Killer (3)
“Something’s come up. I’ll be leaving first.”
After checking the text message, Kang-hae said it to Seong Ha-yeong.
“What happened?”
“I think something’s happened to Ha Seok-jun.”
“……?!”
“Please wait here for now, Ha-yeong.”
“No. I’m going with you.”
“It’s dangerous. And if I don’t come back, don’t wait—return to Korea immediately.”
“…….”
The instant Kang-hae rose from his seat, Seong Ha-yeong caught his hand.
“Kang-hae.”
“……?”
“Don’t get hurt.”
“…….”
Kang-hae gave a short nod and left the room.
After he was gone, Miki Ho poured wine into Seong Ha-yeong’s empty glass.
“Looks like something serious has happened.”
“…….”
Seong Ha-yeong offered an uncertain smile, not quite knowing what to say.
But there was shadow in that smile.
Miki Ho noticed it.
“Then are the two of you not actually lovers?”
“Pardon? Ah, no…… We’re not.”
“And yet the way you worry about him looks just like……”
Miki Ho let the sentence trail off with a smile.
Seong Ha-yeong understood exactly what he meant.
A moment later, her ears turned red.
She set down the wineglass in her hand.
But then concern for Kang-hae surged back into her mind.
Miki Ho drank his wine in silence.
A little later.
“I’m sorry. I think I should go with him.”
Seong Ha-yeong couldn’t shake her worry about Kang-hae.
In the end, she started to rise from her seat.
“He’s probably already left.”
“…….”
“He seemed like a fast walker.”
“…….”
“If you’re truly worried, I can have someone look for him. I’m sure we’ll know where he’s gone in no time.”
It was a tempting offer.
A man of Miki Ho’s standing would certainly have people under him.
But she didn’t like the idea of Miki Ho learning something she herself didn’t know.
Seong Ha-yeong politely declined his offer.
“You’re drawing a line.”
“I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“It’s fine. And don’t worry too much. That man doesn’t seem like the type to go down easily.”
“…….”
Seong Ha-yeong thought of Kang-hae in silence.
And she realized she didn’t actually know much about him.
But just as Miki Ho had said, Kang-hae did not seem like someone who would be easily defeated.
He survived even after being shot at MDL……
Seong Ha-yeong decided to trust him.
And if Kang-hae came back safely, she thought she would have to learn a little more about him.
* * *
Near Taipa Village on Taipa Island, Macau.
Taipa Village was a traditional district that still preserved Portuguese architecture in its original form, and one of Macau’s representative tourist attractions.
Restaurants, cafés, and souvenir shops lined the streets, but at night, after the tourists had gone, only silence remained.
And if you traveled a little farther north from Taipa Village, you came to Rua do Regedor, a street that stood in stark contrast to the tourist district.
Past the shuttered shops and the walls stripped of paint and green with mold stood an abandoned warehouse that had once stored timber.
Byeon Dong-jin was waiting there for Kang-hae.
With Ha Seok-jun held hostage.
Tap, tap.
With the back edge of the machete in his hand, Byeon Dong-jin prodded Ha Seok-jun, who lay sprawled on the floor.
Ha Seok-jun, his arms and legs bound with cable ties, twitched on the floor in terror.
Byeon Dong-jin set down the machete and lit a cigarette, saying, “Wonder if that bastard Na Kang-hae will really show.”
“…….”
“Wouldn’t want your love to turn out to be one-sided.”
“…….”
Byeon exhaled cigarette smoke into the air.
Fsssh—
Then the lights that had been illuminating the warehouse went out.
Darkness flooded the space.
All that remained visible was the cigarette clamped between Byeon Dong-jin’s lips.
“You’re dead now, you fucking bastard.”
It was Ha Seok-jun, who had been silent until then.
Byeon Dong-jin kicked him hard in the lower abdomen.
Thud.
A short groan burst from Ha Seok-jun’s mouth.
“Ugh…….”
Byeon Dong-jin picked up the machete he’d set on the floor.
With a blade nearly fifty centimeters long, the machete had originally been a tool for cutting branches from trees in subtropical regions, but in the hands of criminals, its purpose changed.
It was also the tool Byeon Dong-jin had used most often when killing people in the Philippines.
He had deliberately not brought a gun.
Getting one in Macau took a fair amount of money and time.
