FBF chapter 11 part 4

“Follow me. Try not to be obvious.”

With a tense expression, Kang Woo-jin nodded. It didn’t take long after I entered the bathroom for him to follow. As soon as Kang Woo-jin came in, I kicked the bathroom door handle with my foot. With just a few hard taps from my shoe, the handle bent awkwardly. Turning around, I met Kang Woo-jin’s wide-open eyes.

“Is this allowed?”

“What’s not allowed about it?”

No one would be hiding in the bathroom for drug use anyway. Just look at the waiter tied up in the last stall who hadn’t been discovered yet.

“Wow, reality is worse than I thought…”

I briefly glanced at Kang Woo-jin, who was in disbelief, before taking off my tie. I had expected this, but the compact camera hidden within the bowtie was already broken. It wouldn’t be a big issue since it was already being transmitted live, but I would probably get criticized about the budget. After finishing my assessment, I removed the camera from the tie without hesitation. The damaged tie went straight into the trash, and I handed the camera to Kang Woo-jin.

“Please put this in your pocket for a moment.”

“Huh? Wait, where are you going again?”

“I’m going outside the building.”

“Outside? Why?”

“I have a lead on where Choi Hyuk-joon might be.”

“No way, if we couldn’t find him inside, how do you expect to find him outside? That detail wasn’t mentioned in the operational brief earlier!”

Ignoring Kang Woo-jin’s increasingly anxious voice, I climbed onto the sink. This would make it easier to get over the window. This bathroom was the only place with a window on both the first and second floors. The blueprints I had checked earlier confirmed the situation. The window wasn’t very big, so I would have to bend my body to squeeze through after standing on the sink.

I didn’t know how Choi Hyuk-joon hid, but I hadn’t found the stairs that led to the attic on the second floor. If I couldn’t find anything inside, I’d have to go left. As I recalled the outdoor staircase I had spotted on my way in, I acted without hesitation. The window was quite high up. Even being tall for an adult male, I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach it while standing on the sink. After a few awkward attempts, my fingers finally touched the window that seemed to have never been opened by anyone before, making a dull sound against the frame.

Air rushed into the room through the open gap. Even that was precious in a place where the air seemed to have been restricted. Feeling the wind sneak through my mask, I leaned out and looked down. I spotted Kang Woo-jin’s worried face looking up at me, and then I reached for my earpiece.

Instead of rolling the tape and talking to the team leader, I tossed it to Kang Woo-jin. He caught it reflexively, but his expression was dazed. He probably knew what it was but had no idea how to use it, so I had to explain.

“It’s a radio. If I’m not back in twenty minutes, put it in your ear and tap the tape lightly. It will connect you directly to outside. The crackling sound is just the signal, so don’t be alarmed, wait for a voice to come through, and then tell them I’m in the first-floor bathroom. Then they’ll figure out the situation.”

“…What about you? I don’t know what you plan to do, but it looks like you’re about to do something dangerous.”

With his face alternating between looking at the window and me, a worried expression settled in. It seemed like the stress that had been difficult to manage with Ha Sunbae was ultimately catching up with him. To reassure him, I replied lightly.

“Don’t worry. I won’t die.”

Even though I was changing the operation freely as I wished, there was no time to waste. Just as I was about to jump out of the window, Kang Woo-jin shouted.

“Now you’re making me more anxious! In the movies, people who say stuff like that always end up dead!”

Amidst that, as if he was aware of hiding, Kang Woo-jin quickly covered his mouth with his hands before I stared at him and kicked off from the sink. With all my strength, I grasped the window, climbing up the bathroom wall as if I were rock climbing. Just as my foot slipped out through the window, Kang Woo-jin shouted from behind.

“I’m seriously going to call the police if you’re not back in fifteen minutes! You got that?! I mean it! Did you hear me?!”

I was pretty sure I had said twenty minutes. I considered correcting him but decided to prioritize getting out.

Once outside, I realized that the bathroom window led to the back side of the house. It seemed to be the reason the bodyguards hadn’t been deployed there. Who in their right mind would think to climb out of the window and swing onto an outdoor staircase?

The outdoor staircase was directly against the building wall, like an emergency exit. Unlike the common setup that would descend or ascend, this one went straight down without a chance for anyone passing by. At the bottom of the last step, wild roses were growing. I pulled my focus away from the unevenly grown roses and used my arms to boost myself up onto the last step. I noticed some pain in my arm from injuries I’d sustained a few weeks earlier as I pressed against the wounds. Still, I had to be cautious despite the absence of security personnel. Thankfully, I managed to ascend the stairs without interruption. Soon, I reached the last step.

