Bait in the Downpour
The rain poured down in sheets. Seo Rin, clad in a transparent plastic poncho like a newspaper deliveryman, had ducked into the underpass to get out of it. Thanks to the monsoon, the underpass in front of Seoul Station was packed with the homeless who had come seeking shelter from the rain. The merchants there made no secret of their dislike for the vagrants, yet none of them had the heart to drive them out coldly.
Seo Rin scratched his cheek as he looked them over.
"Honestly, hyung's something else."
On rainy days, vampires could move about even in broad daylight. But places crowded with the homeless also tended to have heavy foot traffic, so a vampire incident was unlikely to break out in the middle of the day. If Se-gun had still shoved Seo Rin outside, this was pure fishing. There was no doubt he was using Seo Rin as bait to hook a vampire.
"I'm not some damn piece of bait, geez."
Grumbling, Seo Rin pulled out a digital recorder. The little device that captured audio in MP3 format was less about actually recording the homeless and more of a prop to make striking up a conversation easier.
Still, interviewing ordinary street people would get him nowhere. Wasn't there someone who looked a little more promising? Seo Rin wandered about until his eyes landed on a homeless man folding cardboard boxes.
For some reason the man's heartbeat and the smell of sweat rolling off him gave the impression of someone wound tight with tension. Maybe he had something to be anxious about. Acting on that hunch, Seo Rin approached. The man had been collapsing the stack of boxes piled beside the stairs; when Seo Rin drew near, he turned hollow eyes on him.
In that instant a stench rose from him strong enough to knock a person flat. Yet Seo Rin's attention snagged more on the man's appearance than the smell. His eyes were raw with fear, his heartbeat irregular. He wore cotton work gloves, and those hands were shaking hard.
His unwashed face shone with grease; he wiped it roughly with one gloved hand and looked Seo Rin over.
"What is it, kid?"
"Ah—would it be all right if I interviewed you for a bit?"
"Interview? Hmph. About what?"
The homeless man glanced around furtively and stepped closer. The sour reek rolling off his unkempt hair hit Seo Rin full force; he couldn't help wrinkling his nose.
"Well, it's sort of like a school assignment."
When Seo Rin fudged the answer, the man snorted a laugh.
"Hmph. Schools these days are really something. Wanting to interview a guy like me… Fine. Pay me twenty thousand won and I'll play along."
The man held up two fingers to name his price. Even terrified, he still had the nerve to haggle; the guy was shameless. Seo Rin stared in surprise.
"Huh? Twenty thousand?"
"What, a student like you doesn't have that kind of money? Hmm? Don't like it, then forget it."
Of course Seo Rin had the money. But twenty thousand just for an interview? The demand soured his mood; he turned away.
"…Yeah, I should probably find someone else."
The moment he started to leave, the homeless man laid a hand on Seo Rin's shoulder. So much for "forget it"—now that Seo Rin was actually walking off, the man had changed his mind.
"…Hey, what's the big deal. All right, all right. I'll knock it down to ten thousand. Look, I've got to eat too, yeah?"
He had a point. Seo Rin considered for a second and decided to compromise.
"Okay. I'll give you ten thousand."
"Hand it over first."
Right away the man spread a grimy-gloved palm. The rubber coating on the glove was so worn the original shape was almost gone. Seo Rin stared at that open hand in open disbelief.
"Do you take me for an idiot?"
"Clever little bastard. You can't trust me that much?"
The homeless man dragged a cardboard box over to one wall of the underpass, set it down, shook out a military blanket from the pile beside him, draped it over the box, and sat on top of it.
"Hey, kid. You sit too."
"Ah—yes."
Seo Rin took the offered seat and switched on the recorder.
"Then first, please tell me your name and how you ended up here."
"Name? I'm Kim Su-won. As for why I'm sprawled out like a beggar in front of Seoul Station… business went under. Too obvious? I'll have you know I went to college."
Of course Seo Rin already knew the story. Plenty of people who failed in business and ended up on the street were well educated. Still, he played along with a show of surprise.
"Oh, really? Which university?"
The moment Seo Rin asked about the past, the man brightened and launched into his tale with such eager detail it seemed he had been waiting for someone to ask.
