Strangely, the room around Byul sounded muffled. It was like she was underwater. The sounds she could normally hear were distant and unrecognizable. Sehun’s mouth had moved to say something again, but she couldn’t hear him. She stared at him in a daze, wondering what the boy was saying to her.

Byul?

That time, she could read Sehun’s lips. He said her name.

“Byul, are you okay?”

In a quick snap, she could suddenly hear him again. The situation that was unfolding descended upon her like a wave. The plugs were pulled from her senses as if she was abruptly awoken. Byul blinked at him. “Huh? I didn’t catch that.”

“Hitman,” Sehun repeated because the girl had mentally checked out the last time he said it. “By a personal hire and an independent contractor, I meant that I’m… a hitman.”

No response from Byul yet, but he could see that she was slowly absorbing the words this time.

“I… eliminate people for a living,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Bad people.”

It was odd because Byul knew he was somehow “taking care” of people who suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth, but hearing her theory come to life was still shocking to her core.

“Byul?”

They were sitting on her bed with their backs against the wall. “I don’t know what to say,” she said honestly.

“Do you have any questions about it?” he urged her, carefully analyzing her facial expression. At the moment she just seemed… confused. As if her brain couldn’t process all of his words fast enough.

“Remember our first date?” she asked without turning her head to look at him too. “You were gone for some time, and then you said you killed some guy in an alley. You weren’t kidding, were you?”

“I wasn’t.”

“And how you took down that man who was robbing the convenience store, that was just… You’re just skilled at that kind of thing?”

“Uh-huh.”

A part of her had known, but she still couldn't wrap her head around it. No amount of preparation could have made her ready for that. Byul remembered the blood on his clothes. She remembered Sehun coming into her apartment, all bruised and beaten with Chanyeol dragging him in. They were all from fights. Jangmi’s words were ringing clearly in her head.

I get the vibe that he knows how to get away with murder or something.

Sehun had also been hinting at her with him saying, “You don’t know what you’re saying, Byul. I’m all sorts of trouble.” Because he was the one who warned her about someone wanting her dead for money, it made more sense that he knew about it since he was in the business after all.

After a long time, Byul spoke up again. “So, how does it work?”

“What?”

“The process, I mean.”

Sehun uneasily crossed his arms together. “I get calls on my work number for a meeting. Chanyeol checks their credentials to make sure they’re the real deal. We meet with them and they tell me who to kill. We ask for a price which depends on how much work we have to do, and then the rest… Well, you know the rest. Someone dies. I get the money.”

Byul recalled the news reporting missing bodies. People seemed to simply disappear. “What do you do with them after?”

“Most of the time I bury them. Sometimes they’re cremated.”

“Wait, so when you told me you were going to bury something that one time, you were talking about a dead body?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Oh my God. I thought you were talking metaphorically or something.” Byul buried her face in her hands. She recalled feeling confused at his odd choice of words, but now it made sense. “How have the police never caught you?”

“I don’t leave any evidence. Chanyeol hacks the cameras in the area and makes them play a loop, so I’m never actually caught on film. The bullets and the guns I use are imported. No records are saying that I own the guns in case the police try to trace a bullet shell back to me. Lots of things like that. I could keep going.”

“You thought everything through, huh?” she asked rhetorically. Byul could tell Sehun was nervous by the way he had his hands folded together and how he was now staring up at the ceiling. It seemed like he was in an interrogation confessing to his crimes. “Do you ask why someone would want someone else dead?”

“Not typically. It’s none of my business.”

Byul swallowed a lump in . “What kind of people do you, uh, target?”

“Bad people. Criminals. Good-for-nothings—Whatever you want to call them. I get a lot of people in business with evil intentions. Some underground gangs. A few ex-cons. A politician once...” Sehun trailed off into silence after feeling as if continuing to list everyone he’s pushed the off button on would scare Byul. “Because I kill off scummy people, the media cares less about those types of men. They report the news and move on. They’ll be more focused on finding the murderers of innocent people. Who’ll care if another bad guy is off the streets? Nobody.”

A long silence followed. It was past her bedtime, but she knew she couldn’t sleep after that.

If he killed terrible people, did that make what he was doing a good thing? But murder was murder, wasn’t it? Byul’s brain was hurting just thinking about ethics and morals. Her theory had been correct—a vigilante. A hero with blood-stained hands who had good intentions, but had a dirty way of achieving goals.

“It’s funny,” she muttered.

“What’s funny?”

“I’ve never felt in danger around you. I’ve always felt safe.”

Sehun turned his head to look at her. “I’d never hurt you, Byul.”

I know, she wanted to say. “So there really is someone out there after me?” she asked, afraid of the answer even if the evidence was hiding in her kitchen merely a few minutes ago.

“About that…”

Sehun’s tone made her curious and anxious. She looked at him with her brows drawn together. There was something else that he has failed to mention to her—a critical piece of information. One that she hadn’t spent enough time thinking about. Byul was so focused on him that she forgot to ask what was even happening around her.

“Tell me,” she urged.

“Baekhyun, he—”

“What about him?”

“He’s the one who wants you dead.”

Again, she fell underwater. Her surroundings had dulled into a muffled silence for a moment. Though this time, she was quick to fish herself out. “Wait…” Byul’s head was hurting. It was too much information. “Baekhyun?” she hissed, glaring at the space in front of her.

“Yes.”

“Byun Baekhyun? As in my ex-boyfriend?”

Sehun nodded, not sure what to make of her slow reaction just yet. “The guy who was in here earlier works for him.”

Byul sprung up from her bed to pace her room. “What the hell?! That bastard! Who does he think he is? I can’t believe he actually wants me dead. As in not living, not breathing. Just dead.”

His eyes followed her as she marched angrily back and forth. It was like someone had lit a fire under her.

She stopped to whirl around and face Sehun. “You knew this the whole time?”

“Yes,” he confessed. “I knew from the beginning. That’s why I approached you that day.” For some reason, he thought that she would feel scared. Not like that where it looked like she was ready to step right up to Baekhyun’s face and punch the living daylights out of him herself.

“That explains why you didn’t want me to go back to my apartment after the party where I ran into him.” Byul collapsed on the bed beside him at the sudden recollection. He had looked so frustrated as he tried to convince her to stay. “All I did was yell at you for telling me what to do, but you were just… you were just trying to protect me. I’m sorry.”

Sehun shook his head. “Don’t feel bad. You didn’t know.”

“And, and… I was pretty tipsy that night, but I remember Baekhyun saying something about letting me live, but I ruined it. I don’t know. I can’t remember everything, but it explains so much.”

He frowned at the unpleasant memory of having to pick her up from a convenience store because she was lost and afraid.

“I just yelled at you again and called you jealous abou