Ch. 1
1. Him and Her
"I"m... a killer."
"Catch him!"
"He killed our boss!"
It was dark night street. So many men were looking for somebody. Who are they looking for?
"Hah... hah."
One man was breathing heavily and barely walking by leaning on the wall. He looked like he was injured and he was about to collapse in any moment, but then there was a big shout behind him.
"He must be near here! Everybody look for him!"
He felt his life was in great danger. He was looking for the place to hide and he chose one small alley. He was barely able to see. Everything was very blurry, but he tried hard not to collapse.
"Ugh."
But he couldn"t go that far. He slide down on the wall and vacantly stared at the dark sky.
"Meow"
He heard a cat crying near him. Is there a stray cat? It was way too quiet.
"(dog whine)"
"(crunch crunch)"
He heard animal sounds continously. Unconsciously, he looked for something on the ground and found a cardboard box. Inside the cardboard box he saw three animals.
"Dog... Cat... Bunny...?"
He couldn"t see well because his blood was covering his sights. He tried to focus to see inside the box and lightly hugged the box.
"Meow."
Abandoned creatures. Each of them are different... but if there is one thing in common, they were hurt and abandoned creatures. Although they are mere little creatures, did they miss the warmth of a person? They stood up and started to lick his face.
(drip)
Before he was able to feel the warmth, nonchalant sky gave him coldness.
"It"s...rain."
He was still frowning. Slowly he closed his eye.
(rain sound)
It doesn"t look like it"s just a shower. Soon many drops of rain started to hit the ground. Cold rain drops were cleaning him. Cold rain drops were... washing away his blood.
"Like this.. let everything wash away about me... My blood... my scars and... even my memory."
Slowly his body was getting heavier. His body was getting heavy and his mind was getting unconscious. He closed his eyes and just like that... that day just like that he was out in the rain.
"Everybody should have noticed... I am about to tell you a bad news."
There was an old man. He couldn"t tell what he was trying to say. All the people were looking at him with worried face. Finally, that man made a decision in his mind.
"From today our Sam Woo Company will be closed. Because of the economy... it became hard to keep our company in business. The envelopes we just gave out... are salary that we couldn"t give you guys for few months. I know it is not enough, but this is the best we can do."
"f.u.c.k"
She wrinkled her white envelope and cursed. She is an orphan and never received any good from this world. She hated what was happening to her. She did all kinds of part time jobs to graduate from college. It was not like she couldn"t go to 4 year college. She was not able to because of money, so she had to go 2 year college. It was hard to find a job these days; however, she found this company and spend her youth in this company for 4 years. She never had a proper date with someone because she was too busy working and now these days it just became little comfortable to live... but now the company is closing?
"Seriously, I"m out of luck."
She grabbed her bag and shoved in her wrinkled white envelope. For three months the company didn"t pay the salary. It"s only 20% of the original amount... this is the last gift from her company.
"Okay. This means I should get married. I have a boyfriend, which I started to going out. It"s okay. All the dates I couldn"t do before. This means I can do whatever I want to do. I must have been crazy. I stayed here for 4 years working like a workaholic. I was trying to get overtime, so I worked over night, and if I needed some more money, I used to go part time job in the early in the morning... haha!"
It was not a happy laughter. The present was too harsh, myself was too pitiful so the laugh just came out. She lived by herself, and there were many time like this. She told herself that she could handle it, and she took out her cell phone and called a person who she put as speed dial number 1.
"Uh? Jinhyung-ssi? Let"s meet now. I think I couldn"t really care about you, so I really really miss you."
It was all faking. Only thing that was important to her was work, and the profit of working was money. I always believed I can just date anyone. And now... I miss you? Even though it came out from my mouth, it was so... fake. I went to the place where we decided to meet. I didn"t really get to see him a lot, but we always came to this cafe and had a chat.
"His background is good. Stable job. His look is not good enough for me but who cares. Does look give food? Only thing you"ll hear is to come to the red light district. Only thing there is left for me is to get marry."
The cafe still looked the same. He was not there yet. Because I decided to get marry, I have to look s.e.xier and prettier.
Her age was perfect for marriage, 26. She went inside the restroom and fixed her make-up. She was prettier than other people. She was even thinking of going to be a prost.i.tute when it was really hard, but she thought it will only make her more miserable, so she didn"t even think about that since then. There were many men who came to her just by her look. But she didn"t have any good budget and peaceful mind, so everybody left her. She recently found a new boyfriend.
"Uh? Jinhyung-ssi when did you come?"
I smiled at him and went to the place where he was sitting. He always sits in the window side. I"m not sure if it is a habit, but I don"t have time to care about that.
"I just came."
His face expression was kind of cold. Her instinct was telling her it"s not a good sign.
"Here is your order."
Coffee came out. It must have took some time to fix the make-up. The steaming coffee was right front of him. The atmosphere was getting heavier. It felt weird, so I tried to smile.
"Where should we go? We never went to any kind of date."
"There is no need."
"Huh?"
I put down the coffee cup. I looked at him with surprised face... but his expression was nasty. I never saw that kind of expression on him.
Her hunch was slowly getting closer to correct.