“Let’s have you all leave work first today.”
Around the time the government-mandated proper working hours passed, Jaeha sent his staff home first. Since it was a burning Friday evening, they disappeared in a rush without even a hint of apology.
Scratch. Scratch.
Jaeha, who had been wrestling with the remaining documents, checked that the clock pointed to 10 o’clock and stood up from his seat.
After packing the documents he needed to review overnight into a pink wrapping cloth, he left the office. His body felt languid with fatigue.
‘I should have parked closer to the building.’
He regretted it, but in the first place, the nearby parking spaces were occupied first by the Chief Prosecutor and those treated as Chief Prosecutor, so the turn never actually came around to Jaeha.
Jaeha’s sedan was in a corner where proper lighting didn’t even reach. Since he hardly used it except for commuting, it had been quite a while since he’d bought it, but it still smelled of new leather. After putting his briefcase and pile of wrapping cloths in the trunk, he got in the car.
Thud.
He could finally breathe.
A friendly smile, kind attitude, gentle eyes, soft voice. He was tired from constantly doing things that didn’t suit his temperament.
“Fuck.”
When work ended, curses came out first for no reason. After roughly pulling off his tie, Jaeha started the engine. It was when he was stepping on the accelerator with a grimace.
Someone suddenly jumped out in front.
Screech!
He slammed on the brakes in a hurry. Seeing the person standing there perfectly fine, he wiped away his chilled liver. He immediately rolled down the window and shouted.
“Fuck! You, what the hell?”
Like all drivers in the Republic of Korea, curses came out first. If there had been eyes watching nearby, “Hey. That’s dangerous” would have come out first. But not now, after leaving work.
“Prosecutor Seo Jaeha?”
The person who swaggered over was quite large, wore tinted glasses, and stared directly at Jaeha. They weren’t sunglasses. They were merely tinted glasses.
Could he even see in the dark night? The question arose.
“So what?”
“Take a look at me.”
“I’m leaving work. Come back next time when it’s bright.”
He was used to rough types coming to pick fights. Criminal Division 5 handled traffic accident-related cases. Because of this, they dealt with ordinary people more than professionals, and so sometimes ordinary people who couldn’t distinguish whether they were a pushover or not would occasionally send rough acquaintances to test the waters.
Of course, this was the first idiot to openly try extortion in the prosecutors’ office parking lot late at night.
“It’s urgent.”
“All cases are urgent.”
Jaeha raised the window and tried to start the car again. But this time another guy appeared and blocked the front.
“Huh? Huh? Are you going to hit someone?”
Before he knew it, there were four people surrounding Jaeha’s car. They seemed to have come with a plan. A snort escaped him naturally. He rolled down the window again.
“Who sent you?”
“You’ll know when you go.”
Thinking about it carefully, there was a corner he could point to.
“Did Jung Kyungwoo-ssi send you?”
“You know.”
“Ha.”
He was dumbfounded. Crazy bastard.
This was still within the walls of the prosecutors’ office. Just a little further and there were police in charge of security. A police station equipped with a riot squad was within walking distance.
“We won’t touch you, Prosecutor. What would happen these days if we touched a prosecutor? We have brains too. He just wants to talk in a quiet place. Please do me a favor.”
Unlike his rough gestures, the man wearing tinted glasses spoke smoothly.
Jaeha tapped the steering wheel with his fingers, then put the car in reverse. Then, after parking the car back in place and getting out, he surprise-attacked by taking a photo of the other person as soon as he got out of the car.
Click.
“Huh?”
When the flash suddenly went off, the man covered his face with his hand as if his eyes were blinded. Jaeha quickly sent that photo.
“Since it’s late at night, I have to let my parents know who I’m meeting.”
“Ah, is that so? Please tell them Director Oh. Should I give you my phone number too?”
At the shameless man’s words, Jaeha snorted.
“Wow, Prosecutor, you’re tall. Good body too. You studied well enough to become a prosecutor, right? If only you hadn’t been good at studying, if you’d worked with us, your name would have been known throughout Asia.”
“That’s enough small talk. Where are we going?”
“I’ll escort you this way.”
One of the four men pulled out a black sedan from the darkness.
When he got in the back seat, men took positions on both sides. Director Oh got in the passenger seat.
Jaeha’s large build was one thing, but the men sitting next to him were also particularly muscular, so the back seat of the spacious sedan was cramped.
“It’ll be uncomfortable, but please bear with it for an hour. Once you finish your business, we’ll escort you back nicely to this very spot.”
For the entire hour, the inside of the car was filled with silence. They didn’t even cover his eyes. Though it was dark outside, the clear letters on road signs with excellent reflective function shone brighter than LEDs whenever they received headlight beams.