And more than anything else, he wanted to kill Kang-hae with a machete.
The slicing sensation when you carved through a body with a blade.
And the way blood sprayed from the other man’s body and soaked you from head to toe—it aroused a strange excitement in him.
“No gun. Come out, you rat bastard!”
Byeon Dong-jin’s shout echoed through the warehouse.
A moment later, the warehouse door opened, and Kang-hae stepped inside.
He had nothing in his hands.
“Figures. Na Kang-hae. I was a little worried you might bring a gun.”
Striding forward.
Kang-hae’s steps toward Byeon Dong-jin were without hesitation.
He looked less like a man entering a hostage standoff and more like someone taking a casual walk through the neighborhood.
That irritated Byeon Dong-jin to no end.
When the distance between Kang-hae and Byeon Dong-jin closed to two meters, Kang-hae stopped.
“Tell me who ordered this, and I’ll let you live.”
“Heh-heh…… still funny, I see.”
Kang-hae looked down at Ha Seok-jun, sprawled on the floor.
His face was a mess, but seeing him still moving was enough to put him at ease.
“You poured gasoline.”
Kang-hae had caught the smell the moment he opened the warehouse door.
As he came farther inside, the stench grew stronger.
“Yeah. I’ve got to burn you and that bastard alive.”
Byeon Dong-jin said, pointing the machete at Ha Seok-jun on the floor.
Then he swung it in a sudden attack.
Whoosh—
But Kang-hae didn’t move.
Not an inch.
He didn’t even blink.
Kang-hae had already measured the length of the blade and Byeon Dong-jin’s reach, and he knew the edge would never touch him.
But Byeon Dong-jin, who had no way of knowing that, burst into laughter.
“Heh-heh. What, you froze already?”
“Ha-jun knew.”
“What? Who? Kim Ha-jun?”
“That I’d been watching you from the beginning.”
“You’re full of shit for a guy about to die.”
Byeon Dong-jin swung the machete again.
This time Kang-hae couldn’t stand still.
He quickly leaned his upper body back and stepped away.
The blade sliced through empty air.
Even after that, Byeon Dong-jin kept hacking wildly with the machete.
But the blade never grazed even a single thread of Kang-hae’s clothes.
“Fuck…… huff, huff…….”
Before he knew it, rough breaths were spilling from Byeon Dong-jin’s mouth.
It was because he’d spent his strength in a burst over a short span of time.
His toes felt heavy, and a chill ran down his spine.
It was the first time since he started swinging a machete that this had happened.
The distance between him and his opponent wasn’t closing.
And Kang-hae knew it.
From the very first swing, he had known Byeon Dong-jin’s skill was pathetic.
Looking at the man gasping for air, Kang-hae said, “This time is different.”
“……?”
Touching the scar on his jaw, Kang-hae went on, “You can’t leave so much as a scratch on me.”
“…….”
“The way you swing a knife is sloppy, and you can’t even judge distance. You’ve never really fought anyone, have you?”
It was a direct strike to the heart.
To shake off the fear that was wrapping around him, Byeon Dong-jin swung again at Kang-hae.
Harder than before.
He pulled his shoulder way back, then drove it forward like a baseball pitcher throwing for distance.
This was the chance.
Kang-hae slipped his body along the diagonal line of the blade.
Then he stamped the sole of his foot down beneath Byeon Dong-jin’s knee.
It was a technique called an oblique kick in MMA.
Crack.
One kick snapped Byeon Dong-jin’s ACL.
“Aaaah!”
Byeon Dong-jin screamed and collapsed onto the floor.
But the machete was still in his hand, and even as he crumpled, he swung it.
Yet that was less an attack than a frantic flailing born of terror.
“You really thought you could kill me with a shitty little knife like that?”
“You fucking bastard. If you hadn’t shown off, none of this would’ve happened, and I could’ve stayed in Development Group!”
Byeon Dong-jin shouted at the top of his lungs.
Kang-hae, dumbfounded by the words, froze where he stood.
“And another thing, you fucking bastard. Is the Defense Intelligence Command that great? It’s just a bunch of fucking soldiers, isn’t it? Why the hell are you acting so high and mighty?”
Byeon Dong-jin limped as he hauled himself back to his feet.
But the momentum he’d started with was gone.
