Chapter 33: Positively Cute and Quaint

TL: LittlePeach

"Would it be all right if I reached out separately, next time I think I might need the domestic bureau's help?"

"Uh...."

"Ah, well, if it's a bother, just pretend you never heard that."

"N-not at all! Anytime, please, don't hesitate.... Yes. Do contact me."

"Thank you."

A short walk from Bomunsa leads to Eungam Station, and a bit farther on lies a place called Yeonsinnae.

The moment I stepped out of the sashimi restaurant, Yeonsinnae Station was right there in front of me.

"I'll be waiting for your call, Agent. This truly will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You... you do understand that, right?"

Team leader Kim Do-hyeon, pulling a black sedan out of the parking lot, rolled down the window and called out to me.

"Yes, team leader. I understand perfectly."

"...You're sure you really understand?"

"Yes. Really. I'll be in touch soon. Get home safe."

"Are you certain you don't want a ride?"

"I'm going to walk from here. It feels like coming home after a long time away."

"Ah, right. Then I'll be off...."

After waving at the receding car, I set off straight for the market.

Ever since I was a kid, watching people go about their lives here had been one of my small pleasures.

As I strolled along, I spotted a little kid chattering away, hand in hand with both parents.

When our eyes happened to meet, I gave the child a bright smile.

As they moved off, the child's peals of laughter tickled my ears pleasantly.

Grumble.

'Raw fish just doesn't fill you up.'

The plate of omakase sashimi I'd polished off a little while ago had been meant as a side dish for day drinking, and the portion was sorely lacking.

Feeling hollow inside for no good reason, I headed for a snack shop in Yeonseo Market.

"Ma'am, how much for the fish cakes?"

"Seven hundred won apiece."

"Yikes. They went up by half while I was gone...."

"Prices always go up. Were you abroad for a long stretch?"

"Yes.... You take cards, right? I don't have any cash."

"Of course. Enjoy."

As I stood there chewing on a fish cake skewer, I had a slanted view of the seating area across the stall.

A delicious-looking plate of spicy cold noodles had just been set down in front of a couple sitting there.

"That looks amazing!"

"Eat slowly. You'll choke."

Looking at that bright-red sauce, I suddenly remembered the Chinese-style spicy cold noodles I'd eaten in Dandong.

Naturally, the faces of Kite No. 3 and Chae A-ra came to mind.

'Come to think of it, I haven't properly kept in touch since coming back to Korea.'

While it was on my mind, I pulled my phone straight out of my pocket.

The international call had barely rung a few times before a welcome voice came through.

- Hello?

"Sunbae. It's me."

- Oh.

"I've been back in Korea since yesterday."

- Yeah, I heard. I got my stitches out yesterday, as it happens.

We'd both been about to wonder how the other was holding up anyway.

Kite No. 3 volunteered his own news out of the blue, like he was bragging.

- So what's this about, all of a sudden? Did something happen?

"No. I was just passing by and saw some spicy cold noodles, and they instantly made me think of you and hyeongsu-nim. So I called. Those were really good."

- Oh dear, what a shame. However much you miss the taste, you'll have a hard time finding the mainland spices in Korea.

"Tell me about it. I'm at a snack shop right now, actually, munching on a fish cake. Didn't you love snack-shop food?"

- Oh.... I'm crazy about it.

"Mmm. The tteokbokki here is really good, too. Kind of hard to get tteokbokki over there, isn't it?"

- ....

"Nom nom."

- ...You called just to rub it in, didn't you?

"Gasp. How did you know?"

- You little bastard....

I made a point of not mentioning that I'd been to see Crane No. 13's family.

Instead, I rattled on about this and that, deliberately spouting nonsense about how sweet and delicious the Korean air was.

Between the two of us, that was enough.

- So are you actually coming back to Dandong?

"No idea. They told me to just rest for a while. Said they'd slot me in when a good posting opens up."

- A good posting?

"They call it a good posting, but in practice it means a posting where you work yourself half to death."

- Then wouldn't that mean Russia?

"Why Russia, all of a sudden?"

- That's where all the action is in the Special Operations Group these days.

"It wasn't much fun over there."

- Ah, right. Come to think of it, you did a pretty long deployment to Russia back when you were with the Defense Intelligence Command, didn't you?

"Pravilna."

- ...What?

