The Aesthetics of Death
Hyun-woo lifted his head from the monitor. The smoke-choked sprawl of the PC bang filled his vision, and his facial muscles tightened of their own accord. Once adult hours rolled around, this place would kick the kids out anyway — if he had to get up eventually, there was no harm in rising a little early. It was a shame he couldn't keep reading Jack O'Lantern's story, but the aesthetics of death never rushed. Every human being walked life's path toward death in the end.
They'll all die of lung cancer soon enough anyway.
Hyun-woo cursed them silently and deleted the program. It was a crude sort of hacking tool that piggybacked on another computer's ports to foil IP tracing — so simple it barely deserved the name, but it blocked tracking with certainty. Even if he got caught, he was a minor; legal punishment would be impossible anyway.
"Well then. Bye-bye."
Hyun-woo returned the PC bang card at the counter and headed down the stairs. As always on days when he skipped English academy for a PC bang, a faint unease clung to him. His family wasn't exactly struggling, but they weren't rich either — wasn't the tuition a waste? An English academy for fifth graders, though, taught only the obvious; for a self-proclaimed genius like Hyun-woo, it was pure time-wasting.
Still, if he ever said as much or showed boredom, he'd draw envy from everyone around him in a heartbeat. Tapping the calculator in his head, Hyun-woo stepped out into the night street.
Spring still hadn't come.
Lately Seoul had been hit by one suspicious incident after another. Biker gangs brawling in the streets, only for both victims and perpetrators to vanish without a trace; children dying one after another like this — everything was happening far too easily.
Was a metropolis of ten million, where even a single ordinary murder rarely occurred, finally paying off some vast accumulated debt? Think about it that lightly, though, and you wouldn't need police at all.
"Damn it. Hey — what the hell is this!"
Detective Jo ground his teeth as he held up the burned-out laptop. Last night some crazy bastard had taken a dive straight into the middle of the street, and the laptop and digital camcorder found on the rooftop of the building he'd chosen as his diving board were completely incinerated. Residues of TNT emulsion clung to where the hard disk had been — he'd filmed what he needed, then blown the evidence with a timed charge. That was why even the data recovery specialists were shaking their heads.
Even if they cleaned off the emulsion and soot, gathered what was left of the disks, and analyzed the data, the odds of catching a lead on these bastards were slim. Was there really any point in that tedious work?
"Son of a bitch. These bastards! Tell them to dig into this faster. And who's this kid?"
Detective Jo glared at the rookie sitting at the desk that had belonged to his senior, Detective Sim Gu-jin — Park Jun-bae. Rookie or not, the guy held a fourth-dan in judo and had a frame like a mountain; hard to tell if he was a thug or a cop. But Detective Park, ill-suited to his bulk, fidgeted as he handed over the file.
"A kid named Seol Chan-hyeok. First-year, class two at Daeshin High."
"No suicide note or anything?"
"Nothing."
Suicide was the sort of thing that always sent shockwaves through society, so there should have been a note stuffed with everything the person wanted to say. Or at least hints scattered beforehand that they meant to die. But in these chain suicide cases, no such traces remained. One day they'd suddenly go mad, climb any building and dive, or slit their own throats… dying that abruptly.
"Insane."
Detective Jo reached into his jacket for a cigarette. Cameras, a laptop, wireless gear — these kids had filmed the jump. Yet according to witnesses, there had been no one else on the rooftop. In other words, this crazy bastard had set the laptop up himself when he jumped and broadcast his own suicide to someone else. And the laptop was some plausible piece of stolen goods that couldn't be traced.
"Senior… this seems like another Jack O'Lantern case."
Detective Park offered his opinion with a fidget. The Jack O'Lantern Case was the name given to this string of killings because every victim had accessed a site where a mysterious figure called Jack O'Lantern appeared before forcing themselves to suicide.
The investigation unit had named it the Jack O'Lantern Case based on tips from people who'd visited that site — but not a single person who'd actually contacted Jack O'Lantern and heard his stories had come forward. Detective Jo felt his anger surge all the more for it.
"Son of a bitch. Some punk rolling around on the internet is that special?"
To hold people's lives in the palm of your hand with nothing but words. That was nothing short of an insult to humanity. Was some bastard killing people by wiggling his fingers behind a computer monitor supposed to be praised as that amazing? The ones who died were pathetic too. Jumping just because they heard some stranger's words — were they out of their minds?
