#so.low

like this, she sounds like nayoung. even looks like her, too, sometimes, that jinah could’ve mistaken her for the dead girl. she’s almost too soft, but not quite, with owlish eyes that anyone could drown in and believe in. it’s disgusting, and even more so, she has the same name as jinah, who’s obviously far superior, but to prevent that confusion, jinah took a dead girl’s name and rolled with it from there. their friendship after that had been quick, and reminded jinah too much of what had happened before. 

here’s the thing her father never could’ve taught her, at least: people tend to trust someone who seems open and true. sometimes, the truth is more effective than the lie. it’s how she got herself into jinah-number-two’s apartment and how she now has more chances than ever to kill the girl. but jinah-number-one, jinah-superior, jinah-alpha (she can’t settle on which to call herself yet) likes playing with her food.

she’s played with her for a few months, now. 

“does he?” without so much as missing a beat, she turns away from her target and reaches into the handbag beside her on the couch and takes out a pair of leather gloves. better not to leave anything behind, just in case. she’s been burned before. “is your brother coming to visit you soon? he should. i know you miss him” 

“mm... focusing too much on...– ah, why am i so sleepy?” 

“haha, maybe because we’ve been going out a lot lately. for a place like this, i’m surprised there’s a lot to do.” she takes out a plastic bag; in it, a small syringe. there’s nothing inside it when she takes it out and takes the cap off. “thanks for showing me around.”

“mm....hm... uh...what’ve you got there...unnie?” 

when jinah turns to her again, she keeps the syringe flat on her lap, concealed by her palm when she reaches for the target’s hand. ah, what do names matter, anyway? she’ll be dead soon. 

“a reason for your brother to visit, darling.” the realisation dawns on her face late when jinah turns her hand around, palm up, and holds the syringe properly. she poises it just under the girl’s nail on her left ring finger. inconspicuous. we were just doing each other’s nails! her thumb presses down, pushing all that air out and into her veins. her other hand keeps its firm hold on jinah-number-two’s palm. 

“oh, i know what you can dress up as tomorrow!” she pipes up, taking the syringe out slowly, careful not to draw much blood out. she quickly takes the plastic zip-loc the syringe had been in and puts it back where it was. “a dead girl. you’ll be so convincing,” she continues, past the choking, a smile turning up the corners of her lips. gone is the faux warmth, replaced by the chilling cold of killers incubated in basement closets and isolated cells. 

she even pats do jinah’s palm when she’s done, and stands up from the couch. she doesn’t move yet, and watches her writhe. how heavy her arms must feel now, grasping and hitting her own torso, gasping, over her heart. 

and– there! there it is! it makes her smile bigger, cupping do jinah’s cheek, tempted to kiss her. 

it was the same look in nayoung’s eyes – betrayal, hurt. fear. sinking into herself, forever, forever, forever. mouth opening like a fish, eyes rolling up, head lolling to the side caught only by her killer’s palm. 

jinah stays in that moment of bliss until the girl’s head falls forward, and only then does she take her hand away.

without much else, she gets out of the car and heads directly to the alleyways. sticking close to the walls gives her time to hide behind anything and stay hidden as patrols pass along the main street. she looks up before she turns the corner to access the backdoor and, sure enough, two big men guard the entrance. these behemoths actually think that they’re doing anything to dissuade hydrus, huh? idiots. she undoes the strap of the mask behind her head, but holds it to her face, and takes a few deep, shuddering breaths, all but forcing tears in her eyes. men are such idiots.

“h-help!” she calls out, stumbling. they point their guns at her, and she raises a hand, the other still holding the mask to the lower half of her face. she feigns a choked sob, and another, in between every exclamation. “y-you guys are phoenix, right? i’m one of you! c’mon – there’s hydrus behind me! please, you’ve got to help!” 

they lower their guns, and she stops in front of them. one puts a hand on her shoulder; the other keeps his hand on his gun, but a quick glance tells her that he doesn’t mean to shoot: his finger isn’t on the trigger. this idiot looks up, and asks, “hey, are you really one of us? where’re these hydrus assholes?”

