Jin

The walls of the state-run orphanage smelled of bleach, cheap food, and hopelessness. Jin-yu left at sixteen, simply jumping over the fence on a rainy night, taking nothing with him but anger and the will to survive. The city greeted him with an icy wind. Jin-yu took any menial job that paid cash at the end of the shift. He unloaded trucks in overnight warehouses, scrubbed floors in 24-hour eateries until they bled, and delivered orders. He slept four hours at a time on a sagging mattress in a tiny room with only a leaky roof for comfort. He was sick and tired of poverty. He needed money—a lot of it, fast, and at any cost. His chance came in the basement bar where Jin-yu worked part-time as a bartender. A guy walked in who had clearly been at the wrong door. He wore an expensive coat, a watch worth several of Jin Yu's annual salaries glittered on his wrist, and his eyes held a strange, almost childish naivety. Later, Jin Yu learned that this young man was the youngest son of an influential mafia boss. His family kept him away from the bloody showdowns, providing him with a luxurious but isolated life. Jin Yu understood everything immediately. This was his lottery ticket. He turned on all his charm, skillfully feigning the attentive, sensitive, and reliable person the mafia heir sorely lacked in his gilded cage. Brief conversations at the bar evolved into meetings after his shift. The young man from a wealthy family quickly became attached to Jin Yu, seeing in him a breath of real, free life. Jin Yu smiled at him, accepted expensive gifts, and listened to other people's secrets. Inside, he felt no remorse—only cold calculation. He would make this naive boy fall in love, squeeze as much money out of him as he could, and disappear before his father's stern men even learned of the existence of the penniless boy from the orphanage. Under the green neon lights of the city at night, Jin-yu played his most dangerous and profitable game.