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i.
hyunjin is the first person heejin can’t kill.
not that heejin is trying to kill her. hyunjin isn’t her mark. she’s got some high-end businessman to lodge a bullet in, but of course it isn’t that easy.
heejin waltzes into his max-security building thinking she’ll be back to her hotel in time for happy hour, but then she’s grappling with a gorgeous security officer and she almost loses a fight for the first time.
heejin wins, of course. but it’s a close fight. too close.
she finds and kills her target, and when she leaves through the back door, she’s stopped by a familiar face. a purple bruise is blossoming across her cheek. heejin isn’t in the mood for a fight.
she takes her back to the hotel, gives her an ice pack for the bruise, and forgets about happy hour. she briefly considers the absurdity of the situation, but then hyunjin gives her that smile that makes her legs feel weak and she throws caution to the wind.
heejin decides that they could work together, because she couldn’t kill hyunjin even if she tried. and if somewhere along the way heejin falls in love, that isn’t a problem.
(heejin tries not to tell her too much, but hyunjin figures it all out anyway. they make a good team.)
ii.
it’s part of the job to be good at attracting people. not in a romantic way, but to attract attention when necessary. vivi’s a naturally pleasant person, so this isn’t hard for her. her fluency in multiple languages also makes her the ideal assassin to send overseas.
vivi’s lived in korea before, but the “indefinite stay” part of the contract still makes her raise an eyebrow. even so, she accepts, because it pays well.
her apartment is small but cozy. they give her a piano upon request and she plays it from time to time. everything seems so stereotypically normal. inconspicuous.
she gets a part-time job at a roller skating rink and spends her days playing the piano and idly practicing her korean. it’s already impeccable, but she has to have something to do. no one questions her.
headquarters are slow to send her any errands to take care of, so she supposes she’ll be spending a while in korea. she stares at the ceiling of her apartment and wonders what she should do with her time here.
just as she’s resigned herself to the fact that she has to lay low and she’s probably going to be bored forever, the doorbell rings. when she answers it, she finds a tiny girl who looks like a middle schooler. she wants help with her math homework.
(vivi supposes that attracting unnecessary attention is also part of the job.)
it’s easy, but it’s not boring. the girl’s name is yeojin, she lives next door, and she’s a freshman in high school. despite her loud and brash nature, she’s surprisingly smart. vivi teaches her everything she knows about math, and when she runs out of math to teach, she starts teaching her how to play the piano. she’s like the younger sister vivi never had.
eventually she gets called in to do her job. the familiar excitement of the kill is still enjoyable, but she’s far more excited to get back to the apartment and teach yeojin how to play debussy’s arabesque #1.
(she asks headquarters to let her stay in korea. they say yes.)
iii.
sooyoung doesn’t need to prepare. she doesn’t bring weapons with her, even though she knows how to use them well. she prefers to take the hands-on jobs, the ones where she can wrap her fingers around her target’s neck and relish in the feeling of crushing their windpipe until they fall heavily at her feet. the ones where she has the thrill of knowing she might get caught.
so, it isn’t a surprise to her when she dumps her target's corpse into a river and turns around to see a cute redhead, eyes wide with terror and feet rooted in place. normally, sooyoung would dispose of her, but she’s feeling a little bit generous that night.
sooyoung takes her home. she’s shaking as she sits in the backseat, as she walks into sooyoung’s apartment, as she watches sooyoung wash the dried blood off her fingers. she stops shaking when sooyoung places a piping hot bowl of ramen in front of her and tells her to eat.
her name is jiwoo and sooyoung explains everything to her over her own steaming bowl of ramen. jiwoo places her empty bowl in the sink and sooyoung does the dishes.
she keeps jiwoo there for a month just to be safe. they go grocery shopping together and sooyoung spends her paycheck on cinnamon toast crunch and hot chocolate. she teaches jiwoo how to solve rubik’s cubes, and in return jiwoo teaches her how to play animal crossing. in the end, jiwoo falls in love first.
(it’s not long before sooyoung does too.)
iv.
jinsoul writes a million stories for herself.
sometimes she writes herself as the timid black-haired bookworm who shuffles through the tall library shelves with her shoulders drawn up too tight. sometimes she writes herself as the confident, slightly klutzy blonde who won’t hesitate to throw a killer right hook at any men who get too close for comfort. sometimes she writes herself as the suave player in the sharp black suit who charms and captivates, flawless diamonds sparkling on her left index finger.
jinsoul keeps the bitter taste of macallan tucked away at the back of her tongue and keeps her words sweet. her targets are always inexplicably drawn to her.
