Chapter 4
Chapter 4
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Shattered Peace
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You have a gun, don't you?
And lingering feelings?
William’s eyes, filled with anticipation, held a sly smile as he asked the question, and to this, Kanghyeok couldn't answer.
He felt that no matter what he said, he would be playing right into William's hands.
Kanghyeok had a gun.
One he maintained so often the smell of oil clung to the room.
Almost every night, in fact.
In his room with the blinds drawn, guided by the light of his laptop monitor, he would oil the gun he thought he'd never fire again.
For a man who had retired to live an ordinary life, a gun was an unfitting possession.
Yet, Kanghyeok himself didn't know why he insisted on maintaining it.
He had the absurd excuse that it was just to pass the time.
But looking at William, he couldn't bring himself to say it was just a hobby.
Especially those eyes!
Staring into those lizard-like eyes that seemed to pierce right through a person's soul, his lips were sealed even tighter.
“You still have my direct line, I presume.”
William’s eyes curved into crescents as he looked at the speechless Kanghyeok.
“I won’t wait too long. But if you ever feel like coming back, give me a call.”
Click.
Leila opened the door, and William walked past Kanghyeok, who stood frozen like a statue.
Thud.
Left alone in the room, Kanghyeok wiped a hand down his face.
The room was quiet, but his mind was as noisy as the hum of the fan and the laptop.
Too many thoughts swirled inside.
Annoyance, anger, confusion, and bewilderment.
He had never imagined it, not even in his dreams.
That something like this would happen today.
His plan had been to get through the day like any other, check the price of Bitcoin, and then lie down in bed to end it.
He would have humbly accepted his prescribed daily routine, like a prisoner confined within a cell.
But William's words wouldn't leave his mind.
‘Why are you wasting your life?’
A muscle under Kanghyeok's eye twitched, and his lips twisted in irritation.
‘Wasting my life?’
It might look that way.
But his life wasn't something some bastard who knew nothing could judge so carelessly.
As William said, there was certainly a way to go back and live a much more human life than this.
But he knew all too well how it would end, what would happen, which was why he’d chosen to spend his days staring at cryptocurrency charts.
It might look like a wasted life, but for Kanghyeok, this was the best he could do.
“Bastards! You don't know a damn thing!”
Kanghyeok picked up the chair.
Then he slammed it onto the floor, shattering it to pieces.
Crash! Crack! Smash!
He stomped on the fragments and, with the remaining piece of the backrest, repeatedly struck the floor, unleashing his fury without restraint.
“Why! Fuck! Why do you bother me when I’m trying to live quietly!”
Crack!
The back of the chair, slammed down with all his might, snapped in two and fell from his hand.
Crack!
Inside the car, Leila glanced at the speaker.
Kanghyeok’s enraged voice was followed by the sound of something being smashed to pieces.
The sounds were transmitted vividly by the listening device Leila had planted on the door.
“Hmm.”
Leila frowned slightly and looked back, meeting the eyes of William, who was holding a glass in the back seat.
“Should I turn it off?”
“No, leave it.”
William was smiling as if he found Kanghyeok’s rage amusing.
Not that he had some perverse tendency.
The pleasure he felt was akin to that of someone watching a long-awaited movie finally premiere, or reuniting with an old friend.
Turning her gaze forward again, Leila started the engine and spoke cautiously.
“With all due respect, sir, I don't understand.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t think he’s someone who warrants your personal attention. He was outstanding on active duty, but his rank wasn't that high, and more importantly, the way he's living now…”
Leila couldn't finish her sentence.
She had seen William's hardened expression in the rearview mirror.
“My apologies.”
As soon as Leila's quiet apology was uttered, William set down his glass and narrowed his eyes.
“Why do you think I came? Because I have time to spare?”
“…”
“He's worth my time. That's why I'm here.”
“Yes, sir.”
Leila’s lips parted slightly, and William shifted his gaze to the speaker transmitting the sounds from Kanghyeok's room.
“Don't you dare judge him by how he looks now. He was an agent with more potential than anyone, and he's someone we absolutely must bring back.”
“Do you believe he'll come back?”
“We'll make it so he has to.”
William downed the rest of his drink and looked at Leila through the rearview mirror.
“Something is going to happen to Kanghyeok soon.”
“Yes, sir.”
Leila looked out the side window.
They hadn't left the neighborhood yet, so filth and squalor were visible everywhere she looked. She also saw the looks in people's eyes, and the greed that stained them.
“Put him in our debt. Give him a reason he has no choice but to return.”
There are two main ways to make a person do what you want.
One is violence.
The other is to put them in your debt.
Violence won't work on Kanghyeok.
So they chose the latter.
“What’s the limit?”
To Leila’s question about how much of their budget and resources she could use, William answered immediately.
“Be bold.”
“Understood.”
After replying, Leila bit her lower lip.
It was an order from her superior, the HR Manager himself, so she had no choice but to answer immediately, but she wasn't keen on it.
‘Was he really so exceptional that William would speak of him like this?’
Leila remembered Kanghyeok from a year ago, when he was still on active duty.
He was an outstanding operative.
He had succeeded in near-impossible missions more than once, and in terms of combat ability alone, he was classified among the top tier.
He had even earned the title of the youngest Deputy Team Leader in the shortest amount of time, with unprecedented terms.
But two things cast a negative light on his evaluation.
The pathetic way he was living now.