Standing at the hidden last step behind the building, I gazed into a small blue window obscured by faint moonlight.

“…….”

The window was half-open. It allowed the breeze to flow freely, uprooting the bed placed carelessly in the attic. Fixated on the white cloth swaying with the air, I bent down and leaned through the window.

Inside the attic, it was narrow and dark. Each step I took stirred up dust from the floor. I walked as if I could neither see nor feel the dust. One more step would bring me right in front of the bed where Choi Hyuk-joon lay.

I halted my footsteps and crouched on one knee in front of the bed. Choi Hyuk-joon appeared to be sleeping like a corpse, just like I had seen in the room earlier. As I focused on his pale face, I felt a grip on my forearm. Quickly pivoting my body, I felt the knife pass perilously close to my neck.

“Ugh…”

With my cheek pressed against his pillow, I looked up instead of resisting. Choi Hyuk-joon held the knife directly against my neck. Even if I moved my head slightly, the blade would prick my throat.

“How did a waiter find his way here? Who told you?”

“…….”

“Speak quickly. Before I kill you.”

“Go ahead and try.”

I felt the blade tremble at my response.

“I won’t move, so go ahead. Do it.”

Without taking my eyes off Choi Hyuk-joon’s face, I grasped his wrist tightly. I pulled his hand with the knife upwards, bringing it closer to my face. His bloodshot eyes were trembling. His hand was also shaking. In front of the quivering blade, I spoke with utmost conviction.

“You can’t kill anyone.”

Choi Hyuk-joon had never killed anyone. Because of this, even when he threatened me with a knife, every action appeared clumsy in my eyes. If he were truly capable of taking a life, he wouldn’t have remained under Choi Jeong-ho for this long. He would have rather chosen to eliminate Choi Jeong-ho than live as his underling. This ambiguous conscience had always been an obstacle in Choi Hyuk-joon’s life.

His expression grew dark, rapidly shifting from shock to fury.

“Who… are you?”

His eyes seemed unstable as they roamed over my mask. I withdrew my body the moment he reached for the mask.

“Who the hell are you, you bastard!”

Using the force of Choi Hyuk-joon lunging at me, I propelled myself up. Choi Hyuk-joon, kicked in the chest, quickly got back up and tried to attack me again, still holding the knife in one hand. I dodged his attack and twisted his arm.

“Ugh…”

As a low groan escaped him, I pushed Choi Hyuk-joon forcefully onto the bed. The bed shook violently as if it might break. A loud crash echoed in the air, dust wafting up around us as Choi Hyuk-joon coughed heavily. Taking advantage of this moment, I climbed atop him and pressed my weight down. As he realized he couldn’t move, Choi Hyuk-joon’s gaze shot up at me. His bloodshot eyes were hastily blinking, desperately trying to focus. I didn’t look away from his lifeless eyes as I seized his hair. Then I slammed his head against the bedside table.

Once, twice, three times. I was ready to keep going if necessary, not holding back.

“…Ugh!”

Choi Hyuk-joon, who had been limp beneath my grasp, finally groaned after the third hit. It was as if he finally felt pain beyond what he recognized.

Only then did I relent my grip on his hair. I could see blood trickling from beneath his nose in the darkness. After a moment, Choi Hyuk-joon slowly opened his eyes again, spotting me much quicker than earlier, when he appeared relatively fine. As I felt his bulging blood vessels stare intensely at me, I opened my mouth. For the first time since meeting Choi Hyuk-joon, I spoke with a voice far from normal. It was like scratching at a lottery to reveal the present.

“So what did I say?”

“…….”

“Those who always look down on you, thinking you’re beneath them, will eventually stab you in the back.”

In the darkness, I watched as his pupils constricted. It looked as if fear washed over him or perhaps a realization dawned. I exhaled a heavy breath toward him.

“I warned you, you bastard.”

Choi Hyuk-joon, thrashing beneath me, suddenly went still. His expression blanked out. Feeling the gaze digging into a rare point behind the mask that revealed more than just the facade, Choi Hyuk-joon hesitated, opening his mouth. His voice was small, as if he couldn’t believe it even as he uttered the words.

