Fair Trade

A thick gravy oozed out of the steak onto the plate.

“Did you have a dream yesterday? It seemed like you were moaning?”

Sei, who was just about to dig in, was startled by Chloe’s words and blushed while holding a knife and fork in her hands. Even though it had already been a few days since then, she couldn’t really forget it. No, to be exact, she had that dream whenever she tried to forget.

The dream of a man teasing her lower abdomen.

The man who licked his drenched fingers thoroughly and narrowed his eyes sexily.

Even in such a situation, she kept having dreams of Yuri smiling beautifully to the extent it annoyed her. Yesterday, his perfectly calm face eventually contorted in irritation when she cursed in Korean. But he still kept smiling that sweet and beautiful smile.

“Crazy bastard! I’m going to kill you if you cum early.”

Chloe doesn’t understand Korean, does she?

It’s a dream anyway…

Sei smiled and quickly wiped the sweat from her forehead. Then, seeing her not eat her steak, Chloe, who was in charge of today’s meal, approached her and asked, “Is the steak overcooked? Do you want me to cook you another one?”

“No, it’s perfect.”

“Then, why are you not eating it?”

“I was thinking about something else.”

Chloe was in charge of cooking the steak at a fairly large restaurant. She was a good friend with whom Sei split the house price of their expensive New York property. She had a short height and a cute and attractive appearance with a scatter of freckles on her cheeks. She pulled out a chair and sat opposite Sei. Unlike hers, Chloe’s plate was filled with lettuce. Sei alternately pointed at the two plates with a fork and narrowed her eyes.

“But what kind of discrimination is this?  Are you on a diet again?”

“A skinny person like you wouldn’t understand the hearts of us chubby people. Dieting is like a lifelong assignment.” Chloe, who said so, pushed the bitter-looking salad into her mouth without any dressing. Sei, who looked at her in horror, cut her share of steak in half and put it on Chloe’s plate.

“Lifelong assignments are good and all, but don’t forget that eating protein is also important. And it’s not your meal that you should cut down on but those Sweet Guilty’s cheesecakes.”

“Hehe… I’m dieting to eat them.”

“Leave it. I like the way you are now.”

Shrugging her shoulders, Sei chewed on the steak that she just cut into. A few days ago, she had eventually got off the ship after completing the whole itinerary of 15 days and 14 nights. However, Yuri Petrov did not get off. Of course, that man owned the DE:A ship, so there would be no problem if he stayed for a few more days. In addition, a suicide note was found in Michael Dylan’s room. Of course, it was fabricated by someone on the inside.

According to the suicide note, Michael Dylan, feeling guilty of embezzling the company money, drank after losing $500,000 while gambling. On top of that, he took ecstasy and heroin, and under the influence of drugs, he chose to commit suicide.

It was such an obvious suicide scenario.

However, his bereaved family did not even try to find his body or demand compensation from the DE:A. They just quietly claimed his huge death insurance money.

This also guarantees one thing about all deaths.

No matter how splendid a life one lives, death is bound to be vain.

Does a meaningful death really exist?

“Thanks for the meal. I’ll go to the hospital and come back in the evening.”

Sei, after putting the empty plate in the dishwasher, entered her room and started getting ready to go out. After covering her hair with a blonde wig, she pressed the ball cap over it deeply. As she left the house with her keys and a big backpack on her shoulder, Chloe looked at her smartphone and made a strange face.

The weather was cold and windy outside. Feeling the chills from the wind on her neck, Sei adjusted her windbreaker and boarded the bus that had just arrived. After going inside the bus full of passengers, Sei leaned against the pillar with her earphones plugged in. The dry and barren landscape quickly passed by through the bus window. Far off in the distance, she could see the building that she had left behind a long time ago. When she saw the trademark red chimney, her heart started beating fast.

It was a dilapidated rental apartment outside Brooklyn with no soundproofing. But the owner never urged her even if she couldn’t pay the rent for several months. He was a kind-hearted man who sometimes brought her food when she was alone. Back then, she found even the soggy spaghetti good.

Because her mother had a weak constitution, she was rushed to the hospital almost every day and also required dialysis to survive. Back then, Sei used to think all the mothers in the world had a weak body and nervous temperament. However, after learning that wasn’t really the case, she wasn’t that much shocked.

Mom is a poor soul that needs to be protected.

Maybe she was brainwashed by what her father repeatedly told her. Perhaps that was why protecting her sick mother felt like a very rightful destiny to her.

That day was also the same…

The uncle brought some savory cream ravioli for dinner and they talked excitedly about the hero of the popular drama.

When Sei left the dining room to put away the empty plate, someone knocked on the door. She despised it when people came to visit because she was ashamed of her father, who was a petty crook. She accidentally broke the plate at the sound of slow knocking.

“Uncle will go out and see who’s there. Go and hide behind the sofa.”

The uncle’s name was Albert. Albert smiled confidently, revealing a gas gun in his back pocket. Sei hid herself behind the sofa like the uncle told her to. It was an old sofa with a gap in the back where her little frame might enter when the slipcover was gently lifted. After crawling into it, she stared at the back of the uncle opening the door through the small gap in the sofa.

However, before she knew it, as soon as the door was opened, there was a loud sound of gunfire. Not just one, but as many as five bullets passed through the man’s body, and one of them even pierced the sofa where she was hiding.