#175

Tae-heun couldn’t suppress his curiosity and stopped the car before heading to the reservoir.

Leaving Kim Young-ja’s house, he had vowed not to look at any ledgers, documents, or anything related to the man for the time being. He needed time to process the tragedy he had heard. And he needed time to mourn the Man’s misfortune. But his damn curiosity overcame Tae-heun’s will.

Shim Kang-woo. That was the Man’s real name. The the child abandoned on a day when Kang-woo (heavy rain) was pouring was given the name Kang-woo. It was a name so straightforward it felt careless.

“Shim Kang-woo.”

He said it aloud.

Somehow, it didn’t feel right. Still, he thought it was a fitting name for the Man.

Which name would the man prefer, Yoon Ki-beom or Shim Kang-woo?

A pointless question arose.

Tae-heun recalled when Kim Jung-yoon became Lee Seon-jae. The name Seon-jae was a label given with the meaning of becoming a ‘loyal vassal.’ But it could also be interpreted as a virtuous leader, so he liked his ambiguous name. Of course, it wasn’t like that from the beginning.

Seon-jae. It was a name that his Aunt had barely managed to persuade Uncle, who wanted to give the the child Jung-yoon a name that shouldn’t be used for a person. The tiny Lee Hyun-joon teased him, cackling, ‘From now on, you’re my servant. That’s what your name means.’

‘Jung-yoon, the name Seon-jae also includes the meaning of becoming a good king. The character Jae also means prime minister. A leader, that is. You won’t be a servant, but a leader. Definitely.’

That was what his Aunt had said to Seon-jae, who was suddenly changed from Mr. Kim to Mr. Lee and was sulking because Lee Hyun-joon teased him about being a servant.

The young Seon-jae, who was illiterate in Chinese characters, was more interested in the word ‘king’ than in words like ‘leader’ or ‘prime minister.’ His sullen face brightened as if nothing had happened, and he smiled, imagining the king in a red dragon robe he had seen in TV dramas. It was a truly simple and one of the few happy memories of his childhood.

Tae-heun sighed, looking at the boxes filling the car.

“Shit. How am I supposed to find it here?”

Even as he said that, his hands were already rummaging through the box placed on the passenger seat. All the ledgers and registers had titles on their covers, so it was just a matter of time.

The clock on the dashboard was approaching 2 a.m. After a moment’s hesitation, he decided to invest just one hour. If he couldn’t find it by then, he would look for it later, he resolved.

About 30 minutes into his search for the register, he found a file containing the list of staff and residents from the early days of the Galilla Orphanage in 1979. The the man was a so-called founding member, so his name would definitely be there.

The staff list attached to the very first page of the file contained only three names: Director Kim Young-ja, Vice Director Kim Sung-hwan, and Mr. Han, whom they called Mr. Han Ki-deok. And below that, they had taken the trouble to introduce the advisory board, which was none other than the director’s Husband, a professor at a prestigious university. It was so common to list family members as employees for tax evasion that it wasn’t surprising. But judging from the fact that Kim Young-ja had never mentioned the professor, it seemed he wasn’t involved in the orphanage at all.

On the next page, the entire list of orphanage residents appeared. There were a total of thirty-three residents, half of whom were infants and preschool children.

After turning two pages of the resident list, the individual information of the residents began to appear in earnest. The information in the register was also very simple. It only included the orphans’ names, Chinese characters, dates of birth, heights, weights, and whether they had any disabilities. And in preparation for parents looking for them, the area and place where they were abandoned, as well as the circumstances at the time the the child was found, were also recorded. Even though it was an illegal facility, it at least pretended to be a normal childcare facility at the time of its establishment.

The files were arranged in order of age, so he easily found the Man.

Shim Kang-woo. Born July 4, 1970.

“What, he’s the same age as me?”

Tae-heun exclaimed without realizing it.

He did look younger than he was.

“Kwon Yong-joon, who called him Hyung, must feel wronged.”

He smiled at the absurd thought.

Kim Young-ja, who prided herself on her good memory, was wrong.

The the man was not the same age as the real Yoon Ki-beom. This explained why the Man’s development was slower than Yoon Ki-beom’s, and why he remained in the orphanage even after Yoon Ki-beom left.

