PAX 8

It was roughly to the effect of, “I’ll give you 24 hours to rethink it.” A phrase, presumably, “if you don’t want to have knife marks on you instead of pen marks,” was also tacked on, rambling along.

Since it wasn’t written with a permanent marker, the shitty writing—just like Ahn Yutan’s face—fortunately washed off easily in the water.

Once the writing was erased, the reddish bruise marks left behind from being strangled became much more visible. My face wasn’t in a very peaceful state, either.

Suddenly, the purple Porsche came to mind, and I shuddered. From the moment it followed behind me, the events that unfolded afterward flashed by like a revolving lantern. Should I have ignored him when he told me to pull my bike over to the side of the road and just fled immediately?

Still, even if I sprinted on my old Honda PCX, there’s no way a Porsche Taycan couldn’t catch me. No, even if he couldn’t catch me and lost me, the problem is that I’ve already entered “Ahn Yutan’s radar.” It means he won’t just let me go smoothly just because he lost me once.

But really, what the hell. Why did it turn out like this?

It’s like I was just walking down the street normally when a car flew past me and splashed muddy water all over me. On top of that, the car was that purple monstrosity….

I suddenly felt like I was suffocating, but for now, checking the condition of my arm is the priority.

I washed myself off roughly and fiddled with the piece of cloth that had been tied around my arm. I don’t know how tightly he had tied the knot—on top of the fact that the cloth had gotten wet, making it terribly difficult to untie—but I managed to get it off, eventually.

“Ugh, fuck.”

As I peeled off the cloth that had been stuck to it, the pain was one thing, but the state of the inside was a mess.

The bullet wasn’t lodged inside; it had grazed me. So, if a bullet grazes you, the skin ends up looking like a scoop of ice cream taken out. I examined the wound carefully, feeling as if I had gained new knowledge.

It wasn’t even lodged, just a graze—and on my arm of all places—so why on earth did I even faint? Thinking about it, I must have been kicked hard in the head by Ahn Yutan’s foot before getting hit by the bullet, and then, the moment I was shot, I likely hit my head on the ground again as I fell backward. The severe headache and blurred vision I had when I woke up might be because symptoms of a concussion remained.

Then, I suddenly became curious. Did he miss when he aimed for my chest or head, or did he adjust it so I would only get hit exactly this much? The latter, obviously, would only be possible if his shooting skills were extraordinary.

I don’t know what level Ahn Yutan’s shooting skills are at, but his fighting skills weren’t bad. On top of that, perhaps because it was obvious even in our short encounter that he wasn’t a normal human, for some reason, I leaned more toward the latter. It felt like he was the kind of person who could issue a warning—saying he’d inflicted just this much harm this time, and next time, the intensity would go up.

From the living room, I heard the sound of Kitae-hyung humming along with some rustling.

“Hyung.”

I opened the bathroom door slightly and called out.

“Yeah. Are you taking a dump? Out of toilet paper?”

Kitae-hyung shouted back.

“Do you have a first-aid kit or something?”

“Do you need diarrhea medicine?”

Why does this hyung keep talking about poop on his own?

“Something for injuries. Ointment, or bandages. Gauze.”

“Hmm, wait a second.”

I pressed my face to the crack in the door and waited.

Soon, Kitae-hyung appeared, tucking a box under his arm. I flinched and stepped back because I was worried about my disheveled appearance, but Kitae-hyung pushed his way into the bathroom without a hint of surprise.

“Oh my, what happened to you.”

Even though he said that after seeing my overall state, his expression was calm.

“Do you fight, too?”

Kitae-hyung put the box on the shelf and rummaged through it.

“Or did you get hurt while doing some job you were commissioned for? But is there any work worth getting hurt like this?”

I hadn’t decided what to say yet, so I kept my mouth shut. All Kitae-hyung knows about the Pachulso is that we help with the chores of the Nagon District residents.

“Surely it wouldn’t be the guards who did this.”

Kitae-hyung peered into my arm.

“It’s not a blade. Isn’t this a gunshot?”

Obtaining a gun isn’t that difficult or rare, so I wasn’t worried about being suspected of being involved in something absolutely dangerous and illegal. Still, I had to make up some kind of story.

“I just got into a fight while passing through a neighborhood.”

Kitae-hyung’s eyes widened slightly.

“Where?”

