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She stared at the number on her phone, thumb hovering over the call button. The card which the number was printed on had been given to her by a known face, a trusted man. He promised her protection from the police and real work. A job she had been used to performing. He promised her she would do great, and that they needed her talents.
She pressed the button and rested her phone on her ear, eyes darting from left to right, ever vigilant to her surroundings.
She was low on the ground, her back to the railing of the Mapo bridge. She knew nobody would pay great attention to her figure crouching there, face hidden under the hood of her beaten up sweatshirt.
The line rang once, then a voice sounded from the other end. “If you wish to participate, please state your birthdate and name.”
She hesitated for a second. The voice sounded modified, but serious. And she trusted the man who gave her the card. “July 24th, 1991. Yun Sun-hee.”
“Confirmed,” the voice immediately answered. “Here are the details of your arranged pickup. June 7th, 2020, at Tancheon parking lot, under Bongeun bridge in Songpa-gu, Seoul.” A silence, then the line cut as quickly as it picked up.
Sun-hee sighed, quickly writing down the address on her wrist before she’d let herself forget it. She gently pushed her small golden bracelet out of the way in order to write the last character of 서울.
The bracelet. One of the only jewelry she hadn’t gotten rid off when she first got on the run. It was a simple, thin chain with a single charm attached to it. A small orange sun, the same orange as the sunset in a summer sky.
It wasn’t worth much on the market, and even if it was, she probably wouldn’t have sold it. It was a token of her past life, something she couldn’t shake off that easily. Not when it ended this way.
She pushed herself up and walked back into the road. She knew what she’d just unofficially signed for. The man who gave her the card had been clear. It was a nasty job in a remote, confidential location. She would pick up the gun she’d been forced to put down years before, and use it in a way she was all but too familiar with. He hadn’t been very precise in his descriptions, probably in case she’d refuse the job, but she knew enough.
She was used to this kind of job. And she was used to getting her hands dirty.
The three days to June 7th felt like years. Hiding felt harder than usual, and the cops seemed all but too eager to look around for once. She was wanted for murder. And for the theft of multiple firearms. And for aggravated assault on several police officers. And grand theft auto. It was bad enough and the motive they plastered on her was believable enough that they wouldn’t even hear her out. She was innocent, in a way, but there were no witnesses of the murder, and she did do all the other things. And, given her past actions, she couldn’t blame people for thinking she was guilty of the murder.
Her face was known by the police of Seoul, but she knew she should be safe as long as she didn’t venture too close to Ssangmun-dong. The policemen who were once her coworkers, her friends, her brothers in arms, all saw her just like another piece of crap they had to scrape off from the streets.
Nibbling on the clasp of her bracelet, she anxiously watched as the cars passed in front of the bench she was sitting on. She couldn’t sleep that way, but her car had been found a few days ago. Her old apartment sat too close to the Ssangmun-dong police station for comfort, and what was left of her family lived in Daegu. She had no choice but to sleep on the streets.
Arms folded into her sweatshirt, knees against her chest, she quietly thanked whoever was watching over her for giving her another chance. That mysterious new job couldn’t have arrived at a better time.