"It's Russian for 'that's right'. Pravilna."

- Ah.

We traded jokes like that for a good while.

Then, out of nowhere, Kite No. 3's voice turned careful.

- Actually, good timing on the call. Mind if I ask you a favor?

I tilted my head and picked up another fish cake skewer.

"A favor? What is it?"

- Since you happen to be in Korea, I figured it was worth asking. Do you have some time on your hands right now?

"I'm completely free. I'm on paid leave as of today."

- Must be nice. Anyway, that works out. You remember the back-alley doctor, the Elder who treated my gunshot wound? Did I mention last time that his son and daughter-in-law are in Korea?

The back-alley doctor who had treated Kite No. 3's gunshot wound.

I still remembered how the old man had shared bits and pieces of the Dandong situation with me while pretending to be gruff about it.

"Yeah, I remember. The account you send the surgery fees to is in his daughter-in-law's name."

- Right, exactly.

As I gulped down some fish cake broth, Kite No. 3 got down to business, step by step.

- So this Elder's son and his wife bought a building in Singil-dong, Yeongdeungpo-gu, and they're running a Korean buffet there. It's near the exam-prep village, so they do high-volume, low-margin business with the exam students, and with a varied, cheap menu, it's apparently a big hit. Well, setting the minor details aside....

As he went on with his explanation, Kite No. 3's voice gradually settled into something calmer.

- While the Elder was taking my stitches out today, he told me something. Said the restaurant's about to go under because of the thugs in the area.

A pack of neighborhood thugs.

Compared to the past few days of gunfire and grenades, domestic thugs were positively cute and quaint.

I let the tension out of my shoulders and bit the rest of the fish cake off the skewer.

- The area around the restaurant is the Singil New Town redevelopment zone, the one they're working on right now. Construction workers have been pouring in like crazy because of it, and I guess somebody got greedy, because thugs operating around Guro and Geumcheon showed up out of nowhere demanding the couple hand over the place dirt cheap. Threats, every single day.

"Are they smashing up the place or something?"

- At first they barged in, wrecked all the fixtures, and raised hell, so the couple called the police a few times. A few of them got hauled in, but after that, their methods got downright vicious. They'd put those Chinese thug bastards to shame.

Before continuing, Kite No. 3 let out a hollow laugh, as if he could hardly believe it himself.

- Would you believe it? They brought in some big-bodied minor and quietly had him order alcohol. The kid looked plenty old at face value, so the server handed it over without a second thought, and then they tipped off the police and got the place slapped with a suspension.

"Hm. A classic dirty trick from the thug playbook."

- Exactly. They can't do business, and the stress is eating them alive.... And then a few days ago, they finally crossed the line. Apparently they hired some young kid and even put out a contract job for a stabbing. And the kid who did the stabbing said he's a juvenile under the age of criminal responsibility, so he'll never see the inside of a prison, and that he'd be back once the suspension lifted. He left them with that threat.

"Good grief."

Gangsters who'd put a knife in the hands of a juvenile under the age of criminal responsibility and hand him a contract job.

They were rotten. Thoroughly rotten.

- Thankfully nobody's been badly hurt yet, but the Elder was lamenting that at this rate, his daughter-in-law or even his grandson could end up in danger.

"If they've gone as far as putting out contract jobs, it's open-and-shut."

- So the Elder told them he'd cover whatever it costs, just move. But the son and his wife are so bullheaded they won't listen at all.

"And so he asked you to sort it out for him?"

- Right. He's far away in China, so there's nothing he can do himself, and calling the police only works in the moment. He asked me to look through my contacts in Korea for someone decent.

"Hm."

- If I were in Korea, I'd have wrapped this up in a few days flat.

Kite No. 3 added with a sigh.

Thanks to his detailed rundown, I had a complete picture of the situation in my head.

"What exactly are the Elder's terms?"

- He wants the Gucheon Gang crushed so thoroughly they won't come anywhere near the restaurant again. And there's one more condition. This must never, ever reach the ears of the son and his wife. They grew up tough and they're proud people; if they found out, they'd blow up, guaranteed.

That happened to be my specialty.

I answered readily, without needing to hear another word.

"Got it. But just so we're clear, I'm not doing this to help the Elder. I owe you, so I'm stepping in on your behalf."

- Owe me? What could you possibly owe me?

