Unreal (IVE Liz x male reader)

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Three bullets.

Bang. Pops the front right tire. Sends the Mercedes-Benz zigzagging down the street. Crashes into a fish stick stall.

Bang. Pops a dark red tunnel through the driver’s skull as he crawls out of the vehicle. His partner screams.

Bang. Now he doesn’t. Larynx blows into his esophagus. Only blood gets to spew out of his lips and all over his suit.

And you still have three-fourths of a round loaded into your Taurus TX22 pistol.

As the final passenger of the luxury car pushes out of their steaming ride, you shove your gun back into its holster. Instead, you unsheathe your hwando blade—the same blade your parents gifted you for your sixteenth birthday—and ready it at your side.

Your mark looks up at you through teary eyes. You don’t even register what they say.

Slick.

With one clean and deft motion, your mark’s eyes turn blood red in an instant. But no sign of remorse is etched on your face. Why? Did they show your family remorse when their Clan broke into your home? Did they show your parents remorse when they shook the living daylights out of them for their debt? Did they show you remorse when they murdered your parents right in front of you?

You still remember it. Every time you smell fresh blood in the air—you remember it.

The way your father begged and pleaded on his knees. He was never the type to bow down to anyone, but his forehead was right between their polished shoes. The sound of shattering dishes as your mother’s heart sank just as fast as the first few shots fired into her. The tightness in your chest as all the air left your lungs the moment you saw your parents turn into lifeless, unmoving bodies, bleeding out against the entryway of your family home.

It’s been eight years. Eight long, grueling years you have spent trying to avenge them—trying to get your revenge.

What was another three more bodies to your growing count?

You don’t care. They’re all just collateral. What you really want—who you really want—is Kim Jaehwi.

And you want him dead.

That was the plan. Until your recent mark started sending more grunts and goons out to hunt you—more than the usual at least.

On any other day, you’d flee the scene of the crime, head to your pathetic excuse for an apartment, clean your weapons and your clothes, and call it a day. But mere hours after you murdered everyone in that Mercedes-Benz, a manhunt for you was already in full swing.

Men in suits trudging up and down the streets. Goons with brass knuckles and similar hwando blades knocking on every house and business within ten kilometers of the incident. Police cars needing to stop at the blockades these thugs have set up themselves to initiate their own ‘investigation’.

You know the Devil Cat Clan is relentless. The moment they hear a man with a crow mask has reduced their member count even by just a bit, they chase after you. But today, you must have killed someone big. Because even the higher-ups want you gone now.

At least, that’s what you gather when a spray of bullets disturb your evening tea, shattering the flimsy walls of your two-hundred-thousand-won-per-month apartment. You don’t regret the loss of your favorite safehouse. You regret not salvaging the Samanco still sitting in your refrigerator.

You rush towards your other safehouses: the goshiwon in the Mapo district, the house out in the Gyeonggi-do suburbs, your college buddy’s place in Gangnam, the public safety shelter where you were brought to eight years ago back in Yongsan-gu.

But they have all been either broken into, torn apart inside-out, or heavily guarded by members of the Devil Cat Clan.

Well, shit.

You don’t even have enough time to worry about whether they’ve figured out who you are or not. Instead, you think of the last safe place you could seek refuge at.

The Requiem.

Before you even enter the underground bar, the bouncers on either side of the door give you nasty glances. You wonder if it’s because you're still in your usual tracksuit. They seem new—they aren’t used to you yet. As you push past them and head inside, you soon realize coming here is a bad idea when every criminal-in-hiding, vigilante, and underworld devil at the bar has their eyes on you like you don’t belong here.

Fuck them—you just want a goddamn drink and some room to breathe.

You slide over to the counter and signal for a drink from the bartender. He looks new too. He hesitates for a moment, but when you see your friend warn him with a glance, he immediately begins pouring you a glass of whiskey.

At least he knows better than to ask.

“Seems like someone’s had a rough few days,” Yujin teases, leaning forward on her elbows towards you. “You look like shit.”

“I have you to thank for that,” you say in between sips of your drink, feeling it burn down your throat. “Who the hell did you send me to kill? Ever since then, the Clan’s been on my ass non-stop.”

Yujin shrugs, pulling back to reach for one of the drawers, where a pile of keys were being kept. She picks one up and slides it over to the bald roughneck beside you. “Dunno. I’m just doing what you’ve told me to do: find members of the Devil Cat Clan causing trouble, ping their location, send them your way. Nothing more, nothing less.”

You scoff as you down the rest of your whiskey. “Whoever that was is causing more than just a pain in my neck. How big is this mess you got me in?” you ask, never really having the time to keep up with recent events.

As if on command, Yujin interrupts the ongoing football match on the TV and puts on the news—much to the dismay of several blokes.

You try to take it all in.

They’re covering it up. They made it out as an accident. Potential gang wars. No involvement from the Devil Cat Clan. They’re framing it as a tragedy. Collateral damage. Remnants of the ‘old school’ jopok ways—the old family style of mafia. But then the next few things catch your eye.

Whether it was further cover up, some sort of red herring, or something they actually had planned, the news comes as a surprise to you nonetheless.

Jaehwi has a daughter. And he’s marrying her off.

Something about strengthening the presence of the Devil Cat Clan. Something about metaphorically marrying their former jopok ways to more civilized and ‘clean’ endeavors. Whatever their explanations are, you don’t clock it. Partially because you could never believe that the Clan would ever want to come clean. Partially because there are four men with guns by the door threatening the bouncers to be allowed inside.

“Shit, they followed me all the way here,” you spit as you glance at Yujin for support. “Got anything for me?”

Without thinking twice, she pulls out a briefcase from underneath her and shoves it against your chest. “Bullets, clean set of clothes, burner phone. Get as far away from here as you can and sort this shit out before thinking of coming back again. Until then—don’t die.”

And as every last member of the Seoul underbelly at The Requiem point their guns towards the entrance of the bar, you take this as your chance to escape. Before darting out through the back entrance, you take one last look at the news showcasing Jaehwi’s revealed daughter.

Suddenly, an idea comes to you.

You thought it would be a good idea. You thought you could benefit off of the chaos going on in the background.

But the moment you walk through the gates of this traditional-style mansion at the very heart of the Devil Cat Clan’s scope of control, you begin to doubt your idea.

The plan was simple: act decent, present yourself naturally, and hope to get chosen as one of the potential aspirants for the hand of Jaehwi’s daughter. The rest? Well, the rest can follow. You have to worry about getting past screening first.

Which proved to be immediately difficult.

They ask for your identity and background, so you tell them the script Yujin prepared for you the moment you showed up at The Reqiuem searching for work as a new vigilante. They ask why you have weapons, and you tell them—who the hell doesn’t have weapons in this day and age? They ask you if you know what the Devil Cat Clan’s about, who the boss and his daughter are, and what your intentions for marriage would be. While you can’t tell them you’re here to get closer to Jaehwi and to end his miserable excuse for a life, you instead tell them, “I’m here because I see an opportunity to not just help the Clan with your endeavors, but to … pursue another endeavor of my own.”