🎶 Jim Yosef - Hate You

There are many ways for a person to die. Solitary death, natural causes, sudden death, accidental death, death during intimacy. Suicide, for those who lose their will to live and end it themselves. Homicide, for those who act like such pieces of trash that someone eventually takes their life.

Still, I never thought it was such a bad thing for a human life to be cut short by a human hand. After all, that too is just a natural part of the cycle.

Isn't the way the world works funny, though?

No matter how much fame you build, how much power you wield, how much money you touch, or how many people you order around, you still end up in a coffin. The only difference is whether it's made of high-end hardwood or cheap sawdust.

And yet, everyone struggles. To survive just a little longer. To succeed just a little more.

You only live once. If you get to touch, control, and spend a ton of money before you kick the bucket, isn't that a successful life? That was my creed. Money over life. I'll do anything for money.

Then one day, a rather suspicious request came in.

In this business, clients rarely make direct contact. Call it an unspoken rule. There's no reason for people who deal in unethical deeds to look each other in the face.

But this client requested a meeting from the start. Meeting, my ass. They probably wanted to see the face of the person they're hiring to kill someone. What a twisted, morbid taste. But hey, if the customer wants it, I have to provide.

Swallowing my annoyance, I headed to the meeting place. And as soon as I arrived, I thought:

Holy shit. Is this a house or a palace?

It was a neighborhood where only the most famous rich bastards in Milan lived. Starting with heavy security, a massive mansion that looked to be at least 1,800 square feet sat there proudly. Private pool, a lawn the size of a stadium, and a perfectly manicured garden.

It was the pinnacle of flaunting wealth. But something was off. From the moment I passed the entrance and stepped inside, something kept bothering me. It looked great on the outside, but so what? Not a single servant was visible in a mansion this large.

Instead, CCTVs were everywhere. Packed so tightly it seemed they wouldn't leave a single blind spot within a three-meter radius.

Is this a house or a prison?

I wondered just how much they had to steal to live in a place built like this. But it didn't matter. The only thing I was picking up was the scent of money.

Clearly a big shot.

The annoyance of the meeting had long since vanished the moment I stepped onto the property. I walked for a while until I reached the inner garden.

In the middle of a flawlessly maintained garden stood a statue that looked obscenely expensive. And standing next to it, leisurely admiring the sculpture, was the client.

But... they looked younger than I expected. At most, around my age, or maybe even younger. I was taken aback for a moment, but age doesn't matter.

They're rich. I immediately curled my lips into a smile. It was a professional, business smile that reeked of capitalism.

"Wow~ this place is practically a palace."

"Are you the one who made the request?"

Thud.

Instead of an answer, an envelope dropped at my feet. My mood soured instantly, but I told myself to think of the money and picked up the envelope.

It was familiar data. The target's profile. Name, age, occupation, and so on. A single photo was attached at the end. The moment I checked the photo, my hand stopped.

What the... is this?

I thought I'd misread it. No, I saw it clearly. Unless you're blind, if the face in front of you matches the face in the photo, you're going to recognize it. Eventually, I spoke up first.

"Excuse me, you need to give me the target's profile, not the client's."

"That's correct."

The young voice finally spoke. And then came the next words.

"I requested it. For myself."

What kind of crazy talk is this? So they're asking me to kill them? I've seen all sorts of people, but this was a first-rate psycho. But before I could even say anything, something even crazier came out.

"How would someone like you kill me?"

Not only are they asking to be killed, but they want to choose the cause of death? I really stepped in it this time. I was about to turn around without hearing another word when—

"Protect me using every method you would use to kill me."

My steps halted.

"That is the reason I hired you."

...It's just one nonsense after another. You want a killer to do protection work? Fuck, there's a limit to how much bullshit I can take.

If it were an old person, I'd think they'd gone senile. But seeing someone so young acting like this made me think they had some kind of mental illness. I decided to just scare them and be done with it.

"Hey, if you don't want to die young, watch yourself."

And with that, I turned away.

"Shit. What a waste of time."

It was at that moment.

"10 billion won."

I stopped in my tracks.

"Exactly one year." "If I'm safe for one year, I'll give you 10 billion."

...10 billion won. Obviously, it sounded insane. But strangely, it didn't sound like a bluff. It wasn't the bravado of someone desperate to show off their wealth. It was the certainty of someone who could actually pay.

And only then did I realize how much this crazy client had investigated my background.

Criminal record. Wanted list. Filthy records that meant I could never even dream of going back to Korea. I needed an identity wash, and I needed money to start a new life.

That person knew exactly that.

"From the looks of it, you aren't exactly in a comfortable situation yourself."

"With 10 billion... you could easily start a whole new life."

...Damn it.

That was my first meeting with Guest.

I, who could snuff out a life easier than breathing, accepted a crazy request for 10 billion won. A killer playing bodyguard.

One year. I thought it would be over in just a year. As long as I got the money, that was all that mattered. That's really what I thought back then.

Because I never dreamed that during that one year, saving a life would be so much harder than taking one.