Those Days, Those Days, Those Days (1)
Yoo Min-su's house was as neat as it had always been. Since his family had gone missing, I'd expected some kind of messy environment, but it seemed they were still paying attention to maintenance.
I sat down on the sofa right away, and Yoo Min-su sat a little distance away. I'd secretly turned on the phone recorder, and without knowing that, he immediately started talking.
"Last year, someone sent the Telegram address pretending to be you, Hae-in, to people around me who were in bad situations like me... I logged in... It seemed like ridiculous gossip, and if you sent insulting posts to them, you got coins per task... When someone tried it as a joke and they actually transferred the coins, both you and I... Everyone thought Choi Byung-su was the one who...."
Ha. The story that they attacked someone for money was always...
"Even though my family has a name, we couldn't get that much money... Everyone was probably hypnotizing themselves that it was me and just wanted the money... right?"
"B-back then, honestly, we all thought Choi Byung-su was just trying to screw you over. The things said about those three were so ridiculous that even if the personal attacks stung, everyone knew it was nonsense, so it would cause a brief stir and then die down..."
"All of it—the malicious comments you guys posted on those three's SNS—was the truth."
"W-we were shocked later too... That Lee Ga-rang's parents were really biological siblings, and that Sang-hui's biological mother was Japanese... Ah, no... As for Na-rin... Haa."
"What are you sighing for? In the end, you were the only one who got specifically singled out and took on all the other bastards' karma alone. I became the mastermind of the gaslighting and ended up unable to attend a decent university...."
"That's... the same for me..."
"You think it's just me? My family, relatives, and connections in the legal world all see me as a criminal beyond depravity!"
Pressing my tired head with one hand, I glared at him and vented my irritation. Yoo Min-su accepted my anger without complaint. You deserve this.
"So? You didn't call me here just to talk about this, right?"
"At that time... everyone was so focused on receiving the coins that we subtly mentioned the Telegram to Choi Byung-su, but he genuinely didn't understand and asked what we were talking about... We thought he was just pretending not to be the one doing it, but it seems that guy really had no connection to the Telegram incident at all, Hae-in."
"The guy who always growled at me whenever he saw me... How can you be so sure that Choi bastard didn't even try from the beginning?"
"After the incident... Byung-su kept getting genuinely angry, saying he didn't know anything about it... So we, desperate, secretly hacked his phone when he was away and checked. We didn't tell the police... He was really innocent...."
I frowned. So it wasn't something done by Choi Byung-su, who had a deep grudge against me... Then who the hell....
"I see. We've confirmed Choi Byung-su definitely wasn't involved. Good information. But why were you sucking up to that bastard anyway? Drunk on the little bit of honey he gave you, you went around spitting cheap words everywhere... In the end you leaked your own personal information on Telegram and took all the karma yourself. As soon as you ended up like that, Choi Byung-su treated you like a ghost. All that cheap selling of yourself disappeared as settlement money, didn't it."
"...You're right. I was just a clown to him...."
Yoo Min-su had opened his useless mouth for Choi Byung-su and grown used to cheap sweetness... His sense of taste dulled until he started eating anything, eventually becoming a school violence perpetrator like me. He had inherited all the karma.
Yoo Min-su had testified that he wasn't sure if the one who orchestrated it through Telegram was really me, but the other accomplices had reacted on Telegram saying it seemed like it really was me before they reported it to the police. In the end, only the two of us....
"...The horrific thing the Baekhyeom Sect was trying to carry out without the world's knowledge... The real group chat name was 'Baekhwa'?"
"I went in and it seemed like they were just talking with people they knew... They used slang only they understood, things like flame purification or immortality... At the time there wasn't much, so I looked around a bit and left. That's what I remember...."
Baekhwa. The name of the extremist crime that was the Baekhyeom Sect's ultimate salvation ritual—a festival of mass arson and destruction.
In the 1980s, when my grandfather was still alive and serving as Chief Prosecutor of the Violent Crimes Division at the Seoul District Prosecutors' Office. He never missed any suspicious clues, identified the victims, and through a joint military-police subjugation operation turned the entire country to ash, annihilating the Baekhyeom Sect that had tried to cover the nation in flames for their so-called salvation.
It was nothing less than the honor of our family...
To me, who had fallen silent for a moment, Yoo Min-su conveyed another fact.
"Among the people in that group chat... There was a Mr. Yang... and a Mr. Kim... Ah, it's certain. There was a guy who looked like a high school student named Kim Do-hun!"
The name of Kim Do-hun, grandson of the DM Industrial Development chairman, had been mentioned. I immediately paused the phone recording and saved it for accuracy, then opened Kim Do-hun's KakaoTalk profile and showed him the picture.
The result was...
"Yes, that's definitely the guy! His distinctive looks made sure I didn't forget."
It was now confirmed that Do-hun was connected to Choi Byung-su's network. The fabricated school violence case against me had to be the continuation of a relationship whose roots stretched back to my grandfather's generation. There was no other conclusion.
But whoever it was that targeted Lee Ga-rang, Cha Sang-hui, and Gong Na-rin... I didn't know who, but my precious ones—no, even now they are precious... Definitely....
