Cut from the Same Cloth

The title of the video was suspicious before anything else.

It didn't look like With Crime. The thumbnail was plain, and the description sat wrong in a way I couldn't quite name.

"Could it be?"

This was it. The thing that had once set the whole country buzzing.

Backmasking.

A sound, or a message, buried so that it only comes through when a song or a video is played in reverse. There was that famous uproar back in the nineties—somebody spun a singer's track backward, and the whole nation tore itself up screaming about Satan. Not enough blood, or something to that effect.

I didn't play the video right away. I downloaded it first, then opened a video-editing program I'd installed a long time ago, flipped the waveform, and hit play.

At first there was only noise, like wind leaking through a crack. Ksssh— The same sound you get when you rewind a video.

Had I gotten it wrong? I was still turning it over when a breath settled into a steady rhythm, and a voice came through behind it.

A chill climbed my spine.

A firm voice. Not a single tremor in the tone.

I paused the video. This person had me dead to rights. They knew who I was—right down to the fact that I subscribed.

Sure, I'd been cutting people down off the lists that showed up in the videos. Even so, being certain enough to go as far as backmasking could not have been an easy decision. Catching on this fast in the first place would have been harder still.

With Crime was no ordinary person.

I went and checked that stretch.

A man with his shirt collar twisted out of line. An utterly ordinary face, and the most commonplace pair of glasses you could find.

I opened a search bar.

Nothing came up but a few businessmen who happened to share the name. Not a word about this man.

The voice dropped a little, clear as a whisper against the ear.

A reporter. No wonder the information had felt different.

The sound cut off clean.

The room was still. Only the second hand of the clock knocked out a dull beat. I leaned back in the chair.

If he really was a reporter, then it was possible. Sealed records, documents that had never run, information no ordinary hand could reach. If he had told the truth, I could scrape up everything lying in the territory I didn't know.

But could I trust him? Was I about to have my entire life stripped bare in a second?

I bit the tip of my tongue. It felt like wariness and greed had taken the same chair and started a fight.

I needed the information. Take this man's hand, and he would become a serious kind of power—that much was obvious. But lunge and bite too fast, and I might be handing him the leash around my neck.

I had to be careful. If this was bait, then curse or no curse, it would be a cell-block ending before I could blink.

Turn it the other way, though. Someone who went to this much trouble to get a message across might want nothing except to pass the information on.

I let out a long breath and looked again at the face frozen on the monitor. A face so ordinary it felt like a bad omen.

I'd meant to be rid of the entire former Luxury Group anyway.

A throb started up behind my eyes. I switched on the TV, as much to put my thoughts in order as anything else, and the name Oh Myeongho came out of it.

Attached to a face that was not the one in the photograph.

Oh Myeongho had shut himself in his room. Every curtain was drawn, and even the expensive standing lamp was dark.

In that pitch-black he sat in a chair and shook. A gun filled his right hand—a foreign pistol, bought down illegal channels. The trembling sent the muzzle wandering wherever it pleased, and the veins across the back of his hand stood up swollen, as if his fear had nowhere left to go.

"......Fuck. No way. I'm not gonna die."

The mutter came out stained with the shaking. He had already been like this for days. Sleep was out of the question; he couldn't even get a glass of water down in peace.

He had cause enough.

His father. His grandfather. His uncle. The directors, the division heads. Every one of them was dead.

Not a man among them was the sort to take his own life. Greedy as hunting dogs, tough as old hyenas—and in a single instant, by their own hands, they had chosen death.

It could not be a coincidence. Someone had done this. He was certain he came next.

"......Fuck."

Oh Myeongho lifted the gun toward the ceiling, then brought it back down onto his knee. The most frightening thing was an enemy he couldn't see. Meet the face and he could at least take aim. This was fear itself, with no telling where it would come lunging from.

A secretary's voice carried through the door.

"They'll be here shortly."

A rough breath tore out of him, and he muttered.

"......D.K. Hurry up and get here. You have any idea how much money I paid you......"

The front door, shut tight, opened.

Men in black suits poured in together. Ten of them at the least. At their head, two executives stood with a hard light in their eyes.

"This...... somebody did this, didn't they? My family. All of them......"

"We can't confirm that yet," one of the executives answered, calm.

"Fuck your confirmation. I don't need it confirmed. Just keep me alive. Don't let anyone—anyone—get near me."

"Yes, Mr. Oh Myeongho. For your protection, we've assembled a special elite detail. No one will be able to approach you easily."

The firm answer let a little of the air back into his lungs. His eyes still wouldn't settle.

He raked a sweat-soaked hand back through his hair and asked.

