The Fixer
"What the hell kind of monster just rolled into the camp...?"
The boss stood there with his mouth hanging open, then scrubbed both hands hard over his face. He decided to set aside the grand theories and tangled deductions.
The reality unfolding right in front of him proved everything.
He drew a deep breath and started walking, heavy steps carrying him toward the chaos of the crowd.
"Make way."
At that single low, commanding word, the information brokers clutching their dollar bills flinched and parted.
In an instant only the boss and Dohwan remained in front of the campfire.
The boss planted himself opposite Dohwan and spoke in a voice that had sunk deep and quiet.
"No lie will work on you, so I won't waste time circling. I'll ask straight."
Dohwan set down the dollar bills he had been scooping up and looked up at him.
"You have that kind of power and you're taking a single dollar for it. I can't make sense of it. Why?"
At the boss's blunt question Dohwan gave a short laugh and shrugged.
"Reading faces is fun, for one. More than that, I wanted to lay out a proper demonstration so you'd see exactly what I'm worth."
"...To prove your value to me?"
"If I'm going to make a real deal with you, I figured I needed a solid portfolio first."
Marcus studied him in silence for a moment.
Instead of talking me into it, he washed away my last doubts with perfect results?
He liked that. Anyone who could prove his own worth so cleanly was someone worth doing business with.
"Then it worked. So what do you need that made you go this far?"
"What else? Cash to get out of this situation right now, and an identity."
"Identity?"
The boss's brow tightened. He read Dohwan's eyes and knew at once the man was not joking.
"What does that mean? Are you saying you're here illegally?"
"No. I mean it literally. I don't remember who I am."
"...Amnesia? Did you have some kind of accident?"
"Well. If you want to call it an accident, sure."
Dohwan scratched his chin and continued, casual.
"I changed my fate."
An ordinary person would have dismissed the sudden answer as nonsense.
But the boss did not look at Dohwan strangely. He had already seen the man's bizarre ability with his own eyes.
Perhaps that was why he asked a question Dohwan himself had not expected.
"Was changing that fate worth it?"
At the unexpected question Dohwan grinned.
"Yeah. Enough that I don't regret it."
"...I'm envious."
A faint bitterness colored the boss's quiet murmur.
Dohwan shrugged lightly.
"Envious of what? There's a guy right in front of you who can see fate. You could change yours too, Boss."
The boss stared at him blankly.
Dohwan's offhand remark about changing fate sank into him with strange depth.
"I wish that were true."
Before Dohwan could answer, the boss quickly shifted the subject, as if hurrying past the previous exchange.
"Cash and an identity... In that case, a job from the Fixer side should work."
"Fixer?"
"A lawyer. More like a troubleshooter for the rich."
Dohwan tilted his head.
"And there's something I can help a guy like that with?"
"One of his VIP clients runs several high-value restaurants. He's about to hand the title of his best location over to his future son-in-law."
"Obvious. So a background check on the son-in-law came in?"
"Exactly. On paper and in every deep dive, the young man is flawless—not a speck of dust. But something about the prospective son-in-law still rubs the Fixer the wrong way. He has suspicion without proof, and it's eating him alive."
The boss fixed his gaze on Dohwan.
"If you look at the man's face and give him even one lead to grab onto... the cash you asked for and a perfect fake identity can be in your hands as early as tomorrow."
"Doesn't sound too hard."
The boss disappeared into his tent and came back out with a worn but cleanly washed black hoodie, a black mask, and a crumpled hundred-dollar bill.
"Take these."
When Dohwan accepted the clothes and money, the boss jerked his chin toward the edge of the tent city.
"No need to look like a homeless man for an outside client. Use that money, clean up at a nearby motel, and wait. I'll tell the Fixer you're there."
"Nice service."
"Listen carefully. When you meet the Fixer, keep that mask and hoodie covering your face at all times. Your ability is too sharp. From now on, if you don't hide your identity completely, you'll regret it."
It was the sincere advice of a thoroughly seasoned information broker.
"Got it."
Dohwan stuffed the hundred into his pocket and left the tent city under the guidance of a homeless man the boss had assigned him.
Marcus watched Dohwan's retreating back in silence. Then he pulled an old cell phone from his coat and dialed.
The line rang a few times and connected.
"Fixer. I found someone who can solve your problem."
Only the boss's voice cut quietly through the morning air of the tent city.
The place the homeless man led him to was a classic cheap American motel straight out of the movies.
The front-desk clerk openly scowled at Dohwan's appearance, but after checking the face of the informant who had come with him, he wordlessly handed over a key.
The homeless man confirmed the room number and slipped quietly out of the motel.
Alone, Dohwan pushed open the creaking door and stepped inside.
"Whoa."
The exclamation left his mouth on its own.
Yellowed wallpaper, carpet soaked in cigarette smoke, a battered bed. It really did look like a motel from a Hollywood film.
The novelty of it drove home once more that this was actually America.
Dohwan went straight into the bathroom. True to a cheap motel, soap scum clung to the tiles in places and the fixtures were far from spotless.
Still, when he turned the faucet, hot water poured out.
"Oh. Hot water."
It was more than enough for a wash.
Dohwan scrubbed himself hard with soap. Watching the filthy water swirl down the drain even gave him a strange little thrill.
Standing at the sink, he finally noticed the face in the mirror. The beard had grown in fairly thick.
He dragged the disposable razor from the counter across his jaw.
"Oh."
After the shave and a splash of cold water, the man in the mirror looked surprisingly decent.
He was gaunt from hunger, but the bone structure of the features themselves was not ugly.
