DS 17
by Soraiip“Why are you so surprised?”
The man slowly leaned forward. He knelt in front of Eun-myeong. The silver necklace around his neck glinted in the light. The white light pierced his eyes, making it painful.
“Weren’t you trying to play hide-and-seek with me?”
The man’s dark valley-like eyes touched Eun-myeong’s hand.
“You have bad manners.”
Eun-myeong’s hand trembled as he tightly gripped the phone. As if finding it amusing, the man lightly knocked the phone with the back of his hand.
“This isn’t yours anyway.”
His voice cracked at the end, his body quivering in chills. Hiding in the closet was truly a bad move. There was no room for escape. If the man were to lock the closet door now, they might suffocate from lack of air.
Moreover… the fact that such a death might be considered fortunate truly made it suffocating.
“You!”
The end of his words rose with a sharp tone. It sounded like fingernails scraping a chalkboard making Eun-myeong curl his toes tightly.
“What about me?”
Eun-myeong finally let go of the lip he’d been chewing until it almost bled
“Why do you have my Noona’s phone?”
This man had clearly pretended not to find his older sister. He had just gone out earlier after receiving a tip about finding her.
“There was a trash can at the bus terminal.”
He leaned in. As he pushed his upper body forward and propped his elbow against the closet, Eun-myeong leaned further against the wall.
“Despite rats crawling everywhere, I fucking searched thoroughly and found this phone.”
He whispered as if sharing a secret, even though they were alone.
“But you… got so excited thinking I found your Noona.”
A ringing sound pierced Eun-myeong’s ears. It felt like his mind was buzzing with too many thoughts.
‘That person seems like a terrifying gangster. Really, really scary. He’s got a foul mouth, tattoos on his hands, and the people he hangs around with look like gangsters too.’
He had felt relieved thinking his older sister had answered the phone. He wanted to say just one more word while gripping the receiver, holding onto that last thread of hope.
But looking back, Eun-myeong had never heard his older sister’s voice. He had just assumed she couldn’t speak at the time. This man had been listening. He remembered the hot, hollow laughter from the other end. A deflated chuckle. He had been mocking them.
“Hm? You’re so fucking entertaining.”
The man reached into his jacket’s pocket and fished out a notebook. He flipped through it with his middle finger. After listings of blue crab, furry crab, red crab, and order quantities were some incomprehensible addresses, its locations scattered across the country.
“Do you know where this is?”
The man’s finger suddenly stopped. His rough finger with prominent knuckles pointed at something.
“Look carefully.”
It was an address in Gyeryongpo, but it was a place Eun-myeong had never seen before. As he raised his moist eyes to look up at the man, he whispered three syllables.
“Director Hwang Bok-gil.”
The possibility that it could be Director Hwang made Eun-myeong anxious. He was the director of the orphanage where he and his older sister had stayed.
“Why would aphrodisiacs be creeping into that bastard’s house?”
The man raised his chin as if he couldn’t comprehend it.
“What kind of perverted bastard is he? I’m too much of a normal person, so I just can’t understand the way he thinks.”
Eun-myeong picked at the hangnail beside their fingernail. He glanced at the man. While working at the fish restaurant, he had encountered countless perverts who would harass him, but hearing such words from this man gave felt alien.
“Lee Eun-joo bought multiple bus tickets at the terminal. Daejeon, Busan, Seoul, Daegu, Mokpo, Icheon… Yet, not a soul saw her get on?”
He raised his eyebrows with a twitch.
“It was so strange that I had to ask those around the orphanage, and they say they saw a grown woman coming and going there.”
Eun-myeong’s body went limp. It felt like his ribcage was being tightly squeezed, his heart pounding so hard it might just burst out of him.
“It’s only a matter of time before she’s caught, right?”
“If she’s caught…”
He spoke with a feeling of bewilderment.
“…What happens then?”
He hadn’t been able to ask before out of fear of the answer. The fact that he was now asking the man meant the end was approaching.
“You tell me, what do you think will happen.”
His palm crept inside the gown. It climbed up the inside of Eun-myeong’s thigh, his rough hands grabbing the tender flesh.
“Hmm? What do you think will happen?”
“…”
The corpse of the restaurant owner flashed before his eyes. Perhaps one could say the owner got what he deserved. The restaurant owner was a loan shark. He would lend money to people trying to buy nearby buildings or land, then suck them dry with high-interest rates. If they couldn’t pay back the money, he would steal even the spoons from their homes to fill his own belly.
