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Unreal (IVE Liz x male reader)

~24.6k words, syndicate boss's daughter Liz x vigilante reader, 'smut'

A/N: This is dedicated to my twin @kwilquib who loves Liz. Happy birthday! This is also my first x reader ... and first fic in second person ... so please be kind ...

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Three bullets.

Bang. Pops the front right tire. Sends the Mercedes-Benz zigzagging down the street. Crashes into a fish stick stall.

Bang. Pops a dark red tunnel through the driver’s skull as he crawls out of the vehicle. His partner screams.

Bang. Now he doesn’t. Larynx blows into his esophagus. Only blood gets to spew out of his lips and all over his suit.

And you still have three-fourths of a round loaded into your Taurus TX22 pistol.

As the final passenger of the luxury car pushes out of their steaming ride, you shove your gun back into its holster. Instead, you unsheathe your hwando blade—the same blade your parents gifted you for your sixteenth birthday—and ready it at your side.

Your mark looks up at you through teary eyes. You don’t even register what they say.

Slick.

With one clean and deft motion, your mark’s eyes turn blood red in an instant. But no sign of remorse is etched on your face. Why? Did they show your family remorse when their Clan broke into your home? Did they show your parents remorse when they shook the living daylights out of them for their debt? Did they show you remorse when they murdered your parents right in front of you?

You still remember it. Every time you smell fresh blood in the air—you remember it.

The way your father begged and pleaded on his knees. He was never the type to bow down to anyone, but his forehead was right between their polished shoes. The sound of shattering dishes as your mother’s heart sank just as fast as the first few shots fired into her. The tightness in your chest as all the air left your lungs the moment you saw your parents turn into lifeless, unmoving bodies, bleeding out against the entryway of your family home.

It’s been eight years. Eight long, grueling years you have spent trying to avenge them—trying to get your revenge.

What was another three more bodies to your growing count?

You don’t care. They’re all just collateral. What you really want—who you really want—is Kim Jaehwi.

And you want him dead.

That was the plan. Until your recent mark started sending more grunts and goons out to hunt you—more than the usual at least.

On any other day, you’d flee the scene of the crime, head to your pathetic excuse for an apartment, clean your weapons and your clothes, and call it a day. But mere hours after you murdered everyone in that Mercedes-Benz, a manhunt for you was already in full swing.

Men in suits trudging up and down the streets. Goons with brass knuckles and similar hwando blades knocking on every house and business within ten kilometers of the incident. Police cars needing to stop at the blockades these thugs have set up themselves to initiate their own ‘investigation’.

You know the Devil Cat Clan is relentless. The moment they hear a man with a crow mask has reduced their member count even by just a bit, they chase after you. But today, you must have killed someone big. Because even the higher-ups want you gone now.

At least, that’s what you gathered when a spray of bullets disturbed your evening tea, shattering the flimsy walls of your two-hundred-thousand-won-per-month apartment. You don’t regret the loss of your favorite safehouse. You regret not salvaging the Samanco still sitting in your refrigerator.

You rush towards your other safehouses: the goshiwon in the Mapo district, the house out in the Gyeonggi-do suburbs, your college buddy’s place in Gangnam, the public safety shelter where you were brought to eight years ago back in Yongsan-gu.

But they have all been either broken into, torn apart inside-out, or heavily guarded by members of the Devil Cat Clan.

Well, shit.

You don’t even have enough time to worry about whether they’ve figured out who you are or not. Instead, you think of the last safe place you could seek refuge at.

The Requiem.

Before you even enter the underground bar, the bouncers on either side of the door give you nasty glances. You wonder if it’s because of your still in your usual tracksuit. They seem new—they aren’t used to you yet. As you push past them and head inside, you soon realize coming here is a bad idea when every criminal-in-hiding, vigilante, and underworld devil at the bar has their eyes on you like you don’t belong here.

Fuck them—you just want a goddamn drink and some room to breathe.

You slide over to the counter and signal for a drink from the bartender. He looks new too. He hesitates for a moment, but when you see your friend warn him with a glance, he immediately begins pouring you a glass of whiskey.

At least he knows better than to ask.

“Seems like someone’s had a rough few days,” Yujin teases, leaning forward on her elbows towards you. “You look like shit.”

“I have you to thank for that,” you say in between sips of your drink, feeling it burn down your throat. “Who the hell did you send me to kill? Ever since then, the Clan’s been on my ass non-stop.”

Yujin shrugs, pulling back to reach for one of the drawers, where a pile of keys were being kept. She picks one up and slides it over to the bald roughneck beside you. “Dunno. I’m just doing what you’ve told me to do: find members of the Devil Cat Clan causing trouble, ping their location, send them your way. Nothing more, nothing less.”

You scoff as you down the rest of your whiskey. “Whoever that was is causing more than just a pain in my neck. How big is this mess you got me in?” you ask, never really having the time to keep up with recent events.

As if on command, Yujin interrupts the ongoing football match on the TV and puts on the news—much to the dismay of several blokes.

You try to take it all in.

They’re covering it up. They made it out as an accident. Potential gang wars. No involvement from the Devil Cat Clan. They’re framing it as a tragedy. Collateral damage. Remnants of the ‘old school’ jopok ways—the old family style of mafia. But then the next few things catch your eye.

Whether it was further cover up, some sort of red herring, or something they actually had planned, the news comes as a surprise to you nonetheless.

Jaehwi has a daughter. And he’s marrying her off.

Something about strengthening the presence of the Devil Cat Clan. Something about metaphorically marrying their former jopok ways to more civilized and ‘clean’ endeavors. Whatever their explanations are, you don’t clock it. Partially because you could never believe that the Clan would ever want to come clean. Partially because there are four men with guns by the door threatening the bouncers to be allowed inside.

“Shit, they followed me all the way here,” you spit as you glance at Yujin for support. “Got anything for me?”

Without thinking twice, she pulls out a briefcase from underneath her and shoves it against your chest. “Bullets, clean set of clothes, burner phone. Get as far away from here as you can and sort this shit out before thinking of coming back again. Until then—don’t die.”

And as every last member of the Seoul underbelly at The Requiem pointed their guns towards the entrance of the bar, you take this as your chance to escape. Before darting out through the back entrance, you take one last look at the news showcasing Jaehwi’s revealed daughter.

Suddenly, an idea comes to you.

==

You thought it would be a good idea. You thought you could benefit off of the chaos going on in the background.

But the moment you walk through the gates of this traditional-style mansion at the very heart of the Devil Cat Clan’s scope of control, you begin to doubt your idea.

The plan was simple: act decent, present yourself naturally, and hope to get chosen as one of the potential aspirants for the hand of Jaehwi’s daughter. The rest? Well, the rest can follow. You have to worry about getting past screening first.

Which proved to be immediately difficult.

They ask for your identity and background, so you tell them the script Yujin prepared for you the moment you showed up at The Reqiuem searching for work as a new vigilante. They ask why you have weapons, and you tell them—who the hell doesn’t have weapons in this day and age? They ask you if you know what the Devil Cat Clan’s about, who the boss and his daughter are, and what your intentions for marriage would be. While you can’t tell them you’re here to get closer to Jaehwi and to end his miserable excuse for a life, you instead tell them, “I’m here because I see an opportunity to not just help the Clan with your endeavors, but to … pursue another endeavor of my own.”

They assume you meant getting with the boss’s daughter. You let it slide.

There are about ten other men of different ages and appearances at the waiting room. While they all form a colorful cast of potential husbands, what they had in common with each other (that you evidently didn’t have) was simple—affluence. Bespoke suits, watches that costed ten job’s worth of payouts, shoes that shined brighter than your future, gravitas that far exceeded what your dirty little lips could muster.

And yet, you still hold out hope.

By noon, that number reduces to seven. The first ones to go were the men pushing fifty—not much else to be said there.

By four, that number reduces further to five. The next ones to go were the men who had yet to make a name for themselves in their respective fields. This makes your legs tense and your breath hitch. You were getting closer and closer to the shaving point.

By nine, that number reduces to just two: you and this other guy in a white suit with a hairstyle that reminds you of Alex the Lion from Madagascar. He has the scars on his face to match the glint of the golden knuckles wrapped around his fists. You make the mistake of staring at him for too long, and when he catches your eye, he lets out some sort of growl as he cracks his fingers.

Well, this is just going swimmingly.

You’ve been a night owl all your life. Staying up past midnight is an easy feat. But the weight of the past few days being on the run is now slowly taking its toll on you. As the clock ticks further into the night, you find yourself losing the battle against sleep.

Until she walks in.

The first thing that rouses you from your slippery slope down into slumber is this fresh and powdery rose scent that’s elegant yet not overpowering. It thrills your nostrils. It captures your mind. The second thing that shakes you awake is the sound of her stilettos against the marble floor—gentle, light, unassuming. The final thing that makes you train your eyes on her was the way her floral dress clings to her slender frame, tracing up the length of her petite figure, and leads your gaze towards the neutral expression on her face.

She doesn’t belong here with the likes of Alex the Lion and you. She belongs somewhere between movie sets and luxury brand billboards.

She’s unreal.

And she’s looking right at you.

In fact, she’s not just looking—she’s pointing right at you. What did you do? Did you say something in your sleep? What the hell is going on? But the heat rushing to your face is overtaken by what her assistant says to you next. “Sirs, the decision by the young mistress has been made. You, in the back, please come with us.”

“Let’s get you acquainted with Lady Jiwon.”

Dinner.

They walk you along polished hallways dotted with traditional decor, through an luscious and well-maintained courtyard, and towards an imposing three-story building surrounded with Devil Cat Clan goons armed to the teeth—just for dinner.

You already regret your decision. But it’s too late to back out now.

As you enter the building, you’re brought towards the dining room that looks less like it belongs to an organized crime syndicate from the twenty-first century and more like it belonged to the owners of this house from six hundred years ago. A low dining table that looks a little larger than the usual soban frames the center of the room. Around it are several cushions atop a carpet with some sort of a mosaic design on it. Before you even contemplate hesitating, the man behind you presses up against you, reminding you of your situation with a shove. Eventually, you yield and join Jaehwi’s daughter at the table.

You have to hand it to the Devil Cat Clan—they are swift and efficient. Within moments, they begin setting the table. In mere moments, they pour you both tea, light some candles around the room, and set up different plates around Jaehwi’s daughter’s side of the table.

You say ‘they’ like there are multiple of them assembling all of this, when really, it’s just one woman in a traditional maid dress.

The assistant from earlier excuses himself and congratulates you for your first meal together. You’re not sure how to go about this, but you resolve to give it a try. Bowing next to you, the same maid from earlier gestures towards your empty side of the table. “Can I get you anything, young master? Our chefs are of the finest caliber, so I assure you—whatever cuisine your heart desires is no problem for us at all.”

You turn to the girl across you, still wearing her floral dress, staring at the food in front of her like she has seen this scene play out a thousand other times before. You return to the maid and say, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

You keep it simple. Nothing more than it should be. Dinner. Just dinner.

With that, the maid excuses herself with another bow and heads to the kitchen to relay your request.

You can hardly call it a meal—whatever she was given. It looks more like a batch of impulsively assembled side dishes that had a total calorie count equal to an average meal—less appetizing, more functional. You realize this girl wasn’t even asked what she wanted to eat. She was just served it.

Like she doesn’t have a choice.

The maid returns minutes later with a similar set of food. When you ask her about this peculiarity, she just smiles and says, “Lady Jiwon follows a strict diet as per the request of Master Jaehwi. She is quite used to it by now.”

Like hell she is, you think to yourself as you watch her barely touch anything laid out for her. You admit—it smells good. And these side dishes of hers even taste great. Better than any convenience store meal could offer at three in the morning. But she isn’t eating any of it. Instead, you file away those sentiments. You’re not here to give a damn about what Jaehwi’s daughter thinks about her ‘rich girl food’.

You’re here to find a chance to strike at her father. So, you start something you absolutely dread doing with your marks.

Small talk.

“So,” you begin, poking at the vegetables you saved for later. “Marriage. You and me. Why all of a sudden?”

No response from her.

Instead, the response comes from her maid, which you start to think is her personal maid, as she continues hovering just out of view. “Lady Jiwon has been of age for years now, young master. It was only a matter of time before her father offers her hand to suitors. Lady Jiwon is aware of this, and is prepared to take any actions necessary to preserve the dignity of the Devil Cat Clan as his eldest child.”

You roll your eyes. So much for getting more information out of this girl. But you try again.

“Ok then. What about you? I mean, you as a person. Tell me about yourself.”

Again, before the girl could even get anything past her lips, the maid in the back replies, “Lady Jiwon is a wonderful woman. She has grown so much since I’ve begun taking care of her as a child. She enjoys gardening, traditional arts, and fashion among many other things. I’m afraid I cannot disclose much about her as is forbidden by Master Jaehwi. I hope this much will suffice for you, young master.”

This maid is starting to get on your nerves. You’re never getting to Jaehwi at this rate.

Clearing your throat, you exhale briskly before putting down your chopsticks. This grabs the girl’s attention, and when she locks eyes with you for the first time since arriving here, you ask, “Are you ok with getting married like this? Like a transaction? I mean, there’s always divorce, but your first marriage has to at least mean something, right?”

On cue, the maid responds, “Lady Jiwon has—.”

“Lady Jiwon this, Lady Jiwon that—I’m not asking for what you think she wants to say. I’m asking the damn woman in front of me what she thinks herself. So stop interrupting her,” you growl, maintaining your gaze towards Jaehwi’s daughter. “Just tell me. Do you even want to get married?”

