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Woojin’s eyes were wide, body taut, the gun in his right hand still leveled at the head of his target; his target who had two holes embedded in his brain and was coolly staring at him as if Woojin did not just shoot him at point blank range a minute ago.
The plants in the greenhouse swayed from the breeze of the cold night air, the clear rays of the moonlight streaming incandescently in the background, and Woojin can’t help but think that this is another level kind of some supernatural shit going on right here, not that his profession would beg to pardon, seeing as he’s a hired professional assassin, and 85% of the action movies today includes hired professional assassins.
His target, a boy for god’s sake, probably fifteen or sixteen years old, he couldn’t guess, was still gazing at him, his dark eyes blinking twice—thrice, before the thin line of his mouth slightly twitched in what would be a poor attempt to hide an amused smile.
Woojin felt the cold rage seeping in his veins and he immediately toned it down, his expression back to neutral. He hated killing kids, to be perfectly honest, why couldn’t this damn kid with his ridiculous pink hair just go down quickly and quietly? He has to go home early today because Brunhilda—that’s his cat—will be bitching at him because he didn’t feed her lunch and now he couldn’t be on time for her dinner.
“You have an interesting mind.” His target said, voice collected and delighted, before giving him a wan smile, and Woojin’s left hand twitched in irritation, purging the action to fish out his combat knife strapped in his left thigh and slashing the boy’s throat right at the moment.
“Thanks.” Woojin replied, sliding his aim down, where the boy’s heart is supposed to be and pulling the trigger without preamble. The boy lurched from the impact of the bullet, but he remained standing on his feet, his head bowed down.
Woojin shot him three times now—his bullets are bloody expensive, and so is his service but that’s beside the point; the point is that the kid raised his head to meet his eyes again, and Woojin can’t help it, he groaned.
“ Please don’t tell me that you’re some kind of vampire and I should’ve brought a stake to kill you.” Woojin grumbled, sighing loudly in desperation.
The kid looked stunned for a moment, before he gave out a heaping laugh, so hard that he closed his eyes, his arm wrapping on his stomach and a hand wiping at the stray tears, “Wow, you’re really something else!”
“ You are too,” Woojin drawled, “What with three of my specialized poisoned bullets embedded in your person and still, you’re standing and now laughing at my expense. I deserve to be slightly distressed.”
His target was now shaking his head, trying to regain his composure, “Sorry, this is the first time I’ve met someone like you. Everybody was so dull that I expected that you’d be as boring.”
Woojin took in the appearance of the kid—he still has two bullets in his head, just above his eyebrows and it’s still gushing out blood; the bullet wound in his chest was now soaking his white flannel shirt, spreading from the pints of blood that he’s constantly losing, but his target didn’t show any signs of pain. He’s treating the damn wound like a walk in the park.
Woojin scrunched his brows in frustration, “Do I still need to shoot you, or do I end up emptying my rounds and you still won’t die?”
The kid smiled at him, waved a hand in dismissal, “No need to shoot all your expensive customized bullets at me; I’ll stay alive either way.”
Woojin heavily sighed again, dropping his aim and shoving his gun back to his shoulder holster, “Yeah okay, failed mission then. God, this is the reason why I hate secretive clients who doesn’t tell me shit about the target.”
The kid blinked, “Just like that? You’re giving up already? The other assassins weren’t so easily discouraged.”
“That’s them, I’m me. I know my limits, kid. Now go back to your house and wash those blood stains away, you look filthy.” Woojin shrugged, turning his back on the target before running, using the speed to propel himself on the tree branch and out of the glass that he quietly broke when he barged in inside the green house.
“Wait!”
Woojin held his ground from the sloping dome window that encased the green house, looking down at the target who was staring up at him, slightly gaping in what he could make out as wonder? There’s also joy, that’s new, because his victims certainly does not offer him with an expression like that.
“Your name!” The kid shouted, “Tell me your name!”
“This isn’t a modern Romeo and Juliet story, kid. And I’m an assassin, we have a secret persona code and some other shit to follow.” Woojin grunted and jumped away, plummeting to the ground and landing on his feet, vanishing into the darkness without a sliver of sound afterwards.
Woojin pinched his nose, “It’s you again.”
