옷이 날개다 – Os-i nal-gae-da

-Korean saying, literally translated as ‘Your clothes are your wings’

There was a terrible beauty to the way she killed.

Like a goddess of death, she weaved in and out of the crowd of monsters, her rapier never stopping in the stroke it traced across the bodies of the beasts in her path. Blood splattered onto her mask as her blade thrust into the green flesh of the grotesque orc in front of her, the ichor hissing even as it melted away. There was no visible armor on her, though that was because her very clothes had been enchanted to be tougher than any metal.

As she cut her way to the largest orc, who looked to be the chieftain of the group, her blade made its way too easily to the orc’s eye, followed by a terrible bolt of lightning that crashed down from the clear skies above.

Victorious, she stood atop the chieftain’s corpse, even as the camera panned to the carnage she had left in her aftermath. For a moment, it was not her that stood there, but him behind the screen.

A circle tracing itself in an endless series of dots appeared at that moment, putting an end to the scene, eternally frozen in the moment where the woman had raised her blade to the skies. The screen reflected the cashier's face, hollow and dead. Buffering - the most despicable thing that could happen to a man excitedly watching a video. He looked away from the screen and saw that he had arrived.

Amidst the jungle of dark windows, there was a bright white sign, striped by orange, green and red. A scatter of bugs hovered around the light, their buzzing harmonising with the slow, unheard rhythm of the light. Light spilled from its windows onto the pavement outside, which were empty save for a handful of flyers that had been discarded and blown from far away.

The cashier kicked them aside idly, then put his phone away, took off his earphones as he opened the door.

When he had first started work, he had noticed that the air in the shop smelled different from the air outside. He had chalked it up to the air conditioning, some filter that made the air purer. After a while, by which time he had grown used to the smell, he realised that it was the concoction of cardboard boxes and a million different packages.

“Oh, you’re finally here.” The woman who worked the shift before said. She was all ready to leave, having already taken off her employee tag. She grabbed her handbag as she did a final tally of the register before signing off.

“Have a good night.” He said.

She wished him the same before leaving the shop.

He settled into the chair behind the register; it was still warm from the lady’s tenure. He stared out the window and sighed, hoping it would be an eventful night. Then again, he thought, perhaps it was best that trouble never came to this neighborhood. I am not paid enough to die here. Another sigh escaped his mouth.

At that moment, he heard the sound of a car engine coming to a stop. Someone had pulled up outside of the store. Through the window he saw it was a nice car of European make. The driver stepped out, walking up to the convenience shop. There was a jingle as the bell shook and the customer walked in.

"Welcome!" The cashier stood up and said while bowing slightly. He eyed the customer walking by after he stood upright again.

The man who had walked in had a tired smile on his face. There was a charm to his ruffled hair and upright gait, even if he wasn't particularly handsome. Unfortunately, he was dressed in a black suit with a white shirt, without a tie to go along with it, and he wore a ring on his index finger that was simply plain silver.

Seeing the man walk to the back of the shop, the cashier hurriedly took out his phone and checked the news. There were no emergency alerts about a Portal in the area. As the man returned to the counter with two bottles of soju and some chips, the cashier frantically stowed away his phone, looking up to see the man wearing the same tired smile.

"How much?"

"That will be ₩6000, sir." The cashier made doubly sure to be careful of his words.

The man chuckled. "You don't have to be so on edge around me." He placed the money on the countertop and then he reached out, placed a hand on the cashier's shoulder. "Hunter or not, we're all humans."

The cashier struggled to repress a response that Hunters were hardly even humans anymore. How could you call those who wielded such powers human? He kept his mouth shut, however, knowing that insulting a Hunter was never a good idea. You couldn't rely on the police to regulate these irregulars.

Instead, he simply said. "Yes, understood, sir. Have a good night." He bowed at a thirty-degree angle again.

Another chuckle came before a soft pat on the shoulder and then the man left the shop with his loot. Not long after, the car also started up, and drove off into the night.

