Retirement
The day I first became a hero, I swore an oath.
These two hands would be no weapon for killing. They would be a shield for saving lives—for citizens and colleagues, of course, and even for villains who had not yet taken a life. So long as they kept to that line, I would never cross it.
The Hongdae Hero Association Branch. The moment I stepped into the building I had trudged in and out of for ten sickening years, the muttering started all around me.
"Huh? Isn't that Hardline? You know—the hero who was the first ever demoted out of S-rank……."
"Yeah, that's him. I heard Branch Chief Park Jincheol pushed hard for it. But didn't they say he got fired this time? What's he doing here?"
"Shh. He'll hear you."
Yeah. I already heard every word.
I ignored the stares and walked to the end of the fifth-floor corridor.
Hongdae Branch Chief's Office
Knock, knock.
"Come in."
I opened the heavy door. Branch Chief Park Jincheol was leaned back on a leather sofa, flipping through documents. He didn't so much as raise his head.
"You're here?"
A page rustled under his fingers, and a thin sneer slipped out of him.
"You see them now and then. Fools who delude themselves into thinking the organization can't turn without them. Dig one well long enough, and that particular arrogance is a hole people fall into."
Thud. Only then did he set the papers down and flick a glance my way.
"Most of them, mind you, start by lecturing you on how many long years they've devoted. From the organization's point of view, that means absolutely nothing. Heh. Even a delusion ought to know its pla—"
"—The one deluding himself is you, not me. You done talking?"
"What?"
Why did every bastard who sat up high have a tongue that long? I nearly fell asleep. You son of a bitch.
"It's not whatever garbage you're imagining, so quit the nonsense and take this."
I tossed a notebook onto his desk. His eyes dropped to it, then came back up to me.
"No—hold on. Why have you been talking down to me this whole time……."
"You're not my superior anymore. Still want to be waited on? Looking to get it for free?"
Must be the bald head. Man loves a free meal. Not a hair on his conscience, either.
I tapped the desk with a fingertip and went on.
"Read this, and keep it safe. Ten years of notes on villains are in there."
Abilities, weaknesses, patterns of movement—every villain I had faced in this city across the last decade, written down one by one.
"However much of a shitshow this is, you don't leave without handing the work over."
Even if I walked away, what crime had the heroes who stayed committed—or the juniors still to come? It was my last courtesy, thrown their way so they wouldn't go off somewhere and die like dogs.
"So you copy it down properly, and see that the kids each get their share."
"…Ha. And here I wondered what you were going to say."
He let out an empty laugh, lifted the notebook, and shook it in front of my face.
"So. You'll keep up the act right to the end, is that it? This is why the other heroes can't stand you."
The chair screeched as he shoved it back and stood, jabbing my shoulder with the corner of the notebook at the tail of every phrase.
"This is why. You're that stupid. That pathetic. This is why you're getting fired. You worthless piece of shit."
"…Jincheol."
"What? Jincheol? You little— what did you just sa—"
Crrrack!
I seized his shoulder and crushed it where it stood.
"Aaaagh!?"
"Get a grip. I told you I'm not your subordinate anymore."
Park Jincheol screamed, unable to bear the pain, his body seizing. I picked up the notebook he'd dropped, brushed off the dust, slipped it into his pocket, and gave it a couple of pats.
"Deliver it properly. Unless you want to see me again."
"You— you son of a bitch! How dare you lay a hand on me, the Hongdae branch chief— ghk!?"
Thud!
A blow to the solar plexus folded him before he could even draw a breath. I left him where he had collapsed and walked out of the branch chief's office without a second glance.
"Ah. Right. Severance. I forgot to mention that."
The important things always came back to me after everything was already over.
"Well. They'll wire it into the account on their own."
I stretched, long and slow. Ten years of a hero's life. The end of it was emptier than I had expected, but I had no regrets. At least I had kept my convictions through to the last—and I had kept them for quite a while. That was enough.
"Well. The mood out there is pure celebration, anyway."
I turned on my phone and opened the Community. The retirement news hadn't even dropped, and already the Hero Gallery was throwing a festival.
"A festival all on its own."
A hollow laugh escaped me as I read. Judging by the reactions, it really had been about time I retired.
"Well. Whoever's left will handle the rest just fine."
I walked on without looking back. The heroes around me were still murmuring, but perhaps because I had already quit, I couldn't have cared less. I was waiting for the elevator when Lee Hayeon stepped out of it, and we came face to face.
"……."
A brief silence. She took in my face, then shifted her gaze toward the branch chief's office, and a thin smile tugged at her mouth.
"See? What did I tell you?"
With that, she brushed straight past me. I watched her back, and the heroes trailing after her, and shook my head.