And the fact that he had submitted his resignation without any clear reason.
The image of Kanghyeok back then was still seared into her memory.
He had submitted his resignation with a look in his eyes so profound it was as if he had aged ten years overnight.
When asked what was wrong, he only repeated, “You wouldn’t understand even if I told you.”
That was the kind of man he was.
For Leila, understanding why William wanted to bring such a man back was too difficult a task.
But an order was an order, and she had no choice but to obey.
Vrooom.
It was then that they left the city where Kanghyeok lived.
The sounds from the speaker had ceased, and William, as if he had lost interest, closed his eyes with a placid expression.
“Wake me when we get to the airport.”
“Rest well.”
Leila pressed a button near the driver's seat.
A film with bulletproofing and sun-blocking properties rose from inside the windows, plunging the interior into a darkness like midnight.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Someone was pounding on Kanghyeok's door as if to break it down.
“Come out! Get the hell out here, you bastard!”
“We know you're in there, you son of a bitch!”
Kanghyeok sat on the edge of his bed without a word, glaring at the door. He brought a cigarette to his lips.
Dammit, a cigarette was always the right answer.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“I said, come out!”
Rattle, rattle, rattle!
Because even as the door shook as if it would break, the cigarette kept him from feeling that maddening rage.
The moment his chair was in pieces, the pounding on his door had begun.
First, it was the guy from downstairs, pounding like he was having a fit. Then, the entire neighborhood seemed to take turns.
Some knocked politely.
Others, like these ones, screamed for him to just come out.
The people knocking were different, but their reason was the same.
Bam!
“Who were those people from before? Tell us, you bastard!”
They were curious how Kanghyeok, a guy treated like a fool even by children, knew men in suits who rode in a luxury sedan.
Maybe they smelled money.
Or maybe they hoped some scraps would fall their way.
Or perhaps they were looking for a chance to escape this godforsaken neighborhood through him. Whatever it was, it wasn't welcome.
His routine was shattered.
Utterly shattered.
Haaaah!
Kanghyeok exhaled a cloud of smoke like a sigh.
Until yesterday—no, until this morning—he never thought something like this would happen.
Bang, bang, bang!
And he certainly never expected his door to be pounded on like this.
Kanghyeok hung his head, staring blankly at the cigarette butt rolling on the floor.
“Son of a bitch.”
William had clearly known and come here on purpose.
No matter how he thought about it, that was the only conclusion.
Like stirring up the mud settled at the bottom of a pond, William's appearance had completely thrown Kanghyeok's daily life into disarray.
‘That old fox.’
So his plan was to make it impossible for me to live a normal life here, wasn't it?
All to get me to come back?
Having done his homework, William must have known full well how much Kanghyeok hated attention.
And yet, William had appeared before him in the most conspicuous way possible.
“Haaaah.”
He could only think that all of this was done with a specific intention.
But there could be no other motive.
What could William possibly know?
Frankly, neither William, nor Leila, nor even their superiors knew what Kanghyeok had been through.
Since he had handed in his resignation without any warning, they probably thought it was a simple whim.
But it wasn't like that at all.
Kanghyeok cupped the hand holding his cigarette and pressed his fingers firmly between his eyebrows.
It was still so damn vivid.
The incident a year ago that had made him decide to quit.
“Hah!”
Kanghyeok took a lighter from his pocket.
His face was reflected on the polished Zippo lighter.
Even after a year, his face still felt incredibly unfamiliar whenever he saw it. The face that looked back was too young; it wasn't his original one.
His had been a face with more wrinkles, one that showed experience.
Somehow, it had ended up like this.
Kanghyeok put the lighter back in his pocket and glanced at his laptop.
Darkness was already settling outside the window, and with the blinds closed, the room was pitch-black.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Watching the door that was still being pounded on, Kanghyeok muttered quietly.
“Tomorrow.”
His voice was soft, but it held a steely resolve.
‘I'm leaving this place.’
This place was a lost cause now.
It would quiet down with time, but the possibility that William could return at any moment remained.
And he would urge him to come back.
Kanghyeok smirked, one corner of his mouth twisting up.
‘Screw off.’
Kanghyeok scrubbed his face roughly and walked over to the desk with his laptop.
Then he opened a drawer.
Rattle.
A bottle of sleeping pills, stuck in the back of the drawer, rolled toward the front.
Kanghyeok took out a pill, tossed it into his mouth, and chewed and swallowed it without water.
It was a sleeping pill he only took on days when he was exceptionally angry.
He hadn't had much reason to take one recently, but thanks to William's visit, he felt he wouldn't be able to sleep without it.
Haaah.
Letting out a heavy breath, Kanghyeok lay down on the bed.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Come out! Just open the damn door!”
Letting the frantic shouting go in one ear and out the other, Kanghyeok closed his eyes.
When morning came, today would be over. He could start fresh in a new place with a completely new mindset.
He could get the money somehow by selling off some of his cryptocurrency.
A strange, heavy feeling settled in a corner of his chest, but he told himself it couldn't be helped and let go of consciousness.
Feeling the sensation of sinking into water and the dizziness from the pill at the same time, Kanghyeok fell into a deep sleep. He woke the next day.
And he realized.
That life doesn't always go as planned.
“Damn it.”
The room was a mess.
The desk was disheveled.
And the laptop that should have been on it was gone.
The laptop containing his cryptocurrency—which was to say, his everything—had vanished.