To say what happen next is a blur would be an understatement. It's far, far from it.

I picture my easy, smug smirk falls the moment the Damneds drop my client—who has already fainted—and advance toward me. Another thing that makes me hate the Damneds is that they're not an easy kill. Not only that they're strong (and smell like a my grandmother's perfume), they could actually harm me. The other ghosts can do that, too, but with Damneds the word harm escalate like crazy. By harm, I mean they can take my body and start living as me while I rot in Nether. And with two idiot ghosts hanging around as well, my chance to finish this fast gets even lower.

I slide my daggers out its sheaths and get up before the Damneds can reach me. I give Sora a little shove out of the door. It's going to get ugly and I doubt her 'adventure' involves getting killed. I get into my ready pose, which is just pointing my daggers at the ghosts and start taunting them. It makes them angry. It works best on Jokesters because it anger makes them even stupider. But with these two Damneds who actually have brain cells left (not sure if it's literall, but they're pretty smart), I figure taunting them means faster death.

“What about one on one? You know, a fair man to man fight,” I suggest.

The Damneds just snarl.

“Right, ghosts don’t play fair. Foolish of me,” I roll my eyes. What am I even thinking? From my peripheral view, I see the Jokesters made their way to Song Yongshim.  I pivot to get closer to the idiots. My eyes shift between them and the Damneds like Formula 1 race. I don't know why the Damneds haven't attacked. They're never this careful. I point one dagger at the Damneds and another to the Jokesters. I shake my head at the Jokesters, motioning them to get the hell away from my client. “Nuh-uh, don’t even think about it.”

The Damneds take this little diversion as a momentum to lunge at me. I dodge to the left side of the room. They move like Usain Bolt and press me against the wall. Their claws ready to tear me to shreds. I protect myself with my dagger as shield. I slice the daggers in X motion. The contact burns them, slicing their hands off, giving me a space for escape. I move to the otherside and take the time to scan their body as they whimper in pain. My eyes fall on the yellow-ish light—the Core. That's the place I have to give a good stab at, the one that would lead them straight to Death. Unless I stab them right at the Core, they’ll just keep re-forming. Just like how they have grown their hands back.

One of the their Cores is on its chest. Perhaps it died from heart attack or knifed right through the heart. However it died, the heart is my ticket to get rid of it.

I charge as they too, charge. I've got a good opening to stab its chest, but then the other Damned slam me across the room. My back collides with the white-painted wall. I groan. Ghosts and their slamming you across the room method--gets me back pain like a grandpa. The bruise from few days ago hasn't even recovered.

The Damneds is about to charge at me again, then they notice another human in the room—Sora. She has been so quiet, standing by the door as I wrestle the ghosts. I almost forget about her. “,” I curse.

The girl dumbly stares at the ghosts. She could have run to him, or out of the house, but she chooses to stare at them like an idiot. A midget and an idiot. My eyes go to the Jokesters for a brief second. They are waking Song Yongshim up. Not good. With him awake, he’d just worsen the situation.

I get on my feet, straightening my back despite the cracking sound it made. Damn, it hurts.

The Damneds are arguing—or at least it seems so. They are shoving each other away from Sora, fighting over her vessel. Oh, well. Maybe they're girls in their previous live or they decide Sora's vessel would look prettier than Song Yongshim or me. What an insult.

I take the time to sprint and hurl over them, knocking both down. I fish something from my pocket and throw it at Sora.

“The Core! Yellow light on their body, stab it!” I point at the Jokesters. I could take care of the Damneds—probably—but I need her to finish the Jokesters.

The Damneds struggle below me. I couldn’t hold them for long; they are just too strong, especially together.

“What?” Sora squeal. She stands, frozen with the switchblade in her hand. It's an emergency weapon, in case I lose my daggers in the middle of a hunt. (Has happened before, don't ask).

“Press the button on its handle and stab them!” I yelled, not knowing why since she's only two feet away from me. I get back on my feet. The Damneds do the same. I managed to slice some parts of them when I hurled over them earlier. It takes them longer to reform. They are in the process of reforming their arms and part of their head.

Not the most pretty sights. Sora screams from behind him.

“Just go, now!” I point at the Jokesters, who has gotten my client awake. As I see their Cores, I curse. I hope Sora also share the ability to see the Core.

Sora walks over the Jokestersin careful steps. The ghosts are making fun of Song Yongshim, showing their hollow form to him. My client's face is white as ebony and his eyes are opened wide. He doesn't move, but he's shaking violently. The Jokesters has their back facing Sora—they are making funny faces in front of poor Song Yongshim. An opportunity.

The Damneds take that moment to attack me. I hold on, shielding myself with my arms. They try to claw my arms off. I can feel my arms bleeding, but I stay still. I try to push them away with what's left of my energy. A piercing scream makes me turn my head for a split second, to check on Sora. She has stabbed it, the Core. The scream comes from the Jokester, who turns into smoke, vanishing along with its scream.

That gains her the other Jokester’s attention.

It spins around and hisses at her. Its Core is right on its head. When Sora—rather bravely—is about to charge, it vanishes. She turns, her eyes finally meet mine.

“Where is it?” she asks. Before I can warn her of the Jokester appearing beside her, she turns to see it. Probably because my eyes are the size of saucers. 

She blindly stabs the ghost. It doesn't do any impact.

