Thanks to getting caught on a tree root, he could barely compose himself. Jaeha relied on the tree trunk with his whole body, managed to stand up, and limped down the slope. While rolling, the plastic had torn and ripped in places, so now he could secure some degree of vision. He bit down and swallowed the anxiety that the mountain would never end.
“Ah, fucking bastards, even when they call, they only call to goddamn places like this.”
How long had he walked like that? When he heard the rough speech pattern likely from the bastards who’d kidnapped him, Jaeha laid flat in place and hid his body. Following that came the trudging sound of footsteps as if treading on well-packed dirt roads. It seemed there was a path maintained as a hiking trail nearby.
If the ‘bastards’ are tracking me, they’ll move along that path. So it’s better to get away from the hiking trail. Jaeha crawled in the opposite direction from where the man’s voice came from.
“Ah fuck, you scared me.”
Had the noise that hadn’t reached Jaeha’s ears blocked by the plastic leaked out?
The man ran over and grabbed Jaeha’s collar to pull him upright. Naturally he should struggle and shake him off, but Jaeha’s whole body stiffened and he couldn’t do anything.
It was because of the ‘scent’ that had suddenly covered Jaeha the moment the man approached.
Sweet and fresh, a fruit scent like an ideal paradise created in imagination.
But it wasn’t a scent from fruit. The heart pounding and rampaging the moment the scent covered him proved that this wasn’t a simple ‘smell.’
“Crazy, what is this? Hey, kid. Are you okay?”
The man untied the knot binding Jaeha’s wrists first with a voice clearly full of confusion. He wrapped the wrists abraded by rope and reached out his hand as if to remove the plastic over his head too. Jaeha held his breath while watching the large palm fill the gap in the torn plastic. Somehow, if he kept smelling this scent, it seemed he’d forget why he’d been running away, where he’d been going.
Like the woodcutter who got drunk on peach fragrance and spent 300 years in paradise.
Suddenly a loud ringing sound woke his hazy mind.
The man who’d been trying to remove Jaeha’s plastic hesitated, withdrew his hand, and pulled out a phone from his pocket to answer.
“Ah, why! I’m on my way now. What? No, what the hell out of nowhere, what kid?”
Jaeha finally came to his senses and pulled his arm away. From the mouth of the man gripping Jaeha’s wrist firmly came a dumbfounded voice.
“Bring the kid back?”
He’s one of them after all.
He’s making me let my guard down by flowing sweet smells like luring bees and butterflies.
Jaeha gritted his teeth and scratched the back of the man’s hand with his free hand. The strength left the man’s grip, and Jaeha’s hand didn’t miss that opening and slipped out of his palm like a loach.
Jaeha ran again. While running, he tore the plastic bag stuck to his face to shreds. Finally his view brightened clearly. Jaeha took a deep breath trying to shake off the man’s scent that still seemed to cling damply to his nose. If I don’t forget quickly, if I don’t escape, I’ll be seized by the impulse to smell this scent again and return to him.
After running for a while, he reached a narrow, winding country road. Jaeha jumped in front of a blue Porter truck driving slowly. The elderly couple, shocked to the point of fainting, put Jaeha in the car and headed to the police station. Was there a car chasing them? He only remembered speeding so fast that his body floated every time they went over speed bumps.
He gave the police Hyun Sejun’s phone number. But the police didn’t hand the phone to Jaeha. After a moment, someone put Jaeha in a police car. While driving down the rattling road, his eyes slowly closed. When he regained consciousness, Jaeha was in front of a hospital.
“Oh my, Jaeha. Where have you been all this time! No, why does the kid look like this? What on earth happened?”
Hyun Sejun had no friends. Because whenever they’d start to build some friendship, he’d move to a faraway area. The person who ran out from the hospital upon seeing Jaeha was also the owner of the restaurant where Hyun Sejun worked. Called out because there were few numbers saved in Hyun Sejun’s phone, she’d been running around busily to home, school, and academy looking for Jaeha. Then finally reported to the police.
The kid ran away. It seems his dad got into an accident while looking for his son.
The shaved head’s ‘prophecy’ was correct. A dump truck driven by a drunk driver crushed Hyun Sejun along with his flimsy delivery scooter. He died instantly without even screaming once. The hospital didn’t show Jaeha the body.
Was it really an accident?
