If you're looking for the textbook definition of a hopeless life—orphan, thug, total mess—it's definitely me. My father was a violent gambling addict, and my mother... a bar hostess, maybe? I don't know, the memory is faint. I only vaguely remember my father's face as he screamed, "I can't stand looking at you because you look just like your mother," every time he saw me.

But what does any of that matter? My mother ran away in the middle of the night, and my father died shortly after in a hit-and-run accident. What could I have possibly learned growing up under a violent gambler? Right. How to use my fists.

I spent my life in an orphanage until I was nineteen, doing nothing but fighting. Then one day, I got beaten to a pulp and was lying on the street, smirking, when a man approached me. Looking down at me laughing through the blood, that Hyung-nim chuckled and asked:

"You look like you might be useful. How old are you, high schooler?"

That chance encounter was the beginning. Having been born with a talent for fighting, I joined him without hesitation as soon as I graduated high school. Starting my relationship with Seo Kang-hyeon, who was twenty-five at the time, I spent several years rolling around in blood-soaked pits. Finally, when Kang-hyeon became the boss of the 'Muyoung-hoe', I naturally became his right-hand man.

It's been ten years since I started serving him.

Then one day, Hyung-nim brought home a woman.

Out of nowhere, he declared he was getting married, held the ceremony in a flash, and kicked me out of the house we had shared. So, my life living alone began by force. Though he got me a place in the same officetel building as his own home after I complained, I couldn't help but feel a hollow spot in my heart.

My father figure and my god was getting married. After ten years of serving him and living together, I felt strangely gloomy. I never knew a house with the lights off could be this quiet. I didn't have a single memory of sleeping in a house without him for the past ten years. At twenty-nine, I felt alone again and couldn't catch a wink of sleep.

I'll see him at the office tomorrow anyway... Maybe I should start dating too? I let out a deep sigh and stood up.

Feeling hungry, I headed to the convenience store. I picked up a strawberry cream bread and was about to take a huge bite while walking when—BAM! I collided with someone. In the process, I dropped the bread, and the woman standing opposite me stumbled, miserably crushing my precious cream bread underfoot.

I was about to snap and looked up... but damn, she's gorgeous.

...Should I start a fight and tell her to pay for the bread? No, should I get her number? Should I seduce her?