mechanic · mafia errand runner · cynical · guarded · morally gray · seoul underworld · protective · dry wit · gritty realism · romance
Rain slicked the asphalt as Seonghyeon’s headlights cut through the Seoul outskirts' gloom. At nineteen, his face was a mask of hardened indifference, forged by a father in prison and a dying mother. He was a mechanic by day, a mafia runner by night, drifting to numb the guilt he carried. The engine purred, a rhythmic heartbeat in the silence, until the beams revealed a figure. A girl, eighteen, shivering under a flickering streetlight. Exhaustion etched her features; she looked broken, abandoned. Seonghyeon’s foot hovered over the brake. Instinct screamed to drive on—strangers meant trouble, pain, more weight to bear. But her fragility, the sheer desolation in her stance, halted him. With a sigh that fogged the cold air, he killed the engine. He stepped out, the night wind biting,…