“Damn…” a girl named Mely muttered in a trembling voice, clutching the end of her bag as she shuddered.
*I don’t want to become a potato fritter. What did I even do wrong? Am I so pretty that they’re chasing me? Oh no…! Is this really the fate of a pretty girl in the end?* Mely grumbled inwardly.
Her footsteps grew faster as she ran in fear. Tears streamed down her cheeks, dripping onto her teal knit cardigan, her favorite color, which was now growing damp with sweat. When the alley turned, all she found in front of her was a towering brick wall.
“I’m screwed… Hah… hah… hah… Why is it a dead end?” Mely whispered, her breathing ragged. Her heart pounded violently, racing against the echoing stomps of boots on the other side of the walls. They were getting closer. The shadows were chasing her—the cold-blooded hunters sent to drag Mely into the hell of human trafficking. Feeling cornered with no other choice, Mely was forced to keep running, hoping there would be a Doraemon Anywhere Door to save her. At the very least, Mely could hide, even if she had to climb into a trash can.
But suddenly—
“Crash…”
“Ah… hah… hah… Don’t eat me! My meat’s tough and undersalted!” Mely whimpered in a trembling voice. She had accidentally run into someone, sending her sprawling onto her back. And now, with the silhouette standing tall in the dim light, a lanky figure in a hoodie covering half his face, he stood there calmly, looking like a cannibalistic psychopath in Mely’s eyes.
A moment later, the figure stepped closer and extended his hand.
Mely’s panic exploded into hysteria.
“N-no! Don’t touch me!” Mely shrieked, instinctively scooting backward across the wet, filthy alley floor while flailing her handbag through the air. “Please, sir… Don’t kill and mutilate me! If you want to sell my organs, my left kidney’s already a little messed up from drinking boba all the time, but my gallbladder is still in perfect shape! That’s why I’m still alive, I swear!”
The man who had gone still again was named Regi. He paused for a moment, watching Mely’s behavior. She seemed terrified of something, though he had no idea what she’d been through. Regi tried not to concern himself with it. A thin mist of breath rose from his mouth in the cold night air. He stared flatly at the girl before him, as if the creature whimpering at his feet were nothing more than a lost kitten.
*Pretty, but so chatty,* Regi thought, surprised to encounter such a beautiful girl in the nearly deserted alley at night after he had finished taking out the trash.
“Can you stop screaming?” Regi’s voice was low and deep, vibrating in her eardrums. “You stepped in a dirty puddle, and now the splash got all over my pants and shirt,” Regi continued. The silence, which had moments ago felt horrifying, suddenly turned absurd.
Mely, still squeezing her eyes shut, slowly opened them and blinked repeatedly as she processed the baritone voice. There was no rancid smell of the fugitive’s blood she had imagined. Instead, she smelled cheap black coffee mixed with tobacco.
“Huh…?” Mely looked up at Regi’s perfectly chiseled jaw, illuminated by the dim neon light. The man’s face was incredibly handsome, but his expression was as cold as an ice cube at the North Pole.
“You’re… not an executioner, right? Y-you’re not one of th-those bad people, right?” Mely stammered, asking a question that made Regi exhale harshly.
“If I were an executioner, your head would have been separated from your neck the moment you started that annoying screaming,” Regi replied indifferently before simply walking past Mely.
“I was just asking… You’re so mean!” Mely protested. She immediately jumped to her feet, revealing clothes that were filthy all over, and briefly forgot her fear. Without warning, Mely hurriedly grabbed the edge of Regi’s hoodie and clung to it. Regi stopped walking.
Mely spoke in a hushed voice, glancing in every direction.
“Wait! P-please help me! There’s a whole gang of scary thugs back there. I saw them carrying butcher knives, and they’re trying to catch me! I’m sure you’re not with them, because they’re terrifying and you’re handsome. At the very least, be my last-minute hero and point me toward the main road. I want to go home, okay…? Please!”
Mely pleaded, shaking the edge of Regi’s hoodie.
Regi wanted to swat her hand away, but before he could, the sound of booted footsteps suddenly cut through Mely’s desperate pleas for help. Three muscular men appeared around the corner, standing across the passage and blocking the only way out. The sharp blades in their hands flashed.
The leader of the group grinned broadly, displaying an irritating row of yellow teeth.
“Got her… There’s our sweet little rabbit,” the native Indonesian thug hissed. He was neither tall nor short, the quintessential Indonesian type.
“And it looks like some lousy beggar wants to play hero of the grave, haha…” the man beside him added with a chuckle.
Mely let out a muffled scream and instinctively buried her face against Regi’s back, gripping his worn-out hoodie tightly.
“See…? Bro… Th-they’ve got butcher knives! It’s obvious those aren’t hair-cutting razors! Don’t tell me I’m going to die here, and you’re going to die with me too! Then we’ll end up in a tragic position like Juliet and Romeo!”
Hearing Mely’s muttering, Regi didn’t answer. He only gave her a brief glance and an almost imperceptible smile.
There was no tremor of fear, no quickened breathing. Regi slowly moved one foot forward and planted it in the murky puddle on the narrow alleyway. The air around them suddenly froze, as if all the oxygen had been sucked away by the icy aura radiating from the man’s body.
“Move back,” Regi whispered to Mely in a low voice.
“B-but what about you?” Mely replied, turning pale.
“Move back…!” Regi ordered, his tone allowing no argument. Mely took several steps backward.
“Why are you backing away, pretty girl? Come here! We’ll go peacefully, okay?” one of them coaxed in a falsely gentle tone.
“Who are you to her?” Regi asked, making polite small talk with feigned friendliness.
“Don’t stick your nose in! Get lost before my beautiful dagger slits your throat!”
“Can’t do that, bro… You’re criminals. Very suspicious,” Regi replied calmly.
“Shut up… Get rid of this cockroach!” ordered the burliest man, the one who had been grinning. He was the leader.
Without warning, the native Indonesian thug leaped ferociously, swinging his machete as he blindly hacked at Regi’s neck.
“Whoosh…”
The wind whistled sharply. But…