Judgment Is Not Over

The air in the intensive care unit was still cold. But now, just a little, it had changed.

"Hhh... huff..."

His daughter's badly swollen belly rose and fell, slowly, so very slowly. She was still alive. Still holding on. Still... not dead.

Daeun's mother knelt there, clasping the hand of the daughter who gripped the oxygen tube. The stench of blood and medicine hung thick in the room, but a vibration that seemed to pierce straight through all of it traveled up from her fingertips and seeped into her whole body.

Beep. Beep.

The phone rang again.

She stared at the screen for a long time. A short sentence. For her, though, it was the end of a revenge more than ten years in the making.

She couldn't breathe. It had taken far too long. Too many nights spent crying just to endure, and for far too long, no one had called the crime to account.

And now that monster's sins had been laid bare, one by one. Before the eyes of countless watchers, the woman's arrogant face had been ruined past recognition, and at last the Judge had cast her down into hell.

Quietly, she set the phone she was holding on the back of her daughter's hand. A small hand. A hand losing its warmth, and still alive. With that hand, she made her touch the screen.

Tap.

The screen flickered, and the words rose up: selection complete.

"...You saw, didn't you, Daeun...?"

Her throat closed. The ends of her words went soft.

"Mom... was watching. And now... you've seen it too. How that woman fell apart..."

She bowed her head low over her knees. A stifled sob broke from her, quiet as a heart going out.

And there was another.

A woman sat in the corner of a café terrace, crying without a sound. A flight attendant driven out of her job by force. Remembering the words the owner, Oh Hyeongyeong, had thrown at her—the moment she was humiliated in the cabin and fired—she pressed her phone.

Tap.

There was a young man, too, kneeling before a grave. Oh Manbok—the man who had priced human beings down to the last coin—and the industrial accident of the father he had turned his back on. Before his father's memorial portrait, the son pressed his palms together and tapped the phone.

Tap.

That day, those millions of Likes piled up in silence. No one incited them. No one forced them. Those who had waited for that day simply reached out of their own accord, because for the first time the judgment they had longed for had been carried out.

The choice was not the end of revenge. It was something like a small breath—the breath by which survivors of agony might begin to live again.

Only then could the victims cry as human beings. Breathe as human beings. And... hate as human beings.

They knew. That today, this revenge was only the beginning. And that it was the Judge who had opened that beginning.

It had cleared a majority, and yet fully forty-nine percent of those who watched the judgment chose Dislike. Most of them feared brutal punishment, and the collapse of law, order, and the system itself, should judgment be carried out by a single private person.

Of course, in some corner of the heart there was also the anxiety that his blade might turn toward them for sins of their own, however slight. Those who do good are few. Those who have sinned are many.

But some chose Dislike for reasons entirely unlike that majority. They had their reasons. In truth... it had always been this way.

The president of a news company who rigged public opinion with false articles and buried the truth under paid lobby pieces. The commissioner of the food and drug ministry who took bribes from a multinational food corporation and approved products laced with harmful ingredients.

A prosecutor who opened a compulsory investigation against the innocent and, in the end, extracted a confession of guilt. The finance chief of a major corporation who embezzled hundreds of billions through cooked accounts and, to cover it, branded the whistleblower a lunatic. A university-hospital professor who conditionally waved through ethical approval for illegal drug trials on children.

The vice president of a construction firm who concealed a worksite where people had died, shoved the blame onto subcontractors, and then threw himself into promoting luxury move-ins. An official at the office of education who buried the case of a foundation chairman's son—a sexual assailant whose crime had been smoothed over with a donation to the school.

A district mayor who stamped demolition petitioners as thugs and approved a forcible crackdown. The director of a national hospital who seated relatives with no medical license in honorary posts and siphoned off billions from the budget. And the politicians and vested interests who held power now.

If, that day, the flood of Likes had been a comfort to rage, then a portion of the Dislikes set against them was the instinct of fear. They were afraid that something called judgment and justice might one day knock on their own doors, and at the same time they could never accept such a future. What they possessed in this society was power, and they believed that power was meant to be spent not on sin, but on buying indulgences.

But now that belief was beginning to shake. They felt it too. The wave the Judge had started would not stop anymore.

Shaaa—

A wave slid over the tops of my feet and passed on. In the cold seawater, white and soft foam seeped in like a tickle. The foam vanished as if it had never been, as though to say that everything in the world would, in the end, disappear just this quietly.

Feeling the cold, I held the urn against my chest a little tighter.

A dry rustle shifted inside it. Within that small sound were three people who had once been my entire world.

A remote island whose very name no one remembers. On this shore where no one ever comes, I meant at last to let them go.

"...It's the sea."

The empty voice rode the wind and scattered over the water.

"..."

No answer came back. I moved my lips again.

"Mom... Dad... and... Eunha."

Just bringing the words out tore my heart. Memories more painful than death surged up, and I barely swallowed the sob climbing my throat.

