When he gestured for him to go ahead and take it, Im Gyeong took the phone without a moment’s hesitation.
Then he tucked it between his cheek and ear and unhurriedly went back to eating his ice cream.
“Hello?”
Whatever Yun Sena said, Im Gyeong laughed.
“Oh really? More useful than he looks — why do you ask?”
He couldn’t make out what was being said, but it sounded like they were talking about him, and it didn’t sit particularly well. The conversation continued with the teaspoon he’d been holding left jabbed into the ice cream container. In the meantime, Kang Heesin tidied up the cluttered dining table.
“Is that so? No, I saw it too. Is she doing well?”
Im Gyeong looked completely at ease. Neither of them raised their voices — they were no different from any ordinary pair of siblings. The one who was flustered was Heesin. A moment later, when the call ended, Im Gyeong touched the phone. Heesin quickly moved to take it back, only to find that the recording of the call had been deleted without a trace.
That left him speechless.
“What do you think you’re doing. Why are you touching things without permission?”
“Listening to someone else’s recording could be legally problematic, don’t you think? Prosecutor?”
Heesin ground his back teeth and glared. Im Gyeong, ice cream in hand, got up from his seat.
He found the lid and snapped it back on, then put the container straight into the freezer.
“Don’t throw it out. I’ll come back for it next time.”
Next time, he says.
Before Im Gyeong could even make a move, Heesin grabbed his coat and went to stand by the front door. The message was clear: get out, quickly. Im Gyeong saw it and let out a hollow laugh.
“I’m leaving already?”
He held out the coat pointedly.
“Take care.”
Im Gyeong took the coat with a smile.
“This feels just like newlyweds.”
“Yes, yes. Off you go.”
He went as far as opening the front door himself, and Im Gyeong’s brows drooped into a helpless arch. Stop kicking me out — I’m already leaving on my own, aren’t I. Even after putting his shoes on, Im Gyeong lingered in the entryway with a reluctant look on his face.
“Can I come visit again?”
“Take care on your way home.”
“What about next week — are you free?”
“Yes, take care on your way home.”
“The hell, are you a parrot?”
Heesin shoved the half-leaning figure out and shut the door immediately. The door slammed — and then silence from outside. He let out a quiet sigh and walked over to the sofa, dropping onto it heavily. Belatedly, a dull ache climbed from his neck up to his temples. This always happened when he was tense. Which also meant that being around Im Gyeong made him tense.
He pressed his thumbs into his temples, kneading away the headache, then stood up — and spotted a wallet that had fallen on the sofa. He opened the folded wallet to find a card inside, along with a single business card. Kang Heesin. The moment he realized there was nothing in it other than his own business card, he felt a strange, indescribable feeling.
He was pondering how to return it when the doorbell rang, as if on cue.
He opened the door and Im Gyeong pushed his face into the gap, right on schedule.
“The wallet—”
Heesin held the wallet out through the crack, and the moment Im Gyeong took it, he shut the door.
A little while later, his phone rang.
— That’s a bit much.
“I gave you back your wallet. What’s the problem?”
— You took the business card, didn’t you.
He didn’t answer. Im Gyeong laughed and said goodbye, see you next time. Along with a wish for him to have sweet dreams tonight. His voice was sweet enough to almost be disarming. The moment he hung up, exhaustion washed over him, and he collapsed lengthwise onto the sofa without even washing up.
He closed his eyes, and the events of the day flickered past.
— Go ahead. Choose — whether you’ll go after my son, or whether you’ll go after Chairman Shim.
He suddenly shot upright. He smoothed back his hair, which had been tugged into a mess from all his agonizing, took a deep breath, and searched for the contact saved as “Sparrow” in his phone and called. A moment later, the voice of someone jolted awake came through the receiver.
— God, seriously…. Do you ever sleep?
Five days later —
When he stepped into the office, Deputy Chief Prosecutor Jo Cheolwoong, who had been on the phone, looked up. He signaled with a hand gesture for him to sit, then continued the call. Yes, I’ll call again next time. Of course. That’s how it should be. There was a faint lilt of excitement in his voice, and Heesin found himself curious about who was on the other end. After hanging up, Jo came over and sat down. Then he smiled — a sly, unpleasant smile.
“Wouldn’t it have been so much better if you’d done this from the start. Hmm? Kid had to be stubborn and make me look like the bad guy.”
Ah — he could probably guess who was on that call. A bitter taste filled his mouth. Rather than letting it show, he held out the documents he’d brought. Jo took them and began looking through them, and his expression gradually stiffened. He shifted only his eyes to look at Heesin, and Heesin waited quietly for a response.
“What is this. I disarmed a bomb, and now you’ve walked in with a nuclear one.”
“If you’ll give me the go-ahead, I’ll handle it.”
“Where did you get this? Is it solid?”
“I’ve finished verifying it. And I have a witness secured.”
“A witness?”
“Finance Director Gwak Seongtae.”
