FBF chapter 11 part 10

I lifted my body and followed Ha Sunbae. The small door led, as expected, to a long staircase. It was hard to predict how far the dark space stretched. A gun loaded with a blank was securely fastened to my waist. I placed one hand on my waist and stepped down, one foot at a time.

A sneeze sounded with a soft thud. At the same time, the darkness I was descending into dissipated. Suddenly, the entire space, including the staircase, became bright enough to see clearly. I realized what had happened when I saw Ha Sunbae at the bottom of the stairs with his hand on a switch. His face looked incredulous as he turned his head towards me, surveying his surroundings.

“Wow… looks like these bastards cleaned everything up and left.”

As he said, there was nothing left in the space connected to the long staircase. The large square area, which appeared to have been converted from a parking lot, was utterly empty, as if nothing had ever existed there. Ha Sunbae, bending down, approached the shutter at the end of the space, and only then did he finally discover the skid marks on the floor. It was evidence that a car had come in and out of here, the one and only trace in a space that seemed to have been swept clean. Clicking his tongue, he took out his camera to take pictures of the skid marks, and I left him to it and headed back up the stairs.

‘Go to Taean. To the place where we stood.’

Someone may have visited here and cleaned up there. Whether it was before or after Choi Hyeok-jun was caught. We need to consider that Choi Hyeok-jun would not have been unaware of this. While Choi Jeong-ho believed that he was unable to cut off Choi Hyeok-jun, what had Choi Hyeok-jun done? Kicking the front door, lightly hopping over the things in the living room—was it Choi Hyeok-jun’s will to inherit this house that lacked any affection, or was it Choi Jeong-ho’s will?

One thing is certain: it was Choi Hyeok-jun’s intention to tell me to go to this house. He definitely said so. To go to where we were briefly together.

Where we stood.

Where we stood “together”…

I stopped in my tracks, as a thought suddenly surged. I had just reached the last step. Looking at the open door, I remembered that at that time I had never come down these stairs.

“Do you want to go down?”

When Choi Hyeok-jun asked if I would go, I had refused with a shake of my head.

Then, where were we standing?

Looking down from two steps up, Choi Hyeok-jun had been watching me. I had been looking up at him from below. The pendulum clock chimed, announcing the time.

I walked as if entranced. My impulse accurately guided me toward my destination. I ascended the stairs. Stopping my steps that moved along with the memories, I turned back.

“Sunbae, could you pass me that tool bag?”

Ha Sunbae, following behind, tossed me the bag with a confused expression. I took out a screwdriver and knelt. Inserting the screwdriver into the crosshole at the end of the wooden stairs, I turned it. In this neglected house with no signs of maintenance, the task that should have been difficult was surprisingly easy due to the accumulated dust and worn-out holes. I thought I had nearly unscrewed the screws when I moved my hand to the opposite side and then below, repeating the process. After removing all the screws, I gripped the loosened wooden board and pulled.

“Why is there a perfectly fine staircase here all of a sudden…?”

Ha Sunbae’s words came to a halt as he reached the top of the stairs. His gaze was fixed on the space beneath the wooden staircase I was peering into. It was supposed to house nothing at all, yet it was densely packed. The molecules are more beautiful; the toxicity rises. The more beautiful the creature, the more poison it must possess to protect itself. Powder sealed inside a container displayed its white, fine color just from being exposed to air. It was an amount that could not be counted.

“Are these guys crazy…?”

Ha Sunbae muttered as he picked one up. He looked as if he were dazed, unable to predict that such a large amount of drugs would be hidden beneath the stairs of this abandoned house. Leaving him, who seemed to be in disbelief as he repeatedly chuckled at this sight, I turned my body.

‘Go to Taean. To where we stood.’

Choi Hyeok-jun was right. Things hidden beneath the place where we stood together. But it shouldn’t just be this. Finding a large quantity of drugs in Choi Hyeok-jun’s home would only be a loss for him; it wouldn’t hurt Choi Jeong-ho.

Choi Hyeok-jun wouldn’t have targeted this house without a reason. Clearly, something that could somehow bring down Choi Jeong-ho was hidden here. It must have been hidden in a place that someone who knows nothing would pass by without a second glance.

I directed my dizzy gaze throughout the house. All my instincts told me there was more here.

And then.

‘Deng-deng—’

Standing at the stairs, I turned toward the living room, and right there was a uniquely moving object that could swing by itself without needing to be maintained. An enormous pendulum swung left and right like a golden clock. It had also been present the first time I visited Choi Hyeok-jun’s house and when I infiltrated the slightly larger version of this house in Hongcheon.

