Lee Joon was his name.

He was sitting at the restaurant enjoying his lunch, just one block away from Special Agent Office in Seoul. The thought of being so close to the only humans capable of ruining things for him, made him oddly excited and angry.

The waiter, a tall lanky man, set the water jug on his table.

“Is everything to your satisfaction, Sir?”

“I’ll let you know in a moment” He replied as he cut his steak in small pieces.

“No drink?”

“I have water” He smiled upon the waiter, “Water washes steak down quite nicely after so much bloodletting.”

The waiter offered a coy smile, signifying his appreciation for Joon’s choice of words to describe a cow’s being slaughtered. But Joon was speaking of Choi Min Hee, not the cow. His fourth bride wasn’t a cow, and she hadn’t been slaughtered.

She was one of God’s favourites, and she’d been drilled. And then bled.

Bless me, father, for I have sinned.

He was momentarily fascinated by the fork in his fingers. Larger than many forks. A real man’s fork. His own fingers were larger than most by as much as an inch in length. By his hands alone, one might guess him to be nearly seven feet tall. In reality, he stood only six foot four.

He twisted his wrist, caught up in the sight of flesh against metal, such a harsh surface in the embrace of soft flesh. He’d once considered his hands too large and gangly, alien appendages on the end of long bones. So he’d decided to take special care of his hands and in the process had come to truly appreciate them.

They had a unique beauty, a subject about which he knew far more than most. He’d allowed various women from Europe to give him manicures and pedicures twice a week for nearly a year now, and the results were impressive.

Joon moved his forefinger. Then he did it again, trying to trace the messages that spread across neurons in his brain at a rate of six hundred per second before being shot down his nerves to the muscles in his hand. Little bundles of energy were racing from his brain to his hand with clear, precise directions at this very moment, yet he was completely unaware of how or when his brain began or ended the cycle. How decision became instruction. How instruction became movement.

And the whole time he had been contemplating his hand and the utensil in that hand, he was in perfect tune with all else that is happening in the restaurant.

The bartender with silver earrings who had apologized after spilling beer on a customer’s hands. He offered the woman a free drink. She declined, but she despised him for his carelessness. She was a real cow who’d been convinced by inner delusional voices that her black polyester slacks were not too tight despite the fact that she had gained ten pounds in the last three months. He would say depression was her demon.

The two new customers, one with a bratty kid, who’d entered the premises since he’d picked up his fork. The husband and wife two booths over, arguing over the money spend on shopping..

The pretty waitress wearing a white halter top who smiled as she passed his table. She found him interesting. Handsome. A real gentleman, judging by his appearance and his posture.

He knew this not only by her look, but because women always commented on these admirable traits. This particular woman, was also likely attracted to his tall frame and boyish look. They said size didn’t matter, but most women had preferences when it came to size. This woman liked his lean body.

There was a single fly caught in the window to his right.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

The voice of the bratty boy, who was now seated across the room in a booth, scraped at Joon’s mind. He fought back a grimace of frustration.

The boy was upsetting the balance of peace and calmness in the room. No doubt, anyone would readily shove a sock or boot down the boy’s throat if they were not so afraid of being found out for who they really were.

He shut the boy out and focused on the line of flavors dancing around in his mouth. He began to chew with powerful of his jaw, drawing the juices into his mouth and throat. Swallowing deep.

The details of his earlier activity, which he was now celebrating by breaking his vegetarian diet, slipped through his mind. His special time with Min Hee had been satisfying in the same way all great accomplishments were rewarding. But he’d drawn no physical pleasure from the bloodletting.

Eating the steak, however… This was indeed like .

And because Joon had not known any ual gratification since that terrible night seven years earlier, he relished every other physical pleasure that reminded him that physical pleasure was indeed an immeasurable gift.

News of Min Hee’s death would soon fill the world with a single question: Who is it? Who is it? Is it my neighbor, is it the grocery clerk? Is it the high school principal?

Humans were predictable. Like animated carbon units. Cardboard cut-outs with fancy trim, far too much of it.

There was only one human who really mattered, and at the moment that was him. Everything around him was stage dressing. He was the only real player on this stage.

The audience was watching him only; the rest were only extras. It was the same for all of them, but few were courageous enough to understand or confess this single beautiful, bitter truth: Deep down inside, each of them believed they were at the centre of the universe.

But at the moment, it was him, and he was wise enough to embrace it.

God had chosen Lee Joon. Simple. unquestionable. Final.

Which brought Joon to the task set before him.

Three more bride. Ending with the most beautiful.

The boy in the booth was whining his dislike for peas. A perfectly good vegetable, but this dark-headed boy who looked to be about ten or eleven was refusing. “How about ice cream? How about lobster?” The father continued asking.

Joon cut off more meat and savored the bite. So delicious. Rarely had he drawn such pleasure from meat.

But the boy was undermining the experience.  Few things distracted Joon any longer. He’d long ago conquered his mind. A doctor had once diagnosed him with schizoaffective disorder, a condition that supposedly involved the complications of thought disorder and a bipolar mood disorder. Five years of his life had vanished in a fog of heavy medication, until he silently protested the oppression.

The condition was his greatest