"I spent days in Dandong wedged smack in the middle of a pair of newlyweds. If that's not a debt, what is? I watched it all plain as day, how you two couldn't even carry on like newlyweds in peace because of me and kept checking for my reaction every time you went up to the second floor after work."

- Ahem! Hrrm....

Kite No. 3 coughed loudly and pretended not to have heard.

Sham married couple was the official term, but Kite No. 3 and Chae A-ra were, for all practical purposes, genuine newlyweds.

Pretending not to notice the two of them cooing under one roof, then flinching and glancing my way, had been a daily ordeal for me, and not one that ended after a day or two.

It had already been days since I left Wang Chunsam's Eatery, so with the third wheel gone, I didn't need to see it to know how hot and heavy things must have gotten between them.

In spite of myself, I was suddenly feeling very single.

- Anyway.... So you'll take this one? The Elder said he'd pay generously. Give me an account number and he'll wire the money straight over.

I shook my head.

"Forget the money. Just pass word to him that if any Defense Intelligence Command Special Task Force men ever end up needing surgery, he should be extra thorough with them."

- Oho? What's this. You rich or something? Sitting on a fortune?

"As it happens, I just got fifty million in reward money."

- Well, well....

At that, Kite No. 3 let out a thin whistle.

- Then you're buying when you come back to Dandong, yeah?

"Shouldn't I be the one getting treated?"

- I'm broke. A beggar, I tell you.

"Whatever. I'll call when the job's done. Say hi to hyeongsu-nim for me."

- Okay.

After hanging up, I downed the rest of the fish cake broth in one go and paid up.

And here I'd thought I'd finally get to kick back and enjoy some paid leave.

"Perfect timing, honestly. I was getting itchy anyway."

It looked like I'd be getting back to my real work, starting today.

*****

Singil New Town.

With everything from the Guro Digital Complex and the Guro District Office to its densely packed exam-prep dormitories, the area carried no small symbolic weight.

Especially now, with reconstruction in full swing, the overlapping streams of foot traffic had formed a complex commercial district.

Lately, the area's main consumer base was none other than construction workers.

Restaurants running high-volume, low-margin operations for laborers looking to fill their bellies on the cheap were raking in tidy profits.

One of them was a neat Korean restaurant tucked into a corner of an alley.

[Dongguri Korean Restaurant]

This was the Korean buffet run by the back-alley doctor Elder's son, Han Jin-uk, and his wife.

[Notice]

[Establishment: Dongguri Korean Restaurant]

[Disposition: 15-day business suspension]

[Violation: Sale of alcohol to a minor]

[This establishment is under administrative disposition for violating the Juvenile Protection Act and...]

Such was the content of the garish yellow notice that had been nagging at me from a distance.

Just as Kite No. 3 had said, the place was serving a suspension for selling alcohol to a minor who had lied about his age.

Fifteen days without business meant that, even setting aside the month's ingredient costs, virtually all the staff wages would be wiped out too.

'There have to be other places going through the same thing.'

The Gucheon Gang wouldn't be working over Dongguri Korean Restaurant alone.

They were surely pulling the same stunts on several restaurants nearby, all at once.

I turned on my heel and found a Korean buffet close by.

"Welcome! How many?"

"Just one."

"Take any seat you like inside!"

"Right, thanks."

Despite the late hour, the place was still packed with construction workers.

Around the time I'd claimed a corner seat and started on my meal, there was one table that had already been bothering me.

Not long after I'd loaded up a plate haphazardly and sat down.

"What the fuck is this!"

Crash! Clatter!

Sure enough, the table I'd been watching flipped over with a racket.

Five hulking men with a delinquent air had been sitting there.

Without so much as touching the food, they suddenly upended the table and started raising hell.

"Shit! Look at the state of these side dishes.... Why does it taste like garbage?"

"Hey, lady. You call this running a restaurant?"

"Did you scoop this out of the slop bucket? I'm chewing on sand over here!"

"Eeeeeeek!"

With a shattering clatter, five food trays hit the floor and rolled.

The owner screamed; customers all around recoiled in horror.

Red spicy pork stir-fry and soybean-paste soup soaked the floor.

Watching it all unfold, I knocked back my chilled cucumber soup first.

Slurp.

'Man, I'm craving a Claymore.'

This was a real problem.

*****

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