He stood outside the front gate and listened carefully, but there was no sign of anyone inside. Then he noticed that, unlike before, the gate was left slightly ajar. He considered calling Im Gyeong, then decided against it and went straight in.
He climbed the steps carefully, and the house came into view. Unlike when he had left, the building was wrapped in a dark, soundless stillness without a sliver of light. He went to the front door and found that someone had propped it open with a block of wood. Instinctively, he knew something had happened.
Should he call the police? And tell them what? That it looked like an attack? What if he was wrong? The interior was pitch black — he couldn’t see a hand in front of his face. He turned on his phone’s flashlight and looked for something he could use as a weapon, spotting a set of golf clubs nearby and pulling one out.
“Im Gyeong…?”
He called out — no answer. He headed toward the second floor where they had been together last, when a crashing sound rang out and a dark shape came barreling down the stairs. In the darkness, he instinctively clocked the glint of a blade.
The man swung the knife and screamed at him to get out of the way. Heesin swung the golf club and struck him — the man crumpled forward with a thud and slumped across the stairs. He quickly lit up his phone and looked at the figure.
A man drenched in blood was groaning and writhing. No matter how he looked at it, these weren’t wounds from the blow he’d just delivered. He rushed past the man and sprinted up to the floor above. He called out to Im Gyeong loudly — and at that moment, the lights came on.
The sight before him froze him on the spot. The living room floor where they had been watching a movie just a short while ago was soaked entirely in blood. Even if you drained every drop of blood from a human body, he doubted it would amount to this much. He caught his breath and looked around.
Footsteps reached his ears. He gripped the golf club tight and fixed his gaze on the direction they came from. The one who emerged from inside was Im Gyeong. Whatever had happened, blood was splattered across his clothes, and it dripped steadily from his hair.
“Are you hurt?”
Heesin moved to check on him in alarm, but Im Gyeong held up a hand to stop him from coming closer.
“I thought you’d left.”
“……”
A calm voice. Only then did he realize there wasn’t a scratch on Im Gyeong’s body. Then who bled all of this? There was no way a single person — the man collapsed downstairs — could have bled this much. He’d seen many murder scenes, but no one person could lose this volume of blood.
A cold chill ran through him, and he moved to step toward the bathroom inside.
Im Gyeong immediately blocked his path.
“That’s off limits.”
“What is this? Did someone die?”
“May I exercise my right to remain silent?”
At the shameless answer, he quickly pressed 112.
Just as he was about to make the call, Im Gyeong reached over and gently caught his hand.
“Don’t do this.”
“I’m doing my duty. Step aside.”
At that moment, his subordinates came rushing up the stairs. Rather than showing any surprise, they moved quickly to get the situation under control. As though Kang Heesin simply wasn’t there.
When he tried to call again, Im Gyeong’s voice turned firm.
“Those men broke into my home. It was self-defense. Or what — would you have felt better if I’d been the one who died, Kang Heesin?”
“There’s more than one or two of them!”
“True. Would one more make a difference at this point?”
That one more could be Kang Heesin himself — that was what he meant. This son of a bitch kills someone right in front of a South Korean prosecutor and then has the nerve to threaten him on top of it? He glared with cold fury, even as sweat broke out on the back of his neck from the tension.
“The drugs those men were smuggling in came to several dozen kilograms. It was only possible because they were using my maternal grandfather’s name. All I did was carry out justice in my own way. If that still doesn’t sit right with you, don’t call the police — arrest me right here. If that’s your idea of justice, I won’t stop you.”
“……”
“But know this. If I’d left them alone, there would have been more victims.”
He took one step closer. The smell of blood was nauseating. Between the tension and the revolting smell, nausea finally surged up. Heesin clamped a hand over his mouth as dry heaves overtook him, and Im Gyeong grabbed his shoulder with a look of concern.
“Are you already carrying my child or something?”
This bastard—! He struck the hand away sharply, and Im Gyeong laughed quietly.
“Come on. I’ll take you to the bathroom downstairs.”
Don’t touch me. He descended the stairs in long strides — and the man who had been collapsed there was gone. In his place, he glimpsed staff members loading something into black cloth bags and carrying them away. Was he already dead? Or had they killed him? He moved in that direction, and several people came forward to block his path.
Their eyes were filled with killing intent. The message was clear: we can kill you too if it comes to that.
“Let him through. He’s one of ours.”
The voice from behind made a hollow laugh escape him. Im Gyeong had at some point positioned himself in the middle of the staircase.
One of ours? Who decided that?
The people who had received the order cleared a path, and he pushed through and made his way quickly out the front gate.
