By Zephyria 
“Wow, it’s already sweltering in June.”
Jeong Nam-su handed Lee-eum bottled water he’d bought from the supermarket. The two sat on a wooden platform at the entrance of the alley, seeking refuge from the sun. It had rained frequently, but a heat wave had persisted for the past few days. Lee-eum quenched his thirst and then lay down on the platform. Despite his fatigue, the zelkova tree hanging in the sky created a beautiful scene.
“Good… I want to sleep like this.”
“Did you hear the news?”
“What?”
“Yang Mok-hyung still hasn’t been found. They’re having a hard time at headquarters.”
Lee-eum sighed quietly. The Yang Taek-il case had been closed after the suspect committed suicide in the detention center, but the Yang Mok-hyung case was still a mystery. If he were alive, there should be some sign of life, but there was no record of him using his cell phone or credit cards.
“We should stop worrying about it, right? It’s out of our hands anyway.”
“Yeah…”
In fact, there was a mountain of other work to do. He was busy enough with the cases assigned to him every day, and he was always short on sleep. Look at today. He’d been lying in wait since early morning to catch a suspect in a motorcycle theft case.
“Oh, do you contact the President of Sehwa Construction?”
Lee-eum frowned at the sudden mention of Choi Won-joon.
“Why are you talking about that guy?”
“Just curious.”
“Don’t be curious. We’re not close.”
“Well, you did sue him, so I guess there’s no reason to see him.”
Lee-eum didn’t answer. Choi Won-joon hadn’t shown up for a week since that day in the parking lot. He’d threatened to come to the police station if Lee-eum blocked his calls, but once he unblocked him, he was as quiet as a mouse.
While he was relieved, he was also secretly anxious that he might suddenly appear and cause trouble again. That’s what Choi Won-joon was to him. Making him uneasy whether he was there or not. That’s why he didn’t want to get more involved.
“Oh, the thing you asked me to do the other day.”
Nam-soo took a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Lee-eum. He unfolded it and saw an address written on it. It wasn’t far from here.
“The mother is deceased. It seems only the father lives in that house.”
Lee-eum turned to Nam-soo with a hardened expression.
“When?”
“I don’t know that much.”
Lee-eum recalled the middle-aged woman sobbing bitterly in the courtroom. The victim, her daughter, had comforted her mother. And then, a few days later, she took her own life. After meeting Kim Ji-cheol recently, Lee-eum remembered the young student who was the victim in that case and thought he should visit her family.
“Sunbae, Sunbae. He’s here.”
Lee-eum snapped back to reality when Nam-soo nudged his arm. He stood up, and a man who had just come down the hill was walking towards them. The two pretended to drink water, casually checking the man’s face as he passed, then stood up and followed him.
“Oh Jin-seop.”
After calling out, they quickly blocked his path, and the man flinched and turned around. But Jeong Nam-su was standing there. Lee-eum quickly grabbed the man who was trying to escape to the side.
“Let go! What are you doing!”
“Did you steal the motorcycle parked in front of the chicken restaurant at the intersection around 6 PM on the 23rd?”
As expected, he vehemently denied it. “Let’s go together for now. We can check the evidence there.” They handcuffed him, dragged him to the car, and shoved him into the back seat, where he continued to insist he wasn’t the one.
“Tell it to them at the station if you’re innocent. Ah, just get in! Stop resisting. Huh?”
“Detective Jeong.”
Jeong Nam-su turned around, and Lee-eum handed him the car keys. A smile spread across Nam-soo’s face.
“Am I driving?”
“Drop me off near Jangsu-dong on the way.”
“Are you going today?”
“Yeah.”
“Understood. I’ll take you there with the utmost care.” Jeong Nam-su’s face bloomed with a smile as he sat in the driver’s seat and started the engine. But as soon as the car started, it bounced over a speed bump, and Lee-eum frowned and glared at Nam-soo.
“You…”
“Sorry. I didn’t see it.”
“……”
Can I really trust this guy to drive? While seriously contemplating this, they arrived near their destination. Lee-eum repeatedly told him to drive carefully and got out of the car.
Then, he picked out a delicious-looking watermelon from a nearby mart and climbed the hill following the address written on the paper. He immediately regretted not buying a smaller fruit, as there were more stairs than he expected.
Arriving at his destination, he saw the number 89-1. There was no doorbell, so Lee-eum knocked loudly on the old iron gate.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
He knocked repeatedly, but there was no response, so he was about to turn back when an old woman with snow-white hair came out of the house across the street. The old woman scanned Lee-eum from top to bottom.
“Are you a debt collector?”
“No, ma’am.”
Lee-eum took out his ID and showed it to her. “I’m a police officer.” The old woman didn’t even look at the ID and frowned.
“Did Kim cause some trouble?”
“It’s nothing like that. Is this the home of Kim Ok-cheol and Yoon Yi-im?”