The deputy chief prosecutor’s eyes went wide. He tapped the armrest of the sofa with his fingers — tap, tap — and pulled out an e-cigarette, placing it between his lips. Then, out of nowhere, he asked a completely off-topic question.
“You’re not thinking of going into politics, are you?”
“No.”
“Good. You shouldn’t be.”
He said that, yet he proceeded to comb through the documents thoroughly. He flipped through to the last page, reviewed everything, and then set the file down on the table.
“You sure about this? The scale is too big.”
“I’m prepared for it.”
His unhesitating manner made Jo’s eyes narrow.
“Did you meet with Representative Choi?”
This time, he was clearly fishing for something.
“No.”
“Then why did you suddenly change your mind?”
His gaze sharpened. It seemed like he was trying to assess whether or not Heesin was telling the truth.
“I concluded that you were right. There’s nothing to gain from digging further, it only makes things harder. And if I’m going to play, I’d rather play in a bigger pond.”
As he said “bigger pond,” his eyes went to the file on the table in front of him.
Jo, who had been deep in thought, gave a nod.
“Alright, leave it and go. I need to report upward as well.”
The moment he finished speaking, Heesin rose from his seat. I’m sorry about last time. He offered a polite apology, and a satisfied smile spread across Jo’s face.
“If you know better, act like it.”
He walked out of the office and down the corridor when Park Taemin came rushing after him.
“No fight this time?”
“Where were you hiding? Perfect timing as always. Do I look like I have the luxury of picking fights?”
“They’re closing the Kim Haeseong case as a suicide, I heard.”
“Word travels fast.”
“Yeah. Good call. Stirring the pot just makes things harder on you.”
Life was already hard enough as it was.
Whether adding one more thing to the pile changes anything, he wasn’t sure.
“People like you and me — we need to be sharp. Perceptive.”
“What do you mean, people like you and me?”
“Dragons that rose from the ditch.”
It wasn’t wrong. Though these days, even a dragon from the ditch was a different beast depending on whether it was a Seoul dragon or a country dragon. What a ridiculous world. He was suddenly reminded of that old fable about the city mouse and the country mouse. In the story, the happy one was the country mouse — but that wasn’t him. He had no desire whatsoever to go back to the countryside. He wanted to make it here, in this city, and live well.
By then, Park Taemin had taken a call and hurried off somewhere. If you had to name the busiest person in the prosecutors’ office, it would probably be Park Taemin. Though it wasn’t only work that kept him busy.
“Did the conversation go alright?”
Chief Inspector Oh Suyeong looked up at Heesin as he returned to the prosecutors’ office, his expression troubled. The deputy chief prosecutor’s description — you disarmed a bomb and brought in a nuclear one — might have been more accurate than Heesin had given him credit for. In terms of fallout, this one would be far bigger than the Choi Yuno case. And unlike the Choi Yuno case, this one came with solid evidence already secured. So he rationalized it to himself: for now, I need to do what I can do.
About ten minutes or so passed. Chief Inspector Oh came over and held out his phone.
— K Construction’s slush fund: is it about to surface?
The article itself was relatively straightforward. There was no direct mention of a lawmaker being involved. But this would put enormous pressure on the other side. They’d scramble even harder to track down the finance director who’d fled abroad. But Finance Director Gwak Seongtae was already in Representative Choi’s hands. The more they moved, the more evidence they’d be piling up against themselves.
Had Im Gyeong seen the article? The moment the thought crossed his mind, the phone rang — right on cue.
He didn’t pick up. A message came through instead.
— Thank you. Changing your mind couldn’t have been easy.
He almost thought he could hear his voice. Slow, warm, carrying an undercurrent of quiet pressure. He was about to reply when a message arrived from Yun Sena this time. She wanted to have dinner together if he got off early tonight. When he told her he’d likely be tied up for a while, she sent back a teary-eyed emoji.
He should have found it endearing — but he couldn’t smile the way he used to. He was still trying to make sense of why she’d had someone tail him. And in the middle of that, a call came in from his youngest sibling. He thought to himself that an unusually large number of people were reaching out to him today. That was never a good sign.
Sure enough, when he picked up, his youngest sister Minhye’s voice on the other end was off.
— Oppa… big brother… big brother is…
Minhye was sobbing too hard to finish the sentence. She was usually composed beyond her years. Instinctively, he knew. Something has happened. The thing I’ve always been afraid of — it may have finally come to pass. He stood perfectly still and focused only on his sister’s voice.
When the call ended, the hand holding the phone dropped to his side.
Chief Inspector Oh, who had been watching, looked over in concern.
“Prosecutor? Is something wrong?”
Heesin’s expression was relatively composed as he gathered his coat.
“Something came up. I need to make a trip to the countryside.”
Chief Inspector Oh rose to his feet alongside him.
“…What happened?”
“It’s nothing serious.”
But the face that stepped out through the door was stricken — shadowed with devastation and grief.
Once he was out in the corridor, his legs trembled, and for a long while, he couldn’t make himself move.
