Reunion (2)
Reunion (2)
The woman he had liked so much... had wanted so desperately.
In the film Zombie, which she shot when she was eight, she was like a gleaming jewel...
And in My Love Was a Gumiho, filmed at nine, she stirred an urge to possess her, to keep her.
And now she had grown up far too well, more than living up to expectations.
He realized that right here stood a face and body that could satisfy his desires—a face he would never tire of for a lifetime.
He wanted her so badly that he had prepared everything: hair bleach to turn her hair white, tattoo tools to ink her pink like a gumiho... a collar, ears, even a tail.
He had been drawing up his abduction plan all on his own when S Company contacted him, saying they were looking for someone to kidnap Si-yoon.
What heaven-sent timing...
Normally work like this went to the grunts from Taebaek, not to us Tigers, but this job—this one I had to do myself.
Everything seemed to be flowing perfectly, but...
The movements of those brats who came charging in on motorcycles were anything but ordinary.
The short little squirt was already pretty famous, even among us...
But that tall brat was on a level that veered just outside the bounds of common sense.
Granted, we who carry the name Tiger are much the same.
That strength, though... it was far beyond anything in the range of a seventeen-year-old.
If that tall kid ever reaches his late twenties, when his muscles fully ripen... it shames me to admit it, but I don't think I could beat him.
Even if I'm ranked in the lower tier among the Tigers...
Still, you could say the Taebaek Tiger rankings are practically world rankings.
And even I thought I might lose...
I wanted to watch that display a little longer, so I deployed ten of the men I train personally.
They were fighting back satisfyingly enough, but suddenly that tall brat's whole atmosphere changed.
Thwump! Thwump!
Would you believe that sound came from a fist colliding with a human face?
As if the hits he took didn't matter at all, the tall brat started grabbing them one by one and driving them into the deck...
He began to radiate an aura that even I didn't want to touch.
And that was when my heart started pounding.
How would it feel... to crush the hope of that rising sprout?
If I cut off those arms... heh.
My body was just starting to flush with excitement when...
Hanseong's little monster picked up a weapon.
The moment Hanseong's little monster gripped that dagger, his movements changed.
The chill that ran down my spine was nothing short of delightful.
Enough to make me forget about Si-yoon...
And before I knew it, that thrill had arrived right in front of me...
Those brats had approached my very own Si-yoon.
It soured my mood, but well—she'd found a new owner now, so I could permit them a farewell of sorts.
In the middle of this situation, the expression on Si-yoon's face looked like someone watching something fascinating.
Dozens of men had been broken, torn, slashed, and killed, yet her eyes were gleaming.
Ah... truly... what would have happened if you'd never met me...
But then that annoyingly handsome little monster from Hanseong undid my Si-yoon's restraints.
I'd planned to untie her myself anyway, so I stayed still and watched.
But the little monster's face looked grim.
Like he'd just seen something terrifying...
'What's going on?' Before I could even finish the thought, one of my men was already dying.
Watching so many of my men die, the thought was just passing through my head—'Is something like that... even possible...?'—
when right before my eyes, Si-yoon was approaching me with a smile.
That knifework, cutting through a person's body without the slightest hesitation...
A seventeen-year-old girl snuffing out human lives without a moment's deliberation......
As I stood utterly entranced by a scene of such impossible wrongness... she stepped up before me.
"Baby... aren't you excited? Ahaha..."
I steadied myself and met her gaze head-on.
It's thrilling... to be honest, I'm so incredibly excited.
The fierce, raw stench of blood and sweat I hadn't inhaled in ages... I could feel both my pupils dilating.
And Park Gi and Jae-hyeong were fighting fiercely.
'Ah... I want... to get in there too.....'
Being tied up like this was unbearably stifling.
This frail body was too weak to even snap a thin binding cord.
The more the deck of this ship spread with blood...
The more the ragged breathing of the men fell still...
The thicker the reek of blood grew.....
The more my whole body itched and crawled.
Ah... but this isn't right...
Park Gi being in front of me... isn't right.
Park Gi, standing up front and hogging all my fun? No way.
"Hey, untie me."
Park Gi stared at me as if possessed, and cut the ropes bound around my body with a knife.
