That Man's Pure Love
At Donovan's claim that everything was written right there on the face, the Fixer spoke.
"I've torn through the bastard's bank accounts, his smartphone, his social media—hell, even his trash. I put a tail on him for twenty-four-hour surveillance."
The Fixer clenched the steering wheel until his knuckles went white, teeth grinding.
"And you're telling me the one clue I couldn't find is written on his face?"
"I can see it. With my eyes."
Donovan's voice didn't waver by so much as a fraction. That absolute certainty left the Fixer momentarily speechless.
On any other day he would have told the kid to shut up and get out.
But this was the man the Boss himself had personally vouched for and introduced.
The Boss never deals in fakes.
Right now, he would grab any straw he could reach.
"…Explain it. What exactly do you see?"
Donovan calmly pointed his chin toward the man outside the window.
"Wajam. That thick flesh under his eyes is packed full of black energy. It means he's meticulously deceiving multiple people at once and managing them all in secret."
Donovan let out a short, dry laugh.
"And that kind of man looks like an angel to you? Then it's obvious, isn't it? He's a con artist."
"Evidence? Without evidence, it's all just noise."
"Obviously I found that too."
Donovan's finger aimed straight at the center of the man's face.
"Jundu. Look at the tip of his nose. It's hooked like a greedy hawk's beak. Anyone with a nose like that trusts no one. He only believes in what he can hold in his own two hands—a terminal case of paranoia."
"…Paranoia?"
"Yeah. This is a world crawling with people like you who dig into other people's lives. You think a paranoid bastard with something to hide is going to leave anything containing his secrets in someone else's hands?"
"So you're saying…"
The Fixer's eyes flickered.
He had already guessed where Donovan was going.
"Looks like you caught on. Types like him only feel safe when the important things are on their own body—as close as possible. It's a kind of compulsion."
Then Donovan told him exactly how to confirm it with his own eyes.
"Alright. From now on, stop watching his smile and focus on the left side of his chest."
The Fixer's gaze snapped toward the target.
Andre Chen was leading the conversation with perfect manners. On the surface, there wasn't a trace of compulsion or anxiety.
"…What the hell am I supposed to be seeing?"
"If you don't look for it with suspicion, you'll never notice. It's a compulsion disguised as naturally as breathing."
"And you can see it?"
"Yeah. That level of acting can't fool my eyes."
It wasn't bluster or exaggeration.
In the face of the overwhelming insight Donovan had built by studying countless faces, even the most perfectly packaged lies stood naked.
"There—just now, when the woman laughed."
Right on cue, the restaurant owner's daughter burst into a bright smile inside.
Andre Chen returned the smile warmly and leaned his upper body slightly toward the table. At the same moment, his right hand rose naturally and lightly brushed the lapel of his suit.
"While pretending to straighten his collar, he checked the weight of the left inner pocket with the inside of his wrist. And just now—"
Andre Chen set down his fork and shifted his posture.
"When he changed position, did you see his left elbow press ever so slightly against his ribs?"
"…!"
The Fixer's pupils shook hard.
Only after borrowing Donovan's gaze—honed by piercing through countless human types—did Andre Chen's compulsion begin to surface.
At every perfect moment when the flow of conversation never broke, the man was checking his left breast pocket in ways no one else could ever notice.
"Inside that pocket… is his secret."
As if struck by a hammer, the Fixer's lips trembled faintly.
"What the hell is in there?"
"Why are you asking me? How would I know? Still, whatever it is, it's clearly fatal."
The Fixer asked nothing more.
Without hesitation he opened the car door and spoke coldly.
"I'll confirm it myself."
The Fixer walked into the restaurant and headed straight for the target's table.
"Huh? Vincent? What brings you here?"
At the Fixer's sudden appearance, Jonathan Miller's eyes went round. His daughter, who had been smiling warmly, looked just as startled.
The Fixer gave them a brief nod of greeting, then moved directly to Andre Chen's side.
"Andre Chen. Or whatever your real name is. The fake performance ends here."
"Excuse me? What kind of rude—"
"Right now, take whatever's in the left inner pocket of that suit and put it on the table."
At the Fixer's icy command, a heavy silence settled over the restaurant.
Jonathan and his daughter rose from their seats in disbelief.
The usually ruthlessly rational and impeccably polite Fixer's sudden outburst made no sense to them.
"Have you lost your mind? What the hell are you doing to my future son-in-law!"
"Counselor, why are you suddenly acting like this?"