"I was pretty good at studying, so I got into Inha Technical College for mechanical engineering. Graduated with solid grades, too. Did my military service in between, but I never once went a semester without a scholarship. Got along great with the upperclassmen. One of those seniors was making a living off automotive-parts molds and asked if I wanted to work with him, so I started the business. At first… yeah, things went pretty well. Then that senior emigrated and basically handed me the company for free. Owning your own business and living large before you even hit thirty—that wasn't something just anyone got to do."
He lifted his chin and closed his eyes as if savoring the memory. A water droplet splashed onto his forehead—rain seeping into the underpass. He spat a curse and shifted his seat.
"…So how did it end up like this?"
Seo Rin asked a little hesitantly. The man exploded.
"Ah, damn it. During the IMF crisis the promissory notes bounced and just like that I went bankrupt. That's how I ended up in this state. Studying hard didn't mean a damn thing. Go into business and you can ruin your whole family overnight. Hell, when I paid property tax the factory was valued at over seven hundred million, but when the court auctioned it off for the debt, you know what it sold for? A hundred ninety million. Goddamn it. How was I supposed to pay off the debt with that?"
Seo Rin had only meant to chat him up and fish for recent news, but the story didn't feel like someone else's problem. He gripped the recorder with genuine seriousness.
"What about your family?"
"Wife took the two kids and ran three months after everything collapsed. Had a son and a daughter. Wherever they are now—living well or stuck in some orphanage—it's still better than me dragging them around. Try rolling around in a place like this at that age. Damn it, some kids are born to parents who let them live easy, and those kids of mine… Aigoo. You got a cigarette?"
He thumped his chest as if the rage might burst it, then wiggled his fingers at Seo Rin. Seo Rin waved both hands, face stern.
"A student with cigarettes? Come on."
"Drop the act. Forget it. I'll smoke my own."
So he'd had some all along and still asked? Seo Rin stared at him, speechless. Maybe wary of the other homeless men, the guy dug a crumpled pack out from between his socks and opened it. Three cigarettes left. He pulled one free and held it under his nose, inhaling the scent as if savoring it. Seo Rin couldn't let that pass without a word.
"That's all well and good, but the underpass is a no-smoking area."
"Ah, you really are a pain. Fine. Ask your questions quick and hand over the ten thousand."
"Yes, yes. Then… what about relatives, parents, people like that?"
"With the size of my debt? If I go looking for my parents, I'm just baggage. If I start visiting relatives, you think the collectors will leave them alone? Those people are vicious. Yeah, it's my own fault for borrowing it all in the first place."
The man spoke faster, clearly itching for that cigarette. Seo Rin pressed on.
"Um, is there anything inconvenient about living like this?"
"Honestly I wasn't going to say this, but every so often we fight, you know? It's ridiculous. Before I came here I never fought over food—not even in the army—and here I am fighting over scraps again. And even among the homeless we fight like crazy over who's educated and who isn't, Gyeongsang-do versus Jeolla-do, all that garbage. Drives you nuts. In winter the cold drives you nuts too. Still, these days if you just stay off the booze you won't die. There are church people who come do volunteer work."
"But lately… people have been dying more often, haven't they?"
When Seo Rin slipped the question in, the man's movements locked up. The hollow eyes fixed on Seo Rin; his mouth fell open. Sour breath punched through the cold, humid air and hit Seo Rin full in the face.
"That…"
"Yes?"
"How the hell do you know about…"
The man was stammering. So he did know something. Seo Rin switched the recorder off.
"Tell me."
"…If I say this, I might end up in a psych ward."
"It's all right. Just tell me."
"Yeah. Whatever. This happened last week."
The homeless man began to recount what he had seen.
Around dawn he had been making the rounds of nearby meat restaurants, collecting empty soju bottles people had left behind, when he spotted a fellow homeless man walking into an alley as if entranced.
Curious, he followed and peered into the alley. There, no matter how he looked at it, was a strange pitch-black darkness—and from within that darkness a pair of green eyes like flames had appeared. They looked exactly like a wolf's or a wild dog's. So terrified he flung the bottles aside, he had run for his life.