A woman with pitch black eyes, face framed with her long straight pitch black hair, gave him a narrow smile as she sat on Woojin’s swiveling chair with her legs crossed and fingers entwined to be placed primly on her lap. She looked like one of those smart female villains who could ruin you without you knowing about it. She probably could, Woojin guessed.
“Why, hello, am I ever pleased with such a warm welcome from you,” The woman smirked, “I can see why hwi liked you; you’re different.”
“Hwi—what now?” He asked flippantly, heading towards his coffee machine and probably pour two liters of coffee to ingest.
“Hwi. Daehwi. The boy that I asked you to assassinate last week; the one that you failed to kill.”
Woojin hummed in response, sipping his coffee soundlessly, like everything he does, because stealth is actually one of the major skills that a noob assassin has to learn to become professional. It’s a thing, “Aside from the fact that the target I apparently failed to kill is close to you, enough that he’d tell you about the assassin who failed to kill him, I really need to ask what you’re doing here, because your contract was abolished like a week ago. Go somewhere else if you want me to kill your hwi again because I’m not doing it—it’s a waste of bullets.”
“I know. I want to make another contract with you. It’s still about hwi—“
“Yeah, no. Good bye, have a nice day.”
The corner of the woman’s lips twitched, “—but it’s not about assassinating him this time. I want you to be his bodyguard.”
“Gee, it’s like I’m talking to a wall.” Woojin commented, putting his coffee down the wooden coffee table, “I’m an assassin, not a bodyguard. I do rescue missions from time to time, but that’s it. I don’t like tying myself to one client permanently. Go hit up someone else.”
The woman looked thoughtful, a spark of mischievousness flashing in her eyes, before she lowly chuckled and finally, finally got out of his beloved chair, “Alright then.” She handed him a call card.
Woojin received it with dubious enthusiasm, studying it carefully. It read:
‘Jeon Somi,
CEO of SKY Corp.
+82X-XXX-XX’
“Nope, not doing any business with you anymore.” Woojin immediately uttered his piece, but deep down knowing that it was futile.
“I will call you when my brother needs to be rescued from evil assassins.” The woman, now identified as Jeon Somi, informed him, heels clacking as she walked out of the door of Woojin’s office, “I’m sure we will be great business partners, Mr. Park.”
Woojin snorted, “Evil assassins, my ass.”
“That fucker tore off my arm!” Daehwi shrilly cried out in anger, his left hand clutching his right arm where his right hand was severed at to stop the blood flow.
Woojin found him in that state after he received one of Somi’s dreadful calls, and he could only shake his head in defeat, striding purposefully to Daehwi and grabbed his bleeding arm, pulling out a bandage to wrap it around.
Daehwi was pouting at him, his eyes straying to watch the deft movement of Woojin’s fingers, “My right hand.” He grumbled dejectedly.
“You can’t regrow it like Deadpool?” Woojin asked, noting that the kid had faint freckles splashed across his nose; it was crystal clear up close. A faint flush slowly crawled up on Daehwi’s cheeks and he looked away from watching Woojin’s hands.
“No, I can’t. It has to be there so that I can just attach it and sew it back.” Daehwi mumbled, turning his head back to Woojin again, a pleading expression on his face, “You have to get my hand back! I’m left-handed but that doesn’t mean that I can function without it!”
“I know. I killed most of the gang that kidnapped you. I’ll give chase to those who were on the run, who apparently thought it was a good idea to run away with your severed hand of all things.” Woojin snarked sarcastically, his steps silent as he exited through the window.
He climbed up to the rooftop using the steel emergency stairs, leaping five steps at a time and launched his body upward, gripping at the edge of rooftop to haul himself up. He proceeded to run through the roof, jumping the meager distance of each building away from another, slipping his hand on his leather pocket to open the phone that he stole from one of the kidnappers that he killed and using the GPS to track the rest of members of the gang.
He managed to catch up with them on some back alley maze that he memorized ages ago, free falling above them and used one of the mobs as his cushion from the fall while sticking a knife 7 inches deep along the mob’s back.
He moved swiftly, inaudibly, sidestepping here, stabbing there, slitting their throats when he managed to move under them. He located the goon who had Daehwi’s arm, saving him for last as he promptly executed the other members.
