The Talk of the Town (2)
"Phew."
Gang In-jeong let out a breath of relief.
I’m glad I wore a decent stab-proof vest.
To be honest, getting stabbed had startled him a little.
But the vest had stopped the knife cleanly, and thanks to that, he’d been able to bring the man under control.
The thick reek of alcohol stung his nose.
"Are you students all right?"
"Uh... y-yes!! Yes!!"
The suddenness of it all had left the students dazed.
The fact that they’d almost been stabbed had emptied their heads completely.
And then the rush of relief hit all at once.
"Thank you! Thank you!"
"You’re a police officer?!"
"Yes. I’m Senior Inspector Gang In-jeong of Dobong Police Station."
When they heard that the person who’d helped them was a plainclothes cop, the students lit up with gratitude.
And they thought, If any bastard at school starts talking trash about cops again, I’ll knock his teeth out.
.
.
.
Since he’d been arrested at the scene, there was nothing more to see.
"Inspector! You really had it rough out there!"
"Rough? This is just police work."
The officers who had come after the report stared at him with admiration.
He waved them off casually, shoved his hands in his pockets, and started walking.
When he reached a good spot, he took out his phone right away.
"Hello?"
"This is Gang In-jeong, sir."
"No problems, I trust?"
"Yes. Just like you said, I’m glad I wore the stab-proof vest. Anyway, the bastard’s been arrested and taken in, so I guess we’ll see what comes of it."
"That’s a relief. Still, you must have had a hard time. Even if you knew it was coming, a knife flying at you is no joke."
"Heh. Isn’t that the duty of a police officer?"
He pulled out a cigarette and lit it with practiced ease.
Truth be told, there was still a corner of his chest that felt tight with fear, but he couldn’t show that.
"Thank you for the help... I do wish there were something I could do for you in return."
"The fact that you keep doing things by the book is already a huge help to us. Still... understood. If anything comes up, I’ll contact you."
He smiled leisurely and ended the call.
Then he finished his cigarette, clenched his fist, and felt the last of the excitement slowly drain away.
If we can keep getting help from Mr. Kang, maybe we can prevent more incidents like this... No. First, we need to investigate as much as we can on our own.
According to Kang Noah, the man saw the future by divination.
Which meant that if they didn’t put in the work themselves, all he could see were futures they’d never be able to catch in time.
Even if only to help him see more, they had to do everything they could.
Smack!
He lightly slapped both cheeks, as if to wake himself up, and remembered his responsibilities and duty.
"Let’s go."
His steps were already carrying him toward Dobong Police Station.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"They caught the bastard."
After finishing my call with Gang In-jeong, I told Gwak Seong and his grandson, Gwak Junhyeong, who were sitting there with anxious, troubled faces.
Gwak Junhyeong’s eyes were shining.
"Hyung! Seriously, thank you!"
"No, it was just something I should’ve done. And also, hyung...?"
You’re older than me, you know.
And you’ve even done your military service...
But Gwak Junhyeong didn’t care about any of that.
"Aw, we don’t care about stuff like that. If you’re hyung, then you’re hyung."
Gwak Junhyeong was a viewer of my stream.
So when his grandfather had mentioned my name, he’d nearly jumped out of his skin and immediately called me.
"Thank you, sir. Truly. I don’t even know how to begin thanking you..."
"Oh, come on. It’s all right, sir."
"I’d like to repay you somehow... I grow the finest apples in our orchard, and I’d love to send you some."
The old man, who ran an orchard near Paju, kept trying to give me things.
No, really, he didn’t have to...
But if I kept refusing, he looked like he might sneak them over anyway, so in the end I said I’d eat them well and thanked him.
"Then we should be going."
"Yes. Please get home safely."
"Hyung! Is it okay if I post about this online?"
"Sure. Go ahead."
It was already over.
Besides, it would help raise my profile, so there was no reason to object.
.
.
.
And so, the next day.
After I finished a raid and turned on the stream, there weren’t floods of handshake requests—just a flood of chat messages.
-Hyung! Hyung! Is it true? That thing?!
-They’re saying you stopped the random stabbing in Hongdae!
-Wasn’t someone supposed to die there originally!!
He’d already posted it?
When I followed the link in chat, I found a post.
I lived because of Noah hyung.
-SeoulWordsmith
I’m a guy living in Seoul.
A little while ago, my grandfather asked me if I knew our Noah hyung.
Honestly, I was pretty nervous?
I’d been totally doing the ordinary-guy cosplay in front of my grandfather, lol.
But then Grandpa’s face suddenly turned pale.
When I asked what was wrong, he said that man had given him a fortune and said I was going to die?
I was seriously freaking out.
So Grandpa and I called him right away and met him.
Wow, it was no joke.
There was some crazy bastard in Hongdae running around with a knife, and he said I’d die while trying to save some kids.
Hearing that gave me chills for real;;
That just happened to be the road I took home from my part-time job.
And it was right around the time I got off work too.
I’d never even had a girlfriend yet and I thought I was about to die, I was seriously freaking out, but our hyung stopped it
So I took the day off work and waited with my grandfather, okay?
You all know it, right? The attempted knife attack incident in Hongdae.
It was exactly there.
If hyung hadn’t called the police he knew and waited there, three of the students there might have died.
So as of today, I withdraw my support for Noah hyung.
From this day forward, I sever my supportive relationship.
Kang Noah and I become one body.
Any attack on Kang Noah shall be considered an attack on me.
Remember that from now on.
-No way, is this actually real;;;?
-Holy crap, so the person who was supposed to die there was you?
-Isn’t this bastard a Seoul National University graduate?
-Yeah, he posted his student ID before.
-And he’s also someone who finished military service on time...
-Damn, one useless loser almost got a decent young man killed.
