Human nature is evil, and goodness is caused by intentional activity.

Xun Kuang
 

PRESENT DAY

The big wooden door was slightly open, letting in only a hint of a light. The room was not dark though as there were no curtains covering the windows, letting the moonlight peak inside and reach close to one of the desks. It was an office and quite a busy one judging by the amounts of papers and files and folders and cabinets that surrounded the room, filling wall by wall, table by table. It was just enough light for one person, standing in front of the desk that was situated right in front of the windows.

Standing up, in the dark, a black-haired man dressed in a suit and a cosy black coat above, a briefcase in his left hand, kept his right hand over the keyboard of an opened laptop, pondering. It only took one tap. He just had to tap the delete button and everything would go away. He would officially sell his soul but get closer to achieving a position where he could actually make a difference.

He took a deep breath and then let out a sigh. He had made his decision a long time ago, perhaps from the very moment he no longer saw things as black and white and began experiencing with the greys. One tap and then he closed the laptop, walking slowly towards the front door, exiting. He stopped once more outside, eyes wondering towards the side, slowly reading with his mind the letters that felt so raw, so confusing and yet so calming all at the same time.

Prosecutor Cho Kyuhyun.

Was he still a prosecutor or was he playing with the law as he wished? Did he have a real justification behind his actions or did one thing lead to another and now was simply too late to back down? It didn’t matter. The moment he decided to bend the law, no, disregard the law and fix things in another way, that was the very moment he stopped letting the law follow its course. That day, that determination, was the very thing that made him no different then those he so hated when he was younger.

Did he regret it? No. Had he not done what he did back then, he would have seen more suffering, he would have seen more hatred, he would have had no peaceful night and no reason not to quit his job or let the grieving parents hit and stone him if they so wished. It had been for the better. It was still for the better. He could control it. Surely. He didn’t have to turn corrupt. He simply had to find now another way to make justice prevail while also keeping his part of the bargain. He promised. His life was at stake. Her life was a stake.

And then he would bend the law some more. Just like he did then.

A few months back

It must be a bad dream, surely. Someone was either pulling a prank on him or he was part of a hidden camera or everything he had learned and knows so far was utter and complete bull. There had to be something more to it otherwise no sane judge would have completely dismissed the evidence, to the point he could not even reference to it.  Right in front of him, a serial and killer was not trying very hard to hide the smirk on his face as another piece of evidence, tying him to the disappearance of victim nr. 5 was being flushed down the drain.

Of course. How stupid of him. The was not a . He was an alleged and murderer, packed with money and connections who was probably using his money and acquaintances to make fun of the law. Even the entire courtroom’s muttering and complete disagreement with the court ruling wasn’t doing anything to the residing judges.

He wanted to find a hole and sink himself in it, drop a ton of sand and rubbish and rocks over it so that he could never come back to the surface again. Fine, he would admit some of it was very circumstantial and was only indirectly connecting the murderer to the victims, but he had won past cases with just as much so why wasn’t it happening now? The damn money that son of a had, that was why.

Still, he was a prosecutor for the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office. As a public prosecutor he had an image, reputation or at least dignity he had to save so instead of letting the weight of his body take over and make him fall down in despair, he heard the ruling, wrote down the next hearing date and then began packing his briefcase. He watched as the man he so wanted locked behind bars was standing up, moving away with his lawyer, looking not only happy but completely dismissive and arrogant, smirking at what he surely thought was a dumb prosecutor.

“Let him be.” His colleague and friend stepped in right before the prosecutor could blow a fuse and raise his hand.

“There has to be something I am missing and that can put him away, Hyukjae.” The other replied.

“Look…Cho Pro….” His friend grinned only for the sake of making the mood lighter. “At this point it seems like only divine retribution might make that scumbag feel anything.”