She remains speechless against your first act of defiance within her household—within the territory of the Devil Cat Clan. The girl trembles in a way that a stray cat would when approached by a stranger—or anyone else for that matter—for the very first time. She has this look like she wants to come up with something, like she wants to say something, but what’s stopping her isn’t that she wasn’t sure about it.

She wasn’t sure if she was allowed.

Once the moment has come to pass, the maid interjects once more. “Like I was saying, young master, Lady Jiwon—.”

“It’s ok … Areum-unnie …”

Her voice. It came out. And god forbid—if you weren’t sitting within the premises of the Clan that murdered your parents, you would have likely spared the thought that she sounds just like an angel would. “It’s ok … I’ll take it from here.”

She’s no longer hunched forward. She’s no longer eating—not like she was picking at her food much earlier anyway. Now, posture straight, hands on her lap, she bows her head in a polite manner before rising up to meet your defiance. “I don’t have a choice. It’s … what’s needed of me. The least I can do is try to enjoy this as much as I can. I suggest you do the same.”

“I’d be enjoying this more if you’d stop looking like you’d rather be anywhere else but here.”

Her face does a thing that’s not enough to be a smile but is certainly above neutrality. The corners of her lips twitch in a way that you ascertain is of her own volition. “Thank you for sharing a meal with me. I … I’m sorry I couldn’t offer much for our first meal together. But I hope we can look forward to more … fruitful interactions in the future.

You fight yourself from scoffing. Yeah right—like you’ll let this farce play out for any longer.

Before she is able to stand up and command her maid, you shoot up from your seat and clear your throat. “Your … your father. Is he … home?”

That was such a weird fucking question to ask her, and her expression reflects the same sense of surprise. But still, she replies, “No. Father is away again tonight. Like always.”

Like always. The words echo in your head a few times. “I see. Sorry if that was … a bit weird to ask. I just wanted to—.”

Areum interrupts you with a terribly hidden snicker. “Oh my, young master. How bold of you to be having such … thoughts already. You need not worry. Even if he was home, I imagine he wouldn’t mind his daughter’s suitor seeing her upstairs.”

“Seeing her upstairs?”

Areum nods, running a hand down her mistress’s back several times to smoothen out the creases of her dress. “You did wish to see her to her room, did you not? I don’t blame you—it would be wise to get acquainted sooner rather than later. You do remember that part of the provision for marriage, no? If Lady Jiwon deems you unfit for her hand in marriage, Master Jaehwi will have you killed.”

Well, shit. You should have read through those damn papers better.

Caught between your held breath and the next, you nod like someone who was just realizing what they had signed up for. “Yeah … I’d like to accompany her upstairs. Do you mind?”

Areum shakes her head, extending her hand in invitation. “Right this way, young master. The living room is on the second floor. Her bedroom is on the third. Lady Jiwon, I trust you will be in good hands. Consider this … a test of his prudence and fidelity.”

Prudence this, fidelity that. You just need a chance to escape. If you had known Jaehwi wasn’t going to be anywhere near his daughter, and if you had half a brain cell to even read that contract you signed earlier, you wouldn’t be here right now.

You wouldn’t have done this.

The girl glances over her shoulder without even fully turning around. She eyes you like you should already know what to do. Oh, how mistaken she is when you don’t even offer your arm out to her as you two ascended the stairs. Instead, you left her to cling to the wooden grooves of the railing.

You pause by the landing on the second floor, and she wonders what’s wrong. “Nothing, nothing. I just—can you give me a moment before I head up? This is new even for me, entering a woman’s bedroom and all. I just want to be … a bit more ready.”

While you might not be the best suitor, you are certainly a well-versed liar. She buys your deceit without a hint of doubt and continues upstairs to her room.

Now that you’re alone, your mind races. The plan is in fucking shambles.

You were here for Jaehwi—not for his daughter. But the bloody bloke isn’t even home. Defense mechanism or just poor parenting? You couldn’t care any less. You came here to strike from within the Devil Cat Clan while they were still scrambling outside to find you. You aren’t leaving without doing any significant damage to them at the very least.

When you feel the weight of your hands drift towards your legs, inching closer and closer to your holsters, you then unravel a certain line of thought.

What if you don’t kill Jaehwi?

A riveting idea, you have to admit. But, what if you didn’t kill him? Instead, what if you kill someone else?

What if you took the life of someone that mattered to him, just like how he took the only two people you have ever loved in your life from you?

So you wait an hour. Then two. And once you’re certain the girl isn’t peeking over the balcony anymore to see if you were still coming up after her, you don your crow mask once more and grip your hwando.

This is for your parents.

You ascend up the final flight of stairs, one step at a time, holding your breath.

This is for what they did to your family—this is what they did to you.

One hand on the handle of the sliding door, you carefully tug it open and reveal the dark bedroom with its owner sleeping on her bed, back towards you.

This … is for what he took from you—Jaehwi … Now, it’s your turn to take from him.

And as you hovered over the girl’s bed, blade in hand, the same weapon that you’ve used to take countless of Devil Cat Clan lives with, you slice downwards and split her neck wide open.

At least, you would have, if you didn’t hear her sob.

Pausing with the sharpened edge nearly pressing into the delicate exposed skin of her nape, you shudder and tighten your core.

She’s crying.

Once she shifts and turns towards the reason why there’s a depression next to her on the bed, you swiftly take off your mask and shove it behind you while also sheathing your blade in the same motion.

“It’s … you. You’re still here …?”

Sweating, shaking, body tensing like a strung bow, your neck produces the bare minimum motion for a nod. “Yeah, I … I guess I still am. I didn’t mean to disturb your sleep, really. I was just … I was just …”

You look across her face: at her reddened eyes, at the damp spots against her unblemished cheeks, at the hair that clung to her temples, and at her full lips that quivered with the slightest motions.

Then, you sigh. “Sorry if I woke you up. You were … crying, weren’t you?” you point out like an idiot, as if she didn’t already know that. “Is it because of what I asked you earlier?”

She doesn’t respond. She doesn’t even want to look you in the eye.

Instead of the awkward kneel and hover you’re doing above her laying figure, you instead convert to a sit on her mattress. It was only then that the girl fluffed her comforter up so you could apparently join her under the sheets.

You don’t question it. You just slip right in.

Hand on her waist above the comforter, she turns on her side once more. “I don’t want to get married. I … I never even dated anyone yet. Never really liked anyone before. But my father … he said it was time. Our Clan is losing influence. Many of our members are defecting and joining other families and gangs. He … he said there was no other way.”

You thought you hated Jaehwi enough already, but you learned you could hate him even more. “Your dad isn’t exactly the picture of parenthood, is he? Can’t you just say no? Can’t you just run away from all of this?”

She lets out a soft chuckle before shaking her head. You watch as the wavy ends of her hair dance underneath the moonlight. “All that I am … all that I have … is here. With my clan. I have nothing else. No one else. So I … I have no choice but to stay.”

She does something behind her back. She rests the back of her palm against her lower spine and splays her fingers open.

“Just for tonight … you can leave tomorrow and never come back … but for tonight, can you please—can you please just pretend to be mine and stay with me?”

You feel the weight of your blade against its sheathe. You feel the weight of each individual bullet in your pistol. You feel the weight of the pouring rain against your back on the night of your parents’ funeral.

And then, you feel the weight of her open hand against your thigh.

And then, you take it.

“You have some nerve allowing me to stay here. I could be an assassin out for your family’s money or something,” you tease, sublimating the anxiety that’s beginning to build up in the back of your head. “Why did you even choose me in the first place? I’m sure the other guys who were waiting to marry you could do more for you than just … this.”

You thought it would take her longer than that to respond, but you are mistaken.

In a heartbeat, she squeezes your hand in hers and tells you, “You seemed like the least threatening one. It felt like I could be safe with you.”

Your blade clinks in its place as if to laugh at her response, but you keep it silent with a firm squeeze as you sigh.

“Let’s hope you’re right about that.”

==

That is not the only time you attempt to assassinate Jaehwi’s daughter. In fact, that is not the only time you fail to kill her.

Like that one time you tried to maul her with a crowbar you picked up from the armory across the courtyard. You were going to beat her skull in but you had to stop when she ducked down to pet a stray kitten that wandered into the compound.

You stopped for the kitten—not for her.

Or that one time you aimed at her from the living room window on the second floor as she made her way towards some of the Clan members. You could have easily pulled the trigger several times on her, but you held back when she kept bowing politely to each one of them. You had to stop because you couldn’t miss your shot—and the lord knows Yujin didn’t pack you enough bullets.

It didn’t help that she spotted you shortly after and waved at you.

How about that other time when you approached her with a garrote in hand, ready to strangle her from behind? She was too busy watering her flowers to notice that you had arrived. You couldn’t just let her choke to death and cough up blood all over her orchids, right?

Instead, you ended up watching her tend to her personal garden as the sun set quietly behind you both.

This isn’t working out at all. Every time you got close to Jaehwi’s daughter, something would always get in the way of you ending her life. It was meant to be swift. You planned to make it as painless and as clean as possible. But time and again, life had other plans.

At least, that’s what you told yourself.

Your window to visit her always opens at four in the afternoon. By the fifth day since the beginning of your arranged marriage, you were all out of ideas on how to take her out as you show up to the front gate of the mansion once more.

“I.D.?”

You look up at the burly guard in front of you, blocking your way. “What would I need an I.D. for?”

He grunts, leaning forward to cast his shadow over you, and repeats, “I said, I’m going to need an I.D. Before I let you in.”

Just when you were about to consider beating the hell out of this gorilla, a familiar face pokes her head through the door and smiles up at you. “Young master, I see you’re on time once again. Come, please head inside.”

You don’t appreciate her comment on being timely—you just had nowhere else to be. You couldn’t take any jobs from Yujin. Couldn’t even be anywhere near The Requiem or any of your safehouses. This was all you had now, so of course you showed up on time.

You give the gorilla-looking guard one final smirk before heading indoors.

Unlike the previous times that you’ve been here, Jiwon was nowhere to be found. Normally, you expect her to be sitting by the courtyard or reading a book in the living room. But today, she wasn’t home.

An idea strikes you.

You race up to her bedroom knowing full well that she wasn’t around, and with a quickened breath, you open her door and welcome yourself inside.

You start going through all of her things.

Her cabinets, drawers, that one compartment attached to her desk, the plastic crates underneath her bed, behind each ornament on her shelf, and even between the nooks and crannies that filled with dust—you leave no stone unturned in your desperate attempt to get any information that you can use on either her or Jaehwi.

But you found nothing.

The only thing you discover is that this girl was abundantly … mundane? There is no better way to put it.

When you pictured what the daughter of Kim Jaehwi would be like, you thought of anything but this.

You imagined a spoiled chaebol who hopped from country to country each week and only visited Korea whenever daddy wanted her back home. You imagined fancy hotels, spending sprees, parties with as much designer drugs as she had designer clothes, running from the law, and getting her father to bail her out with his ‘influence’ each time.

You certainly did not expect someone this … bland and quiet.

As you withdraw from the last of her wardrobe, coughing at the dust that spewed from the hangers of her untouched clothes, you wonder what use killing this girl would be in the grander scheme of things. It almost feels like Jaehwi doesn’t care about her enough to even let her become her own person. It almost feels like she doesn’t even matter to him.

But why do you care?

“What are you doing?”

Yeah, what were you doing? The words repeat in your head. But when you realize someone else said it to you, you hide your hands behind your back and turn to see Liz wrapped up in a pair of towels. “Why were you going through my stuff?”

Well, shit. What’s the lie this time?

You could tell her you saw a bug and couldn’t kill it before it snuck into her wardrobe. You could tell her Areum asked you to prepare some clothes for her—seeing that she’s buck naked beneath those towels. You could even just tell her that the wardrobe was open when you entered, and you were just closing it.

Instead, the truth slips from your lips.

“Look, there’s a reason for this …” you confess, unsure of where this was heading. But when you look at her confused and naive expression, you conscience won’t let you lie to someone like her again. “I just … I don’t know what I was hoping to do actually. I guess I was … I guess I was just trying to get to know you more. Somehow.”

Strangely true. That wasn’t even much of a lie. “Huh. Ok …”

“Ok,” you say in return, bouncing on your heels as you avoid making eye contact with her. But she bats her lashes twice as if she’s waiting for you to continue your alibi. “I uh, how do I put this? It’s weird just marrying you and into … all of this … without really knowing you much at all.”

“You think it’s unnatural,” she wonders, her tone bordering more on curiosity than concern.

“That’s one way to see this. Definitely.”

“So you want to … align stories?” she continues.

“Align stories? Right, right—align stories,” you nod, deciding to go with it. “I’m sure the other higher-ups of the Clan will want to know how I earned your respect. Or love. The media will have questions too when they publicize all of this. We should work on our cover story.”

You are so eager to delve deeper into this farce that you fail to realize Jiwon is waiting for you to stop running your tongue and give her a moment to change. “Right—after you change, of course. Would be difficult talking to you while you’re still naked.”

Her expression doesn’t change. So you shut yourself up, head out, and give her some time.

Once she’s ready, she calls you back in.

Her room smells of citrus shampoo, conditioner, and wet skin. You walk towards her and sit on the edge of her bed while she crosses her legs atop it.

“So, what ideas do you have for a cover story? I think the first few things we need to iron out are how we met, why we started dating, and what we love about each other. Sappy, I know, but it’s realistic at least.”

Jiwon purses her lips in thought, but it doesn’t amount to anything concrete.

“Ok, let’s try to break it down further. Maybe we can start with the first question: how did we meet? Where do you usually go? You know, for fun and stuff. Where do you hang out outside of home? Maybe we can use that—I can work with it. Better something you’re familiar with so you end up making less mistakes when you explain.”

But Jiwon isn’t able to give you a response. She just looks at you as if you might have the answers she’s looking for.

