The lights were still on in the bedroom and a lithe shadow moved beyond the curtains. With his sharp vision, Yongguk could see that she was dressed scantily, getting ready for her next victim. He raised his gun and waited, knowing that he had to get to the man before she did.

            Owls hooted in the distance and the wind was blowing. The moon was a blurring round ball shining overhead. He held himself still. A car drove in. Gravel crunched underneath the tires. His hearing perked as he tried to blend into the rooftop. It didn’t matter. The man who got out of the car never paid any attention to the shadow above him. He was jabbering on his cellphone. When he reached the door, he straightened his tie and rang the bell.

            Yongguk watched as the shadow in the second floor left the room. He could hear the pitter patter of feet down the stairs and the doors were flung open. She was dressed very seductively. A red dress hugged her figure and she parted her ruby lips. He waited. He had two choices. One, to attack now or two, to wait until she was in the room. He decided to wait.

            He sensed her heightened excitement, reading the urge in her mind. She’s been waiting a while to kill this one, he mused. Too bad he was going to bring him down first. It had been hard for Yongguk to go into this field, knowing that she had gone to the other side. Yongguk had been raised and trained as an assassin, out to get criminals. The irony of his job never failed to amuse him.

            He had lived a fairly regular life, with a double life during the night. He had a job and met a girl. She was the most beautiful girl he has ever met. He found the courage to ask her out and was promptly rejected once. Twice. Three times. But when he found out that she, too, was an undercover agent, she was impressed with his observational skills, never once guessing the truth. She had agreed to one date.

            It was a whirlwind romance, with neither of them aware of the disaster that came ahead. He had assumed she was an agent of the legal type, and she never knew about him. They loved one another with a heated passion, an insatiable need and that had been fine until the ardor cooled. He began to stay out later. Crime was on the rise and the police was doing a poor job keeping it in check.

            He stayed out and she was out. Both of them lived secret lives the other didn’t know about. Yongguk shifted, trying to tear away from the memories. They had reached the bedroom now. This was the painful part. Having to watch and to remember.

            He found out the hard way what type of agent his lover was. The head of his agency had told him that he had a new assignment. He had to tail another assassin and get to her victims before she could. She was ruthless, he was told. She seduced them, bit them and injected them with morphine. Her victims were his victims and in the interest of business, it was necessary to get rid of her.

            Yongguk studied her profile and clues began to click. By the time he reached the last page, he didn’t need the picture to know who he would have to tail. It wasn’t hard. They lived together and so he stayed at home. Soon it was her who made excuses for leaving late at night.

            He tailed her. He watched as she got into her car and drove to a hotel for a rendezvous. He knew that she wasn’t cheating on him, but she was cheating him out of a job. The criminals would come, one after the other, and he knew what she did with them. She came home and showered but he couldn’t touch her. There had been other men. Other men who were lowlife enough that it had been his job to kill them.

            Mysterious disappearances began to be reported and investigations started. She was one for flamboyancy. She picked large names, CEOs of companies who had been found for adultery, fraud and other crimes. He had picked rapists and murderers from off the streets. Maybe it had been for a selfish reason that he broke it off with her. Or maybe it was to make his job easier.

            His biggest assignment thus far had been given to him. “Kill that black widow before I go and get her myself.”

            And so, here he was now, after six months of tailing her, finally cornering her in her new house. She was now kissing the man and Yongguk’s finger twitched. It would be so easy to blow his head off now, and hers along with it. But that would be too simple.

            He waited until she unlatched herself from him and began stripping. It was too much. He had to endure the knowledge that she had been with other men, but this. This was too much. This was an evidence that he had wanted to pretend to overlook. He raised the gun.

            It was not difficult to aim as the man was sitting with his mouth agape, watching the show in front of him. Yongguk lowered himself, preparing for escape and pulled. The shot blasted in the air and a whizz as the bullet hummed through the air was heard. But all of this was heard after the man’s brains were splattered across the walls. Yongguk slipped down. His job was almost complete.

            He laid low until a couple of days later when he received an e-mail. It was from her, wanting to meet up. This was the perfect opportunity and he knew it. He agreed, set up a date and prepared. Yongguk slipped on the mask and stared at himself. He didn’t look tortured. He didn’t look like a man about to kill the woman he still loved.

            The plan was easy. Walk in, catch her unaware and shoot. But when he walked into the dark storage room, he heard the familiar click of a gun. Through the dim light, he saw her focused on him, pointing a shotgun at his forehead. Yongguk smirked. So this was how it would be.

            “How did you find out?” he asked her because he knew she knew.

            “You’re my assignment.” She didn’t bother to mince her words.

            Yongguk played along. “What? I don’t get the normal seduction? I don’t get to have my neck ripped apart by your teeth?” He hummed with pretend displeasure and she bared her teeth.

            The gun was wavering and he knew it. “Put it down sweetheart, or I’ll shoot first. I’m faster than you,” he coaxed.

            She shook her head and he sighed. Somehow, he had known things would come to this, when their assignments would overlap. Underneath the hard glare, he could still see the loving woman he had met and he softened. He gave her one last look.

            “Because I love you,” he whispered and lowered his arm. She steadied herself and held the trigger, waiting. He drank her in, wanting to carry her memory with him and turned to go. Death came slower than expected.  

            There was a clatter as the gun fell to the floor and seconds later a boom resounded. He knew enough about the physics of sound and the speed of a bullet to know that she was already dead before he turned around to check. Pain colored his dark eyes as he turned to go. He had told her to let go of the gun. He had told her that he was faster. In the end, he was right. He clutched the still smoking weapon in his hand and threw it into the shed. Lighting up a match, he tossed it along the trail of petroleum she had so conveniently set up for herself and left. 

Yongguk request

I sort of went out of the realm of reality and wrote this on a whim. Normally this type of plot would take me a while to flesh out, but in the interest of time, I hope you guys still enjoy reading it.