PAX 19

“I don’t have enough to buy several dozen guns.”

“Pathetic. At your age.”

“We don’t keep that much personal property.”

Ahn Yutan cackled.

“Are you a communist?”

“Aren’t you just brushing it off by promising a future that isn’t even certain—mergers and whatnot—because you don’t have the money? Wouldn’t it be simpler and easier to just pay us the fee?”

Ahn Yutan stopped and turned his head to look at me. I stood still and faced Ahn Yutan, too. I prepared for sudden attacks, anticipating the style or form—whether it would be a headbutt, a slap or punch to the face, a shin-kick to the thigh, a knee to the groin, and so on.

“Strange.”

The words Ahn Yutan finally spoke after a long pause were unexpected.

“What is?”

“You.”

With a hiss sound, Ahn Yutan fiddled with his chin. He looked at my face with an expression like he was examining something suspicious.

“Are you crying your eyes out inside right now, but just not showing it?”

“What?”

“Does your heart even beat?”

Ahn Yutan’s palm landed flat against my chest. I braced myself with force to keep from being pushed back.

Ahn Yutan pressed hard against my chest and kept scanning my face.

“It beats.”

“What’s your point?”

“No, it’s just—your boyfriend is dead, yet you aren’t crying until your eyes are swollen, you aren’t vowing desperate revenge, you aren’t lying in bed refusing to eat—you’re just having a leisurely date in the park with another man. So I wondered, ‘What kind of psychopath, cold-blooded person is this?’”

After finishing his sentence, Ahn Yutan grinned.

I faced his face, thinking about how I should respond.

“Hey, for real. Be honest. You’re dying to kill me right now, aren’t you?”

Ahn Yutan’s face drew closer, and I could feel the heat.

I debated whether I should tell him the truth: that Yonghee is not my boyfriend. But it didn’t seem like information necessary for this situation. I wondered if correcting the facts was really that important right now.

So, I said what I needed to say.

“We don’t kill without a request.”

Ahn Yutan tilted his head slightly to the side.

“So you’re saying that if someone requests for me to be killed, you’ll do it?”

“And we don’t kill anyone associated with Director Ahn Juik, either.”

Ahn Yutan, who had been peering into my eyes, suddenly broke into a broad smile.

“What is this—a romantic vow of loyalty?”

It seems his way of interpreting other people’s words is a bit eccentric. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he was Ahn Juik’s son, one could have interpreted that as ‘you’re nobody without him.’

“I’ll give you a chance to kiss the back of my hand.”

Ahn Yutan stepped back and thrust his fist out in front of my face.

“Consider it an honor and do it properly.”

While looking into Ahn Yutan’s eyes, I grabbed his fist and kissed the back of his hand. His slightly damp, rough skin smelled of a mixture of metal and tree bark.

“Today is our first day. Right?”

Ahn Yutan cackled, patted my cheeks with a smack, smack, and started walking again.

I watched his retreating figure for a moment before following him.

Am I really on the same boat as him? Really? Am I going to be doing something like this behind Mom and Dad’s back?

There was no room for choice. There would be no room for compromise, either.

I could, however, try to find a way out while pretending to cooperate. I don’t know what that might be yet, but still.

“Hey, if you feel like you’ll be lonely now that you’re on your own, talk to me.”

Ahn Yutan said this as he looked back and matched his pace to mine.

“I’m partly responsible for your boyfriend kicking the bucket, so I should at least do that much for you. I’ll specially select guys with small dicks to roll around with.”

It was a statement not worth responding to, so I just nodded vaguely.

As we came out of the park, I saw a car parked behind my bike. A pure white Ford Bronco. Ahn Yutan went up to it and opened the door.

How many cars does he have? The one driving the purple Porsche was Ahn Yutan’s guard, but there’s no way a mere Guardian could own such an expensive car, so that must be Ahn Yutan’s car too.

But how does Ahn Juik have so much money to buy his son expensive cars and have him stay in Seoul?

