A Bumper Harvest
It was midnight in Seongrak-dong, the hour when the district burned brightest.
Once again, the streets were packed with noise—drunken laughter tangled with the voices of touts calling out to passersby.
Two police officers strolled slowly through the crowd.
On the left side of his chest, there was a police insignia pinned plain as day.
The officer in front boasted a massive physique, and even his face looked so fierce that just standing still seemed to radiate menace.
People flinched and edged out of his way.
It wasn’t really because they had anything to hide so much as a reflexive instinct to avoid him.
Like a Thomson’s gazelle coming face-to-face with a male lion.
Song Tan followed at Lee Joo-seok’s side as if trailing a victorious general.
By comparison, the atmosphere around him was calm, but his eyes never stopped moving.
As they passed through the central alley of Seongrak-dong, Lee Joo-seok suddenly lifted his radio.
"Patrol moving through central Seongrak-dong, all clear! If we spot anyone suspicious, we’ll conduct an immediate check!"
His booming voice made several people recoil.
Lee Joo-seok headed toward the street stall near the mouth of the alley and spoke to the elderly owner.
"Auntie! Nothing strange going on lately, right?"
"Nothin’ much, no... Why? Somethin’ happen?"
"We’ve had reports that gangsters have been causing trouble around here. If you see anyone suspicious, call us right away."
Just then, the two men who had been reaching for cigarettes in front of the stall froze.
Song Tan’s gaze snapped to them.
The two men calmly lit their cigarettes again.
A flickering lighter flame caught Song Tan’s eye.
Reflected in that vermilion fire, the men’s pupils widened like balloons filling with air.
It was proof that they were overly tense.
Song Tan approached the two men and immediately held out his police ID.
"Excuse me. May I see both of your IDs?"
The men, who looked to be in their thirties, seemed taken aback.
"What’s this about?"
"We received a report of an assault nearby. We just need to confirm your identities for a moment."
The two men met his eyes, then nodded and took out their IDs.
As if this were routine by now, Lee Joo-seok checked their identities.
A moment later, the corners of his mouth lifted.
"Well, well. Special assault, extortion, blackmail... Your records are practically glittering, aren’t they?"
As if trying to prove they were innocent, both men waved their hands frantically.
"Oh, those were all things we did when we were young and stupid. We’ve paid our debt to society and are living fresh new lives now."
"Oh, really? Funny thing is, our police have a little thing called a gang surveillance list. And it says here you gentlemen are still very much active members of the Princess Flower Bum Gang. What do you make of that?"
"............."
The two men fell silent for a moment.
Then their faces flushed red with anger.
"We already said we turned our backs on that life! What gives you the right to be this rude to innocent citizens?"
"Rude? I’m being polite enough to use honorifics, aren’t I? Otherwise, you’d really be in trouble."
With that heavy pressure pressing down on them, the two thugs swallowed dryly.
"And why exactly are you innocent? The gentleman with the bent nose hasn’t paid a fine, and the gentleman with the scar on his forehead..."
"Ah, fuck, I knew it. What rotten luck."
"Oh? You just cursed at a police officer in a public place with multiple civilians present? That constitutes serious insult. I’ll arrest you for a flagrant offense on the spot."
"You son of a— Listen to this bastard!"
"I’m Lee Joo-seok from Annam Station. Would you like to come quietly, or would you like to step over there and have a little talk first?"
At the name Lee Joo-seok, the two men hesitated.
He was the crazy bastard of a detective who didn’t fear disciplinary action one bit.
He was the kind of man you were warned about until your ears rang—the number-one person you absolutely, under no circumstances, wanted to meet in Annam, a notorious troublemaker who had sent more gangsters to the hospital than anyone could count.
Click.
The two men had no choice but to offer their wrists.
A similar scene was happening roughly once every thirty minutes.
The method was simple.
First, they walked up to wherever groups of men were gathered.
Then Lee Joo-seok would deliberately make a scene, shouting that they should call the police if they spotted any gangsters.
After that, Song Tan would approach someone and ask for identification.
Once the identity check went through, something would inevitably turn up, and Lee Joo-seok would slap handcuffs on them.
"Huh? You just called a police officer a son of a bitch where all these citizens could hear you, didn’t you? Everybody heard that, right? Oh dear, what am I going to do. Specificity and publicness are both established. I’m arresting you for insult under Criminal Act Article 311, in the act. Let’s go together."
"You said you were just a nice man out drinking, but you’re wearing this kind of hardware on your leg? You’re under arrest, in the act, for carrying a weapon in violation of the Act on the Punishment of Violent Acts, etc. What? You brought it because you wanted to peel fruit? Then you can tell that to the judge."