“Wait, do you … mostly just stay at home?”

The way she retreats underneath her comforter is enough of a response for you. “Huh. I can’t really say I met you at home. They’ll think I’m some kind of robber breaking and entering into your house. They’ll have me killed.”

“I … I used to go to school,” she offers up in an attempt to pitch something useful. “I had to stop after middle school because my father didn’t like how there weren’t any exclusive high schools for girls. Any good ones, at least.”

“You could have gone to Sookmyung or Sehwa. Those are really close to my old high school,” you ponder, drawing figures on her bedsheet as if you were mapping it out. “One time, me and my friends got—.”

You stop yourself. Why are you remembering this?

This is a memory from your past life—a life you chose to bury and leave behind. This is a memory attached to who you once were, to who you used to be, to the you that still managed to have a normal life—with his parents. But that’s over now. And you swore not to think about it—any of it—ever again.

So why are you bringing it up again? Why are you even telling her this?

When you pause, she reaches a hand out and tries to place it over yours, but she jerks it back towards her person and gets all shy about it. Despite that, she has this look on her that’s telling you to continue, to not hold back. She must be thinking you were conscious about oversharing. She’s blissfully unaware that you’re intentionally stopping yourself.

“I … This one time, we all tried to get ourselves a date for Valentine’s. Stupid, I know, but we thought we might have a chance asking outside of our high school. So half of us went to Sookmyung, and the other half—my half—we went to Sehwa. I told them to play it cool, but god, they were such dorks. They approached the first girls that walked out of the school entrance, hitting on them right away. I was so embarrassed because of them that I barely got to ask anyone out.”

“Glad you know that was very weird,” she notes. “If I studied there, I would have called the cops on you.”

“Yeah, admittedly I’m not the best at courting or dating anyone. Never really had a girlfriend either so … this is all pretty new to me too. Which is crazy … right? One day I’m … just another person on the street, and the next day I’m … I’m marrying someone like you.”

You two share a look of understanding but immediately glance away when you connect a little too deeply with the other.

“I don’t know why I brought that up, sorry. It just came to me,” you try to continue past the topic. “So you didn’t go to high school. That’s out of the question for our cover story. Did you go anywhere for fun? In your free time?”

You think of asking her when even was her free time because every day seemed like a free day to her. She doesn’t seem to be invested in any form of academics, business, or even hobbies for that matter. She was just … here. At home.

“I … I like to sing.”

You nod, leaning into that. “Yeah, Areum told us. I remember that. What do you usually sing? Karaoke?”

“I’ve only been to a karaoke place once before, actually … I was probably twelve at the time,” she recalls, lacing her fingers together atop her lap. “My father had to meet some people, and he wanted to bring me along to introduce me. I ended up sneaking out and into the empty room next door. I had a blast singing some of my favorite anime songs.”

“You watch anime?” you ask in disbelief like Jaehwi’s daughter having some semblance of a personality was earth-shattering to you. “What did you watch?”

She chuckles like she thinks it’s ridiculous. “Oh, nothing big. Just … Madoka Magica, Shinsekai Yori, San-Gatsu no Lion. Those shows …”

She buries her face into her palms and peaks out at you to see your reaction. You in fact have none. You’re too stunned by this to even think of a response. “So the daughter of a syndicate leader likes dark magical girls, dystopian fantasies, and human drama.”

“Is it … bad?”

You shake your head and laugh at such a question in disbelief. “Not at all, it’s actually very … endearing. By any chance, did you ever watch …?”

You talk about your favorite anime shows and movies. Of course, you can’t help but circle back to the topic of your favorite openings and endings. As a result of this, you talk about other similar things too: your favorite K-dramas, your favorite Western movies, favorite bands and musical artists, favorite genres of music. You even go as far as talking about the places around Korea that she’s visited—Jeju being the standout one. About her favorite types of food—whenever she is allowed a cheat day of sorts, at least. About her favorite pastimes even, which she explains is all she ever does now in her daily idyllic life.

Throughout this entire time, you get the feeling that she’s another person—that she’s another human being. Just like you. The label of being Jaehwi’s daughter is something you easily forget—just like your initial excuse of coming up with a cover story together. It feels refreshing hearing her answer out of her own volition, recount stories and memories without being prompted, and actually responding to you like she has a mind of her own.

It’s incredible watching Jaehwi’s daughter opening herself up like this to you.

When you ask her what kind of cake is her favorite—and you hope it’s oreo cheesecake too because that’s the only cake you will ever eat—she asks if this is for your wedding. “I never really thought about the flavor yet … it has to be fancy though, right? My father—.”

You click your teeth and swat at her. “My father this, my father that—I’m asking you what you want. Actually, screw the wedding. Let’s not … let’s not even think about that right now. If your dad wasn’t in the picture, what would you be doing right now? What would you want to do, huh? What would you try?”

You can see the years of being under control dance across her face as she thinks long and hard about the answers to your questions. It takes her a few minutes to decide on a response that’s satisfactory to her—a quirk of hers, you now learn—but she ends up saying, “I want to … play video games.”

Leaning forward, you stare at her with eyes as wide and as open as your jaw. “What? You’ve never played video games before?”

She crinkles her nose in an innocent way. “Don’t say it like that … I wasn’t allowed to play any games growing up. My father thought it was a waste of time, and he would always put me on some kind of tutor for the summer: piano, traditional dance, painting—you name it. It was only my mother … who … who …”

She begins to choke on her words, and you see her visually jerk and jolt in place as she’s struggling with more than just words now. “I-I … she …”

You don’t think twice: you hold her hands and squeeze them. “Rough topic? Sorry, if I had known—.”

But she shakes her head. “No … no it’s ok … Just being … yeah, don’t worry about that. I um, I never really got to play any video games. If I could use my money, I’d maybe … maybe buy a TV.”

“You do know that’s not how you play video games, right?”

She turns her head to the side like an owl would. “But I saw my sister playing on her TV. Isn’t that where most games are now?”

She has a sister? You file that away for later.

But your hand can’t resist slapping itself across your face. A groan shortly follows. “That’s … what we call consoles. Probably a console, yeah. This nifty little gadget you plug CDs into? The CDs have the games, and the console lets you play it. On the TV. The TV itself does nothing for you.”

“So you mean to say you need a console to allow you to play a game, and you need a TV to allow you to play a console? That … sounds very complicated,” she points out. And when you hear it said out loud by someone who has never known any of this, you realize that she’s got a point. “Are they expensive?”

“Are you kidding? You’re Kim Jaehwi’s daughter. You’re flooded to the chin with cash from—.”

You stop yourself when you start to remember the debt your parents owned Jaehwi’s lowlife loansharks. You stop before the memories can come surging back from when they would arrive weekly to try and shake what little cash your family had left to make your parents pay up. You can feel the blood boiling in your veins as you remember what got you here in the first place—what brought you your misery.

But when you look at Jaehwi’s daughter and see the soft of her nose twitch out of concern for you, slowly, your frustration begins to fade. “Sorry … yeah, you’ve got money on your side. I wouldn’t be worried about that.”

“What games can you play on one? Can you … can you play Minecraft?”

Your hand flies back to your face. The daughter of Kim Jaehwi, the leader of the top syndicate in all of Korea, wants to play fucking Minecraft? She could have asked for anything else—a weeklong vacation in the Maldives, her own private jet or yacht or limousine, or even a pet peacock if she was that freaky.

But Minecraft? That’s something commoners enjoy.

Something you enjoyed.

When you stand up, you almost don’t want to leave when she crawls across her bed to follow you, but you reassure her with a smile.

After half an hour of awkward conversation with her personal maid and sifting through dusty boxes in the storage room, you return to her bedroom with an old laptop, its charger, and an extension cord.

“That’s …”

“Borrowed it for a while. It was a pain convincing Areum to let me even have it, but she said it might still have your dad’s credit card credentials on it,” you happily announce, laying it all out on the bed and plugging the laptop to the nearby outlet. “We could get you Minecraft on this.”

“You don’t have to. My father would—.”

“Probably notice?” you finish her sentence as you enter the password Areum told you. “He wouldn’t mind losing a couple thousand won. What’s that against his daughter’s happiness?”

As you connect to the internet with the laptop—something you both are surprised by—you head over to the website, purchase the game, and wait for it to install. As you’re explaining to her the general gist of the mechanics within the game, you notice in your peripheral vision that her mouth is doing that thing again. It pulls up from the corners this time, towards her ears, ever-so-slightly.

She smiles.

Shaking your head, once the all-too-familiar loading screen comes into view, you place the laptop onto her lap. “Think you’ll be fine, or do you need me to backseat you?”

She bites her lip and says, “I think I’ll be fine. So I just … press ‘singleplayer’ right?”

She was definitely not fine.

She spent the first ten minutes marveling at her new game, it’s unique block design and layout, and the cute little baby pig that approached her from the forest. But once the first ten minutes are up and nighttime falls upon her, she is immediately racing towards the nearest pile of dirt to bury herself six blocks under.

She alternates between whimpers and screams with each zombie and skeleton that chases after her poor unarmored character, struggling to even collect wood or stone without the ever-present fear of a mob jumping at her. While you’re watching this girl play what is likely her very first video game, you can’t help but feel this tightness in your chest.

It isn’t happiness. It isn’t joy. You knew what those felt like once upon a time. This is something … different. You resolve not to give it a name. Instead, you decide to see her sob into her thighs as she gets blown up by a Creeper for the seventh time in a single night, her items scattering to the winds.

You don’t even realize that you fell asleep at some point. The last thing you remember was her rocking your thigh steadily while mining for some iron in an abandoned mineshaft.

The moment you wake up, the room is dark, and the moonlight from the window is faint. It must have been hours now since you passed out. The first thoughts in your mind are the laptop and Jaehwi’s daughter, worried about what else beyond Minecraft she must have gone on with it.

Your answers, conveniently enough are right next to you—tucked into bed, back against you, the device right next to her blanketed feet, sleeping soundly like one would after a whole evening of playing Minecraft.

You pick up the laptop and unlock it, wondering what she was up to while you were out cold.

There, on the corner of the screen, was a sticky note. Written on it were the words: Made a house, too scared to mine again.

You opened the game and saw her humble little shack cobbled together with different bits of stone, wood, and spare wool. The occasional leaf blocks throughout the design tell you how desperate she was to build somewhere to live.

Cracking your knuckles, you manage a smile as you equip yourself with her nearly-broken wooden sword. “Leave the rest to me then.”

You spend the entire night lighting up a large area around her house with torches, making a little mineshaft downwards from the side of her house, and clearing the nearby zones off of any hostile mobs. You put it the dirty work—the kind of work you enjoy more back when you used to play this game with friends—so that she doesn’t have to. You’re amazed you still remember the recipe for a shield, how to pick off mobs with a bow, or even how to abuse hunger mechanics.

By the time you leash a dog to one of her fences, your eyes begin to falter, and before you know it, the early morning rays of sun threaten to blind you from the window. But the call of sleep is too strong. You hope you’ve done enough for her today. Now, it was finally time to rest in the real world.

Little did you know that the girl beside you got to wake up with a wide grin on her face as she took her new pet along with her to explore the world once more.

==

Your days with Jaehwi’s daughter look a lot like that day.

You spend your mornings doing god-knows-what trying to get your life back together again despite what’s going on around you. After a few days blow over, the heat on your back drops and you manage to return to The Requiem to take more jobs from Yujin. You clean these jobs up like usual, but you take extra pre-caution to get to your mark before four in the afternoon.

Because that was when your time with her began.

Of course, you’re keeping up an act. It wouldn’t make sense to stop following through after just a few days. It would make the Clan suspicious. It would place heat on you again.

Of course, you tell yourself that, but in actuality, spending time with his daughter was oddly enough a pleasant treat.

Whenever you come over, she’s already in the living room, hunched over her laptop, eyes wide open as the lights from her game flash all across her face. It’s almost endearing how adorable she looks when she’s taken over by the childhood wonder she’s been withheld from for years.

It’s almost endearing—until you remember you still have to kill her.

And you still try. You still try to end her life. But you know how things go—life still gets in the way.

You try attaching your ol’ reliable silencer to your pistol and convince her to enter the Nether, so you could shoot her in the back while she’s distracted by armies of Piglins. But the moment the lack of gold on her character becomes a problem, she’s throwing herself at you as if a physical escape in the real world would equate to a similar escape in the game.

You end up just hugging her trembling form and reminding her it’s just a game. The Piglins can’t hurt her in real life.

You try stabbing her in her sleep again—just like you originally planned. But Jaehwi’s daughter is one hell of a light sleeper. The moment you open the door to her room, she’s already turning towards you like she’s been expecting you. She pats the side of her bed and invites you to sit next to her, telling you all about what she did in Minecraft that day, how annoying Phantoms are, and how she might make a boat out of cherry wood and sail across the large ocean to the east.

You end up smiling through her stories of being raided by Pillagers.

You even try poisoning her food. You offered to serve her some breakfast in bed to surprise her, and Areum is immediately taken by your ‘sweetness’, naive to the notion of you sprinkling her meal with an agent so strong it would only take one bite to kill any mark. Except she doesn’t even want to take a bite of her food. She was too eager to jump back into the game again the moment she wakes up, insisting you eat the food yourself so it wouldn’t go to waste.

You end up dumping her laced breakfast into the trash, but not before kicking the can in frustration.

You regret buying her that damned game. Who would have thought it would make things more difficult than it already was.

This was unreal.

“Yeong Kyungsam—thirty-three, married with no children, head of logistics at one of Jaehwi’s construction companies, one of their fronts for money laundering.”

Bang.

“Myo Seungri—fifty-five, unmarried, retired grunt who worked for Jaehwi’s father and helped kill students during the Gwangju Uprising back in the eighties.”

