A Contracted Gangster Who Has to Die to Survive

Is he insane? How could someone be so careless?

Even if no one else was around, this place was practically enemy territory. Calling me “Lieutenant” so casually—does he not care what happens to me?

“Lounging around, eating, sleeping, and spending the money Choi Taejoon gives you in a fancy house. I guess you don’t feel like dealing with the dirty work, huh, Hyun Woo Kyung?”

I slowly turned my head toward Team Leader Baek. Rising halfway, I lazily opened my half-lidded eyes and looked at him.

“Finally showing me your face. How long has it been?”

Thanks to the backlight, I couldn’t make out his expression clearly, but his thin, stretched lips stood out.

“Our devoted son of a high-debt father.”

The last time we spoke, he pretended to be the head of a fixer agency. It seemed he was still playing that role.

Leaning against the bench at an angle, I looked up at him.

What… What’s with this guy’s appearance?

Baek looked like he’d just crawled out of a barrel of oil—his hair was slicked back as if drenched in grease. He wore a fitted shirt, carried a typical loan shark’s bag, and sported white patent-leather shoes polished to a blinding shine. His unexpected appearance left me so dumbfounded that I gaped, then burst into uncontrollable laughter.

“You’re laughing?”

“Haha, what’s with the outfit?”

“What’s wrong with my outfit?”

How cliché. What kind of loan shark even dresses like that these days? He must have watched too many movies. The half-shaven beard and the gum he was chewing—were those part of the look too? Far from looking like a police officer, he resembled a washed-up thug.

“Who are you? Are you really Team Leader Baek?”

At my question, Baek narrowed his eyes.

“Are you questioning me, testing me, or just messing with me?”

“No, it’s just that your outfit fits the loan shark aesthetic so well. Can I see your ID?”

“Shut up!”

I bit my lip, trying to suppress the laughter bubbling up, and avoided his gaze.

His appearance was so far removed from the sharp, elite police officer described in the original story.

In the original, Team Leader Baek was a villain with sleek gold-rimmed glasses and a perfectly tailored suit. The man standing in front of me? A greasy uncle, through and through.

“And you—are you really Hyun Woo Kyung? Something’s off.”

Despite his ridiculous appearance, his sharp eye for detail was still intact. His piercing gaze swept over me from head to toe, as if he were dissecting me.

“You don’t seem like Hyun Woo Kyung. Who are you?”

Now that I thought about it, this was the first time I was meeting someone who knew the real Hyun Woo Kyung so well.

“I-I am Hyun Woo Kyung.”

Because, technically, I am Hyun Woo Kyung.

“No, you’re not. Something’s definitely different. Why do you feel like a completely different person?”

Tension tightened in my chest as I swallowed hard. My laughter vanished, and the relaxed attitude I had been maintaining was replaced by a heightened sense of alertness.

Avoiding his gaze, I asked, “You’re the one who seems different. Are you really Team Leader Baek?”

“Don’t dodge the question.”

“You look so different in that outfit—it’s probably why I seem off to you too.”

“……”

“Anyway, there must be a reason you came to find me. What is it?”

I silently begged him to get to the point and leave already.

If he had chosen Hyun Woo Kyung specifically for this operation, it meant their relationship had been quite close. That must be why he immediately noticed something was off.

Trying to shift the conversation, I said, “You didn’t come here to collect a debt from me, did you?”

“Your tone is different too. It’s strange.”

He wasn’t buying it.

“Maybe it’s because I’ve been spending too much time with gangsters.”

Baek tossed his loan shark bag onto the bench and crossed his arms, looking down at me with suspicion still written all over his face.

“Or maybe it’s because of the car accident.”

His furrowed brows seemed to ease slightly at that.

“You mean the head injury?”

“W-wait. Thinking about the accident is giving me a headache. Ouch!”

I clutched my head and pretended to be in pain. My fatigued face probably made me look convincingly unwell, and it seemed to finally ease some of Baek’s suspicions.

“Stop exaggerating.”

“I’m not exaggerating! My head feels like it’s going to split open.”

“Hyun Woo Kyung.”

Baek sighed and continued with a grim expression.

“I have my own position to consider, you know. The higher-ups are all over me.”

“……”

“I figured you’d need time to adjust since this is new for you. But this isn’t working. You need to pick up when I call.”

“The last time I answered your call, Choi Taejoon caught me. If it happens again, I’ll be dead.”

That night, when Choi Taejoon grabbed my wrist, I thought, This is it. I’m done for.