It was nothing more than a repetition of a simple process.
But the result was anything but simple.
"This is Lee Joo-seok from Violent Crimes Team 1 at Annam Station. At the front of Geumo Building in Seongrak-dong, multiple suspects carrying weapons have been apprehended in the act. Requesting patrol car support for transport to Annam Station."
There was a brief silence on the other end of the radio.
That was because this was already the fifth such request today.
[Sizzle— Request confirmed. Transport support request received. Dispatching a patrol car from the nearby Macheon precinct.]
A moment later, a patrol car pulled over with sirens blaring.
The doors opened, and two officers from the precinct got out.
Then they saw Song Tan—and jumped in surprise.
"Huh?"
They were Kang Taewon, the team leader Song Tan had worked under when he was stationed at Macheon Precinct, and Yoo Kyung-ho, his former senior partner.
"We were wondering who was tearing through Seongrak-dong like a storm, and it was you, Tan?"
The two men approached him with obvious delight, and Song Tan, a faint smile on his lips, gave them a light salute.
"At your service. Have you been well?"
"We’ve always been the same. But you, of all people, a detective..."
Their eyes swept over Song Tan’s uniform.
"Why are you wearing that? Did you already get kicked out of the detective unit?"
"I have my reasons."
At Kang Taewon’s words, Song Tan gave an awkward little smile.
Just then, Lee Joo-seok came striding out of the building.
He was dragging along two stocky men, both with handcuffs on.
"Oh? And who might this be? Captain Kang, isn’t it?"
Lee Joo-seok seemed to know him well enough to greet him familiarly.
Kang Taewon, startled, stared at him in surprise.
"Seok, what the hell are you wearing now?"
"What do you mean? Doesn’t it suit me? It brings back old memories too."
Song Tan couldn’t contain his curiosity and asked, "Do the two of you know each other?"
"Of course. Captain Taewon here was the first man to ever mentor me in the force."
"Ah, is that so?"
Song Tan looked genuinely surprised.
Annam might be small, but he hadn’t expected connections to be tangled together quite like this.
"Anyway, what the hell have you two been doing? Every nearby precinct is in chaos. They’re saying they can’t even tell whether they’re police officers or deliverymen."
At Kang Taewon’s grumbling complaint, Lee Joo-seok curled the corner of his mouth.
"Cut us some slack. What are we supposed to do when there are this many gangsters roaming around disturbing order in Annam?"
He thrust the two men hanging from his arms forward.
The two gangsters, crushed by the pressure, said nothing and merely kept their heads lowered.
Kang Taewon let out a snort of laughter and shook his head.
"You haven’t changed one bit, Lee Joo-seok."
"Where would a crazy dog like me ever go?"
"Now it’s making sense. Put a monster next to a mad dog, and this is what happens."
Yoo Kyung-ho added, "Our monstrous rookie still hasn’t lost his touch, huh?"
Hadn’t he caught a wanted criminal on his very first day of reporting to the precinct?
Yoo Kyung-ho knew better than anyone that Song Tan had an uncanny eye for things.
"Anyway, all we need to do is take these guys to the violent crimes unit at Annam Station, right?"
"More precisely, the Violent Crimes Team 1 office."
"Got it. We’ll take them. But how long are you planning to keep wandering around like this?"
At Kang Taewon’s question, Song Tan answered with a faint smile.
"Until there isn’t a single person left wandering the streets of Seongrak-dong?"
It was a wildly extravagant answer, but Kang Taewon and Yoo Kyung-ho both felt a cold sweat break out down their backs.
After the storm-like dawn passed and morning sunlight began to spill over Annam Station, the detectives’ office finally caught a little light too.
The head of the detective division and the team leaders, who had gotten nothing but a few catnaps in the conference room while holding an all-night emergency meeting, came down the stairs with bloodshot eyes.
"The chief is in a foul mood, so tighten things up with the kids."
"If we tighten it any more, they’re really going to rise up..."
Team 1 leader Han Byung-woo muttered in a worried voice.
Then the detective division chief frowned at the commotion coming from below.
"What’s making all that racket?"
The closer they got to the first floor, the louder the murmur became.
Everyone’s pace naturally quickened.
The moment they came down the stairs and stepped into the hallway—
"W-what the hell?"
Only then did they see the source of the uproar.
The violent crimes Team 1 office was packed wall to wall with dark-clad men.
Their ages varied from their twenties to their forties.
At every desk, at least two of them were crammed in shoulder-to-shoulder, and some people without chairs stood leaning against the wall.
Detectives moved among them, squeezing through the gaps to take statements.
