Vol 6 Ch 14

“Fuck, this is what it means to be a pushover.”

I lightly bit my lip and pressed the call button. Looking down at the casino’s flashing neon signs, I didn’t change my mind even as the slow dial tone rang out. Click—the sound of him picking up reached me.

[Joo Hawon actually calling me.]

I could hear the smirk in his voice.

“……CEO.”

[Speak.]

“Are you alright?”

[Not at all.]

“Are you in danger?”

[Probably.]

“I…… want to leave Macau.”

[…….]

His silence made me aware of my own pounding heart.

“I’ll make it into one. WikiLeaks.”

[So you lied to me again?]

Too much. Making me out to be a complete swindler. I rubbed the bitter smile off my lips with my hand.

“No. It’s the same as before. I only have circumstantial evidence.”

[And yet you’re saying you’ll make it and hand it to me.]

“That’s how the contract goes, isn’t it.”

[Then what about you?]

He exhaled a long breath, quiet enough not to be heard.

“I’m thinking of writing a new WikiLeaks related to STA while staying by your side until you grow tired of me, CEO. Wouldn’t that be enough?”

[What’s with the sudden change of heart? You used to say you’d never give it to me, not even if you died.]

He couldn’t say there was no spite involved.

“I saw the article. Am I right in guessing where the hit came from?”

[Who knows.]

“I think it’s Tex. They even bought off Kwon Jaehee……”

[If things don’t go well, I guess I’ll just have to live cozily with the main dealer in Füssen. Ah, though if things really go south, even that might be taken away. I suppose I was too complacent until now.]

“Don’t tell me you’ve lost heart?”

[Turns out I have far fewer allies than I thought. Even my brother…….]

He surely wasn’t actually dispirited, but I wanted to see what kind of face Kwon Taeha was making.

“First, return the things you confiscated from me.”

[And if I refuse?]

“Do you expect me to just sit quietly?”

[I’m really overwhelmed right now. The situation is nothing like when I was trailing after the main dealer. It’s exactly in moments like these that hyenas, who’ve been lurking for a chance, tend to jump in.]

“There’s Wagner, too……. Honestly, wouldn’t it be safer if I just left Macau?”

[……Hmm.]

“This time……. I won’t deceive or trick you. You became a pushover for me too, didn’t you, CEO.”

[That’s true. Come to think of it, being Joo Hawon’s pushover doesn’t sound so bad. Who’s with you right now?]

Even though he knew there were only Wagner and a couple of bodyguards, he still looked around.

“Wagner and two members of the Füssen security team.”

[Alright.]

Instead, Kwon Taeha seemed to move somewhere, falling silent for a while.

[Listen to me carefully. Don’t do anything until this is all wrapped up.]

It didn’t feel like he was trying to suppress me. Unlikely as it seemed, it almost felt like he was worried.

[As we expected, half of WikiLeaks has already gone to Tex. Worse, the hand Kim Jaeyeon held must’ve been detailed enough that they managed to put the halves together.]

My lips parted slightly. I had missed the timing to cut him off.

[Baek Jaetak may have known something, too.]

“CEO.”

Pressing the phone tight against my ear, I walked into the bedroom.

“Kim Jaeyeon never had the half. No, she didn’t.”

I started talking incoherently and opened the notepad on the table.

“Even if she did, it was most likely false information. My father never would’ve given it to my stepmother. I overlooked that. I was the only one important to him.”

[Hm, Joo Sangkyung did love his son abnormally much.]

“It’s not abnormal. A parent should, naturally……”

I realized my slip and stopped mid-sentence.

[Go on.]

I wasn’t the type of man to expect comfort, so I cast the thought aside.

“Do you know the saying ‘군자보구 십년불만(Gunja bogo sipnyeon bulman)’?”

[The revenge of a nobleman is not too late even after ten years?]

“I’d been thinking too one-dimensionally all this time. I thought you were the only one bent on revenge. But that’s not true. There’s no shortage of people out for vengeance. Tang Bang, my father, even Min Ling. Everyone had someone they wanted to take revenge on.”

Min Ling resented Tang Bang for selling him to that perverted old man. Tang Bang hated Baek Jaetak and Tex for ruining his future. I myself had vaguely piled up my grievances without direction, only to realize Kwon Taeha was their subject, and I even tried to hate him. Kwon Taeha hated my father and his own. Aeil Kwon probably hated his grandfather. In this world, anyone could become an avenger.

Even my father.

If my guess was right, WikiLeaks was both an arrangement for his son and a grail through which he could enact his revenge. To do that, he needed a great ally.

“You’re the only one who received a letter. Among all those people tied to it, only you, CEO.”

[Are you saying Kim Jaeyeon’s half is false based on suspicion, or certainty?]

“I don’t know if I can find the other half, but I’m certain the one Tex got is fake.”

[For a fake, it’s awfully detailed.]

