Hide Me
A neon sign at the end of its life crackled and went dark. Beneath the cheap red lights, a middle-aged woman with heavy makeup burst out from under the storefront sign. She stood glowering in a filthy alley that reeked of piled garbage mixed with the vomit of drunks. Neon and sodium lamps tangled together, staining the city in an even more vulgar glow.
"Why the hell isn't that girl back yet? Huh? Call Manager Kang. Now!"
"I already called, boss!"
The shaggy-bearded man guarding the door bowed his head as he answered. The woman's thickly drawn eyebrows shot up.
"And what did he say?"
"Said she left two hours ago."
"What? Has Manager Kang lost his mind? How do you run things like that? Honestly! Kids these days are sharp as hell! She should've called when she left, shouldn't she? Contact the others right now!"
"Huh? Where's a nobody like her gonna go…?"
"What are you talking about? That girl owes us a cool fifty million won. Fifty million!"
She ground her teeth. Though a woman, she was hardened to the bone by a rough world, with the guts and force of personality to chew up most men and spit out the bones.
"Nowhere special a nobody like her could run to. I'll drag her back right away."
The man said so and bolted out of the alley. Moments later an old Besta van rumbled past the alley mouth.
"Honestly. Kids these days—what do they think work even is? No grit at all!"
The middle-aged woman pulled out a cigarette, stuck it between her lips, and lit it. In the dark alley the ember glowed a fierce red as it burned down.
A train was just pulling into the platform. A boy who had been racing down from the stairs above launched himself into the air. He cleared some twenty steps in a single leap, landed lightly on the ground, and stopped after only a few strides. It was the kind of speed and power no ordinary human could manage.
"Mmm. Still time to spare."
He checked his wristwatch—a cheap Chinese digital model—then turned his gaze to the train and frowned.
"Ugh. Packed."
The closer it got to the last trains, the more crowded things became. Swarms of drunks, people whose workdays always ran late—every kind of person crammed into the narrow cars like bean sprouts. The boy who had vaulted onto the platform closed his left eye and dove into the car.
Even with the air conditioning running, the train interior was stifling. With this many bodies pumping out heat, it was no wonder the cooling system was overwhelmed.
"Whew. That wraps up work for today."
He checked his watch again. The time was already past eleven. By the time he got home it would definitely be after midnight.
"Not so different from the old days."
Muttering that, he pulled a book from his bag and opened it amid the crush of passengers. It was a six-hundred-plus-page prep book for the real-estate broker's exam, so thick it was hard even to spread open in the crowd.
Still he cracked it open and studied carefully. He couldn't fully open the pages with so many people around, but he couldn't afford to waste even this scrap of time. In a country like Korea, life's contest was decided early; if you failed as a student, it was no exaggeration to say there were no second chances.
"The broker's exam's still pretty doable, though. Not that hard a test."
But for someone with no capital like him, he needed to earn the license fast and learn the practical side. Turning a few pages with that thought, he realized his stop was approaching.
"Ugh. Coming through. Excuse me."
Squeezing past the drunken passengers was genuinely hard work. Of course he could simply shove with strength, but that would create a different problem for him. Better to live quietly and keep the peace.
He finally made it out onto the platform, passed through the ticket gates, and emerged from the station. The moment he stepped outside, raindrops began to fall; while he stood blankly for a second, the drops thickened into a downpour.
Ssshhhhhhhh.
Pitch-black sheets of rain rode the night darkness and poured from the sky with terrifying force. The streets were instantly soaked, gleaming wet and black.
"Damn it."
The boy shoved the book into his bag and started running through the rain. He vaulted down the station stairs in one bound; the instant his feet hit the ground he shot off into the wet streets, his movement anything but ordinary. At a frightening speed he raced through the rain toward a residential stretch lined with shabby old buildings.
A converted factory building with a slate roof—row houses like chicken coops. This illegal structure was the boy's home. Monthly rent was a hundred eighty thousand won; for a place that had running electricity and water, and even its own bathroom, it was genuinely cheap.