“In the city. It’s a bit far from here.”

“Are you the type to go on expeditions to fight?”

“I didn’t go to fight; I just got into a dispute on the street while passing through.”

“Ah, and those street thugs just happened to have guns?”

I nodded.

“This is why people say all guns should be eliminated.”

Muttering with a sigh, Kitae-hyung poured alcohol onto a cotton ball.

I heard that while gun control used to be strict, a lot of inventory was released into the market after going through the hellish chaos caused by the cannibalism epidemic, and since then, many acquisition routes have opened up. After the situation calmed down, large cities where the population concentrated seem to be enforcing controls like before, but places outside the cities are managed so poorly, and since it’s easy to run into wild animals, many people secretly possess them under the pretext of hunting. Of course, even if it’s not necessarily for hunting, you can get them anywhere if you want to, at a not-so-expensive price.

“I thought you were the gentle type, but you turned out to be quite hot-blooded, Lee Seongshin.”

“What are you sayi—!”

The moment the cotton ball touched my arm without warning, I let out a scream. I just let out a scream, fuck.

“Yeah, scream all you want. It can’t be helped.”

“Fuuuuck….”

I balled up the piece of cloth I had untied from my arm and bit down on it with all my might.

“Why did you come here? You should have gone to the hospital.”

“Eul-meun-seu meu-reuh.”

(You know, while asking.)

Asking while knowing.

As for a hospital near here, there’s only the one inside the Nagon District, and there’s no way it would be open right now, and if I go to an emergency room in a city about two hours away, I’d have to talk about the gunshot, so I obviously can’t go.

Besides, it hurts so much I want to kill myself right now.

“If you’re not going to the hospital, I think we should cauterize this with fire.”

“Jjeo-jyeo, sseu-beuk.”

(Cauterize it, fuck.)

Cauterize it, fuck. No, please. Just do whatever it is, quickly.

I might die of a heart attack before I can kill myself.

“Just kidding. I was just saying. I don’t really know either.”

Kitae-hyung giggled. In this situation right now…?

I bit down hard on the piece of cloth and glared at Kitae-hyung.

“But are you really not going to the hospital? It’s not like I’m a former doctor.”

I just shook my head to mean I wasn’t going.

“I’ll do my best.”

Kitae-hyung’s hands were rough. Since I was the one indebted to him, I couldn’t even bring myself to tell him to be a bit more delicate, so I just gnashed my teeth into the poor piece of cloth.

“It’s a ‘secret meeting between number twos.’”

Then, suddenly, Ahn Yutan’s words popped into my head, and my annoyance flared up along with it.

What on earth happened to me today? The more I think about it, the more absurd it is. I told him we don’t have number ones or number twos, but the “Guardians’ Number Two” graciously and personally bestowed upon me the title of “Pachul-fam’s Number Two.” A title that has never existed and one I never wanted.

Doesn’t it feel childish to be calculating who is number one or number two? Are you not embarrassed at all to call yourself by such words?

But, why me?

I became curious again. I mean, why would he commission that job to the “Pachulso’s Number Two”?

Isn’t it all the same regardless of who kills him, half-brother or not? Since Kim Junik is a second-generation and can move in and out of the Nagon District freely, all he’d have to do is find a company that’s good at disguising it as an accidental death and have him killed; why is it that he insists on the “Pachulso’s Number Two” doing that job?

Did I ask him what the reason was? I don’t remember very well. Perhaps due to the aftereffects of fainting, my memory seems to have jammed up suddenly as well.

But even if I had asked, I don’t think Ahn Yutan would have answered me willingly.

“Eat this.”

Kitae-hyung held out two pills.

“An antibiotic and a painkiller.”

I popped them into my mouth and drank tap water.

“The antibiotic is some that was left over after I had my impacted wisdom tooth surgery back in the day, so it’s a bit old, but well, even if it’s old, it should still have some effect, right?”

I don’t know how old it is, and honestly, I don’t care.

“Hey, have you ever seen an impacted tooth? You know, the teeth that are just lying there inside like a corpse.”

Kitae-hyung wrapped the bandage around my arm while talking about impacted wisdom teeth. To forget the pain, I forcibly focused on that story.

“I did the treatment as best as I know how, but just in case, make sure to go to even a small clinic tomorrow. If it goes wrong, you might have to get this arm cut off.”