The casher sighed again, this time out of relief. He hated interacting with Hunters, no matter what anyone said about them being worthy of respect. True, they were brave souls, risking their lives beyond the Portals, but weren't they paid handsomely for it? All those troublemakers did in their time outside of work, he thought, was make trouble for good people like himself who were only trying to live their ordinary lives.

His ordinary life… Why was it so hard to live even an ordinary life? He wasn't asking for much. Finding a proper job, finding a girlfriend, getting married, buying a home, raising a family. Things he had thought were natural and taken for granted had turned out to be so difficult in reality.

'Just when will I finally catch a break…'.

Bzzt! Bzzt!

Before his thoughts could pull him into their dark depths, he felt a buzz in his pockets. His phone rubbed uncomfortably against the meat of his thighs. He pulled out his handphone. It was Sangmin calling.

"Hello?" He said as he answered the call.

"Oh, you picked up."

'If you didn't expect me to pick up, why did you even call…'

"I bet you're thinking something really rude right now."

The cashier would have choked if he had been eating when he heard Sangmin interrupting his thoughts with those words. How Sangmin was so keenly attuned to his thoughts, he could never quite figure out.

"W-what? No, I was just wondering what you would call me about, Sangmin."

Sangmin laughed. The cashier could almost picture the face of his grinning friend; he had seen it all too often in the past. "What are you up to this weekend?"

"This weekend? I don't think I'm-"

"Hey, Kim Shiwoon, I'm warning you, if you are avoiding me for some stupid reason, I'll really beat you up."

The cashier took a moment to ponder. There were still some lies and excuses he could use. But then he sighed. "Who's coming?"

There was the sound of a tongue clicking before Sangmin continued. "Just me and you. Not going to give me some excuse?"

Sangmin was still the same. His mouth could get a little foul but the harsh words served only to mask kind intentions. The cashier had often told his friend that if he would just change his tongue, he'd likely be more successful than he already was.

"...Yeah. Thank you."

Again, Sangmin clicked his tongue before speaking. "We'll meet at the old place for dinner. Let's speak more in person."

"Yeah."

"Tch. Stay safe until Saturday."

"You too."

The phone call ended after that, leaving the cashier alone again in the quiet world of the convenience shop at midnight. As he was about to put his phone away, he felt it vibrate again.

It was a message from his brother that read: “Don’t forget this month’s payment.”

Scowling, he stashed the phone into his pocket, got up from his seat, went to sweep the floor and arrange the shelves. Absently, he noted that he ought to restock the shelves with soju. There was still a healthy quantity of beer and nobody apart from the Hunter had even gone near the snacks since the cashier's shift had started. It was a slow night for business. Not that it mattered much to him. Nothing mattered much to him anymore; he had found that the world seemed to take unique delight in denying him everything he wished for.

After restocking the soju, he took the now empty box to the back, where all the other boxes were kept for recycling. Washing his hands, he then left the shop for some fresh air, thinking he might feel better not being cooped in a small confined space. The night air was cool despite the city being in the thick of summer. He thought he could hear the crickets if he listened hard enough, though he was just as aware that it was just a fantasy of his. Rather than crickets, they were more likely to be cockroaches. He shuddered involuntarily.

Predictably, the street was utterly devoid of traffic, both on the roads and on the pavement. Across from the convenience shop, there were only shuttered storefronts and windows that allowed one to peek into abject darkness. This was the same view he was greeted with every night. He had gotten used to the loneliness of the deep night. At first, he would find himself longing for someone to spend the night with him, a woman who he could whisper sweet nothings to and think them to be true. Slowly, he had gotten used to the absence of other humans, through other forms of companionship. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the still full bowl of pet food lying on the pavement, right underneath the light-spilling window of the convenience shop. Even the stray cat had left him behind. Still, he went to the bowl, poured the day-old cat food into the trash bin, before bringing it into the shop to wash. After restocking it with some cat food that he and the other part-timer had bought together, he left the bowl in its old spot. There was still no one around outside but him.

He walked back into the shop with a resigned sigh. The bright lights of the shop did little to assuage the murky emotions that bubbled within.