Changmin’s POV

Target: Kim Kyung Tak

Background:

-Son of a well-known businessman;

-managed a few branch of the night clubs,

-trading weapons illegally

-sold cracks   ~ou, and not to mention~

-One of the heads of the black market.

Wohoo! I got myself a really nasty bastard over here. I pulled the trigger and ‘BANG!’, my Soviet SVD shot right into the middle of his head. Yup, they didn’t call me ‘Sniper’ for nothing; I’m definitely the sharpest shooter ever. I had been working for a secret organization called C.L.E.A.N., which consist of 8 members including me. My code name is C0eight, the rest were C0one, C0two …and until C0seven, well hey you get the picture…and each one of us were gifted with unique combat battle skills, varied from one another.

Our job was to exterminate people mostly criminal that can’t be punished by the laws, steal some important documents or even rescue some hostages. Once the order was given, there’s no way of running away from it or delaying the mission because we would only be given 48 hours to complete the mission. Any longer than that would be classified as failure, and eventually all that involve in that mission will be exterminated. To put things simple, we are the cleaner that clean up the mess that the government created. Do I hate my job? No I don’t, why you may ask? Well killing people is what I’m good at, and I’ve been living every day in my life knowing that my hand had been stained by blood. The hand that used to be so pure and innocent, have become the hands that cruelly take many lives away.

Enough with my little self pity, now back to the mission. As I said, my mission today is to exterminate this Kim Kyung Tak guy, which I just succeed a moment ago, so now what I have to do is to disappear from the crime scene without anyone notices. I took out my phone and dialed a number. It wasn’t long before finally someone picked up.

“Mission completed.” I reported to the HQ, it was mandatory to all the cleaners to report their mission as soon as they done with it.

“Very good C0eight, come and collect your reward money tomorrow.” I smirked; judging by the target that I just hit, the bounty won’t be little.

Didn’t want to waste much more time, quickly I packed up my darling Soviet SVD, grabbed my gun bag and head out from the apartment that I had been renting temporarily. Another reason why I never thought of quitting this job was because of the pay check, they really paid me a lot for each mission that I completed.

I made a mental reminder not to head straight home whenever I’ve done with my job. I just don’t like my privacy to be invaded, so I spend the rest of the day hanging around the malls, restaurants and even the food stands just to make sure that I wasn’t being followed. It was only almost midnight when I finally decided to head home.

As I opened the apartment door, I was greeted by my loyal and trustworthy friend, Mangdong, a Bichon Frise breed dog, my little princess. She is very well behaved, she only nagged me when she’s hungry and wanted to take a walk. As usual, I took out a can of the dog food and poured it into her bowl where she gobbled up her food. Boy, she sure looked starving, kind of remind of me when I was hungry. I sat next to her as I observed her as she ate up her food, while my hand was gently patted her fur. The silence from that room really brings me back the image from my past, haunting me back over and over again.

Flashback

It happen when I was only 6 years old. I came back home from school one day, expecting to be greeted by my parents and siblings but on the contrary, I was greeted by four bodies laying lifelessly on the floor, along with a pool of blood. The only light that lighted up the room was from upstairs so I followed the light and ended up in my sister’s bedroom. There, I met the murderer. He was wearing a black suits and he was holding a long Japanese sword that was covered with blood. On his other hand he was holding a white handkerchief, just to wipe the sword from the blood stain. I was only peeking through the small opening from the door, hoping that he wouldn’t notice my presence. My instinct told me not to go near this man so slowly I backed away from the door, to make my way out from that house, asking for help.

I was too naïve, he already noticed my presence as soon as I stepped in the front door. He grabbed me by my collar shirt and pulled me up. I knew I was weak, but I tried the best I can to escape from his gripe. I threw kicks and punches at him before finally bit the hand that was holding me.

“Let me go.” I yelled at him. He was one strong man; all my effort seemed pointless against him. He pulled me closer to his face and studied my features. After a moment, he smirked.

“You have a nice face kid, I’ll tell you what, since I’ve killed both of your parents, you’ll come and stay with me as my apprentice, I’ll train you and someday you’ll be like me.”

I spited at his feet, glaring at him.

“I’ll never become like you.” His evil smirked turned into his evil laugh.

“I don’t expect you to obey me kid, but don’t you at least want to take revenge on your family, I did kill them after all. Take my offer and train under me, someday who knows, you might be strong enough to have your revenge.”

I wasn’t left with any other choice, so eventually I had to follow him. He gave me my new name, Max. I looked behind me and saw my house was on fire. He burnt the house down after both of us got out from there. I swore on my family ashes that one day I would take my revenge for them.

The train that I had endured was harsh, full of gun shooting, survival on the battle field, I also had to take on the beating from him, even pull the trigger on living target. I had several injuries on my body when I first started the training but when I was 9 years old, my body had became more tougher than the first time I came here. I did my training every day as I was told and didn’t whine as much as I used when I first started. We travelled a lot from one country to another and eventually I managed to master 6 different foreign languages.

By the time I turned 15, I was already master in all of the skills. That time, I finally decided to take on him, and eventually he died in my hand. I supposed to hate him with all that he had done to me but somehow I decided to give him a proper barrier, I still have my respect to him as my teacher despite the harsh treatment he had given to me. We were in France back then when he died, so eventually I went back to Korea afterward. It was then I met Kyuhyun, another one of the cleaners from the organization, where he offered me to join him, which I did.             

End Flash Back