About a week after the encounter with his old friend, Aiko, he was still thinking about her. He wondered if she’d be coming back to the store again. Surely next time he’d have the courage to get some sort of contact information.

His schedule changed and he was on the swing shift now. Getting off late in the evening was fine with him. He was happy with anything besides working all night long. This particular day was payday.

Upon leaving the convenience store, he headed straight for an ATM he conveniently passed by on his short walk home. He inserted the paycheck into the ATM lit under a lone streetlight. He frowned when he saw his account balance. It was expected, but seeing the numbers actually made it real. “Still not nearly enough,” he said out loud to himself.

After securing his meager paycheck he headed home. He sat down at his kitchen table with a steaming bowl of instant ramen and flipped a business card in his hand. It was a white card with a phone number and a weird sentence about beer. He’d received it from asking around about a hitman. Strongzinburg city was not what it used to be. These days it was easy to search a few dark alleys and get in touch with some shady figures who provided the information for a small fee.

His main problem was saving up money to actually hire a hitman. The prices he’d been told ranged from only a few thousand dollars to millions of dollars depending on several variables.

He’d been told of a special ninja-like assassin and another one who used poisons. Both were much too expensive. He looked over another card he’d been given a few weeks ago. He’d written hastily on it, “Half a million. Sniper. Twenty confirmed kills.”

MC wondered how things like this could even be possible. If the news didn't constantly talk about the underground and the problems they caused, he wouldn’t have believed a word any of the alleyway thugs told him. In fact, happenings like this were so common in Strongzinburg city, that it was even common small talk among people to discuss terrifying people walking the streets at night. The city was becoming a dangerous place.

MC had struggled with the idea of hiring someone to kill Jin for a while now. There were two main reasons why he hadn't yet. The first was his lack of funding. Working at the convenience store only made so much money. At the rate he was going it would take decades before he could even make a decent offer to someone and that was just the start of the problem. Even if he did save enough money, it was Jin that he was going to have killed. From what he’d read in the paper and seen on the news, Jin was a ruthless higher up in the Black Diamond who was capable of just about anything. A force to be reckoned with. Not just anyone would be crazy enough to try to kill someone like that even if the price was right.

The second reason why he hadn’t hired someone to kill Jin was that it seemed rather impersonal. Another person killing the man that he had such a grudge against? Something just didn't sit right about that. It was his problem and he wanted to solve it for himself. He wanted to see that man die before his very eyes, but could he really kill someone? He’d never even been in a real fight before.

His ramen went cold on the kitchen table as he weighed the decision to call the number on the card. He fixated on the thought of revenge against Jin. His teeth clenched together and his brow curved with rage. He remembered the night his father died and how his mother had been in the hospital ever since.

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After some time, he realized it was getting late and he’d planned to visit his mother in the hospital before his next shift.

He sat and stewed for another while and read the strange business card again, “They say revenge is a dish best served cold. Not as good as cold beer, but you know, something like that.”

What the hell does that even mean? Gotta be the weirdest description I’ve ever heard. Is this even legit? I bet that shady dude just gave me some weird card to scam me out of a little cash. I think I ought to take a walk to clear my head at least.

MC pulled on a jacket and headed out on a walk around the neighborhood. He weighed the decision and decided to call the number on the card after all. He popped into a phone booth, punched in the number, and waited for it to ring. He gripped the phone and felt a drip of sweat run down his forehead. It rang a few times and just as he was about to hang up, a voice answered the call.

“Hello,” said the voice with a hint of tiredness. There was a slight background noise of what seemed to be a television. Then came the sound of a scooting chair on a wooden floor.

“Uh, hi. I um… saw your listing.”

“Listing? What listing?

“Um, your business card. It had this phone number on it.”

MC heard the sound of a great swig and gulp of some unknown liquid. “Hmmmm,” the voice thought out loud. “I don't remember making any business cards.”

MC was genuinely confused. Had he typed the number incorrectly? Was his imagination playing some kind of trick on him? Was it actually some scam?

“The card says something about beer being served cold like revenge,” said MC.

“Oh that card!” said the man with a chuckle. “That was awfully quick. I only distributed those yesterday. So why do you want to hire someone for something like this?” His words seemed deliberately discrete so MC decided to match the tone.

“I’ll be blunt. I hate this person. I can’t live life the way I want to. I’m haunted every day by the memories of this person.”

“What is it like an ex girlfriend or something?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Why don't you do it yourself?”

“I want to. In fact I would much prefer to do it myself than to hire someone. I don't even think I have enough money for something like this, but I wasn’t told the price so I decided it might be worth a try.”

“Let me guess. You’re just too chicken to do it yourself?”

MC thought and really reflected on his inner hatred for a moment before answering. “No, I think I could do it. If your rate is too high I think I will just do it myself. I don’t know how yet, but I’ll figure it out.”

“Whatever floats your goat. Anyway, my price depends on a few different variables. Who the person is, how far they are, you know things like that.” The man gulped another swig of whatever he was drinking. “So who do you have a grudge against?”

“You want me to just tell you their name?”

“Yeah, how else am I supposed to know?”

“This might come as a surprise. I know there’s a bit of a stigma around this person. Since you’re involved in thhe underworld like this, you’ve probably heard of them before.”

“Are you going to tell me or not?” GM interrupted.

“His name is Jin.”

There was a great pause. All MC could hear was the background noise. A tv blaring and the occasional glass clanking.

Finally, the voice spoke up in a more serious tone than before. “So then, you must be MC.”

MC froze in fear. How does this man know my name? What’s going on?

“W… What did you just say?” asked MC.

“It’s you isn’t it?”

MC wasn’t sure what to say. He felt himself begin to panic. He slammed the phone onto the hook and stepped out of the telephone booth.

“What the hell was that?” he said out loud.