The Note She Left Behind
“Damn it.”
For a fleeting moment Seo Rin pictured Hwa-young’s face. They hadn’t been close—barely more than names and faces to each other—yet she had liked him. That was why, when she fled the establishment, she had come straight to him without a second thought. A sudden surge of pity rose in him until he could hardly stand it.
Poor kid.
Remembering how coldly he had treated a girl like that made him feel pathetic. Just then Hyuk-jin clapped him on the shoulder.
“There’s a letter here.”
“Huh?”
On the same advertising flyer where Seo Rin had left his own memo, someone had scrawled a reply in ballpoint pen.
I’ll be going now. Sorry for being a bother. And thank you.
In that instant the defeated look on the girl’s face rose before his eyes. Heavy makeup couldn’t hide how young she still was. That child was running back out into the world—straight into a place crawling with feral dogs who would sell her young body without a second thought.
“God damn it!”
Seo Rin clenched his teeth and raised a fist. He didn’t smash the front door to vent his feelings, though. A normal human might have gotten away with it, but if he hit the door it would definitely break. He stopped himself—and then hated that too. He had practically driven that pitiful girl out into the world, and now he was swallowing his anger over something as petty as repair costs?
“Hmm.”
Hyuk-jin stared at the memo, lost in thought. Knowing Seo Rin’s character, this friend of his would never simply ignore someone like her. For all his attempts at looking shrewd—already studying for job exams while still a student—he was, at heart, a pure-hearted kid who just wanted to earn money for his family.
There was no way he would leave a girl who liked him to fend for herself. Even if she was the neighborhood wild child, Seo Rin wasn’t the type to discriminate for a reason like that. Sure enough—
“Hyuk-jin. Uh… what should I do?”
Seo Rin asked almost pleadingly. A guy who had spent his life buried in books could never handle something like this alone.
“First we find her family.”
“Family? You know where Hwa-young lives?”
“No. But if we lean on a few people hard enough, someone will know. Come on.”
Hyuk-jin spoke with total confidence and bolted out the door.
In front of the arcade, noise leaking out in waves, a few kids still half-wearing their school uniforms were hanging around the punching machine.
“Augh… I’m gonna show you something!”
The first boy to step up grabbed his right wrist with his left hand, twisted his waist, and strutted for his friends. Then their faces contorted.
“…Yo, let’s go.”
“Huh? Why?”
He was startled by their sudden change. He’d just put a coin in—leave now? A second later a brown-haired student in the exact same uniform strode up to them.
“Yo!”
“Ugh…”
Every one of them stared at Choi Hyuk-jin with uneasy eyes. The punching machine’s greasy recorded voice kept nagging, but no one touched it.
Wham!
Hyuk-jin smashed his fist into the machine, then offered them a meaningful smile. The score read 188—just shy of the previous high of 195. Ordinary kids charged in with both fists flying; he had thrown a clean straight with almost no wind-up and still hit that hard?
“…Bonus game? Mind if I go again?”
Wham!
Without waiting for an answer he hammered the machine a second time. This blow was even heavier; the whole cabinet rocked.
The students lost their words at that sly smile. A high punching-machine score alone wasn’t reason to be terrified—but during his short school career Hyuk-jin had already made his reputation crystal clear.
“Why so stiff? Hey—any of you remember a girl named Hwa-young?”
“…Why?”
Watching them freeze like frogs in front of a snake, Seo Rin was speechless. What the hell had his friend done to make these mountain-sized guys lock up like this? Kids who lived and died for their image were openly freezing solid… Seo Rin shook his head, discovering a whole new side of his friend.
Hyuk-jin kept the same oily, quietly oppressive tone as he coaxed them.
“I need her address. Anyone know it?”
“D-don’t know.”
“We’re not close enough to know her house.”
They all shook their heads in a hurry. Hyuk-jin seemed to figure you couldn’t fill your belly on the first spoonful; he just nodded.
“Then anyone who might know?”
“W-who would know?”
“Maybe ask the girls?”
But Hyuk-jin waved that off. He’d had a pretty dynamic middle-school career himself, yet for some reason he’d never had any luck with girls. One of the students, unable to watch any longer, tipped him off.
“Call Cheol-jung.”
Jang Cheol-jung was one of those guys who “ran things”—popular with the girls, always dressed sharp thanks to money, decent-looking, and so thoroughly shameless that rumor said the number of girls he’d played with could fill a whole platoon.
On top of that he had a habit of carefully recording every girl’s personal details. If anyone knew, it would be him.
“Then give me Cheol-jung’s number. No—you dial it. Phone bill’s on you.”
In school days the fist was closer than the law. They punched in the number and handed the phone over. Hyuk-jin took it and fired words like a machine gun, voice so loud it almost drowned out the arcade noise.
“Yo, Cheol-jung. Ah? It’s me. Oh, yeah? Uh-huh. Hey, you know Hwa-young’s address? You do? Spit it out. Yeah, thanks, you bastard.”
“…Fast. Like a one-man drama.”
Seo Rin stared at him, dumbfounded. He’d always known that once Hyuk-jin decided on something he finished it in a single breath—action-oriented if you were being nice, lightning-fast and impatient if you weren’t. But this much?
The address they got over the phone led them to a blue-brick villa that looked as desolate as a haunted house. Outside hung a garish red banner; from the wording it seemed a construction company that had been negotiating redevelopment had gone bankrupt, and the reconstruction association president stuck in the middle had absconded with the money.
