She was his target.

He had gotten a picture of her, of her bright red hair and her brighter smile, and on it was Luhan’s messy scrawl: “Tiffany Hwang; age uncertain, background uncertain, likes her coffee with two pumps of caramel and extra whipped cream. 50 million for her death.”

It was a strange description, but Jongin didn’t question it.

His liaison was Oh Sehun, a young man with chiselled features, and a handsome face. Sehun introduced him as a “childhood friend”, and Jongin flashed Tiffany a winning smile. Her smile back looked genuinely happy, a smile he had not seen in quite some time.

It was all so easy.

Casual chats grew into a trusting relationship within weeks.

It only took another week for it to become a romantic relationship. He wouldn’t forget the way her face lit up when he showed up with roses, reciting the lines he had said again and again for each of his targets.

It was all too easy.

Sometimes, they talked. Most of the times, they sat by the sea quietly; Tiffany looking up at the moon, Jongin into the distance. She would admire the hallowed beauty of the moon, and he would try to find something in the faraway skies.

Sometimes he would come here alone, and she would always be there, ivory legs swinging just above the water, never touching it. He would watch from her from afar, and then leave.

She only wanted solitude, anyways.

"rip my pretty red heart in two.

I was young when I killed you.

At twenty I tried to die

And get back, back to you."

Tiffany had once been a girl of dreams, of fairytales and happily ever afters, even before she was human, as one of the inhabitants of the sea.

But Tiffany was long past her childish belief in dreams of a happy ending, of the shore, of the wonders of the land.

She remembered looking at the land from the sea, admiring how beautiful it was.

She remembered admiring the handsome prince from the depths, oh, how she wanted to be able to join them!

She remembered trading herself for legs, eagerly agreeing to whatever the witch wanted from her.

She remembered falling in love with the prince, even though she knew it would only be for three days.

She remembered killing him, her reluctant hands gripping a silver knife. The sun had been rising, and she brought the weapon down with her eyes shut.

She admired Jongin, because she thought maybe he could understand her, her and her selfishness. (She had so desperately wanted to be human!)

Maybe she had put too much faith into a possibility.

“Is it the sea you hear in me?

Its dissatisfactions?

Or is it the voice of nothing,

of nobody,

that was your madness?"

Out of all his jobs, Jongin remembered his first the clearest.

His target was a delicate little girl in his English class, the daughter of an influential politician. Luhan instructed him on getting her, and then dating her, and then killing her. Jongin remembers how hesitant he was, as Luhan ran through the plan, and when he looked at Luhan for confirmation, Luhan’s eyes were dead pools of tar, devoid of any emotion.
He was smiling though, and had Jongin not been so close to him, Jongin might have thought Luhan actually was happy. Actually could feel emotion.

When Jongin pressed the gun against her abdomen, they had been kissing, and the girl had tried to back up, eyes comically wide. She stuttered a few words, and then just whispered, "I thought you were different, I thought you loved me."

Jongin looked her right in the eye, and then squeezed the trigger.

It was funny, because he thought he loved her too.

“Out of the sea

I rise with my red hair”

The gun strapped to his chest felt heavy, and loaded.

Had it been a year ago, he might have felt something for the girl with the bright red hair.

But now he felt that fully loading the gun would be a waste.

It was too late when he realized that she was already next to him.

Her smile was still pretty as she held the cold gun to his head. Her eyes were still “smiling”, as he had so foolishly said, but he never noticed the dullness her pretty eyes had contained.

She was still stunningly pretty, he remarked, even so.

“Look at me,” she raised his chin up, and she was smiling, her lips a vivid red, her hair an even more vivid red.

He didn’t dare look at the gun.

​Dare he say that her smile looked a little sad?

Her smile widened, and Jongin squeezed his eyes shut.

Maybe eventually she would look back and think that none of it was worth it.

But for now, she wanted to be human.

And to be human was to be selfish.

Jongin took a deep breath in and ——

“Dying is an art.

Like everything else,

I do it exceptionally well.”

Quotes are from Ariel by Silvia Plath.