PAX 12

You must not be hasty. I don’t know anything for sure. Therefore, I must not be hasty.

I looked back down at the dirt floor. I scanned the footprints one by one, though it was dark and they were hard to see. I recalled the shoes worn by those black-and-white guards I met yesterday. Adidas trainers with flat soles. I wondered if, among the countless footprints, theirs might be there.

Though I had left his shoes on, the fact that they had stripped off all his other clothes kept making me recall the methods those guys used yesterday. The timing, too. It left plenty of room to interpret the situation as someone putting pressure on those around me to force me into accepting a secret request they had thrown at me.

No. I mustn’t be hasty about this, either. Is there not a significant possibility that it wasn’t the Ahn Yutan gang, but someone else? The rule about not touching anyone only applies to the Pachulso pigeons, not the pachulbu (cleaning staff); it’s possible a dispute could have broken out between the pachulbu and the residents of the Nageon district. So, I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. While it’s true that such a serious incident between the pachulbu and the residents has never happened before, regardless, I don’t yet know who did it.

…Could Mom and Dad have done it?

As I turned, I met eyes with Gayoung, who was standing a distance away in front of the entrance.

“He went to the emergency room, right?”

As I walked closer, Gayoung asked.

“Yeah.”

Gayoung nodded, biting her nails. I could see the tips of her fingers trembling slightly.

“Are you okay?”

In response to my question, Gayoung only nodded once.

“Was there no one around? When you found Yonghee.”

Gayoung shook her head briefly.

“Did you pass anyone on the way here? Anyone, or any vehicles?”

Gayoung seemed to think for a moment, then shook her head again.

“Alright. Let’s go inside.”

We went in together.

“At first, I thought it was just some log lying there.”

Gayoung’s voice trailed off and became muffled.

“Dammit, who is it.”

Gayoung gritted her teeth and rubbed her eyes with her fists. Her shoulders shook violently.

“Let’s find out. Who it is.”

There wasn’t much I could do other than pat her shoulder.

“Mom!”

At the shout, I saw Beodeul standing at the top of the stairs. Gayoung turned her head to the side and rubbed her face.

“Mom has to step out for a moment, so why?”

I stood in front to hide Gayoung and asked. I also tried to cover my blood-stained t-shirt as best I could.

Beodeul puffed out her stomach and patted it.

“It’s time to sleep!”

“That’s true. But why are you here instead of in your room?”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“What do you need to do to get sleepy?”

“Mom has to tell me a story that makes me sleepy.”

“Today, hyung will do it for you.”

Beodeul made a huff sound, laughed as if coughing, and ran up to the second floor.

“You go to your room and rest.”

I told Gayoung, and then I ran up to the second floor as well. Before entering Beodeul’s room, I took off my t-shirt entirely.

Beodeul only fell asleep when I was reading the sixth storybook.

While climbing up to my room on the third floor, the pain in my left arm that I had forgotten began to creep back in. Along with the dirty suspicions I had pushed out of my mind.

I opened the door and stopped. There was a piece of paper on the floor in front of my feet. It was as if someone had slid it under the door gap.

I glanced around the hallway, then stepped into the room and checked the spaces where someone could hide, one by one—under the desk, inside the wardrobe, inside the bathroom. There were no traces of anyone having entered or left.

I stood before the paper again. It had been flipped over with the writing facing the floor, but since it was written on cheap paper with a heavy hand, I could see the bumps of the letters on the back.

I didn’t know when it started, but my heart was beating fast.

After a moment of hesitation, I picked up the paper and looked at the front side.

To Pigeons

You bastard treats human words like shit, so I’m delivering a lump of shit.

It’s not just any shit, it’s bloody shit lol

I hope we can definitely meet tomorrow

Come to Suyeong Park at 1 PM~~~~

Seeing the shitty tone, it was Ahn Yutan. Even if I were driving at 200 kilometers per hour, it was clearly Ahn Yutan.

And that meant it was indeed Ahn Yutan who had put Yonghee in that state.

As I confirmed that, inappropriately, a sense of relief washed over me. Because it meant it wasn’t Mom and Dad who had done it.

Of course, it wasn’t a job done by Mom and Dad. The few things that happened before were all just coincidences, and Yonghee will come back. He will arrive at the emergency room on time, receive treatment, and return here in the backseat of a car. He isn’t failing to return because he left with Mom and Dad, but rather, he will return safely because he left with Mom and Dad.

Standing at the door, I read and re-read the note. I kept embedding it into my mind that it was Ahn Yutan’s doing.

However.

Who left this?

I went outside and searched every floor of the building. I opened every guest room door, and just as I did in my room, I scoured under the beds of other family members, inside their wardrobes, and inside their bathrooms. To the question of what I was doing, I made up an excuse that I was looking for water leaks.

After checking every corner, including Mom and Dad’s room, the kitchen, the storage room, the yard, the vegetable patch, and the chicken coop, I returned to my room. I wiped my sweat-soaked face and body with a towel and sat on the edge of the mattress.

The easiest scenario to predict is that one of Ahn Yutan’s lackeys slipped in during the commotion and left the paper.

But what was even more likely was that Ahn Yutan had a spy planted inside the Pachulso, and that person left the paper here. Someone who knew which room was mine.

In that case, did that person pinpoint the Pachulso family and suggest to Ahn Yutan that he mess with Yonghee? Someone who knew that Yonghee came to sleep in my room every night. Someone who thought that Yonghee and I had a “specially close” relationship.

The problem was that every family member in the Pachulso knew which room was mine, and there were too many people inside who knew of Yonghee’s habit. And among them, there was no one who paid special attention to such things.

I read and re-read the letter again while picturing the faces of the family one by one. As I read it, I began to notice something strange. Why say that I “treat human words like shit”? The decision not to take the request was just a thought in my head; I had never spoken it out loud. Ahn Yutan had no opportunity to know how my mind had changed during the 24 hours I was given, or whether I treated his words like shit or gold.

Furthermore, “hope we can definitely meet tomorrow”? The tone implies that we had an appointment to meet today, but we couldn’t. However, we never had any prior engagement to meet today.

No, am I just overthinking things again, writing words without any thought?

Tomorrow at 1 PM, Suyeong Park. For now, I have no choice but to go there.

I sat still, folded the paper in half, and in half again, and in half again. Until the paper became a ball.

🎈🤍

Suyeong Park is located on the outskirts of the Nageon district, inside the slum area. It looks more like a jungle than a park, but regardless, since the sign saying “Suyeong Park” is still hanging at the entrance, it is called a park.

I arrived about 10 minutes earlier than the 1 PM written on the paper. I parked my bike next to the entrance, looked around, and went to the pond in the middle. The rusted railings surrounding the pond had “No Entry” signs hanging off them, all broken and tattered.

The pond was so densely covered in lotus leaves that the water below was completely invisible. I couldn’t tell how deep it was or what was inside. They say lotus flowers grow well in dirty water, but I wondered if the water might be full of dirty things. Perhaps there could even be a corpse or parts of a corpse inside.

“Yonghee is recovering. He’s okay, so don’t worry.”

I recalled what Dad had said. This morning, just before I left the Pachulso, Dad, who had returned alone, said this while packing a few of Yonghee’s things. He said he would have to stay in the hospital for about another week, and that Mom and Dad would take turns caring for him, and then Dad left again.