Ten Years in Prison? Even Better.
Wheeeeng—
A siren lanced through the rain that filled the world, sharp as a needle.
To trash like me—gangster trash—that was the most terrifying sound on earth, the kind of goddamn noise that made you bolt the instant you heard it. Tonight, I didn't have to run.
"They're fast. Like they were already waiting before anyone even called it in."
Because that patrol car? I called it.
"They'll be here any minute... It's about time you slipped out."
The sirens were closing in. However tangled the roads got this deep in the harbor, they wouldn't take long to arrive, and if we didn't clear out soon things would turn dangerous. I turned my head and looked at my one and only ally.
"Go, Hyung. Leave the rest to me."
This was a man who laughed, big and easy, even with a trusted subordinate's knife in his back, even with some maniac knifeman's blade driven into his gut. Tonight there wasn't a trace of a smile on his face. It was more twisted than the times his wife tore into him, and when he looked at me his voice was still thick with hesitation.
"Jinhyuk. This still isn't right. I'd rather I—"
"Hyung."
I'll go in your place.
I didn't need to hear the rest. I knew exactly what he meant to say, so I cut him off. Any other day he would have lunged at me—Hyung's talking, and this disrespectful little shit dares to interrupt!—but not today.
"You know it can't be done."
This situation, and the responsibility I had to carry, had been settled before we ever set foot in the harbor. Yes—from the very day Hyung and I first met.
"Even so, I..."
We had promised that when a day like this came, I would take the fall. Even so, he couldn't let go of it, not even at the end. So I played the last card I had never wanted to use—the one he could never turn his face from.
"Hyung, the young lady's getting rained on. It's cold out. She'll catch a cold."
"Jinhyuk..."
I let my gaze drop just a little from his face, and there she was, cradled in his arms: our young lady, the most beautiful thing in the world. They had forced a sleeping drug into her, yes—but watching her sleep that peacefully in all this noise, she looked as if she alone had slipped away into some other world.
Shaa. Shaa.
Even the sound of her sleeping breath was lovely. Without thinking I reached to stroke her hair, and only then realized my hand was soaked in blood.
"...Haha."
That dragged back the reality I had drilled into myself over and over. I must not touch her. Still, I wished I could have stroked her hair just once. But it was already too late. My hands had been steeped in blood for a long time, and she was someone blood was never meant to touch.
I drew the half-extended hand back in and drove the wedge home, looking at Hyung, whose face was now crumpled so tight it seemed the tears were being wrung out of him.
"She's only seventeen, Hyung. Still so young. This is when she needs her dad."
"Byul... you know damn well she likes you more than me."
He was still trying, somehow, to hold on to me. I gave him a bitter smile.
"She can always find another oppa she's close to. She can't find another dad."
"...Damn it."
Only then, as if he had finally understood he could not break my will, did Hyung drop his head.
WHEEEEEENG!!!
Right on its heels, the hour of parting bore down. Dozens of tires tearing along the wet road announced that the end was not far off. Linger any longer and both Hyung and the young lady would be dragged into this ugly mess, so I offered a last goodbye to the man streaming tears and to the girl sleeping as peacefully as if the world had nothing to do with her.
"Hyung, I'll be going now. While I'm inside, you have to succeed. You know that, right?"
A continuation of the talk of dreams we had shared before coming here—a kind of conversation neither of us had ever had until then. It was a farewell that would weigh on him, no question. Face wrecked with tears and snot, he nodded, stubborn and solid.
"Yeah. While you're suffering through it, I'll succeed like a damn dog. Your dream... I'll do everything I can to make sure it comes true."
"I'll trust you. Same as always."
With that, we split in opposite directions.
I headed for the bright main road, lit by the harbor's orange lamps. Hyung headed for a dark side alley the light never reached.
So this was the end, then. Of Kang Jinhyuk the gangster, too.
A world of blood and fists I had stumbled into drunk on the hot blood of youth, knowing nothing at all. The story of a clueless brat who ignored every rule a normal person was meant to keep, figuring a little talent for fighting meant he could take whatever he wanted with his fists—that story ended today.
"Wh-what the hell is... Huh? Senior, there's a person over there..."
"You moron! Anybody can see he's a suspect! Get over there and take him down!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
Two detectives climbed out of a patrol car, spotted me, kicked up a brief fuss, and came running with open hostility brimming in both eyes.
SCREEEEECH!
At the same time the dozen-odd patrol cars following them skidded to a stop on the rain-slick road. Faced with more law enforcement than I had ever seen in my life, I calmly held out my wrists.
"Uh, uhh? Senior, he's just... offering his hands?"
"Y-yeah? Why would he— Damn it, that's not the point right now! He's an important suspect. Get the cuffs on him!"
"But he's not even resisting. He's just holding his wrists out like this."
"Why do you think he's holding them out?! Because he did something, that's why! Sure, like you said, he's not resisting—but we came here to arrest everyone in this harbor today. So cuff him and read him his rights!"