The house pretended to be a well-decorated home, but one glance revealed its emptiness. It had not met a single condition of the normal family that Choi Hyeok-jun had always wished to feign.

Whose taste was that, I wondered?

Setting aside the bag I had put to the side, I picked it up again. Grabbing the hammer at the very bottom, I went down the stairs. Feeling Ha Sunbae’s presence, he turned to me in a flurry.

“What’s wrong? Do you have something else in mind?”

I paused, as if choosing my words, or perhaps catching my breath.

“Yes. I think we need to check this.”

As I answered, I swung the hammer down on the body of the pendulum clock. I flinched back the moment the glass shattered. It reminded me of a promise I had made with Lee Jihoon. Fortunately, the glass broke quickly and easily, just as the screws in the staircase had loosened effortlessly.

The hour and minute hands, along with the moon phase disk, were ruined. In the midst, I saw the lost time of Choi Hyeok-jun. I stared at the pieces he might have thought of during that lost time. The only thing left was the base that had supported the clock.

The square base was dented with each blow. As I touched the palm beneath my thumb, which had begun to feel sore from gripping too tightly, I gritted my teeth and swung down once more.

With a loud crack, even the base shattered. Dust puffed up from the broken wood fragments. Things slowly revealed themselves from the dusty ruins that had been obscured.

“…Sunbae.”

As if neatly organized in order, I confirmed the papers stacked in a pile.

Choi, Jeong-ho.

Even within the smeared white sheet that looked like a copy, Choi Jeong-ho’s name was recognizable. Holding that paper, I turned around. Ha Sunbae, who had been watching me from a few steps back, quickly reached for his phone the moment our eyes met. His astonished expression could not hide how startled he was, his gaze fixated on the name Choi Jeong-ho written at the top of the document I held.

“Captain. You should come down to take a look.”

Only then did I let go of the paper in my hand. Everything in my grasp slipped away. Only when the clock that held the power of life shattered did time start to flow. This was probably how Choi Hyeok-jun’s life unfolded, having chosen not to resemble his father.

“On market day, they say; but this is the opposite. How should we call this guy? That jerk, he might have opened it today just to take advantage of your face.”

As a result, our plan to have dinner with the hippo and raccoon in Taean fell through. The hippo, who had planned to prepare a dessert shop with a friend, desperately opened the shop a day earlier than planned. Because of that, their grand plans to take me around since it had been a while went down the drain. I was not pleased from the very beginning when we ended up having dinner, not with the ten-man course meal that had been booked but with bibimbap.

The raccoon grumbled, even under the new shop’s parasol, when he saw us, and apologetically smiled as the hippo brought out the pumpkin cake for the third time. The hippo, standing at the counter, glanced anxiously at us every minute. He seemed overwhelmed with the number of customers that had shown up, likely due to quite a bit of advertising about the opening event.

The bickering between the two, who had been at it since high school, didn’t seem to have changed much over the years. I wasn’t surprised by the hippo’s reaction when he heard that the raccoon passed the police officer exam and was first assigned to Taean, pretending to dislike it while secretly being the happiest. Next autumn, the girlfriend he spoke of marrying was the raccoon’s childhood friend. It was clear that the only way to poke fun at each other like that was because they were that close.

I watched the pumpkin cake getting destroyed to the point of being irreparable and pushed the ice cream toward him.

“If you don’t want to eat it, just eat this.”

“That’s the ice cream he brought for you.”

“What’s the big deal? The person who wants to eat it should just eat it. I’m not thinking about anything right now.”

As I pushed out a scoop of ice cream in a blue cup one more time, the raccoon reluctantly accepted it. They called it rice-flavored gelato. Just as I recalled the name of the menu item that the hippo had enthusiastically explained while standing by the table, the raccoon spoke up with a shy smile.

“Hey. Doing this, it really hits me that we’re getting older.”

It was funny seeing him hold such a small ice cream spoon compared to his size and say that. I chuckled and turned my head. Sitting outside in the chilly weather was likely because we could see the sea right away. Staring at the waves rolling in, I spat out the words I had left in my mouth.

“What, all of a sudden….”

“Exactly. Just look how you’re not that into ice cream anymore.”

“I think that’s been the case for a while.”

“What are you talking about? When you were in high school, you might not have eaten anything else, but you always made sure to get ice cream. Don’t you remember? Because of that, whenever we wanted to ask you something, we had to go out and grab an ice cream bar first.”

