She was a pain. A mere smile and we were forced to our knees; to bow to someone much younger and much more inexperienced in the field; to listen to every command from those red lips, painted with the precision of a sniper even though her dainty hands have never held a gun.

    Her smile was always wicked, rose-tinted with hints of malice and remorseless sadistic enjoyment from the God complex we forced ourselves to easily succumb to. We weren’t drawn in by her, heaven smite us before we ever let ourselves fall to such a young girl, but her father’s position gave us no choice. When you work under a huge underground boss with plenty of connections; someone who could get you killed literally any second should you turn your back- it really gave you no other choice but to listen to anything his precious princess wanted.

    And she knew it too, that . A wave of her fingers and she knew we had to come running to do whatever she required from us- which ranged from getting her a tea with just the right amount of sugar and milk, to killing a beautiful model who was talking bad about her just a few hours before. Petty revenge killings weren’t my style, it wasn’t any of our styles if we were to be honest, but she was the princess and we were the lowly henchmen her father had sent.

    She was such a pain.

“Are you going against my orders?”

    Her hands were on her hips, fingers gripping tightly onto the tight satin fabric of her navy dress, as she stared down at the leader. He was in the usual position, kneeling on the ground with his head and eyes directed to the carpeted floors of her throne room. One of his knees was up, a hand from the same side resting on his thigh, almost like a knight to a princess and I inwardly cringed, glancing at the other members that had gathered around the common display. The rest of us had our hands clasped in front of us, feet together and staring at our leader with what was supposed to he anger and disappointment, though it quickly changed to pity and annoyance.

    “No offense, miss, but-”

    “I hate when people start their sentences with that,” she gave a faint imitation of a chuckle, cold and dry, as her usual cruel smile stretched across her lips, “Did you really think I wouldn’t take offense to that? I don’t see what’s so unreasonable about my request that you would hesitate to answer. Bang Yongguk, I’m sorely disappointed in you and quite frankly, I’m sick of your antics.”

    With every word that passed, I could see his hand clenching the fur of the carpet beside him, willing himself not to have an outburst least she gets him killed. He might hate her, but he didn’t have a death wish yet. He’s be desperate if he were to rudely disobey her.

    Her eyes lifted from his position, smile stretching wider as she glanced us over. I could feel my heart pounding against my rib cage, and I took in a deep breath through my nose at her scrutiny. Her eyes were hazy, dark from the lack of reflection from the many lit fairy lights she had placed around the room. I’ve always hated this moment, the time when she looks all of us up and down like we’re pieces of meat waiting for her to name a price to our heads. It was sickening, but it was what she did with us and we couldn’t complain much without fear of a bullet being put through our heads.

    “Would any of your boys like to take the mission then, Bang Yongguk?”

    She wasn’t looking at the leader anymore, cruel smile turning into a smirk, stiletto heel kicking at his back. She continued sizing us up, eyes trailing each of our hands and watching each of our muscles tense up under her eyes. She turned back briefly to our leader when he didn’t answer, fully pushing his back down to make him kiss the ground, cheek pressing into the floors as she dug her heel into his back.

    “Well?”

    “Jung… Daehyun.”

    I could feel the strain behind his voice as he tried to power through, tensing underneath the heel of her shoe when she dug it a little deeper after his answer. She snapped her gaze to Daehyun, who was standing a bit taller and gaze a bit stronger, and nodded at his posture. She lifted her heel from our leader’s back, picking up the file in front of his head that he hasn’t raised from past experiences, and walked over to Daehyun. I saw the gulp when she strode closer, pushing the file into his chest and holding it there.

    “Read it. I’d assume you already know what to do, yes?”

    He gave a firm nod, hands unclasping themselves and holding onto the file when she walked away. We didn’t move an inch from our places, and neither did our leader raise his head to look at her as she sauntered away to where her room was. Her fingers raised the curtains that she used in place of a door, before she stopped and turned her head to us ever so slightly.

    “Remember to close the door on your way out, boys. Now shoo.”

    She disappeared behind the waves of white cloth and we all let out a breath of relief when her silhouette completely faded. Our leader stood up from his position, rubbing the area where her heel had dug into bone, while we all relaxed our backs and loosened our postures in her absence.

    “Oh, and also,” she peaked her head out from behind the curtain, and all of us stood at attention again while our leader hurriedly got to his knees to bow again. “Don’t any of you dare question my orders again. Unless you look forward to a bullet in your head.” She gave another smile, calm and happy this time, before she disappeared behind her curtain while we listened to the heels of her shoes clicking against the floors in her room.