His heel hit the goon square in the chest, skidding towards the wall as if he was just a meat puppet. Woojin dug his heel hard and the goon screamed, thrashing at the intensifying pain.
“I really don’t like asking,” Woojin started, “But I could leave you alive, you know? If you want to live, you have to tell me who put you up on this.”
The goon sneered at him, spitting at him, the offending liquid hitting his leather pants. Woojin shrugged, pulled out his gun from the holster and fired at the man’s right collar bone without hesitation.
“It’s customized, the bullet is. Once it’s in your system, the poison spreads in a minute, delivering you to the painful clutch of death.”
The goon was now a shivering mess, the track of blue veins that symbolizes that the poison was working fine spreading faster than every exhale that the goon gave out, “I have an antidote. So yeah, do you wanna answer or nah?”
“G-gray gho—“ Woojin’s eyes narrowed minutely and shot the goon in the head. He crouched and took Daehwi’s hand, looking back at the goon that he promised to spare for a while before retreating back to where Daehwi was at.
He returned only to see Daehwi dozing off on a half destroyed couch. He wasn’t even trying to stop the bleeding anymore, despite the bandaged severed limb that Woojin purposely didn’t tie tight enough.
Woojin gripped his shoulder and shook him awake. Daehwi blearily blinked, left hand rubbing at his eyes and yawning wide, “You got the hand?”
“I got the hand; do you have any sewing tools with you?” Woojin asked, unwrapping the bandage that he applied earlier. Daehwi drowsily nodded, “It’s in my bag. The black one with the white stuffed bear on it.”
Woojin searched for the bag, and found it almost immediately on a bar stool. He opened it and grimaced at the empty wrappers of mars bars, because seriously? He huffed, reached out for the innermost pocket and found what he was looking for. He strode back to Daehwi and tried to attach the severed hand to his right arm, putting the extensive medical knowledge that he attained to use, sewing Daehwi’s hand from the most intricate part of the vein, until the outside flesh. The job took an hour, as he tied it close, cutting the excess thread and rewrapping the bandage around it again.
“You’re not going to ask?” Daehwi said, looking down at the dirty concrete floor like it was something interesting.
“Ask what?”
“Ask why I’m like this. What kind of freak I am. The details of the guy you’re saving? I mean you kind of shot me with three poisonous bullets—you’re not going to ask why it didn’t work?”
Woojin snorted, “Why, are you willing to tell me?”
Daehwi pursed his lips, shook his head, “No, I really don’t want to.”
“Then don’t. There’s your answer.” Woojin leaned up and stretched his muscles for a bit before regarding Daehwi again, “We have to go; I have to feed Brunhilda and report back to Jeon Somi that you just lost a hand but it’s okay now because I attached it back.”
Daehwi offered him a wry smile, “Brunhilda, that’s your cat, right?”
Woojin paused and shot Daehwi a look, “I don’t know how you found out about that and I could choke the answer from you but I won’t. You leave my cat alone.”
Daehwi burst out laughing again, just like that first time when they were in the greenhouse, and there was a sense of freeness to it, light and undiluted, it was easy to Woojin’s ears, “You only ever get serious if it’s about your cat’s health, really?”
“My cat is a gift from heaven and anyone who will be a danger to her constitution will be introduced to my very sharp knife.” Woojin mildly threatened, but there was a hint of fierce over protectiveness to his words and it didn’t go unnoticed to Daehwi.
“I won’t do anything to your cat, Woojin. Now, take me home, I want to sleep already!”
Woojin rolled his eyes. He didn’t need to be told the obvious.
“He went to camp out in the mountains with the rest of the students from his year, and he, along with three other students are still missing after the landslide.”
Woojin sighed, listening to Somi’s mechanical voice over the phone, twisting his legs and straightening it, before scratching at the itch on the back of his head. Brunhilda circled playfully at his leg, incessantly meowing for his attention. Woojin patted Brunhilda’s head before putting on his jacket and fishing out his motorbike key. He revved the engine once outside his apartment and drove off to wherever that mountain Daehwi found himself in trouble again. He’ll be a certified babysitter by the end of this. If there’s an end to this.