Whirr—
The printer kept spitting out pages without pause, and the thick air, soaked with cigarette stench and sweat, spilled all the way out into the hallway.
It was complete and utter chaos, like a marketplace gone feral.
Dazed, Han Byung-woo grabbed the arm of a detective hurrying by.
"Cheol-woo! What the hell is going on?"
"Ah! Team Leader? I was actually calling you, but you didn’t answer."
"I was just dozing in the conference room for a bit. But what is all this?"
"Joo-ttol and Song Tan rounded up these gangsters all night long."
"What? All these people? Just the two of them?"
The detective division chief stood there with his mouth hanging open, unable to speak.
His gaze returned to the office.
Men in handcuffs sat in long rows like sparrows perched on a power line.
It was exactly the kind of sight that made the phrase “no room to set foot” feel painfully accurate.
"All those guys are gangsters?"
In thirty years on the force, the detective chief prided himself on having seen every storm life could throw at him, but even he had never seen anything like this.
"Byung-woo..."
"Yes, sir."
"Forget going home. Let’s go straight to the chief."
"Yes, sir. We should."
The two of them started running up the stairs at the same time, as if they were being chased.
They moved with all their strength.
As if something were coming after them.
At the same time, the office door burst open and a man rushed in, clearly in a panic.
"Boss! We’ve got a serious problem."
Baek Ok-chul, the boss of the Annam Sikgu Family, crushed out the cigarette in his mouth and scowled harshly.
"What the hell are you making such a fuss about this early in the morning?"
"Th-the thing is..."
"Did this bastard pop pills first thing in the morning or something? Why the hell are you stammering like that?"
"Last night... some of the guys below got picked up."
"Picked up where?"
"They got caught during a stop-and-check and taken to the station..."
Crash—
"Those fucking idiots, for real!"
Baek Ok-chul grabbed the glass ashtray on the desk and hurled it.
"Didn’t I tell you to lie low for a while? Or did you hear my words like they were some load of shit?"
"N-no, sir. We warned them properly, but..."
"Ugh, useless vermin. What the hell am I supposed to do with trash like this?"
In the end, Baek Ok-chul pulled out another cigarette and roughly swept his bangs back.
"So? How many got arrested?"
"The number confirmed so far... is fifteen."
"What!? Fifteen!?"
Baek Ok-chul’s mouth dropped open, and the cigarette in his lips fell to the floor.
For an organization that barely had a hundred people if you gathered everyone together, losing fifteen was a massive wound.
"And more than ten of the guys who came down from Chungnam as backup got picked up too."
"What? What did you say!?"
Sensing that their boss was about to roll his eyes back in his head, the subordinate hurriedly added, "A-and the Dongbaek Gang took even worse damage. More than twenty of them got arrested."
The face that had been turning red right up to the edge of explosion quickly recovered its color.
".......Really?"
"Yes, absolutely. They’re worse off than we are."
"Hmm..."
Baek Ok-chul half-lidded his eyes and stroked his chin.
He clearly hadn’t imagined for a second that this could have been done by two detectives.
"Those bastard pigs in uniform... They must’ve planned to wipe us out entirely."
For him, that was the only conclusion he could reasonably reach.
"This is bad. At this rate, the whole organization could fall apart."
He liked a good turf war as much as anyone, but if he acted rashly while the police had their eyes wide open, the entire gang could be swept away.
Deep in thought, Baek Ok-chul told his subordinate, "Call all the executives in here right now."
"Right now?"
"Yes, now. Not one of them misses it."
"Understood, boss."
"Looks like we really can’t afford to do anything else. For now, lying low is definitely the right move..."
Ring-ring-ring.
At the most uncanny timing, the phone rang.
Baek Ok-chul pulled out yet another cigarette and answered.
"Yeah. What is it?"
Baek Ok-chul’s eyes flew wide open, and his body began trembling in tiny spasms.
"What? What happened to Sang-mi?"
Veins bulged thickly at his neck, and a savage light flashed in his eyes.
"Those fucking bastards, I swear to God! Aaaagh!!"
Crunch.
He flung the phone in his hand straight to the floor and panted harshly.
"Crossing the line like this... Those sons of bitches, daring to..."
In 1859, an American farmer once shot a pig that had ruined his field.
Unluckily, that pig belonged to a British man, and the people of both nations were soon locked in deep conflict.
The spark of that conflict quickly became a vast conflagration, until even the American and British fleets gathered, pushing the situation to the brink of war.
War, after all, does not always begin with some grand cause.
Sometimes, a single tiny crack is enough to bring down a world that was already fractured to begin with.