Bang bang.

“Jeong Sooyun—twenty-seven, unmarried, works as a loanshark—.”

Bang bang bang.

As the blood stopped spreading across Sooyun’s carpet, you kick her lifeless face to make sure that she’s dead dead. You kick her face again just for the hell of it. Once you confirm she’s gone, you stuff your pistol in your holster and check the time on your phone.

Three-thirty-five.

Leaning against the window, you part the curtains and stare outside, weighing your options. It would take approximately half an hour to get to the mansion, but it would only take fifteen minutes to go to the nearest Subway to get a sandwich.

You go with the sandwich.

You line up, get your order taken, get your order messed up, watch as the staff apologizes and redoes your order with her manager behind her, and then finally, you get the sandwich you’ve been craving for, and take a seat somewhere near the back.

But it tastes like shit.

This is your favorite order for a sandwich and it tastes like absolute ass. You’re not sure if it’s because you can’t stomach eating this alone or because you can taste the guilt of your actions with each bite. Whatever it is, it makes you check the time on your phone again.

Four-eleven.

You let out a sigh. Next to you, a high school student is eyeing you with a scared look on his face. You’re not sure if he’s scared because of your weapons or because you’ve been staring blankly at your half-eaten sandwich for minutes now. Either way, you offer him your half, and when he strangely enough accepts, you get up and begin jogging towards the Devil Cat Clan’s mansion.

“You’re late. But I still need your I.D.”

You grunt as you pretend to look for your non-existent I.D. through your different pockets. No way in hell are you giving this gorilla your actual I.D. “Can’t you let me in? I’ve been coming here for days now. Surely you recognize me.”

The guard doesn’t flinch. “You’re late, Tracksuit. She’s not happy with it.”

Those words stab into your chest. “I know, so could you just let me in?”

Before the gorilla can beat you to death, Areum pops her head out and assesses the ruckus before saying, “You’re here, young master. I thought you wouldn’t be coming today. You’re quite late.”

You exhale firmly through your nose. “I’m very aware of that. Could you help me get in?”

Sure enough, Areum waves down the guard and helps you enter the premises of the estate. She’s aware you know your way around by now, so she leaves you to confront the inevitable as she heads off to attend to some chores.

When you make it up to the third floor and open the bedroom door, a pillow smacks you right in the face before falling between your feet.

“You’re late,” she accuses you without looking up from the laptop. She’s just circling around the apps with the trackpad, pretending to be busy. “I thought you weren’t going to come.”

You shrug, picking up the pillow and placing it next to her. “I don’t have to come everyday, do I?”

That’s what makes her look away from her laptop. She clutches the pillow you picked up and hugs it tight against her chest. “I guess not …”

You glance away as you feel heat overtake your face for a brief moment. “Whatever. Is this what you’ve been up to again? You’re way too addicted to this. Maybe I should delete—.”

The pillow smacks your face again, and immediately, she recovers it with a pout. “Don’t you dare.”

“Oh I would, young lady. You’re cooping up here’s gotten worse since I bought you that game,” you point out, sitting on the bed now. “Honestly, I’m surprised you even managed to play all this time with just a trackpad. Doesn’t it hurt your fingers?”

She shakes her head. “I can manage. Want to see what I built while you were gone?”

You inch closer to her and she shows you what’s new. You give her a day, and she managed to build a simple doghouse for her pet. You give her three days, and she managed to dig streets into the ground, make her own pathways with a shovel, and connect the roads in a cute little pattern. You give her a week, and she’s managed to copy the layout of this mansion as similarly as she could with the limited blocks and materials she has access to.

“Not bad, not bad,” you’re saying over her shoulder as you watch her do donuts on her boat. “I bet by the time we get married you would have already built all of Seoul in your world.”

Her mouth does it again—she smiles. But this time, she’s chuckling along with it.

But that moment is short-lived when your noses touch and you both realize how close you are to each other.

Instead of pulling herself away, she lets you stay where you are, hovering above your shoulder. Instead of withdrawing yourself, you allow yourself to stay close to her, staying by her side.

The two of you don’t say anything for a good few minutes.

What breaks the ice is one of your fingers moving towards hers, which was by the trackpad. You wiggle it around, and the field of view in the game wiggles around as well. “Maybe we should get you a mouse.”

“A mouse?”

“Yeah, for your laptop. I think we can get you a nice Logitech one that’s bluetooth too. It will help you with your building—trust me,” you explain. “And you’ve been playing on mute still? No wonder you keep getting jumped by mobs. I turned on subtitles for you already, but it helps to hear where they’re coming from too.”

“Ah, I get conscious playing with volume, especially when everyone’s already asleep.”

You chuckle. “You know, you’re technically their boss. I’m sure they wouldn’t give a damn if they heard their boss screaming after being chased by Skeletons again.”

She punches your shoulder—not a soft one, but one that packs some strength behind it. “Ya! I know how to use a shield now, you know?”

She raised her voice. That was the first time she’s ever done that. Endearingly.

When you don’t speak, she hides her face against the pillow and looks up only to paddle back to her little dock area. “I guess some earphones would help.”

Leaning back on your hands, you ask her, “What else do you want to buy? I don’t just mean for your laptop or to feed your Minecraft addiction—I mean other things. In general, you know?”

“In general …?”

You nod, glancing around the bare room within her four walls. “Things you’ve always wanted but never got to have. Things you couldn’t buy for yourself. Things you wish Jae—your dad could have gifted you but didn’t. Because he’s an asshole.”

She punches you again, this time with less power as she seems a bit more conscious. “Not clothes then. He only ever buys me clothes. Sometimes they aren’t even the right size.”

You think about the wardrobe filled with dust. You think about the first dinner you shared together and how meek she was. And you think about how, right now, you’ve heard her speak ill of her father for the first time. “You’re sure daddy won’t be mad if he heard that?”

And then, for the first time as well, you see her smirk at you. “Daddy won’t mind if I spend money again. He hasn’t given me a gift for my birthday last year anyway. This is just … making up for it.”

“I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘revenge’,” you quip, yet the word never felt sourer in your mouth. “How about we go to the mall then?”

Immediately, her expression twists and tightens. “The mall …? You mean like … outside?”

You nod, weirded out by her question. “Where else would the mall be? I know a gaming store I used to … I used to go to when I was younger. If they’re still open, maybe we could buy your gaming gear there with a discount too. Then, we can go around and see if there’s anything else you want to buy. We could even get something to eat afterwards.”

It seems she doesn’t like what you’re telling her. The moment you run your mouth about the different things you could do together at the mall, she falls silent and returns to that wilted state you first saw her in.

Dropping the topic, you reach out to her. But you stop yourself before your hand could touch her skin.

Why were you doing this? Why were you offering to go to the mall with her?

She could ask someone like Areum to go with her and buy whatever it is you listed out. She could just order them online and have them delivered the next day without any problems. Why did she have to go to the mall? And why did she have to go with you?

You’re supposed to fucking kill her—not babysit her.

Not take her out on some date.

When she comes to once again, she pushes the laptop away along with the pillow she was previously hugging. She curls up into a ball and lays down with her back towards you.

Well, shit. What did you say this time?

Rubbing your temple, you lay down next to her, share a moment of silence first, and then speak to the ceiling. “Another sore spot? Sorry about that. I still need to get used to your … triggers.”

But she shook her head. “No, it’s just … I … I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“Disappoint me?” you say, and you fight the urge to look at her, knowing she would get too conscious—too ‘seen’. “Believe me, I’ve been called a disappointment more times than you can count. You’re the last thing I’ll think of when I think ‘disappointment’.”

Something in her springs to life. Something in her makes her sit up, and then get off the bed.

You follow her. You trail behind her like you’re her shadow. She glides out of her bedroom, down the stairs, into the courtyard, through the lavishly decorated hallways, past the Clan goons who all greet her politely, and when you’re both finally at the main entrance of the estate, she takes a deep breath and sighs.

She takes one step through the door and instantly, she’s shaking. Sweating. Like she’s sick. Like she’ll combust if she steps out into the light.

It’s only then that you recognize what was happening—a panic attack.

You lift her beneath her shoulders and bring her back inside, and without any hesitation, she’s clinging to you for dear life.

You hear her sobbing into your chest.

“I-I can’t … I can’t go out …” she whimpers, shaking her head, trying to dry her eyes against your jacket. “I-I-It feels like I need to … need to vomit. Head spinning, chest … chest hurting. I can’t … I’m sorry.”

Whatever happened to her—whoever did this to her—had a lot of explaining to do. But not her. She didn’t have to say another word. “You idiot … you didn’t have to do all this just to show me. Don’t worry about it. We’ll … we’ll find another way.”

“But that’s the thing—I don’t want to stay like this forever.”

As she trails off, back indoors, back down the first few hallways, and as you follow shortly behind her, she humors you some. “I didn’t always used to be like this. Just … just happened recently. I just … I just wish I wasn’t this helpless.”

“I just wish I wasn’t this weak.”

You know that feeling. You’re terribly familiar with it.

Feeling helpless. Feeling hopeless. Feeling weak. The world doesn’t stop for anyone or anything. It doesn’t stop for unpaid debt. It doesn’t stop for murdered parents. And it certainly doesn’t stop either for the traumatized children of syndicate leaders.

So you do the sensible thing and place your hand on the small of her back, rubbing it in arcs, before you whisper to the wind. “One step at a time, ok? Take it easy. I’ll … I’ll help you.”

You tell yourself this is part of the plan. You want to help get her out of the house so you can kidnap her, take her somewhere more isolated, and shoot her there.

Instead, you’re doing anything but that.

Because you have to deal with with two things.

First, the goons. They’re everywhere.

When you start visiting Jaehwi’s daughter earlier than four in the afternoon, you see for the first time what happens in the first half of her days.

The different thugs and lowlifes under the employ of her father visit her for some reason. They greet her, make small talk with her, ask her for ‘her blessing’ before they go around and do god-knows-what. Nothing untoward. Nothing slimy. They treat her more like an idol to be worshipped than a dainty daughter they needs to be taken care of. They tell her about their exploits, about their ventures, hoping she would support them with a few kind words. But she isn’t much for words. She just nods and thanks them for stopping by.

You worry some of them would recognize you—because oh boy, do you recognize a good amount of them. Like Eyepatch, who came to her bragging about the new businesses he contracted into the Clan’s protection scheme—you’re pretty sure you’re the reason he’s only got one eye now. Or Mohawk, who showed her the brand new watch he bought with the money he made through Clan work—you could have sworn that was a fake; you broke the real one two months ago when you broke his wrist too.

Instead of worrying, you try not to think too deeply into it and let them pass.

Second, her trauma. Or whatever this is that she’s experiencing.

You think it might be some adverse reaction to disobeying her dad’s command to stay at home. But when you hear Areum actively supporting and encouraging you to help her, you begin to wonder if it’s something else.

You start by getting her used to standing by the open door. That seems easy enough to do. But even then, she’s already clinging to the hem of your track pants every time like she’d seen a ghost.

Once she’s pinching your clothes a little less, you accompany her in taking her first few steps outside. Just on the sidewalk. She’s trembling like she’s about to collapse, but you stay by her side the entire time, reassuring her, letting her know you were right there. If she could clear Woodland Mansions by herself, surely standing on the sidewalk was no challenge for her.

Then she’s able to cross the street. Then she’s able to head down to the other end of the road. Then she’s able to head towards the bus station, and down into the subway.

One step at a time, you managed to help her conquer her fear. And she insists she is only able to do so because you held her hand the entire time. You don’t even notice you were doing that, but hey—if it helps, then it helps.

Nothing more to it than that.

Come the day you both agreed on to go to the mall together, you arrive at the estate on time this time around. But the gorilla at the gate stops you once again.

“Really? How many times are we going to do this?” you ask, stuffing your hands into your pockets. “Just let me in. I have a d—I have somewhere to be with her.”

He raises a brow at your change in tone. “Like always—I.D.. No I.D.? No entry.”

“You’re impossible.”

Half hoping Areum would show up again, you give it a few minutes. Sure enough, a head pokes out of the door to greet you.

But it isn’t Areum’s.

“H-Hi …” she meekly greets, taking one shy step after the other as she meets you outside the gate. “Sorry, I was … already waiting for you here. Do I look ok? For the mall?”

Your eyes don’t even hesitate to look her up and down. She’s wearing a lovely little frilly dress with ruffles that flowed downwards to her knees and a trench coat over it to keep her warm. You look away to avoid the eagerness in her eyes as you nod. “It looks fine. Yeah. Good enough.”

She pouts and rubs her nape. “Maybe I overdressed—.”

“No. You um, you look great. You really do,” you push out of your lips, feeling the heat rising from your chest. It didn’t help that the gorilla was eyeing you very carefully. “Although I think you should put a disguise on. Or something.”

“A disguise?” she asks, covering her lower face with one hand. “Who am I hiding from? My father?”

“No, it’s just … do you even follow the news? Your face was everywhere just two weeks ago. Even if you aren’t the talk of the town anymore, someone’s bound to recognize you,” you lie to her. You know damn well why you’re telling her to put on a ‘disguise’.

You don’t want anyone else to fawn over how beautiful she looks right now.

Pursing her lips, she looks like she wants to refute you, but caves to your request anyway. She asks Areum to give her a face mask and a cap to wear. “How about now? Is this better?”

It’s not. It’s worse. Way worse. For you, at least.

Because now that half her face was covered, all you can focus on are her eyes, on how soft and elegant they are—like a cat’s. A cat who knows how to crush your ribs and squeeze the air from your lungs with just one look. With every look. Now, they’re all you can see when you look at her, and it’s getting harder to think of anything but her damn eyes.