He slipped in the camp without anyone noticing, parking his motorbike meters away from the actual location. There were a few adults handling the panicking students, while the rest of staff were having a screaming match in an open tent, trying to push the responsibility to each other.
He memorized the geography of the mountain before he arrived at his destination. He could still faintly recognize the marks of what was there before the landslide occurred, so he trailed on the possible pathway that the students took, ears and eyes keen, taking in every movement possible. He was halfway through the track when the smell of rain invaded his lungs, and he cussed out loud, moving faster.
He really didn’t have to worry about Daehwi, but those another three students were another matter. They can’t survive what Daehwi can, and for Daehwi to surface alive while the rest of the students with him died would be too suspicious. He could tell from the urgent tone of Somi’s voice that that was what she was worried about.
He managed to find a huge tree; it wasn’t destroyed by the landslide, but it would surely be taken from its roots when a second landslide hits it, which would occur an hour and a half, from his estimate. His estimate is not completely absolute.
The huge tree’s trunk was parted in the middle, half filled with mud and land after the incident, but Woojin can hear them inside; two of them are quietly sobbing, one is distraught, and Daehwi—Daehwi is fine. He’s calm.
They must have lost their way, Woojin thought, they just stood still in case any help came, because any further actions taken by them would be vital to their well-being.
“Daehwi.” He said loudly, and clearly. He could hear multiple gasps within the trunk, there was a scrambling noise, and Daehwi’s head poked out, looking genuinely surprised to see him.
Woojin gestured with his thumb, pointing at the direction where the camp is, and said, “That way,” before heading towards the tree line to the left to watch them from the shadows.
All four students, including Daehwi, got out of the trunk, most of them confused and scared, and Daehwi lead them cheerfully, acting like he was as terrified but just trying to be strong. Woojin observed them, only for his attention to zero back again to Daehwi.
Daehwi was an anomaly. He doesn’t feel pain; he bleeds out but he doesn’t die from blood loss. There was no sign of the blue veins that his poisoned bullet could inflict when Woojin shot him three times, and during that greenhouse fiasco, after his two consecutive shots and Daehwi still standing, staring at him—there was something ancient within those eyes, something weary—tired, a lurking hopelessness. It was familiar, he didn’t know why.
Woojin closed his eyes and breathed, the rain started to hit the wet ground. He slipped out of the camp when the four of the lost students managed to get back and with Daehwi’s eyes trained to him.
He’s just the executor. He has no right to ask questions.
Within three months, Daehwi managed to get himself rescued six times, and the moment that he got a call from Somi again, he’s just so done.
“What.” He gritted out after answering Somi’s incoming call. Somi chuckled from the other line, “Don’t be so anti-social, Mr. Park. With the rate that I’m calling you, you and I could well be friends.”
“That’s too bad because I really don’t want to be friends with you. What’s Daehwi gotten into again?” Woojin put the call in loud-speak, slurping away afterwards at his cup ramen.
“Nothing. I’m just requesting a hit.”
Woojin’s brain screeched, “An assassination? Don’t tell me that I have to assassinate Daehwi again. Is it like a rule or something to kill Daehwi every few months or so?”
“No, of course not. I’m not asking you to assassinate Daehwi, again. It’s another target entirely, and you have to work with someone else to get the hit completed.”
“What,” Woojin looked at the phone, befuddled, “You don’t trust that I can do it alone?”
“No. Because the target is like Daehwi, but he poses more danger. If you weren’t able to kill Daehwi, then you won’t be able to handle that man at all. At my tower, 3 pm sharp, I will tell you all the details.”
Somi ended the call and Woojin was left staring at his phone, noodles still sticking from his mouth and he slurped it and chewed a little before gulping it.
“What the actual fuck.”
“Welcome.” Somi’s voice ricocheted on the enclosed conference room, the Seoul’s skyline a breathtaking view over the series of large e-glass windows.
There was another person in the room, a male wearing a dark suit, blonde hair slicked back. The man looked at him, puzzled, before positively beaming at him.
Woojin really felt like backing away, because the man looked like one of those nut job airheads that Woojin avoids with every inch of his life. That smile alone could have fried millions of a smart man’s brain cells, and it’s rather amazing actually, that a smile could afflict such severe mental pain.
