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The little girl—the new one, the one that Mr. Nobody, the Pawnshop Ghost, was going through hell and high water to get back—stares at him from across the table. She’s still clean, compared to the other children, and her nails are painted bright, loud colors. The other children are eating, ignoring him in favor of food, but the new little girl (So-mi?) keeps staring at him, even as he passes over her share of food. It makes his skin prickle, the weight of her curiosity.
He's killed men for lesser slights, but she just looks, wide-eyed and quietly frightened. He takes the time to give her something like a smile—a softer stare, the lines of his mouth smoothed flat, the beginning of a crinkle in the corner of his eyes—and watches the fear settle within her, bit by bit. Ramrowan doesn’t look the type to have a soft spot for children, but, well, here he is. He even volunteers to come and watch the kids, much to the eternal confusion of Man-seok and Jong-seok. But they only need him for how beautifully he kills, so his free time is his to spend as he wants.
One of the other girls is leaving, and the rest of the children mumble out cheerful farewells through mouths of food. Ramrowan doesn’t say goodbye—he knows she’s marching off to her death. He never says goodbye.
The little girl—still clean, but clearly uncomfortable if not outright terrified, despite her brave face—comes around the table to stand before him, still staring.
She bends forward with steady, small hands, and puts a band-aid over the head wound he got from her Ghost.
Something in him twists, and changes.
The thing is, about So-mi’s Ghost, is that he’s so interesting.
“He didn’t flinch,” Ramrowan tells Jong-seok, but the words don’t really mean anything. Ramrowan doesn’t like talking, regardless of language, and he can’t think of a simple way to encompass what he wants to say.
The Ghost didn’t flinch. The Ghost didn’t even move. He didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at the sight of a gun. He watched Ramrowan shoot a man in the head with calm eyes. He gazed at the body for a brief moment, as though confirming the kill, and then brought his eyes up, slowly, to meet Ramrowan’s. In those eyes, Ramrowan saw himself. In that moment, they were reflections of each other. A killer, a beast of prey, mirrored across two bodies. The Ghost stared. Ramrowan left.
Not a sound from either of them.
But Jong-seok, he wouldn’t get it; as much as he and his brother like to pretend they’re hardasses, they aren’t. They’re scavengers at best, small-time. They’ve hired Ramrowan for a reason, after all. Because they’re weak; willing to order death but never serve it themselves. They don't know what it means to tear the life from a body, to fight for the right to keep breathing.
Even if Ramrowan wanted to, even if he could explain that he is the Ghost just as much as the Ghost is him, that they are both but beasts awaiting the command of their masters, that names have no meaning when it comes to taking lives on the orders of others, Jong-seok wouldn’t get it, not really.
So instead, Ramrowan says, “He didn’t flinch.”
(“So what?!” Jong-seok screams, anger choking his consonants. Ramrowan tries not to be disappointed.)
He keeps the band-aid on, even when Jong-seok retrieves him and brings him to report in to Man-seok.
“What the fuck is that?” Man-seok says blankly. His chopsticks hover around his gaping mouth, spilling food back into his bowl.
“The whore’s daughter gave it to him,” Jong-seok answers, shooting Ramrowan a look over his shoulder, “He won’t take the stupid thing off.”
Man-seok looks baffled, but doesn’t say anything else until after Ramrowan has finished his report.
“What the fuck?” He asks his brother, furtively glancing at Ramrowan.
Jong-seok just shrugs.
Ramrowan keeps the band-aid on, and tries not to feel like he’s preening.
The Ghost is so very intriguing, though. Ramrowan thinks about it after So-mi bandages him head wound.
(He has become a work of art, his body a storyboard, a map of juxtapositions in the Ghost’s single-minded quest to retrieve So-mi. They communicate across him, unknowingly, drawing his blood and tending to his wounds. He has become the medium through which they express themselves to each other. The feeling it gives him is something like purpose. More of a purpose than Man-seok and Jong-seok have ever given him, at any rate.
He feels important. Needed.)
That fight in the club was exquisite. The Ghost—Mr. Nobody—with a hatchet in hand, holding his gaze across a packed dance floor. They're both bleeding. Neither of them blinks.
It’s almost like those daytime dramas that Jong-seok pretends he doesn’t watch avidly.
Mr. Nobody brings his right hand up to press at the wound on his side. Ramrowan brings up two fingers to stop the blood from dripping into his eye.
He is very nearly thrumming with the tension. The way Mr. Nobody moves—that’s something learned and deadly. This isn’t just a man who doesn’t so much as flinch at the retort of a gun in a gunless country. This is something else entirely. Ramrowan wants to fight this man. Wants to kill or be killed by this man. They eye each other, size each other up, look for weaknesses.
Ramrowan pulls his karambit, custom-made to curve to the length and width of him palm, and grips it tight. Across the room, he can see the Ghost tensing his muscles, eyes cautious.
Man-seok’s hand falls heavy on his shoulder.
Ramrowan lets himself be called to heel, but even as Man-seok makes some gestures and leaves a phone for Mr. Nobody, they never stop staring at each other.
