“Let’s meet again, one of these nights” the song blasted from Eunbi’s earphones. One of these nights, a song that played randomly on the girl’s phone. Somehow the song made the assassin calm. The shoulder-length haired girl always goes through an anxiety attack every after execution. A 32 year old criminal shot dead at an alleyway. Their latest assassination. Nothing personal, just the will of the universe, that’s what the organization says.  

“You made that one a bit too bloody, Eun. How could you even handle such sight?” Chaewon asked Eunbi as she looks at the dead body on the screen with disgust. Chaewon, a tech genius, the one in charge of their surveillance and communication equipment and hacking into systems. A member of Eunbi’s small team, the only people she trusts in the organization, in the whole world. 

“Everything’s in grayscale, remember?” Eunbi answered the girl squatting on top of the gaming chair. Black and white with shades of gray, that’s all a person who hasn’t found their soulmate or those who lost their soulmate can see, a colorless world. Soulmate, does her soulmate even deserve someone who kills people mercilessly? Eunbi’s thoughts about her soulmate always gets drowned in her self-loathe. 

Even with all the executions they’ve done, well the killing itself is mostly done by her, she still throws up every after assassination. They may be professional assassins but they still have empathy and conscience. Most of the targets were criminals, some are witnesses that needs to be silenced but these targets are still humans and they’re no god to just take those lives away.  With every death, the shadow of guilt darkens her soul. With every death, Eunbi welcomes the soulmate of the deceased back to the world of monochrome.

“Ah… my bad, I keep forgetting.” Chaewon keeps forgetting that she can’t see colors. The computer genius already forgot how the world looks in monotone. The girl have always seen colors for she and Minjoo grew up together in the orphanage along with Eunbi. 

Minjoo, Chaewon’s soulmate, the last member of their very own Three Musketeers. The timid girl specializes in close combat and goes to the field whenever needed, she’s also the one who plants hidden cameras and audio bugs in the location of their target. In Eunbi’s dull world, the two soulmates she calls family serves as her hope in life. The oxygen in her lungs that keeps her from drowning in the raging waters. 

The three wanted to quit, they wanted to live a normal life without the nightmares that are chasing them. However, in their line of work, quitting seems futile. In the organization, quitting isn’t an option. There isn’t an exit, there’s no way out. But whenever she looks at Chaewon and Minjoo, Eunbi thinks to herself that their small family of three deserve a normal and peaceful life, Eunbi wants out of the organization. 

Even with all the wealth the trio got from the organization, they still yearn for happiness and freedom. The trio earns tons of money for every mission done but that is to be expected from the aces of the organization. They finished more jobs than the veterans ever did and was done in a more polished way. So how could the organization let go of such great assets? That’s just preposterous. Any thought of freedom just seemed blurry and the future, bleak. 

Bargaining with their boss is like making a deal with the devil but Eunbi still did. Desperation lashing at Eunbi whenever she thinks about the other two not being able to have a normal life. The shivers she gets every time she gets back from an execution doesn’t help with the desire to go away to a far, far place. For a long time, the trio yearned for freedom, to break free from the chains of the organization and away from dark shadows haunting them. What Eunbi didn’t expect was for their boss to just agree.

“Okay” Eunbi didn’t know if she heard right. Okay? Just okay? Something didn’t feel right. She expected rejection and may be a punishment or even death. Something was amiss about this confrontation and it only made her anxious. Stepping foot in that room alone was something she never fancied nor seeing the ones ordering them to mercilessly murder people. The only ever good thing they got from the organization was the different combat skills they honed after years of military training. The three orphans who never got to be adopted, without any parents to support them, the organization acted as one but taught them that everything comes with a price and that they had to take lives in order to live.

“What’s the catch?” Eunbi knew there’s something more to it. She has every right to doubt, it’s the organization she’s talking to. 

“A last mission. I’ll send the file to Chaewon in a few.” Their boss answered as his finger swiped through the screen of a tablet he was holding on his left hand. 

“And then what?” It was too simple, just a tad too simple to make Eunbi more doubtful.

“And then you guys would be free, that’ll be your payment for this mission. That’s pretty much it. Just finish the mission.” The boss then dismissed her out of the room.

As she got back to their base, she told the news to the two and Chaewon confirmed it by saying that she did receive the file of their new target. The girl proceeded to do her task and research every little thing they need to know about their target. She then informed Eunbi and Minjoo details about their new target that would give them the freedom they yearned for years. A Japanese girl who goes by the name Sakura Miyawaki, their next and final target. Two weeks of observation and research done by Chaewon and Minjoo before Eunbi executes the final blow.

 As the two worked, Eunbi planned their escape from the organization, yes they would be given freedom but she doubts the organization would really let them go, for all she knows after this mission they might be planning to get rid of her along with Chaewon and Minjoo. They can never be sure when it comes to the organization given their line of work.

For the last mission, Chaewon introduced some new tech and bugging devices she made that they’d use, ones that aren’t connected to the organization. The three would flee right after the mission is done so they’re not leaving any traces behind. 

Once Minjoo was able to sneak in their target’s room and plant the bugging devices provided by Chaewon, her observation about Sakura started while Chaewon continued to search information about the girl and her relation to the organization. Just what was the reason for the girl to be targeted? Chaewon was getting frustrated. Her research was going nowhere. The girl wasn’t a criminal nor a witness to any crime so why would they want to get rid of her? Chaewon pondered as she paced around but nothing came to her mind. 

Meanwhile, Eunbi was looking for places they could go and stay at once everything was done. She was also preparing the necessities for their escape along with her equipment for the mission, a sniper rifle. 

As for Minjoo, the girl continued to observe their target as she takes note of the girl’s schedule. However, nothing in particular really resulted from Minjoo’s observations, all she hears from their target were some shouting but she figured that the girl just liked to play games.

Sometimes she can hear the girl sing or talk to her friends through the phone. All observations were relayed to Chaewon, but there wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary done by their target, just mundane tasks, nothing subliminal. It made Chaewon more frustrated, she didn’t want her hunch to be correct. 

Everything only made sense to her when she read a rather familiar name of a guy in one of Minjoo’s reports, one that Sakura mentioned in one of her phone calls. Turns out that the girl rejected the son of one of the members of the organization. Filled by embarrassment and with his pride hurt, the guy wanted to get rid of Sakura. That’s the conclusion Chaewon came up with. A petty reason. A personal revenge. They were being used. That douchebag just ordered them to take the life of an innocent civilian. Chaewon found it hard to breathe once she connected the dots, her hunch was right. 

The tech savvy brunette’s thoughts led her back in time, years ago, in a dim-litted roomwith a gun pointed on her and young Minjoo’s head. That day she saw how Eunbi pulled the trigger to end the life of a man they didn’t know. The man was tied in a chair with a cloth covering his head. To take the life of that man or to lose her only family in this world, the young Eunbi had to choose. The three of them knew that if given the chance to go back to that day,