    Our leader stood up, turning to Daehyun with a pained expression and continued rubbing his spine. Daehyun gave a pitiful smile, before looking down at the file he held in his hands. Jongup and Zelo walked over to where Yongguk was, helping him walk with a strained back like the old man they believed he was while Himchan and I walked next to Daehyun out of her throne room, looking through the contents of the file.

    Ex-male model, Han Seoncheon, who recently took a terrible tumble down from fame after a… less than pleasurable exposé from an anonymous reporter on his frequent visits to The Vixen Club, an infamous joint filled to the brim with hookers, to meet his so-called favourite stripper, Byun Jiyoung. It was an explicitly detailed article talking about how they had planned her leave- after the both of them earned enough money, they would nullify her contract and start over together. Of course, their meet-ups in the club were never without her shedding the necessary articles of clothing in the club itself, and I had no doubt he stayed for the and she stayed for the idea of leaving. A strip club was no place for a woman, even if she had nothing left.

    But another thing stood out, besides the highlighted words from the newspaper article that gave us a little more insight as to why she wanted the man dead, and that was a few pictures tucked deeply into the file- almost as if she didn’t want any of us to see them. They were of the two of them, together in romantic scenes like cozy cafes and the famous Banpo bridge with the rainbow lights reflecting off of their eyes and she was smiling with him, brighter than the artificial lights and she eyes were lit up like a Christmas tree. He had a similar expression, a smile on his face though it was obvious that the smile never reached his eyes. He always seemed to be the one holding the camera, and always had an arm around her shoulder.

    I looked at Himchan, exchanging the pictures in our hands, and sighed. The pictures he gave me were all scenes from the club, the exact booth that the Seoncheon and Jiyoung were always seated at; the bar; any possible adjacent seats that Daehyun could take if he didn’t want to stir up any trouble- even the backdoor and nearby alleyways that were all shrouded in darkness, easy for Daehyun to slip in and out from to make efficient escapes.

    There were even a few notes, hastily scribbled onto a rough piece of paper, that she had slipped in between the pictures. I took a quick glance at it, dry smile curling onto my lips at the words there, before passing the set of pictures to Daehyun at the same time as Himchan did.

    Don’t kill Byun Jiyoung. I want her alive, injured at most. If you can let her go unharmed, that would be for the best.

    It was comforting to have a breath of fresh air every now and then. The air from outside the hideout was putrid in nature, almost as if someone had taken a piss everyday outside the entrance, and I could never stand it. It was a hassle to walk from there to the nearby park, abandoned with rusty benches, but it was much better to have warm fresh air to breathe rather than the dirty air that polluted the hideout.

    It was also comforting to have a nice young lady to talk to with the fresh air. She never really talked, nor did we ever see eye to eye, quite literally with her hood always pulled up over her head. She responded with words, always bringing a notepad with her whenever we meet, and although I struggled to read her beautifully neat handwriting underneath the flickering light of the lamp beside our rusty bench, it was nice to know she could reply and that she had thoughtful and mature insights to everything we talked about. Sometimes I would catch her doodling on that notepad, writing words like ‘princess’ and ‘baby’, and I had a suspicion that she wanted me to call her that though I never acted on it. I didn’t even know who she really was.

    Not that she really knew who I was either. She knew my name, much more than I could say about her, but not much else. We don’t use each other’s names much, it was always just the two of us so we never really saw the point. If she wanted my attention, she would poke me and vice-versa.

    But it was nice talking to her. It was a ridiculous notion, that I would enjoy talking to anyone that I didn’t know much about, but she was somehow comforting when the blanket of night didn’t do much to calm my fears. Maybe my thoughts were about the next killing, or just a new case that we were assigned to, but she always helped me calm my overactive mind. I never told her what I did, neither did she ask, but that was more than enough for us. Our conversations ranged from video games to politics and while I could pick up a few hints about her background from them, it was never much. We always had small, impromptu debates that helped me calm myself down before a mission, and we would always leave with a smile and a congratulatory handshake, even if neither of us properly won due to our stubbornness and need to prove that we were in the right and the other was in the wrong.

    It was times like those that I missed, because she hasn’t been coming to the park lately and I was slowly starting to feel the solitude creep up to me this time, along with my overactive mind playing out the possible scenarios in which everything could end.