My name is Kwon Jiyong.

My profession?

I'm a hired killer.

An assassin.

A murderer.

Call me whatever you want. At the end of the day, I'd still get paid by these people who don’t want blood touching their hands.

Those who think that hiring someone to kill somebody somehow makes it more humane.

I am a man who reeks of gunpowder.

Maybe my soul also reeks of it too.

But it wasn't always this way. I lived with a normal family and had a normal life. I used to go to school and had friends. We moved a lot but I liked it because when we travel, I see a lot of beautiful things. But like all things, the normal part of my life ended. When I was thirteen, I came home one afternoon and saw my parents get shot by men whom I don't know.

I was an instant orphan.

My father's boss took me in and he explained to me what happened. He told me that my parents were working as assassins, paid to kill someone. I always thought they were scientists and that's the main reason why we moved a lot.

I thought wrong.

Mr. X, my parents' boss, taught me the trades of assassination. His organization has no name, like the rest of us. As far as government records show, neither of us is alive. We do not exist on any of the systems. And with this business, like Mr. X has always stressed, it pays to be invisible.

At first, it disgusted me to join. The smell and thought of blood repulsed me. But visions of my parents getting shot and the feeling of them dying in my arms convinced me to let go of my inhibitions and finally join.

I trained with other kids, some older than me, some younger but we certainly have something in common—our families were killed. And all have that burning desire to avenge their deaths. Training with them, I somehow felt at home.

During training, we were not allowed to leave, nor interact with whoever living outside. They became my family and friends. My family was composed of Mr. X and our trainers as parents, and every kid in my batch were my siblings. Each has their own story. But no one talked about it.

The past is better forgotten.

Training sessions are supervised by expert assassins. We are taught on how to handle different kinds of ammo, learn every type of fighting technique present, and basically anything under the sun. Mr. X believed that extensive knowledge is needed for the type of job we have.

Each kid is classified according to their skills. I've become proficient with guns, just like my parents. A few kids were grouped with me, and jobs were given individually or with a group.

The first assignment given to us was to stop a drug syndicate by killing the gang’s leader. The one who asked for the job was a high-ranking government official. You would think that he was doing that for the betterment of the country he was placed to rule, but no, life doesn’t work that way. That certain official was the owner of another drug syndicate, and he needed help to eliminate competition.

Very understandable.

Since I attained the highest score for our evaluation, I was placed in charge of the operation. It went by smoothly. Cash was wired, and everybody was satisfied. You would have thought that I and my siblings would be consumed by guilt, but for this type of job, there is no room for that.

In our type of job, there are two emotions we cannot feel --- love and guilt. Jokingly, Mr. X said that it will just cramp our style. I believed him.

But despite the wall I’ve built around myself, I’m also human. Feeling anything, especially those two emotions, would be my Achilles’ heel, and I always dreaded the day I would actually experience those.

It was after our nth mission—I lost count after five—that Mr. X asked the organization to lie low for a few weeks or so. No questions were asked; we all know what the reason was. The police were hot on our trail.

All because of someone’s stupidity.

Merciless as we may be, we never kill civilians or anyone irrelevant to the mission given. If someone accidentally enters the scene, he would be shot on the knee. He’ll live, but that bullet would remind him not to talk. He would only get killed if he stands in the way.

That rule was basic, but someone broke it.

And now, the fishes are feasting upon him.

Even with him gone, the consequences of his actions affected the whole organization. The break given by Mr. X was the longest so far, and we hate being idle. Our lives basically revolved on our missions.

“Damn it!”

I heard Echo, one of the members in my group, scream his lungs out inside the villa Mr. X provided us. I heard a series of crashing sounds, and I chuckled as I went inside the house. I heard a few more screams, and it only meant that he’s really pissed off. I went inside his room, closed the door, and leaned against the wall.

“Echo,” He stopped screaming and stared at me, his eyes narrowed to slits. “You do know that the neighbors would be barging in if you continue screaming like that.” I looked at the several cracked iPads and a couple Macbook Pros snapped in half strewn across the floor and I smirked. I picked one iPad and said, “And although these cost nothing to us, they’re still your babies, aren’t they?”

Echo’s face immediately lost its menacing feel. He returned to his normal self again and when he did, he had the face of a cheerful Buddhist monk, way different from what he looked like moments ago. We all have that look, the innocent, charming type. The type no one would imagine a killer could have.

Echo, our whiz tech, came from a long line of assassins. I can’t remember his real name though, but I’m pretty sure he told me this once or twice. His technical skills? Perfect. Although I was considered as the best in my batch, my skills when it comes to things technical are meager compared to him. He could kill someone with just a roll of wire, and I don’t mean the type where he would strangle someone with it—that’s pathetic. He’s creative, and every killing he did had a bombastic effect, despite the fact that he never left his beloved control room. He also has the highest concentration level, meaning it takes a lot of infuriating scenes to make him angry. And with him throwing his toys, or his babies, as he would like to call it, the thing that set him off must be important.

The remaining member of our group, Cross, came in panting. “What’s going on here?” he asked. His jaw fell open when he took one look at the room and saw the broken gadgets. Cross looked at me asking for an explanation, and I simply said, “Echo had his little moment.”

Cross and I chuckled and Echo glared at us. He went to the other side of the room, sat on a revolving chair and clicked on his wireless keyboard. The plasma monitor on our left came to life and we found ourselves staring on a series of algorithms typed on lightning speed.

“Why don’t you just skip the show and tell us what this is all about?” Cross stared at the monitor, wearing a bored expression. Echo rolled his eyes, but continued to type.

I chuckled to myself as I see them fight with just their eyes. Cross and Echo never had a common interest, but the three of us, were the closest in the organization. We are best friends and have always treated each other like siblings.

Cross has a free spirit. He’d rather spend his whole life outside, living in the wild, than stay in a control booth. His specialty? Creating and using poisons. He can turn every plant into a poison, no matter how harmless it could be. And the best part of it was it always looks like an accident. Cross was also our doctor. His concoctions from his plants have been used over and over after our operations, either as medicine or a stimulant or a sedative. His skills, like the rest of ours, are indispensable.

I turned my attention to the monitor and recognized what Echo was trying to show us. “It’s the files of the detective who caught our scent, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“What took you so long to crack it?” Cross asked and Echo smiled wryly.

“I haven’t cracked the file,” Echo bitterly confessed and we stared at him in disbelief. No wonder he was so angry. He always—and I mean always—managed to get the files from our target, no matter how advanced their software were. “I managed to get information though, but his personal files…are out of question. I don’t know if he’s the one who made the encryption but if he did it himself, I bow down to him.” He clicked a series of keys and a picture was flashed on the screen.

He was the last person I expected to see. I assumed he would be an experienced but old fellow, but a young man, someone with an age like mine, was shown. Cross gave an appreciative whistle and said, “Oh, he’s young for that position. I’m impressed.”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Nichkhun Horvejkul,” informed Echo.

Interesting.

I scrutinized his face, studying its every feature.

I was looking at the face of the enemy.

Nichkhun Horvejkul…you just made my job a lot more exciting. Will you be up for the game? How long would you last?

Echo started to give us the information he gathered and I just sat there, staring at Nichkhun’s face. At that time, I had no idea that a mere detective would give me one of the emotions I was forbidden to feel.

Guilt.