“…Ji Seon-uk?”

Seeing the cracked lips of someone saying the name after such a long time made me realize that I was indeed confronting someone deeply broken. Even if I’d known this would happen someday, I might not have wanted to witness how far he had deteriorated.

As I moved one hand behind to take off the mask, Choi Hyuk-joon didn’t take his eyes off my face, looking as if he had forgotten how to look away. I could feel his gaze roam over the bare skin that was revealed in the dark, disbelief etched on his features. Slowly, his face contorted.

“Really… is it you?”

I had often imagined this moment. It was natural to do so. I had chased Choi Hyuk-joon’s traces for over ten years in the best way possible, fearing that he might harm Lee Jihoon. I had to think broadly about the possibilities that he might charge at me the moment he saw me, dismiss me outright, or perhaps even have forgotten about me completely.

However, Choi Hyuk-joon’s actual reaction was different from my expectations. His lips trembled as he asked if I was real, as if he had seen so many fakes before. The anxiety he could not hide and the way it leaked from his trembling body told me I had let go of the tension that had tightly bound me down before. Swallowing hard, I spoke.

“Jang Myung-hee.”

I addressed Choi Hyuk-joon in a way he had never heard during his life. At that moment, I realized, glancing at his frozen face, that he would never forget that name.

“She died at the age of 47. The cause was a traffic accident at an intersection near your home. She was transported to a university hospital nearby within ten minutes but died during treatment.”

“…….”

“She was registered as an unclaimed body. After contacting the family, your ex-husband refused to reclaim the body, and the city handled the funeral.”

The police categorize the people involved in such incidents based on easily understandable standards like age, life status, and family relations. In that process, many lose their faces, voices, and traces of their lives. This information, which can be recited casually because the person never met me, is, in fact, a reason to give up on their life for someone.

“This should be about what you already knew.”

To fully despise someone, you should never look closely at their life.

Out of impulse and to keep Lee Jihoon safe, I had inadvertently observed Choi Hyuk-joon’s life from afar. Choi Hyuk-joon mostly lived a privileged life, pretending not to despise the things he gained naturally under his father. Yet, whenever he couldn’t hide his contempt, the data would spill out. Forced transfers, dealings in drugs. When I took a step back, those moments were always tied to the figure of his mother, whom he had lost at nine.

“On the day of the accident, Jang Myung-hee was on her way to a manpower development center. It had been ten years since her divorce from Choi Jeong-ho, and that day marked the end of a final session she had been attending for five years.”

“…….”

“That was written in her last session notes.”

“…….”

“It said it would be able to come fetch you now. When you begged to be taken with her five years prior, she replied that it couldn’t be done due to financial reasons, alongside the feelings of how much she wanted to kill herself.”

I could see his facial muscles twitching. I watched as his eyes, which had barely found focus, started to become misty again.

“You should’ve said something. You begged your mother to save you, and when she refused, you must have felt abandoned, thinking it meant you were forsaken, wanting to die.”

“……”

“You just needed someone to hold on to. It didn’t matter if it was a friend or someone sitting next to you. You needed someone to hate your father with and tell you that you were different.”

Back then, I couldn’t understand Choi Hyuk-joon’s actions. He had acted in ways that justified my disdain for him, all the while yearning to be recognized by me.

I finally saw the real face of eighteen-year-old Choi Hyuk-joon now that I was twenty-nine. I finally pieced together the evidence that had sprinkled down like glitter across the tragic foolishness of that year, now laid bare before us.

“You were unable to say that, so you chose the easiest way you knew. You have lived your life justifying yourself with that.”

Thus, Choi Hyuk-joon could not be excused for his crimes. There are those who choose to live differently even in the same circumstances. Those who sought to push forward instead of dragging others into their own misery.

Lee Jihoon, who lost his mother; Kang Young-soo, who lost his father; and the raccoon who lost his sibling—each had moved on in their own way.

“What you did was shameful to those who managed to keep living with their heads up despite losing loved ones like you.”

In life, one inevitably comes across someone whose absence is unimaginable. In front of that glorious existence, everyone grows desperate in their own way. I felt it as I held my grandfather, who hadn’t awakened for years. I was someone capable of being selfish simply because I couldn’t lose him all at once.

Those who can remain indifferent to others’ suffering may have never suffered at all.

“So… just admit it now. That you want to die.”

“…….”

“If you do, I’ll spare you.”

