Chapter 8

Those Guys Who Aren’t Worth Feeling Sorry for Even If They Die

Is He Dead?

The mask was pushing me out of the world.

Live boldly and confidently.

After meeting Jung Jungsung, I felt like drinking.

It was frustrating and infuriating that bad people were living better lives than I was.

The supermarket lady greeted me with a bright smile.

“Son, good work today.”

“Yes.”

I went inside the supermarket and picked out two bottles of soju, two cans of beer, and some snacks.

“Oh, right. A detective came to the house, didn’t he? He came to me and asked all sorts of questions. Apparently, some high school students were assaulted in an empty house.”

“Yes.”

“There’s no way our uncle would do something like that.”

“……”

“I’ll take ten thousand won off your bill. That young lady came by this morning and paid me.”

“Yes.”

I paid and went outside.

As I started walking up the hill, I heard an unfamiliar form of address from behind me.

“Oppa!”

I turned around.

It was the woman who had paid for my beer that morning.

“I paid you back this morning.”

“I heard.”

She approached me.

“You live at the top of the hill, right, oppa?”

“I’m not your oppa. And I don’t like you speaking informally to me.”

“You can speak informally to me too. We’re around the same age, so it’d be better if we were comfortable with each other.”

I ignored her and continued walking uphill.

I could hear her footsteps following me.

Why was she acting like this?

I turned around and asked,

“Why are you following me?”

“I was thinking of getting a cup of coffee from you before I leave.”

“Why?”

“Just because.”

I really couldn’t understand why she was doing this.

“I’ll only have coffee and leave.”

“You want to come into my house?”

“It’s at the top of the hill, so the air is nice. I live at the top of the alley next to this one, but it’s close to the incinerator, so the air isn’t good.”

She definitely wasn’t an ordinary woman.

Why would she want to go to a man’s house when she had only met him a few times?

“Don’t worry. I won’t eat you.”

I gave up.

She didn’t seem like someone who would harm me, and she was a neighbor, so I could at least give her a cup of coffee.

“You’re only having coffee and then leaving.”

“Okay. I’ll have it with the fresh air and then go. I have to go to work soon too.”

Was she really working at a bar, like the supermarket lady had said?

With her provocative makeup and the fact that she worked at night, it seemed likely.

I walked ahead, taking long strides up the hill.

She followed easily.

“What do you do?”

“Do you live alone?”

“Why did you move to a place like this?”

“Why aren’t you answering me?”

She was practically a serial killer with all those question marks.

I didn’t answer her to the end.

“This is exhausting. I don’t even need to exercise.”

I opened the old front gate.

She followed me inside and immediately became excited.

“Wow, you have so much exercise equipment. No wonder you’re in such good shape. Oh! You even have a vegetable garden. The tomatoes are really ripe.”

She picked a cherry tomato and ate it.

It would be better to give her coffee quickly and send her away.

I opened the front door, went inside, and prepared the coffee.

Through the window, I could see her sitting on the wooden platform outside, looking up at the sky.

The water bubbled as it boiled.

I made the coffee and handed it to her.

“Aren’t you having any, oppa?”

“Please drink it quickly and leave.”

“You’re so cold.”

I’d read somewhere that women who worked in bars often had complicated stories.

Her eyes looked sad.

That sense of pity was also part of why I’d decided to give her coffee.

“You make good coffee.”

“It’s instant coffee.”

“The secret to instant coffee is controlling the amount of water. You could even work at a coffeehouse.”

She’s noisy.

I wished she’d leave already.

“That was a funny joke, but you didn’t laugh.”

“Finish it and go.”

“I’m Soyeonhwa. My age is a secret.”

I stayed silent because I thought talking to her would only make her leave later.

“Maybe it’s because you’ve got a lonely shadow attached to you, but you’re not very interesting.”

What on earth did she mean?

How many times had she even seen me to judge me like that?

“If you’re done with your coffee, please leave.”