“Um, so …?”

It was the gorilla who answered on your behalf with a chuckle. “You look beautiful, young lady. Don’t let this dumbass tell you otherwise.”

You roll your eyes and take her hand. “Let’s go.”

To be clear, this is not a date. You’re just taking the syndicate leader’s daughter to the mall to buy gaming gear. That’s it. That’s all it has to be.

To whom you needed to clarify that with, you aren’t so sure. But it’s good to keep in mind as the day goes on.

She’s never taken the train, so you teach her everything she needs to know. You get her a card and tell her to keep it for future use. You show her how to use it, how to squeeze into a packed train, how to know when it’s your stop.

But you get the idea she’s not really paying attention because her eyes are glued on you the entire time.

You do your best to keep her from bumping into the other passengers, positioning her next to the doors, but as the train continues to fill, you’re left with no choice but to encroach on her personal space.

One arm above her head, your face hovering above hers, you wince every time some idiot bumps into your back, making you press up closer to her. But she doesn’t look away.

All she looks at is you.

When you reach your stop, you show her the directions to get to the mall from here. You hope she was at least paying attention this time, so she could get here by herself in the future. But her eyes would not meet anyone’s. She keeps her head down, hand tightly squeezing yours, as the two of you walked down the bustling city streets to get to the mall.

Once you’re there, she lightens up a little bit.

Her doe eyes widen in amusement as she’s exposed to the different sights within a mall: the different stores, the scattered stalls, the occasional advertiser, the free samples, the nonstop escalators, the oddly placed water fountain, the annoying kids—all of it. She takes it all in with a sense of wanderlust.

And you can’t help but smile.

You take her to the gaming store you used to frequent years ago. You hardly recognize the staff, so a discount was out of the question, but you do find what you promised to buy her. You’re set to pay for the black Logitech mouse and matching black earphones with your own money—the money you scrounged up after yesterday’s marks. But she’s holding this pink Hello Kitty designed mouse close to her chest, and then she’s looking at you with those eyes, and before you knew it, you’re returning what you had picked out and instead slid her pink mouse and pink earphones towards the cashier. You are not safe from a mechanical keyboard either, and when you try to reason with her saying her laptop already has a keyboard, her eyes droop just the slightest bit and it was all over for you once again.

You curse underneath your breath, but she’s next to you, holding your arm as she watches her new gear get bagged. And for some reason, seeing all that was more than enough to make it up to you.

She wasn’t sure what else she wanted to buy because she wasn’t sure what else existed in the mall. So you take her around.

She has no reason to be shoulder-to-shoulder next to you. She has no reason to lean into you whenever she was avoiding passers-by. She has no reason to still be holding your hand either since you had no intent of leaving her behind. But you let her. You let it happen. You both continue to play the role of the soon-to-be-married couple.

Because damn it, it was starting to feel … nice.

If being a couple meant you could get away with hearing her whimper and throw a tantrum whenever she loses against you at the arcade, if it meant getting an excuse to wipe the crepe filling from the corner of her lips, if it meant allowing you to press your cheek against hers at the photobooth, or sitting her on your lap when all the benches are full, or even fixing her hair when it gets messy underneath her cap, then damn it—who the hell wouldn’t cash in on this experience?

The least you can do with your predicament is enjoy it.

Once her stomach is filled, and her legs are tired, and you’re carrying more paper bags than either of you would have expected, she gives you a certain smile with her eyes that signals that she’s satisfied now, and that she’s ready to go home.

“Thank goodness we’re done. I don’t know how much I can still carry,” you tease, lifting up one hand, showing how each finger was connected to a separate bag. “You went wild with my money, didn’t you? Shopping always feels better when you’re not the one paying for it.”

She chuckles and leans into you, nuzzling her head. “You’re always going to be paying for me when I go shopping.”

“There’s going to be a next time?” you genuinely ask. A part of you dreads it, but a greater part of you is somehow looking forward to it.

“Of course. When we get married, we’re doing this every week.”

“Every week?” you repeat, letting out an exaggerated sigh. “I’m filing for a divorce before our first anniversary then.”

She leans in to punch you, but her attention is caught by something else.

It’s about half an hour to closing time, and as you both circle around the atrium to get to your exit, you notice some sort of event ongoing.

The circular central area has been converted into a makeshift dance floor. Scattered around it, couples are locked in a slow dance, swaying to the beat of the songs that the mall speakers were playing.

You want to say something funny about their masquerade theme, but her eyes are heavily trained on the dancing couples that glided across the improvised dance floor. She watches as they pull apart, come together, twirl around, and bow before one another—all while remaining connected the entire time.

When she returns to you, her eyes fall between her feet. So you stop in your tracks.

“Let me guess—you want to dance?”

“I … I was just …”

You smile and lift her chin up. “You want to dance, don’t you? Go, I’ll hold our things.”

But she pouts and shakes her head. “I can’t dance alone. Dancing like that is for two people.”

You’re confident you can list the different ways someone could dance alone, many of which would probably end up with you sounding stupid. But as she holds your hands and tugs you towards the music and dancing, you take a deep breath and reluctantly nod.

“Ok, I guess we can dance for a song or two.”

You grew up with two left feet. Dancing was the last item on your bucket list of things to learn when growing up. You imagine she’s got no experience with it either.

But damn, does she make it feel easy.

She puts on her face mask again to try and keep to the theme. You know it’s probably a bad idea, but you pull out the crow mask you always keep tucked away behind you and put it on. She stares at you and can’t help but laugh. “You look stupid. Where were you hiding that?”

“I … let’s just say I always want to be ready to join a masquerade ball.”

Her hands move when yours can’t. They slide up your elbows, towards your shoulders, and find purchase around your nape. Clinging to you, she smiles with her eyes and pulls you closer. Meanwhile, your hands are awkwardly resting by her hips, bags swaying with every motion, fingers afraid to dig too deep into her skin.

And you dance. The two of you, in your own little spot on the dance floor, swaying each other to the rhythm of the songs. It isn’t complicated. It isn’t intense. You both just allow yourselves to feel the rhythm against your combined bodies, and hold each other as you dance.

“I had fun today,” she mutters through her mask, looking into your eyes. You can almost see the crow mask looking back at you through the reflection on her irises. “I … I always seem to have fun when I’m with you.”

“And here I thought I was the only one enjoying this arranged marriage situation of ours,” you fire back, and it earns a soft giggle from her.

“You know, it made me … it made me think,” she continues with a whisper, pulling you even closer, so that now, the tip of your crow mask was dancing around her own protected nose. “If we met under different … circumstances, would we … would we still be like this?”

Your fingers twitch against her waist. “What do you mean? Would we still be getting married?”

“Would we have really fallen in love?”

You never considered this—whatever you two were doing, whatever you two had—as love.

In fact, you have never thought about love for the past eight years. You thought every last notion of such a feeling left you the moment your parents died. Since then, nothing’s really been the same anyway. And between chasing after goons with bullets or avoiding being hunted yourself, there was never really a pause—a space—where you can breathe and think about anything other than surviving, other than revenge.

But right now, confronted by such a question, you allow yourself the space to think about it.

“I … don’t know. If I didn’t sign up to be your husband, I don’t think I would have ever done … any of this—any of what we did—with someone else. I don’t think I’d make a good partner, really. If … if only you knew …”

She reaches towards your face with one hand and plucks your mask off you, holding it by the tip of its nose. “Then show me the real you. Not the you that’s trying to just … make me happy with our situation. I want to see who you really are, and … I want to see if I can fall in love with that. Please?”

You bite your tongue and try to control your breathing. Your physique isn’t this terrible—you’re not supposed be left sweating and out of breath by just a few circles around a dance floor. But somehow, you are. You’re utterly weakened by her words, and you’re absolutely ensnared by her eyes.

Just like how she pried your mask off of you, you dig your fingers between the strings of her face mask and pull it off her too. “Then I want to see the real you too. The you you want to become outside of your dad’s shadow. The you that’s beyond the Devil Cat Clan. The you that’s been there all along, waiting to come out.”

And just like that, she blushes like a flower learning to blossom for the first time, reddening like a tomato in a heartbeat.

There are two pistols hidden inside the length of your pants, each with about sixteen bullets loaded in. You have your hwando strappedagainst your chest, underneath your jacket, waiting to be unsheathed. And you have two separate garrotes hidden inside the heels of your shoes.

But despite all that, you don’t even think about killing her—or her father—for even a second. No. All you can think about is how you can keep sharing moments like this with her.

Because god damnit—it feels great.

It feels unreal.

==

Yeah, it’s safe to say the plan has fucking changed right about now.

You’re on the third week towards your upcoming marriage with Jiwon and you have made zero progress on your little revenge plan. If you aren’t going to do anything soon, you might find yourself married instead to the very organization you swore to burn to the ground.

But somehow, that idea doesn’t bother you anymore.

Your days with Jiwon begin to change. Since your vow to each other that night at the mall, your lives start to bleed into one another.

Jiwon asks you about the your track suit get up, your crow mask, and the weapons you always bring around with you. You just tell her it’s for safety purposes, but she’s not buying it. She begs you to stop bringing them around with you. And if she hadn’t asked you of it, you never would have. So you stopped packing them—for her sake. But the track suit agenda persisted.

Jiwon introduces you to her garden. This is the first time she formally does so. She tells you each of their names, recalls which years she started taking care of them, how much to water each of them, and what songs she likes singing to them on the daily. You tell her you want to hear one of her songs, and at first, she’s rather meek about. But when she realizes you spent five hours of your day just hearing her yap adorably about her beloved plants, she believes a song wouldn’t hurt—and oh boy, does she have such an angelic voice. You’re almost envious of the plants for hearing her sing every day.

Jiwon requests you to tell her about your life outside of her, about what you do for a living, about what you do for fun. You can’t exactly tell her you kill people for money. Instead, you tell her about the distant past. About how you used to study finance in college. About the sleepovers and all-nighters you used to pull with friends. About the times you would just jog early in the morning to help clear your head. And even about the times you crushed on certain girls around campus. And she listened. Jiwon listened to every last story of yours like they’re tales about another world. For you, they very well might have been given how long ago they were now, but you found some comfort in sharing your past with her.

You eat dinners together now. You spend hours at night laying next to her in bed talking about the silliest things. You greet her ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’ each day. You get her little gifts and trinkets whenever you can. You even count the time left until you have to go, and the time remaining until you can see her again.

Is this what it means to be really dating? You’re not quite sure. But the things that are bouncing around in your head, making your chest feel all sorts of different things—they feel very real to you.

“Im Kyung-Mi—forty-six, married, one of Jaehwi’s hoobae’s from his short time in university, now handles several laundering fronts for the Clan.”

“Bo Hana—twenty-nine, unmarried, operates phishing scams in six different online chatrooms, blackmails and extorts victims daily.”

“Mun Youngjae—thirty-one, married, moved from insurance fraud to loansharking, opened up a new lending business in preparation for his firstborn due in four months.”

But you let them all slide. You let those marks go for today like you have been doing for the past few days—much to Yujin’s surprise and dismay.

Why? Simply because you didn’t want to be late for your time with Jiwon.

Promising Jiwon not to bring guns around anymore changed the way you saw daily life again. For once, you don’t have to be always on your guard. For once, you don’t have to be in hiding. For once, you’re not living day to day between one chase to another. You can actually look forward to things. You can actually plan things farther than just a day at a time.

You can actually live.

So as you hand the paper bills towards the florist who helped assemble a lovely and fragrant bouquet for you, purchasing flowers for the very first time, you believe this was a better way to spend your money—better than a new pistol or a shiny new blade.

You hold the bouquet close to your chest with a smile. You feel stupid. You guess you look stupid. But right now, it hardly matters.

Because you are about to go on your very first date with Jiwon.

The two of you felt that it was only right that you both should properly have a date before getting married. So, you ended up scheduling a date today. As you walked towards the entrance of the estate with the flowers in hand, you briefly think about your impending deadline. Your impending need to resolve the shit you have in the background. But once the thought passes, you file it away and try not to think about it for now.

Everything’s going well. Why ruin that?

Before you can even greet the gorilla, and before he can even ask for your I.D. again, Jiwon’s head pokes out of the door and she greets you with the widest smile. “You’re here! You’re early.”

“And you’re already dressed,” you note, immediately noticing the black mini-dress she has on. It showcases her bare shoulders, her slender legs, and her collarbone draped with a small silver necklace. “You look amazing.”

The gorilla scoffed and turned away. “Kids these days. Just go on your bloody date already.”

Jiwon blushes and peeks inside. “Could you wait for a moment? I have company right now, but I’ll be ready to go in a few.”

“Not at all. Take your time,” you say as you follow her indoors.

She rushes away from you, and you wonder why she’s in a hurry. It’s only when you arrive at the courtyard and you see another beautiful young lady exiting Jiwon’s home that you realize what she meant.

This girl didn’t resemble Jiwon at all: jet-black hair, oval face, sharper eyes, flirty smirk, cropped top, concerningly short skirt.

Yeah, she was nothing like Jiwon.

This new girl approaches you with a grin that says she already knows what is going on. She eyes the flowers, then you, then chuckles behind a raised hand. “So you’re the man unnie’s getting married to.”

Unnie? Is this her sister?

“Yeah. Well, I guess this is me,” you raise, extending both hands to the sides. “It’s not much, but I guess it works.”

“It really does. For her,” she teases, smirking wider. “You’re all she ever talks about these days, you know? I had to come here and see for myself what you were all about. I think I can see where she’s coming from.”

You park that thought as you get all flustered holding your flowers for Jiwon. “I …”

The girl chuckles one final time before winking at you. “Take care of her, oppa. Don’t break her heart. She’s the only sister I have, so … make her happy.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” you proudly announce, lifting your chin. Finally, you regain some of your confidence back.

