Chapter 97
Translator : M.N 1391
Chapter: 97
At the sight of it, Jeffrey covered his eyes with one hand as if he couldn’t bear to look. He might carry Korean blood, but where on earth did he trade away his sense of tact? Look! Just look at the owner’s face wearing that awkward smile!
But the one lacking tact wasn’t just him, Park Haejin, the guard from Letto Security, was just as bad.
“Are we getting kicked out without even eating our meat?”
At that, Jeffrey let out a sigh. Was he really the only normal one here?
Thankfully, the owner didn’t show it anymore. Years of running a small business and dealing with all kinds of problem customers had trained him well. Not that he was particularly grateful for that experience.
Maintaining a capitalistic smile, the owner finished serving and went back (honestly admirable). The three of them started grilling the meat.
“Eat a lot.”
As Kyung-wan said that, he handed the tongs to Jeffrey.
“You’re American, so you know how to do barbecue, right?”
When the one paying tells you to do something, you do it. Jeffrey, with Korean blood flowing in his veins, had at least that much sense.
That said, he had surprisingly never tried Korean-style barbecue, grilling meat on a flat pan like this.
“This isn’t really a grill…”
“Eh, grilling meat is all the same.”
Kyung-wan made a statement that would make any meat enthusiast glare, then started nagging while Jeffrey flipped the meat.
“You have to flip it every thirty seconds to lock in the juices.”
“The Maillard reaction is different from just burning the meat.”
“You should cut it when it’s almost fully cooked so it slices cleanly…”
Jeffrey endured the nagging and grilled the meat. In the process, he finally understood why Kim Jun sometimes got inexplicably prickly with Kyung-wan.
Anyway, just as they were happily shoveling down the fully cooked meat, a woman approached.
“Um, hello~.”
“?”
Kyung-wan looked up at her, chewing a wrap in his mouth.
She spoke.
“You’re Lee Kyung-wan, right?”
Nod nod.
Kyung-wan nodded. What reason did he have to deny it? He could look up at the heavens without a shred of shame. At least in this lifetime.
“Um, could I take a picture with you?”
“Why?”
“…You won’t?”
The woman’s expression turned a little awkward.
Kyung-wan asked again.
“What are you going to do with the photo?”
“I’m going to post it on social media.”
“Wow~. That’s impressive.”
At his admiration, the woman smiled shyly.
No, not you. Social media is what’s impressive.
If there were a non-drug method that could make people voluntarily do reckless things, social media would be at the top of the list. Sometimes it was even more powerful than drugs. Powerful enough to make even terrorists voluntarily expose information.
Kyung-wan asked,
“How are you going to take it?”
“Does that mean you’re giving permission?”
“Is there any reason not to?”
“Thank you! Just a moment!”
At his consent, the woman brightened, quickly set her phone to selfie mode, came over beside Kyung-wan, and took a selfie together.
Could Kyung-wan really keep a stiff, expressionless face while the woman smiled in the same frame? So he smiled broadly as well.
Click! Click-click!
She took three shots in a row, then checked the photos and jumped up and down in delight.
“Oh my gosh, what do I do! You look exactly like on TV!”
“Like what?”
“Your smile!”
Kyung-wan tilted his head. Had he ever smiled this brightly in the documentary Kang Woobin filmed?
No matter how much he thought about it, the only time he’d smiled that brightly was after stabbing Yang Seungtae in the waist and then surrendering quietly.
Kyung-wan asked,
“You mean the National Assembly TV footage?”
“Yes! Yes! That’s it!”
She even clasped both hands together and nodded.
“It was sooo creepy, you know? But this photo feels completely different.”
Was it because the situation was different? Or because there weren’t blood droplets on his face? Watching her mutter to herself, Kyung-wan clicked his tongue inwardly.
Crazy woman.
Definitely something off about her. Surely social media hadn’t made her like this, right?
Recalling the lesson that you don’t deal with crazy men or crazy women, Kyung-wan politely issued an order to see her off.
“Sorry, but we’d like to get back to eating now.”
“Ah, yes! Then enjoy your meal!”
Thankfully, she didn’t cling and left cleanly. She immediately started showing the photo she’d taken with Kyung-wan to the man she was with. The man forced an awkward smile at the excited woman. Were they dating? Or just in that ambiguous stage?
Anyway, Jeffrey, looking utterly unable to adapt, as if he’d been dropped alone in a foreign country, muttered,
“The world really is…”
A madhouse.
Kyung-wan spoke.
“Eat.”
Why did that sound to Jeffrey like, Just eat already?
His gaze shifted to Park Haejin. He was stuffing meat into his mouth nonstop, as if nothing about what just happened was strange.
“I’ll order more, so eat slowly.”
“Thank you!”
Park Haejin expressed his gratitude with disciplined politeness, but didn’t slow his chopsticks at all.
He must have been really hungry. Just how stingy was Letto Security with their pay, for a talent who was supposedly an esper to eat so ravenously, like a monk tasting meat for the first time in his life?
At the exit after the meal, the owner helped them pay with an awkward smile.
Kyung-wan gave him a thumbs-up.
“Thank you for the great meal. Truly a famous place.”
“H-ha. Thank you.”
The owner, smiling awkwardly, didn’t know it yet. He had no idea that Lee Kyung-wan, the terrorist who attacked a lawmaker, would become a so-called celebrity, boosting both customers and sales this much… Or was it because he was a terrorist?
