Chapter 1

Blood always smelled the same. Metallic, warm, heavy. It clung to the air like a second skin, thick enough to choke on, familiar enough to ignore.

The girl stepped over a body without looking down. Around her, the mansion had fallen into silence. A few minutes ago, it had been filled with desperate footsteps, screams, pleas for mercy, and the sharp crack of gunfire. Now, only the slow drip of blood from her blade disturbed the stillness.

She wore black. Not because it looked intimidating, nor because it hid the stains. Blood never stayed hidden.

It was simply practical.

Her expression remained empty as she walked through the grand hallway, past shattered glass and overturned furniture, past men who had once believed money could buy safety.

At the end of the hall, one man still breathed. Barely breathing.

He lay against the wall, one trembling hand pressed against the wound in his stomach, his expensive white shirt ruined in red. His eyes widened as she approached.

Fear. The look she had seen too many times to count.

“P-please…” he rasped. “I can pay you. Double—triple—anything—”

She stopped in front of him. For a moment, she simply stared. Cold and still, like a machine.

The man’s breathing turned frantic.

Her blade moved once. Clean and precise.

Then the man slumped forward, and the mansion returned to silence. She stood there for a second longer, staring at nothing.

Slowly, she reached into her coat and pulled out a small phone. No name appeared on the screen—only a single number she had memorized long ago. She answered it.

“Report.” A man’s voice. Sharp and direct

“The assignment is complete.” she responded with no emotion nor pride, just fact.

“Any complications?”

“None.”

A pause. Then, “Well done. Now return.” The line ended.

She lowered the phone and slipped it back into her pocket.

Outside, rain had started to fall.

“Ajin! You’re burning the eggs again!” The sharp voice snapped through the apartment like a slap.

Ajin blinked. Smoke curled lazily from the frying pan in front of her.

“Oh no—!”

She grabbed the spatula in panic, nearly dropping it as she hurried to save what was left of breakfast.

From the small dining table, her younger brother burst into laughter. “You were spacing out again.”

“I was not!”

“You were staring at the pan like it insulted your ancestors.”

“It did,” she said with complete seriousness. “It betrayed me.”

He laughed harder.

Morning sunlight poured through the kitchen window, warm and golden, touching the small apartment with a kind of peace that felt ordinary, and precious.

Ajin stood there in oversized pajamas, hair slightly messy, arguing with breakfast like it was her mortal enemy.

She is known in their neighborhood as someone who's a cheerful, kind and gentle young lady. At first glance, you can tell that she is well loved by the people around her.

Just a young woman trying—and failing—to cook eggs.

She placed the slightly tragic breakfast on the table with dramatic pride.

“There. A masterpiece.”

Her brother stared. “…I think it’s still moving.”

“Protein.”

“That’s charcoal.”

“Flavor.”

He sighed like a tired old man despite being younger than her.

“I worry about your future husband.”

Ajin gasped. “Excuse you. My future husband will appreciate my artistic cooking.”

“He’ll appreciate the hospital.”

She pointed her chopsticks at him. “Traitor.”

He grinned.

The television in the corner hummed softly, morning news playing in the background.

Ajin barely paid attention as she sat down. Until the anchor’s voice changed.

Her brother reached for the remote, but she froze first.

"BREAKING NEWS. A luxury estate on the outskirts of the city had been discovered this morning after reports of multiple casualties. Authorities described the scene as a massacre. No survivors had been found. Investigations are still—"

Her brother frowned. “Ugh. That’s horrible…”

“Right…? That’s why you should always be careful, okay? And call me whenever something happens.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

He waved her off with the careless confidence only younger brothers seemed to possess, shoving the last bite of breakfast into his mouth before standing up.

“I’m serious,” Ajin said, said, narrowing her eyes.

“And I’m seriously going to be late.”

He grabbed his school bag from the couch, nearly tripping over one of his own shoes on the way.

Ajin sighed and stood, following him to the door like she always did.

“At least take your umbrella.”

He looked outside through the small window by the entrance. The sky, still gray and heavy.

“I’ll survive.”

“That sounds exactly like something people say right before they don’t.”

“Wow. Encouraging.”

She shoved the umbrella into his hands anyway.

“And your lunch.”

“And my dignity?”

“Already lost.”

He laughed, slipping on his shoes.

For a moment, he paused at the doorway and looked back at her. In that small pause, something softened.

“You worry too much, sis.”

Ajin crossed her arms. “And you don’t worry enough.”

“That’s why we balance each other.”

She wanted to say more. But she just laughed.

Eli. He wasn’t her brother by blood.

He was someone she found eight years ago—small, thin, and far too quiet for a ten-year-old child.

It had been raining that night too.

She was just on her way home from work, when she saw him sitting alone near the back of an abandoned alley. He was not crying, nor shouting. Just a boy hugging his knees, staring at the ground like he had already accepted being forgotten.

Most people would have walked past. She could have walked past. But she simply can't let a child stay there all alone. So, she went up to him and asked where his family was, he looked up at her with hollow eyes and said, very simply— “I don’t have one.”

She never asked for the full story. Maybe because she understood too well what it meant to lose everything. Maybe because some wounds didn’t need names. She only knew he had nowhere to go. And somehow, without planning to, she brought him home.

At first, it was supposed to be temporary. A few days. A week at most. But days became months, and months became years. And somewhere between shared meals, school reports, arguments over homework, and burnt breakfasts, Eli had stopped being a child she took in. He became family. The only family she ever had.

The little boy who once looked like he expected the world to leave him behind had grown into someone bright, stubborn, and annoyingly good at teasing her before eight in the morning.

To them, they were siblings.

To Ajin, he was someone very precious to her—someone she loved enough to fear losing.

She smiled and reached up to fix his slightly crooked collar like she used to.

“…Just come home early.”

He smiled. “Yeah. I will.”

Then he turned and left.

The door clicked shut. And suddenly, the apartment felt too quiet.

“Ahh right… I still have some deliveries to do.”

Ajin exhaled softly, as if shaking off the weight that had briefly settled in her chest. The unease from the news, the lingering silence after Eli left—it all stayed behind in the apartment as she grabbed her things.

A simple routine was waiting for her outside. And she followed it.

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