“Do you think that’s a valid excuse? You should’ve figured out a way. Instead, you made me come all the way here.”

The message was clear: if I kept avoiding his calls, he’d show up in person again. Avoiding him outright was no longer an option.

“I need to get going now.”

“Going where?”

“To work….”

“Get it together. That’s not your real job.”

Right now, my plan was simple: die before anyone discovered I was a cop.

To achieve that, the most important thing was to avoid contact with anyone from the police and minimize any chance of my undercover status being exposed.

The fact that a police officer had come directly into Choi Taejoon’s territory could only mean one thing: they needed me badly enough to take the risk.

On the flip side, if I became useless, wouldn’t they give up on me?

What if I completely botched the assignment? Or deliberately sabotaged the mission?

With those thoughts swirling in my head, I decided to ask, just to see what they wanted.

“What do I have to do?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Honestly, I’ve forgotten everything because of the accident.”

Baek’s eyes widened, incredulous.

“Because of the accident?”

I shrugged with an indifferent expression.

“You expect me to believe that?”

He clearly didn’t. No matter how serious my injury might have been, I looked too fine for him to believe I’d forgotten only the parts related to the mission.

Baek played his trump card again, the one he’d used to threaten me before.

“Your father’s hiding out on an island.”

“My father?”

“Seems like he ran there to escape the bastards after him…. Judging by your expression, I guess you really didn’t know.”

The implication was obvious: my father’s life was in their hands, depending on the success of my mission. If I really were Hyun Woo Kyung, this would’ve been a critical pressure point. But that man wasn’t my real father.

“Islands are tricky places. There are too many where the law doesn’t reach. Hard to guarantee his safety there. Still, out of loyalty, we sent people to—”

“To keep him under surveillance.”

“Surveillance? No, it’s protection.”

I wiped my sweaty face and let out a long sigh. I had hoped to cool down a little, but this conversation made me feel even hotter and more suffocated.

“Sigh… I just want to quit everything.”

Baek’s eyes widened in surprise at my unexpected statement.

“What did you say, Hyun Woo Kyung?”

“I want to resign. Can’t I quit?”

“Are you crazy?”

Whenever I watched movies like this, I always wondered why the protagonist never tried asking to quit and go back to a normal life before things spiraled too far.

Sure, it was entertaining as a reader to watch them get dragged to the bitter end, but now I was the protagonist, and things felt very different.

Of course, I wasn’t the main character of this world—just a throwaway extra with nothing to lose.

“So now you want to spend the rest of your life trailing after gangsters?”

“No. I just want to quit everything and live quietly.”

I wasn’t sure who I was complaining to.

I looked up at the sky and muttered under my breath.

Dear author, can you just kill me off painlessly and send me back to my original world?

Then I turned back to face Baek, who was still staring at me with his stern expression.

“I’m not joking. If you keep showing up and threatening me, I really will quit everything.”

“Are you threatening me now?”

“No, not a threat. Just… like how even a worm will squirm if stepped on.”

Baek let out a dry laugh.

He seemed to interpret my statement as the kind of grumbling a regular office worker might make about wanting to quit their job.

“If this was a job you could quit just because you didn’t want to do it, I would’ve left a long time ago.”

“Well then, we can quit together. Sounds good to me.”

Baek ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

“Damn it, Hyun Woo Kyung. I don’t have time to waste on this nonsense. If you want out, then finish what you’re told to do. Even if you don’t want to quit, I’ll make sure you can when it’s over. Finish this, and you’ll get promoted by at least two ranks. This is your chance.”

“Promotion… yeah, sounds great,” I replied flatly.

Baek looked visibly exasperated at my lack of enthusiasm.

“You’re not someone who can just abandon your family and live like nothing’s wrong.”

The problem was, those weren’t my real family members.

Sure, the mention of younger siblings tugged at my heart, but as for the so-called father who caused nothing but trouble? I couldn’t care less.

The kind of “sacrifice” Baek expected of me wasn’t something I valued at all.

“Are you even listening to me?”

I dusted myself off and stood up.

“I’ll be going now.”

“Where do you think you’re going in the middle of this?”

“If I want to feed my poor siblings, I need to work.”

I slipped the in-ear monitor back in place and started walking across the open lot without looking back.

“Hey, wait! Hyun Woo Kyung! Stop right there!”

I’d momentarily forgotten the plot of the original story, but Baek showing up here was an ominous sign.

The day Hyun Woo Kyung’s cover as a police officer was blown… if I remembered correctly, he had met Baek earlier that morning.