AGENT 43

“It worked.”

Fortunately, the theory proved quite accurate; a small explosion sounded from the floor, and soon the sound of water began to rush in. The layer of wood beneath the plywood must have been very old, as it broke through at once.

“Changsik hyung-nim, it’s open.”

“…Go get Pilgu.”

Changsik, watching the hole form in the floor, ordered Howon to bring Pilgu. It was unexpected. It seemed like Changsik would have just held onto Jongtae like Pilgu, but he was able to regain his senses like this.

“Hyung-nim, we have to go…”

“No! You bastard! Let go!”

Howon pulled at Pilgu’s arm, saying they had to leave, but Pilgu was completely out of his mind. He was clinging to Jongtae, whose face had already turned blue past the stage of shock, screaming that he wouldn’t go. The sight was both pitiful and tragic.

Rumble—

However, they could no longer delay. It was good that the warehouse was old enough for the floor to break easily, but it also meant the collapse would be just as fast. The sound of shifting plywood echoed, and the cement pillars were visibly cracking.

“We have to get out now.”

They had to escape immediately. Otherwise, the entire floor could give way at once. Yongnae urged Changsik that they had to leave, but Changsik merely stared blankly at Pilgu, who was struggling and crying while hugging Jongtae.

“Pilgu hyung-nim, we have to go…!”

“Let go! You son of a bitch!”

Rumble, crash—

He couldn’t wait any longer. He had to go. No, he absolutely had to live.

“…”

Yongnae, looking back and forth between them, finally heard the sound of cement cracking once more and jumped into the open hole without hesitation.

Boom—!

Not long after he plunged into the sea, a massive explosion sounded above his head.

∞ ∞ ∞

There is no winter in tropical Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a country that is hot and warm 365 days a year; even in the coldest season, the minimum temperature does not drop below 14°C. Because of this, even in December, people who run hot might walk around in just a single shirt, yet for some reason, Hong Kong was cold today.

“…”

Was the seawater cold? Or was he cold because of the futility of having escaped alone?

Smoke rising in the distance came into view at once. Even from this distance, the black smoke was thick enough to tell that a massive fire had broken out over there. He seemed to have been swept to a nearby beach by the current when he jumped, but seeing that no one was around, it appeared he was the only one who escaped.

Did they all remain in the warehouse? A loud explosion had been heard—did the warehouse collapse immediately? Earlier, he had been so desperate to live that he jumped first without waiting, having no room to think about their safety, but now that he had survived, guilt, futility, and a sense of self-loathing bloomed within him.

They were certainly bad people to someone, but they weren’t to him. They were people who had sincerely worried for him and taken care of him, yet he had very selfishly left that place alone without delay, telling himself he had to live.

If he had persuaded Pilgu for even a moment, or no—if he had at least forcibly dragged Changsik out at the end, even if Jongtae couldn’t be saved, the remaining Black Horse Gang members might be alive together now. He would have mourned Jongtae’s death with them and comforted them.

‘I have to live.’

But with a powerful obsession to survive even if he were alone, he turned away from them and came out by himself. Of course, he wanted to live because he feared death, but in truth, there was another reason known only to him.

He had to meet the man. He had to meet him and ask.

Was it really him who came to the club that day? Did he meet him that day?

Did they kiss and share their skin as they did in the dream?

That was why he had to survive. For just that reason, he had to survive coldly. That was why he was loathsome. He loathed himself for thinking it was a relief to be alive regardless.

Sitting blankly on the beach, watching the black smoke continue to rise in the distance, Yongnae led his soaking wet body and retraced his steps toward the lodging, searching through his memories.

What he could do now was wait for the Black Horse Gang members with a sliver of hope. And, to wait for the man who might visit WON Club again.

The man he had truly encountered, not someone seen through dreams or hallucinations caused by E8 that day.

However, he currently had nothing in his possession. He had lost his phone while jumping into the sea, and he had no money. Consequently, it meant Yongnae had walked back for three hours, tracing signs over a distance that took thirty minutes by car.

He held out hope that perhaps someone from the Black Horse Gang had survived and returned first, but the inside of the lodging was empty.

“…”

Did really… no one manage to escape?

Yongnae waited for them at the lodging until the next morning. He was thirsty and hungry, but he couldn’t go anywhere for fear that he might miss them if he stepped out for even a moment. He placed a chair in front of the small window in the lodging and spent a full 16 hours sitting there, watching the back door of the club.

Grumble—

7 AM. Yongnae’s stomach, which had watched the back door without a wink of sleep, clamored for food as if it could no longer endure.

“…”

Eventually, Yongnae stood up. After a day had passed without the Black Horse Gang returning and without a glimpse of the man, he was exhausted in both body and mind, feeling as though there was no hope on either side.

