Bitter Summer (2)
Bitter Summer (2)
I had a feeling I should head to work early today, so I woke A-ra up early and fed her breakfast.
There were messages, and they had arrived in numbers nearly ten times that amount.
I wasn't sure myself why that thought had crossed my mind.
There were still two hours left until I had to leave for work — why had I felt the need to go in so early?
"Nom nom...."
"Noona, eat slowly."
"Mmhm... aren't you supposed to leave soon?"
"Well... no, not exactly."
A-ra was cute, nodding off drowsily while still diligently eating her meal.
She was like a tired but hungry hamster, I suppose.
"Hmm..."
"You were getting tons of calls and texts since early morning — what's that about?"
"No idea, I haven't checked them properly yet."
So she hadn't looked at her phone because of the calls or texts after all.
Meaning she must have been checking game updates, just as she'd said.
Truthfully, the reason I woke up early was because of A-ra's phone ringing.
The sound of calls had been coming in since dawn, but it wasn't disruptive enough to wake me, so I kept sleeping.
But at some point, even the text message vibrations started tormenting me, and that was what made me open my eyes early.
A-ra can't tell if a call or text has come in if she turns the ringer and vibration off, so switching them off would cause major problems — she avoids doing it as much as possible.
After tidying up reasonably, changing clothes, and heading outside,
I arrived at my field placement, the Sorimsa Children's Welfare Center.
A building shining brightly just like any other day... or at least, it should have been...? Instead, dark scorch marks were smeared across the building, and
For some reason, not a single light was on inside, making the interior look dark.
The Center Director and staff members usually said they got to work by 8 o'clock.
It was 8:20 now, so all the lights should already have been on.
Something strange wasn't limited to my field placement alone.
Was what I was seeing right now even real?
Just yesterday, there had been a building standing firmly on this spot....
No, to be precise, a small building that had stood next to my field placement had vanished.
The smell of burnt material hung heavy in the air, and charcoal-like soot lay in a collapsed mess.
Looking now, I could see that the playground attached to our facility had also sustained damage.
It looked like the fire had only just been suppressed — firefighters were in the middle of removing their turnout gear and pouring cold bottled water over their heads,
along with police officers wearing jackets printed with the words "Scientific Investigation Unit," were all visible.
And I wasn't the only one watching this scene — the Center Director and staff members,
plus residents living in the surrounding area were also standing around spectating.
First, I walked slowly over to the Center Director and tapped her shoulder lightly.
She spun around, smiled bitterly, and stepped away from the crowd of people.
"You came in early. But even if you arrive early, you can't leave early, you know? Haha."
"Hello, Center Director. But what happened to the building next door?"
"Well. The police are currently working on checking the CCTV and figuring out whether it was accidental or arson, so..."
So they hadn't determined the cause yet.
And with the situation being what it was, they must have been unable to enter the adjacent building, which was why they were all outside.
Now all the things I'd been curious about came together neatly and resolved themselves.
Then, the new questions were: why that building had burned down like that, and what the building owner was doing right now.
If it turned out to be a simple fire or one caused by negligence, the building owner was in serious trouble.
I distinctly remembered that this building housed a bakery, a piano academy, and a Taekwondo studio.
"So none of you know the cause of the fire, correct?"
"Oh my! That's what I keep telling you, Officer-nim! Our bakery doesn't use gas, we don't!"
"Our piano academy is the same, and so is the Taekwondo studio upstairs."
"Hm. There are no gas-using facilities here to begin with, you see."
Seeing the police officer holding a notepad and writing things down here and there, the people standing there must have been the tenants of the building in question.
From what I could hear, the building owner was not among those people.
The facilities were basically places that didn't use gas, and aside from the bakery, there was no reason for anyone to use electricity excessively either.
And according to a witness, the fire had started around the flower bed next to the building.
Then it really was arson?
What kind of lunatic.....
"Senior Inspector Park. You need to take a look at this."
"What is it?"
"We reviewed the CCTV based on the statement from the witness who reported it at dawn, and guess what showed up."
".............!"
The officers' eyes changed.
Reporters, who had arrived at some point carrying cameras and had begun taking photos, all rushed at the police at once.
"Senior Inspector! What was the cause of the fire?!"
"Fans are demanding answers right now!"
"J-just a moment, please!"
The high-ranking officer, Senior Inspector Park, began rewatching the CCTV footage from the beginning.
The video recorded on the CCTV couldn't be seen, but the recorded audio was so poor in quality and mixed with so much noise that it was barely audible unless you strained your ears.