"Right. Sort it out among yourselves."
It wasn't as if I would ever see them again. The moment I passed through the Association's main gate, clear, cold air brushed the tip of my nose.
Bzzzt—
Right on cue, a vibration stirred in my pocket, and a message arrived with it.
Access to the Hero Association network has been permanently restricted. The registered hero-only mailbox will be closed.
"Would you look at these bastards. They hemmed and hawed forever when it came to firing me, but cutting the network? That one moves at the speed of light."
I let out a short laugh and lifted my head. Warm sunlight lay across my face. Come to think of it, how long had it been since I looked up at a sky this blue?
"Chase villains every day and you forget the sky is even there."
From here on, a view like this might not be so bad.
"Moving first, then. Too many familiar mugs in this neighborhood to start over here."
Heroes I had worked beside. Those sickening villains. No reason left to see their faces, or to cross paths at all.
"Yaaawn. I'll catch a movie on the way."
I set off without a backward glance.
Dawn of the day after Ahn Taeyoung walked out of the Association.
The outskirts of Hongdae. A dark, empty lot in a redevelopment zone waiting to be torn down. In the chilly dawn air, a man in a crisp coat, fedora pulled low, tapped his wristwatch. The A-rank bomber villain, Blackjack. Behind him, two enormous cargo containers sat side by side.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Special detonators, laced thick along the outer walls, blinked red. One side held civilians sobbing in terror; the other, sidekicks gagged at the mouth. Open either container, and the opposite one would be blown apart entire.
"Keh-heh… Perfect. Ah. What a sublime dilemma this is!"
It was his ambitious masterpiece, inspired by a classic hero film he had seen a few days prior and prepared through the whole night—this, and nothing else.
"The citizens you have strained so desperately, all this time, to protect—or the young shoots of a hero meant to follow after you? Come! Which of them will you choose, Hardline!?"
While other heroes fretted over cameras, or spouted the garbage about never negotiating with terrorists, Hardline alone had always met his work with a straight face. A man like that—could he truly find the answer?
Blackjack waited, bright with expectation, for him to arrive. An hour had already passed since he sent the coordinates and the cipher to Ahn Taeyoung's Hero Association mail.
"His steps must be heavy with the choice. Yes. I understand. A hero is always a lonely thing."
So saying, he set a cigarette between his lips in high spirits. And time passed.
4:30 a.m.
"Hmm. A little traffic, maybe? No way Gangbyeonbuk-ro is jammed at this hour."
5:40 a.m.
Cigarette butts lay piled thick across the ground.
"Don't tell me he blew a tire? No—wait, he flies here… Aha! It's cold, so he's taking his sweet time bundling up before he comes."
Blackjack shivered and sniffled. At some point he had sunk into a squat and begun to nod off. And so, seven in the morning. Beyond the abandoned factory, a blinding sun had climbed fully into the sky. Seated on a rusted oil drum, Blackjack stared blankly at the containers, still perfectly intact.
"……."
He wasn't coming. More than four hours sitting in a wind like a blade, and not a single ant had shown its face. He looked up at the round sun, unable to believe it.
"What the fuck."
Why isn't he coming.
Then a voice crawled out through a gap in the container.
"U-um… when are we going to die? It's really cold……."
"If nothing else, something to eat……."
Clang!
In the end Blackjack kicked the drum and roared at the sky as if something in him had detonated.
"Shut up!! I'm not killing you! I said I'm not killing you!!"
He snatched up a wire cutter and, venting, ripped out the disarming leads he had spent all night setting.
Bang! Bang!
He kicked the container doors open, hacked roughly through the ropes, and snarled.
"All of you, get out! Shop's closed today, so go home already!"
"P-pardon?"
"You don't understand words? Hardline isn't coming, so blowing you up would only waste my powder! Are you leaving or not!?"
At the bellow, the hostages began to flee in an awkward scramble. Heedless of them, he clutched his phone, thoroughly worked up.
"H-how dare you… ignore this body? Me, Blackjack?"
Damn it. First, thaw.
Beneath the parasol of a nearby convenience store, worn thin, Blackjack poured hot water into a cup of ramen and moved to send the man another message.
"Hardline, you bastard. Some hero—turning his alerts off and going to sleep, or whatever it is he's doing……."
But in that instant, the finger scrolling the screen stopped dead.
"……."
For a moment, he doubted his own eyes.
"…What the hell kind of bullshit is this?"
Bloodshot veins stood up in both of Blackjack's eyes as he stared down at the screen, a red killing intent rising there.
"Who……."
Snap.
The wooden chopsticks in his grip broke clean in half.
"Who dares to retire……?"
And at that same hour, Blackjack was not the only villain who saw the notice.