“Okay. Now that I know where you live, I can come visit sometimes, right?”

“No.”

“You’re so cold. Anyway, thanks for the coffee.”

Soyeonhwa stood up, then looked at me intently.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I don’t know either. For some reason, I’m drawn to you. I’ll go.”

She smiled sweetly at me and left.

What did she mean by being drawn to me?

She was definitely not a normal woman.

I needed to be careful.

Jo Taesu approached the supermarket lady as she was closing the store.

“Is that uncle person at home?”

“You’re back again. He went up a little while ago. But why do you keep looking for our uncle? He would never hit anyone.”

“There was something I didn’t get a chance to ask him before. Thank you.”

Team Leader Jo Taesu headed uphill with Detective Kang.

“Team Leader, I feel like I’m suffocating every time I climb this hill.”

“That’s why humans are great. Before the redevelopment announcement, people lived packed together here.”

“But the kids say that the person they saw didn’t have Kang Maru’s face.”

“It doesn’t make sense that they didn’t hear any screams on such a quiet night. He’s hiding something.”

Jo Taesu trusted his instincts.

His animalistic intuition, developed through years of detective work, had often proved correct.

Kang Maru made him uncomfortable, like there was a thorn stuck in his throat.

“You’re considering the possibility that he has an accomplice, right, Team Leader?”

“That possibility is strong right now, but he could also be disguised.”

“Should we investigate more thoroughly?”

“It’s not at that stage yet. Once we talk to him today, we’ll get a better sense of things.”

Jo Taesu saw a woman coming out through the open gate of Kang Maru’s house.

She gave him a quick once-over before heading downhill.

“She looks like the woman who was there that night.”

“She could be.”

Jo Taesu narrowed his eyes.

The woman’s face matched the moans he’d heard that night, giving him a strange feeling.

Jo Taesu knocked on the open gate and called out,

“Mr. Kang Maru, this is Detective Jo Taesu from Magang Police Station. May I come in for a moment?”

“Come in.”

He opened the gate and entered.

Kang Maru approached him.

“I answered all your questions last time. You’re back again.”

“I came because I thought you might remember something new. I’m sorry to inconvenience you, but this is our job.”

“Ask quickly. I’m tired.”

Jo Taesu looked around the yard.

“You have a lot of exercise equipment. Did you open a gym?”

“Since I work in cleaning, maintaining my physical strength is important.”

“Is there a reason you moved into a neighborhood that’s scheduled for redevelopment? They’ll start tearing it down next year.”

“I don’t have to answer personal questions, do I?”

“Of course not.”

Jo Taesu glanced around the house and said,

“Could I come inside and have a cup of coffee? It’s spring, but the evenings are chilly.”

“I’m sorry. I’m extremely tired right now.”

“Sorry to have bothered you. May I ask you just one more question?”

“Go ahead.”

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“No. Now, please leave.”

“Thank you for cooperating.”

Jo Taesu gave a slight bow and left through the gate with Detective Kang.

After walking downhill for about a minute, Jo Taesu spoke.

“He seems like a different person from a few days ago.”

“How so?”

“His eyes used to look like those of a perch, but now they’re like a shark’s. You can feel strength coming off him.”

“Maybe Kang Maru was just tired when we first met. Cleaning work is exhausting, isn’t it?”

“That could be.”

Jo Taesu wondered whether he might be making a mistake.

If an investigator became fixated on one direction too early, the truth would only become harder to find.

“The atmosphere around him is chilly.”

“He has a good physique and a cold expression, so that’s probably why you feel that way. He doesn’t look anything like the suspect.”

Jo Taesu nodded, but the chill running down his back still wouldn’t disappear, leaving him uneasy.

I’d prepared extensively.

I bought large quantities of old clothes, shoes, and bags at Dongmyo and strengthened my stamina through exercise.

I also bought wigs, beards, sunglasses, cosmetics, and masks to use for disguises.

When I wore the mask, not only my physical abilities but also my intelligence improved.

