BFRS 8

“Ugh.”

After placing the man on the worktable, I grabbed the largest of the boning knives. I fumbled around the heavily wrinkled neck once to check the position, then struck down. The head fell to the floor with the recoil.

Next were the arms. I forcibly straightened the bent shoulder, which had been crammed into the bag, checked the position of the joint, and plunged the blade in. Something squirted and splattered on my face.

“Ah, what a pain.”

It was blood that was still left in the body. I should have just drained the blood first. That was the reason why I always drained the blood first whenever new items came in. Otherwise, it would keep splattering during work, making cleanup a hassle. I roughly wiped it off, then, in a hurry, I grabbed the man’s legs and made deep cuts in both heels and wrists. I placed a bucket under the worktable, and blood dripped down. Drip, drip. Judging by the amount coming out, the cause of death seemed to be excessive bleeding, indeed.

“Should I do the other one first?”

While I was at it, I decided to drain all the blood first and approached the bags. Warehouse number 3 was the most recently built, so it was quite large. My father and I used to work together at several worktables, but now I laid out the bodies here and there on the tables and worked as I pleased, moving around.

“Ah.”

This bag wasn’t a suitcase but a Boston bag. I knew what was in here. It was an item that had already been neatly dismembered and cut up at every joint. I had checked it beforehand when I was removing the eyeballs. It could be disposed of by putting it through a blender, but it was a hassle, so he must have requested incineration.

Ah, then I have to recalculate. There was a difference in cost between just incineration and entrusting the entire process. If he had told me beforehand, I would have given him a better discount. Chairman Jang probably forgot. I was going to bill him separately for just removing the eyeballs, but I guess I shouldn’t. I moved the dismembered corpses onto a cart and then opened another new bag.

As soon as I opened the bag, a rotten smell wafted out.

“Ah…”

Chairman Jang would sometimes pick out and kill opponents he didn’t like for his own needs, but he also killed on commission. When he had a lot of jobs, he wouldn’t stop by every time but would gather them all at once and bring them over. He would joke that he couldn’t help it because it was far, but because of that, there were sometimes bodies mixed in that had already started to decompose.

I hadn’t noticed last time, but this one was quite old. He should have told me to handle this one first. I grew irritated at Chairman Jang’s carelessness. If he had just said a word to let me know that they were killed at different times, I would have handled it well on my own.

After moving the item to the worktable, I started with the task of draining the blood. The blood of an old corpse had a strong smell too. To prevent the smell from setting in, I had to ventilate the place well.

This was the youngest man among the ones brought this time. He was slender and well-muscled, but no tattoos were visible. A cop? A young person like this was usually someone from a faction competing with Chairman Jang or someone who was bothering him.

If they had a fierce impression, were brawny, and had many tattoos, they were generally from Chairman Jang’s rival faction. If they had the same fierce and brawny impression but their body was relatively clean, they were often police officers. When I told Chairman Jang my reasoning, he laughed and said that even police officers get a lot of tattoos these days, but so far, I hadn’t been wrong.

“So young. What a waste.”

If he was a young person, his organs would be much more useful, but to let something like this rot before bringing it over. Each and every one of these was money, but Chairman Jang was a man who didn’t know the value of money.

“Is it done?”

The sound of dripping blood had subsided a little. I went over to the first item I had taken out, and it seemed all the blood had been drained. Where should I cut first? He’s on the tall side, so it would probably be better to cut the legs first. I hesitated for a moment between a saw and a knife, then gripped the knife.

Using a chainsaw is faster, but the sound is so loud that I couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t leak outside. It’s a bit of a hassle, but being safe is important.

I chose the largest of the filleting knives and slowly drove the blade into the flesh, starting from the end. A dead body is nothing more than a lump of human-shaped meat. My job is to butcher that lump of meat and make it disappear without a trace. The dismembered bodies, cut into small pieces to reduce their volume, are thrown into a fiery pit of over 1,000 degrees, where they become just a handful of ashes.

Doing that work didn’t give me any great emotion. From a young age, I had grown up watching my father do this work and meeting the people who came to entrust him with jobs. Occasionally, some would state specific requirements. Like Chairman Jang who had requested the eyeballs, there were also people who asked for just a finger, a heart, or an ear to be cut off. More troublesome ones would ask if they could have a skull with all the flesh scraped off.

Since taking over the business, I haven’t been accepting jobs that require such delicate work, but my father put his heart into each and every one of those jobs. I didn’t know for sure, but they said there was no one who could satisfy their tastes as well as my father. My father would carry out their requests very meticulously and with great care.

I wasn’t on that level. Even after a very long time, I would probably never be like my father. I didn’t enjoy doing it that way either. I couldn’t understand why he would so meticulously scrape flesh and separate bones as if creating a work of art, when it was all going to be burned and destroyed anyway.

Now I work alone without my father, but people still come to me for work. And for good reason, as I have never once been tailed. One of the most important virtues of a cleaner is to never leave a trace.

“Hoo.”

After cutting away the flesh, I used a boning knife to separate the joint. Cutting off one leg took much longer than I thought. I still had a mountain of work to do. I would probably have to finish one body and then continue with the rest tomorrow. If I pushed myself to finish it just because, Mr. Seonggoo would find it strange. If he asked what I was doing last night, I wouldn’t have a good excuse.

I wasn’t good at lying. I had tried a few times, but I got caught every single time. Chairman Jang had even sneered, saying he had never met someone in his life who was as bad at lying as I was. Should I just finish cutting this one leg and then go in? If I locked it with a padlock, Mr. Seonggoo wouldn’t be able to get in either.

Since it was past my bedtime, I was starting to get sleepy too.