Contrary to Kim Young-ja’s certainty, the man was only eighteen when Yoon Ki-beom died. If he had entered high school a year later than his peers, as Kim Young-ja said, he would have been a first-year high school student at the time, so it was natural for him to remain in the orphanage.

Many of Kim Young-ja’s statements must have been distorted memories like this. It had been almost 20 years, after all. He hadn’t intended to take her words at face value from the start, but it was still troublesome if it was like this from the beginning.

Tae-heun turned his gaze back to the documents.

Shim Kang-woo. Kyoongyu, used the characters for ‘strong’ and ‘house.” A strong house. A strong home. He had thought it was a carelessly given name, but it was quite plausible for an orphan abandoned without a home or family.

The boy was abandoned in front of Onjeong Church in Baeksamaeul (104 Village), a shantytown in Nowon-gu. The newborn, barely separated from his umbilical cord, was abandoned on the ground wearing only his swaddling clothes on a day of heavy rain. If they had intended to save him, they would have put him in a box or basket, but it seemed they didn’t even have that. They really abandoned him to die. But the the child survived and grew up in the church.

Tae-heun stroked the black-and-white ID photo of the buzz-cut boy attached to the register with his finger.

“Mr. Kang-woo, you’re really amazing.”

He was a boy who had fought against death and won as soon as he was born. He sincerely thought he was amazing, not unlucky as someone had said.

He carefully examined the ID photo. He guessed he was about ten years old. The boy in the ID photo, who looked excessively young, had a very bright expression. Even in low resolution, he could see the boy’s clear eyes and nose, and pretty lips. He was truly well-suited to the word ‘sparkling.’

The boy seemed to be holding back a smile. It wasn’t a forced smile, but a genuinely happy expression. He guessed that the boy had stayed in a fairly decent place before going to Galilla, when this photo was taken. It was close to a certainty.

There were four more registers in the same box. After a moment’s hesitation, he picked up the one from the following year. He wanted to see what else Kim Young-ja had gotten wrong besides the Man’s age.

The registers, which had been simple until 1981, changed in detail from 1982. This was from when Dr. Choi, a gynecologist, that is, Choi In-ho, was included in the staff list. The information written in the register that Tae-heun had received from Prosecutor Jeong was just the tip of the iceberg. The medical charts that began to be attached to the back of the residents’ registers contained much more explicit content.

It was so specific that he felt disgusted by the human being Choi In-ho.

Choi In-ho and Kim Young-ja made adolescent boys and girls stand naked and examined them from head to toe, from the outside to the inside of their private parts, in great detail, and wrote it down in a humiliatingly detailed manner. It was no different from an autopsy. And it would have been fortunate if that was all. They even took pictures of specific parts of the body.

“Fucking bastard.”

He cursed involuntarily.

The name Shim Kang-woo consistently appeared in the registers. Next to the boy, who had been ranked Rank 4 until he was fifteen, it was always written ‘Normal, no special notes.’ Since there were few children without special notes, those four letters stood out all the more.

The the man grew up healthy and well without getting sick, even in the harsh orphanage life. But perhaps because he didn’t eat well, most of the boys and girls of the Man’s age were underdeveloped. Naturally, secondary sexual characteristics also appeared late.

The ID photos changed every year, but the boy’s face didn’t change much from when he was ten years old. It was impossible to even imagine when he thought of the man as he was now, so small and delicate was the Man.

Yoon Ki-beom’s name did not appear in the registers up to 1982. According to Park Mal-ja, he had entered the orphanage before going from the second to the third grade of middle school, so 1983 must have been the year he officially entered.

“Shit. They didn’t put them all in one place.”

The registers were scattered all over the box. It wasn’t easy for Tae-heun, who was large, to move around and rummage through the box in the cramped car full of luggage. Still, he had already started, so it was too early to give up.

After investing another 20 minutes, he finally found the 1983 register. The box containing the 1983 register also contained the resident registers up to 1987.

Tae-heun frowned as soon as he opened the register. From 1985 onwards, it was truly full-fledged to the point of making him frown. They stamped each resident’s name with a grade stamp, and the charts attached to the back became much longer and more detailed.

The photos also changed from black and white to color, and the number of photos attached increased. They took photos of the residents in poses no different from those of porn actors and attached them as reference material. The higher the grade, the higher the level of the photos. Judging from the fact that there was even lighting, it seemed they were taken to be shared with someone else.