"......But what am I supposed to do about this? Isn't there some way?"

The executive answered as if he had been waiting for the question.

"If the chairman and the vice chairman died by someone's power, it is most likely because of the Luxury Department Store collapse."

Oh Myeongho's eyes flew wide.

"And so what! I was five years old back then!"

The executive's voice did not move.

"That is irrelevant. If the target is the bloodline itself, this is a different matter."

"......What did we even do wrong!"

"I'll be frank with you."

The man's face hardened.

"More than five hundred people died in that incident. The injured numbered over a thousand. And the sentence handed down was a mere seven years and six months. That is not an ordinary ruling. I expect that is where the problem lies."

"So what! What's any of that got to do with me!"

Oh Myeongho stamped his foot and shouted. The muzzle jerked at empty air.

The executive sighed and made the offer, cold.

"From where the dead are standing, you are problem enough yourself, Mr. Oh Myeongho. You are the blood. So here is what I propose. Appear in public, address the incident yourself, apologize, and pay the victims compensation."

"Compensation?"

"Yes. One hundred million won for each family of the deceased. Fifty million won for the injured."

The color dropped out of Oh Myeongho's face.

"......What? Why the hell would I spend that kind of money on something like that!"

"As I understand it, the fortune you inherited after the chairman and the vice chairman died is considerable. Think of it as the price of your life. Right now, this is the best course there is."

Oh Myeongho bit his lip. His eyes wandered over nothing.

"......And if they come for me out in public? Then what am I supposed to do!"

The corner of the executive's mouth twisted, just a little.

"You will not be the one who steps out, Mr. Oh Myeongho. We will engage a suitable actor. We will introduce him as you, and he will handle all of it in your place."

Still hauling in breath, Oh Myeongho stared as if he couldn't believe it.

"......You think that'll actually work?"

"It will work well enough. You've lived overseas for a long time, haven't you? Very few people in this country know your face. Put a double up there, and no one will know."

The executive turned it over for a long moment, half muttering.

"And we at D.K. may be able to dig further into this person's information because of it. The pattern, at minimum, is that only people whose faces are known end up dead. Feed them information that is outright false...... and we can watch how they react."

The air grew heavier.

Oh Myeongho's eyes wavered, then took on a greedy light. The money stung to spend. It was still cheaper than his life.

"......Fine. Do it. Actor, whatever—just bring them. But never...... never let my face get out. You understand?"

The executives bowed their heads. In the tension filling the room, Oh Myeongho's shout—pathetic, nearly a scream—echoed.

What?

The man on the screen was someone else entirely. The one I had seen was a painfully ordinary little shit in glasses. On the television, a completely different face was introducing himself as Oh Myeongho.

Had that With Crime bastard actually played me? No. Too early to decide.

I'd watched them from the old man on down. This was a house that would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠try any filthy trick in the back room—water or fire, it didn't matter which. More likely they had dug a trap of their own and turned it back on me.

The man on the screen bowed his head. The voice was reading off a polished script.

For an instant the space around him went quiet, and then the camera flashes burst one after another.

In a hurry, by the look of it. Even a shameless pit of a household, out here making a public apology.

Well. If it were me—if overnight my grandfather, my father, and my uncle had all crossed the river, not one of them spared—I'd be shaken too. I didn't need to see it to know. That bastard had to have been trembling to pieces at home.

A panel prepared for the moment unfolded behind him.

I sat with my legs crossed and stared straight at the screen.

Give me a fucking break. A hundred million? That's all? Hand that over and the dead come walking back, do they?

Money again. I swear, the bastards sitting on a little cash always think there's nothing money can't buy.

Did he figure that if he pulled this, I'd go, Oh, look, he knows how to repent. Fine. You're forgiven?

Not a chance. I had no intention whatsoever of showing mercy to trash.

And anyway—was that even Oh Myeongho up there? No. I didn't need to sit around chewing on it.

Open the Yangbap window and slam the photo and the name in. If it didn't catch, With Crime had dug the trap. If it did, then that spoiled, soft little bastard Oh Myeongho had gotten scared and stuck a double out front.

Good. Kill him first. Sort the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rest out after.

I moved to lay the curse on him—and stopped.

Still. Was the payout for the dead a shame to throw away?

You never knew. For the families left behind, for the people who had survived, the wound was one that would never wash clean. Even so, it might still do something for the lives they were living now. From where an ordinary person stood, a hundred million won and fifty million won were not small money.

I closed the Status Window and sat with it a moment.

The conclusion came out simple and clean.

Right. I was going to kill him anyway.

Let him pay. Then he dies.