“Stop smiling, Jihoon. You look deranged.” Somi butted in sharply, eyes upped to the intensity that it could probably shoot lasers after two minutes of being subjected to it.
The man, Jihoon, visibly deflated, “But—“
“To the enemies, Jihoon. Not to allies.” Somi pushed and Jihoon’s shoulder sagged forward, scratching his head woefully and shooting Woojin a grin, “Yeah, hi, I’m sorry for that.”
“That was an impressive weapon.” Woojin admitted, “It was very disarming.”
“I know right?!” The man jumped in excitement and Somi loudly groaned, “Sit down, Jihoon. You too, Woojin. I will discuss the details of the hit.”
“You’re an assassin too?” Woojin regarded Jihoon and Jihoon shook his head in denial, “No, I’m Somi’s butler.”
Woojin regarded Somi this time, “What the fuck.”
Somi wryly smiled at him, “He’s my butler and my family’s personal assassin, Woojin. We do dwell with Underground dealings after all. He mostly knows about the details of this hit what with him serving me 24/7, but I need to recap it for you.”
Woojin sniffed, “Thank you so much for the kindness.”
“To start off,” Somi breathed, ignoring his sarcasm-laced words, leaning forward the table, propping her arms over it and entwining her fingers to use it as a resting place for her chin, “What do you know about Daehwi?”
Woojin rolled his eyes at the dramatic pose, “His name’s Lee Daehwi, a Junior high school student who won’t die no matter the amount of incision, and most probably the same with lacerations. Can’t feel pain; regenerates but not to the point of regrowing a limb.” Woojin’s lips pursed into a thin line, “Old.”
Somi spasmed momentarily, evidently taken aback from his last answer. Jihoon shifted from his seat, body going rigid, and Woojin could see that he was entering the ‘Fight’ mode, prepared to take out Woojin if the need arises.
“W-what,” Somi winced at her stutter, clearing her throat, “What do you mean by ‘Old’?”
“Exactly what I meant. There’s something almost ancient about him.” Woojin responded neutrally, leaning back from his chair.
Somi and Jihoon shared a look, before Somi nodded, reaching a decision, “You’re right. Daehwi is old.”
Woojin raised an eyebrow, “Old, in what way old? The he’s-actually-700-years kind of old, or the he’s-being-reborn-and-he-returns-every-lifetime old?”
Somi’s hands clenched, before she forcibly tried to relax it, “The former. He’s 456 years old.”
Woojin blinked, tried to disambiguate Somi’s expression, opened his mouth and closed it, and opened it again, “… You’re serious.”
“I am.” Somi nodded, verifying in dual. “Basically, Daehwi is my great great great grandfather’s brother; my ancestor. There’s a tale of old, buried but not quite, about immortal people roaming the earth. It says that humans, once upon a time, were given the gift of immortality by the gods. This is true in any culture all over the world. It was depicted that the humans lost that gift due to their insolence and they slighted the gods due to their actions.”
Woojin’s eyebrows were now reaching new heights as he listened to Somi’s story but he nodded anyway, to confirm that he was listening.
“The gift was gone, nada, zilch.” Somi opened her palms to emphasize her point, “ But that was the common knowledge. They’re not really gone-gone. They’re still here, blending with the rest of humanity, cursing their immortality.”
“You said that the person you want to be assassinated is like Daehwi, did you mean—?”
Somi breathed out, “I do. The person that I want you to hit is someone who holds immortality like Daehwi. We really don’t know what they are; we don’t know why Daehwi did not die 400 years ago when he should have because of his weak constitution, why he’s still among the living right now. We based our theory on that mythological aspect and it was widely researched, only for the trail to go cold.
We know two other immortals—a German-descent that goes by the name of Jaegar, and Euigeon, who lives in Busan right now. They do not have any ideas what triggered their immortality either, just that they were supposed to die on that day, but they didn’t. They thought it was a second chance, but it ended up with a very long second chance.”
Woojin raised a hand, “Hold up. You want me to what? Kill an immortal? Aren’t they called immortal for a reason?”
Jihoon, who had taken to a silent approach all these time, shook his head, “True, they’re literally unkillable. But you can detain them. You were the one who said it, right? ‘They can regenerate but not to the extent that they can regrow a limb’.”
