. How about six o’clock tonight? Or seven if it’s too early.”

He couldn’t tell if his behavior was innocent or arbitrary. Shavonne looked at the man’s face. Still, he couldn’t figure him out.

“Do you like the Karnitsov tableware or do you prefer the Grey one? And the napkins?”

Shavonne replied to the man, who kept muttering.

“I like the Ivan dishes, the Liner napkins, the Elliman tablecloth. Still, I’m not going to dinner.”

The man looked at Shavonne. Shavonne explained.

“I don’t have much free time. I have to visit my family.”

Of course, Shavonne was an orphan.

“I have some manuscripts that I must send…”

Of course, Shavonne didn’t have a manuscript to turn in and the deadline was more than three weeks away.

“I have to meet my friends that I haven’t seen for a long time.”

Of course, Dr. Fawkes was extremely busy with his New Years clients, as they wanted to take care of their health. His boyfriend, August Besch, was the only one he had left, but Shavonne no longer had him because they broke up.

The man cocked his head. His fine hair spread across his forehead.

“And?”

There was amusement in his voice. Before he knew it, his smile disappeared.

Damn, it was too late to persuade him.

“And?”

No matter how embarrassed he was, he shouldn’t have acted like that.

Shavonne took a long breath. White breath flowed from his lips like cigarette smoke.

However, he couldn’t help it. Until a second ago, the cold-faced man suddenly smiled.

“There are only Karnichov dishes and Gray dishes at home, but if you want, I can buy them and have them ready. Dinner time is 7 o’clock, okay?”

“O…kay”

He had no choice but to say that.

One of the good things about the unhappiness was that Shavonne said the following.

“Dinner is fine, but… I already told you that I have a manuscript to hand in by Sunday, so it can’t be tonight.

Shavonne then suggested.

“How about next Monday night?”

So Shavonne passed dinner with the man for Monday because he had a ‘supposed’ manuscript he needed to send on Sunday, but in reality it was because he needed time to psychologically prepare for it and, on the other hand, he needed time to find out what the man was like.

Of course, Shavonne didn’t know how well he would take for finding out his background, but he couldn’t afford to take responsibility if something happened. The world was horrible, not to mention Ira Street, full of criminals, prostitutes and the poor.

There were three days left until Monday. Meanwhile, Shavonne was going to explore whether the man was dangerous or not. He never thought that he would fail in the attempt, though.

Anyone who is alive or has died at least leaves a trace of his life. But this was not the case with that man.

All Shavonne knew during the three days that passed was the name he used to sign the contract with apartment number 302 on Ira Street. He couldn’t tell if it was his real name or an alias.

Lewellyn.

Shavonne looked at Lewellyn’s contract with a funny face. Lewellyn. That name was familiar to him. Although it should not only sound familiar to Shavonne, but also to everyone. Twenty-five years ago, the name of the descendant to the royal family, who were anxious because there was no successor to the throne until then, was Lewellyn.

Of course, the entire nation named his son, even his daughter, Lewellyn. The orphanage where Shavonne grew up was no exception, with five boys and girls four or five years younger than Shavonne named Lewellyn. This ‘Onion Crazy Lewellyn’ also had to be named after that.

Three boring days passed and it started snowing on Ira Street.

It was a heavy snowfall.

Snow, which began to fall the Monday morning, covered everything in white at 6 p.m., when the time for the promised dinner with Lewellyn approached. There was that much snow that people preferred to turn around instead of leaving. Some brave men stepped on the snow, but even a grown man’s foot would get stuck in the snow.

The weather was cold enough, making the saying that the day was warm when it snowed was a lie. A sharp wind hit the window and slammed into it again. All he could see from the dark distance was the thick snow that gleamed from the gas lamps.

“There will be like five or six people freezing to death only on Ira Street.”

Thinking, Shavonne closed the curtain as he gazed out the window onto the street. The day had turned dark.

At 29 years old, Shavonne had never been invited to anyone’s home. Not even once. Shavonne’s mouth was bitter due to that.

Shavonne was an orphan, he wasn’t unique, he wasn’t intelligent, he wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t exceptional either. He didn’t have enough points to attract other people’s attention, whether they were positive or negative, so it would have been natural for him to have neither friends nor enemies (except Dr. Fawkes).

No one had invited Shavonne to his house, because if they had to meet, they would do so in a square, an outdoor cafe, or a hotel.

