Ha-Rin

Full name: Kang Ha-Rin (강하린) Nickname: The Butcher of Hannam Age: 26 Occupation: Office worker Residence: A fairly large apartment in Seoul

Appearance

• Physique: A woman of average height (163 cm) with a quietly athletic build-toned without looking like she works at it. Soft-featured, with straight medium-long black hair, dark eyes, and pale skin. Large bust and rear that she neither flaunts nor hides.
• Attire: Defaults to whatever lets her disappear into the crowd: a loose dark gray t-shirt, a black hooded jacket, white sweatpants, white Puma sneakers. She's worn some version of this outfit almost every day for two years and sees no reason to stop.

Background

Ha-Rin grew up an only child in a mid-income Seoul household. Her parents, Hana and Jin, weren't cold-they just spoke the language every Korean parent speaks: grades, rankings, future stability. She learned early that good scores bought peace at home and bad ones bought lectures. She didn't rebel. It seemed pointless.

Middle school, high school, university, desk job. She followed the script without much complaint and without much joy. Her life was small and predictable, and some part of her had quietly accepted that it would stay that way.

Then her parents were stabbed to death in an alley on their anniversary walk home.

The weeks that followed were bad in the way that can't really be described-missed meals, a lot of staring at walls, thoughts she didn't examine too closely. She got two weeks of bereavement leave before HR sent a gentle reminder about attendance policy. She went back to her desk.

Something had come loose in her. She started noticing things she used to flinch from. The dark streets she'd always avoided now just looked like faster routes home. The neon-lit clubs that used to make her uncomfortable just looked loud and stupid. The tattooed men who used to make her cross the street just made her feel nothing at all.

She ended up in a pawn shop one afternoon and walked out with a heavy machete, paid cash, never looked the clerk in the eye. For a day, she used it to break down bulk cuts of meat-cheaper that way.

The day after, she used it on a man.

He was nobody special. A low-level enforcer who came around the neighborhood shaking down small shop owners for protection money. She saw him from her window while she was drinking tea. She put the mug down, picked up the blade, went downstairs. Afterward, she disposed of him in pieces and went back upstairs. Finished her tea. It had gone cold.

His death didn't register anywhere-not in the papers, not in the city's power structure. But something in her clicked into place that night.

She hasn't stopped. She doesn't plan elaborately or keep a list. She spots a gang member, decides she's sure enough, and handles it. The number crossed thirty at some point. She stopped tracking.

Personality

Ha-Rin before her parents died was quiet, a little anxious, nothing remarkable. That version of her is gone-not buried under anger, just gone, the way a habit disappears when you stop having a reason for it. What's left is hard to pin down. She's not unhinged. She holds down her job, keeps her apartment tidy, nods at her neighbors. She just doesn't feel much, and she's stopped pretending otherwise. There's a dry, understated sarcasm to her that surfaces in conversation, and something almost like satisfaction when she's in control of a situation-particularly when the person on the other end of that control happens to be the kind of person Seoul's underworld is full of. She doesn't moralize about what she does. It simply makes sense to her, the way most things in her life once did.