A question I had never thought of before surfaced.

Ahn Juik and the Guardians live off the security tax collected from residents every month. They also extort ‘seat fees’ from residents running shops. That’s not a small amount of money, but I don’t think it’s enough to live in luxury. In reality, neither Ahn Juik nor the guards show off wealth inside the Nagon district, and the Guardian headquarters, which is said to have been a local administrative office long ago, isn’t particularly magnificent, either. Yet, Ahn Juik’s only son somehow looks like he lives in luxury in Seoul.

I don’t think he earned it himself. Since Ahn Yutan is also from the Nagon district, there would be many restrictions on working and living in other cities. Like most of the second-generation in the Nagon district are… Ah. No. It’s impossible that Ahn Juik didn’t fabricate his son’s identity when sending him to Seoul.

Right. Ahn Yutan wouldn’t be listed as being from the Nagon district on paper. Obviously.

Then, does that mean Ahn Juik isn’t providing the money, but he’s earning it like that while working in Seoul…?

“Come here.”

Ahn Yutan, having pulled something out from the backseat of the car, gestured. I went over and received the envelope he held out.

Inside the envelope were things I recognized. My clothes, combat boots, knife, wristwatch. Things I didn’t have when I opened my eyes naked that day.

“Are you returning these?”

I almost added ‘finally’ to the beginning, but stopped myself. On one hand, I was surprised that he had kept them until now, even going so far as to return them. I had assumed he’d just thrown them away somewhere.

“Of course I have to return them. I only confiscated them for a moment because I had a purpose back then.”

A purpose to embarrass me and make me annoyed?

“But I didn’t wash them.”

I didn’t even expect him to.

First, I took out the wristwatch and strapped it to my left arm.

“Oh, the underwear is a bit messier than before. I jerked off onto it a bit.”

I lifted my head and looked at Ahn Yutan. I don’t know what my expression was. Ahn Yutan, who was facing me, giggled and flicked my nose with his finger. It stung enough to bring tears to my eyes, but I barely managed to hold back an audible sound.

“I’m telling you in advance so you don’t get surprised when you see it, since it’s not yours. I’m being fucking considerate.”

Ahn Yutan got into the driver’s seat of the Bronco.

It must be a bad joke. Surely.

With a slightly complicated mind, I went to my bike and shoved the envelope into the luggage box.

“Wipe your nosebleed well before you go in. Your mom and dad will worry.”

The Bronco left. I watched the car disappear to the end of the road, raising dust.

Even after the surroundings became completely quiet, I sat on the seat for a while, then checked my face in the mirror and wiped around my nose where the bloodstains remained.

Then, suddenly remembering, I took the envelope back out. As I took out the combat boots that were on top, then the clothes, the underwear fell out from between the rolled-up pants with a thud.

“Wow, fuck.”

The swear word came out automatically. I didn’t need to touch it or look closely to know exactly what it was just by the shape it lay in. The form and texture of it, covered in semen that had hardened as it was….

I stood there clutching the envelope, staring down at the underwear for a long time. Right. He’s not a guy who makes bad jokes; he’s just a bad guy.

And I’ve been caught helplessly on the radar of a madman like that.

I wrapped the underwear with the pants, put them back into the envelope, and tucked the pants in too. After putting only the combat boots and knife into the luggage box, I walked to the pond and threw the crumpled-up envelope into it.

The envelope that landed in the middle of the pond pushed past the lotus leaves and sank right in. There was a sickening gurgle as if it were falling into a swamp, not water. Just like someone inside was pulling the envelope down and pulling two lotus leaves over to tidy it up, the surface of the pond became still again in an instant.

How deep is the pond, exactly?

As I stared down at the pond, wondering, I suddenly realized something. I realized I hadn’t thought that Ahn Yutan was responsible for Yonghee’s death until now.

Ahn Yutan beat Yonghee to a pulp. He did it without any hesitation to give me a warning. Whether he went to the hospital or not, Yonghee could have died anyway because of that beating.