Those watching over me...
For those waiting so patiently, I'd better get myself well and truly ready.
That would be proper manners, wouldn't it.
I held the blood-soaked knife in my teeth, and as I casually tied up my hair—the hair of this body I'd adapted to for seventeen years—I finished getting ready.
That was when a man approached me, fully off guard.
I had observed courtesy, but my opponent had not.
In that case, it becomes my duty to make him feel the cost of that carelessness in his flesh.
A hand reaching out toward me.
So very, so very...
so slow it almost made me yawn.
The taut tendons bulging out beneath the throbbing veins...
They seemed to beckon, as if asking me to cut them free...
'Ahaha...'
I was far too weak to such temptations, and I promptly set those tendons free.
As I was busy slicing through everyone trying to seduce me...
at some point the people who'd been tempting me, coming at me, stopped in their tracks.
Those who stared at me with shaking pupils...
The expressions I hate most...
I cocked my head and asked them.
"What's wrong? You... scared of me?"
Their expressions.
Their actions.
I could hear it in their breathing and see it with my own eyes—they were terrified of me.
I hate people who show those kinds of feelings toward me.
Because the moment they show those feelings, it all ends too quickly, without any real struggle.
What is this emptiness...
But, one still remained.
One still gave off the sense that I could expect something from him... someone bearing the name I'd created: "Tiger."
Please... I beg you, live up to my expectations.
I approached slowly, smiling, my face flushing.
"Baby... aren't you excited? Ahaha..."
Oh Tae-hyeon, who had been sitting there looking at me, slowly stood up.
I leaned my face in closer and spoke to Oh Tae-hyeon.
"Baby, am I... sca—"
A fist swung at my face without a second thought.
The speed—about as fast as Tae-oh's, who was faster than Ji-hoon... no, faster than that, nearly as swift as Park Gi in the old days.
But today of all days...
it looked slow—so slow, in fact, it felt even more tedious than ever.
"Baby? What's wrong~ You startled me? Ahaha."
Oh Tae-hyeon had surely taken his swing the moment he saw me drop my guard.
But it was far too slow for me to take the hit.
"...M-monster."
Seeing Oh Tae-hyeon already tucking his tail before we'd even gotten into the real, sticky fun—the floating thrill inside me dropped off a cliff,
and emptiness began to fill the void left by the emotion once again.
"Hey, you don't get to say shit like that, you fucking moron..."
Between another swing of his fist, I naturally slipped my dagger through and planted it.
Then I grabbed Oh Tae-hyeon by the collar, pulled his face close, and forced a smile.
"Why...? Are you... scared of me too?"
Oh Tae-hyeon lunged at me as if he had no time even to feel the pain of his left hand being split in two, but I dodged it easily.
And I drove the dagger in my other hand into Oh Tae-hyeon's shoulder and moved smoothly, as if riding a swing.
Sssssrrrriiiip!!!
"Ghhhk!!!"
One of Oh Tae-hyeon's arms was paralyzed, but without pausing I moved just as quickly and naturally as I had with the others and severed the tendons throughout his body too.
Unable to put up any resistance, Oh Tae-hyeon collapsed to the floor, moving only his head.
It wasn't the least bit fun.
I thought I might get to fight him viciously and drag it out like we used to... but my fantasy was shattered far too easily.
"What is this... no fun at all. Tae-oh, go wake Ji-hoon up."
"Yes!"
While Kim Tae-oh went to wake Park Ji-hoon, I grabbed a fistful of Oh Tae-hyeon's hair, where he lay mumbling, and lifted his head.
"...How many... have you killed..."
"Huh?"
How should I answer the question of how many I've killed...?
He probably means the number of lives I've ended with these two hands...
In Si-yoon's life, it was only the fourteen just now—that was all. But from Kang Han-seong's memories...
Even with my overwhelming memory, it's hard to count.
I shrugged and said,
"Do people keep count of that these days? Is there a prize or something?"
"....."
Off in the distance, when Kim Tae-oh shook Park Ji-hoon, Park Ji-hoon flinched and got up.
In that time I cut even the tendons in Oh Tae-hyeon's legs.
Oh Tae-hyeon didn't let out a single scream, as if he were well accustomed to pain.