As the girl disappears into the hallways behind you, you trudge up to Jiwon to ask what that was about.

You catch her in the middle of touching up her lipstick. She wears lipstick now, apparently. When she sees you, she immediately closes her hand mirror and hides both behind her back. “I-I … I told you to wait for me.”

You crinkle your nose, and doing so almost makes you want to die. “You look pretty enough as you are. Who was that, by the way?”

“That’s Hyunseo. She’s my half-sister. She’s … the closest sibling I have among many others,” she explains, putting her makeup all into one bag before walking towards you. “And those?”

You extend your hand forward. “These are for you. It’s normal to give girls flowers on dates, right? I uh, I wasn’t sure if this was overboard.”

She leans into you to smell the flowers, letting out a blissful exhale. “Their lovely. Thank you. I’ll have Areum-unnie place them in a nice vase for me.”

Finally, you pop the question. “So um, are you … are you ready? For our first date?”

Jiwon bites her plump and freshly reddened lips and nods. “Yeah … yeah I’m ready.”

So you extend an arm out towards her, and she takes it, and you’re both giggling like teenagers over how silly you two are at your age over a simple stupid date.

The date was anything but—simple, maybe; stupid, not at all.

Going to the mall again felt derivative, and Jiwon isn’t sure if she can handle going to a crowded place again this soon. So you had the brilliant idea to take here somewhere you have always wanted to take a date to.

A cafe.

It had an interesting name. An alliteration of sorts. But what caught your eye was the ambience.

As the bell chimed when you open the door, you’re greeted by the barista at the cashier. You hold Jiwon’s hand as you both approached him and start to order.

“New couple?” he asks, trying to make small talk as he keys in things on the monitor.

Neither you nor Jiwon can respond right away, refusing to look at each other or the barista. The man chuckles and shakes his head. “Sorry if I got that wrong. I just see a lot of couples come by around this time of the day. Although … someone as cute as you, miss, would surely have no trouble finding a date around town—.”

Your hands moves before you can even think. You wrap an arm around Jiwon’s slender waist and pull her closer to you. “She’s mine. She’s my girlfriend. We’re getting married next week.”

You don’t know if the blush is from your cheeks or hers, but Jiwon leans into you and rests the back of her head against your collarbone. “Yeah … he’s my boyfriend. We’re on a date … n-not our first though! We’ve dated many times before um, before now. For sure …”

The barista swaps between looking touched to looking confused. “Ok miss … I was just teasing.”

A female barista elbows him as if to tell him off. “Don’t tease the customers like that! Sorry about him, he can get a little carried away sometimes. Drinks are on me.”

“For real?” you ask, and before the male barista can protest, the female one takes control of the situation with a nod. “Yes sir, please enjoy your stay!”

With that, you take your free drinks and sit yourselves towards the back. Jiwon looks like she wants to sit next to you instead of across from you, so you indulge her and drag your heavy chair towards her side of the table.

“Ahh~ Free drinks taste better than paid ones,” she hums between sips, knees bumping together.

“You never had to pay for any of your drinks before, what are you talking about?” you retort, taking a long sip of your iced americano.

You banter a bit before talking about other things. About her Minecraft world. About her sister. About your refusal to wear anything but tracksuits. And about makeup brands.

And it’s perfect. This is perfect. She’s perfect.

You once dreamed of something like this. You don’t remember the exact details, but the feelings are warmer. The sensation is cozier. And the girl across you is more beautiful than you ever imagined—even when she has coffee shooting out of her nostrils after you make her laugh.

She’s unreal.

And then the topic goes to marriage. Your marriage. Next weekend.

The atmosphere surrounding you both tightens to a standstill. No one wants to make the first move towards that discussion. But somehow, one of you needs to speak up.

“So it’s next week,” you raise, taking one for the team as you set your cup back onto the ring it formed on the table. “How do you feel about it?”

She hesitates for a moment, pondering her words, but when she finds the right thing to tell you, it comes out without hesitation. “I still don’t like our arrangement, but … I can still like you, right?”

Damn she is really knocking you out of the park with every little thing she says. “That … I don’t think that’s a problem at all.”

She smiles, and so do you. But it fades away the moment she sees something behind you. “Oh no … oh no that’s …”

You turn around and see a flock of six men in suits and shades entering one after the other into the cafe. They don’t give the bell a break, ringing it continuously. They don’t stop for the greetings of the baristas either. Instead, they head right for you and Jiwon.

Once they surround you like a wall, they bow to their waists. One of them speaks up and says, “Lady Jiwon, the Master has requested your presence. He wants you and your fiancé to meet him right now. He’s already at the restaurant.”

You can visibly see Jiwon’s muscles tighten and lock in place upon hearing this. “My … my father? Why now of all times? I-I’m in the middle of—.”

“It’s his request, my lady. We’re just the messengers,” he explains as if in apology. “Please don’t delay this any father. You know how Master Jaehwi can get when he’s … kept waiting. We already have a car prepared for you.”

She glances towards the henchmen, then to you, then to her unfinished drink. Standing up carefully, she nods and holds out a hand shyly towards you. “Then I don’t have a choice … Please, lead the way.”

You take her hand and walk with her towards the parking lot, where a sleek black Mercedes-Benz awaits you.

The ride to the restaurant is a short one, but the silence throughout it made it feel like forever. Jiwon says nothing to you—in explanation, in apology, in request—almost like she’s already assented to the situation. You recall how docile she was previously with Areum and the other staff. You can only imagine how pious she is towards her father.

You’re brought to a large Chinese restaurant. The signboard, carpets, and staff uniforms were all a blinding shade of red. You were never one for Chinese cuisine, but you can tell this restaurant was different—more refined, more elite, more extravagant.

You are proven right almost immediately when you are lead towards a private room on the second floor, where an all-too-familiar figure was seated at the opposite end of the round table surrounded with dishes and meals.

Kim Jaehwi.

Your hand clenches so hard around Jiwon’s hand that she winces from the pain. But you can’t help yourself. You curse your better senses for coming here without any weapons on you. Had you known you would have been in the same room with Jaehwi this afternoon, you would have ditched the pleasantries and snuck at least a small knife in with you.

He’s there. He’s just over there. And you haven’t got a single way to kill him.

So you choose to instead bow to him submissively, feeling your stomach curdle at the thought of showing deference to this wretch. Jiwon does the same but lower than yours. Once you both stand upright once more and are allowed to take a seat, you stiffly sit on the edge of your chair and keep your back straight the entire time.

Jaehwi sips from his tea cup and sighs. “So. Jiwon, this is the man you’ve chosen to marry?”

His voice is coarse. His words are grating and repulsive like a fork scratching against a chalkboard in your head. His gaze is the worst. Those yellowing eyes scan your figure as if to evaluate you, as if to judge you, and you can’t help but feel sick at the thought of allowing this man to appraise you like another business opportunity. “He seems decent. Good-looking. Well-off? That I do not understand. Why marry someone without a notable background? Is it for love? You’re not making it any easier for yourself if you don’t start thinking about what’s best for you and your future.”

Jiwon makes no attempt to tell her father otherwise.

Sighing, he uses his chopsticks to pluck up a pair of chicken feet, slurping on it like you two weren’t there. Jiwon doesn’t motion to get anything, so you hold yourself back from eating as well. Besides, you lost your appetite the moment you saw his pathetic face.

“The marriage is next week, so I want to make sure everything is in order. Including your readiness,” Jaehwi raises, gesturing to Jiwon with his chopsticks. “Are you sure about this? I do not want to deal with the aftermath of your indecision on the day of your marriage.”

He doesn’t sound like a father ensuring his daughter wouldn’t be making a mistake. He sounds more like a syndicate leader gauging whether his biological investment has finally matured—has finally been secured.

You turn to Jiwon, only able to offer your hand in support. You aren’t completely sure yourself either—especially not after seeing this bastard’s face again. But for now, an answer to placate him will do.

But Jiwon doesn’t say a thing even in the face of such a life-changing decision.

Her father shrugs once more and continues stuffing his bowl of fried rice with more steamed fish. “If you’re not going to say anything to me, then at least enjoy the food. And the wine. Help me finish it, you two. It was very expensive.”

The food is fresh and well-cooked. It’s incredibly rich and flavorful—your opinion of Chinese cuisine has changed. But the wine is too strong for your taste. Just one sip and you know you’re going to regret drinking more than one glass of this. Unfortunately, you’re made to help finish the whole bottle along with Jiwon, who already reddens at the face with just a few sips.

By the time your dinner with Jaehwi is over, you are one dead body, one decent plan, and one responsive fiancée short. As much as you curl your fingers into the arms of your chair at the sight of Kim Jaehwi fleeing your presence still alive after weeks, months, and years of striving to get to him, the only one you can think of right now is the girl next to you.

Once the door closes behind you two, Jiwon lets out an audible gasp like she’s been holding her breath like she’s held her tongue against him this entire time. “Thank god he’s gone … I don’t think I can drink wine anymore either …”

You lean to rest your forehead against hers in an act of comfort. You’re pretty buzzed yourself, so you’re not sure why you thought physical intimacy like this is a good idea. But you roll with it. “Are you ok? You weren’t saying anything the entire time. I was worried.”

Jiwon nods, rubbing her temple against yours. “That’s just … that’s just how I am with my father. I can’t say anything against him … to him … He just does what he wants to anyway.”

“Don’t think about him” you say. Whether thats to Jiwon or to yourself, you’re not entirely sure. “Let’s get you back home. You look redder than I’ve ever seen you before.”

She turns to you and giggles in an uncharacteristic manner. You chalk it up to the alcohol in your systems. “Really~? I feel … light. But also … numb? Is that a thing?”

She flicks your nose and chuckles again. “Are you going to carry me? I don’t think I can walk like this.”

As if to prove her point, Jiwon stands up and immediately loses her balance, swaying unsteadily as her hands come flying around her. You catch her by the waist and ground her before lifting her into your arms and carrying her.

She gasps and clings to your neck as you bring her down the stairs towards the car that’s been waiting for you both.

When you’re both dropped off at the estate, it’s already well past midnight. Jiwon’s humming different melodies to herself as she’s in your arms once again. It’s only when you lay her down in her bed that she calms down from her alcoholic high and turns to face you with more sincerity on her face.

Tapping the free space on the bed, she invites you to join her. You waste no time tucking yourself into bed with her again. Like you always do.

She stares up at the ceiling, and so do you. You think you might stay like this for a while until both of you fall asleep. But it’s when Jiwon asks you a question that you realize she’s not in the mood for sleep just yet.

“Can I ask you something? And I want you to be honest with me,” she starts, still talking to the ceiling. “Why are you still doing this? Why are you still … trying to get married to me?”

You shrug. “The food here’s pretty good. I get free car rides once in a while. Get to relax some and fool around. But most of all? I get to see a pretty woman each time I visit. I think that’s the real kicker to this arrangement, honestly.”

She rolls her eyes. You can tell from your peripheral. “You always call it that. An arrangement. Our predicament. Our situation. Is this all it will ever be to you?”

You never really thought of it deeper than that before.

What were you two?

Outside the upcoming marriage. Outside the awkward beginning. In between the stolen moments here and the genuine instances there. What exactly were you and Jiwon?

You don’t know at this point. You don’t fucking know at all.

“I could ask you the same thing. Why are you still tolerating me—?”

“I’m not tolerating you. I never was,” she replies sharply, turning to face you now on her side. “You’re … you’re not what I expected.”

“What exactly were you expecting from someone who’s supposed to be your future husband?”

“I … I don’t know. Someone weird? Desperate? Just … not this. Not this at all.”

You smirk, nodding at her. “I’ll take that as a compliment then. But you’re asking all the questions—let me ask you some too.”

“Sure. What do you want to know?”

“Why did you choose me?”

The question catches her off-guard as you see her staring past you in thought. “Why did you choose me that day? Your dad, Jaehwi—he had a point earlier. Why me? You could have picked someone richer or more influential to help you run this syndicate better. You could have chosen someone smarter or more capable than me to support you in the future and give you a stable life. But me? I’m … I’m just a no one. I’ve got nothing going for myself or to my name. All I can give you … all I can do for you … is this.”

You lift your hand in an arc across the air. With just that motion, you point at all the things that have been added to Jiwon’s room over the weeks that you’ve been together.

But Jiwon shakes her head in defiance to your self-deprecation. “Do you remember what I told you the last time you asked me that?”

“Sort of. Something about not being threatening enough. Something about feeling safe,” you recount, hoping it was right.

Smiling, she wiggled her way towards you and pressed her face into your chest. She waits for you to wrap an arm around her, and when you finally do, she whispers, “I chose you because you had this look in your eyes. Like you were just as lost and … broken … as I was. And it just … it just sort of clicked in my head.”

Jiwon looks up at you and asks, “Tell me … do you think broken people can ever be fixed again? Do you think … do you think we can still feel complete?”

You take a long and deep breath, let the air fill your lungs, and watch as your chest rises and falls with the exhale, before attempting to even answer that question.

“I … I used to think some of us are broken beyond repair. Some things … some people … they ruin us. Immensely. Like we’re distorted beyond recognition. Like we’re … warped beyond the point of return. And it’s not our fault. Life’s cruel like that. But lately? Lately I’ve been thinking that maybe … just maybe … we only believe we’re broken beyond repair because we can’t see the whole picture. Something or someone might walk into our lives and … remind us of who we once were. What we can still be.”

You don’t notice you’re embracing her tighter now. You can feel her struggling to catch her breath beneath you, so you loosen up a bit. But even then, she chases after your touch and nuzzles against your chest. “That was beautiful. I’ve never heard you say something almost … poetic like that.”