“You want me to dismember the immortal.” Woojin said flatly. Jihoon gave him a toothy smile, “You’re not alone, I count too!”
Somi snorted, “Yeah, that’s beside the point; the guy that we’re speaking of is called ’Hoesaeg Yulyeong’, and amongst the immortals that we’ve encountered, which isn’t a lot, they’re the most hostile and out of control.”
“From the way that you’re speaking, you don’t even know if it’s a male or female, or their name at all. For such a big fish, that’s such a lackage of information.”
Somi made a distressed sound on the back of her throat, “God, you don’t have to slam that to my face, I know that already. But we really need that fucker gone, he’s trying to terminate Daehwi.”
“What.”
Somi leveled Woojin with a glare, “The reason why Daehwi needs so much rescuing these days is because of that fucker. That guy, whoever he or she is, is acknowledged by most immortal as “Death” or “Hoesaeg Yulyeong”—The Gray Ghost, because he or she has a lifelong mission of putting out ‘immortals’ out of their misery. But their method is,” Somi shivered, “It’s cruel; unthinkably vicious. What they’re trying to do is subjecting the other immortals into eternal pain than granting them death.
I don’t—“ Somi’s voice broke, “I don’t want Daehwi to experience that. His life is so shitty, I can’t even—“
Woojin dipped his head, the gears of his brain turning at the information, before conceding, “What exactly do you want me to do?”
Somi’s tenseness lessened at Woojin’s assent, “Find them and take their head, just like what they do to the other immortals.” Her expression hardened, eyes flashing in vindictiveness, “If they can do it to others in cold-blood, they should be repaid with the same.
An eye for an eye. It’s time they suffer the consequence of their actions.”
“You ever met that Yulyeong?” Woojin asked, squatting in his position at the Jeon manor’s gray roof, attention partly at the man beside him, and mostly at the sea of trees. He can see the greenhouse from here, he absently noted.
“I did.” Jihoon responded, “Once, when I was little.”
That got Woojin’s full attention, “When you were little?” He repeated, prompting for Jihoon to continue.
Jihoon looked conflicted, choices seemingly battling for dominance, and the choice to blurt out the answer won, “I’m an orphan. The Jeon family raised me, so Somi and I are very close since we practically grew up together. I’m like her childhood friend slash brother slash butler.”
Woojin was impressed at the explanation.
“I knew Daehwi as Somi’s evasive older cousin who likes locking up himself in the manor’s extensive library. I get glimpses of him from time to time, but he never actively participates in any family events—he’s a recluse.
It was this one time, when I was nine and Somi was celebrating her seventh birthday that we first saw the Gray Ghost. Somi and I got away from the party because Somi was tired of socializing with relatives she did not give a fuck about, and for some reason we headed to the library.
The window was open and they were there, leaning on the window sill, strong grip wrapped around Daehwi’s throat. Every time I try to remember anything about them, a migraine hits me like a muck truck. Same with Somi too, to be honest. I don’t remember their physique or what they wore, just that the man had this blade that eerily glowed as the moonlight hits it, and it was starting to dig on Daehwi’s neck.
Somi, bless her pure and helpful heart, barreled at them with her full body, and that also caused me to do the same. We both blacked out afterwards, were forced to tell Mr. and Mrs. Jeon about what happened because Daehwi won’t speak to them, and I was told what Daehwi was.”
Woojin adjusted his footing, attentively listening to the story. After a few moments of silence, Woojin questioned what he wanted to ask since Somi told him about the immortals, “Why me?”
Jihoon smiled softly, “Daehwi took a shine on you.” He said, simply, “Somi has been looking for a bodyguard, a high caliber one that could defend Daehwi when the situation calls for it, so I pretended to be an attacker, and I easily felled them. Somi moved on to hiring hit men then, and this time I was the bodyguard who suddenly appears out of nowhere the moment they come close to Daehwi. That’s where you came in.”
“You were there.” Woojin shot him a bland look.