The problem was that it was an illegal building that could vanish any day. The boy sometimes dreamed of the nightmare of being thrown into the street after a demolition.
"Damn it. Why's it pouring again?"
He grumbled as he headed for the entrance. But then—someone was crouched right in front of his door.
"Huh?"
He glanced around. This was definitely his place. So why was someone sitting there? Looking closer, it was a young woman in a dress, heavy makeup on her face, sound asleep—exactly like a bar girl who had collapsed from exhaustion.
"There a hostess girl around here?"
He briefly ran through the faces of his neighbors, then carefully approached her.
"Hey. Hello?"
"Mmmn…"
"Wake up. Hello?"
He shook her gently side to side. She finally seemed to surface from sleep and looked up at him with hollow eyes. Despite the heavy makeup, her face was clearly young; she stared at him in shock. The boy's left eye was a vivid red, unmistakable even in the dark. Only then did he let out a short laugh and straighten up.
"Hahaha. This is my place, you know. Mind moving aside a bit?"
He said so, pulled out his key, and unlocked the padlock on the door. She stared at him, startled.
"Seo… Seo Rin?"
"Huh?"
Seo Rin whipped his head around at the woman who had spoken his name. He didn't know her, yet she knew him. A moment later he realized she was a familiar face. The thick makeup had thrown him, but she was definitely—
"Hwa-young?"
"……"
She said nothing. Seo Rin tilted his head, shoved the key into his back pocket, and opened the door.
"I don't know what's going on, but come in for now."
The interior was poverty made visual. The single room had a curious layout: one wall tiled with a faucet attached. That was where he cooked and washed dishes. Originally this had been the kitchen with a separate room, but the room had been so cramped he had simply knocked the wall out.
In its place Seo Rin had hung a plastic shower curtain across the kitchen area. Clear the dishes, drop the curtain, and he could shower right there. Water still sprayed everywhere, of course—but what could you do? It was the pinnacle of space efficiency.
"But the setup's pretty rough for letting a girl shower."
Fine for a guy; a problem for a woman. Seo Rin glanced at her. Soaked from the rain and having run here in high heels, she was a complete mess.
"So how about you tell me why you came to my place?"
In truth, Seo Rin and Shin Hwa-young had never been close. They had crossed paths a few times at the same middle school, but never in pleasant circumstances.
Why a girl like that would show up at his door now was beyond him.
"……Hide me."
Shin Hwa-young forced the request out with difficulty. For Seo Rin it came completely out of nowhere; he couldn't help being startled.
"Huh? From what? What's that supposed to mean all of a sudden?"
"……"
"You run away from home?"
He asked. She gave no answer.
"Well… my place is so poor there's nowhere decent to shower. Wipe down with a towel for now."
Seo Rin took a towel from the wall. The words "Blue Dragon Shopping District Merchants' Association" were printed on it, faded almost beyond reading. Even so, it was one of the better towels in his house.
"Why come to my place of all places? Nowhere else to go?"
"Well, um…"
Right then, a sudden bang-bang-bang of someone pounding on the neighbor's door.
"Anyone home?"
"Who is it?"
The neighbor uncle's voice carried through the thin walls. The men who had been knocking asked him:
"You seen this girl? Young one."
"…Haven't seen her. You fellas detectives?"
"Something like that."
They said so and moved on to the next unit. When Seo Rin looked at Hwa-young, she was frozen solid, trembling like an aspen leaf.
"Hmm."
Seo Rin switched on the radio leaning against the wall, tuned it to a music station, and cranked the volume as high as it would go.
"Pull the blanket over yourself and lie down. In the corner."
"……"
"Hurry."
He said so, dragged over a ramen box, set it in the middle of the room, and stacked library books on top of it. Once he sat down, the box blocked the view of the bedding. Only then did Hwa-young understand and slip under the covers.
"Pull it over your head and stay still."
Seo Rin warned her quietly and focused on his book. Moments later the men reached his door and began pounding.
"Hello! Anybody home?"
"Hello!"
The words were polite, but the force of the knocking was anything but. An ordinary person would have been terrified by that alone. Seo Rin put on his most casual face and went to the door at a leisurely pace.