“It could’ve been something they compiled themselves.”

[And if it includes truths that only Joo Sangkyung and I know?]

So that meant those details were in the false half? No, in that case, that too was a fake.

“It can’t have been important. They must’ve disguised it to avoid exposure.”

[Ah……. Joo Hawon.]

His chest tightened painfully.

[They say people who are too smart can’t be loved, but this is bad. Because I like you for being smart.]

“Save the confession for later, and do it properly.”

[So the way to get the main dealer’s heart was to become a pushover?]

As if he only knew one thing and not the other.

Being a pushover ultimately meant being taken advantage of. From the start, ours had been a relationship of taking and being taken, both too selfish to lose anything. In our tense game of chicken, you were the one who first started the engine. Only then did I glance back from my headlong rush toward the cliff. I won the race, but Kwon Taeha won my trust. If even that had been part of his calculations, so be it, but I wanted to believe him when he said he no longer wanted to scheme.

“More importantly, where are the WikiLeaks and my belongings I gave you?”

When I shifted the subject, Kwon Taeha let out a short laugh.

[Ask Wagner, he’ll return them all.]

“I’ll keep in touch with this phone even after I return to Korea.”

The phone he had given me was likely immune to wiretapping or hacking. The very fact that we could talk like this proved it.

[You won’t regret it?]

“Regret?”

[If you complete it, you’ll not only have me but also Tex’s weak point.]

“As you know, I didn’t expose everything in the WikiLeaks I gave you. If I wanted to profit off their weakness, I’d have blackmailed someone else for money from the start. If everything works out, just buy me a seaweed farm.”

[Why are you so hung up on a seaweed farm.]

There was only one answer.

“Because it was my only dream and hope for living on, despite wanting to die.”

[…….]

Just like me a moment ago, Kwon Taeha said nothing. And I didn’t feel like saying much to the man who toyed with my life in his hands, either. Comfort didn’t suit either of us.

“I’ll book a flight right away and head to Korea.”

[I’ll prepare the passport under another name, so you’d better keep quiet. Miller will, hm, be visiting within five hours. And don’t even think of shaking off Wagner or anything silly like that.]

Since he still didn’t trust me, I chose not to ask for it.

“No need to worry. This time, I’ll be the pushover.”

[Ha!]

Hearing his exasperated voice, I hung up immediately. I shoved the phone into my back pocket and walked back out to the living room. Wagner was on the phone. Judging by the tone, it was probably Kwon Taeha.

Baek Jaetak had been caught in my father’s bluff, buying up vast barren land in Hwaseong and taking a huge loss. That was probably where the revenge began. My father’s targets for revenge were Baek Jaetak, Kwon Yijae of STA who had deceived him and led him into a trap, and Tex as well. And Kwon Yijae was the common enemy.

My father’s massive ally—Kwon Taeha.

***

Korea was sweltering, no less suffocating than Macau.

We drove a sedan owned by STA that had been parked at the airport, heading from downtown Seoul toward the outskirts. The heat rising from the asphalt was so intense Wagner checked the tires a couple of times. Three days ago, Kwon Taeha had said Jade Miller would be visiting within five hours, but in truth, it was only this morning that his lawyer came. For a man like Kwon Taeha, who kept his promises down to the minute, that alone was enough proof he was being pushed to the wall.

I’d heard the phrase “the worst heat in decades” many times before, back when I lived in Korea. The radio host, reminding listeners to beware of the heat and water play, repeated that same line about a once-in-decades heat wave, as if it were mandatory.

I couldn’t recall exactly where my maternal grandparents’ graves were. I had only very old memories to rely on as I searched the area. Hwaseong, yes—that much I was sure of. I seemed to remember it being near my paternal grandfather’s mill. I didn’t think I’d find anything at the gravesite, but my father had spat on my maternal grandfather’s grave before leaving Korea. I felt I had to start there. Only then could I understand what he truly wanted. Why he created WikiLeaks, why he drew Kwon Taeha into the game.

“I’ll take the wheel from here.”

Wagner looked at me through the rearview mirror with clear doubt in his eyes.

“I got my license a long time ago, and I’m not a bad driver. Don’t worry.”

In my early twenties in Macau, I’d gotten a mid-size vehicle license, and from time to time, I even drove small trucks for long errands, not just motorcycles. Of course, it was my first time handling a sedan. Since I didn’t know the exact location, we couldn’t use GPS, so Wagner had no choice but to hand me the wheel. Even so, sitting in the passenger seat, he still looked uneasy.

I drove past where my grandfather’s mill once stood—now gone due to land reclamation—up a mountain road with the sea behind me. One thing I remembered clearly: the road had been paved even then, and the distance from the grave to the road wasn’t very far. That was why my father had once told me to wait down below.