"W-well… at any rate, the witnesses' statements all match…"
Detective Park was still fidgeting. What good was size and strength if you had no guts? Detective Jo thought as much, but this wasn't the time to drill his junior.
"Fuck it. Tell them to cut off the whole damn internet. Shit. Hey. Let's hit the PC bangs again!"
"Wha— again?"
"What do you mean 'again,' you idiot. Let's go."
Detective Jo threw on his jacket and bolted out the door. In truth, the cyber investigation unit had agonized more times than he could count trying to catch Jack O'Lantern. But the bastard slipped through the police's senses like some kind of ghost.
Even when they made contact at PC bangs or elsewhere, the moment he so much as sniffed a police presence, he vanished without a trace. That was why the police had no way of knowing how he manipulated people like paper dolls and killed them so easily — they couldn't even grasp his methods.
"You son of a bitch. Whoever you are, when I catch you I'm putting a wind hole through your skull!"
Detective Jo spat words no detective should utter and took the stairs three at a time.
On the outskirts of Seongnam, among rows of factories, stood a large warehouse bearing the sign Seonhwa Cold Storage. A truck came by once a week, but there wasn't much active movement.
Even so, this warehouse that showed no sign of collapsing even in a recession was one of the storage facilities belonging to Kenneth Yang, the broker who dealt in anything and everything — weapons, drugs, people…
Ordinarily the dirty work of the underworld was divided by specialty, but Kenneth Yang had a strong businessman's streak and handled every field. Just as distribution worked better as a comprehensive operation than split specialty by specialty, consolidating as a broker built up the know-how and systems of the trade.
That was why even Korea's high-flying gangsters, the self-proclaimed "chivalrous outlaws," didn't dare mess with Kenneth Yang lightly.
Of course, mad dogs like Sarhyuk were the exception. A maniac like that would put a bullet in the president of this country just as readily as in Kenneth Yang.
Anyway, even Kenneth Yang had occasions when his pride took a hit…
"What? Military service?"
Kenneth Yang stared at Han Se-gun in sheer disbelief. What had this bastard just said? Military service?
"Yes."
Se-gun nodded obediently. Even this guy who usually seemed to leave his manners at home was being rather compliant — probably because his own military service was on the line. An ordinary thug might just treat two years in the joint as the cost of doing business and go, but vampire hunters used drugs, so they couldn't simply serve and come back. That was why he'd come bowing his head to ask for a favor.
"You little shit. How old are you?"
"……"
Se-gun stayed silent even as Kenneth Yang's expression turned ugly. Kenneth spun his work cap around and leaned back against a box.
"Give me a break. I'm a nationwide broker, and I'm hanging out with some kid who hasn't even done his military service. Dealing with vampire hunters is seriously bad luck."
"……Please don't say things people might misunderstand."
"Shut it. It's because you look old for your age."
"I don't look that old."
Se-gun grumbled. He'd come to the professional broker Kenneth Yang on business; there was no reason to get scolded for being young. Wasn't the nature of this business that once money changed hands, it was done, no matter who the other party was?
"Anyway — is there a way?"
"Come on. Dodging the draft is a major operation. You need a whole system in place to keep taking money and pulling people out, and then the trail gets stepped on right away. Do I look like an idiot? Why would I do something that crazy?"
Kenneth Yang clicked his tongue. Looking carefully at Han Se-gun's face now, he did look young. Why hadn't he noticed before?
"I don't want you to pull me out that way. That's not what I'm after. By the way — how much have you made to own a warehouse this big?"
Se-gun looked around and marveled again. The safe house before, and now this huge warehouse. Maybe his wealth exceeded imagination?
"Well… the result of diligently accumulating assets."
"Amazing. Even the big-name gangs don't seem to have this kind of money."
"That's because those bastards spend money like water."
Kenneth Yang sighed as he said it.
"Fuck, why not just treat it as rotting in the joint for two years and go serve? Huh? If it were me, I'd just go and get it over with."
Kenneth Yang offered Se-gun advice. Military service matters were investigated strictly, so you shouldn't stick your foot in from the start. Jump in just because the money was good and you'd end up in cuffs for sure. But Se-gun's attitude was stubborn.
"Since when does a broker give life advice? Don't you do anything as long as you get paid?"