In the end, the remnants of the Baekhyeom Sect are tampering with my grandfather's dedication to the nation... Is that what this is?
It became clear that these absurd cultists were still living in the present... and inflicting violence on innocent people. And Yoo Min-su's family as well... Could it be?
"Your family—it's not a simple missing persons case. It's the Baekhyeom Sect... Am I right in what I'm guessing?"
Yoo Min-su, who had stopped crying, nodded and handed me his phone. A video began to play.
Yoo Min-su—no, it was Min-su—stopped the video here. His parents had poured these preposterous words onto their only child. This was unbelievable....
"This... is really your parents, right...?"
"Yeah... It started suddenly from last year......"
Min-su just kept his head down, holding back his sobs. All I could do was pat him on the back. After crying silently for a while, he calmed down and spoke to me.
"I'm sorry... Hae-in...."
"There's nothing to be sorry for. You've been through a lot too."
"There's still... more of the video left... You need to see the rest...."
Min-su played the paused video again.
The lunatics' knife-wielding declaration was over, and I found it hard to believe. I stood up from the sofa, looked at Min-su, and spoke with concern.
"Let's go. The police station nearby accepts complaints even at night, so let's head there right now."
"Uh, Hae-in... Then I... will..."
"Don't let that sophistry shake you! Those aren't your parents! Don't be swayed by the insane ramblings of lunatics. Hurry."
I barely got Min-su to his feet and put on my shoes. The reason I'd been framed for school violence was... the Baekhyeom Sect. I didn't know how the cult leader—who had already become dew on the execution ground and left behind no ashes—had returned, but they had to pay for the crimes they had committed against me, my family, my precious girls, and everyone else.
I left the villa with Min-su and started walking toward the nearby police station. The blunt night air greeted us, and Min-su was trembling nonstop.
"Min-su, do you know anything about the girls? Anything solid?"
Since I had nothing else to say, I brought up the topic of the girls. If this cleared things up... would we hug and say we were sorry for misunderstanding each other? Was my heart secretly hoping for that clichéd third-rate story?
Min-su seemed to recall something and spoke.
"I was forcibly transferred too... but from what I heard indirectly, Sang-hui has changed a lot... They say she's become a devil instead of an angel now."
"A devil? She's not that kind of kid...."
The image of Cha Sang-hui I had glimpsed while riding the bus rose in my mind again. It was probably... because of her mother.... It was hard for me to say out loud, and Min-su couldn't say it either. I stopped walking for a moment, lost in thought about Sang-hui, and Min-su stopped too before speaking again.
"Sang-hui's mother secretly took out loans under her father's name... Plus it happened in Japan... We all thought it was all a fabrication made by Byung-su...."
"Sorry. Seems I brought up a depressing story for no reason."
I set the gloomy topic aside and was about to head back toward the police station when—
"Let go of me!!"
The sharp woman's voice belonged to Cha Sang-hui. Beside her, a group of drunk men and women who looked about the same age were deliberately picking a fight with her. This was the entertainment district, after all... the kind of place where people who had thrown away all restraint were common.
"Ha... I have no obligation to pay you anything. Just leave already."
The drunk guy tried to say something else but bit his tongue, then writhed in sudden pain. The others around him seemed to find it funny. The one at the center of the group was probably from the family that had been scammed by Sang-hui's mother... This was...
The quarrel continued. Without hesitation I pushed my way into the crowd. Min-su didn't want to get involved but timidly followed me anyway.
"Stop. I get the situation, but she doesn't have anything left. She gave up her inheritance and has already paid what little she could to settle the debt. You're drunk right now, so just go. This will only get worse."
I subtly showed them the police baton and told them to leave. The drunk guy looked like he was about to explode in anger, but in the end he just spat curses at his companions and walked off.
Cha Sang-hui looked calm on the surface, but inside she was trembling.
"Sang-hui, what are you doing here? Walking around smoking? You used to be the model student who'd appear in textbooks..."
Cha Sang-hui looked at me and then at Min-su. Her bright red eyes stabbed at my vision as she answered.
Sang-hui adjusted her loosely tied hair that hung low beneath her neck and only sneered at me. Min-su got scared and retreated further behind me. I took a quiet step closer to the changed Sang-hui.
"Don't be as vicious toward me as Ga-rang was. I'm really struggling here."
"Struggling? Unlike a leisurely young master like you, I have a lot to do."
Under the neon signs, Sang-hui simply waved me away, telling me to get lost. Since we had to head to our original destination, I gradually moved away from her and spoke one last time.
"Whatever you're doing... don't do anything dangerous. At least promise me that."
Another precious connection I had met again... only carried the damp smell of nicotine. I endured the curses and led the trembling Yoo Min-su back toward the police station.
Hiss.
A finished cigarette butt flew at me from behind. When I turned, it was one Cha Sang-hui had thrown. I was about to complain when she tried to give me another finished cigarette, so I simply flipped her off and kept walking. She had probably returned the middle finger behind my back. I didn't turn around again, so I couldn't be sure.