Their bewildered stares pinned him, but the Fixer never took his eyes off Andre Chen.
"It's not a hard request. Just take out whatever's in your pocket and show us. If you've got nothing to hide, pull it out with confidence."
"…"
As the Fixer said, it wasn't a difficult request.
Unpleasant, sure—but all he had to do was take it out and show them.
Andre Chen did not.
His hand never moved toward the left inner pocket.
"Counselor, this is going too far. Just because you tell me to take something out, am I supposed to? By what right?"
Instead he tried to talk his way out of it.
When the Fixer remained silent, Andre turned to Jonathan and his daughter as if asking whether they were really going to let this continue.
"Father-in-law, perhaps it would be best to have this man removed. He doesn't seem to be in his right mind."
But the situation did not go the way he hoped.
The Fixer had built years of trust.
If he was going this far, there had to be something.
"Take it out. It's not that difficult, is it?"
"He's right, Andre. Just take out whatever's in the pocket and show us. It's a misunderstanding."
The daughter tugged at Andre's arm, urging him.
At the father and daughter's words, Andre's eyes began to dart, losing their place.
The Fixer drove the wedge home without missing the opening.
"Take it out right now. Then everything is resolved. If you don't, I'll take it out myself."
At those words, Andre's composed mask cracked with an audible snap.
The tips of his ears and the back of his neck flushed red; cold sweat poured down his forehead like rain.
His right hand trembled as it hovered near the left lapel of his jacket, but he couldn't bring himself to reach inside.
"I—this is truly so offensive I can't—"
Just as Andre rose from his seat, feigning anger—
Thud!
The Fixer's powerful hand slammed down on Andre's shoulder and forced him back into the chair.
"Can't take it out, can you? Then I'll do it for you."
The Fixer's hand shot into Andre Chen's breast pocket like lightning.
"Let go! That's my personal property! I'll sue you for invasion of privacy!"
Andre screamed and struggled, but he couldn't overcome the trained strength of a professional Fixer.
What came out in the Fixer's hand was a crude, outdated flip phone rarely seen these days, a small USB drive, and a tiny brown glass bottle with a dropper.
Clatter.
The Fixer set all three items on the table for everyone to see.
"…Huh? Andre. You had another phone?"
The daughter pointed at the table with wide eyes. Jonathan frowned in equal confusion.
Nothing particularly strange. Just an old phone, a USB, and a small brown bottle.
The owner couldn't understand why Andre had been so desperate to hide them.
"Andre. What is all this?"
Even at the owner's question, Andre only trembled his lips and couldn't answer.
The elegant, unflappable demeanor he usually wore was gone without a trace.
His abnormally anxious reaction began to plant deep suspicion in the family's eyes.
In the middle of it, the Fixer silently powered on the old phone. The cracked screen lit up with a password prompt.
"Enter the password."
"Why should I? This is private!"
"Right. Of course you won't tell me."
The Fixer nodded as if he'd expected it and looked down at the small glass bottle on the table.
"Then what about this?"
The moment the Fixer picked up the bottle, Andre's face went corpse-pale in an instant.
"Th-that's… eye drops. I have severe dry eyes…"
"Eye drops?"
The corner of the Fixer's mouth twisted upward.
He slowly unscrewed the cap.
A transparent, unidentifiable liquid beaded at the tip of the dropper.
"Convenient. Your eyes look pretty dry right now."
The Fixer thrust the dropper right in front of Andre's eyes.
"Put some in. In your eyes."
"…What?"
"You said they're eye drops. So put one drop in your eye right now."
Andre's pupils dilated wildly. His breathing turned ragged; his jaw began to chatter.
"R-right now there's no need to—"
"No. Your eyes are extremely dry."
The Fixer seized the back of Andre's neck in a crushing grip and brought the tip of the dropper right above the man's eyeball.
For a split second the liquid at the tip trembled, ready to fall.
"Nooo!!"
Andre screamed and toppled backward, chair and all.
"A-Andre…?"
The daughter's voice shook in tiny fragments.
Jonathan's face had gone rigid as stone.
"That… isn't eye drops."
At the owner's trembling murmur, the Fixer calmly reinserted the dropper into the bottle and answered coldly.
"No, sir. If it were eye drops, there would be no reason for that reaction."
"…!"
The Fixer turned his gaze to the frozen father and daughter.
"You've both clearly felt that something is wrong. I think we need to open that old phone."
"You're right."