You chuckle, pushing away the stray strands of her hair. “Just speaking what comes to mind. Just speaking my truth.”

After sharing a few more moments together like this, Jiwon pulls away and moves towards the edge of the bed, sitting up. This scares you for a moment, and it occurs to you that you don’t like the feeling of seeing her leave like that. Instead, she takes several deep breaths before finally doing what she meant to do.

She saunters over towards the foot of her bed, kneels down, and withdraws something deep underneath the bedframe. Once she pulls out what appears to be a small wooden box, she trembles as she walks over to your side.

You sit up and join her, placing a hand on her thigh. “I … I wasn’t always like this. The me you see right now? It’s … it’s broken. It’s missing. Not that I’m lying to you or anything, but … I’ve just felt incomplete since … since my mother died.”

The weight of her words presses against your chest. “Your mom? You never talked about her.”

She nods, acknowledging it, but not without the first few tears escaping from her eyes as she recalls what she must have been keeping locked up for so long now. “My mother … my eomma, she … she was the person I loved most in the world. She used to live with me here, you know? We did everything together. She taught me everything I know—how to take care of plants, how to sing, how to … how to carry myself in front of my father. It was just … me and her. Me and her against the world. That was until … until she died.”

Jiwon opens the box on her lap and takes out a necklace that sat on top of the other trinkets inside. She holds it up towards her collarbone, and you see how it forms a matching set with the necklace still wrapped around her neck.

“This was my mother’s … We wore it together whenever w-we went out,” she pushed out between sobs. “You … You reminded me of her. She would always be the one guiding me, showing me around, taking me places … It wasn’t too often, a-and I never really paid attention, but … to me, those moments were what I treasured the most.”

Then she hunches forward and lets out a sharp whine as she takes out the remaining contents of the box. They’re pictures—pictures of a young Jiwon with her mother. Some were in full color while others still had that nostalgic paint of aged film. “These … these are all that I have left of her because … because … she died. Just … just last month.”

You feel a heavy chill drag across your spine as you stare at the woman in her photos.

“They said she was killed on the way home from the airport b-by … by an unknown attacker.”

You think back to the three bullets. The skidding car. The blood on the ground.

“She was gone for months … abroad … and I was so excited to see her come back a-a-and tell me about her trip, but … but …”

Then you think back to your final mark as they exited the vehicle, crawling, pleading, begging for mercy.

“Now … she’s dead … And I’ll never get to talk to her again …”

Like a moment frozen in time, you remember now what that woman said to you as you pressed your blade into her neck.

“Please … mer … -cy … I have a daughter … a child … let me see her again first …”

And you remember what you told her in reply.

“I had parents once too. And your godforsaken clan never gave me the chance to save them. So why should I spare you?”

Before she could even sob, your blade had already done its work.

How cruel is the world?

How cruel is fate to have made your path intertwine with Jiwon only to end up with this scathing realization? You couldn’t even think about the marriage. You couldn’t even think about comforting her in your arms. Because all you could think about right now was how wrong you had been.

How wrong you have been this entire time.

For the past eight years, you’ve been bitterly chasing after your revenge. You believed that each kill, each murder, each slaughter, was another step closer to avenge your dead parents. Did it never occur to you that these people had hopes and dreams too? That these people had families too? That these people might have also been like you—victims of the system, other cogs affixed into this bloody, relentless machine?

Did it ever occur to you that, with each life you took, you were possibly ruining another’s?

And what did you hope to gain after each kill? What did you hope to achieve after murdering every last member of the Devil Cat Clan—even Kim Jaehwi himself? Would that have made you happy?

The emptiness inside you says otherwise.

Jiwon collapses into the crook of your neck, sobbing into your shoulder, but you remove herself from you and gently push her away. She stops for a moment and glances at you. “Wh-what …?”

You shouldn’t. You know you goddamn shouldn’t. But you go against your better senses and cave towards your conscience that’s screaming blasphemies into your mind.

You should have kept quiet. You should have just let the moment pass. But you feel sick to your very core, and you can’t in good faith continue on with this—whatever this is—with Jiwon any further.

Not without telling her the truth.

“You asked about the guns … and the blade … and the weapons,” you start, staring between your feet, unable to look her in the eye anymore. “You asked me what I did outside of you … what I did in my free time … what I did for work. Jiwon, I-I … I’m a vigilante. I put justice into my own hands because the system has failed me before. I kill people for money, Jiwon … I-I-I kill people because I want my revenge. On your father. On your clan. Because they killed my parents eight years ago and left me broken like this …”

You pinch the bridge of your nose and begin to weep. “She was … just another mark to me. I didn’t care—I never cared for them. I just … wanted them gone. Wanted them all gone. Jiwon, I … I’m … I’m sorry. I’m the one who killed your mother that day.”

Silence. Nothing but silence.

Then it comes one at a time.

First came the slamming of knees to the ground. Then the shattering of a wooden box against the wall. Then hair being tugged accompanied by screams and wails of pain. Then, you hear crying. Endless, volatile, heavy crying. As Kim Jiwon comes completely undone on the floor.

You look away. But you can’t. You force yourself to look at her—at the mess you made.

At the life you ruined.

“Get … get out …”

You hold your breath and reach a hand towards her. “Jiwon, I—.”

“I said … get … OUT! GET OUT OF HERE!”

Like a ghost dragged out from your dead carcass, you float past her and through her door without a heft of weight to you. Behind you, her door slams shut as her wailing and shrieking continue to echo into the night.

Like Jiwon, you fall to your knees, slam your forehead against the floor, and continue bashing your head against the cold hard surface.

Over, and over, and over again. Not until the darkness takes you.

Not until the crying stops bleeding into your ears. Not until you have punished yourself enough.

At some point in the night, you are roused from your sleep. Whether you passed out from the fatigue or the pain, you find yourself stirred awake now and into a sit.

It was Jiwon.

You rub your eyes and blink rapidly in surprise and confusion. “Look … please, just let me—.”

She interrupts you by pushing a glass of water towards your lips. “Drink. We just had alcohol in our systems … that’s all. Nothing … nothing happened, ok? Just forget it.”

Not wanting to argue, you drink the water slowly down to the very last drop. You notice Jiwon has already drunken hers—her glass settled off to the side. As you finish your drink, you can’t help but feel an odd sense of warmth engulfing you, swallowing you, smothering you.

It’s only then that Jiwon gives you a defeated smile.

“It’s fast acting isn’t it—the poison?” she states calmly, body swaying from side to side like she’s still intoxicated. “Who knew that the kiss of death could feel this … warm?”

You start to choke and gag on instinct, feeling your veins start to swell and your lungs start to burn. “What … what did you do to me? What did you put in our drinks?”

But Jiwon shakes her head, not even bothering to wipe the tears from her eyes anymore. “We’re both broken … You thought we could still be fixed … You thought we could fix each other, but … all we did was break one another all the more … My family hurt yours, so you hurt mine … Let’s end this cycle of hatred right here.”

She reaches forward to caress your face one final time, and all you can see as your vision grew hazy is her scared and tired eyes looking back up at you. “Thank you for trying … but it’s ok now. This is it for us, so … just let it happen. Let it take you.”

You wait a minute. Then five. Then ten. But when you expect to die, you instead grow warmer by the moment. “What … what exactly did you mix into our drinks?”

Jiwon, who is completely flustered and beginning to sweat, replies, “I-I … I found a bottle in my father’s bathroom while you were asleep. I thought … I thought it was some kind of poison. It was labelled ‘aphrodisiac’—”

Your eyebrows twitch. “Jiwon that’s … that’s not a poison … that’s …”

You don’t even get the chance to laugh at her mistake. The warmth and the pressure that’s been building up from the aphrodisiac now spread downwards and made your nether region throb with need. “That’s for arousal …”

Jiwon eyes your growing need that’s straining within your pants. She can feel that growing need inside her too—you can tell from the way her breaths grow more ragged and intermittent. “I-I … I didn’t know … God, I-I-I can’t even kill myself properly … I’m such a failure …”

But her tone spoke nothing of regret. Her eyes indicate nothing of remorse. Instead, her quivering lips, and the way her tongue dances across them as she eyes you, spoke of another sensation altogether.

Desire.

She’s on you now, climbing your laying body on all fours. You try to push her away, but you knew better than to hurt her any further. Once she’s straddling your hips, unknowingly grinding circles against your crotch, she leans forward and whispers into your ear. “Let me just make one more mistake … please …”

And just like that, you’re both a maelstrom of lust and unbridled desire.

Her hands tear through your clothes, stripping you off your last remaining ounces of dignity. She stares at the chest and abdominals you’ve been hiding underneath your stupid jacket, traces your scars with a finger, then immediately, she’s running her hands all over them.

You can’t resist her yourself either. Hands flying towards her minidress to pluck the strings off her tight figure one by one. Once she’s sliding out of it, you peel her underwear off her like you’re plucking petals from a flower. When you’re both aligned in the right way, you waste no time turning into a mess of bouncing, licking, and thrusting as you consume one another.

Neither of you have been this hungry before. Neither of you would feel sated until you had gone the whole way.

And so you see it through. All. Night. Long.

Come the morning, you find yourselves naked on Jiwon’s mattress. Somehow, at some point in the night, you both managed to make it here. Both pillows were now on the floor along with the comforter that usually came above your bodies. She’s laying on her stomach next to you, eyes struggling to stay open.

You get one last glance of her bare form—not an inch of her left uncovered—before she screams at the top of her lungs.

Screaming that you had soiled her in her sleep.

==

“Chwe Yeonseok—.”

Bang.

“Han Yongjin—.”

Bang.

“Tang Jisu—.”

Bang.

“Lee Min-ah—.”

Bang.

“Chae Woojin—.”

Bang. Bang. Bang.

As you drop the bloody insignias on the bar counter and shove it towards Yujin, you expect the payment for hitting your marks. That’s thrice your daily usual—just like the previous days this week. But when the wads of cash arrive, you simply flit through each bill with a soulless gaze before stuffing it into your pockets.

You should have been fine.

The Devil Cat Clan kicked you out of their property as soon as Jiwon cried wolf. It was a miracle they didn’t beat you to death then and there. The proof was undeniable with how both of you were naked. The aphrodisiac turned out to be useful somehow.

Jaehwi said nothing about your alleged assault of his daughter. He let you keep your head, so you used it to keep going and going and going.

You’re back at The Requiem again. You’re taking jobs left and right. Murdering without question. Killing without doubt. Earning paycheck after paycheck. No longer worried about goons on your back—at least, goons from the Devil Cat Clan. You told Yujin no more of those marks—not for now, at least. You no longer have to contemplate an arranged marriage either. You were finally free.

But something was missing. And Yujin points this out as she offers you another glass of whiskey.

“Rough week? What the hell happened this time? Shouldn’t you be happy you made an entire month’s checkout in just a few days?” she prods, polishing a glass she just rinsed. “What’s up with you? You haven’t been yourself lately.”

“When have I ever been myself since I showed up at your place, An Yujin,” you sigh after your chug your drink, smudging the back of your hand against your dried lips. “Just let me make my money in peace.”

“But what are you doing it for?”

The question comes out of the blue, and you could have sworn you heard another voice asking you that. But when your gaze returns to Yujin, who’s now bent over the counter, she continues, “What is it even all for? I took you in here eight years ago thinking you would have sorted out your life by now if you found your purpose. But what is your purpose?”

You shrug, demanding another drink. But Yujin refuses.

“Do you know why you’re the oldest hitman here?” Yujin raises, staring at the several other lowlives gathered at The Requiem alongside you two. “That’s because everyone else who’s come before you already found their shit in life. They made peace with their inner demons. They’ve moved on. So when will you?”

Her words burn your throat more than the whiskey does.

Before you can think of a reply, you hear something on the TV. “—duled this weekend. It will be held—.”

You snatch the remote from the spectacled bloke next to you and struggle to return the channel back to the news station.

It’s a segment about Jiwon. She’s still getting married this weekend. Although, right next to her now is a picture of a familiar lion-looking fellow in a tight white suit.

“You know that guy?” Yujin asks, gesturing towards Alex. “Have you bumped into him before?”

“Could say that,” you slur, feeling the alcohol get to your head. “Met him once.”

“You’re insane. You’re absolutely insane,” she lauds, shaking her head. “That’s the son of the Golden Dragon Gang’s boss. He’s larger than you think. And now, he’s going to marry the legitimate child of the Devil Cat Clan. That smells like trouble.”

You raise a brow. “Why? Won’t that mean our marks get easier to find now that they’re merged?”

But Yujin shakes her head. “The Golden Devil Gang’s a bunch of menaces. If they merge with the Devil Cat Clan, they’ll have more goons under their control to do their dirty work. Even if the Clan’s done some terrible shit in the past, they don’t resort to violence first. But the Gang does.”

The man you stole the remote from whistles. “Bummer. Feel bad for the old man—Jaehwi? Once his daughter gets married, she’ll likely take control of the Clan. But since she’s marrying into the Gang, the Gang will likely take control on her behalf. Reshuffle staff and personnel. Relocate their bases. Might even force Jaehwi to fully retire.”

You think back to how Jiwon fits into all of this. You think of how she’ll lose the only people in her life because of this merger—because of this marriage.

You think back to her crying face. To how she punches you whenever you tease her. To the way she curls up in her sleep.

You think of all the time you spent together. Those numbered days counted against less weeks than you have fingers. You think about how you once look forward to meeting her at four in the afternoon each day—everyday. And you think about how disappointed you felt every time you had to leave.

You think of her beautiful eyes, of the scent of roses and elegance, and of her warm gentle smile.

And you watched it all vanish from view.

But then, you hear her voice in your head.