That, at least, I can respect.
He's worthy of carrying the name "Tiger" that I made.
I handed the dagger to Tae-oh and told him to guard Da-yeon.
"Drag him over."
"Whoa, you killed 'em all? Fuck! If that's how it was gonna be you should've just done it yourself from the start—this is way too harsh."
"Hey! You shithead! You're always bitching it's embarrassing to lose to a girl, you goddamn bastard."
"Are you even a girl? Huh?!"
"Are you insane? Unbelievable. Shut your mouth and follow me."
"Huh?! But at least you didn't tell me to fuck off—look at you, still got some manners~"
"....?"
When I glanced over, Park Ji-hoon naturally avoided my eyes, and—
maybe his arm wasn't moving well—he tensed up hard, then dragged Oh Tae-hyeon by the hair and followed me.
Then I entered the bridge and smiled at the captain.
"Turn the ship around."
He moved to draw a gun at my words, so I threw the dagger I was holding and planted it in his shoulder, then rushed in and flipped him face-down.
"I said turn the ship around first, since I'm going to play with you..."
I pulled the gun from the pocket the captain had been reaching into and slowly got to my feet.
"Oh... a Glock, huh? I'll take it~"
"....."
Crouching down with a cold grin, I switched naturally to Russian in case he didn't understand Korean.
"Вставай. (Get up.)"
In that moment the moonlight flooded the bridge, and the captain looked flustered—probably because he could now see my condition clearly.
Well, anyone would fluster when a girl appears covered head to toe in blood.
Flicking my head as a drop of blood fell from the tips of my bangs, I wiped around both my eyes as if washing my face.
The captain couldn't grasp the situation and didn't get up, so I chambered a round in the Glock.
When the muzzle slowly turned toward him, the captain raised both hands and rose to his feet.
And he turned the bow around on my orders.
A look at the radar and chart showed he'd been heading straight for a port in Gangwon-do.
satisfied, I pulled the trigger without even looking, still aiming where I'd pointed.
Bang!
The round pierced through the captain's head and lodged in the glass window.
Then, turning my eyes from Oh Tae-hyeon, already anticlimactically dead, I began killing the people in sight one by one with the Glock.
A cargo ship ringing with nothing but Bang! Bang!
And the instant we opened the door to a room not far from the ship's inner entrance, Park Ji-hoon and I both let out sounds of wonder.
"Whoa..."
All kinds of hair bleach and dye were stacked up, along with tattoo tools and various other implements packed full.
Among them I picked up something fluffy, snow-white, and divided into nine separate tails—its purpose blatantly obvious and impossible to miss—and held it up beside my hip, looking at Park Ji-hoon.
At the sight, Park Ji-hoon looked horrified.
"Are you crazy?!"
"Unreal. What is all this—did he plan to turn me into the gumiho from my drama?"
"Whoa... absolute psycho..."
"Check out the dirty collar."
Park Ji-hoon's face went red as he looked over the various implements,
and I looked them over with interest.
"The world's gotten a lot better, huh~ Right?"
And then we saw the operating table...
And the two pictures stuck to the wall there, modeled on my face and body.
One showed my body covered in various tattoos modeled on the pink markings from My Love Was a Gumiho...
And the other... was labeled "The End," and in it I had no arms or legs.
"Wow... brutal~"
".....I shouldn't have let him die like that."
Park Ji-hoon's expression crumpled darkly when he saw that picture.
"Leave it. He's croaked anyway."
I went into the shower stall I'd spotted and washed off the blood, then—
how he knew my size I couldn't say—changed into the white underwear and the pink modern-style hanbok that had been set out, and stepped outside.
As I came out shaking my hair with a towel, right next to me lay a pair of knuckles that looked like a cat's paw, marked "Pink Gold."
The finger holes were lined in soft black silicone, and
the tips of the knuckles were designed with claw-like points—it felt like a gift aimed straight at me.
I shoved the appealing present into my pocket and walked out.
Then I tossed the pistol and the blood-soaked clothes into the sea and sat down beside Da-yeon.
Now it was time to put the acting skills I'd been honing all this time to use.
"You guys better watch your mouths too... don't scare Da-yeon."
""......""