“Stand back!” I yell from the other side of the room. I give a final push to the Damneds. It gives me few seconds to throw one of my daggers across the room. It pierces right on the Jokester’s head, through its Core. Without much howling like the previous one, it turns to smoke.

I know. I'm good that way.

When the Damneds attack me again, I only have one dagger and two scraped off arms. I snake my arm around one of the Damneds in a way that it looks like I'm hugging the Damned. Then I jab the dagger through one of the Damned’s back, right to its chest. The ghost loses its balance and staggers away from me. Starting from its Core, it melts into a pool of black liquid with sulfuric smell. The black liquid vaporizes into clouds of black smoke and vanishes.

The other Damned grips my armed hand and stares at me right in the eyes.

“Ugh, not again!” I struggle to free my hand, kicking and pushing, but the Damned doesn't move an inch. I resist its burning eyes, knowing it is on its way to my soul. One eye contact and I'd lose. I can only resist for so long because I haven't figured out its Core is. I dare to look and scan its body. There's nothing. It must be on the forehead then, like the Jokester. It probably died from a headshot. How come I didn't see it earlier?  I look at its forehead.

True enough, its Core is there, so faint like the Quiet Ones. It's not a big sinner. The brighter the Core, the worse they are. But what's a light sinner doing, being one of the Damneds? Damneds has always been the worse sinner.

My eyes locks with its ugly ones.

I have never felt so helpless before. I have always done this job cleanly, without much hassle unlike this case. But then again, I have never had to fight four ghosts all at once either; especially not with the two of them being Damneds. Damneds usually work alone. Scratch that, before this case, they always work alone.

The ghost opens its mouth, much to my displeasure, because it smells like garbage truck. It starts to breath me in.

Great, I’m going to be soulless. My body would be the Damned’s vessel.

I would curse in five different languages if only I'm not paralyzed. I could feel my soul leaving my body. From my toes, to my ankles. I try to move my hand to slice him off, to no avail.

“Hey, ugly poop!”

A switchblade bounces off its head. It is enough to distract the Damned and break the soul- process.

The Damned growls—like, really growls—and whirl to face the girl who just interrupted it. Furiously, it chargs toward Sora.

The girl has nothing to defend herself. So, naturally, she screams on top of her lungs.

I take the moment to run at the ghost and stab it through its head. Never have I prayed so hard that I got it right on its Core.

To my relief, it falls on its knees, melting just like the other Damned before vaporizing into smoke.

“They’re gone, are they?” chimes a low, petrified voice—Song Yongshim.

I sigh and collapse onto the floor with a thud. I ran my hand through my hair and wipe sweat off my face. I'm breathing hard. I feel like I've been crushed with a buldozer. I turn to my client and glare. Not my favorite client. I've never been so close to losing his body to a Damned. Nothing could be more embarrassing than this. If my father knows about this, he’d disown me.

Without breaking I contact, I say to my client, “I demand a double pay.”

After rounds and rounds of arguments, twisting words, and silent treatment, I couldn’t believe what I'm about to say it. She made a good point, that she saved my life, saved me from ultimate embarassment. She did. But back when I was busy saving my --and Song Yongshim's--I hadn't thought that the price would be this.

“Fine, I’ll call you when there’s a job.”

There, I say it.

We're sitting in a café uptown. I insisted that I need a nice cup of tea, the best I know is the one in Hongdae. It is the only café that serves tea. The drive to the crowded Hongdae was quiet. It was like both of us were trying to get over the whole thing that happened earlier.

“Really?” Sora beams, dropping her spoonful of cheesecake out of excitement.

I slide my phone across to her with distaste. “Just put your number there,” I say, almost inaudible. This kind of reality, one that I have to work with someone, someone especially like her, is not the reality I'd choose to live in my next life.

The girl takes the phone and starts typing whatever it is with a big smile on her face. She's going to hurt her cheeks if she continues to smile that way.

“Here.” She hands my phone back.

I immediately shoot a look at her. Her name is registered as ‘Sora! <3’. She smiles in triumph despite my glare, probably satisfied with her work. I roll my eyes. I'll just change it later.

"I can't work from morning 'til three. I have school. But it will be find once summer break starts, which isn't long from now," she says.

Good, I think. The least I have to see and work with her, the better.

“Sooooo," I already don't like where she's going to go with that 'so'. " Do you go to school? Or have you graduated? How old are you? Wait, how long have you been doing this—”

I cut her off with a loud ‘sshh’.

“What?” she asks; faking innocence with a cheeky smile.

“Just shut up.”

“I want to know more about my partner!”

I squint at her. “We’re far from partners.”

“We are! Look what we’ve done at that man’s house. We’re epic!”

I really wouldn’t call it epic, considering I almost lost my soul and two Damneds managed to pin me on the wall. What an embarassment. No living--or dead--would know about this except my so-called 'partner' and me.

“I don’t go to school. I’m eighteen. Been doing this gig all my life,” I answer and hope she gets the sense of finality. I don't want to hear any more of her questions.

For once, she seems to get the message. “That’s cool!”

I sip on my tea. I really am not looking forward to work with her again.

Author's Note:

CHAPTER THREE!
What do you think about this chapter? Finally, some action!
I'm sorry if it's not good. I've never really written action scenes, haha.

Hmm, who do you think would be great to be Death aka Thanatos?
KYUNGSOO or BAEKHYUN or CHANYEOL ?

Comment your pick!