"People have been going missing more and more lately… and nobody listens when you try to tell them. Drives you crazy. Hell, if somebody else said this stuff to me I'd call them crazy too. But those dog-like eyes are definitely the culprit."
"Okay. I understand."
Listening, Seo Rin realized Se-gun's prediction had been right on the mark. He opened his wallet, pulled out the promised ten-thousand-won bill, hesitated a moment, then added another and laid both in the man's hand.
"Aigoo. That's kind of you, kid."
The man accepted the money with trembling fingers and laughed with pure delight.
Seo Rin pulled his poncho back on and stepped out of the underpass again. He had achieved his immediate goal. There was no longer any doubt that a vampire was attacking people in the area. The real problem was how to find the thing.
"Being a hunter really is a lousy job."
To track down a target whose location you didn't even know, you had to wander the streets endlessly. And in a case like this, you might even get counterattacked. Still, going back was not an option. Se-gun had all but thrown him out; Seo Rin had to show that he was taking this seriously.
The rain that had been hammering down like hail only moments earlier was gradually easing. Yet the sky remained solid cloud; it did not look as if it would stop any time soon. Seo Rin stood in that thinning rain, watching the traffic light. That was when he spotted a young man on the opposite side whose appearance was impossible to miss.
"Huh?"
A white man with pure white hair tied back under a baseball cap. Even though the rain was still falling, he blew a bubble of gum as if he couldn't care less. He wore a pair of jeans and a round-neck T-shirt that had faded and frayed from long use, and, incongruously, a guitar case strapped across his back.
In one hand he held an umbrella, yet somehow the whole picture still managed to feel lighthearted.
"Hmm?"
Among the people waiting for the light, this one stood out. Then Seo Rin felt his heart start to pound. The moment his eyes landed on the stranger, his pulse took off so hard it almost hurt.
"Wh-what? Did I just fall for him or something?"
Seo Rin clutched his chest and stared. A sinister feeling slid down his spine. Every hair on his body stood on end, screaming danger.
Right then the light changed. The people standing on the sidewalk with Seo Rin surged forward like sprinters at the gun. The white-haired foreigner with the guitar case also started across at an easy pace.
Seo Rin hesitated a second, then steeled himself and walked. Luckily the other still seemed unaware of him; he bobbed his head in time to some private rhythm as he strolled closer.
Seo Rin recovered his composure and brushed past. That was the moment.
"Whoa."
The youth in the baseball cap shot out a hand and seized the back of Seo Rin's neck. Seo Rin might have looked weak in fights against Se-gun and other vampires, but never once had a human managed to ambush him. His keen hearing, smell, and sixth sense always registered every move. Yet this man's motion carried neither scent nor sound.
"Ah—!"
"Watch it!"
The stranger yanked him back hard—and in that same instant a motorcycle blasted through the exact spot where Seo Rin had been standing. If he had stayed put, he would have been hit. But why? The light still had plenty of time left, didn't it?
Then Seo Rin realized with a jolt that the signal had already turned red. Everyone else had crossed; only he and the white man remained. It felt as if he had been under some kind of spell.
"Tsk, tsk. This is what happens when people lack civic spirit."
The stranger muttered the words and stepped onto the center line to dodge the cars streaming past. Seo Rin had no choice but to stand beside him while drivers shouted curses at them both.
"Ha… you're pretty fluent in Korean."
"Yeah, I started learning six months ago. I'm a quick study."
He tipped the brim of his cap up and looked Seo Rin straight in the eye. Cold greenish-gray irises cut into him like blades. Seo Rin understood at once that this man was the one who had engineered the whole situation.
Still, there were too many witnesses for anything to happen here. So he forced his racing heart quiet and stood on the center line until the light changed, watching the stranger from the corner of his eye. They were roughly the same height; standing side by side, their faces were level. The man blew another bubble, noticed Seo Rin's gaze, and pulled a pack of gum from his pocket.
"Want one?"
"No. I'm fine."
"Yeah? No need to be polite."
Looking faintly disappointed, he stuffed the gum back into his pocket. Then he lifted the umbrella so that it covered the space between them both.
Vrrrrooom!
Cars roared past while two men stood on the center line sharing a single umbrella. Seo Rin stared at him, half-speechless.
"You… you're a vampire, aren't you?"