They were taking the circular road and heading out to the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province. To a place long famous as a secret meeting spot for lovers.
“I heard the pork cutlet here is really delicious these days.”
Director Oh suddenly tossed out an inane comment, pointing at a restaurant sign that popped up out of the darkness. Then the man next to him responded, ‘I tried it and it was decent. Perfect for taking a woman.’
“Really? I should go with my wife and kids next time.”
It was clear they didn’t care if Jaeha knew where they were going. The fact that they didn’t care what he witnessed meant, in other words, they had extreme methods in mind.
Dead men tell no tales. They were far more dangerous than they appeared.
The sedan that left the main road and turned onto a small path soon entered a dim forest road. Facilities like pensions or municipal training centers appeared far away sporadically before quickly disappearing. The black shadows that had sunk darkly were like ponds.
Thud. Thud.
Small gravel bounced off the car body. The car swayed back and forth because the road was rough.
“This place is very quiet and nice. Unlike downtown, they don’t care at all what you do next door. It’s perfect for catching a whole pig and having a meat party.”
Director Oh opened his mouth. They don’t care if you catch a pig. That pig would probably be a pig that talks and has black hair. However, Jaeha gave no response and just looked ahead.
Soon they approached a building. It was a pension built haphazardly with cheap wood.
“We’ve arrived.”
He was finally freed from the cramped back seat. His body felt stiff from crouching the whole time. Jaeha stretched his legs and took a deep breath.
The smell of grass and wet fallen leaves vibrated. The noise of the city center had completely disappeared, and only the cries of roe deer or wild pigeons echoed eerily in the distance.
There were two other cars besides the one Jaeha came in. One was a very old domestic car, and one was a luxury foreign car. It seemed like there was someone in the driver’s seat of the foreign car, but it was too dark to see properly.
“He’s waiting. Let’s go in.”
Receiving Jaeha’s silent gaze, Director Oh continued.
“We have work to do. Only you need to go in, Prosecutor.”
While saying this, Director Oh gathered the other men and gave some instructions.
There was only one room with lights on in the pension. When he opened the creaking iron door, there was a gurgling sound of water dispenser bubbles rising.
“Ah, Prosecutor Seo Jaeha.”
The person straightening up from being bent over in front of the old water purifier was none other than Jung Kyungwoo. He was making instant mix coffee in a paper cup in an incongruous manner.
“Since this is my first time with this kind of coffee, I’m not sure if it’ll suit your taste.”
While saying this, Jung Kyungwoo held out a coffee cup to Jaeha. Behind him was a pension window thickly covered with insect corpses. Iron security bars were installed as if to prepare for external intrusion.
Beyond the window, men using car headlights as illumination were diligently preparing something.
Red rubber tubs with gray stains, cement bags, water containers, shovels and such could be seen. The license plate of the old domestic car he saw earlier was an old-style green one.
“Hey, hey. Mix two bags today. The tub will be small. Don’t you have a bigger one?”
“This is the biggest one.”
“Ah. Can’t be helped. Find the saw and axe too.”
“Yes.”
Director Oh gave instructions flawlessly.
‘A stolen car and cement preparation.’
“My arm is going to fall off.”
Jung Kyungwoo, who had approached before he knew it, held out the paper cup again.
Jaeha ignored it and put one hand in his pants pocket. He touched the metal file cabinet key in his pocket. Standing in a crooked posture, Jaeha stared at the other person.
“Why are you glaring at me like that? Do you think I’m going to do something to Prosecutor Seo Jaeha?”
As if he knew nothing about what was happening outside the window, Jung Kyungwoo smiled faintly.
A fourth-generation chaebol who recites the most common villain line about not forgetting, then disappears only to return threatening with muscle. Could there be a more boring setup than this?
Unlike his body that was instinctively tensing up, he was on the verge of an internal yawn from the cliché. Jaeha unknowingly let out a long breath.
“Are you worried about what I might do to Prosecutor Seo?”
Misinterpreting it as a signal of tension, a vile smile spread across Jung Kyungwoo’s face.
“No.”
“You’re lying. You keep looking over there.”
“I’m concerned about the stolen car that looks illegal. Occupational hazard.”
“Is that so? Strangely, there are a lot of cars like that around here. Maybe because there’s a deep pond nearby. It’s a pond that even fishermen don’t go to, but it’s spooky and ominous.”
Jung Kyungwoo, who spouted similar words to Director Oh, the muscle he was using, placed the paper cup with coffee on top of the water purifier.
A faint smile floated on Jung Kyungwoo’s pale face. And the distance between the two people had widened much more than at first.
