A Girl and A Hitman - Chapter 2

When upbeat music isn’t pleasant, it becomes simply unpleasant. With that feeling, I took my seat, and the owner quietly turned off the player. Was it that obvious? There were only the two of us in the shop: me and him, a strong man with a shaved head. Even though he wasn’t a dangerous person, being alone with him made me a bit uneasy. The shop was either crowded with people or completely empty. The reason it was always crowded was that the coffee was so well-crafted and delicious

Two iced coffees, please.

I drink alone, but since it’s not a chain store, they don’t serve the second cup at the same time just because I ordered it that way. By ordering first, they serve the second cup just as I’m finishing the first, and they even change the flavor. There are many factors that can alter the taste of coffee, such as roasting time and steeping time, but I think it’s impressive how they can use these to create the “desired” taste for the customer. Since I go there regularly, we

“Beans?”

Today, perhaps because my expression is different from usual, he asks about the type of beans. I have no likes or dislikes, and I would enjoy any type of coffee brewed by this owner. However, I realize that this is a convenient pretense of “looking at myself from a distance,” and in reality, I don’t want to waste my thoughts on unnecessary things.

“Leave it to me.”

“Understood.”

In the pleasant aroma and silence, I was thinking. Simply put, who was that girl? Checking repeatedly felt narcissistic, but I had a talent that was incomparable to others. I could understand various matters at a level of a specialized researcher, and my brain possessed an extraordinary memory ability. Despite being slender and of standard adult male height, which no one would associate with a hitman, I could draw out 100% of my physical strength and carry out assassinations without any tools multiple times I had.

And where did the girl, whom even I, the so-called strongest assassin, cannot kill, acquire such skills? For someone like me, who hasn’t received any information about the target from the client, all I can understand is that the girl possesses something worth the enormous success fee offered. Why a girl with such a gentle face must be killed, I don’t understand. From now on, I hope to never find out.

When it comes to killing, I extremely dislike knowing the background of the person. The reason is quite simple: “It makes it harder to kill.” This is not out of sympathy. Humans, of course, have their own personalities. That’s how humans are distinguished, so it’s only natural.

The more I understand the other person, the more I feel it’s a shame to kill them. I possess most of the “abilities that society demands,” but I don’t judge people by such abilities. Even if the abilities are not needed, they can actually contain remarkable interest, and the humanity of a person who has nothing is worth observing. Humans are like canvases. Since no one has yet succeeded in creating the same human being, the form they take after being “matured” over time from birth is

Before I finished my second iced coffee, a new job request came in. I took out my work phone from my inner pocket and opened the email. This time, the target was a terrorist organization that could potentially influence the country. There had been similar requests in the past, from the same requester. I sighed. How many enemies are these people in this country making?

“Sorry to rely on you again.”

With that one word, he changes from “shopkeeper” to “customer.” He says it with deep remorse, but he doesn’t really mind. He was just worried about this country.

“Don’t worry about it, the reward money is more than enough.”

“Well, if that’s the case.”

Pulling on his beard with a weary expression, he says.

“Since I’m in a position where I’m being let off the hook for now.”

I said that, placed the payment for two cups of coffee on the table, and left the shop.

It was the first time I had moved on to the next task without completing the previous one. However, the requests from the “Alliance” and the “Client” are different in nature. To put it bluntly, the “Alliance” is the organization I belong to, and the “Client” pays profits to the “Alliance.” In other words, the girl I had to kill earlier was a request from the “Alliance,” similar to being told by a boss in a regular job to get something done.

I flew overseas. I was fully aware that I shouldn’t know certain things, but during the journey, I was only looking for any information about the girl. I couldn’t help but be curious. Perhaps I thought that it wouldn’t be a problem to know about her because they couldn’t kill me for it. However, that mindset didn’t align with my purpose. I had to continue killing as the Alliance instructed. If I lost my value, the Alliance would kill me. And I was already in a “half-killed”

Ultimately, I want to know what I was thinking at that time. To find out, I could say that I am still living as the League’s dog. I consider myself a person who doesn’t have extreme emotional fluctuations and analyze myself as someone who wouldn’t kill without a reason. Therefore, I can’t help but be concerned about the events that led to that situation and the process that unfolded until it happened. Discovering the truth of the past became a reason for living.