Despite enduring until his eyes turned red, the tears flowed down Choi Hyuk-joon’s cheeks. I loosened the grip around his hand. I let the knife near his face glide past his brow. The sound of the blade dropping on the floor below echoed in the air. I finally revealed the words that had lain concealed in my chest.

“And I’ll kill Choi Jeong-ho for you.”

Choi Hyuk-joon made a face of pure horror. His blood-soaked lips opened wide, as if they became a final bastion. In the end, he couldn’t say he wanted to die or that he wanted to live. He just began to cry as if he had received permission to finally let it all out, struggling to catch his breath. His grief seemed tenfold more desperate than declaring he wished to die.

‘-. -. -. -.’

The sound of more than ten police cars could only be heard if they pressed the sirens against your ears. Choi Hyuk-joon didn’t run away, even as he heard that sound. I finally released him and lay down beside him, thinking, ‘it’s been fifteen minutes.’

With the tension released, I felt a delayed pain in my arm. It seemed I’d been provoked during our struggle. Perhaps blood was seeping through my shirt. As I pressed down on the area to stem the bleeding, I closed my eyes.

It was finished. Choi Hyuk-joon never called out for Lee Jihoon. I was unsure if I should be happy that this was one of the reasons for my victory.

More than five police officers stormed into the small attic shortly after. It was after Choi Hyuk-joon had nearly ceased crying. He extended his hands to the police willingly for handcuffs, offering no resistance as he followed them. The captain, who had raised his voice to say something when he caught my gaze, fell silent as he noticed the blood on Choi Hyuk-joon’s face and then me, relatively unscathed in contrast. Though I had led the operation unexpectedly, it ended successfully. Everyone in the villa had been apprehended, and all the drugs in the second-floor storage were confiscated.

As I got back into the van, I looked up at the clear sky in Hongcheon. Beside me, Ha Sunbae grumbled that the weather forecast was accurate. Kang Woo-jin, filled with excitement, babbled about various topics, his face unable to hide his thrill until we got closer to Seoul. They must have been impressed by his experience of helping out using a radio in the operation, as he kept chattering away. When we exited the van, he even asked for my number, saying if he starred in an action movie, he would want to ask me many questions. I, exhausted, opted to quickly hand him my number and have him passed off to the team manager.

“Alright, glasses up.”

Our team had a peculiar tradition. On days when major operations were conducted, we always held a drinking session afterward. Since we rarely held drinking sessions and were deemed the odd ones out in the usually drinking, cigarette-loving force, it felt even stranger, but I could understand from the captain’s usual words that we needed to keep our focus in the midst of all the wrecks we encounter daily.

Today was no exception. Thanks to Ha Sunbae, who reserved our favorite barbecue place as soon as the operation date was set, the entire drug investigation team gathered crammed inside a small restaurant. Jung Sunbae complained about why we had to gather in such a tight space when we could have used a larger one, but Ha Sunbae chided him for not understanding teamwork and smacked him on the head.

Everyone joked, laughed, and drank as if they had forgotten the scenes they faced today. They purposely avoided talk of work. It had been a large-scale operation. We all were sure to be busy, day and night, without even a moment to think. I, sitting off to the side while trying to fit into the atmosphere, slipped out when the seniors came rushing back inside from smoking.

Squatting beneath the eaves of the barbecue restaurant, I rummaged through my pockets. Earlier, when I raised my arm, the wound had burned intensely, but now, perhaps because the alcohol dulled all the senses, I felt okay. After all, it wasn’t such a big injury. I was afraid I’d be scolded with some tedious remarks about work restrictions if I revealed it, so I kept it to myself. Thanks to the light padding that I wore, I hadn’t been noticed yet.

As I glanced at the hurriedly bandaged arm I had treated with a bandage from a convenience store, I pulled out a pack of cigarettes from the inner pocket of my padded jacket. Just as I was about to light one, I received a call.

[Lee Hyun-jong]

I lowered the hand holding the cigarette. I had to take this call.

“Hey.”

“Seon-uk! Where are you?”

“I’m at a company dinner.”

“Really? Then just hang up. You’ll draw attention in a weird way.”

“No, just say it.”

“Still…”

Memories are a mysterious thing; hearing my classmate hesitate simply because I mentioned I’m at a company dinner brought back countless faces of those who looked after me in the past. Without trying, a smile crept up on my lips.