They both stopped close to the door to the courtroom and looked at the sea of people going in and out. Some lawyers, some prosecutors, a few court workers and the people. The mass that came just because they came, because they found something that resonated within them with the cases that were being discussed in the courtroom. Those that stood out the most were the parents of all those that had been announced on TV to have been found dead and ually abused. Those who had to listen to all sorts of crazy things the media had to say about the deceased women from the way they were found, to the injuries to even more grotesque suppositions.

In all fairness, it wasn’t because of them that he was so insistent and so urgent in putting the killer behind the bars. It was because of what that evil person told him  few times back, while laughing in his face.

“You were told not to indict and yet…” the one previously called Hyukjae spoke again, brushing his hand through his dark black hair before pretending to arrange his not-crooked tie. “Admit it, you let him get to you.” He turned and looked at the other.

“So only divine retribution? If he gets away with this, he can’t be judged for the same murders again unless some very extraordinary evidence comes to surface and we both know there isn’t any. That scumbag of his friend picked them, drugged them and brought them to him and he..”

It was peculiar for his friend, Prosecutor Lee Hyukjae, to see someone as cold hearted, no, as pragmatic as the famous Cho Kyuhyun, so invested and so desperate about a case. He knew why but it still felt off. In their line of duty, they were threatened quite often, made promises of death, acid on their faces, family killed and all that and they had to be sensible enough to know not to let it get to them and cold enough to know how to use that against the enemy.

He had been there the day Prosecutor Cho had brought in the , going through pretty trivial but mandatory interrogation. He had also been there when, just before leaving, he leaned to the side and told his friend that once he is cleared, he was going to turn Kyuhyun’s sister into his 9^th victim. He was there when his colleague played strong and just dismissed the accused, just waiting for the door the close before he could hit his head against the door and panic.

Someone as well known as Kyuhyun, top of his class, great credentials and potential, tall, handsome, shinning black hair, fit body, fashion taste and all, for the very first time, right in front of his eyes, was sweating. A true psychopath, that’s what Kyuhyun called the dirtbag and it was so true. It was clear in the eyes, in the smirk, and if he had ever doubted his friend up until that point, it was damn obvious when the son of a indirectly confessed to having made 8 victims thus far.

“Maybe I shouldn’t… but I secretly hope someone would want revenge or to be a vigilante and just kill the guy. Maybe you should too.” Hyukjae whispered, clearing his voice soon after that, puffing his chest as a means of cheering himself up since he was the next to face the judges and make his case.

“Right…” Kyuhyun mumbled, his eyes lost wondering, looking at nothing in particular as he began walking down the hallway.

A vigilante.  That was an interesting thought. If not the parents of the victims, he absolutely doubted someone else would be so invested in making justice. Perhaps the only other person invested and willing to make justice was him given how his family had been threatened and for the very first time he believed it was going to happen if the man went free. It was ridiculous, no one would just try to kill a guy accused of of murder just for the sake of justice. For money, maybe, but not for justice. For money, now that was a scary thought and he shook his head, knowing very well someone in his position should never ponder on something like that.

He stopped right before reaching the staircases outside of the courthouse. There he was again. A man that was being judged but looked as if he was playing a game. A man Kyuhyun honestly despised and secretly feared. And if his day had not reached the lowest of them all with the last piece of evidence being dismissed, what he was seeing right then was the bottom of the pit. With a stupid grin on his face, raising 9 fingers in the air, playfully hinting that the 9^th was soon to come and that he should look forward to it.

Kill for hire. Maybe it didn’t sound like such a bad idea after all.

The rush that took over him was one of a kind. Before he knew it, he had reached his office, thrown his briefcase on the seat, coat almost in the hanger, and then his hands quickly began scanning through the files that were all around him. He knew of someone. Not of someone who killed but of someone who was under the suspicion of hiring a hitman to kill his partner. Yes, those were not only drama or movie plots, it happened in real life as well.

