The Black Market Extraction
"Oh, for crying out loud."
Se-gun picked the knife up off the floor and grimaced. He hadn't noticed it during the fight, but the moment it ended the toothache came flooding back in. He wiped the blood from the blade and pressed the doorbell. As expected, nothing stirred inside. Se-gun leaned in toward the peephole lens on the front door and knocked.
"……Hey. I took care of them all."
A moment later the door opened.
"Ah, it's you?"
"Yeah, yeah. Actually, I've come down with a rather troublesome condition."
"Syphilis? I've got treatment for that, but it'll cost you…"
"What the hell do you take me for, saying something like that?"
Se-gun snapped as he stepped inside. She clicked her tongue at the blood pooled by the entrance.
"What are people going to say if they see this?"
"Anyway—who were those guys? Debt collectors?"
"No. My ex-husband."
She closed the front door as she said it quietly. Se-gun had to doubt his own ears for a second. Ex-husband? So she'd been married?
"Huh? Ex-husband?"
"I did a sham marriage to get Korean citizenship. Just my luck I got stuck with a real piece of work."
For whatever reason she spoke frankly while looking Se-gun over.
"Doesn't look like you're hurt anywhere in particular."
"No—it's here…"
Se-gun opened his mouth and pointed at his wisdom tooth. Her expression went cold at once.
"This isn't exactly my specialty."
"Figured as much. Got a contact or something?"
"Hmm. Wouldn't it just be better to go to a hospital for something like that?"
"……Well. I've got my reasons."
Se-gun put on a troubled face. His resident registration might have been erased, but the ID card itself still existed, so walking into a dental clinic wouldn't immediately blow his cover. Even so, the second he got careless thinking it would be fine, his trail would get discovered—so from one to ten he had to be careful, careful, careful.
"In that case, shall I introduce you to a dental-lab guy? There are quite a few shady ones around."
Maya picked up the phone, spoke to someone, then hung up with brisk finality. Se-gun sat quietly on the sofa and watched her. Long blonde hair, the polished look of a career woman—if not for the burns she would have been a genuine beauty. Looking at the way she carried herself, he couldn't help suspecting she might have done that to her face on purpose.
"Don't tell me… you didn't do that to your face yourself, did you?"
Se-gun asked her straight. She shook her head. In the kitchen where the light barely reached, she took out anesthetic injectables and answered:
"Why wouldn't I have?"
Self-proclaimed president of the Great Ethnic H University Taekwondo Club, Hong Jun-gi firmly believed he was a popular, well-liked club leader. The juniors all respected him; the seniors all recognized his leadership and charisma—pretty much the same delusion late-term sergeants about to discharge were famous for. But if there was one thing even he himself clearly felt, it was that his "intense charisma" strangely never worked on women.
"Weird. It's not like I'm that bad-looking or anything."
He was stretching his legs while staring into the wall-mounted mirror. His face, still clearly cratered with old acne scars, resembled a hillside riddled by countless shell impacts; his high-school nickname had been Baekma Heights, and he had definitely never been popular. But didn't they say a man only sees his own strengths in the mirror?
He gazed at his reflection and sank into narcissism he couldn't climb out of—tucking his chin, throwing a fierce look at the glass, slightly lifting his eyes and brows, tilting his head just enough that the nostrils wouldn't show…
Clack.
The door opened and Chang-hyun walked in already soaked with sweat. After a run of more than twenty kilometers, his dobok was so wet that wringing it out would have poured water.
"Huff… huff… uugh. What are you doing, President?"
"Mmm. Nothing. Just playing rock-paper-scissors with the me in the mirror."
"Is that so? From where I stood you looked like some pretentious guy posing for a camcorder selfie."
Chang-hyun pulled a PET bottle from the stack beside him and gulped. It was a bottled-water bottle, but what was inside was pure tap water. Even so, when the thirst hit he couldn't hold back.
"Ah, damn. Taking a few days off and now it's killing me."
"That's why I told you to run ten k each time. Running too much is bad for the body. Takes forever, too."
"It took one hour and ten seconds, though?"
"Hmm. At that pace you could do a marathon."
The president turned his head, out of things to say. Chang-hyun soon started stretching beside him.
"By the way—something up with you today?"
"Huh?"
"No, you just seem all smiles for some reason."
"……Nah. Just… stuff happens, you know."
Chang-hyun quickly hardened his expression. If the fact that he'd let a runaway girl stay overnight in his place ever reached the president, it would be pure chaos. This president was so petty that the moment he drank he picked fights with couples, and if there was even a group date with some women's university he spread the word all over town—to the point even the lunchbox-shop uncle in front of the school knew about it.
In other words, telling the president would be about as discreet as putting up a big poster.