The bastards who kidnapped Jaeha had definitely said they would eliminate Hyun Sejun. They whispered that even if they got rid of Hyun Sejun, it would be useless if Jaeha was alive, so they had to kill Jaeha too. So Hyun Sejun dying in an accident now couldn’t be a coincidence.
Since they got rid of Hyun Sejun, they’ll come back to properly ‘dispose’ of me now. Ignoring people who said he didn’t need to keep the chief mourner’s seat and urged him to go to the police and tell them what happened, Jaeha stayed awake all day watching the mourning hall. Because if there really is a culprit, they’ll stop by here at least once to confirm Hyun Sejun and Jaeha’s life or death. If those bastards come, I’ll clearly confirm their faces and report them. He burned incense while holding together a body that seemed about to crumble after rolling and falling down the mountain slope countless times.
Hyun Hongwon arrived at the funeral home just before the end of mourning.
People dressed in pitch-black suits surrounded the mourning hall and an old man with a half-dazed face entered wobbling while being supported by someone.
“Oh, my poor child. I’m your grandfather, your grandfather.”
Hyun Hongwon knelt down as if collapsing and hugged Jaeha as if to crush him. Jaeha, held in the arms of a ‘grandfather’ he’d seen for the first time in his life, carefully looked around at the black suits surrounding them. Was there anyone I saw at the mountain villa? Is this ‘grandfather’ really unrelated to Hyun Sejun’s death? Even if he’s innocent, didn’t someone here contribute to the plan to kill Hyun Sejun?
Like ink spilled on thin rice paper, the suspicion once started endlessly encroached on his mind. Was it because of the pitch-black clothes covering his view? It still felt like he was tied to a chair with a black plastic bag over his head. Hyun Hongwon’s arms embracing Jaeha felt like the rope that had bound him to the chair.
It felt like this whole situation was a dream. Maybe Jaeha was still tied up in that mountain villa, or maybe he was buried in a pit unconscious and dying while dreaming.
There’s no way I could have escaped. In mountains where even healthy adults get lost, what’s the probability that an injured young child could find the road while evading the pursuit of those big guys? And what’s the probability of a truck appearing at the right time on a deserted mountain road?
If the last dream of life happened to be such a terrible nightmare, he wanted to just close his eyes and end everything. He couldn’t breathe. His mind became hazy with terrible helplessness. The shapes of the black clothes flickering before his eyes gradually blurred and merged into one like a blacked-out screen.
At that moment.
Some ‘scent’ faintly seeped into his nose.
An intense smell he’d smelled only once, but had never smelled even once before that.
White cracks began to form in his pitch-black vision. His gaze, which had been growing increasingly murky, found focus. Jaeha pushed through the acrid incense smell, the smell of yukgaejang being busily boiled here and there, and the cigarette-stained smell wafting from everywhere, and searched for the source of this dizzying scent.
A man dressed in a pitch-black suit with his hair neatly swept back—though he looked younger compared to others in the group, he gave off a particularly fierce feeling because of his sharp, cold impression.
He was the person who’d come supporting and attending to Hyun Hongwon.
Jaeha’s gaze went to the back of the man’s hand politely placed together at his lower abdomen.
Above the protruding veins remained two or three red scratches as if clawed by a young child.
It was certain.
It was the man who had caught Jaeha as he ran away from those bastards.
One of the gang who was on the phone with those bastards.
His endlessly sunken heart began pounding again. He didn’t know if it was because of his ‘scent’ or because someone appeared who could be a clue to the ‘kidnappers.’ But this much was certain. This scent assaulting me now is telling me this is ‘reality.’ Because something he’d never even imagined while living couldn’t appear as a dream or hallucination right before death. Only this unfamiliar ecstasy proved to Jaeha the fact that he was currently breathing and staying in reality.
He lifted his two arms that had been hanging limply.
Under ‘Jang Hyeokjin’s’ orders, they said they had to get rid of the son and grandson before the ‘Chairman’ came.
If the person hugging Jaeha now was really his ‘grandfather,’ then the very fact that Jaeha was alive and staying by his side would be the worst situation for the person called ‘Jang Hyeokjin.’
Then good.
I’ll wait here.
Until that man summons the bastard called ‘Jang Hyeokjin.’ Sticking right by Hyun Hongwon’s side.
