Time to Clean

National Route 7 lay drowned in the dark of the mountains. A black SUV slid to a stop beside the wreckage the blast had torn apart, and the driver's door came open with a hard clack as he set his foot on the ground.

A black tailored suit. It did not announce itself at a glance, but stitches had split here and there, and the hems of the stretch trousers were shoved up rough. On his feet, black combat boots instead of dress shoes. He wore the shape of a suit, and under it sat something raw and unfinished, impossible to miss.

He set a cigarette between his lips and flicked the lighter. The hand that lit it was thick, callus driven into every knuckle. He was not smiling. If he had, the face would only have been more frightening.

Without a word he walked a few steps toward the wreckage, knelt on the debris, and picked up a single bloodstained shard of metal. Then the corner of his mouth lifted, eerie. It was not a smile. It was the look of a beast that simply knew, from somewhere, that it smelled blood.

"Ha..."

What left him was not cigarette smoke. It was rage. He had been scanning the ground around him; now he rose.

"This wasn't an accident."

At that single line the men around him tensed as one. He jerked his chin.

"Pull every camera. From the mouth of the highway through this whole stretch. Every car that stopped, every car that slowed, every bastard who got on the expressway. Miss even one, and you can assume a finger comes off."

Heard in passing, it might have sounded like an empty threat. The men under him knew better than anyone that it was not. Truly—if they lost the trail, their fingers would fly.

"Yes, boss."

So the moment the order dropped, the network lit up. The web of the Seongjin Association ran wider and deeper than the police. Information brokers, taxi drivers, temps at the district office, even the mechanics in the garages—one phone call, and all those shadows moved.

"...If we don't kill the one who did this, we die."

The Seongjin Association. They treated revenge as a duty, and their method was a thorough hunt.

"What is this... are they mocking us?"

Detective Team Leader Lee Gwangsu muttered it low as he circled the wreckage. Blood-stink tangled with burned plastic and the smell of powder—a wretched scene. But the place he actually stopped was not the wreckage. It was a cigarette butt, half-buried off to one side.

"A cigarette?"

Junior detective Kim Doyun tilted his head.

"Not just a butt."

Lee Gwangsu worked it into an evidence bag with a gloved hand.

"Jang Iljae of the Seongjin Association. That bastard always leaves one trace like this when the job's done."

"On purpose?"

"So he can show it to us. See? Late again."

The last of it was bitter. Someone had already come and gone. The CCTV box was dead, and the dashcams nearby showed the marks of having been collected.

"What's left now isn't who the Seongjin Association killed. It's counting how many times we've stood by and watched."

He was not talking about this once. At every site the Association passed through, the only evidence worth collecting was what they had left on purpose. It was a warning. Like a wager over who would find it first, an organization with power at its back was challenging public authority head-on.

"Sir, you're saying the Seongjin Association already came and went?"

The question came from a subordinate as Lee Gwangsu walked back in.

"Yeah. Under ten minutes, they stripped the whole scene and vanished."

"This is insane. How many times is this now?"

The Gangbuk drug route. The Yangcheon kidnapping. The serial arsons in Guro. Every case that carried the Seongjin Association's name was cleaned up by their hands first, and the police were left to mop up after. Of course there was no evidence that could prove it. But the remnants left at the scenes—each clue deliberately dropped—reminded them of the impotence of public authority, as if in mockery.

Lee Gwangsu sat quietly in his chair, mouth shut. Somewhere along the way he had grown used to this reality, and that was the greater problem.

A step too late. The higher-ups said leave it alone. Heard the Seongjin side got their hands on it first again.

In investigation meetings, in reports, even at dinner after work, those lines kept coming, and little by little they were numbing him. He knew that numbness was eating him away. He had known, and he had pretended not to.

He closed his eyes slowly. Without meaning to, his fingertips pressed hard into the edge of the desk.

Rage. Self-loathing. Disgust. All of it aimed at himself.

"And this is supposed to be the police?"

He knew that the moment those words left his mouth, he would no longer be able to look away. So until now he had stayed silent, compromised, moved with the grain of reality. Not anymore.

As if the resolve had settled, he picked up the radio.

"This case gets pulled up as a full Criminal Investigation Division assignment. Cyber team, communications investigation—put the requests in. All of it."

The air in the office changed.

"You're really going through with it, no matter what upstairs says?"

"Fuck it. Yeah! Whatever they say up there, this time we catch them first. The police have some pride left. This time we don't lose the jump."

Someone looked up. Someone else let out a quiet sigh. It was not surrender. It was agreement. Not fear—awakening. Lee Gwangsu had decided he would run no longer.

He would not become a detective who could not remember a victim's face, a detective who remembered cases only as numbers. This time, in the name of public authority, he would reach before the Seongjin Association.

The chain of command began to move just as fast.

"There are signs the Seongjin Association is involved. Leave it like this and we'll be identifying another suspect who's already been cleaned up."

At the report from the chief of investigations, the air in the conference room grew heavy all at once. Silence. A few senior officers with their heads lowered. No one spoke the Association's name outright, but everyone in that room ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠knew the weight of it better than anyone.

The Seongjin Association. Not a simple violent gang. An entity that had long since ridden the currents of politics and business and seeped all the way to the ragged edge of power. Senior officers passed over for promotion because they had dug into them. Detectives whose families were threatened while they investigated. There had even been internal memos ordering cases reduced to no charges.

So until now, everyone had stayed silent.

"The wise move is to bury it again this time."

This time was no different. That was the way of surviving they had all learned in their bones.

But then—

"Attach support to the Criminal Investigation Division. This time Intelligence goes with them."

