Detective Inspector Park Min-jae (2)

"I didn't do it. I swear to God, I swear on heaven itself—it absolutely wasn't me."

"Oh, right. When I asked whether you knew Kim Min-ju, you swore to high heaven then, too, that you didn't. And how did that turn out?"

"No, that was only because you were being so scary, Detective... And I honestly never knew her personally. She just came up in my friend recommendations on social media—she was so pretty, that's all. We weren't even mutuals. I followed her account, and that was the extent of it."

"Right. Kim Min-ju was so pretty you couldn't help trailing after her. Got it. So then—even after you chased her around like that, when she still wouldn't give you the time of day, you snapped and, in the heat of the moment, you—huh?"

"No!! What kind of nonsense is that?! Following her around—who, me? I followed her account and looked at her posts when they popped up. That's the whole story, I swear."

Under the fluorescent lights of the interrogation room, Kim Jin-hwan's voice rang out, torn with injustice. But Park Min-jae, seated across the table, didn't so much as flinch.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tapping the steel desk a few times with the corner of his file folder, he leaned slightly forward.

"Jin-hwan."

A vicious breath, a blend of instant coffee and stale cigarettes.

"Do I look like a fool to you? That night. Between one and two-thirty in the morning. You parked that bike of yours in the corner of the first-floor stairwell of a commercial building in Bupyeong and went inside. It's all there, plain as day, in the GPS data on your delivery bike. An hour and a half. A full hour and a half. What, I wonder, were you doing in there all that time, hm?"

"How many times do I have to tell you, it was the rain!! I couldn't see a thing in front of me. I honestly thought I'd slip and kill myself if I kept running deliveries in that weather. I just ducked inside for a minute to get out of it."

"Sure, the rain was coming down hard. But an hour and a half is an awfully long time to be sheltering from a little rain, don't you think?"

"That's because—!"

He leaned forward without thinking, and the handcuffs rattled.

"I was worn out from taking delivery calls all day. I sat down on the stairs to rest for a minute, and I must've dozed off without even realizing it."

"You dozed off?"

Park Min-jae snorted. It was a laugh of profound, poisonous disbelief.

"Sure, I suppose you could have dozed off. People do collapse and sleep on the pavement when they're tired enough. But isn't it strange, though? In the third-floor bathroom of that very building where you claim you fell asleep, Kim Min-ju died—strangled, no less. And of all nights, that night. How do you intend to explain that?"

"Th-that's..."

—SLAM!!!

Park Min-jae slammed his palm down on the desk.

"Of course you don't have an excuse. Because you killed her!!"

"Th-the CCTV!! There's CCTV, isn't there? Check it, and you'll see I was just sleeping on the stairs—"

"CCTV? Right, and if that footage existed, I wouldn't be wasting my evening taking your boring statement right now. What a shame. That lightning just had to strike so hard that night it fried the building's entire recording system."

No CCTV, because the lightning happened to strike too hard?

Somewhere in those words, Ba-reum caught the coppery reek of blood. Unfortunately, the one sitting in that interrogation room was not Jeong Ba-reum, the prodigy who had once fought for the top of his class at a prestigious foreign language high school. It was Kim Jin-hwan, a delivery driver with nothing more than a middle school diploma.

"I, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I see..."

"And now CCTV. From the way you talk, you've clearly picked up a thing or two about evidence work—forensics—from somewhere. Then you must have heard of fingerprints as well?"

Park Min-jae drew a single sheet from his file folder and thrust it forward. On it was a photograph: a jug of bleach glowing a deep, vivid blue, beside a corpse too horrific for words.

"Hurgh..."

"Now, look at it properly. Trying to destroy the evidence with bleach—fine, whatever. You must've seen it in some drama. But do tell—why ever didn't you think of fingerprints? Your prints turned up on the bleach jug in the trash can right nearby. How do you explain that? What? Were you cleaning the neighborhood restrooms on the side?"