The reporters, who had been noisy just moments before, suddenly fell silent,
and the people standing there, whether reading the atmosphere or running out of things to say, all quietly shut their mouths.
"Ahem... first, our investigation headquarters will classify this fire as 'arson.' The relevant video file will, after mosaicking..."
"Senior Inspector, the quality's so low there's no need to mosaic it — we can just release it as-is."
"Is that so? Then I'll upload it to the NAS."
Once the police announced they would upload the file to the NAS for media sharing, the reporters who had been holding cameras the size of large cannons
dashed to their cars, pulled out laptops, then ran back outside and sat on the ground, and began searching frantically.
"This is...."
"Excuse me, mind if I take a look for a moment?"
"Huh? Who— eek!"
I walked up to a reporter who looked somewhat young and placed a hand on her shoulder.
Wondering who it was, the reporter turned her head, saw my face, and jumped in shock.
"Yoo.... Yoo Seong-hwan.... n-no, Seong-hwan-ssi!"
Hearing that voice, the reporters all turned around simultaneously.
They looked curious about what I was doing at a place like this.
"Hello. Have we met somewhere before?"
I could only remember a few reporters, so it was entirely possible we had exchanged greetings before and I simply didn't recall.
I'd been taught that at times like these, you should approach reporters kindly and be careful not to create any weird friction.
"Back... back when you were filming the Saemsung CF...."
"Ah... I'm sorry. I'm not very good at remembering faces."
"No, no, it's not that we'd introduced ourselves... but why is Seong-hwan-ssi here..."
"See the Sorimsa Center next door? I'm doing my social welfare field placement there."
"I see...."
Saying she understood now why I was here, she began typing furiously on her laptop.
Looked like she was planning to write an article for the entertainment section.
Well, I considered it a natural give-and-take — you give me information, I give you information.
Actually, I could even offer better information.
"I'll give you some other info too, so let me see the CCTV footage."
"Sh-should I?"
At the same time, requests came from all around — they'd show me the CCTV footage if I'd come over to their side.
They went on about how their laptop was UHD so I'd see it clearly and whatnot, but since the CCTV footage quality was low to begin with, wouldn't it make little difference anyway?
"Hmm...."
I furrowed my brow a little as I looked at the reporter's laptop screen.
Even generously speaking, you couldn't call the CCTV footage good quality — the light bloom was so severe it stung my eyes.
Only by squinting hard could you barely make out a person's face.
At this level, maybe WVGA resolution?
"Here, you see this person?"
"Oh."
The reporter, having already scanned the footage once, checked the key part and showed it to me.
It was hard to see clearly, but someone who looked very familiar was opening the cap of a plastic bottle and pouring its contents onto the flower bed.
And only then did I notice — both of that person's arms were covered in unpleasant tattoos.
It was dark and the quality was poor, so it was difficult to see clearly, but those black tattoos.....
"Could it be the Tattooed Woman? Center Director! Seonsaengnim! Come here and take a look at this footage!"
At my call, the seonsaengnims rushed over at once and began taking in the footage.
I quietly slipped out of the crowd and walked to the front of the building.
"Ugh, it still smells like oil."
To cause all this chaos with a single one-liter bottle — what kind of nerve must she have?
The tenants and the building owner were going to be the ones stuck with the headache for no reason.
"Senior Inspector! The building owner is here!"
"Oh? Wait just a moment."
The subordinate approached a large van.
I had assumed they'd be rich just because they were the building owner, but I was surprised to see they were riding in such an enormous van.
Come to think of it, A-ra used to ride around in a big van like that too.
I remembered there was a TV, a fridge, and all sorts of things inside.
"I'm Senior Inspector Park Tae-won from Seoul XX Police Station. Have you heard the news?"
"My manager told me it was arson. Is it really arson?"
A gentle and soft voice.
In that moment, as if my soul had been snatched away, I couldn't help but stare.
This wasn't just a voice I'd heard somewhere before.
It was because it closely resembled — no, matched — the voice of the person I loved most.
That person owned buildings here and there.
Could that burned building really belong to her too?
Smiling bitterly, I walked slowly toward where the van was.
The police officer continued talking, unaware that I was standing right next to her.
I had been in a blind spot, so the woman sitting inside the van must not have noticed me either.
"Then please step out for a moment..."
The officer moved aside from the door where she'd been standing until just now.
The woman inside, wearing sunglasses and a mask, hopped down lightly, checked the state of her clothes, and stretched her arms out wide.
That gesture was A-ra herself.
"A-ra Noona?"
"Huh?"
She turned to the side, and our eyes met.
As I'd suspected — the owner of that burned-down building was A-ra.