Jihoon sniggered, nodding his head in confirmation, “Yep, I was in the greenhouse with the both of you. I admit that I see why Daehwi would pick you, though. Out of all the assassins that Somi hired, you were the only one who grasped that no matter what you do, you won’t be able to kill Daehwi. You even walked away with your dignity intact! The others were so thick-headed, so I disposed them.”
Woojin would like to take back all the moments that he was even remotely impressed with Jihoon, “Really.”
Jihoon vigorously nodded his head, and the urge to kill him briefly swamped Woojin’s moral compass, before trying to calm himself. No need to get pissed. But Jihoon rather successfully pulled at his anger strings like a child’s play. Every. Single. Time.
“What makes you think that I could successfully do this?”
“ Daehwi’s verdict.” Jihoon said after a beat, “He firmly said that if no one could do it, you could.”
“There’s this thing called ‘misplacing your trust’. I’m a nobody; why should you trust me?”
“I don’t trust you,” Jihoon side-glanced at him before looking below again, at the courtyard of the manor, resolute, “But I trust Daehwi’s judgment. Daehwi, after all, is never ever wrong.”
Woojin could accept that, albeit dubiously.
Woojin and Jihoon took a new approach towards researching about the Gray Ghost. They patiently waited. What was strange about the whole deal was that, after they started their investigations, compiling data, hitting a few dead-ends, the Gray Ghost did not attack Daehwi at all, and for the whole two months at that.
As if the Gray Ghost knew what they were doing and was abiding their time. Somi was obviously getting impatient, and Jihoon was preparing if shit hits the fan. Woojin, meanwhile, braced himself for the upcoming storm.
It was yet another full moon. Jihoon was outside to stake out, while Woojin was with Daehwi in Daehwi’s bedroom. Woojin should really be applying as Daehwi’s personal bodyguard at this rate, since he’s not even accepting the assassination jobs from other clients anymore. Woojin scoffed at himself, not tying himself to one client, his ass. Look at him eating his words.
Daehwi had an entertained look going on, peering at him from time to time from the book he was pretending to read, delicately sitting at the edge of his bed. Woojin knew that he wasn’t really reading, though. He could always tell.
“You always could.” Daehwi said, thoughtfully, the soft thump of closing his book a pleasing sound. Woojin was leaning on the wall, next to the ajar casement window. Transparent satin curtains flowed from the slight breeze that came in, and Woojin folded his arms.
“ Somi is just scared, you know. Her mother and father are dead, and I’m the only relative that she cares about. I was like her dear older brother.” Daehwi began softly, fondness at the little girl he saw bloom over the passing years, “She told you that I’d be subjected to a fate worse than death, but that’s not entirely true.”
Woojin shut his eyes, “You really want to die.”
Daehwi looked at him straightforwardly, cold hands gripping his book tightly, “I do.”
“That’s not what you told me 400 years ago.”
Daehwi stood up, sauntered to Woojin and gently cupped Woojin’s jaw, “I’m ready, I always have been since that first time you came to me and Somi interrupted you. I want to return to you. You, who lent me a part of your soul so I could have my second chance.”
“I could leave you alone.”
“You could. But you’d be lonely again.” Daehwi’s dark eyelashes fluttered, “I want to be with you. That’s the only death that I could ask for.”
Woojin touched Daehwi’s nape feebly, rough hand turning translucent—sleek white skeletal bones replacing it, “Somi and Jihoon will be sad.”
Daehwi laughed, a bit broken but there was the usual sense of liberation in it that Woojin always liked, long long before Daehwi even died, when Daehwi was still that bedridden child of a noble, who made friends with him, even when he was just a simple peasant man working for Daehwi’s family.
“They will be, but it’s better for me to go, so that they’ll learn to be independent, and that it won’t hurt as much.”
Red blood dripped to the ground, rosy lips turning pale and the live body slowly turning limp in the circle of Woojin’s arms. “You already impacted their life too much, you know.”
“I know.” Daehwi faintly said, “Maybe because I want them to remember me.”
“That’s what you said when you were dying too, centuries ago. Look where it got you.” Daehwi knew that Woojin really meant, “Look at the extent of what I did for you to stay.”
“Such’a Drama Queen,” Daehwi mumbled, words chipping away, “that’s what y’are.”
Woojin’s lips curled into a smile, “Let’s go home, hwi.”