“l-let me – wait, let me fix my mask, i – oh–!” she fixes it, to be true, and once it is, swipes a silenced gun from beneath her jacket and pulls the trigger with the barrel under one man’s chin. before the one with the gun can react, she pulls the knife out from the colleague’s throat. one hand reaches for the finger that could’ve been on the trigger and pulls it back with a sharp crack; the other aims at his forehead and shoots. twice, for good measure, and she sighs, tucking the hot barrel back into its strap. “yeah, they’re right here, dumbass.”

it was, of course, surprisingly easy to use the key tucked at one dead man’s jacket to open the backdoor. “better have disabled those alarms, hunter.”

she pushes it without much issue. thankfully, the noise outside makes it slightly easier to sneak around in her shoes. these aren’t meant to be stealthy. the click of her heels would’ve signalled where she is had the general cacophony outside, fuelled by the rage of monsters, not masked it just the slightest. she does hide behind the door; the patrol comes too close.

as he peeks behind it, jinah places her hand over his mouth, and the other nearly all the way on the other side of his head. before he can protest, his neck snaps with a definite crack, and the whole weight of him falls limp against her. “shit,” she mumbles, crouching down and gripping him by the head, one hand against his shoulder, to soften the fall. when he does, he ends up lying flat on the ground, holding her exit open. he may not be much for security, but he sure as hell made an effective door stop. 

she steps over him carefully, hiding behind a tall shelf of surplus clothes. the weapons are just underneath, and there’s one more patrol, a fair distance away, like hunter said. she matches his steps, slowly, carefully, until there’s not much distance at all. instead of a gun, she uses the knife at her thigh to stab him in the back, one hand again over his mouth. she stabs a few more – ugh, it’s just so satisfying! – and, again, softens the fall, but doesn’t move the body. 

let them find it. let them know.

so, yes, she stabs him a few times, unable to bite back the gleeful grin on her face, before hunter’s voice interrupts her and makes her stop. she inhales and mumbles, “killjoy”, straightening up and leaving the knife lodged in the dead man’s face. “right, right, i got it, jeez, don’t rush me.”

she knocks at the door instead. she doesn’t know whether they’ll answer, but she stands there patiently, gun in one hand and trained straight ahead, unwavering. 

unfortunately for them, they open the door.

“what do y– who the fuck?!” 

“hiya, buddy!” she greets. at least she’s polite before she shoots him three times. his body falls forward, and the man inside – the target, it seems – shoots, just as she lets go of the gun in an instinctual attempt to catch the body that definitely would’ve crushed her if she didn’t catch it. his bodyguard’s body is thick enough and heavy enough to take the brunt of it before she pushes him off. “hey!” she calls out, getting a running start before the guard’s body even hits the floor, and before her target can comprehend it. 

he gapes at her – whether it’s the fact that she’s running towards the guy pointing a gun at her, or that he might recognise her, she doesn’t know – and his cigar falls to the ground in what seems like slow motion. her arm knocks his gun hand up, away from her, and he drops it; her hand grasps his wrist to twist his hand and hold it still. her knee lodges itself in his middle, making him choke and double over. her other hand has already reaches for a knife at her thigh, sharp side against his throat. “that’s not very nice.”

“wh-what do you want!!! i’ll give you anything! do you want information?? do you want this cache??? ta-take it!”

“well, i mean, you already made a mistake, working for phoenix.” hunter, again, disrupts her moment. she’d meant to take him and the cache – that’s double gains for hydrus, and certainly more brownie points for her! – but the police are on their way, and she grits her teeth and clicks her tongue in disappointment. “and now you’ve made another. shouldn’t have taken a shot at me, honey. you’re just not my type.”

she’s standing too close when she slices his throat. blood goes all over her front and her face, spraying everywhere, forcing her to keep her lips pursed tight so none of it gets in her mouth. she takes a step back and brings the backpack to her front, distractedly, and opens the crate. instead of whistling, she spits out some of the blood that did slip past her lips. “disgusting. this is such a waste of good money.”

it’s the only thing that bothers her when she puts takes the explosives out and puts her backpack on properly behind her again. she places it on top of the guns, kissing her fingers and pressing that kiss on the detonator. the numbers there – or lack thereof – makes her blink.