"Th-that's impossible. I've never seen it before in my life. I've never touched anything like that!!"

"Never touched it, yet there are your fingerprints. My, my. What a marvel. Jin-hwan, let's not do this the hard way. Let's take the easy road. Yes?"

Injustice. Fear. Suffocation. Jin-hwan's breath caught and stopped, as though some incomprehensible, colossal malice had seized him by the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠throat and was grinding his entire body to dust.

"Kim Jin-hwan. Stalking. Aggravated rape-murder. Desecration of a corpse."

Park Min-jae rose from his seat.

"Just sign the thing and be done with it. I'm giving you this advice because I genuinely worry about your future: a Korean courtroom weighs a criminal's attitude just as heavily as the crime itself. What does that mean? A bastard who stonewalls to the bitter end, whining that he's innocent, gets hammered all the harder for insolence, while a bastard who grovels flat, says 'I was wrong,' and submits a letter of remorse gets a little leniency. You following?"

"I—I really didn't do it! I really, really didn't!!"

As Jin-hwan's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cry of innocence was dragged away toward ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the holding cell, Park Min-jae quietly raised his smartphone.

A satisfied smirk.

And with that image as its final frame, the world shattered once more like a mirror breaking apart.

Back in reality, my right hand was still locked tight around Park Min-jae's collar.

"You... who the hell are you? One of the Royal Family? Trying to get the police to investigate the Sikgu Gang? Fuck, you knocked on the wrong door. You really think our cops are that incompetent?"

"I know. Not after all the money your chief has been raking in. Besides, you're just an errand boy—no one investigates the Sikgu Gang because one errand boy died. No—wait. That's not right. After polishing the chief's back door quite that thoroughly, are you really just a simple errand boy?"

Suspicion. And then, stunned horror.

"Wh-what are you? What kind of crap is that all of a sudden?"

"Well, now. Isn't that a lovely sight. Loyal right up to the moment of death. Let's see whether that loyalty of yours keeps holding in a situation where you're actually about to die."

I laid my left hand on his shoulder. And put crushing force into all five fingers.

—CRRRUNCH.

"KUHAAAAAAAGH!!!!"

A horrific scream. His right shoulder had, quite literally, been blown apart—caved in like wet clay. As he stared at the ruin of his own shoulder, overwhelming terror carved itself into his face.

"Shh."

The hand gripping his collar shifted to cover his mouth. But to his half-panicked ears, my voice apparently wasn't getting through. The tearing scream showed no sign of stopping.

—CRUNCH. So this time, it was the right knee. With nothing but my thumb, my index finger, and my middle finger, I burst his knee apart like a walnut shell.

"Guhk—!!"

A scream beyond screaming. The searing agony never made it out of his lungs.

"There. See how nice it is when you're quiet? Now listen carefully. Answers will be clear and concise. You've still got one shoulder and one knee left, you know. And once those are done, your body has a great many joints remaining. If you'd like to know exactly how many, by all means, keep resisting."

His mouth—a smear of tears, snot, and spit—finally closed.

"Good. Then let's move on to the main event. Keep behaving this well, do exactly as you're told, and you might just hold on to your remaining joints. And your life."

"First question. Why on earth did your chief go so far as to fabricate evidence to make Kim Jin-hwan the culprit? Who was he so desperate to cover for?"

"Whew, would you look how stuffy the air is in there. No, seriously, why the hell does he make us go outside just to light a smoke?"

"Boss Min-woo's trying to quit, remember?"

"Yeah, well, that guy's quit smoking like three hundred times a year."

Two Sikgu Gang flunkies opened the third-floor emergency exit and stepped briefly outside to light up.

"Hey, yo. Hold up—isn't that down there that piece-of-shit Detective Park's car?"

"Looks like it? But that bastard left ages ago. Why's his car still parked... Yo!! Over there!! Isn't that Detective Park? Don't tell me that dumb son of a bitch is getting his ass beat down there right now."