-No, it said the students almost died too?
-Kang Noah saved a bunch of people;;;
-Don’t go around casually saying our hyung’s name-Do you think Kang Noah is your friend?
-So that old man who called last time must be this guy’s grandfather.
There were a lot of comments.
Some people said it was fake, and others told them to shut the hell up with their bullshit.
But maybe because my clips had already spread all over the internet, there weren’t that many of those comments.
Ring-ring!!
"Hello?"
"Mr. Noah! I saw the internet! Are you okay?"
"Huh? What do you mean, am I okay?"
"The internet is going crazy right now!"
It looked like the post Gwak Junhyeong wrote was spreading everywhere.
As if she thought I was in trouble because of it, Hong Si-yeon’s voice was trembling.
"Don’t worry. Nothing’s wrong."
"No, still..."
"What, I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?"
If anything, I’d been praised. I wasn’t the one who’d done anything to get arrested, so what was there to be scared of?
It was just going to be another ordinary day.
"Well, that’s a relief. Anyway, if anything seems like it’ll cause trouble, call me right away."
"Yes. I’ll call you later."
I ended the call.
The chat window was still shaking itself to death.
"All right. We’re still taking ten clients today."
But there was nothing special about it.
For me, it was just another ordinary day.
◈ From CalmingThingsWithAKnife
◈ Thanks for saving our Yonggeun!
"Hey! Our Yonggeun’s gone missing!"
"Check behind the basement stairs."
Yonggeun was the cat belonging to CalmingThingsWithAKnife.
It had slipped out while the door was open for a moment and hidden in the basement.
More precisely, it was playing with another cat in the basement.
"Hiseok from Mullae-dong, you’ve got a test tomorrow. You really have time to be watching a stream?"
I turned over a card and said it.
Then another message popped up at once.
"Want me to tell you which school you attend too?"
[Excellent has left the chat.]
-People like that are still around these days?
-Should we flip everything over like last time...?
I sent the troll packing neatly.
After that, I played around a bit more and was in the middle of reading someone’s fortune when it happened.
Ppeuhong.
A YouTuber with over a million subscribers.
He had a likable, friendly face and could eat an unbelievable amount, which made him hugely popular.
When I was at the orphanage, I’d seen him too while my older brothers and sisters had it on as they ate ramen.
Let’s see...
"You’re thinking about a Chinese restaurant in Bucheon and a hangover soup place in Yangpyeong, right?"
-What?! He got it right?
-Ppeuhong’s coming to the Bucheon Chinese place!!
-He said he’s torn between Yangpyeong and there lol
Everyone was losing their minds.
Well, you couldn’t really blame them. A million-subscriber YouTuber was a big deal.
And especially this one, since he was also a good person who donated a lot.
"Forget the Bucheon Chinese place. If you film there, you’ll get nothing."
-Huh? Why not...?
"Because on the day of filming, the head chef will be too sick to cook properly."
His heart seemed to have tilted toward the Bucheon Chinese place.
That was why the future had come out as a Chinese restaurant.
But when he actually tried to film there, the head chef’s mild cold would worsen from the morning until his fever got so high he couldn’t even taste anything.
In the end, the food would turn into a disaster, and they’d waste time and money while the shoot collapsed.
-Ppeuhong: Then I guess Yangpyeong...?
"Yangpyeong isn’t good either."
-Ppeuhong: Uh...
"You’d get into an accident on the way there."
The future changed.
It became a future where a traffic accident would put him and his staff in the hospital.
There was no reason to go somewhere that would end in an accident.
-Ppeuhong: Hmm... Then I’ll have to think of another place. Thank you!
And just like that, the million-subscriber YouTuber was gone.
The chat window immediately erupted again.
-Damn lol, hyung’s hanging out with a major corporation now?
-Are you going to do a collab with Ppeuhong later?
-He used to be my little hyung...
-I subscribed first...
-I hit recommend first...
I’d already worked with the chairman of a giant company, though.
What was so different about a giant YouTuber?
"All right. Next."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Honestly, Ppeuhong found it hard to believe.
Fortune-telling?
Could that really make sense?
But he couldn’t show that.
After all, right now the public wanted to believe it was real.
"So what do we do? Cancel both reservations?"
"Hmm..."
He was torn.
But the decision came quickly.
"Cancel both and let’s go to Jongno in Seoul instead."
"Haha. Won’t something go wrong in Seoul too?"
"Come on. No way, right?"
Ppeuhong, the YouTuber, smiled and shook his head.
Then the filming day came.
A call came in from the staff member he’d sent to Bucheon to handle the apology for the schedule change and coordinate the next shoot.
-Hey. I asked why the jjajangmyeon tasted disgustingly salty, and they said the head chef suddenly came down hard with a cold. If we’d filmed there, we would’ve been in serious trouble...
"......"
It was real.
Then if they had gone to Yangpyeong...?
Ppeuhong swallowed hard.
Not only him, but the staff also felt cold sweat trickling down their backs.
"A-all’s well that ends well!"
"Right?"
"Hahaha... There’s no way that really would’ve happened..."
"Let’s hurry up and get to filming."
Everyone was forcing themselves to say it, but they all knew it.
His fortune-telling was real.
They were feeling both unease and wonder at the same time, but work still had to be done.
They headed to the barbecue restaurant that had agreed to cooperate with the shoot.
A famous barbecue place in Jongno.
It was also known as a local favorite, so food wouldn’t be a problem.
It was long past mealtime, so there weren’t many customers.
"Hello!"
It was already three in the afternoon.
Scattered around the restaurant they’d assumed would be empty were a few late lunch customers.
And one of them caught Ppeuhong’s eye.
"Wow. There goes the whole damn rib."
Kang Noah, enthusiastically stuffing his face with meat.