Chapter Text
smoke bled it’s way out of gayoungs cigarette, she hated the taste but the familiar warmth wrapped around her lips was nothing but sweet, deluded nostalgia. she had originally hated anything with even the slightest scent of tobacco, deeming it ‘riddled with sins’ and anyone who dared to indulge in drugs would be defying Gods order.
but now, as she stood under the twinkling lights of the city, exhaling a slow stream of smoke, she couldn't help but wonder when she would start up her beliefs again. maybe believing in a higher power gave her the constant reminder not to tip too far over the edge. one swift move and she’d go ‘splat’ down the iceberg, wooden cross and pink bible in hand.
ever since her parents had tried to pray away every sign of ‘lesbianism’ that seemed to eat alive their innocent daughter, gayoung had only learnt to be more scheming, secretive and appealing to women. soon enough, her ‘pure girl’ façade fooled no one, and gayoung was forced from conversion camp to conversion camp.
the vibrant haired girl took an exasperated drag from her cigar, peering down at the scratches on her matte platforms; sighing with frustration.
“you scared, fox?” the older guy asked, adjusting his glock to sit righteously in his pocket, the glint of the city casting it’s shine on the metallic base.
she scoffed and rolled her eyes, throwing her smoke to the floor and shimmied a foot onto the dying ashes. it pained the woman to waste a fresh cigarette but duty calls, and unfulfilling her tasks was an easy recipe to disaster.
it had started off small for jo gayoung, she was a bar tender at a popular illegal gambling house mainly used by well-known criminals and korean mafia. gayoung never cared and people took a liking to that, sometimes bad guys wanted normal human treatment and it was simply impossible for her to give two shits about anyone- so their wish was granted.
being paid extra for acting unbothered and basically scamming people by drowning their drink in ice and not alcohol was her favourite part of her job. not to mention all the sexy women that stuck to their “boyfriend”s arm like a leech (completely oblivious that there was a different girl every 3 days).
gayoung couldn’t deny her eyes- which glanced at their cleavages and rosy lips every time. they somehow had the perkiest nipples and most glorious figures.
she was sure they’d felt her eyes burning into their tits every time she’d come out with their drinks, but she made sure to avoid eye contact when their realisation hit.
truthfully, jo gayoung was a pervert.
she’d purposefully pretend to gaze into the stars whenever a woman approached her, forbidding any chance of thoughts her parents so desperately prayed away.
so in the end- both the men and women were ignored equally (verbally- at least).
that was until the day her godfather had seen her working her shift; mixer in one hand and a full tray of carefully crafted drinks in the other.
performing flashy tricks would get gayoung tips and she’d basically do anything for money, so it didn’t take her more than a week to perfect her hand-to-eye coordination skills and find baffling tricks to show off whenever a big party came to the gambling house (the more people, the more money; the only maths jo gayoung had memorised).
and it so happened her own godfather, who baptised her at the ripe age of 2 months, was sitting at the oval table in front of her.
with a pang of anxiety, gayoung wondered if he had noticed her longing glances and internal thoughts as he watched her perform, she managed to finish a breath taking performance though; never stumbling once.
he stayed silent till the applause ended and the final drink was served then pulled the orange-haired minx aside.
“gayoung, my dear, you’ve really taken to this work,” he said, looking at her with a mixture of condescension and admiration.
“skilled hands from flipping through all those bible pages i presume?”
needless to say after that gayoung was forced to find new work, quitting her job on immediate notice and dumping all her locker items into an orange backpack. she knew her family wouldn’t care about *him* gambling. they’d go on about how as the eldest daughter “she should set an example for her siblings” and “not enabling a job that encourages sins against God”.
she didn't want to disappoint anyone again or have them on her back 24/7, but she couldn't shake the feeling of despair that gnawed at her heart. that job was a staple for her and the excess money she had garnered from overtly generous tips and a slightly creepy boss was all she needed to live a lush life.
working immensely at a blue collar status was not an option for gayoung as she thought of hard labour as legal torture, so she simply stuck to busting tables for a local café and saved every bit of money she garnered towards rent. her easy life long forgotten, the clinking of dishes and the shuffle of feet; far from the glamorous world she had once known.
she longed to go back to her old ways, not even caring if it was illegal. money was all she wanted.
and she would get.
- - - -
about an hour passed and not a word was spoken.
finally, the leader ordered a quick “let’s go”. pulling out the rest of the guns and handing them back to the gang, they were on their way, speeding off into darkness. gayoung slipped the gun inside the waist of her boxers, easing into the cold metal against bare skin.
she wasn’t scared. she knew what to do and how to do it too, playing a macho role and sitting in the back of the truck in silence. only watching buildings go by and thinking about what to do once her task has been finished.
a club had opened up down the street and her friends had been absolutely begging her to go with th-
“we’re almost there, almost there” the leader spoke, he had a muscular figure and despite his scary build he went by the name ‘mark’, which didn’t seem very scary at all honestly (a friendly neighbourhood ‘mark’ seemed more fitting than a cold-blooded killer).
the target hung out around by a park on augusta avenue, they arrived there and walked quietly to the playground surrounded by the faint sounds of a little girls shrills of laughter. gayoung had a rule to not kill too close to a child, a rule she would risk messing up a case with only that as the cause.
she shrugged it off and took it as the icy screams of the wind, watching the rest split up into one the two groups (to cut off the two exits possible to leave the park).
mark and gayoung headed to the front while the rest headed to the back. when they jumped out, it was only then gayoung had saw the child hugging her fathers leg. a head full of jet black hair and a smile big enough to blind the sun herself. gayoung stood in awe, ignoring the heavy metal poking at her abdomen.
“cute, isn’t she?” the target spoke up, ruffling his daughters long hair while she shyly looked away. retracting her palms to her face and swaying from one foot to the other.
nodding absentmindedly, gayoung finally snapped to reality when she felt a pinch on her elbow. mark had squinted his eyes at the orange-hair, the job was to kill the man not treat his kid like a model.
the only thing she could do was shake her head; signalling that she would not be able to make the assassination as it broke her rule, not giving the slightest fuck of the consequences that followed.
this was one of the biggest payments they had received, surely not completing this mission would result in gayoung or even her whole team getting hunted down and killed themselves.
however, gayoung refused to do anything about the man in front of her, keeping a tight smile on her face as she gently waved at the younger girl walking towards the slide in fro-
“shoot him or i’ll shoot the girl”
mark gruffly whispered, his eyebrows furrowed as his left hand was already gripping his gun, cocking it backwards ever so slightly and observing gayoungs eyes bulge out of their sockets.