“Tell me … do you think broken people can ever be fixed again? Do you think … do you think we can ever feel complete?”

And then it hits you.

What was your life for?

That’s something you have thought a lot about now that you were alone once again. You thought it was the quiet moments when you could sleep with a comfortable mattress beneath you and a cozy blanket around you each night. You thought it was the unspoken moments when you can blast into criminals with your pistols or slice them up into bits and pieces with your hwando. You thought it was about chasing after your revenge, letting violence lead the way, until you’ve spilled every last drop of their blood against your feet, until you’ve squeezed every last ounce of your sorrow from your shallow little heart.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? You clung to this path of yours like a vice. It rid you of your misgivings, but did it fill the emptiness that remained within you?

No. It left you empty still.

So what filled your life?

It was the color. The color she brought into your world.

Through the recollections of your past, through the little moments you shared, through the warmth of her cheek, through the tightness of her fingers against yours, through the echo of her laughter in your mind, and through the tightness in your chest when you are away—Kim Jiwon has not only brought glorious technicolor into your life once more.

She’s taught you how to live again. She’s taught you how to love again.

To love each day. To love yourself. And most importantly, to love her.

So when you realize all this, and you stand up to finally tell Yujin your answer, you realize what you have to do. She has given you your life back, and now, it was time for you to give back hers. “Yujin, give me rolls of hand wraps, pepper spray, a taser, and your finest suit. I’m … I’m going to need it.”

She doesn’t even question your request. She just smiles at whatever you’ve come to realize and nods. “I thought you’d never ask. I have just the right suit for you.”

And so you do it—you go chase after your purpose.

You chase after her.

Tugging on your tightened tie, dressed from head to toe in this sleek secondhand suit Yujin lent you—which she claims was from some renowned assassin, John Something-or-Other—you beat your wrapped up fists together to bolster yourself before you crossed the road and head towards La Luce Wedding Hall at Myeongdeong.

The entrance is crawling with goons from both the Devil Cat Clan and the Golden Dragon Gang alike. But you don’t care. You’re not here for them. You’re not here for any of them at all. You’re only here for one person and one person alone.

Kim Jiwon.

No bullets. No lethal weapons. Just carrying enough with you to get past some trouble.

You take a deep breath, put the crow mask back on, and charge right in.

Of course you’re stopped before you even get to the front steps.

The Clan henchmen are the first to recognize you. They wouldn’t miss your mask even with their eyes closed. They chase after you, pin you down, and start beating you up, eager to grab a piece of you as they threaten to rip you apart.

But you resist. You break free from their grasp and start sacking them in their pathetic faces. Throwing punches left and right with your wrapped up fists. Knocking them out cold but not dead.

This strategy of yours quickly falls apart the moment the Gang goons join in to stop you. So you whip out your pepper spray and taser and go ham on them. Leaving behind an ocean of tearing and paralyzed fully-grown men in your wake.

By the time you pushed into the lobby, you were out of spray and charges, so the moment the goons with blades and brass knuckles lounging around on standby spot your intrusion, you begin to panic.

Well, shit. This could get bloody. Now you’re starting to wish you had your pistols with you.

Boom.

Like a stampede that cascades past your vision, you see a hulking figure tackle all of them out of the way, clearing your path forward. This same burly figure sacks some of the Gang goons and grapples some of the resistant Clan thugs who are looking at him in shock.

You’re in shock yourself too when you realize who this is.

“Gorilla,” you mutter as you see the familiar bodyguard wrestle a dozen other Clan and Gang lackeys, keeping them in place. “You—.”

“Enough about me! I won’t ask for your goddamn I.D. again,” he quips even while his face is being beaten in. “You came. So do what you have to do. Go to her!”

You nod and waste no time taking advantage of this opportunity.

You check each and every function room just to make sure, but after crashing more than a handful of parties and celebrations with a roundhouse kick to the door each time, you’re certain that the wedding you’re looking for was down the corridor—at the grand hall.

You should have known from the way the guards stationed outside of the hall were holding guns this time.

One of them presses a finger into his earpiece and receives some sort of missive. When he sees you, he beckons to his comrades and they take aim towards you.

Well, shit. This isn’t good.

But just before your life could flash before your eyes, a circular object imposes itself before you, interposing between you and certain death.

“Young master, so you really did return,” Areum grunts, smiling down at you as she holds up her tray like she’s Captain fucking America, deflecting their bullets and holding them at bay. “Lady Jiwon is just up ahead. The ceremony is already under way but you still have time. Don’t waste it!”

When the rain of bullets stops and the men begin to reload, you give Areum a solid nod before darting towards them.

They try to reach for you with their empty weapons, trying to tackle you, trying to pin you down or smack you with their guns, but you’re too fast for them. You’re zigzagging through the traffic until you manage to burst through the doors of the grand hall.

You’re a mess.

Your mask is askew on your face. Your bandages are bloody and tattered. Your suit is anything but straightened. But here you were. You finally made it.

And immediately knives are being thrown your way.

You duck behind guests, shamelessly using them as meat shields, but they’re smart and immediately flee your vicinity. You curse under your breath as you have to kick over tables and chairs to protect yourself from the mixture of blades and bullets. You’re left wondering if this was the end of the line. If this is as far as you’ll get.

It isn’t until you see a princess in a lilac dress duck next to you behind your table that you see a spark of hope. “Hyunseo?”

“You promised to take care of my sister, didn’t you?” she recalls, loading up the gun she’s holding before shoving it towards you. “Then prove it. Don’t let that bloody Golden Dragon Gang’s son take my unnie away. Aim for the ones in white!”

You nod, and when you hear the clicks and clacks of reloading guns, you grab the opportunity to get back up and start firing at them one by one.

Bang. Between the shoulder and clavicle.

Bang. Right to the solar plexus.

Bang. Against the ankle.

You fired your gun only at the members of the Golden Dragon Gang who were dressed in white—and you didn’t shoot to kill. The moment the Devil Cat Clan noticed this, they ceased their assault towards you and watched as you cleaned up the last of the Gang men with weapons, rendering them all immobile.

And now, it was finally time.

Unaware of where the ceremony’s already at, you come bursting onto the aisle and lean forward on your knees to catch your breath. When you glance back up, you see Jiwon holding hands with Alex the Lion, wearing the most beautiful pure-white dress you have ever seen, her veil already pulled back to reveal her face.

You came just in time to stop the kiss.

Guests on either side of the aisle stand up in a mix of awe, surprise, and condemnation. Some try to boo you away from getting any further. Others murmur and gasp at your insolence for intruding. But you don’t worry about them. They’re either potbellied pigs who have fattened themselves up from crime money or senile veterans who showed up just for the ceremony of it all. They weren’t capable of harming you at all.

Towards the front, you see Kim Jaehwi standing now, watching you, not interfering whatsoever. You see Alex the Lion staring you down like a predator would another who dared to interrupt his hunt. Then, you see Jiwon glancing at you with those eyes that you’ve seen before—the look she has on her when she’s asking you to buy something or to get her something or to take her somewhere.

This is it. Everything has lead to this moment.

You undo your bandages and reveal your swelling fists. You take your hwando blade from behind your back and unsheathe it, making the blade shine underneath the yellow hall light. Tossing the casing aside, you do the unthinkable before the crowd.

You kneel before Kim Jaehwi—your sworn goddamn enemy—press your forehead between his polished shoes, and offer up your own weapon towards him.

“What is the meaning of this? What the fuck are you doing in MY WEDDING?” Alex growled from the altar, threatening you with nothing but words. “If you want to make a fool out of yourself, do it else—.”

“Ceremonial eviction.”

With those two words alone, you command the entire room in an instant as the grand hall falls silent to listen to you. “Ceremonial eviction. I read about it—about your Clan. When someone decides to quit without any good reason or is forced to leave due to misconduct, you perform a ceremonial eviction. You cut off a finger. Or a toe. Sometimes you even cut off an ear if it’s that bad. To make up for their insolence. To leave a mark on their bodies—a mark they can never forget.”

You raise your blade up higher. “I’ve used this weapon to kill hundreds … thousands of your Clan. I used this same weapon to … to kill your main wife, So Gowon. So I offer it to you, Kim Jaehwi. Use it to end my life, but just … just promise me that in exchange for doing so—for getting rid of the largest thorn in your side—you set her free. You let Jiwon go and allow her to live a proper life outside of this syndicate bullshit. That’s all I ask.”

You can’t see Jaehwi properly, but you don’t need to to envision the face he makes as he picks up your hwando. “You have the guts to murder my men, my people, and even my own wife … you even pretended to be interested in my daughter, then assault her, and then now … you have the gall to come waltzing back in here begging for her freedom? You sure make a lot of demands for a pathetic little wretch.”

With a deep breath, Jaehwi wastes no time. “Die. Die knowing your sacrifice will mean nothing in the end.”

Slink.

When you expect the blade to sink and tear through the skin of your neck, you instead feel the tickle of cloth and lace against your cheek along with the smell of roses.

You glance up and see Jiwon kneeling in front of you, interposing between you and her father—arms stretching out to the side, face drowning in tears, trembling in body but unwavering in spirit. “Stop, father … please don’t hurt him … If you want to let your frustrations out on someone, then … then let it be me. But not him. Not him. He’s already gone through so much in his life … more than I could ever hope to bear alone. He just … he just wanted to get revenge on the people who hurt him … on us … like you want revenge on the person who killed eomma … on him … Let me—let me take his punishment instead …”

Jaehwi spends a moment to take it all in, to take in the sight of his eldest daughter willingly throwing his life over a nobody like you instead of being wed to someone as well-off as Alex the Lion.

With a chuckle, he stabs the blade into the wooden pew and crashes back onto it. “Who the fuck are you, huh? Who the fuck are you to my daughter that she comes bursting out of her shell to confront me just for you? You … you’re one lucky man—having such a fine young woman stand up for you so boldly like this,” he says, turning to his daughter now. “And you—I asked you once before, and I’ll ask you again: are you sure about this man?”

Jiwon helps you up to your feet and holds your wrists tightly. She doesn’t look anywhere else but right into your eyes as she asks you, “Did you … did you mean what you said to me that night? After we got drunk and got home? You said … you said broken people like us could still be fixed—could still feel whole—with other people. In other people. Because … because, god—I’ve had this hole inside of me ever since I could remember. Even before my mother. Even before her death … So please, tell me, did you mean it? Do you really mean it? Because … because you’ve managed to fill this aching hole of mine bit by bit ever since I met you, and now, I don’t know what else to fill it with—who else to fill it with—other than you.”

You take a step forward, and then another, and then a final one before you press your forehead against Jiwon’s and nuzzle into her. “Kim Jiwon, I meant every single word I said to you that night because you do the same for me. You made me … think of a future. You made me look forward to waking up again. And … you helped me find a purpose. Even if it meant just protecting you. Even if it just meant being with you and keeping you safe. Even if it just meant making a beautiful woman like you happy for the rest of her days. It brought me joy—a joy so overwhelming it’s filled more than just the hole in my heart.”

“Kim Jiwon, you gave me my life back … and I can’t thank you enough for it. With you, I feel complete. I feel whole. I feel … like me again. So please … let me help give you your life back too.”

Jaehwi seems satisfied with this. He takes out his pistol from his pocket and aims at Alex. “Get out of there, boy. This wedding’s continuing, but not with you.”

Flabbergasted, he strokes his mane back in place and glares at the old man. “Oh no, that isn’t happening, Jaehwi. My father and I struck a deal with you—.”

Bang. Jaehwi shoots him right in the knee, sending him crumpling forward and howling in pain. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about that now. Someone get him off the bloody altar.”

In mere moments, a mix of Clan and Gang thugs help escort Alex off the altar and into the front pews to lay him down and stop his knee from bleeding out.

Jaehwi turns to the both of you now, smiling. “Go, sweetheart. Get married to him like you were supposed to. And, son—don’t fuck it up this time.”

So you hold Jiwon’s hand, and she holds yours. You walk her down what little stretch of aisle is left until the altar. You both giggle when you realize that’s what father’s do with their daughters—not what future husbands do for their future wives.

You pull her veil down, only to pull it back up. When your eyes meet again for the first time in what feels like ages, you can’t help but get lost in them. The priest, who is absolutely still in shock over everything that just happened, asks you. “Do you accept this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

You think back to the time you two danced slowly, holding each other, masks off, just staring genuinely into each other’s eyes.

“Yes. I-I mean, I do. I do.”

As Jiwon chuckles, she gets asked the same thing. “And do you, in turn, accept this man to be your lawfully wedded husband from this day forward, to have and to hold, in good times and bad, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health; will you love, honor, and cherish him for as long as you both shall live?”

“Even if I have to die all over again and be reborn the next day, even if I have to find him through different biomes and different versions of reality—I will find him. And I will love him. I do. I really do.”

“Hey, wait, did you just make a Minecraft—.”

Before the priest can tell you to kiss the bride, your bride kisses you first. She drags you in with a need that’s more than passion or lust, and you respond in kind by pressing her lips against hers and holding her oh-so-close.

And as the organ begins to play the song of victory, and as the guests gathered here today cheer nonetheless for a successful wedding—some way, somehow—you dip Jiwon forward as you continue to kiss each other. Only when you break away to chuckle and nuzzle your noses together does that thought ever come to you.

“After all that’s happened to me, after all that we’ve been through, I still … can not believe that this is happening right now. This is absolutely unreal.”

Jiwon chuckles into your lips as she steals another kiss from you. “You know, we’re supposed to have our first kiss before we have sex for the first time. You got the order all wrong.”

You just shake your head against the teasing girl. “You’re unreal.”

But Jiwon shakes her head in reply as well. “No—we’re real now, my love.”

And you couldn’t have asked for more.