“hold on – one minute? hunter, you asshole!”

she utters a whole variety of curse words as she picks up the fallen cigar. she even inhales and runs it underneath her nostrils to get a whiff as she begins to run, stepping over the dead bodies inelegantly and booking it out of there. (wow, this guy had a good taste in cigars. medusa doesn’t smoke much, but at least she appreciates good things.)

she counts the seconds, and turns around at the last minute, barely out of the alley before she’s blown back by the force of it. her back slams against brick, and shrapnels of glass and concrete and metal scrape at her jacket sleeve when she brings it up to protect her beautiful face. for a moment, she blinks, frozen, as if moving alone would irritate the sense of balance her ears would usually give her; now they ring, slightly. this high undertone irritates her, and she coughs to try and get rid of it. one hand reaches back to undo the strap of her face mask. she turns her hand around, checking to see if that move worked, and – wow, it really did. right at the end of the cigar are embers that she takes full advantage of, bringing the other end to her mouth and sucking in a lungful of harmful nicotine. 

“hey,” she mumbles, coughing a bit, and getting on her feet. ah, her blahniks are ruined. and this suit is expensive, too. “hey, asshole,” she grunts out, the back of her hand at her back, pushing in and stretching. that’s going to leave a bruise. she begins the trek back to the car, cigar held between her fingers. “was a minute really necessary?”

song jinah knew that full well and still realised that love could never be a priority again when she struck that first blow to her best friend’s head. then the next, and the next, and when that wasn’t enough she strangled her until her face turned blue and her nails no longer scratched at the carpet. even in her dying moments, nayoung didn’t want to implicate jinah. nayoung forgave her for it.

yet, here she is, all because the third-party chose to blow the whistle.

the ride felt like two days instead of two hours, and that still wasn’t enough time for her to think of a way out.

the building they approach is as grey as the sky above it. the metal gate clambers and slides to the side slowly, giving her a moment to look out and see the drab brown of the officers’ uniforms here. for a moment, there’s still fight left in her, still some willingness to escape. as the bus drives in, at a glance, there are spots of vulnerability and precious seconds that she can exploit to sneak out once she’s found her way out, but the cameras on the other side of the drive are another matter, and she can’t formulate a plan without taking into account any contingencies.

it doesn’t sink in until they make her change out of her clothes and into a sky-blue jumpsuit.

of course, giving the corrections officer a funny remark about looking at her ass as she checked for any smuggled goods earned her a quick smack upside the head, but that isn’t new. what’s new is the scratchy material under her skin and the cold cuffs on her wrists. they feel much heavier than they are because jinah doesn’t bother raising her hands and tries to keep her gaze to the floor. even then, she counts the number of doors in the hallway, takes note of how far away each door is from one another, and hears the cacophony from the metal-slatted openings at the upper half of each entry.

it’s just past dinner service, she hears a passing officer say to another, and catches the look that he gives her way. the pity doesn’t settle well. something bitter rises from the back of her throat, but she swallows it and keeps walking.

they stop at a door that she knows is hers, and fear grips her in vines from the floor, wrapping around her ankles until she’s given a nudge between her shoulder blades. 

the room strangles her the moment she enters it. there is a single light in the ceiling and the distinct smell of a toilet soaked in dime-store cleaner permeates her nostrils too strongly. there are six other women here, and her eyes take a moment to adjust from the fluorescent hallway to this cell. light blurs and takes her strength with it – suddenly she’s ten, thirteen, sixteen again, gasping for air in a cupboard under the stairs, smaller and smaller, smelling like the house’s old plumbing and an earthquake thudding above her head whenever her father stomps on a step to keep her cries quiet.

when she exhales, it feels like it’s the last she’ll take.

“no–,” she blurts out as the guard turns her around by the shoulders roughly. she doesn’t realise her hands are trembling until the officer lifts her wrists by the middle of her cuffs and undoes them. “no, you can’t put me in here –!”

she lunges forward, but fear makes her slow. she takes a single step, and the guard punches her in the middle, knocking the air out of her and making her stumble forward, and back on her ass when he pushes her shoulder. “you should’ve thought of that before you killed anybody.”

the door closes with a thud before she can make another desperate attempt.

it goes again, and again. her head feels heavy with the memory. the door feels closer than it is, the ceiling feels like it’s bearing down over her head again, and her heart feels like a pinball bouncing in the too-small canals of her chest. there air is stale here, overused, not enough. someone makes her way over to jinah and touches her arm, but both give out under her in shock. the tremors of her own movements make her crawl to the nearest wall – anything, anything, anythinganythinganythingplease to keep them from closing in. they say something about calm, about breathing, but her forehead rests against the wall and so do her fingers, digging into nothing but concrete.