The moment he was outside, he emptied his stomach against the base of the wall. The neighborhood was dead silent, and the alley was completely empty in every direction. The van that had been parked in the corner had vanished without a trace, and in front of the gate, a different van was standing by.
He sat down where he was and pressed 112 several more times — but in the end, he never made the call.
From the moment he opened his eyes, a skull-splitting headache had him reaching straight for painkillers. He’d come home the night before and hadn’t been able to sleep at all. Should he have arrested Im Gyeong on the spot? Should he have called 112? All manner of thoughts had run through his head, but in the end he hadn’t been able to act on any of them.
Helplessness, shame, guilt, and self-justification that he’d had no choice — a tangle of emotions tore at him.
He took the medicine and turned around — and the intercom buzzed at just that moment. His expression hardened at the sight of an unfamiliar face.
“Who is it?”
“Delivery.”
He went to the front door, slid the chain on, and cracked it open. A man who looked as though he’d only just removed his helmet — hair thoroughly disheveled — came into view. Perhaps because of what he’d witnessed the night before, he was wary of everything.
“Who sent it?”
“One moment, the sender is… Im Gyeong?”
He opened the door and the man held out a box. It was about the size of a fist. He shut the door, brought it inside, and opened it to find a USB drive. He plugged it into his laptop and opened the files — several audio recordings and slush fund documents appeared.
…Strung me along, and in the end he sent it anyway.
On a hunch, he searched online for news of last night’s incident. No particular articles came up. How had they disposed of the bodies? Had they been dumped somewhere? Maybe he really should have stayed. The surge of thoughts made him feel as though the headache was coming back.
Just get out of here first. There wasn’t enough time to sit and dwell. He got up in a hurry and pocketed the USB. He threw on some clothes, pulled a cap down low, and called a taxi to the underground parking garage. After about thirty minutes in the cab, he arrived at an electronics alley in the city center.
It was called a shopping district, but foot traffic had dried up long ago. He got out of the taxi and entered the narrow alley, checking behind him the whole way to see if he was being tailed. He arrived at a worn-down shop tucked inside the alley.
The shutter was rolled down, and a sign on the front read electronics repair — though the lettering was peeling in spots and barely legible. He made a call, and a moment later there were sounds of rustling from inside, followed by the shutter rolling up with a clatter.
The man who appeared inside was wearing a cute character T-shirt and could barely keep his eyes open.
“Ha — isn’t this a bit much? Coming at this hour is just rude, you know?”
Rude, my ass. Are we really the kind of people who stand on that kind of ceremony? Heesin pushed past the man and stepped inside. A moment later, the shutter that had risen came back down. The interior looked ordinary, and there was nothing particularly unusual about the shop itself. When the man pressed a button, one of the walls slid open to reveal a hidden room. Inside, computers were running, and a display case that took up an entire wall was packed with figurines.
“The item?”
He held out the USB he’d brought, and the man plugged it into the computer. He ran a virus check, then went through the files carefully. Heesin leaned against the desk and watched him work.
“I’m warning you — forget everything you’re looking at. You’ll be in serious trouble.”
“Do I look stupid? If I ran my mouth, do you think the prosecutor would let me off?”
While the man worked, Heesin rummaged through the fridge. Having moved around on an empty stomach, he felt hollow inside. But all he could find was cola — not a single thing to eat in sight.
“Lay off the soda, will you. You’ll end up walking with a cane from brittle bones.”
“You sound like an old man. Stress is worse for you, you know?”
He glanced at the back of the man’s head as he kept talking back. The man’s name was Seo Imse, and his nickname was Bapsae — Sparrow. There was said to be nothing he couldn’t fix — broken phones, computers, you name it — which earned him the reputation in these circles of having golden hands. But his abilities didn’t stop there. He talked back, yes, but his lips were remarkably sealed when it mattered, which was why Heesin stopped by from time to time for help.
“It’s the original. No signs of splicing.”
Bapsae handed back the USB and held out his palm. Cash for the work fee, please. Heesin grimaced. He opened his wallet — three ten-thousand-won bills was all that came out. He handed them over sheepishly, and Bapsae’s face crumpled.
“You’re something else, you really are. What do you do with all the money you make?”
“Shut it. I’ll sort you out later.”
Always later, later. God, I’m sick of it. You cheapskate. He ruffled the grumbling man’s hair. Good work. He stepped outside, and the shutter rolled shut immediately. He made his way out of the alley and onto the road, and flagged down a taxi. When the driver asked where he was headed, Heesin answered without a moment’s thought: Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.