“I don’t know their names, but it’s Kim and Yoon.”
“Are they home?”
“Kim seems to be home, but I haven’t seen him in a long time, and Yoon died a long time ago.”
So she really did pass away…
“By any chance… was Yoon Yi-im sick?”
“Sick, my foot. She died unjustly. Her daughter suffered such humiliation and hanged herself, what parent in the world wouldn’t be heartbroken? Don’t you think?”
Lee-eum couldn’t say anything. So she didn’t die of an illness. Unable to ask more, the old woman told him to go in and disappeared into her house. Lee-eum cautiously opened the gate and his expression darkened as he looked at the overgrown yard.
He slowly climbed the stairs, where withered flowerpots were abandoned everywhere, and the entrance was piled with trash, not much different from the outside. Knock, knock, he knocked on the door, but there was no response. Worried, he carefully turned the doorknob, and the door opened with a creaking sound.
Entering, Lee-eum frowned at the pungent odor that assaulted his nose. It was a truly miserable sight. Soju bottles were scattered everywhere, leaving no room to step, and piles of trash made the situation not much different from the outside.
Sensing the seriousness, Lee-eum hurriedly went inside but stopped. Everything else was a mess, but the family photo hanging on the wall was spotless. In the photo, a young girl in a school uniform was smiling brightly. And beneath the frame, traces of the child’s growth remained intact.
“Who is it…”
Turning towards the faint voice, he saw a man crawling out of the opposite room. His hair was matted and unkempt, he was wearing worn-out long underwear unsuitable for the season, and his eyes were clouded with alcohol.
【Detective, please make sure that guy is punished so my daughter can rest in peace. Please.】
The man who had grabbed Lee-eum’s hand and pleaded desperately was nowhere to be seen. The man rubbed his stubbly beard roughly and squinted.
“Who is it…”
Unable to tell whether he had just woken up or was drunk, Lee-eum put down the watermelon, approached the man, and bowed respectfully.
“Hello, my name is Kim Yi-eum. I met you two years ago regarding your daughter’s case. Do you remember me?”
The man stared with strained eyes and barely managed to sit up.
“I was wondering who it was. It’s that detective.”
“You remember me.”
“How could I forget?”
“……”
“You guys killed my daughter.”
His throat tightened as if he were being strangled. The victim was young at the time, and Kim Yi-eum was the one who persuaded her to press charges. He had been confident then. The evidence was sufficient, and the prosecutor told him to trust him.
But as the trial progressed, everything turned against them. The victim had to reveal the humiliating things she had suffered in front of many people, and internet comments labeled her as a slut who slept around with men at such a young age.
“I’m sorry…”
The man laughed hollowly as Lee-eum bowed in apology.
“I don’t know why you came, but I don’t need it, so just leave. Unless you’re going to avenge my daughter.”
Lee-eum couldn’t give a definite answer. Kim Ji-cheol had been acquitted, so a retrial was impossible. The man probably knew this too. Seeing him looking only at the floor like a criminal, the man grabbed a bottle of soju from nearby, twisted off the cap, and gulped it down like water. Then he wiped the liquor from his mouth.
“Go. Don’t come again. Seeing you people only reminds me of my dead daughter.”
“Sir, I’ll try to find a way to help you somehow. For now, please take care of yourself…”
The man slammed the soju bottle on the floor.
“Do you know why my wife became like that?”
Anger flared in the man’s eyes.
“I went to that house every day. I went there and told him to tell the truth, that he killed our daughter. I was kicked out for doing a one-person protest or whatever it was, but not a single article was published in the newspapers.”
This was something he didn’t know. He couldn’t ask now why they hadn’t asked him for help. They had lost faith in the police a long time ago. As if anger was rising, the man finished the soju. His emotions gradually escalated.
“Then she died. She ran around trying to avenge our daughter… and on the way home, she was hit and killed by a hit-and-run driver. Do you know that?”
The man was gasping for breath as if it was too hard to even recall.
“The crazy bastard, not only hit her once, but ran over her two, three times. What grudge did they have against us…? What did we do wrong! I got a call and went there, and my wife wasn’t my wife anymore. Her face was all mangled, that beautiful face, ha, damn it!”
Lee-eum was speechless, and the man’s face was overwhelmed with the sorrow of losing his family.
“Don’t do anything, anything at all. That’s how you can help.”
The man made a sound that was neither laughter nor crying, then buried his face between his legs and his shoulders shook. Lee-eum couldn’t offer any comfort. How could he fathom the pain of losing a child and a spouse?
Turning his head in despair, he saw the family photo.
“My daughter was so pretty… so kind… sob…”
Suddenly, something Kim Ji-cheol had said recently flashed through his mind.
【I heard that bitch is dead.】
【I was really upset. I really liked her. Her skin was so fair.】
【But she won’t be lonely. Huh?】
Lee-eum’s face gradually contorted as he recalled the last words.