"Kid's acting suspicious. Have a nice dream last night or something?"
"Nah. Nothing like that."
Chang-hyun roughly brushed the topic aside and stood up.
"But can I leave early again today?"
"You little. I let you skip a few times because you said you weren't feeling well—that should've been enough. Looking at you today you seem fine, so what's the issue?"
The president stood as well and threw a kick toward the mirror.
"Plus we locked in the match with L University's Hapkido club for this Friday. Right now the only one I can trust is you—what am I supposed to do if you bail?"
Chang-hyun sighed at the president's words.
"That's why I keep saying don't drag the members into it just because of a fight at the group date."
"Kid. I'm saying they made remarks disrespecting our Great Ethnic H University—not that I'm picking a fight disguised as a sparring match out of personal feelings."
"Haa. Is that so? Well then."
Chang-hyun scratched his head hard. Right now he wanted to get home as fast as possible and check. What that girl named Jeong-ah might be doing. Of course… the chance she'd already left was high, and she might have carried off every last thing of value in the house—but somehow she didn't seem like that kind of person.
If she's still there, then what? Hmm.
If she was still in the house, that would certainly become a serious trial for the hot-blooded Chang-hyun.
Had it come from a closed-down barbershop? Se-gun sat in a barber chair that reclined into a perfectly serviceable bed and stared up at the mold-spotted ceiling with his mouth open.
Was it really okay to trust a guy like this? But at present Han Se-gun was a proper criminal—with his identity erased, walking into any place that demanded proof of medical insurance was suicide.
Still, the thought of those vicious tools going into his mouth suddenly made him afraid. It was ridiculous. The same man who practically threw his life away charging at vampires was scared of a dental visit.
"Alright, let's begin. Open wide."
The black-market doctor skillfully injected the anesthetic and clamped on with pliers. It would have been nice if the tooth came free in one go, but of course a live tooth never pulled that easily. Watching the shady doctor strain and grunt, Se-gun suddenly had an idea and tapped the man's body with his hand.
"Ah—does it hurt?"
"No. Wait a sec…"
Se-gun grabbed the pliers with his own hand. In the split second the black-market doctor panicked, Se-gun yanked—and ripped his own tooth out in a single motion. Something two arms couldn't budge no matter how they strained, he tore free with one.
While the doctor stood flustered, Se-gun clapped a hand over the blood pouring from his mouth and headed for the sink.
"Ptooey. Did it come out clean?"
"Ah… Haha. You're the first customer like this I've ever seen. Be careful. People can die pulling teeth, you know."
The black-market doctor wore an ambiguous expression, as if someone had just snatched his rice bowl. He'd finally landed a customer—if the guy now claimed he'd pulled it himself and refused to pay and turned into a scene, what then? With a clientele of thugs, illegal immigrants, and overstayers, he had met enough unreasonable assholes that his face darkened.
But when he slipped a mirror into Se-gun's mouth, he recoiled in shock.
"What the—? Did the whole nerve bundle come out too?"
"Ah… No… It's healed."
"Huh?"
Se-gun startled and stared into the mirror with his mouth still open. He'd thought the black-market doctor was talking nonsense—yet new flesh had already risen over the empty socket.
"……"
It wasn't the first time he'd seen it. Regeneration—something he'd often watched after vampire blood was injected into his veins. But he hadn't injected anything this time.
"Ah—hey."
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about this. I'll pay the treatment fee."
Se-gun pulled out a wad of cash and handed it over without shaving a single won from the agreed amount.
Walking out of the building, the air finally opened up. Se-gun took one deep breath and shoved a hand into his pocket for the motorcycle key. Just then a blonde woman stepped into his path.
"Is the treatment done?"
He looked up. It was the Russian woman who had once dragged the dying Se-gun back and even given him a transfusion, now wearing a thin dress. It had side slits like an ao dai, but only the calves showed, so it couldn't really be called one. Even so, wearing that dress she was genuinely sexy.
If a woman who had burned her own face could still be called sexy, it was sad proof of men's nature—but Se-gun thought she was beautiful even setting that sad nature aside. The scent of solitude, of old wounds. Because it was all too familiar and longed-for, a brief silence wound itself between them. Was that same sense of kinship true for Maya as well?
She had been waiting for him; the moment he appeared she asked her question.
"Yeah. Manage to poke a nice hole in the gum?"
"More or less."
Se-gun swung a leg over the bike.
"Wanna ride?"
"I had the courage to burn my face, but not the courage to climb on the back of a motorcycle driven by a guy still under anesthesia."
"Wise of you."
Se-gun put on the helmet half-sarcastically. Yet his mind stayed tangled. Healing fast was good—but a normal human had no business becoming like this.