So I’d read a lot of books as well.

Now it was time to punish them.

10:00 p.m., Hamyang-dong Intersection.

The area was packed with bars and room salons.

This was where Hyuksu worked.

I sat by the window of a gukbap restaurant and watched the street outside.

“You fucking bastard! Watch where you’re going!”

“You crazy bastard! Don’t you have eyes?”

The shouting of drunken customers made the place noisy.

It was about time Hyuksu showed up, but I still couldn’t see him.

Had something happened?

“Sir, you can’t sit here for too long.”

I’d come in at nine, so an hour had already passed.

“Give me another bowl of gukbap.”

I barely ate as another thirty minutes passed.

Then I saw Hyuksu on the right.

He was being dragged along by his hair, limping as three thugs surrounded him.

They must have been the men Hyuksu had told me about.

As they passed in front of the gukbap restaurant, I could hear their voices clearly.

“You fucking little shit! Who do you think you are, acting tough? Didn’t I tell you never to come back to our territory?”

“This bastard won’t listen until we skin his belly. We need to teach him a proper lesson today.”

They were dragging Hyuksu into an alley between two motels.

Maybe because I was tense, I suddenly needed to use the bathroom.

I quickly paid, went to the restroom behind the building, relieved myself, and then put on my sunglasses and mask.

When I went outside, two women smoking cigarettes looked at me.

It was natural for them to find it strange that I was wearing sunglasses at night.

“Uncle, what’s in that bag?”

“Is that a turtle bag? It’s cute.”

It contained new clothes and shoes.

I ignored them, walked around the building, and headed toward the alley where Hyuksu had been dragged.

I could hear curses coming from ahead on the left.

When I entered the space between the motels, I saw a small parking lot.

The three thugs and Hyuksu were there.

“I told you if you showed your face in front of me again, you’d be finished. You’re gonna die today.”

One of them slapped Hyuksu mercilessly.

An unbearable rage surged through me.

“Hey!”

The three men turned around.

“What? You the cripple’s friend?”

“Is he a psycho? Wearing sunglasses and a mask at night.”

I slowly approached them.

“You wanna die? Where the hell did this bastard leave his guts?”

His catlike eyes glinted.

The man approached until he was within striking distance.

“What the hell are you? Do you know who we—”

My straight punch landed squarely between his nose and upper lip, sending him sprawling backward.

The man jumped back up, glaring as he threw a punch, but there was no way a rookie like him could be my match.

I slipped slightly to the side and drove a right hook into his ribs.

Crack-crack—

The sensation of his bones crushing beneath my fist was exhilarating.

“You bastard!”

Another man charged at me, but my fist was faster.

Wham!

A powerful punch caved in his cheekbone, snapping his head sideways before he collapsed.

I launched a soccer kick at the crawling man’s jaw.

His pupils rolled upward, and blood-tinged foam spilled from his mouth.

“You’re fucking dead today!”

The last man pulled a sashimi knife from his waistband and approached me.

“Who sent you?”

His eyes flashed as he glared at me.

He was probably trying to intimidate me with killing intent, but his blade trembled from fear.

“You fucking bastard! Answer me! Who sent you? Was it the Yeopo Gang?”

I scratched my eyebrow and let out a deep sigh.

When I slightly lowered my head, the blade came thrusting toward my neck.

I bent at the waist to avoid it, then slammed a spinning kick into his ankle.

As he lost his balance, I drove a left hook into his abdomen.

The blow forced him to bend at the waist, and an uppercut came crashing into his jaw, shattering it.

The critical hit landed perfectly, and he staggered, unable to keep his balance.

I slipped my arm inside his shoulder and threw him over my back.

Was it the power of rage?

An incredible strength surged through me.

His body traced an arc through the air before crashing onto the ground.

“Ghk!”

His eyes and mouth remained open and motionless.

Is he dead?

[Revenge successful.

Revenge Credits: 3]