"Jeez, I'm busy enough as it is. What is it? I don't take newspapers!"
When he opened the door, two middle-aged men in jumpers—men who clearly did not do honest work—filled his vision.
"Hey. You ever seen a girl like this?"
The moment they saw how young he was, they dropped straight into casual speech. Seo Rin looked at the photo and sighed. It showed Hwa-young holding a mic, singing. Cheap lights cluttered the background; probably a hostess bar or room salon.
"Don't know her. What is this?"
He played dumb and asked. The men exchanged glances and tucked the photo away again.
"If you don't know, fine."
"Damn. Another bust? How about the guys who went the other way?"
"Dunno. They say nothing."
They muttered as they walked out of the alley. Only then did Seo Rin shut the door and turn around.
"They're gone. You're okay."
"……"
Hwa-young cautiously poked her head out from under the blanket.
Seo Rin walked over beside the ramen box, sat in front of it, and looked at Shin Hwa-young.
"Those guys sure looked like they were hunting a runaway girl…"
"Yeah."
"Hiring a high-schooler at a place like that is illegal the second they do it. And if you borrowed money or whatever, forget it. Places like that can't legally lend money to employees. Hell, employing a minor in the first place is the crime. Got it?"
He said so as he picked up a book. Most of it was housing-management and fire-safety law, but it was still unmistakably a statute book. Seeing it, she let out a breath of relief.
"Thanks, Seo Rin."
"So what are you going to do now? Don't tell me you've got nowhere to go."
"Mm."
Hwa-young's expression darkened. She really seemed to have simply bolted from the place without a plan. Cheap rental housing like this saw a constant turnover of entertainment-district workers, so Seo Rin knew the pattern in detail. And the more you knew, the more uniform the answer became.
"Then go to the police."
"No!"
The reaction was just as uniform. Seo Rin sighed, wondering how thoroughly those places broke people in. But this was not something he could simply overlook.
"Listen carefully. The police have to handle this kind of thing. Or are you planning to drag me into it too?"
"……"
When he said that, Hwa-young lowered her head as if even ten mouths would not be enough for an answer. As someone not in her shoes, Seo Rin could only wonder why she refused the police.
"……Then I'll… go."
She stood, thoroughly cowed. To see a girl who had once swaggered as one of the "Seven Princesses" back in middle school looking this defeated—Seo Rin was startled and fell silent for a moment. Maybe he had been too harsh just now. She had her own reasons for being this miserable.
"……Don't go. They're still searching the neighborhood. It's dangerous, so stay here for now."
"Huh?"
"I'll say this up front—it's only temporary. Still, if I throw you out and those guys catch you, it'd give me nightmares."
He said so and winked at her. His irises were different colors, and he had the habit of closing the red one—but when he winked, he closed the dark eye instead. Looking at Hwa-young with a smile in that vivid red eye, Seo Rin closed his book and stood.
"I'm stepping out for a bit. Just like this—you know? Take a shower. Mm, I'll leave some clothes out for you. They're mine, but you should be able to wear them. Hang the wet stuff on the hanger over there."
"……"
"I'll go grab something to drink."
He said so and pulled a raincoat from the apple crate he used as a shoe rack.
Seo Rin's friend Choi Hyuk-jin was a known quantity in this area. From childhood he had learned martial arts from his strongman father; he was bigger than other kids his age and sharp-minded as well. No matter how many enemies he faced, he had the knack of scattering them and taking them down one by one—enough that even self-proclaimed delinquents ran the other way at the sight of him.
Being friends with a guy like that meant Seo Rin was constantly dragged into miserable situations. The one saving grace, if you could call it that, was that Seo Rin—being a lycanthrope—was actually far stronger than Choi Hyuk-jin. And Seo Rin never forgave any human who came at him. Looking back, there had been a strangely cruel side to him.
In ordinary times Seo Rin was a gentle soul who wouldn't hurt a fly, but the moment he registered someone as an enemy, the circuits in his brain simply rewired.