"Son of a bitch. Doing business with vampire hunters is going to get my neck wrung. Even punk thugs don't kill people that easily — what the hell are you bastards counting on?"
Kenneth sighed, remembering the spot where Sarhyuk had hit him before. Vampire hunters were even more reckless than gangsters; if things went wrong, you never knew when they'd come at you.
"Fine. Let's hear it, then. Other than getting out of the draft physical — what? Is there a way to avoid the military without leaving a trail? You going to cut off an arm and reattach it?"
Once Kenneth took that stance, Se-gun took a deep breath. He'd deliberated hard on this decision himself, so now that Kenneth was ready to listen, the words didn't come easily.
"We erase the resident registration."
School was as lively as ever. Even if the students who were the source of that vitality didn't particularly relish coming to school.
Ding-dong-ding-dong…
When the end-of-day bell rang, the school fell briefly solemn. A moment of calm before the storm, you might say. The kids had finished preparing to go home and listened to the teacher.
"This is a parent notice. You all know about the suicide cases happening one after another lately, right?"
The homeroom teacher said this as he handed out leaflets printed on cheap newsprint. The flimsy notice run off on the school press asked parents to restrict their children's internet use and block access to suicide sites. Of course, whether it would even reach the parents properly was doubtful — and even if it did, how much control did parents have over kids these days?
Teacher Jeon Jin-yeong himself, handing out the notices now, remembered secretly devouring porn as a kid without his parents knowing. Children slip free of adults' fingers at some point, and eventually become adults themselves. No one can go against that current.
"Well, I can't tell you not to use the internet. But please — I'm begging you — don't go dying or anything."
He looked at the kids and said something that was obvious if it was anything. Teaching was a service industry, and with the Ministry of Education rebranded the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development, whether kids died or not wasn't his concern. As long as their deaths didn't blow back on him, that was enough.
"Attention. Bow."
The moment the class president's greeting ended, the kids shoved back their desks and stood. Those on cleaning duty rose with blank faces and dawdled. They looked desperate to go home, but with the teacher still there, they still felt the need to watch themselves.
Thud!
But then… a person fell from above. Teacher Jeon Jin-yeong startled and leaned out the window.
"What! What is it!?"
"Uwaaaaah."
Being a boys' school, there were no piercing screams. But that didn't make the human who had hit the ground any less horrific. The boy who had landed on the red-brick flower bed had a broken neck. He'd fallen headfirst rather than feet-first, so of course.
"Damn it!"
Teacher Jeon jumped out the window and landed beside the flower bed. Looking at the corpse with its neck broken and stretched long, no doctor no matter how skilled could bring him back. Teacher Jeon frowned at the sight of the corpse's head lying about twenty centimeters from the body, blood streaming from the nose.
He even felt a strange sense of wonder that a human neck could stretch that far. Like a snail that had stretched its body out from its shell of a human form, perhaps? The corpse was that grotesquely distorted.
"Are you crazy? Is anyone up there?"
The second-year classrooms were on the fourth floor. If someone had jumped, there should be witnesses.
"Uh… uwaaa."
As if time itself had frozen… the students on their way home stood still, staring at the corpse.
Silvester turned off the shower and picked up a towel.
"Huu…"
He let out a low sigh and dried himself. He roughly wiped off the moisture and got dressed. Cotton underwear, then the priest's cassock over it, then the bulletproof coat on top — the clothes alone weighed about twenty kilograms.
Click.
Then a Desert Eagle, silver ritual daggers, and a Bible tucked into his coat completed his preparations for going out. The sword and remaining firearms were ready in the car. Silvester walked out slowly, then suddenly felt his own arm.
"…My body is getting weaker?"
Come to think of it, he hadn't eaten anything for a week. Even for someone whose constitution didn't require much food, going this long without eating put the body at risk.
"Eating something before I go would help with durability."
He took off the coat and headed for the kitchen. To him, who lacked any sense of hunger, food was merely a means of replenishing necessary nutrients. He had learned to cook, but purely as a hobby of a long-lived human; he had little interest in eating the food. Still, with time to spare and more to spare, there was no need to resort to raw food.
"Hmm. Good. Shall I try something for the first time in a while?"
Silvester filled a pot with water, set it on the flame, then returned to the living room and picked up the newspaper on the sofa. As expected, the front page was dominated by the chain suicide cases that were all the rage these days.