Father
Father.
The western sky was bleeding red.
The sunset sinking beyond the mouth of the Nakdong River stretched long shadows from the skyscrapers of Geumji New City. And in that shadow, a dictatorship was quietly, emptily coming to an end.
Flap—
The black raven banner of the Black Guard that had flown atop the landmark tower was lowered, and the Taegukgi rose in its place. Watching the flag ripple in the wind, the survivors let out sighs laced with relief and worry rather than cheers — partly because the fear and control that had crushed them for so long still felt too present to believe gone, and partly because no one knew what awaited them inside Yeongdo.
"Move it! First transport wave finishes before sundown!"
Team Leader Baek Sang-jin's shout crackled over the radio and rolled across the site. Under his command, the aftermath was processed with military precision, without a wasted motion.
Whup-whup-whup-whup—
The rotor wash of a heavy transport helicopter kicked up thick clouds of dust. As always, the children were the first to board.
"I'm scared…."
"Is it… really over now?"
"It's over. We're going somewhere safe now."
The medics wrapped the children in blankets and soothed them. As the light of the setting sun touched their pale cheeks, they seemed at last to come back to life.
The transport helicopters, fishing boats, and speedboats never stopped moving. The Iron Corps was still holding the bridge in a standoff, after all — and there were scattered remnants of the enemy to think about as well. With all manner of obstacles in the way, this route was simply faster than fighting through barricades overland.
The staggering stockpiles of food and medicine the Black Guard had hoarded, and the rifles and ammunition sleeping in their armories, were ferried out one load at a time. All of it would become invaluable assets in Yeongdo's campaign to reclaim Busan.
The problem was the people.
"Estimated total of 2,800. Lots of patients and elderly — a single evacuation run is impossible."
At his adjutant's report, Team Leader Baek furrowed his brow.
"Don't get greedy. Move them a thousand at a time. Today, just the patients and the families with children. Tell the rest to stand by — we'll send a transport ship tomorrow morning."
"What about the civilians who stay behind?"
"Leave one platoon. Keep the site controlled in case anything happens, and distribute supplies to keep the survivors calm."
While the Yeongdo personnel bustled about, Sang-goo kept himself a step removed from the commotion.
It's finished.
He climbed back into the van he'd arrived in and drove it to where his beloved bike, the Dark Knight, was parked.
"Teacher!"
Familiar faces. The old man who had been stabbed by the looters and left dying in that alley, and the young men who had carried him here on their backs.
The old man's complexion had transformed beyond recognition. Whether it was thanks to the serum Sang-goo had administered or the transfusion, color had returned to his once-gray face, and though he leaned on a cane, his back stood perfectly straight.
Once again — Jang Seok-woo's serum really was a treasure beyond price.
"You're leaving, sir?"
The young men asked with regret written across their faces.
"My work here is done."
Sang-goo answered flatly, brushing off the bike's saddle.
"It's gotten lively over there… I suppose that's a good thing, isn't it?"
Sang-goo looked at the old man.
"The Black Guard is finished. If you wish, come to the Yeongdo camp on tomorrow's boat. A little paperwork, and you'll be able to live somewhere safe. There's food, and hot water too. The soldiers are here right now, so you can go see them directly."
The young men looked at one another and let out a cheer.
"Thank you! Thank you so much, Teacher!"
"You're our savior! We will never forget this debt, not for the rest of our lives!"
"God… we actually made it. We're alive…."
Joy at being freed from a hell of control and starvation. Their eyes brimmed with hope.
But one man's face was not simply bright. The old man was studying Sang-goo with a look full of complicated things.
"Forgive me, Teacher… but may I ask you one shameless question?"
The old man's voice sank heavy. The young men who'd been cheering around them sensed the shift in the air and fell silent.
"Ask."
"Those men who stabbed me… the Sinsegi bastards. What happened to them? The thugs in the basement of the Mirae Building."
The old man swallowed drily.
"Did you… kill them all?"
Fear and worry were mingled in the old man's eyes. A man who had walked alone into a den of more than a hundred thugs. Not only had he come back alive and unharmed — he'd obliterated the Black Guard and their communist-style regime as well.
In mere hours.
Could such a thing truly make sense? And yet, knowing only the result, the old man could not even begin to imagine how savage the process must have been.
Sang-goo studied the old man for a moment, then adjusted his helmet and shook his head.
"No. I didn't kill them."
"Ah…."
The old man let out a breath of relief. It seemed his heart had eased at the news that no lives had been taken.
But Sang-goo's words did not end there.
"Every one of them is still breathing. However…."
The corner of Sang-goo's mouth curled, a bleak twist.
"I broke their limbs. Knees and elbows, hips, shins. If they're lucky, they'll get a wheelchair. If not, they'll spend the rest of their lives crawling on the floor. All hundred of them."
"……!"
The old man's mouth hung open. The young men beside him flinched, terror plain on their faces.
A punishment worse than death.
A shiver ran through them all at the thought of a hundred able-bodied men, maimed beyond repair.
"Th-that… is that really true?"
"Yes."
The old man's hands trembled.
"May I ask… why you went that far? If it was to avenge me… it was too much."
"Avenge you? Hardly."
Sang-goo answered without a flicker of feeling.
"I merely gave them an opportunity. Judgment belongs to heaven."
"……."
The old man murmured low and fell silent.
"Why do you ask? Too cruel? Too irresponsible?"