If he loved money so much, why did he run a fish restaurant, you ask?… It turned out he was selling drugs in crab shells…
Why did Noona have to get involved in such things? What sins had he and Noona committed to deserve such misery?
Eun-myeong’s lips trembled. It felt like his insides were being kneaded like flour dough. His chest felt so tight he wanted to pound it with their fists. Would that help relieve this suffocating feeling even a little…
“Then, what do you think will happen to you?”
Eun-myeong slowly turned his eyes. His blurry vision was filled with the threateningly large man. Not once had he thought about his own fate. Perhaps what happened to someone like him didn’t matter. His life had just rolled along however it would until now, and would probably continue rolling along the same way.
A life without expectations or predictions. As long as Noona, who had protected him since he was young, was safe, whatever happened to him didn’t matter. As Eun-myeong couldn’t continue speaking, the man spoke instead.
“You’ll fall into my hands.”
Eun-myeong’s breath hitched abruptly.
“Since the restaurant owner caused damage to my uncle’s business, I’ve swept up all his assets under my name. All the debt relationships too.”
Tuk, tuk. The hand removing the hangnail became rougher. While compulsively picking at it, finally a stinging sensation cut across the skin. Looking down, blood was dripping freely.
“Then won’t the baby become uncle’s thing too? That’s fair accounting.”
The man furrowed his brows. He quickly pulled at Eun-myeong’s hand. There was a clicking sound as the man undid his belt hook. The brown leather belt split in half, and the man pulled out a jack-knife from inside the hook.
‘…A knife.’
Seeing the sharp blade in the man’s hand, his heart seemed to drop.
“Please, let go.”
He tried to shake off the hand asking to be released, but it was useless. The man pressed the sharp knife tip against Eun-myeong’s fingernail. Then he started cutting away at the slightly pink-tinged nail. Though scared the knife might dig into their flesh, he accurately cut away only the white part.
The pair of eyes glaring at their fingernails was extremely fierce. He acted obsessively and persistently, as if he wouldn’t leave even 1mm. It was scary how much he seemed like a madman, wondering why he was doing this. He knew he was a strange and frightening man from the start, but he looked so gloomy now that their heart felt like it was drying up.
“Boss, it’s Park Woong.”
There was a knock at the door. The man growled.
“Come in.”
Soon after, the bear like man entered the room. Eun-myeong thought this weird act would stop now that someone else had entered, but the man continued his work without hesitation. After finishing with the hands, he now grabbed Eun-myeong’s ankle.
“I brought some photos you need to have a look at.”
He placed Eun-myeong’s leg across his solid thigh. Eun-myeong wondered if he was actually going to touch their toenails too, and his suspicions proved right. He grabbed each toe one by one and started cutting away at the nails.
…Why is he cutting away someone else’s finger and toenails like this?
The man had done and said many incomprehensible things, but at this moment, the stranger seemed more bizarre than ever.
“Bring them here.”
The bear-like man approached and showed the photos to the man. It felt like his heart was being cut away with nail clippers. Eun-myeong glanced at the photos. Though the colours were faded, he could make out the silhouette. A woman wearing a cap pulled low stood in front of the ticket counter.
“She bought two tickets to Cheongdo for tomorrow under the name Kim Hyo-jin.”
Kim Hyo-jin was the sister who worked with him at the fish restaurant. Eun-myeong quickly looked away from the photo. It felt like he’d seen something he shouldn’t have. Sweat seeped into his palms.
“Strange.”
The man glanced at the photo. Though the man wanted to find his older sister badly enough to lock him up here, ironically, he seemed to show little interest.
Instead, the man stared intently at Eun-myeong’s fingernails. He didn’t blink once. He examined the shape he’d created several times. Finally, he grabbed the thumb and pulled it down, observing the flesh visible inside.
“It’s red here.”
He even licked his lips with an expression as if he was looking at something delicious. He even swallowed hard with a gulp. His eyes gleamed as if coated in oil. Somehow he looked even more ravenous than when eating LA galbi. Why was he drooling so much while looking under their fingernails?
“But this is strange, fuck.”
The man finally pushed his thumb into his mouth. Then he pushed his tongue into the gap under the nail and sucked at it. As if eating something sweet like a sugar candy, he did it several times. Several times. Until Eun-myeong’s thumb was wrinkled.
“Kim Hyo-jin who works at your restaurant…”
Gulp, Eun-myeong swallowed hard through his constricted throat. He wanted to cover his ears, too afraid of what words would come next.
“Didn’t she have short hair?”
And the next moment, the man stabbed the photo with the jackknife in his grip.
“Then who might this be?”