The raccoon looked at me with widened eyes, as if feeling wronged. Was that true? I thought back to a time when I felt like having something cold in my mouth helped ease a headache. But I had long since forgotten that. While contemplating for a moment, I shrugged. It wasn’t a subject worth debating.

As if losing the desire to press further due to my lukewarm response, the raccoon at last let out a laugh. “Hey.” The raccoon’s voice full of laughter called me. He looked at me with a triumphant expression.

“You should tell Jihoon that too.”

“…Lee Jihoon?”

“Yeah. Just say he’s always been not that into ice cream?”

“Why on earth am I telling him that?”

“That guy used to disappear just to buy you ice cream while drinking. He’d definitely remember and be on my side.”

The stories he suddenly brought up felt unfamiliar. Disappeared while drinking? To buy ice cream?

“…What did he do?”

“Why, don’t you remember? When you were in the military. Jihoon came down to Taean to drink with the hippo and me, and during the second round, he just bolted saying he was going to get you ice cream.”

The raccoon, who had been telling the story without a hitch, suddenly paused as he noticed my expression.

“Wait, what? You really don’t know? He made such a fuss that night, he took a taxi all the way to your base just to get you an ice cream cake at dawn!”

“…He never did that.”

“He did! And what about that time we tried to stop him? Wow. So frustrating. Hey, Kwon Do-kyung! Come here!”

In the end, even the hippo was summoned. Taking advantage of the brief moment after finishing serving the last customer at the counter, the hippo quickly approached us, looking from one to the other in confusion. After hearing a rough explanation from the raccoon, the hippo turned his head, bearing an expression of surprise like the raccoon.

“You mean you didn’t meet him that day? He took a regular taxi to your place, you know?”

“Exactly! At first, we thought he was joking, and we were all laughing until we saw him catching a regular taxi, and then we were shocked.”

“I remember. That was a joke, for sure. The strength to brush us off was not something a sober person would have.”

“But seriously, you didn’t meet up? That’s odd. Seon-uk, you were working as a reserve at that time, right? It should have been fine to meet up since it was a weekend, right?”

Leaving me silent, the two continued their conversation for some time and seemed to reach their own conclusion with nods of their heads.

“Hey, but come to think of it, we also haven’t seen Jihoon much since then. We didn’t even get to ask if he’s doing well.”

“Yeah. It would have been nice to see him this time. He said he was busy, right?”

“Yeah. According to Seon-uk, he said he was doing some interview with his underclassmen.”

Right? Seeing the raccoon checking with his gaze, I nodded heavily. That was true. Even before I mentioned Taean, Lee Jihoon had said he had plans today. I felt relieved; if we had met with the raccoon, the topic of Choi Hyeok-jun could have inadvertently arisen. Still, questions remained unanswered in my mind, stirring uneasily. I turned my gaze away from the waves. My heart throbbed with the unexpected news.

I arrived home at 1 a.m. After the hippo and raccoon urged me to stay longer, I used the excuse that I had to pick up my car since I couldn’t drink, and stood up around 10 o’clock. Even though I had run diligently without a break, it took quite some time. The highway leading to the weekend was rather busy.

As I entered the house, I instinctively checked Lee Jihoon’s room first. I had told him beforehand that I might be late returning from Taean. I had even mentioned that I might end up staying over, so he probably fell asleep without waiting. Confirming that, as expected, there was no light coming from under the closed door, I quietly moved my steps.

I washed up as quietly as I could and returned to my room. I towel-dried my hair hastily, fearing the sound of the hairdryer would wake him. As I opened the door while looking down at the droplets that had splashed on my chest from the towel, I froze before approaching the bed.

“Are you a thief? Why do you walk around like a cat in your own house?”

Lee Jihoon, brazenly sitting on someone else’s bed, asked that, his face still sleepy. I couldn’t tell if he was awakened by me, but it definitely seemed like he had just woken up. His tousled hair, the short-sleeved t-shirt, and the disheveled training pants he wore while sleeping—everything about him gave off a languid and peaceful vibe, suggesting he would feel warm to the touch. I couldn’t take my eyes off his face, which yawned without a hint of disguise.

“…Why are you here?”

As soon as I blurted that out, Lee Jihoon stuck one foot out of the bed. At the same time, he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me towards him. My knee moved forward, bumping into the bed frame as if being drawn in by surprise. I looked down; sitting cross-legged on the bed, Lee Jihoon was engrossed in his own task, seemingly unaffected by my state.

“Let’s see.”

Only when I felt a sudden draft against my chest, where my shirt was yanked up, did I manage to speak.

“Hey!”