“breathe,” someone says by her ear, squeezing her shoulder, grips her beyond the fear, and she holds onto that hand as if it’ll lead her out. she listens to the woman, follows it slowly, and closes her eyes tighter, keeping one hand on the wall to keep it from shrinking.

jinah writes the postcard in the yard.

it’s been three whole days, but she’s managed to steal a postcard and a pen. no one waits for her outside, no one gives money to her to send so much as a letter, so her cellmate – who she now knows as jisoo ¬– gives her a few won to send something out. outside, the air keeps her hand stable. she writes a single letter as her addressee.

qian knew – she had to know – jinah’s worst fears, her worst nightmares, and elected to keep her here. but jinah hoped to god it was just anger (surely, it was) and that it would subside. qian would forgive her if she could just explain that she had no choice, that she truly was sorry, and that she loved nayoung, too. maybe qian would do something. anything. qian knew this would be hell for her, didn’t she? she knew, and she still opened her damn mouth, but maybe she could change her mind and it will be alright –

as soon as her pen left the surface, however, a shadow loomed over her on the bench.

“whose postcard is that, little girl?”

she doesn’t bother looking up, and instead folds the 100-won coin in postcard, and tucks it in the front pocket of her jumpsuit before answering. “mine, now. what’s it to you?”

jinah looks up.

they are only numbers here. she doesn’t bother learning who this woman is but, surrounded as she is by others who look just as menacing and just as ugly, she figures it’s someone who thinks she’s the boss. by the way her (unwaxed) upper lip curls, it’s obvious that jinah’s dismissiveness isn’t something that she’s used to.

“i hear you have no one on the outside, girl. no one to miss you, no one to send anything to, no one to get money from. i’m asking you nicely where you got it.”

she doesn’t blink. there are worse monsters like this. there are monsters like her, who sit on the lowest bench and mind their own business because their friends and cellmates are on their own shifts sewing clothes together. so, she answers, “none of your business.”

again, probably the wrong answer. “don’t be a little bitch, kid. give it to me. everyone pays up if they don’t want to get hurt – and you don’t want to get hurt, do you?”

she takes a step forward, and jinah stands up in turn, fast enough that it makes her head spin wild with excitement she wishes she didn’t feel. the woman is definitely bigger than her, taller, bulkier. there’s a clear vein at her neck that would be too easy to stab.

“no.” she scoffs. this is nothing. this woman is tiny, and she glares up and jabs a finger right at her chest, in the middle of her non-existent breasts, pressing against bone and fat and skin. “fuck. off.”

the woman sighs. “fine. i warned you.”

as if waiting for that queue, the women on either side of their leader holds her arms still. they’re too quick, and her hand is still clutching onto a pen. the fist comes for her stomach first. her foot lands on the right woman’s foot, head dodging down as a large fist almost hits her temple. the fight in her shocks them for half a second, and this is enough. the left one goes down next, earning a swift four-fingered jab to her throat. her elbow hits the other one’s stomach, too, just in case, and when they stumble back their leader realises that this is no ordinary little girl, and especially not when jinah aims the pen at her neck – but she catches it with her palm just in time. the ink nib digs into the leader’s skin with the force and speed of it, but instead of fighting back, she steps back and cries –

“she did it!”

jinah’s brows quirk into a frown – “what –,”

and this time, more than one grabs her wrists. someone hits the back of her knees, twists her elbow and her shoulder back. the familiar click of cuffs binds her wrists together, and something hard hits right at her spine, making her fall on her stomach. but this isn’t enough, and she sees the pen sink into the wet, muddy earth almost as quickly as her cheek hits the ground. and still this isn’t enough, because they hit her again. yet it isn’t enough, it isn’t enough, no –

“you think you’re so tough on your own, huh?”