It was crazy and a big part of him knew. Still, the adrenaline rush that was only making him more hyper and more agitated as time went, only rose sky high when he found the contact details he had been looking for.  Complete madness on his part and yet he took his coat and briefcase again and quickly ran right back out of his office, his legs doing the thinking for him and leading the way.

It was going to end him. If it got out, if anyone found out, he was finished. Still, he could pretend. He could pretend to need someone for hire just so that he could find the truth behind the murder of the TW affair and just get scolded for asking the things he was planning to ask. Right? He could lie and say he was placing a trap and who else would think otherwise? Who would doubt a prosecutor? No prosecutor in his right mind would be reaching out to a gangster pretending to be a righteous business man in an attempt to hire someone to kill that devil.

“My my… if it isn’t Cho Pro….” An unshaved, flamboyant looking man spoke loudly from behind his big desk, his entire posture pretentious.

It irked him. Pro was a shortcut to Prosecutor and it was mainly used among people of the same line of work: judges, lawyers, prosecutors and all affiliated staff. To hear someone like the man in front of him call him as if they were good friends was almost sickening but not as sickening as the thought of seeing that man walk free after the next hearing.

“Drop the act and just be straight with me. You hired someone to kill your partner, right?”

Why was he in such a rush? He couldn’t even understand why. It was as if he was someone completely different and everything that was happening, each and every step, each and every word spoken was a pull towards an inner mirror that was soon going to show him a very different Kyuhyun than the one he knew before.

“Wow…Hold on, Mr. Prosecutor. You can’t just come up to my office and….” The man got up, all aggravated and prepared to either punch the other, call his guys to remove the prosecutor or call the cops and claim harassment from the prosecutor’s office.

“This has nothing to do with your case. I need….”

Now it was real. The words wouldn’t come out of his mouth and he feared speaking them. The moment he was going to cross that boundary was the moment his true intentions, needs and desires were going to be showcased for the entire world to see and he feared no amount of pretending was going to save his . It was one thing to think that someone could be hired to murder someone, that he could hire someone to do that and a very completely different thing to say it out loud so that others may hear it.

But his eyes spoke before him. His tense body, his rapid breath and sweat forming under his black locks were more obvious, truthful and perfectly displayed the desperation that had been buried deep inside the soul and maybe even consciousness of the prosecutor. It was unreal. For Kyuhyun it felt as if he was in some sort of parallel world, him in between drugs or something. Someone high on coke or ecstasy was probably just as dizzy and as hot and yet cold as he was in that very moment.

“I….” he his lips, his mouth turning dry, gulping hard as he fought back.

He wasn’t fighting to get courage to say the words I need a killer but to find the strength to not let it out. Even with the clear picture of the grin of the , hearing in his head the threat he had made in a whispery voice, the judge declaring the evidence null, it was ridiculous and so out of character of him to actually go and seek a killer when he wanted to imprison one.

“Here.” The man in front of him spoke curtly, placing a name card on the surface of his desk. “Go there and make a phone call to his number.”

“What?” Kyuhyun asked confused, fear seeping all the way down to his bones.

“Whatever you need, this person might help. Well… if you qualify. That’s all I know and all I’ll ever say.”

Was it normal? Was it really okay for him to feel like that? it did not make sense for all of it to happen, it was ridiculous and probably never heard of. he felt somewhat like a little boy back in school being scolded for something he didn’t do, given one last chance to make things right. He also felt like a thief and he probably look like one given how quickly he took the name card and just dashed outside.

It had to be a dream otherwise why would a prosecutor be on his way to a shady place to make a shady call, not knowing what the hell he was getting himself into. He could have been fired simply because of his visit to TW office and now it turned out he was stupid enough do something that would get him in jail.

That would have been something: the prosecutor in jail and murderer out in the streets. It was against all common sense,  something that he should never do and yet he once again on his way, taking secret glances at the name card, each step making him more anxious and yet more and more convinced there was no other way of making sure no one had to suffer at the hands of such a horrible serial and killer. Even if he had to turn into a killer himself.