“I should stop here.”

I readjusted my grip on the filleting knife and plunged the blade deep into the thigh. The thought of clocking out made my speed pick up. With each slice of the knife, the completely lifeless flesh was gouged out. I lifted the leg high, made a mark below the buttocks, then switched my grip on the knife again and poked around the joint.

Plop! I grabbed the ankle, twisted, and pulled, and the leg came off cleanly.

“Haa.”

I gave the cleanly severed leg a once-over, then carried it as it was and threw it onto the cart. Thud! After confirming that the cart rattled once from the weight, I turned around. Thump! At that moment, I belatedly heard the sound of something heavy falling with a time lag. My hand, which was about to take off my glove, froze. Thump? Did it fall? I looked back, but the single leg was loaded safely onto the cart.

Then where did that sound come from? I looked around the inside of the warehouse, and my gaze landed on the door. I was sure I had secured it properly, but the door was slightly ajar.

“…”

Just in case, I approached the door and peered outside through the crack. The surroundings were pitch dark and hard to see, but the light leaking from inside the warehouse faintly illuminated the area below.

“…Mr. Seonggoo?”

And on the ground, the man lay, having lost consciousness.

“Mr. Seonggoo. Wake up.”

I shook his body and slapped his cheeks to try and wake him, but he didn’t budge. Did he see? He must have seen. That’s why he’s like this. There were a few of Chairman Jang’s lackeys who fainted upon their first visit to my warehouse. Every time, Chairman Jang would click his tongue, saying that guys who do this kind of work were too soft.

But it wasn’t like I could just leave him here and go back. In the end, it meant I had to take him with me. I roughly took off my gloves and work clothes, locked the warehouse door securely, and then hoisted the man up. I put his arm around my shoulder and tried to stand up, but my center of gravity shifted backward, and I ended up falling on my butt.

“Damn it.”

I had carried the bag that Mr. Seonggoo was in before, so I had a rough idea of the weight, but it was harder now. Should I bring a bag? The bag this man had been brought in should still be in warehouse number 1. I thought about it for a moment, but then decided against it, thinking it wasn’t polite to transport a living person like that. The house seemed unusually far away.

“Gasp.”

“You’re awake?”

30 minutes. That’s how long it took for the man to regain consciousness. It would have been nice if he had woken up a little earlier. Then I could have brought him in a little more comfortably.

“Are you okay?”

The man flinched, then shot up with a start and began to feel his own body. It went without saying, but Mr. Seonggoo’s body was perfectly fine. I was too tired to even finish the work I was getting paid to do; I didn’t want to waste my energy on something pointless. After checking his body once, the man looked around frantically.

“This is my room.”

My room was a bit bigger than his. It also had a bed. It wasn’t that I brought him here out of consideration for someone who had fainted; I just forgot. In any case, he seemed fine. A little startled, though.

“Would you like some water?”

“Gasp!”

When I held out the glass of water I had poured in advance, he had a fit and backed away.

“…It’s just water.”

He didn’t seem to believe me, so I took a sip first. The man then took the glass from me, looking confused. Gulp, gulp. The glass of water emptied quickly.

“Don’t worry. I have no intention of dismembering you, Mr. Seonggoo.”

“Choke!”

The man’s body lurched as he spat out the water. Seeing him cough repeatedly, it seemed he had choked on the water. Choking on water is really painful… I was looking at him with pity when our eyes met. Mr. Seonggoo’s complexion was unusually pale.

“What, what are you doing.”

Mr. Seonggoo asked in a hoarse voice.

“I was waiting for you to wake up, Mr. Seonggoo.”

“No, not that. I’m talking about that warehouse earlier.”

“Ah.”

It wasn’t a difficult question. For me, that is.

“I was working.”

“…Working?”

“Yes. My job.”

“…Job?”

“That’s what my job is. To dispose of bodies cleanly, without a trace.”

The man wore a disbelieving expression at my words. His pupils trembled minutely.

“…You said you grow flowers?”

“I do that too. What was it called? A side hustle?”

“…”

Chairman Jang had said that I, who both grew flowers and cut up bodies, was living a life that fit the current trend. He said that these days, it’s hard to make a living with just one job, so many people have side jobs. In that sense, he would also shamelessly boast that there was no one as diligent and sincere as himself.

“Is it okay to do that?”

The man’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

“Is it not okay?”

This time, he closed his mouth. To me, it was just a job. My father hid what he did from those who weren’t his clients his whole life, but I had never thought it was because it was something he shouldn’t be doing.

Even when I saw Chairman Jang’s subordinates vomit while moving the items, I only thought that they had weak stomachs. So, the question of whether it was okay to do it was a difficult one for me.

“There are people who want things disposed of without a trace, and I’m just doing that for them. Is that a problem?”

At my question, Mr. Seonggoo’s pupils wavered noticeably. There is someone who wants something, and there is someone who can do that thing. It was just a meeting of mutual interests; to ask if it was not okay was flawed.

Looking at Mr. Seonggoo, who still couldn’t hide his bewilderment, I carefully opened my mouth.

“Actually, that’s why… I thought you were one of them, Mr. Seonggoo.”

“One of them?”

“Sometimes there are sneaky people who just dump a body and run. It’s become rare these days, but…”

At my words, the man’s eyes widened slightly. He seemed a little surprised to learn the secret of how he had ended up here.

“But it’s a good thing. I was about to habitually start by draining the blood.”

“…”

“If you had woken up just a little later, you would have died.”

It really was a good thing. I had almost killed a perfectly fine person, after all. Whatever the case, I didn’t want to kill people. Mr. Seonggoo asked me with a confused expression.

“What difference does that make.”