Still, while walking back to the lodging for three hours yesterday, there was something called hope. The hope that the Black Horse Gang, having arrived before him, would be alive.

And the hope that the unidentified person he met at the club might actually be the man. That walking down the hallway with the sound of a ship’s horn—which felt like déjà vu—wasn’t a dream, but that he had actually walked down that hallway to meet the man. That the man’s appearance and voice in the vivid dream might have been real, not a hallucination. In his excitement, he hadn’t even thought the road back was difficult.

But while sitting in front of the window waiting for 16 hours, that hope gradually broke down.

Even if they had escaped later than him and walked the same way he did, being this late meant only one thing.

However, because he didn’t want to admit it, he tried to turn away and focused on finding the man’s image, but every time he saw men and women with glamorous appearances—who seemed to live in a different world from his own—coming out tangled together and disappearing, the doubts that what he thought wasn’t a hallucination might actually be a hallucination began to bloom.

With such beautiful and glamorous people around, would the man really have done such things upon seeing him, who was soaked in alcohol and drugs?

‘Do you think there are only one or two kids like you? Half the people in Hong Kong probably wish their lover was Susu.’

Perhaps he had left the club with another beautiful person, despising him for following him all the way to Hong Kong as creepy. Perhaps he had watched that scene with an unsound mind and shared his skin with a stranger—that kind of doubt.

And those doubts soon snowballed, settling into Yongnae’s heart as if they were the truth.

During the three hours returning yesterday, he had tried to ignore and turn away from the futility, emptiness, and fear that kept trying to overtake him by focusing on the excitement about the man. Filled with the excitement of asking him if he had held him then, if they met.

But his courage had vanished.

“…Should I go back?”

The people he came with were dead, and the thought that the man he sought so desperately might have turned away from him made him begin to feel helpless.

He wanted to go back.

To Korea. And to the time when nothing had happened and he could still have hope.

∞ ∞ ∞

Sigh—

Yongnae, having come down from the lodging, took a deep breath of the morning air and headed toward the convenience store on the opposite side of the street to quench his thirst first. It was a relief that Changsik had left a third of the exchanged money at the lodging, just in case.

“Is this water…?”

Yongnae picked up a blue plastic bottle; it certainly looked like water, but not being sure, he turned the bottle this way and that. He wondered if English would be written on it, but only a picture of a water droplet was drawn, and everything else was written in Hanja. Of course, Yongnae also knew the world-famous, expensive brand of water produced in France next to it, but he couldn’t bring himself to buy that.

“…”

That irritated him. Even in the midst of feeling like everything had ended, what on earth was this water? It irritated him that his reason remained intact enough to distinguish its price.

While repeatedly committing crazy acts because of one man, it made him angry at himself that he couldn’t actually go crazy. Really… he wished he could just go crazy.

“…Let’s go back.”

He didn’t have the confidence to remain in Hong Kong with a sober mind any longer. So he wanted to go back to Korea immediately. To avoid having any more regrets now that everything was over. He wanted to wrap up this situation.

Click.

Yongnae, having finally bought the blue bottle he wasn’t sure was water, came out of the convenience store and opened the cap. Now it didn’t matter even if this wasn’t water. He had to quench his parched throat quickly and then go to the embassy.

Gulp, gulp— Yongnae drank the contents.

“It is water.”

Even though he had said it didn’t matter just a moment ago, he felt he was quite simple for thinking it was a relief that it actually was water.

Ah— the smell of dumplings.

Grumble— Having solved his thirst, the smell of food entering through his sense of smell immediately made its hunger known. The smell of dumplings wafting through the alleyway; Yongnae placed his hand over his starving stomach and looked at the restaurant beneath the lodging across the street.

They were doing business from such an early morning. The restaurant in the morning looked different from what he saw in the evening. He had only seen the flashy neon signs turned on, but it was strange to see them off and have only the smell of dumplings announce the restaurant’s presence.

“…Huh?”

But wait. Yongnae’s expression changed subtly as he looked at the sign with the neon lights off.

[ o umplin .]

O umplin.

When the neon signs of the signboard were on, the letters on the sign formed the name ‘O umplin.’ However, on the sign with the neons off, a different name was written. In the places where the dilapidated LEDs had fallen off, traces of the previous letters remained, revealing the restaurant’s true name.

“Ah…”

When he searched to find the dumpling house the man frequented as soon as he arrived in Hong Kong, it didn’t appear on the map, but it was a name he had seen quite a bit on blogs as a “real local favorite.”

Yongnae let out a groan.

The mystery of why it hadn’t appeared even when searching for Joe’s Dumpling was solved. The letters that had fallen off the sign were J, e, ’, s, D, g. Combining them with the remaining o umplin, it was…

[Joe’s Dumpling.]

It was Joe’s Dumpling.