Walking down to my father’s car, I had seen a prefab house with a blue roof. I remembered being distracted by a mother Jindo dog and her two puppies in the yard, playing with them for quite a while. The sweet sikhye the man of the house, who had been tending to his pickaxe, gave me was unforgettable. Come to think of it, that was the last time I ever drank sikhye.

Coming down from the highlands, rows of houses appeared. Most seemed abandoned, with almost no signs of people still living there. Passing another quiet road, I saw scattered houses nestled between the hills. Some were European-style villas that looked fairly new, others prefab buildings like the one I remembered. But it wasn’t the place I recalled. Too much time had passed, far more than the turning of a landscape. Change was inevitable.

After wandering around for three or four hours, half the gas in the sedan’s tank was gone. Just as I was about to turn back toward Sagang city to refuel, I spotted a blue roof midway up a low hill at a small three-way intersection to the right. I hit the brakes, and Wagner let out a startled grunt.

“Hawon, what’s going on?”

On a rural road with only our sedan, his tone suggested he was doubting my driving skills.

“Let’s stop there for a bit.”

I jerked my chin toward the right and turned the wheel. I pulled over onto the shoulder and stepped outside. The air was cooler than in the city, so much so that my mind felt clearer. It was still far from sunset, so I hadn’t brought a flashlight. Wagner and I began climbing the hill.

As we neared the blue-roofed house, loud barking erupted—deep and powerful, from a large dog. We quickened our pace. The dog, tied to the fence, barked at us while wagging its tail, but we ignored it and continued up the path. The grave I remembered was also beyond a blue-roofed house like this one.

The barking grew distant as sweat dampened my forehead. Wagner even shrugged off his suit jacket. We followed a narrow, straight forest path until a side trail appeared to the left. People must’ve walked there often—grass wasn’t overgrown, the path was neat. The ground was muddy from recent rain, and I nearly slipped before Wagner caught me. At the end of the hill stood three large, round graves.

“Graves?”

He stopped me and asked.

The graves sat on a high vantage point with a perfect view of the rural landscape. A blue dragon on the left, a white tiger on the right—the ideal guardian hills. The marble headstones bore the names of my maternal grandparents and my mother.

Ah…… this was it.

I ran my hand across the stone etched with my mother’s name. It was the leftmost of the three. She was buried here. The grave I had been unable to visit for decades. A surge of longing swelled in my chest, heating my eyes. I shut them tight, but when I opened them again, they still stung. Forcing my gaze away from my mother’s grave, I looked at my grandparents’. The graves my father had spat on in contempt were neatly maintained, as though someone had been tending them. All three, not just my grandparents’.

“Who?”

Wagner touched the headstone, saying he couldn’t read the Chinese characters.

“……My mom. My grandfather and grandmother.”

It had been so long since I’d called my birth mother “mom” out loud. The word sounded tender, and my chest ached.

“Ah……. Hawon family.”

“Yeah. My family.”

“Dead?”

“Long ago.”

“Heaven.”

As if trying to comfort me, Wagner even brushed away the dust gathered on the stone.

Well…… They say people who commit suicide can’t go to heaven. If that’s true, then my father must’ve met my mother in hell. I doubt religion had anything to do with why he followed her in death. I myself neither believed in nor cared about an afterlife. When you die, that’s it. All that remains is a grave mound like this.

I slowly looked around the graves, but nothing in particular stood out. Sitting down on the thick grass, I gazed at the clustered houses below. Few of them could still be inhabited. Maybe I should’ve brought some soju. But no—wine would’ve been better. My mother had loved wine. While she lived, she had been treated like a monster, and when I grew up, I was the unfilial son who never held a single memorial for her. If I hadn’t scattered my father’s ashes into Macau Bay, maybe I could’ve buried him next to her…… But what use was it to think about that now? Back then, I didn’t even have a place to protect myself.

Wagner, mimicking something he must’ve seen before, was pulling weeds around the graves.

“Hawon.”

I turned my head.

“German.”

“What?”

“There are German words. Here. Strange.”

Brushing off the grass, he stood and gestured toward the back of my mother’s headstone.

『Lieber Der Lebensgefährtin』

There were words carved into the stone that hadn’t been there before. But about half of them I already knew. “Lieber Der” had also been written in the letters between Kwon Taeha and me. Beloved…….

“What does this mean?”

I pointed to the last word, and Wagner gave me the answer.

“Wife. Good word. More than wife. Love forever. Mm.”

“Wife?”

“Similar. Korean is hard. English is easier. A companion for life.”

A lifelong companion.

The words newly carved on the stone were: “To my beloved lifelong companion.” I fished around in my pocket and pulled out a cigarette. Finding no lighter, I shoved it back, but I longed desperately for smoke to soothe me.

My father had traveled back and forth between Macau and Korea countless times, so I had no way of knowing when those words were carved. Why would he inscribe such a thing on the back of the stone? And in German, at that.