(no matter what story she’s chosen for herself, she always manages to get up close and personal for the kill.)
afterwards, she goes home and peels off her costume. in haseul’s arms she becomes her true story: she is jung jinsoul, an assassin in love with jo haseul.
jinsoul feeds the betta fish. she tells haseul about who she was and who she killed as they make fried rice and chicken soup. haseul always listens and nods, and kisses her cheek if she cries, though jinsoul's been doing that less and less lately. they go to sleep in each other's arms.
when jinsoul wakes up in the morning, she’s already forgotten who she was yesterday.
v.
jungeun is yerim’s inspiration.
yerim looks up to her like a big sister, which makes jungeun feel all the more guilty about her job. it helps that yerim knows about it, still loves her despite it, but it also makes it worse to know that yerim has chosen to love someone like her. jungeun knows she isn’t someone to look up to.
yerim joins the agency despite jungeun’s protests. she doesn’t want yerim to lose her childhood the same way she did.
(yerim grows up too fast anyway.)
their first job together, jungeun is surprised by yerim’s proficiency and skill, her startling ease as she draws her gun and pulls the trigger. she opens her mouth to tell her that she’s talented, and then stops. she settles for a quiet “good job”, pretends not to see the disappointment on yerim’s face. regret pierces into jungeun’s chest.
she is happy in this line of work. jungeun knows that. whether she understands that is a different question.
maybe i'm being too protective. maybe i'm the one who needs to grow up.
jungeun stubbornly ignores these thoughts. she knows what this kind of life entails, and she knows it isn't good for yerim.
as far as jungeun can see, yerim doesn’t lose any of her humanity. but she knows that pieces of her youth are chipping away where she can’t see.
yerim still smiles just as bright as ever.
(jungeun swallows back her regret.)
vi.
one thing they can all agree on is that hyejoo is the most dedicated.
she plans her missions so meticulously it never fails to astound them. she’s stopped referring to her plans using the alphabet and uses numbers instead because she runs out of letters.
(“why do you work so hard?” yerim had asked her once. she’d replied, “if i stop at plan z, i won’t have a 27th plan to rely on.” yerim just shook her head. she didn't ask any more questions after that.)
hyejoo's motivation for making these intricate plans is simple: she does not want to be caught. while other assassins can get lucky when they’re discovered, like heejin and sooyoung, she’d rather not be distracted by feelings for anyone. she doesn't like the vulnerability of knowing that someone could ruin her life at any moment.
most of all, hyejoo does not want to die. she harbors a chilling fear for death that motivates her every move, that drives every breath from her lungs. everything she does is for herself.
all this goes down the drain when she meets one park chaewon.
they’re in the same chemistry seminar in college and they bond over thermodynamics and kinetics. then they bond over milkshakes and fries and suddenly hyejoo finds herself reluctant to take jobs because why go travel somewhere abroad when chaewon is right here, smiling and beautiful and everything she wants?
hyejoo receives her answer when they go on the school rooftop and look at the stars together. she believes chaewon is not the kind of person who would love her despite her wrongdoings, like hyunjin and jiwoo. she believes she has to forgive herself before chaewon can.
so when her boss asks her, the agency’s finest, to kill some foreign political leader, she resigns.
it’s a shock. nobody understands why she's had the sudden change of heart.
(when sooyoung asks why, hyejoo laughs and says, "you're not the only one who gets to fall in love, sooyoung.")
the agents throw her a surprise party. hyejoo cries as they bring the cake into the room, although she already knew about it because yerim accidentally slipped up and told her. she brushes her tears away as they cheer loudly and squeeze her in tight hugs until she can barely breathe. she’ll miss them, even though she’ll still get to see them sometimes. she knows it won't be the same.
afterwards, hyejoo goes home and feels strangely empty. she begins the arduous process of forgiving herself. when she wakes up in the middle of the night sweating and shaking from her nightmares, she calls chaewon first.
eventually, hyejoo's nightmares happen less and less. chaewon doesn’t pry, but hyejoo tells her everything anyway. chaewon never sees her as any less. hyejoo is slowly learning how to see herself the same way.
hyejoo asks chaewon to be her girlfriend. she says yes.
hyejoo dedicates herself to something greater than staying alive.
(she eventually learns to forgive herself.)