A single line ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from the commander, drawn like a hard line. A few could not hide the shock on their faces.

"Hold on, Chief. The Seongjin Association isn't an opponent we can handle. There's already precedent—people who got tangled with them and took discipline from upstairs. And we can't ignore the political fallout."

A department head thick with caution objected.

"And that suspect, Han Seungwoo—he's a dangerous man, tied to the murder of a relative and a Seongjin killing besides. Is he someone public authority ought to protect?"

A few nodded at his words. Another picked up at once.

"That's exactly it. Because he's dangerous, we have all the more reason ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to find him first. If the Seongjin Association gets to him before we do... this time it's truly over."

In the conference room, quiet for a moment, the commander looked straight ahead and asked.

"The suspect. What was the name again?"

"Han Seungwoo."

That name. A name that had risen and fallen countless times in recent internal meetings. Kin-slaying, aggravated assault, and a connection to the death of an organization member. In a case on the verge of breaking in the press, if the police lost the jump to the organization again, it would mean more than simple incompetence. It would mean the absence of public authority itself.

The commander nodded, heavy.

"Full assignment. Intelligence and Criminal Investigation, all of them. Cyber Investigation, the communications trace team, the missing-persons unit. Commit everything."

An officer who had been objecting until a moment ago asked, carefully.

"Won't the higher-ups... have something to say?"

The commander closed his eyes for a moment.

"Whatever they say upstairs, if we step back this time, we won't be able to call ourselves police anymore. Not to the people. Not to our own institution. Not to ourselves."

The room went quiet. No one answered easily. But inside that heavy silence, the bare minimum of pride carried by the name police was still alive. And the commander said, quietly,

The police protect citizens. Among them are victims, and criminals too—a body that exists to judge those crimes by law. At least now, in this moment, the police had to move before the organized thugs.

Three substations near the scene. Road checkpoints. Cooperation at the toll plazas. Even in the dead of night, investigation vehicles, a communications analysis team, and missing-persons personnel gathered one after another.

The signs burned along the roads, and drones combed the mountain highway inch by inch. Lee Gwangsu held the radio and gave the order, calm.

"Target: Han Seungwoo. We have to find him before the Seongjin Association. This time, let's show them that the police protect citizens from the gangs."

Lee Gwangsu believed. They were called dog-cops, a tool for balancing power, mocked and condemned from every side—and still he believed the institution called the police was righteous. Now that everyone had joined hands, he was certain that no matter how the thugs rampaged, they could arrest the suspect before those men did.

I steadied my breath. Not because I was tired. Not because I was afraid. Only because I had waited a long time for this moment to arrive.

My learning is short, but I know this much. In this country there is no perfect crime. Even a national highway on the outskirts is packed with cameras on every side. No one can slip clean through a net spread in every direction.

So I exposed myself. On purpose—stretch by stretch, section by section—I let the cameras catch me.

But there was something they could not predict. Common sense.

Who would ever imagine that, through the Karma I had absorbed, I could move faster than a human being?

A short while ago I had been picked up a hundred and twenty miles from here. Now I had shown myself in a place utterly removed from there. So the police, and everyone else chasing me, would find nothing but the traces of where I had already passed.

I lifted my head. Before my eyes, a neon sign glowing blue, and across it, clear, the words Police Substation. I looked at it in silence. It was not unfamiliar. No—it was far too familiar.

Back then I was ten. In the dead of winter I burst out the front gate and knocked on this substation's door, barefoot in the snow. And that man came out. Short hair. A shit-brown jumper. A face forty if he was a day.

I still remember. The eyes that looked at my hands. And—

"Aigoo. You again."

That one line. I had gone to them for help, and not once had they been on my side. Not a single one of them. They arrived in a patrol car and paid more attention to my uncle's mouth than to my eyes.

I was only a ten-year-old child. My cheek had split. My teeth were broken. My clothes were torn. I asked for help covered in blood.

"Kids these days, I swear, they just don't listen."

"I'm telling you, he's a strange one. Discipline him a little harder."

"This is what happens when you spoil them. Aigoo, look at those vicious eyes. Grow up and he'll be a criminal for sure. Tsk, tsk, tsk."

Their reports always said the same thing.

Even when I coughed blood, they did not ask. Why I had been hit. How often. When I was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a little older, they even cuffed me for grabbing my uncle by the collar. And inside the holding cell, the violence no one could see came back around.

That was the police. No—trash wearing the mask of the police.

I had wondered, once. Even for a neighborhood substation, could public authority rot this far over a few coins of bribe money? I learned the answer through the sleep-talk of my uncle, drunk and passed out.

The officers of this substation were tightly tied to the gangs. Tight enough that you might as well have called them one cell of that organization. They took money to look the other way on crackdowns, and they pocketed kickbacks for burying illegal labor, concealed drugs, even assault. My abuse had been a piece of that money. In exchange for my blood, my pain, the breaking of my mind, they collected a day's wages.

The ones still left in this substation. The successors of those officers from back then. The bastards who wrote the reports alongside him and turned their faces from my tears. I remember them. That is why I came back.

The blue building in front of me. An exterior always kept neat, like a symbol of justice. But I know. Inside, it is rotten. Rank, filthy, festering from the root.

A chime rang as I opened the door slowly and stepped inside. The moment I set a foot across the threshold, a familiar smell stabbed my nose. Coffee, cigarettes, and the smell of evil left to rot.

I said it a moment ago, but my learning is short. One thing, though, I know for certain. If something is filthy, it has to be cleaned. And this substation was a place of corruption in desperate need of cleaning—and of eradication.