Leaning close to the glass and turning his face this way and that, Dohwan suddenly froze.
"...Huh?"
Color Reading was swirling—not on anyone else's face, but on his own.
"W-wait a second."
This was a discovery he had never expected. He had never imagined it would work on himself.
With wet hands he wiped the mirror clean and carefully studied his Indang and the area around the tip of his nose.
A soft, lustrous purple aura hung there.
Purple Qi from the East.
The finest auspicious sign, appearing when a noble connection arrives from the east to open the path ahead. Color Reading was proving that the boss had become both a benefactor and a solid business partner.
Yet it was subtly different from reading other people.
I can't see it in as much detail as when I read someone else.
He had no idea why. He kept staring at his own face.
How long he stood there, he could not say.
Knock-knock.
The sound pulled Dohwan out of his thoughts.
Ah. Already here?
He hurried out of the bathroom, pulled on the black hoodie the boss had given him, and carefully tugged the mask up over his chin to cover his face.
The lock clicked.
When he opened the door, a white man with a sharp, exacting look stood in the hallway.
An immaculate suit without a speck of dust.
His eyes were razor-keen and extremely high-strung; distrust of other people sat thick around his mouth.
No need to read the face. Anyone can tell he's picky and calculating.
The man did not examine Dohwan's face or clothes, did not introduce himself, and offered no greeting.
He simply spat one short line.
"We're short on time. Let's go."
The attitude was unpleasant, but Dohwan did not particularly care. In his previous life he had dealt with more than a truckload of clients exactly like this.
If anything, the dry, purpose-only manner made the work easier.
Dohwan followed the Fixer down the shabby motel corridor.
The back seat of the black sedan was thick with silence.
The Fixer's eyes stayed locked on the road ahead; Dohwan kept his face buried deep in the hood and watched the Manhattan scenery flash past the window.
The Fixer broke the quiet first.
"...You heard from the boss, but this job is simple and difficult at the same time."
He still did not glance over once as he continued in a flat tone.
"The target is Jonathan Miller. Owner of a hotel chain with five mid-size properties in New York. He has one daughter he raised like gold, and she's getting married in a month."
Dohwan answered quietly from behind the mask.
"I heard. The future son-in-law is the problem, right?"
A deep crease formed between the Fixer's brows.
"Right. Name's Andre Chen. Top of his class at a prestigious university, character so upright it hurts. No drinking, no smoking, no gambling, no women. The owner and his wife are already completely smitten; as a wedding gift they're about to hand him operating rights to one of their best locations."
"Sounds perfect. So what's the issue?"
"That perfection is the issue."
The Fixer gripped the wheel tighter and growled low.
"I've investigated a lot of people in this line of work, but I've never seen a human who comes up this clean. The paperwork is flawless. No matter how deep I dig, not a single scratch."
The claim that someone could be too perfect to be real carried weight.
"Every time I look at him the hair on the back of my neck stands up. This isn't data—it's a warning from my instincts. He's not a son-in-law. He's a parasite trying to hollow out the entire hotel."
Still, one point refused to add up as Dohwan listened.
A Fixer only moved when someone hired him.
But everyone's already happy with the guy, aren't they?
If the whole family was enchanted by the future son-in-law, there should be no client to commission a background check.
"Hold on. If the owner, his wife, and the daughter are all under this guy's spell... who hired you? A friend of the owner?"
"...I can't disclose client information."
The slight catch in his breath and the way he reacted told the whole story.
It was a lie.
If there's no client, then he's doing this alone... why?
It did not fit.
Everything Dohwan had seen of the Fixer so far was meticulous and thorough.
And a man like that is pouring his own money and time into a job that pays zero?
Unable to make sense of it, Dohwan looked at the Fixer's face.
Let's see the reason.
His gaze moved to the outer corner of the Fixer's eye—the Spouse Palace that, in physiognomy, governs romantic bonds and affection.
There, completely at odds with the man's cold, rational nature, a deep, aching red peach-blossom aura swirled thickly.
It was the classic Color Reading that appeared when someone secretly, desperately loved another person.
The real reason a Fixer who seemed to have neither blood nor tears was throwing himself into an unpaid job:
a fierce pure-hearted desire to save the woman he loved from a con man's clutches.
Dohwan pretended not to notice, shrugged, and gave a short laugh.
"Fine. Let's say there's a client you can't talk about."
"It's not 'let's say.' There is."
Like a man whose weak spot had been hit, the Fixer drew a hard line with a stiff face.
Just then the car pulled up in front of an elegant restaurant glittering with lights.
The Fixer pointed through the window at a man sitting by the glass, smiling warmly.
"That's him. The one laughing like an angel between the owner and her. How do you work?"
"Boss didn't tell you?"
"Only that it's a little unusual."
"Ah. So that's how he put it."
As he spoke, Dohwan simply watched the man.
Aura was swirling across Andre Chen's face.
A sinister black energy flowing through the Wajam—the flesh under the eyes—and a hook of greed clinging to the tip of the nose called the Jundu. Both burned clearly into Dohwan's sight.
On the surface he smiled like a saint, but underneath seethed the ugly energy of a man who would wreck a family and strip them of everything they owned.
And he was hiding one more cute little secret.
Dohwan smirked and opened his mouth.
"Good instincts. You're right."
The Fixer turned and fixed him with a hard stare.
"What?"
"I said you're right. He's a con man. And a nasty one."
"...Evidence?"
"It's all written on his face."
At Dohwan's absolute certainty, the Fixer's usually ice-cold eyes wavered hard.