“…Atmosphere’s pretty grim.”
Seo Rin shrugged and headed for the entrance. Most of the mailboxes were overflowing with flyers and notices, making the place even more eerie. As if on cue the sky clouded over, dull and heavy.
“Yeah, this is it. Still better than your place, Seo Rin.”
“True enough.”
They climbed the stairs and stopped on the second floor. Hyuk-jin pressed the bell, but it was broken; no sound came out.
“Should I knock?”
“Wait.”
Seo Rin stopped him. He leaned carefully toward the door and listened. Soft breathing came clearly from the other side. Someone was hiding inside, holding their breath. At first he thought it might be Hwa-young, but the breathing sounded male.
“What are you doing?”
Hyuk-jin gave him a puzzled look. Unlike Seo Rin, who possessed superhuman senses, Hyuk-jin was only human. He could never hear the breathing of someone crouched in a corner beyond a front door.
“Nothing. But—huh?”
Seo Rin suddenly went rigid, as if electrocuted, and moved to the stairwell window to peer carefully outside. Two men were walking into the villa entrance—the same men Seo Rin had coldly turned away from his own house earlier. They had come this far to catch Hwa-young.
If they saw him now they would realize that the casual way he had brushed them off before had all been an act. These were hunting dogs sent to drag runaway girls back. They wouldn’t miss a thing like that.
“Huh? Who are those guys?”
Seo Rin’s expression had changed so fast that Hyuk-jin noticed the men too.
“They’re here for Hwa-young. You know—the ones who round up girls who run from the clubs.”
“That so? So basically hunting dogs the pimp let off the leash? How do you even know trash like that?”
“They showed up at my place.”
“Then you can’t let them see you here.”
“Right.”
Seo Rin opened the stairwell window. It was barely wide enough for a person to squeeze through.
“What are you planning?”
“Going out.”
He loosened up carefully and waited until the men entered the central lobby. They were on the second floor—the top floor of this villa—so if they delayed even a little they would run right into them. Leave too early and the men would spot him outside.
“…Hey, hey.”
Hyuk-jin tried to stop him, but then the men’s voices floated up from the lobby.
“Shit. Think she’s here?”
“No way. That deadbeat dad wouldn’t have the guts to hide his own daughter.”
“You never know.”
The instant he heard them, Seo Rin launched himself at the window. Startled, Hyuk-jin reached out, but Seo Rin slipped through the narrow gap without a sound, caught a brick on the outer wall with one hand, and hung there. From that position he kicked off the wall and swung onto the utility pole standing beside the villa.
“…Damn.”
Hyuk-jin stared, frozen, then finally snapped out of it. Something was wrong with Seo Rin. That wasn’t human athleticism. The guy barely seemed to work out and didn’t have much muscle compared to Hyuk-jin. So how the hell could he move like that?
“This almost feels like jealousy.”
He muttered it and started down the stairs. The men pounding on Hwa-young’s door glanced at him.
“What’re you staring at?”
“Get lost, kid.”
They dismissed him and went back to hammering the door.
“We know you’re in there!”
“Get out here, you bastard! What the hell are you playing at!”
“You know what that daughter you sold off has been up to, you piece of shit?!”
“And why the hell are you still here? Huh? Enjoying the show? Huh?”
They glared at Hyuk-jin when they noticed him standing frozen, staring. To them he looked like a kid who’d seen something he shouldn’t and frozen in fear of their violence. But what was this? The corner of Hyuk-jin’s mouth suddenly curled up?
Crack!
Hyuk-jin hurled himself at the two men thrashing around the doorway. The hallway was so narrow they barely had time to react before his fist smashed dead-center into the first man’s face.
“You little—!”
The attack was far too precise and vicious to come from someone who had looked terrified a second ago. The man tried to respond, but Hyuk-jin’s palm exploded against his jaw first. Because he’d been talking when the blow landed, he bit clean through his tongue.
Thunk!
A spray of blood and spit hit the ceiling. Hyuk-jin didn’t stop; he slammed the man against the wall and drove a merciless kick into his gut. Trapped between wall and attacker, the man took the full force with nowhere to go.
“Guh—!”
He collapsed forward, screaming. Hyuk-jin pulled a jackknife from his pocket and pressed the blade to the throat of the first man he’d punched.
“How about we have a little chat?”
“Kk… Wh-who the hell are you? You crazy bastard!”
“This is why Korea’s tourism industry never takes off—Koreans are so damn unfriendly with answers. Is it gonna kill you to answer a simple question promptly?”
Hyuk-jin muttered the completely out-of-place complaint, then grabbed the man’s head and smashed it into the front door once. He put so much force into it that the door was stained with blood.
“Kk…”
“Okay, okay. What I want to know isn’t much. About the girl Hwa-young—how you found out about her and how she ended up at your place. Just that much and we’re good.”
He said it with a smile. His actions were those of a butcher, yet the expression on his face was so pure and childlike it sent a chill down the spine. This was a guy who could carve up a person as easily as a kid tearing the body off a dragonfly.
“It’d be faster to ask the guy who owns this place.”
“Fair point. Then what’s the name of the joint?”
“…Deul-pul.”
“Ugh… What a shitty name. Fine. Contact info’s in your phone, right?”
Hyuk-jin rifled through the man’s clothes, pulled out the phone, and dialed the police. The man’s face went deathly pale.
“What the hell are you doing right now? Hey! You crazy bastard!”