“It’s not too late. Put the knife down and tell me who ordered this, and I’ll let you live.”
“Go fuck yourself, you fucking bastard.”
Byeon Dong-jin swung again with all his strength.
Just as before, he pulled his shoulder back.
Kang-hae once again slipped off the line of attack, then seized Byeon Dong-jin’s wrist.
Without hesitation, he wrenched the wrist back behind the shoulder.
At the same moment the machete hit the floor.
Crack-crack.
It was the sound of Byeon Dong-jin’s shoulder dislocating and the bones in his wrist breaking.
“Aaaagh!”
Byeon Dong-jin screamed even louder than before and was thrown backward.
Kang-hae picked up the machete he’d dropped.
And Byeon Dong-jin, staring at the sight, regretted everything.
He should have gotten a gun, even if it took time.
“Regretting it?”
Kang-hae asked, holding the machete to Byeon Dong-jin’s throat where he lay on the floor.
“I should’ve put a bullet in your skull…….”
Words thick with regret spilled from Byeon Dong-jin’s mouth.
“No. Even if you’d had a gun, the result would’ve been the same.”
“Don’t bullshit me, you fucking bastard.”
Kang-hae tightened his grip on the machete.
The blade bit into the skin,
and red blood ran from Byeon Dong-jin’s throat.
“You lived your life like a filthy rag, and you think that makes you the same as us—men who trained in full-scale combat every single day for the last four years?”
“…….”
“If that’s really what you think, then you’re insulting my comrades who died before they could see the end of training.”
“…….”
Hearing Kang-hae’s words, Byeon Dong-jin finally understood how stupid it had been to think he could kill him with a machete.
Just as Kang-hae said, Byeon Dong-jin had never truly fought against men trained in martial arts.
He had always swung a blade only at people who were like him.
Wasn’t even the last man he’d killed at the ferry, Kenvin Chow, some middle-aged man with graying hair?
But it was too late for regret.
For now, he had to live.
So he looked up at Kang-hae with a pathetic expression.
Kang-hae looked down at him with cold eyes.
And the instant their eyes met, Byeon Dong-jin realized at last that this was not the Na Kang-hae he used to know.
And that this changed Na Kang-hae could kill him.
“Spare me… I’ll tell you who ordered it.”
“No. Too late. I gave you two chances.”
“F-fuck, you can’t, y-you can’t come back after killing someone! I know, I know because I fucking did it myself.”
Shaking with terror, Byeon Dong-jin stammered.
“I’ll tell you and only you. The truth is, I joined the Defense Intelligence Command because I wanted to learn how to kill people.”
“……!”
“And I’ve already done it.”
The moment he said it, Kang-hae brought the machete down on Byeon Dong-jin’s throat.
One strike.
That was how Byeon Dong-jin died.
Kang-hae took the phone from Byeon Dong-jin’s dead body’s pants pocket.
Then he walked over to Ha Seok-jun and cut the cable ties binding his hands and feet.
The instant Ha Seok-jun got to his feet, he hugged Kang-hae.
This was already the second time Ha Seok-jun had seen Kang-hae kill a man.
But more than the fear he’d felt the first time, what filled him now was relief that he was alive, and gratitude toward Kang-hae for coming to save him.
“Thanks, Kang-hae…….”
“…….”
Kang-hae wasn’t exactly pleased to be this close to Ha Seok-jun, but for the moment, he held still.
He knew the other man had suffered after being kidnapped by Byeon Dong-jin.
And so, after the awkward embrace between the two men ended, Kang-hae called Seong Ha-yeong.
[Kang-hae, are you all right?!]
Seong Ha-yeong’s voice over the phone was thick with worry.
For some reason, Kang-hae found that voice strangely welcome.
“I’m fine.”
[Thank goodness. I was worried…….]
“…….”
Brief silence.
Then her voice came again, brighter than before.
[Are you all right too, Major?]
“Yes. I’m fine.”
[That’s a relief. Then should I come pick you up now?]
“No. By the way, are you still with Miki Ho?”
[Yes, we’re still together.]
“Then I’ll come there now.”
[All right. Come carefully.]
“Yes. See you soon.”
After ending the call, Kang-hae slipped Byeon Dong-jin’s phone into his pocket.
Then he took Ha Seok-jun and headed back to the Venetian Macao hotel where they were staying.
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