“we knew it was a matter of time. damn, fuck – stay still! – fine, let’s see how you do on your own, crazy bitch –,”

“no –! no! it wasn’t me!” she hears her own voice from far away when they hoist her up from under her arms. her legs struggle to find their footing, stumbling. mud clings to her cheek and it stings her lip. she tastes it when she swallows. “no, get that – fucking ¬– son of a bitch! – NO –!”

she doesn’t know how long she’s spent here.

this cell is smaller. louder. when they threw her in, the coin fell out of her pocket and through the shower drain. there isn’t a shower. there’s a bucket that smells like shit and almost makes her throw up. the flat floor smells like piss and vomit. there aren’t any windows. there’s a single vent at a ceiling that’s too high for her to reach. the mattress is so thin she might as well have slept on the floor itself. at some point, she tore as little pieces off the postcard as she could to pass the time, dropping them into the slots of the drain.

she doesn’t know how long she’s been here.

there’s a ghost every time the light mocks her under the metal door. no one opens anything here, and even if they did, jinah wouldn’t hear it. she doesn’t know how many times in a day her father’s cold, dead fingers sink into her skull in her sleep. she doesn’t know how often her mother steps on her chest when she sleeps. she doesn’t know how often nayoung strangles her.

she measures it by the times she wakes up, by habit, by stale food. there is a single meal in between her waking and sleeping moments, comprised of gruel that tastes sour and bread hard as stone. sometime in between, her mother visits, blames her, yells at her, asks her why she didn’t go with her father, and why it had to be her father who died. then, when she cries enough for her to leave her be, her father takes her mother’s place and says fear without opening his mouth. before she sleeps, he keeps her company, whispering, hurting, bleeding. when she wakes up, right before mealtime, nayoung hovers above her and strangles her with love.

jinah doesn’t know how long she’s been here, and she doesn’t know how it is she finds herself out.

when they let her out, she smells like death.

“so, these are the tanks,” the girl said, followed by a groan. she rests against the edge of the piranha tank. “sorry...i’m not feeling so well today.”

“oh, really? are you sure you should be at work?” which is probably a useless question now. jinah had already poisoned her morning tea with enough snake venom to kill a horse in five minutes, and it really was only a matter of time until she collapsed. she needed her to be away from everyone else, of course, and exploiting her innate need to please people was just too easy. she didn’t want anyone to think this was a deliberate thing or anything.

“y-yes, i –,”

“are you okay?”

there isn’t a hint of sympathy or care in her voice. there’s no need to put on an act of humanity when one of them is about to lose their life.

without blinking, jinah watches her throw up into the tank. there’s a collective sound of disgust from the aquarium goers that even they can hear from the back rooms, and it doesn’t stop. the stench of sick permeates through the smell of sanitised water. instead of helping and holding her hair back, or asking someone else for help, jinah crouches down beside her, looking up like this is the most interesting thing in the world. “wow. you really shouldn’t have gone to work today.”

the girl doesn’t answer. she can’t, because she’s dead. her head hangs low in the tank and jinah sighs in disappointment, inhales, and then positions her hands and arms down there too so it looked like she totally slumped over. the fishes are having a feast, if they didn’t die too from the onslaught of the contents of the girl’s stomach. the sound of crunching and eating, like how one would stab into flesh repeatedly with tiny knives, is muffled through the water, and jinah doesn’t even want to see if they’re eating the girl’s thrown-up breakfast or her face or her arms. those poor fish.

to be fair, this is also jinah’s first time using snake venom to kill anybody. she thinks it’s appropriate, given the codename she has, but it’s surprisingly disappointing. stabbing, however, wouldn’t give as much of a message; making it this public was sure to do the job. they’d definitely have a time figuring out whether the girl died from poison or drowning or the fish. maybe all three, at the same time.

she waits for the door to open to shocked staff before dramatically going, “sh-she just – she just started throwing up and – and slumped over!”, which is followed, of course, by reassurances, and her immediate “i – i have to go – i can’t–,”

making an exit is too easy. all she has to do is keep her head down until she reaches a more public area and slip into the disappearing crowd, ushered away by the security staff until they figure out what’s going on.

the first time he raises his hand at her, he gets upset that she doesn’t fight back in return. “what were all those lessons for?!” he asks, angry that he’s wasted his money, and continues to barrage her with fists that are too big and too fast, and not at all like how they taught her five year-old class on soft mats and pad gloves. “i’ll teach you myself!”

so he does. she stops going to after-school taekwondo. she stops going to summer school aikido the year after that. then, she stops going to after-school kung fu the year after. so on, and so on. her father isn’t satisfied.

this year, it’s boxing – or, at least, it was, until he pulled her out of it. again.

she’s 14 and her father has gotten older. she notices now the crows feet at the edges of his eyes; the receding hairline; the sagging skin. it transpires in slow motion, and she would have watched with further curiosity had his fist not connected with her cheek because her arms didn’t come up to block it. in the next, her arm retaliates, but he blocks it from a move that most certainly is from another discipline. so she adapts, fights, but her arms aren’t long enough to reach with the strength she hopes to hit his throat with. he catches it. twists. she falls, and the wind is knocked out of her lungs, and her shoulder gives a wrenching ache. 