So this was the first time he was invited to someone’s house.

“I should knock three times like when someone comes to my house, right?”

Shavonne didn’t know if there was any common sense people followed or if there was any etiquette that he should follow when invited to dinner, or if there were any rules related to touching, like stepping on a crack in the sidewalk, when the number of bottle caps wasn’t the same. He was just as nervous as when he saw the typo in new year – new yeer.

He was so engrossed in his concerns that he suddenly heard a familiar voice through the door. It was Lewellyn.

“Are you going to open the door or do you want me to open it for you?”

Shavonne blinked. How did you know he was there? He hadn’t knocked on the door, his footsteps couldn’t be heard, he hadn’t breathed very hard, and he hadn’t murmured to himself.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Shavonne, you were standing still for three minutes.”

How embarrassing.

Shavonne replied with a frown.

“You didn’t have to count the time.”

When he entered room 302, the whole house was… full of candles. Ten, twenty, thirty… countless scarlet candles lit the dark house.

“I don’t know if I’m in a scene for a marriage proposal or in the moments before a house burning down.”

Having said that, Lewellyn peeked into the dining room from the living room and asked.

“What would you prefer, Mr. Shavonne?”

He was asking him if he liked this scene that was like a marriage proposal or that can result in a fire? Wordlessly, Shavonne laughed and asked.

“How should I know?”

“I’ll do it the way you like it,” Lewellyn smiled. “I’ve got both roses and gasoline.”

Shavonne answered him.

“Do it when you are alone.”

Shavonne then changed the subject so that Lewellyn could no longer talk about these two terrible things (a proposal and double suicide).

“And what about dinner?”

Lewellyn stretched out three fingers.

“Wait three minutes.”

Shavonne looked around the living room for those three minutes. He hadn’t noticed it at first due to so many candles everywhere: tables, walls, windows and even the floor; but the living room was empty. There were no sofas, shelves, or tables.

All he had was a small table, a squeaky drawer, and a chair that looked like a leg could give up at any second. All of these were covered with checkered pink blankets. Shavonne thought he had to like pink.

Three minutes had passed, but Lewellyn never told him that the food was ready. Shavonne, tired of waiting, was about to ask him, but Lewelyn appeared. He stretched out three fingers again.

“Wait three more minutes.”

There was a picnic basket by the table. Outside, there were unpeeled onions, but what was inside? Shavonne couldn’t contain his curiosity and peeked inside. In it, there were two books with few pages, so few they could even be called brochures. He thought they would be about 30 and 50 pages respectively. The first title was…

<The study of the fundamentals of ABC>

Shavonne raised his eyebrows. Did he have a son? It didn’t look like he was a father at all. The other title was “The True Foreign Language.” When he opened it, what he saw were the greetings used all over the world.

Morning greetings from around the world.

‘Guten Morgen

Bonjour

Buenos Días’

Each word had a note about what it was like in its native language.

Guten molgen

Bonchiur

Wenos Dias

I knew it, I can’t pronounce them well. Shavonne thought. Every time he lifted the page and turned it several times, a sound was heard.

Three more minutes had passed, but Lewellyn didn’t come to tell him that the food was ready. Shavonne, who was tired of waiting, was about to complain, but Lewellyn appeared. Before he could raise his fingers again, Shavonne took the initiative to speak.

“If you’re going to say ‘Wait three more minutes’, I’m going to break your fingers.”

Lewellyn, who was left with the words in  mouth, just blinked.

“Get up,” Shavonne ordered. “Three minutes,” Shavonne snapped at Lewellyn firmly. “If you don’t like it, I’ll do it.” Then suddenly, he headed for the dining room. He thought that all the trouble would be over when he got to the table, but he was wrong. It was not the end but the beginning.

“…?”

“…?”

There was no knife on the table. There were only two forks. He also realized they were made for children. There was no need to complain when the appetizer came. It was potato soup… or more like soups with potatoes and onions floating around… Why whole potatoes and whole onions? Shouldn’t they be cut into bite-sized pieces no matter how cumbersome they are?

And the next moment, Shavonne suddenly got into a state of intense anxiety. No way, don’t tell me…

“What’s the main dish and dessert?”

“Steak and bagel. “

“Onion steak and onion bagel?”

Lewellin smiled brightly.

“Exactly.”