ACJY C2

Lee Seonjae stepped into the yard of a single-family home. The small but well-maintained garden was bursting with colorful flowers, and saplings of unknown species were laden with green leaves. Every corner seemed to have been touched by the homeowner’s care.

‘Director, what are you doing standing out there?’

A hulking man, built like a door, shouted at Seonjae. The man, with a thick double chin, had already removed his shirt. Ugly tattoos covered his upper body, making it difficult to distinguish his skin.

In a blink, Seonjae was in the living room. He tapped his shoes on the gleaming hardwood floor and turned towards the sound of whimpering.

Four people were tied to chairs, one in each corner of the room: a father, a mother, a high school daughter, and a middle school son. Wasn’t the age difference between the eldest and youngest sons of this household fifteen years? Seonjae recalled the gambling addict’s words as he offered the house deed as collateral.

The father, a mid-level executive at a reputable company, three years away from retirement, had emptied his savings and withdrawn his severance pay due to his eldest son’s gambling debts. As if that weren’t enough, he had also taken out a loan against the house. The family of four barely scraped by on what remained of his salary after paying off the loan. Still, they had a decent house. That precious house, the one the son had gambled away after swearing off gambling and even cutting off his pinky finger in front of his parents.

This wasn’t something Seonjae should have been involved in. There were others who handled these kinds of things. He knew that, but his uncle had insisted, calling it a particularly important matter, and had urged Seonjae to take it on, citing the ‘new experience.’ Seonjae, engrossed in his workout routine at the time, had readily taken the bait, thinking managing a few gangsters would be a piece of cake.

Backed by his uncle’s authority, he summoned four of the company’s most vile and ruthless team leaders. They would never have been in the same room if not for his uncle’s name.

It was the women who were whimpering, the mother and daughter. The high school daughter was not particularly pretty or cute. Seonjae felt a sense of relief. It seemed less likely that these thugs would harass her simply because she was a high school girl. That was all.

The younger brother wasn’t much to look at either. Small and skinny, he looked more like an elementary school student than a middle schooler. Despite that, he wasn’t crying.

The father, with a composed expression, mouthed useless reassurances to his wife and daughter, ‘It’s okay. Don’t worry,’ avoiding the thugs’ gaze.

Thud!

A loud noise echoed.

One of the thugs had exposed himself and was urinating in front of the high school girl. Seonjae turned to see that the father had apparently struggled and fallen over.

‘Ha, this bastard. So much trouble.’ 

The thug guarding the father frowned and roughly set the chair upright. The father’s face was flushed crimson.

‘You son of a bitch! Don’t you have parents or siblings? How dare you urinate in front of a girl young enough to be your younger sister! Even animals wouldn’t do that, you piece of shit!’ 

The father yelled, his neck veins bulging, his eyes burning with contempt and disgust, fixed on Seonjae and the thugs.

Someone chuckled. Seonjae frowned.

‘Shut him up. He’s annoying.’

Seonjae said, and the father’s mouth was promptly covered with duct tape.

The mother, overcome with fear, wet herself. This became the thugs’ new source of amusement. The father’s eyes were bloodshot. The middle school son, who had been holding back his tears, finally began to cry silently.

One of the thugs pulled down his pants and defecated in front of the mother. They cursed and chuckled amongst themselves about the stench.

Seonjae wasn’t amused. His face remained expressionless as he endured the boredom.

He had ordered this.

‘There’s no need to drag this out for a week. Give me one day,’ he had boasted to his uncle.

There was no physical violence. Seonjae wasn’t a third-rate thug, and he had no intention of becoming one. He had warned the thugs not to lay a finger on any member of the family. Naturally, there had been resistance, but it quickly subsided after he explained what needed to be done.

Since it was summer, flies quickly swarmed the feces. The smell of urine was also overpowering. The thugs, unfazed, ate jajangmyeon and tangsuyuk in front of the family. The sound of them slurping noodles was disgusting. They had put on a porno and were moaning so loudly that it became difficult to tell where the slurping sounds were coming from.

Even after finishing their meal, they remained engrossed in the porno. The videotape played on with constant moans and gasps. Japanese porn was the best, after all. The thugs scratched their crotches without shame, and finally, unable to contain themselves any longer, they took turns raping the daughter. Right in front of her family, making sure she kept her eyes open.