Anyway, that barbecue place marked the beginning of the food tour. Kyung-wan was full, but he officially kicked off the culinary travel plan.
After leaving the barbecue place, the group went around to a cold noodle place, a cake place, a black tea place, a Korean food place, and more. They slept at motels, and Jeffrey and Park Haejin handled the driving.
What did Kyung-wan do?
“I don’t have a driver’s license.”
At that, Jeffrey felt something was off. Kyung-wan couldn’t drive?
“But back at the National Assembly incident…”
Jeffrey trailed off, shutting his mouth as something clicked in his head.
Kyung-wan said,
“Oh, I was unlicensed then too. I mean, logically, someone with a license wouldn’t drive like that, right?”
“…”
Crazy bastard. That wasn’t an issue of having a license or not…
There were plenty of things to object to, but Jeffrey could already tell it would be mentally exhausting, so he didn’t bother.
In any case, Kyung-wan covered all the expenses, and since it was a food tour, the two of them moved around with relatively easy minds.
That didn’t mean they completely let their guard down. Guys like the Übermensch could target Kyung-wan again at any time.
Around the time posts tagged “Restaurants Chosen by Lee Kyung-wan” started popping up more and more on social media, there was almost an incident.
“Hey, you fuck! Can’t you drive straight?!”
The other driver hurled abuse. But what Kyung-wan saw was this:
They had a left-turn signal and proceeded, and that short-tempered bastard almost slammed into them because he didn’t want to wait at a red light and floored the accelerator on a yellow.
Kyung-wan rolled down the window. And then,
Spit!
Something white and foamy flew through the air and stuck to the man’s face. There was no need to explain whose mouth that viscous fluid came from.
Leaving the man stunned by the sudden humiliation, Kyung-wan rolled the window back up and said toward the driver’s seat,
“Let’s ignore him and go. …What are you doing? Step on it.”
Jeffrey froze at Kyung-wan’s rude behavior, then hurriedly hit the accelerator at the urging.
Honestly, he wanted to. It wasn’t his fault, the other guy ran a red light trying to tailgate and almost caused an accident. And if they got out and tangled with him, it was obvious a scene would break out, which he wanted to avoid.
“Hey! You fucking bastard! You’re not stopping?!”
The man who’d been spat on got out of his car and tried to open the rear door where Kyung-wan was sitting, but missed the handle as the car sped off.
Park Haejin checked the side mirror, saw the man screaming obscenities at them, and looked at Kyung-wan with admiration. Even then, he stuck his hand out the window and raised his middle finger.
“Wow. You really have no tomorrow. How do you live like that?”
“If you don’t want to live, this is how you end up living.”
“…For someone like that, you’re doing a food tour and living pretty enjoyably, aren’t you?”
To Park Haejin’s question, Kyung-wan replied,
“If there’s no little bit of fun in a life you’re living just because you can’t die, you’d go insane.”
“…”
Park Haejin fell silent at Kyung-wan’s words. He knew, to some extent, how the man he was guarding had lived.
A truly bottomless lunatic.
The car arrived at the next restaurant in silence.
= = = = =
The last day of the three-night, four-day food tour.
Kyung-wan and the group thoroughly greased their throats with domestically produced lamb. Lamb turned out to be far fattier than expected.
The taste was satisfying.
Now, all that remained was returning to the prison.
“I’m glad nothing happened.”
Park Haejin said as he held the wheel. Jeffrey nodded in agreement. The Übermensch could have shown up to target Kyung-wan again.
Kyung-wan said,
“On the internet, they call saying things like that ‘raising a flag.’”
“A flag? What’s that?”
“You know, like when the hero’s party defeats the Demon King and then says something like, ‘Is he dead?’ and the Demon King revives and the final phase starts. That kind of thing.”
“Why would you say something so omin, ”
Crash!
Just as Jeffrey was telling him not to say ominous things, a 1.5-ton truck slammed into the side of their car.
There was no time to scream. The vehicle rolled, and Kyung-wan lost consciousness.
When he came to, he was inside a dark warehouse. A single light bulb hanging from the ceiling shone down on him like a spotlight.
The moment he regained consciousness, he checked his condition.
Thankfully, nothing was broken, but his body ached all over, likely from bruises. Maybe because he’d eaten so well during the food tour, his stamina wasn’t bad either.
Still, it was a miracle he’d survived. As expected of an NSA agent, the car must have been extremely sturdy.
But the situation wasn’t good. He was bound to a metal chair so tightly that he couldn’t even feel his hands.
After assessing his situation, Kyung-wan shifted his attention to his surroundings. It was dark, but S-particles weren’t something you left around just to boil soup with later.
The S-particles spread out and replaced his vision. His previous experience using the clairvoyance device was a huge help.
Five men were detected around the warehouse through the S-particles.
Judging by their demeanor, they seemed to be waiting for someone.
Kyung-wan quietly moved the S-particles and observed. He could break free of these steel restraints and leave, but shouldn’t he find out who was behind this first?
If there was a root of the problem, it had to be uprooted completely.
“Boss! That bastard woke up!”
One guy came in, saw Kyung-wan’s open eyes, and panicked before running back out.
Outside, the one called “boss” could be heard giving instructions to the underlings.
“Keep a close watch so he doesn’t pull anything suspicious. Don’t get close.”
That was the boss’s final warning.
Then two men came in. One was a young punk with dyed yellow hair, and the other was a thug with a generous build and an air of seasoned delinquency.
Kyung-wan asked the two of them,
“So, which one of you is the boss?”