“do you submit?” asks the man. 

“no!” her voice is higher, now, even to her own ears. she knows what will happen if she does. tears well at the edges of her eyes and her hand forms a fist against the concrete. 

he twists harder. “do you submit?”

“n–!” he twists and twists and her forehead rests against the damp, cold floor and she screams and cries and kicks her feet and tries to break free. it hurts, it hurts it hurts it hurts it’s going to break –! 

“jinah!”

“i su-ah–!!!! su-m-it! submit!” comes the sobbed-out response. he lets go of her arm immediately because he has honour. her arm drops and she lifts it and it hurts. he could have broken it again. but he stands, now, and she knows what must be done, and still she tries to sit and say, “i’m sorry – i’m sorry – please, i don– pl–ease! – i-i’ll do better–!”

“i’m doing this because i love you, jinah. you know that.”

she remembers the look on his face when he says that. it makes her close her mouth, purse her lips, and look down again. she remembers being dragged by the cuff like a crying kitten, legs dragging and kicking in the air, screaming no no no no!, hands reaching behind her and the back of her head hitting the edge of the doorway to the little room under the stairs. colour flashes in bright circles. these are the only lights she gets to see once the door closes and the lock clicks closed.

she’s not five or six or seven or eight anymore. her limbs are too long. her body is too grown. 

the space is smaller. her legs bend at the knee and her knees touch her chest and her neck aches from being pressed against the upper corners. she can hear her father step, step, stepping above her head, and her mother opens the door for him and coos and expresses, “again? honey, maybe we shouldn’t invest in these lessons anymore. you know you’re teaching her better this way.”

she’s going to die. 

she’s going to die in this small space with no air. her lungs are shallow with it. it smells like rat shit and piss. stagnant. dead. when her hands try to press at the walls it comes away grainy and sticky and wet and damp. the walls do not move, but they breathe, shrinking with every exhale and never expanding when she inhales. her nails dig into it – let me out let me out let me out – dark and sobbing, heaving, even though she knows she should save her breath. her shoulder, bent inwards, aches something worse, and so does her middle, now pins and knives on her insides. they twist and twist, and the bile rising at the back of her throat might drown her, so she swallows it. she closes her eyes and it’s darker. when she opens them, there’s nothing. this isn’t just looking at the void; it’s living in it. when she cries it’s a roar, a scream, a yell, a plea. there’s always nothing who answers back. 

it’s a saturday.

her target is a middle-aged man named jang yeongmin. his business isn’t too big, and he owns another apartment that he rents out to visitors. (it’s not doing well.) his barbershop is decent, but vacant on a wednesday afternoon. most appointments are closer to the weekend, and the middle of the week, during these hours, is quiet, with only the low thrum of the fan in the corner of the ceiling and the idle chatter of a small, indistinguishable TV behind the tall counter to keep their silence company. it stinks of hairspray and shaving cream. there are three security cameras in the establishment that run on a rudimentary closed system, and she hopes fallacy is as good at their job as they say they are.  

she expected to see a short, stout old man. instead, yeongmin is tall and middle-aged. he has the face of a rat, she notices, when he looks up from the TV. he freezes when he hears the lock click closed and she draws a gun. “hands up, buddy. c’mere and have a seat,” she instructs, cheery as ever, patting an aged leather chair in the middle of the row. there are three. he knows how to listens to instructions, it seems, when there’s a gun pointed at his face.

he walks over cautiously, saying, “i – i don’t know what you want from me, but –,”

god, even his voice is grating. she could kill him now if she wanted. if she could. she should. she’d be doing hydrus a favour. but, in a show of great restraint, she just lets him ramble on about how he has money, how he can pay her, etcetera etcetera. he’s still sitting down on the chair, and she keeps the gun pointed at him when she sharply interjects, “so how do you do this whole… shaving thing?” medusa heads to the nearby drawer. there’s some shaving cream, some old-fashioned razors meant for shaving. she takes out the set, the cream, and lays it out in front of the mirror, in front of him. “is this it?”

he looks confused, but nods. “wh-what…”

“you have a very annoying goatee.” with one hand, she takes the razor; with the other, she tucks her gun behind her back. that same free hand takes hold of his hair and pulls it back just enough for him to expose his neck and be able to look at his reflection. “and a very annoying voice.” she presses the blade to his adam’s apple; it bobs as his eyes water up.