“I had a fight with my friend before they took us, before we came here,” So-mi tells him, the day after she gives him a band-aid. She seems to have latched on to him.
(Man-seok had—bewildered—sent him to the medic to get properly looked at, and now he has a neat row of stitches spilling down from his hairline. He kept So-mi’s band-aid, folded it and tucked it away into the interior pocket of his jacket. It never crosses his mind to throw it away; it was, after all, a gift.)
It’s part of why he doesn’t mind watching the children. He doesn't like to talk, and while they like to do nothing but none of them seem to mind that he almost never answers.
“I wish I could say sorry,” So-mi mumbles. He’s letting her paint his nails. She’s talking to him as she does it, little fingers fluttering around his much larger hands. She is staring at his nails in concentration, trying to decide on a design. He is watching the little faces take shape, trying to guess what they will be from his flipped vantage point.
“You remind me of him,” She tells him somberly, and then she asks, “Are you a gangster?”
Ramrowan makes a noise low in his throat.
“Wow,” So-mi tells him, “I never thought I’d meet anyone who talked less than Pawnshop Ghost.”
Ramrowan looks up, makes sure to make the motion slow and careful instead of the sudden, visceral tension he feels thrumming through him.
So-mi’s face lights up, “Do you know him? You are a gangster, aren’t you!”
Ramrowan tilts his head, non-committal. So-mi doesn’t even seem to notice.
“That's so cool! I bet you can fight really good, huh? You and Pawnshop Ghost would be the best team ever!”
Something in him flips.
When he goes, he goes with cheerful smiley faces on his ring fingers.
They have made him a storyboard, a map, and so he decides that he will play his part and deliver their subtle messages to one another.
So-mi places another band-aid on his temple when the stitches come out, and the sight of it makes Mr. Nobody pause for a moment. But he doesn’t ask; he just takes it as the offering, the proof of life, that Ramrowan has presented it as.
Ramrowan walks past the other man, and leaves Jong-seok to die.
When Man-seok gets the phone call, Ramrowan is already there, with no one the wiser. Man-seok is blustering, cursing, but even so they can all hear Jong-seok shrieking across the line.
Ramrowan wonders what Mr. Nobody is using against Jong-seok, to pull such high sounds.
“If you touch a single hair on my brother—” Man-seok tries to posture. Jong-seok screams for his brother, shrill and desperate.
It seems as though the Pawnshop Ghost is growing weary of Man-seok’s posturing.
The others help to gather Man-seok into the car, even as Jong-seok blubbers and whimpers across the phone line, but Ramrowan remains where he is, idly examining the chipping yellow paint on his finger.
Man-seok, Ramrowan decides, is very stupid.
“Go and take the little tramp to Mr. 100,” He snaps at Ramrowan, “Let’s see how this bastard will like her eyes.”
It’s all very short-sighted, Ramrowan thinks. So-mi’s life, whole and unmolested, is the only guarantee of safety that any of them might have. And even with Ramrowan’s silent assurances, Jong-seok is still dead, which means that Man-seok is going to die, no matter how much he tries to rile up the Ghost beforehand.
But Ramrowan, he doesn't have to die, not like Man-seok will. Scared and regretful and worthlessly.
He takes So-mi to the dirty ambulance in the parking garage. Mr. 100 tells her that her mother is dead, that what’s left of Hyo-jeong is in his hands.
“It’s not true, right?” So-mi begs Ramrowan, ignoring Mr. 100 completely, “You told me if I was good that you’d take me back to her! It’s not true, right?”
Ramrowan holds her frightened gaze, tries to convey that he's sorry she found out but not that he lied, even as the surgeon slams the mask over her face and knocks her out.
He's not regretful; he can't afford to be, in his line of work. He doesn't have the luxury of feeling anything about his actions, only doing as he is told. But... but, the sharp edge of hurt, of betrayal, in So-mi's eyes weighs heavily on him. She's unconscious now and Mr. 100 is mumbling to himself, fiddling with a tray of surgical tools. Ramrowan sits very, very still and thinks.
Everything inside of him is so mangled, wound up and knotted; the lines between So-mi and her Ghost have him eager and anxious and uncertain and sure all at once.
The thought slides in, smooth and casual: No one would ever know. It would be a betrayal of sorts, as much as he—who had no loyalty, who couldn't ever be loyal, only opportunistic—could betray. But, what was the point of him, their storyboard, their canvas, if he let their story fall into ruin? He was their map: he had to show them true.
It was curious, the way he felt as he slowly pushed himself to his feet, eyes absently flicking over to So-mi's slack face. He’s never had a reason to rebel before.
(It’s not that she was kind to him: all the children are kind to him. He brings them food and they treat him like a distant brother. They show him their drawings and teach him their hand games and rhymes, and ask him to braid their hair or read manwa with them.
It’s not that she was kind, it’s that she gave.
She, who had nothing left to her but her nail paint and her band-aids, gave both to him. He, who had less than nothing; only his knife and his skill. He can’t even remember the last time someone gave him something, just because they could and wanted to.
