Chapter 21
Chapter 21
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Translator : M.N 1391
Chapter: 21
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Kyung-wan left the half-crippled Park Dong-chil alone and gathered dry leaves and branches in the middle of the empty lot to start a fire. It was a good world. Someone had thrown away a disposable lighter, so he could start a fire easily.
Whether they saw the rising smoke or not, he heard a helicopter approaching. They must have been dispatched swiftly since they heard a police officer had been stabbed.
As the helicopter’s wind grew more violent, Kyung-wan hurriedly put out the fire. If embers scattered in the wind and started a forest fire, his shelter would burn down too.
A rescue worker who descended by rappel from the helicopter saw Kyung-wan standing there unhurt and spoke.
“Where is the injured person?”
“Over here.”
As he walked toward Detective Jang, whom Kyung-wan pointed to, he spotted Park Dong-chil, half-crippled, crying and groaning, and his eyes widened as he slowed down.
Seeing that, Kyung-wan quickly gestured.
“Ah, ah. That guy is the culprit. I only broke his arms and legs a bit, so his life isn’t in danger. But this detective here lost a lot of blood, so he’s in danger.”
“Oh… I see.”
At those words, the rescue worker went to Detective Jang instead of the more broken Park Dong-chil, checked the wound, performed urgent first aid, and carried him away.
Watching the rescue helicopter vanish with the wind, Kyung-wan hummed as he looked at Park Dong-chil.
“The detective’s gone? He’s gone, huh?”
Park Dong-chil, silently crawling with one working arm and leg, suddenly froze and slowly turned his head.
A tall sun cast a thick shadow. From that pitch-black shadow came a pale smile, chilling.
“Mister, play with me a bit until the police officers get here.”
“N-no, no!”
“It’s going to tiiingle. Because it’s going to hurt.”
“U… uwaaah! Uwaaaah!”
Park Dong-chil screamed in terror.
But there was no one to save him.
= = = = =
“Ah, goddamn it! Jang Dong-gyun, you crazy bastard! Huff! Huff!”
Detective Gu panted as he cursed his partner. The crazy idiot ran off alone chasing a drug criminal because he was good at running. You needed two lives to pull a stunt like that.
In the end, that moron who bragged about being a track athlete got stabbed and was taken away in a rescue helicopter. Still, thanks to him managing to contact Gu, the detective received the dispatch call and reached the crime scene with the police.
And he could see it. A young man looking like a homeless beggar and Park Dong-chil with his limbs twisted in bizarre directions.
“Please… stooop already…”
Sitting on Park Dong-chil’s back, his face a mess of tears, snot, and dirt, was a homeless youth picking his nose, saying something strange.
“That’s not an answer to my question. Is it that hard to honestly answer how you felt when you forced drugs into people who didn’t want them?”
“I-I was wrong~. I’ll never do it again~.”
“Ha~ damn. It’s like you hear human words as dog shit.”
“Stop! Stooop! Aaaagh!”
When Kyung-wan pulled on his ankle, twisted at a weird angle, Park Dong-chil screamed.
He felt wronged. How did it feel forcing drugs into someone who hated it? That question wasn’t hard. The problem was what came after.
‘How good did it feel? This much?’
‘How bad did it feel? This much?’
‘Did you feel nothing? This much?’
No matter what he answered, the guy would pick one of the three and inflict pain like he was doing now. Even when Park answered sincerely, that’s how it went.
And if he lied or dodged the question, the guy sniffed it out like a ghost, laughed joyfully, and crippled him further. All Park Dong-chil could do was cry and beg for mercy.
He desperately prayed, even the cops he hated like enemies, would come soon.
Thankfully, with the arrival of the police, his time with the demon-like vagrant finally ended.
“That’s enough.”
Detective Gu approached and stopped him.
Kyung-wan got off Park Dong-chil’s back, happy to see him. But Park Dong-chil’s face showed even more relief. Finally, he could escape this demon.
Kyung-wan pressed down on Park’s head with his foot and explained to Detective Gu.
“You’re here. This bastard is the culprit, the weapon is dropped over there. I didn’t touch it, so don’t worry.”
Detective Gu ignored the fact that Kyung-wan was stepping on the culprit’s head and grabbed his hands, bowing.
“Thank you. Thanks to you, my stupid junior survived.”
If Park had been in decent shape, he would’ve wanted to punch him himself. But seeing his current state, the urge vanished.
Kyung-wan waved dismissively at the gratitude.
“I was just lucky. He was just unlucky that, huh? What are you doing?”
He was baffled by the silver bracelets suddenly on his wrists. Detective Gu looked awkward and avoided his eyes as he explained.
“Well… even if he’s a suspect, you… um… made him too… crippled? This country has a presumption of innocence, you know.”
The police, seeing Park’s limbs bent grotesquely, were also taken aback. They told Detective Gu, who was holding Kyung-wan’s hands:
“Detective Gu. We’re going to need a stretcher.”