At Sang-goo's question, the old man spoke with difficulty.
"It may sound insolent, saying this to my savior… but I find myself thinking it might have been better to simply kill them."
"Because causing them pain strikes you as crueler than killing them?"
"That's part of it. And…."
Gripping his cane hard, the old man looked Sang-goo dead in the eyes.
"You could call it meddling, but you are a man like a hero of a broken age, whether you want to be or not. You have the medicine that saved a dying old fool like me, and the strength to destroy evil. Many people will look at you and follow."
Sincere worry soaked through the old man's voice.
"And that's why… I worry you might be stained by this kind of cruelty. There's a saying, isn't there — fight the monster long enough and you become one. An old man overstepping, worrying about things beyond him. But others I don't care about — you, you have to hold on to your center. That is… what I believe."
The fall of a hero.
The old man feared that Sang-goo would grow addicted to violence and lose his humanity.
For a moment, Sang-goo had no words.
A cold wind blew through and ruffled his hair. He gave a bitter smile and shook his head.
"A hero. I'm not that."
Sang-goo stared into the empty distance. In the old man's words, the shadow of someone overlapped with his own.
"Tell me. Did you know my father?"
The old man parted his lips with a sad smile.
"Yes… he sometimes made house calls to our church. We were friends — we'd share a cup of makgeolli now and then."
"……."
So that was it. The look in the old man's eyes as he regarded him had been anything but ordinary.
Was it really coincidence that he had saved, with his own hands, a man who had not been a stranger to his father?
"Then you know how my father's life ended, too."
The old man lowered his head and squeezed his eyes shut.
"Criminal or illegal immigrant or penniless beggar, he never distinguished — he threw both arms into it for anyone. Taking eggs or canned goods in place of a treatment fee was an everyday thing for him. And yet…."
Sang-goo's voice dropped low.
"Knowing how a man like that met his end — and still you say this to me?"
The old man said nothing. He could not bring himself to speak.
The rims of Sang-goo's eyes reddened. The emotions he had held down for so long surged up like a burst levee.
"You know he was murdered. An axe buried in his palm by the hands of those thug bastards — butchered."
Sang-goo's voice trembled faintly. Veins stood out across his clenched fists.
"He died wretchedly on the cold floor of a basement. Clearing away his body, sewing that split hand back together… you can't imagine how hideous it was. That hand that had mended people all his life… that rough, beloved hand that used to smack my backside to wish me well…."
Even the memory of it made his chest heave; Sang-goo clenched his jaw until his cheeks quivered.
"…When I saw what they'd left of it, I understood. It was boiling blood I felt, nothing else."
A single hot tear rolled down Sang-goo's cheek.
No matter how strong he pretended to be, no matter how cynical, his father's death was a thorn lodged in Sang-goo's chest — one that would never, ever come free.
"That day, I swore. I would never live like my father again. Kindness? Mercy? Those are for people worth keeping alive and nothing more—"
"Hm-mm."
The old man sighed and groaned low.
"Your pain… how could the likes of me ever measure it? It must have been a suffering beyond imagining."
The old man looked at Sang-goo with sorrowful eyes.
"Only… I believe your father would not have wanted you dyed in blood. He was… truly an angel of a man. Even from heaven, he would grieve to watch his son lose himself in the fire of vengeance."
Sang-goo scrubbed the tears roughly away with his sleeve.
"No. My father would have changed his mind by now. If he's watching this from the world below, he surely has."
Sang-goo's eyes sank cold again — colder, and harder than before.
"These bastards can't be redeemed, so he'd say I was right after all. He'd understand what I'm doing now."
With that answer, the old man pressed his lips together and said nothing more.
There was nothing left to say.
Sang-goo pulled the last of his medical supplies from the bike's trunk.
"A gift."
"Why would you… you've already given us more than enough."
"If you want to treat those thugs, then do it. Whether you spend it on your own people or on the ones with broken legs, that is your heart's business, elder. I passed judgment my way — so you go and show mercy your way."
"……."
Taking the first-aid kit in both hands, the old man gazed at Sang-goo without a word. Pity for him and deep gratitude crossed in his eyes, one after the other.
"Thank you. And… I'm sorry."
"Stay well."
Sang-goo pulled on his helmet and kicked the bike to life.
Rum-rum-rum-rum—
Little Dog had long since settled into the sidecar. The Dark Knight slipped quietly away.
A mountain not far from Yeongdo. A temple that could only be reached after a long climb up a steep hillside — that was where Sang-goo arrived.
He had come looking for the columbarium nestled within the temple grounds.
The sun was sinking low, and the red light of dusk streamed long through the columbarium's windows. A faint scent of incense drifted through the still air — the traces of a man who stopped by now and then to sweep the place and light a stick for the dead.
Sang-goo stood before the urn of his family, enshrined at the very top.
Regrettably, they had never once taken a family photo, so their pictures sat apart — two photographs, side by side.
His father in life: the sleeves of his doctor's coat hacked off to three-quarter length, a pair of shabby fridge-repairman's pants and slippers, glaring sideways with a dour expression. And beside it, a photo of his younger brother Hong-goo, beaming with his arms wrapped around Jindol.
Even that much had only been found with great difficulty, and recently at that.
His old family — gone from the world now, existing only in photographs.
Sang-goo uncapped the bottle of soju he had brought with him and filled a paper cup with the clear liquor.
"I'm here."
His voice echoed through the empty columbarium.