The Roadmap of Ruin
820 Words
[PARK JI-EUN]
Leading the new bodyguard to the East Wing was like walking a pet tiger on a leash made of dental floss.
He was silent. Huge. And he smelled dangerously of dried blood and man-sweat, cutting right through the expensive lavender reed diffusers in the hallway.
I was supposed to be the Nation’s Fairy. Men usually melted when I smiled at them. I’d tried my best "bubbly idol" routine on him for the last fifty feet of hallway.
Nothing. He didn't even look at me. He just scanned the corners of the ceiling, probably looking for snipers in the crown molding.
"So, Oppa," I chirped, skipping slightly to keep up with his long strides. "Where did Seo-Yeon unnie find you? You don't look like the usual boring security guys in cheap suits. You look like you escaped from a maximum-security zoo."
He stopped at the door to the Guest Suite. He looked down at me. His eyes were dead. Like, actually dead. It sent a delicious little shiver down my spine.
"I'm not your 'Oppa'," he growled, his voice rough enough to sand wood. "I'm the help. Open the door."
I pouted. A weaponized pout that had sold millions of albums. It bounced right off him.
"Fine. Grumpy." I punched the code into the keypad. The door clicked open. "Here’s your cage, beast. Try not to break the furniture. It’s Italian."
He stepped inside without a word and shut the door in my face.
I stood in the hallway, blinking at the expensive wood grain.
Rude.
But also… kind of hot. The guys in the industry were all so pretty, so eager to please. He was like a brick wall that wanted to punch you. It was a refreshing change of pace.
I turned to leave, then realized I was holding the stack of ultra-plush Egyptian cotton towels Seo-Yeon had told me to give him.
Oops. Guess I have to go back in.
I grinned wickedly. Or maybe, I just wanted another look at the tiger.
[KANG JIN-WOO]
The room was disgusting.
It was bigger than the entire BBQ restaurant I used to work in. White carpets so deep you could lose a boot in them. A bed the size of a small island. It smelled like money and nothingness.
I hated luxury. Luxury made you soft. Soft got you dead.
I stripped off my t-shirt, wincing as the fabric pulled away from a fresh cut on my ribs—a souvenir from the baton guy in the alley. I threw the shirt in the corner.
I needed to wash the scent of that alley off me. The copper tang of the hitman’s blood on my knuckles was starting to make me itch.
I walked into the bathroom. It was all marble and glass, with a shower big enough to park a motorcycle inside.
I turned the water on as hot as it would go, until the room filled with thick steam. I stepped under the spray, letting the heat beat against the tension knotted in my shoulders.
I leaned my forehead against the cool glass wall of the shower, closing my eyes as the water ran red-brown off my hands and swirled down the drain.
For the first time in hours, I let my guard down. Just a fraction.
That was a mistake.
I heard the click of the bathroom door opening.
My eyes snapped open. The instincts took over before my brain caught up.
I spun around in the shower, slamming my palm against the steamed-up glass with a loud thud.
Through the thick fog, I saw a silhouette standing in the doorway. Small. Blonde. Holding a stack of towels.
Ji-Eun. The idol.
She had walked in cheerfully, but now she was frozen. She wasn't looking at my face. She was staring through the glass at my body.
And then I realized what she was seeing.
The steam obscured the details, but the map was visible. My torso wasn't smooth skin. It was a ruined landscape of thick, knotted scar tissue. Bullet wounds that had healed badly in jungle humidities. Long, pale s***h marks from knives held by desperate men. Burn scars from an IED in Damascus.
It was the history of a violent life, carved into meat.
Ji-Eun gasped. It was a choked, horrified little sound that echoed loudly in the tiled room. The towels dropped from her hands, spilling onto the marble floor.
Her wide, terrified doll eyes darted up through the steam and locked with mine.
She had come in looking for a cheeky peek at the hot new bodyguard. Instead, she’d stumbled into a cage with a monster that had forgotten how to be human.
"Get out," I snarled, my voice distorted by the glass and the rushing water.
She didn't move. She couldn't. She just stared at the wreckage of my body, paralyzed by a mixture of horror and a sickening fascination.
- Writer