Since Kyung-wan had finished breaking even the limbs that were fine after Detective Jang was airlifted away, Detective Gu nodded helplessly.
He was, after all, a law-abiding citizen.
But he couldn’t leave with nothing.
“Two orders of chicken. Deal?”
Detective Gu gave him a bewildered look, then snorted and answered.
“Deal.”
= = = = =
As Detective Gu took Kyung-wan’s statement, he finally muttered:
“What kind of bastard are you?”
He’d given him leeway because he saved his junior’s life, but the man had no home, no family ties, no registered ID, and even a record of violence.
It was only natural that his grateful gaze slowly turned suspicious, he was a detective, after all.
“Ssergeant. Gulp! I don’t do anything to innocent citizens.”
Kyung-wan said as he picked up the last drumstick. The corn-cheese flavored chicken was to his liking.
“Aren’t you worried? What if that bastard sues you?”
“If he sues, he sues. Tell him to split my belly wide open.”
“You’re going to end up in jail.”
“If I go, I go.”
Detective Gu shook his head at Kyung-wan’s fearless attitude: Split my belly. I’m not afraid.
“A young guy shouldn’t be like that. You have a bright future.”
“A bright future?”
“You should think about working hard and becoming independent. But you’re homeless?”
“That’s all~ propaganda from the established older generation trying to suck out young people’s passion pay.”
“Propa, propaganda?”
Detective Gu was stunned, expecting at most to be called an old boomer. But Kyung-wan’s fervor continued unfazed.
“Honestly, can young people today buy a house before forty no matter how hard they work? They bust their asses, manage to get into a big company by sheer luck, save as hell, buy a house at thirty with loans, and from then on they’re house-poor slaves repaying the bank. Would you want to live a life like that, detective?”
“Don’t be so pessimistic.”
“It’s not pessimism. It’s a logical conclusion. Sensing crisis is intelligence. Look at pigs. When food becomes scarce and their living environment worsens, their birth rate plummets. Do you think young people in this country, second-highest average IQ in the world, would need to taste shit to figure out that path leads straight to a slave life? No. The world’s lowest birth rate is already proof of their intelligence.”
“...”
Detective Gu was speechless. Kyung-wan finished in a murmur.
“Come to think of it, the young people in this country are so damn nice. If it were me, I’d have peeled the skins off the speculators messing with housing prices, the construction companies manipulating prices without revealing costs, and the damn journalists scaring everyone into becoming lightning-poor unless they sell their souls right now…”
“Sigh~. Just eat your chicken.”
Detective Gu, suddenly tired, ended the topic. Kyung-wan shut his mouth and gnawed his chicken, then asked shamelessly:
“Can I have beer?”
“Hey! This is a police station!”
Drinking in a police station? In the detective division? He should say things that made sense!
“Whether it’s cola or beer, the burden on you is the same though…”
He almost cursed, but reminded himself this guy saved his junior’s life, so he held back.
“So how did you catch him?”
“That idiot?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess because I look like this, he let his guard down.”
“No, you’re telling me that guy who my junior couldn’t handle got caught because he let his guard down around you?”
“If the stabbed detective hadn’t let his guard down, he wouldn’t be in the hospital either.”
And Kyung-wan wouldn’t be here eating chicken.
Realizing what he meant, Detective Gu ground his teeth.
“You dumb bastard…”
Showing off his track background, running alone, embarrassing the whole police force…
Detective Gu finished the report but remained troubled. Because Kyung-wan had no home.
He was a key witness in a case where a detective got stabbed. But having no place to stay was troublesome. He could put him in detention for excessive force, but he didn’t want to do that to the guy who saved his junior.
Still, he couldn’t ignore his duty as a detective, so he tried another angle.
“Hey, Kyung-wan.”
“Yeah?”
“There’s a problem.”
“What problem?”
“You have no place to stay.”
“That empty lot is my place.”
It was an empty lot now, but he planned to slowly make it into a personal nest, using plastic and rope to keep out typhoons, rainstorms, and the harsh winter winds.
But to a modern person, his words were nonsense. There wasn’t even a hut.
“But you can abandon that place anytime, right?”
Kyung-wan nodded. That’s what being homeless was.
Detective Gu carefully suggested he stay at the police station for now, in a single-person cell, to be exact.
After thinking, Kyung-wan named his condition.
“One chicken per day.”
“That’s all you need?”
“And a comfortable place to sleep.”
“Fine, got it.”
His expression said, You stubborn brat, but he agreed. He couldn’t refuse that much to the man who saved his junior. And he didn’t plan to keep him long, just until he pressured Park Dong-chil so he wouldn’t file a complaint.
Detective Gu glanced at Kyung-wan eating his chicken. A young guy becoming homeless… he wanted to smack the back of his head and tell him to get it together, but he couldn’t hit his benefactor.
And so, Kyung-wan stayed at the police station for a while.
When he entered the cell, a man detained on the opposite side asked:
“Hey. What’d you come in for?”