With a soft clack, I opened the lid of the urn with care. The wind blew through, and the white, dry bone ash scattered lightly before my eyes.

The moment I looked at it, my uncle's face rose again. That beast. Resentment toward his dead sister, hatred, insult. In the end he used money as the excuse and burned my mother, my father, and little Eunha all at once. Not satisfied even with that, he meant to throw them out as food waste.

The night I heard that plan, I held my tears, put flour in their place, and secretly took my family's ashes away. And so I lived ten years with them in my arms.

"I'm sorry... I was too late, wasn't I?"

One handful, then another, I lifted the ashes onto my palm. I couldn't tell whether these were my mother's bones, my father's, or my little sister's. That fact broke my chest open all over again.

Each time the ashes rode the wind and left, memory came in like a wave.

I saw Eunha's face, laughing bright and clear. I felt my father's hand, worried, catching her by the back. My mother's warmth was still vivid—the way she smiled and spread out the gimbap.

But now not one of them remained beside me. I called to them, and instead of an answer only the wind brushed my empty chest.

Now. Now... this was truly goodbye.

I closed my eyes. The cold wind and the sound of the waves seemed about to stop my breath. I tried not to cry, but my lips trembled. My legs shook as if they might give out.

Even so, I held on with everything I had. I didn't cry. I didn't collapse. If I fell apart, there would truly be no one left to remember ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them.

"I was happy... truly... I was happy."

And for a moment I was silent.

"Thank you. For being my family... I'm sorry... for not protecting you to the end..."

With trembling fingertips I gathered the last handful of ash. Then, very slowly, so their souls might drift out over the waves... I opened my hand.

Shhhh—

In the moment the last trace scattered across the sea, sunlight poured through a break in the clouds. The light struck the ash, and it shone like glittering stars.

"..."

In that instant, the tears I had held back finally ran down my cheeks. I don't know how long I had endured them. But I didn't break into sobs. I had already spent too much time enduring alone to cry now.

I stood there a little longer, until the sunlight slipped back behind the clouds and only the quiet wind of the island circled my ears again.

I had to go back. To the cold, lonely reality. To the place where I would have to fight alone again, and endure.

But now, just for this moment, I wanted to believe. That somewhere under the sea they were waving at me, watching. That they were smiling, telling me it was all right now... that I'd done well... that I was all right.

Shaaa—

A wave wet my toes again. Slowly closing the empty urn, I murmured in a small voice.

"Goodbye... the people I loved most."

At last, the time in me that had stopped ten years ago began... to flow again.

"Your mulhoe is ready."

With the gentle voice, cold broth splashed down over the glass ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bowl. Thin slices of flounder and sea cucumber, julienned cucumber and pear, and a chili-vinegar sauce gone deep red sent up a fragrance like a cold wind.

"Thank... you."

The words thank you. They weren't familiar. I quietly bowed my head.

It was a quiet seaside village. People were scarce, and so were voices, and the sound of cars. Only the waves washed through the restaurant now and then and passed on. In that stillness I looked at the mulhoe for a long time.

As a child I couldn't eat it. Fishy, sour, some saltiness I couldn't name, closing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠around my throat. My father had loved it so much that whenever we came near the sea he always ordered a bowl. My young heart couldn't understand him. Why would anyone eat something like this? To the child I was, mulhoe was the very idea of an adult's food.

But now it was different. I picked up my chopsticks. A piece of sea cucumber, a piece of flounder, and a bite of cleanly pickled radish, lifted together into my mouth.

For an instant the tip of my tongue flinched, and savor spread. In the broth filmed with ice, the cold scent of the sea; the sharp balance of vinegar and chili sauce; a faint sweetness unfurling as it went slowly down my throat.

"...So this... was the taste."

Another piece. This time with pear. This was it. The taste my father had loved so much. Only now did I think I understood.

Ten years. The clock that had stopped back then had, somewhere along the way, begun to move. The child I was hadn't understood this taste, and had refused it. But the person I was now remembered it, accepted it, and at last could feel it. Maybe that was the first moment my father and I had ever truly met.

I quietly took another spoonful of the broth. A cold feeling spread as if it had struck the tip of my tongue.

And then—

On the anchor's face, the cruel scenes drifted past, blurred out of recognition. I had stopped my chopsticks as well.

...The Judge. At least on the television now, in the press these days, that word had become a name the world hated, and in front of it there was always a place set for the worst of terrorists.

On the screen, the voices of people I didn't know were dressing me in clothes I had never ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠worn and taking words I had never spoken out of my mouth. With one voice they condemned me, raged, and pretended to shake with fear.

But I only... quietly took another bite of mulhoe. Of course I had no intention of leaving alone a press paved over with lies and incitement.

"It's time... to find my name."

My time was moving. Because of that, neither a mask someone else had forced onto me nor the language of hate they had coined could define me. I would find my true name, and my life. Not in whatever the press felt like shouting, but in the way I chose.