Man-seok and Jong-seok are trash, drugs and child trafficking and black market dealings. But that makes him—their unnerving killer who never questions orders, never flinches, never wonders; he, who watches those children and takes their smiles and their affections and never once thinks to stop their deaths—a monster.
And So-mi gave anyways.)
So, Man-seok is very stupid.
He takes the glass container, and the eyes, and smiles.
Maybe it’s because he knows, deep down, that Jong-seok is already dead. Maybe he just doesn’t care. But even so—So-mi is but a child, not even fully grown. Her eyes are still growing. They would hardly be that big.
Then again, Ramrowan realizes, there is no reason for any of them to expect such treason from him. He is the loyal killer, after all. Unscrupulous and steadfast.
But now, he has a purpose. And it's not to be Man-seok's pet monster.
Ramrowan tries not to be disappointed (he’s been doing that a lot, lately).
Man-seok rolls the glass container across the floor to Mr. Nobody and says something disparaging about So-mi not being able to find her mother in heaven without her eyes.
The taunting, Ramrowan feels, is a bit unnecessary.
The Ghost proves him right when he tucks the container to his chest, tears streaking down his carefully blanked face, and shoots down five of their men.
Man-seok has run and all the other men are down, dead or on their way there.
Mr. Nobody is staring morosely at the container—dropped and rolled to a corner during the (very one-sided) fight—and something in Ramrowan twists, warps in anger. In annoyance.
They’re not even So-mi’s eyes! Her Ghost has no reason to look so defeated. The Ghost and So-mi have spent all this time pouring themselves into Ramrowan, piecing each other together across his skin, and now Mr. Pawnshop won't even look at him? Won't even ask Ramrowan how So-mi died? If she died? Blood and stitches and band-aids and chipped fingernail polish, and now he just takes Man-seok's word as law? It makes Ramrowan—cold-hearted Ramrowan, loyal only to himself—snarl on So-mi's behalf. It... irks him that her Ghost would give up on her so easily, after all this blood and destruction.
He could say this. He could. But, well... Ramrowan has never been good with words, least of all when explaining himself.
So he shoots the container, watches Mr. 100's eyes explode in a shower of liquid and glass. While the Ghost shakes in rage, Ramrowan takes off his jacket, rolls up his sleeves and prepares to die.
Ramrowan chokes on his own blood and slowly sinks to his knees. The Ghost leaves him with at least six stab wounds across his sternum, not to mention all the cuts and slices on his arms and torso. Dimly, he can hear yelling, voices echoing loudly from the garage.
The Ghost left him for dead, his own knife buried in his chest, but did not confirm his kill. And Ramrowan has always been bad at dying when he’s meant to.
Ramrowan begins to drag himself towards his jacket. There is one thing yet for him to do.
Dragging himself to the ambulance takes an agonizing amount of time. He can hear Man-seok yelling, then the retort of a gun and the sound of a body falling and Man-seok’s car engine turning over.
He makes it to the back doors of the ambulance and leans against them heavily. He is bleeding sluggishly. He can taste only blood. He opens the ambulance door.
So-mi stares up at him, horrified.
“Are you okay?”
Behind them, gunshots. The sound of tires blowing.
Ramrowan doesn’t answer her. Instead he takes a deep, steady breath—and subsequently waits for the spots to clear from his vision—and yanks his knife out of his chest, then wipes it off as best he can on his pants leg. He lifts So-mi from the ambulance and sets her on the ground. Almost immediately after, his legs give out and he manages, with some grace, to fall on the jutting bumper of the vehicle instead of collapsing to the dirty ground. He reaches into his jacket with hands clumsy from blood loss and pulls out the folded band-aid. It takes four attempts, but he unfolds it and sticks it to the grip of the blade.
“You kept it?” So-mi’s voice is small and trembling and wonderous. Ramrowan swallows blood.
“It was a gift,” He manages. They, who have nothing and less than nothing, understand what it means to be given something. He hands her the knife, handle first.
She takes it with unsteady fingers.
“I liked my nails,” He tells her. He’s not lying: he had truly enjoyed them, but Man-seok had told him to scrub his fingers clean before Mr. Nobody showed up. He hadn't seen the point in arguing.
Across the garage, the sound of bullets hitting bulletproof fibers, over and over. Man-seok yelling, then screaming. Ramrowan could apologize for lying about Hyo-jeong. He could apologize for everything, for all of this. He doesn’t. He doesn't have the luxury of regret in his line of work.
He nudges at her with one foot.
“Go to your Ghost,” He tells her. He marvels distantly in the way her face lights up.
“He came for me?” She breathes, smiling tentatively. Ramrowan grunts and nudges her again. She goes off on shaky legs, the handle of his knife clutched tight between her fingers.
Ramrowan lets loose the breath that’s been holding him upright for the past 20 minutes and collapses into the back of the ambulance. Mr. 100 is in the driver’s seat, eyeless head lolling.
Distantly, he can hear So-mi’s quiet, awe-filled “Mister? You really came?” and the Ghost’s shocked, pained breaths. The sound of a gun in unsteady hands. Very, very distantly, the sound of sirens.
This, Ramrowan decides to himself, staring up at the ambulance roof, is not a bad way to die.
Not at all.