Despite my shout, Lee Jihoon didn’t flinch even an inch. He easily restrained my hand that was attempting to pull down his t-shirt and even lifted it a bit higher. Since I had come out wearing only a short-sleeved shirt like him, my skin became fully exposed. Lee Jihoon looked poised to bury his face in my shirt.

“What are you doing?! Can’t you stop?”

“Just stay still.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Hey now.”

Seeing him look up at me with a gentle reprimand while biting his lip, I lost my words. When Lee Jihoon saw that I had stopped my actions, a satisfied expression appeared on his face as he lowered his gaze again. He examined my body with the same curiosity he had shown earlier. His gaze meticulously took in every part, beginning from my collarbone down to my ribs. He paused briefly only when his eyes brushed over the scars and bruises on my abdomen.

“Okay. Nothing’s wrong.”

Down went the t-shirt. This time it was my arms. Slowly, Lee Jihoon held my elbow and turned my arm so that the inside would be visible. The area where I had just applied a new waterproof bandage after taking a shower was located in that space. After lightly tapping the edge of the bandage with his fingertips, Lee Jihoon nodded, his expression one of relief.

As I extended my arm out, I shifted my focus away from Lee Jihoon. When I caught sight of the first aid kit that had ended up on the bedside table beneath the lamp, I felt something block my throat.

“Your hand.”

Lee Jihoon’s eyes were still searching my body. He was checking if I had sustained new injuries while we had been apart. I finally realized that Lee Jihoon looked pleased because I had come back without any wounds.

I hesitated before reaching out my hand. Lee Jihoon gripped it tightly and carefully examined the palm and the back of my hand. His brows first knitted together.

“Why are you hurt here?”

He pushed my palm forward as if demanding an explanation. There was a little flesh torn where my thumb and palm connected. I suspected it was an injury from swinging the hammer at Choi Hyeok-jun’s house earlier. I pondered whether to be honest, but the moment I made eye contact with Lee Jihoon, I could not help but confess.

“…I was breaking something.”

“What did you break?”

“It was… nothing. Just some stuff. Nothing special.”

Lee Jihoon frowned at my unsatisfactory response but moved on without further comment. As he applied ointment from the first aid kit to my wound, he nearly buried his face into my palm. His breath brushed lightly against my palm.

“……”

“……”

Like someone being punished, I stood there, and like someone who shouldn’t think about it, thoughts came unbidden.

The warmth of his hands, which held me tightly so I could not move, felt good. I wanted to organize his tousled hair and capture the breath that touched my skin.

None of those were things I could do. I tore my gaze away from his bent head and fixed it somewhere random on the bed. The silence became overwhelming against the impulsive emotions pushing at me, so I hurriedly spoke up.

“…I had plans to go to Taean today and met Raccoon and Hippo.”

“Yeah.”

Should I ask? Just when I started, my words froze. As I failed to continue, Lee Jihoon’s gaze returned to me. He seemed distracted as he searched for the bandage, but he must have been listening.

“You met them?”

He tilted his head slightly as if urging me to continue. Removing the backing from a small adhesive bandage he found in the first aid kit, he leaned closer to my palm again. Yet another warm breath swept over my hand. I felt like my lips would open, as if they were on fire.

“I heard that you disappeared while drinking with them, saying you were going to see me.”

I saw Lee Jihoon’s head stutter. I kept my gaze on the hand of Lee Jihoon, who gripped both sides of the bandage, pressing on. I was genuinely curious, having ruminated on that thought the entire drive home.

“I don’t remember… It feels like the first time I’m hearing this story.”

“……”

“…Is it true?”

Instead of answering, Lee Jihoon moved his hands. The sticky bandage barely as thick as my fingertip adhered smoothly to the ointment-covered wound without any discomfort. After rubbing it down again to secure the end of the bandage, Lee Jihoon withdrew his head.

“Yeah.”

That short affirmation had him turning toward the bedside table.

“Since I didn’t mention it, of course, you wouldn’t remember.”

While putting the ointment and remaining bandages back into the first aid kit, Lee Jihoon appeared indifferent. I hesitated for a long time, wondering if it was okay to ask, and he continued spilled out tidbits of conversation that sounded so foreign to me, yet not at all unfamiliar to him.

“Strangely enough, it always seemed to snow around your birthday. It was really damn cold.”

“……”

“That day too, while we were drinking, I looked outside, and it was snowing. So, I checked the calendar and realized it was only two days until your birthday. I knew you liked ice cream, so I always wanted to get you an ice cream cake, but something always happened on your birthday, and I never got to give it to you. When I saw this as an opportunity, I took a taxi…”