Morning sunlight pierced the vast glass outer wall and seeped into the building. Past the glittering automatic doors of the lobby, reporters hurried back and forth. Amid the ringing of phones, the clatter of keyboards, and the racket of paper tangling together, the news company was preparing, today as ever, to commit murder.

Of course that murder was not done with a gun or a knife. The weapon used there was the pen. That pen sometimes cuts deeper than a blade, flies faster than a bullet, and frightens more than fire. Not a weapon for killing people, but something worse... a weapon for trampling them while leaving them alive. Today, too, someone's reputation would be torn, someone's family brought down, and someone sold off for the sake of a few tens of thousands of clicks.

The truth? Journalists say it with one mouth. We pursue only the truth. But their truth had always... flipped according to the thickness of a wallet and the mood of those in power.

Articles were calculated to the last line. For the ones who paid, flowery phrases: innovative leadership, a bold entrepreneur. When a crime came to light, it was covered under the names of privacy and an excessive investigation by the prosecution. Their sins were classified not as news, but as editorial instructions. Hidden beneath the name of the news, and the readers trained to defend them.

Toward the powerless, on the other hand, there was no mercy. Even a single mistake was turned into an article. A victim's pain became content. The screams of the bereaved were wrapped in a sensational headline. Even after they were dead, the press kept writing articles across the corpse.

And at the center of it were three people. Chief editorial writer Bang Incheol. Editor-in-chief Choi Jaegyu. And, at the peak above them all, chief executive Song Muyeol.

"I've brought the main titles for this week."

A reporter carefully handed over the papers. They carried the frame aimed at the Judge—no, at Han Seungwoo, the worst terrorist of all. Editor-in-chief Choi Jaegyu snorted a laugh.

"Keep the terrorist frame, but mix in some sentiment. That interview with the dead Seongjin Group chairman's wife, from yesterday?"

"Yes, we've cut it. Framed as the grief of a family that lost its provider."

"Good. Hit them with that. People want to see evil. Especially the evil we pick out for them."

Beside him, chief writer Bang Incheol scanned the newspaper layout.

"Change the photo placement. Blur the face, but keep the dead family sharp. It's provocative, isn't it? And use AI to cook the reaction on social media. If we don't do that these days, the advertisers walk, don't they?"

The reporter left, and President Song Muyeol opened the office door and came in. A gold-patterned tie, shoes throwing a shine, an expensive bottle of wine in his hand.

"We're all just trying to make a living, aren't we? Only the stories that make money, and the stories that line up behind power, survive. That's how the donations come in, and how they come asking for cooperation at election time."

He gave a thin laugh and lifted his glass.

"Oh, and don't touch the Land Minister going into the confirmation hearing. You know whose rice bowl we're living off, don't you? Toss out a celebrity dating story like last time and turn their eyes. And that bastard from Seongjin Group who croaked—word is something else is going to drop out of there next week. They're a grateful place. Hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single line of praise. Don't forget it."

At that, they all nodded. Then the president set a hand lightly on the chief writer's shoulder.

"Ah, Chief Bang. That gift they sent over yesterday wasn't bad. Mature, for a teenager. Well trained."

The chief writer snorted.

"We'll send something your way before long, sir. The new girls coming up in Cheongdam do exactly as they're told."

"Right, right. These days, managing that sort of character matters more than training journalists."

President, editor-in-chief, chief writer. Their laughter rose into the air like cigarette smoke, and in that smoke the truth suffocated and died.

This was no longer a stage for the truth. Refined type that wrote indulgences for the ruling class. A slaughterhouse spotlight that stoked cruelty. Backs bent beneath the weight of money and power. A holy ground for parasites who stacked their profit by selling death.

Those who have thousands of eyes and still do not see the truth, hundreds of mouths and still do not speak it. They were the press. Here, justice was a mere luxury, and the truth... only a product to be delivered.

A vast tower raised on the filth of money and power. A place where truth is left with a hand around its throat, and lies smile with an indulgence in hand. Into the heart of a news company that deserved to be called a sanctuary of parasites...

A footstep.

...one person walked in. A white shirt and black slacks. The moment that utterly ordinary man set a single foot inside, a strange air wrapped the entire building.

And then—

A flash.

Between eyes burning far too red, an arrangement of letters.

The Eye of Judgment. No one, and nothing, could hide before his eyes. Sensing the dregs of that sin all around him, he murmured quietly.

And with those words—

KUUUNG!

A single stamp of his foot sent a heavy, overwhelming tremor ringing through the whole building. Dust drifted from the ceiling. Frames fixed to the walls skewed. The vibration spread, floor by floor.

A journalist who wrote the truth may come through this judgment alive. But the hacks who lived by lies and fabrication will have to pay for swinging the power of the press so lightly—a heavy responsibility, nothing like the one they have dodged so easily until now.