The daughter nodded, her face deathly pale.
"Something… something is really wrong right now. Andre, open it and show us right now."
Every pair of eyes locked onto Andre.
But the man gasping on the floor shook his head with desperate force.
"I can't! Even so, this is my privacy! There are extremely personal things on here that I simply cannot show!"
"Right. Of course you won't open it nicely."
The Fixer spoke as if he'd expected it and looked at the owner.
"Mr. Miller. If he refuses to open it, I'll force it open."
"Andre."
The owner looked down at him with a devastated expression.
"Just open it. The more you act like this, the stranger the whole situation becomes."
At those words Andre shot to his feet with an expression of wounded fury.
"I am truly shocked that you can't trust me! If you can't believe me, then this is as far as we go. I'm leaving!"
Just as Andre turned and took a long stride—
Thud—!
The Fixer's iron grip clamped onto his shoulder.
"Ghk!"
"You're not the one who decides that."
The Fixer forced him back down into the chair. Completely restraining the thrashing man, he asked,
"What would you like me to do, Mr. Miller?"
The question was directed at the owner, but the answer came from elsewhere.
"Please do it. I need to know."
It was the daughter. Her voice was firm, but both of her hands were trembling violently.
Even after sensing the betrayal of the man she loved, she still chose to face the truth. The Fixer swallowed his rage and nodded.
"I'll resolve this as quickly and thoroughly as possible."
A short while later.
Experts summoned by the Fixer's call finally shattered the lock that had been sealed so tightly.
The contents that appeared on the laptop screen were pure horror.
First, the USB.
Inside were the restaurant chain's financial statements, valuation reports, and a meticulous plan for how to swallow the entire family whole.
There were even complete files on the previous target families he had already destroyed.
The contents of the old phone were even more grotesque.
The moment everything was confirmed, the air in the restaurant froze solid.
There wasn't even time to grieve the betrayal.
Faced with the horrific truth that everything they had believed was a lie, the daughter's face went paper-white. Jonathan, blood drained from his face, clutched the back of his neck and staggered.
"You… you piece of garbage…!!"
With the owner's bloodshot roar, Andre Chen's perfect stage shattered into pieces.
"Call the police!!"
It didn't take long for the situation to be cleaned up.
Andre Chen, both arms bound, being dragged away by the police, was no longer the elite young man from a prestigious university.
He was nothing more than a hideous, filthy criminal.
"If it hadn't been for you… our family would have been picked clean to the bone by that bastard. Thank you. Truly."
"Thank you, Fixer. Really. I had no idea… sob…"
After receiving the daughter's tearful thanks—still raw with shock and betrayal—the Fixer gave only a light nod and left the restaurant.
But every step he took out the door felt infinitely heavy.
It had started months ago. Watching the woman he had secretly loved fall under the spell of that con man, the Fixer had lost all reason and dug into the bastard's past.
He had mobilized the best hackers and informants, pouring every hour and every dollar into a job that paid him nothing.
And all he had uncovered was the despairing conclusion that the man was perfect—not a single speck of dust on him.
And he figured it out just by looking at the face.
Insight that completely overturned months of wasted effort in five minutes.
If that man hadn't been there?
He would have never uncovered the truth and would have lost the woman he loved forever.
I owe him a massive debt.
A few bills of cash and a fake ID—the things Donovan had first requested—were nowhere near enough to repay a debt this large.
I have to return at least as much as I received.
Holding that firm resolve, the Fixer hurried back to the sedan and yanked the door open.
"Just like you said…?"
The back seat he had flung open was empty.
Donovan was nowhere to be seen.
As the Fixer scanned the interior with bewildered eyes, a single scrap of worn memo paper lying alone on the seat caught his attention.
As if entranced, he picked it up.
Looks like this is going to take a while, so I'm heading out first. Make sure the deposit goes through.
P.S. If you want to make love happen, buy some flowers and go see her every day. It'll help.
A dry list of demands, and then a postscript tossed off as if it meant nothing.
"Ha."
A hollow laugh escaped the Fixer's lips.
It was a pure, desperate affection no one had ever discovered—something even he himself had kept buried.
That mysterious Asian man had looked at his face alone and read every deep layer of his heart perfectly.
As if proving that the claim "it's all written on the face" had never been empty bravado.
The Fixer clenched the memo tightly and stared blankly back toward the restaurant.
Flowers, huh…
Through the cool night air, the tips of ears that had never once flushed red before began to burn, ever so slightly.