“i have children!” he blurts out tearfully. his voice even trembles.

“i…don’t want them?” she answers right back, slightly confused. is he offering them? she isn’t usually in the business of killing those. they have more time to make mistakes, and they aren’t nearly as satisfying to kill. “look,” she continues, pulling her head back as if that’ll make it so that she doesn’t have to hear him crying when he does start to sob. she even lets go of his hair, but keeps the blade to his neck, and places her hand on his shoulder. just in case. “you owe hydrus a debt. i don’t know how stupid you have to be to do that, but you do, and you’re a fucking idiot, and we know that, right?”

oh, he’s really sobbing, now. it would be so. easy. to swipe the blade through his skin and muscle and windpipe right now. but he nods, like he can even hear her through his sniffling. “y—i – hic – d-don’t have en-n-nough to pa-ay th-is month – pl-please – oh g-ohu-ood –!”

oh my god. oh my god, he’s so annoying. is that the test? to see if she can withstand the job without killing anybody?

damn, that’s good.

“it’s not money we’re after,” she tries to say past all that, moving her hand to his hair again and pulling hard. “although…yeah, i heard you owe us. kinda have to grab the rest of what’s in your cashier after this, but – will you shut up?!” she presses the blade harder against his skin. he bleeds, but stops crying, seemingly trying to hold it behind a closed mouth. good enough. “look, someone who knows someone who knows someone knows that a certain police officer passed by here and blabbed about where they’re hitting us next. so, you need to tell me that, and y–,”

“the docks! the – fu-ohhuuhuhu – oh g-go-od, don’t kill me – god help me! – it’s the docks! w-warehouse… five or – or ten – or three – one of th-those!”

“and the code to your register! will you let me finish?! – actually,” she amends, “you better open it for me, so i know you won’t do anything even more stupid, like call the police.”

what he says isn’t lost on her. it’s not entirely useless, which is good for him, and she makes a mental note of it. he follows her instructions like a trembling, frightened old dog. for good measure and to motivate him further once the blade is off his neck, she takes out her gun and presses it against his back as they walk behind the counter.

someone laughs in the tv as the register dings open.

“and everything in your – i don’t know what you call it. the other money that’s not here that you keep, you know? you know what i’m talking about, right?”

he nods, bends down and opens the little cabinet under the register. there’s a fat stack of rubber-banded cash. she should know what it’s called, working for jieun’s little boutique now, but she doesn’t, and she won’t bother to. it’s money that shouldn’t be touched, and that’s all she knows, but she knows now that all shops have to have them. float, or sink, or something like that.

“put it in a bag.”

he does. it’s for the little cosmetics that not many people buy from a barbershop – hair wax, gel, 2-in-1 shampoos – and would rather buy from other local stores. she takes it from him and sighs a sigh of relief. finally.

medusa takes a step back and grins. not that he could see it. “now close your eyes and do the macarena.”

she takes another step back, and another away from the counter to move in front of it. the man is sobbing, now, and actually dancing the macarena, even singing it tearfully. she takes a video of it and lets him do the rest, walking back to the door slowly. when she opens it, his eyes dare flutter open, and his arms stop mid-raise, but she quickly shoots her gun at the ceiling and snaps, “did i tell you to stop, dickhead?”

he sobs harder and continues, absolutely butchering the song, even as she tucks the gun behind her back (it burns a little) and lets the door close. to the rest of the street, she’s walking out with just a bag and looking absolutely cute. as soon as she gets back in the car with midnight and fallacy, she’s greeted with laughter and praise.

“yeah, shit, i know, right?!” she laughs right back, finally letting it out and giving the bag to midnight, wheezing a little, having had to hold it in. “fuck, let’s get outta here.”