"Ah, y-yes, sir. Um... You have the right to remain silent..."
"Heh."
A dry laugh slipped out of me at the short comedy that unfolded the moment I offered my wrists without a fight, and at the half-finished reading of my rights, and I looked up at the sky.
"It's really coming down."
"Y-yes?"
From the sky above, rain poured as if it could rinse any stain clean off the world.
"The rain. It's fierce."
"...Ah, yes. Early spring, and raining like this—it's going to be freezing for a while."
"Hey, you little shit! What are you doing chatting with a suspect?! If you're done reading him his rights, drag him over and get him in the car!"
"Eep?! Y-yes, sir!"
The sky hurled down rain fierce enough to scour away even bloodstains that looked as if they would never come out.
"Well, the warning's done, so... sh-shall we go?"
"Ah... Yes. Let's go."
I lowered my head again and, following the still-dazed officer, walked toward the patrol car.
Ten years.
The span of years I had to carry, handed down under a conviction for attempted murder.
When the verdict first came down, Hyung, who had come to watch, flew into a rage—A gangster beat up a gangster, how the hell is that attempted murder!—and got himself thrown out for causing a scene. I accepted the ruling without complaint. Ten years was plenty of time for the world to forget a third-rate gangster punk like me, and I wanted the world to forget me.
"Still. Pinning attempted murder on this and slamming me with ten years. That's a little strange."
I could see, clear as day, that someone somewhere meant to bury me. But I had wanted a long stay anyway, so I didn't particularly question it. Grudges and a sense of being wronged only show up when you're wronged and angry, and I had wanted to live a long time inside. A sentence of ten years was, if anything, welcome.
"Or is ten too long after all? Wouldn't seven be enough for everyone to forget?"
I had given up the appeal and accepted the verdict, so nursing regrets now wouldn't change the sentence. Even so, a little regret did linger, and I was in the middle of some thoroughly useless brooding when—
"Aah, sorry about that. A call came in out of nowhere."
The transfer detective who had gone to the bathroom came back, and the moment he took hold of the rope lashed around me, I wiped the clutter from my head.
"No. It's fine."
"Heh, of course it is. Every minute I spent in the bathroom is a minute later you lot get to prison."
"Haha. That's true."
With that last bit of empty small talk, I moved to follow the transfer detective's lead.
Or I tried to.
"Honestly, what's with not even appealing. Figured it wouldn't work anyway, so you just gave up?"
—until an extremely unpleasant voice came from behind me.
I turned my head. It was the prosecutor in charge of my case, the one who had sought ten years for me. His name... didn't come to me. More precisely, I hadn't bothered to remember it, because there was no need.
"No. A guy who knew it wouldn't work wouldn't have pulled something like that in the first place..."
Muttering something I couldn't make sense of, the Case Prosecutor trudged over to me. He turned that unpleasant face—and those pretentious glasses—toward me, and spoke in a voice that didn't sit right.
"Cutting off the tail? Got some solid backing behind you? No. When we looked into it, there wasn't any. No backing, no colleagues, no associates—so why'd a guy like that do it? I just don't get it. I don't. That's why I came. Why'd you do it?"
Ask me why, and I had plenty of answers. But his face, his voice, his expression—everything about the prosecutor in front of me was so unpleasant that I simply said nothing.
"...Ha. Not gonna answer? Well, yeah. Ask a first-timer who just got ten years for attempted murder whatever you want, you're not getting the answer you're after. His life's so fucked he doesn't feel like talking. Especially not to the prosecutor who sat down and personally wrecked that life. Right?"
Getting ten years actually suited me fine. But I had no reason to say so. If I got branded as the lunatic who was glad to take a heavy sentence, and that stuck in a prosecutor's memory, trouble could bloom later—once I got out and tried to live a new life.
So I stayed silent, and the prosecutor let out a scoffing little laugh.
"Yeah, I get it. I'm the crazy one, grilling a guy whose life I already ruined. I did what the higher-ups told me and wrecked the ringleader's life, so the objective's complete... and from the look of it, he's not even making a fuss. Fine. That's enough. Go on, get out of here. Detective? I'll leave the prisoner transfer in your hands."
"Ah... Yes, sir."
With that, the Case Prosecutor turned his back and left, trailing a thick reek of some hidden hand behind it all.
Watching him go, I thought what a man with nothing better to do. For a prosecutor.
Whether or not there was some mastermind who had tampered with my verdict, I liked the prison time I had been given, so I decided to simply stop caring about that side of things. Right—I was already busy enough figuring out what self-improvement to do in the joint. I had even less time to waste on nonsense like hidden masterminds.
All I had to do, once I got out, was work toward the dream I had kept sealed in my chest the whole time I was playing gangster. I had no room to spare for anything else useless.
And so, erasing from my head the prosecutor and his unpleasant words and unpleasant face, I pictured myself ten years from now and made a firm vow.