"Hey!! Get inside and tell the boss, quick."

"What about you?"

"Me? Somebody's gotta go save that poor bastard first. If someone drops dead in our own fucking backyard, we're all goddamn finished."

Jo Du-hyeok, the flunky who'd said he'd go down first, flung his cigarette to the ground and sprinted down the stairs like a madman.

"Hey, you fucking lunatic!! Hands off him, right now!!"

Up close, Detective Park looked far worse than he had from above. One shoulder had caved in, his knee was bent at an unnatural angle, and nothing was left in him but ragged, gasping breath. And above all, that uncanny dime-store mask beneath the hood.

Seven years of flunky life in this business. Du-hyeok's instincts blared like an alarm. That bastard was one seriously dangerous piece of work.

"You, you fuck. Do you have any idea where you are? And do you know who it is you've got your hands on? I'm asking nicely. Let go of him and walk away quiet. The boys are going to come pouring down here any minute now. When they come down armed, you are properly, genuinely fucked. We'll lash you to rebar and sink you off the Incheon coast—you won't even float, buddy. They'll just dig you up one day as a fossil."

Ba-reum's gaze shifted to the third-floor back door Du-hyeok had come out of. Du-hyeok hadn't been bluffing. Six burly men in suits came pouring out of it.

"Fuck—it's not too late yet. Let go of him and run like hell. Now."

Had Du-hyeok's ultimatum actually worked? The man lowered Detective Park gently to the ground.

"There you go. Good. Now all you have to do is run and never look back. That way."

"Is seven all of them?"

"What?"

And that was the last thing Jo Du-hyeok ever remembered.

Excruciating pain.

When Du-hyeok opened his eyes, the ground around him was strewn with gangsters sprawled flat, just as he was. And then—THUNK!!—he saw Choi Min-woo, the gang's enforcer captain, driving a hand axe down into the masked man's shoulder from behind.

Yes!!

Du-hyeok cheered inwardly. The heavy blade of the hand axe tore through the hoodie and landed dead center on the masked man's shoulder blade. A strike weighted with Min-woo's entire body. One heavy enough that, far beyond a ruptured shoulder, the whole arm might have come clean off and no one would have blinked.

But that was all it was.

"...F-fuck. What is this? Why won't it go in?"

The axe blade had failed to bite properly into the man's body. He wasn't wearing any sort of stab-resistant armor, either. Where the axe had met flesh, the skin had torn open and blood was surging up in thick gouts. But that was all. That heavy, brutal axe had not managed to cut through human muscle.

The masked man slowly turned his head.

"You don't hesitate one bit, swinging a blade at a living person, do you?"

"A m-monster!!"

His grip closed around Choi Min-woo's throat. And in that instant, Du-hyeok felt something change. It was an eerie sensation no words could capture. The masked man's voice, which had seemed perfectly calm even with an axe buried in his shoulder, turned savage.

"You're beyond saving."

"Wh-what are you ta—AAAGH!"

The hand at his throat released. The instant the hulking frame moved to catch its balance, Ba-reum's right heel drove a surgically precise kick into Min-woo's lower back.

—CRRACK. The sound of something being severed forever. His spinal cord crushed in a single heartbeat, every nerve below his waist forcibly cut off—before pain on that scale, Choi Min-woo couldn't even manage a scream.

Jo Du-hyeok, sprawled on the ground and watching it all, clamped both hands over his mouth.

A monster. Not a human being.

Before that monster's gaze could swing back to him, Du-hyeok quietly closed his eyes without a single heartbeat of hesitation. Staying unconscious, for now, was the only way to survive this hell.

The alley sank back into silence.

Ba-reum pulled the hand axe still dangling from his shoulder and turned it toward Park Min-jae. The blood that had been flowing was already slowing to a stop. The doing of Durability 50 and Stamina 50—figures that had slipped just past the boundary of what a human body should be.

"Now then, Detective Park. We really should finish the conversation we were having, shouldn't we?"