The mother, who had been sobbing, abruptly stopped crying. She was devastated. Pale as a ghost, she stared blankly at the thug’s penis, drool dripping from the corner of her mouth.

Perhaps it was the heat, but Seonjae felt suffocated. He went out to the garden alone and picked a flower. He crushed the petals in his palm, staining his hand with the flower’s pigment. It wouldn’t come off. Of all flowers, it had to be a balsam.

The family, who had stubbornly resisted for over a week, calling the police and barricading themselves, surrendered within five hours of Seonjae’s arrival. They crumbled easily, having endured what no ordinary father, housewife, high school girl, or eighth grader should have to experience.

The duct tape was removed from the father’s mouth. The ropes binding his hands and feet were also untied.

‘Sign the agreement.’ 

Seonjae presented the ink pad and the agreement to the father, who was trembling with shame and fear. The father read the agreement and looked up at Seonjae. His tear-stained eyes were devoid of life. The fighting spirit that had burned in his eyes just hours ago had been extinguished. It was surprising that such a thing could be discerned from a single glance.

He obtained the fingerprint.

‘May we pack our belongings?’

The father asked politely, his voice choked with tears.

‘I’ll give you ten minutes.’

Having been tied up for so long, they couldn’t move immediately. The father, who had been released first, helped his wife and gathered his children. While the parents packed in the bedroom, the children went to their respective rooms to collect their belongings.

They had few possessions. The children had only their school bags and the clothes on their backs. The parents carried a single, small travel bag, so small it seemed inadequate.

The family and the thugs gathered in the garden. The thugs were disappointed that it had ended so easily. They complained about the loss of their entertainment. 

‘I’ll have you when your acne clears up,’ one said to the high school girl. 

‘What do you eat to get so fat, lady? Lose some weight,’ another said to the mother. 

A thug reached out to pat the middle school boy’s head, but the boy suddenly lunged and bit his finger. The thug raised his hand to strike, but Seonjae quickly grabbed it.

‘I said no violence.’

The thug trembled with rage.

‘Go inside and clean up the house. Clean up your own shit.’

Despite Seonjae’s order, the thug continued to glare at the middle school boy for a while.

‘Aren’t you going in?’ 

Seonjae’s low growl finally made the thug retreat into the house.

Only the family of four and Seonjae remained in the garden.

Seonjae took ten 10,000 won bills and five 100,000 won checks from his wallet and held them out.

‘Use this for transportation and lodging.’

The father respectfully accepted the money with both hands. The mother hesitated in front of a flowerpot.

‘Take it.’

As if waiting for Seonjae’s permission, the mother quickly embraced the pot.

He wondered what kind of flower it was.

He watched the mother and her children leave through the front gate, thinking the flowers were quite beautiful.

Finally, only the father and Seonjae remained. The father looked wistfully at the well-tended garden and the familiar two-story house. Then, he bowed one last time.

Since Seonjae was standing in front of him, it appeared as if he was bowing to Seonjae, but he was saying goodbye to the house. A very respectful goodbye, as if thanking it for the good times. The father left with slumped shoulders, and that was the last Seonjae saw of him.

It was later that the father reappeared at the house with his wife. They stabbed one of the underlings guarding the house to death and then committed suicide together. At the time, Seonjae was being entertained at a golf course in the countryside.

He had scoffed when he heard his uncle had suddenly summoned a shaman to perform a gut somewhere. He hadn’t known it was for that house. He hadn’t known the pathetic-looking father would kill someone with his wife, or that they would hang themselves side-by-side from the living room rafters.

Even if he had known, he would have done the same thing. That was Seonjae back then. He felt no remorse. 

‘Tough couple,’ was all he thought.

But he had the same dream again. It always began with that damn garden. Ever since he decided to abandon his name, it had been like this. He’d only slept for a little over an hour, but it found its way into his dreams. He opened his palm. For a moment, it seemed stained with balsam juice, but it was an illusion.

The lifeless look in the father’s eyes, his final bow, relentlessly pursued him.

Seonjae clutched his head.