The boys and girls in the photos were all smiling, but their eyes were not normal. This was especially noticeable in the photos taken from the front. Most of them couldn’t look at the camera properly, and even the children whose eyes met the camera were out of focus. It was the familiar look that Lee Seon-jae had always seen. Eyes intoxicated with alcohol or drugs. And expressions.

Shit. Shit. He felt nauseous.

They lived well while doing this kind of thing.

Tae-heun felt disgusted even though it wasn’t something he had experienced. Nevertheless, he continued to check the charts. He wanted to know Yoon Ki-beom. Even if it was just information no different from pornography, he had to know.

He reminded himself of his original goal in seeking out Kim Young-ja.

He found Yoon Ki-beom only after going to the very back of the charts, which were arranged in order of grade. It seemed that they had randomly filed nearly ten boys and girls other than Yoon Ki-beom, as if they had gathered only the new entrants that year.

Yoon Ki-beom. Born May 26, 1968.

It felt strange to see the numbers he had seen on the Man’s resident registration card here.

Moreover, he doubted his eyes the moment he saw the ID photo.

Is this the real Yoon Ki-beom, not the Man?

He understood as soon as he saw the photo why Kim Young-ja had used the expression ‘twins.’

Yoon Ki-beom in the ID photo certainly had a striking appearance. It was only natural that Yoon Ki-beom would be handsome since the man was handsome, but his eyes and expression were clearly different from those of his peers.

Even though it wasn’t a carefully taken photo, his presence was revealed. He nodded involuntarily, thinking that anyone, not just Choi In-ho, that is, Dr. Choi, would want to identify himself with that boy.

Choi In-ho seemed to have fallen in love with Yoon Ki-beom at first sight. Unlike the registers of other new boys and girls, which simply listed information, he wrote a lot of flowery language such as ‘clear and black eyes like black pearls’ or ‘cherry-like red lips’ and ‘perfectly symmetrical face.’

He even mentioned ‘god’ when describing the length and abundance of pubic hair, the size and thickness of the penis before erection, and the size and thickness of the penis after erection, and was full of praise. In the part describing the color and viscosity of the semen, he even wrote, ‘This is the kind of boy who deserves to spread his offspring far and wide.’ It was an affection close to religion.

The reason why Choi In-ho despaired after Yoon Ki-beom’s leg injury was more than enough to guess from this document alone.

But unlike the beautiful and perfect boy in the chart, the human Yoon Ki-beom was trash. Backed by the Rank 1 grade and Choi In-ho’s infinite affection, he reigned like a god in the orphanage. He raped girls he liked and assaulted boys. He mobilized girls his age for prostitution and committed all sorts of crimes without feeling guilty. Of course, it was all what Kim Young-ja had said, but he had a feeling that it wouldn’t be entirely wrong, even if it was slightly exaggerated.

Otherwise, Kim Young-ja would not have dared to make Dr. Choi’s muse, whom she loved and respected so much, into that state.

Tae-heun was so dismayed at the thought that the man had sacrificed his healthy leg to become such trash. He wondered, ‘How desperate must he have been to do that?’ but he even had doubts, ‘Why did he have to become such a person?’

Then it suddenly dawned on me that I had no right to judge the Man. I was his lover, not his judge. Whatever decisions the man had made in the past, there must have been his own reasons, and even if there weren’t, Tae-heun shouldn’t interfere.

Let’s just verify the facts.

I steeled myself.

Tae-heun took out a ledger and began to meticulously compare and record the names from 1983 to 1987, where Yoon Ki-beom’s name was listed in the empty space. He carefully analyzed Yoon Ki-beom’s physical changes and Choi In-ho’s comments, and wrote down the Man’s changes as well, including information that contradicted or was completely wrong from what Kim Young-ja had told him.

The the man was fifteen when Yoon Ki-beom was seventeen, and he was only 158cm tall. Then, in the fall of 1984, he suddenly grew taller. He grew a whopping 14cm to 172cm in just one month of October. From this point on, the man began to outpace the growth of boys and girls born in the same year as him.

The very next month, the man rose from Rank 4 to Rank 3 and was scouted by Kim Sung-hwan. Fifteen, a very early age. According to Kim Young-ja, the man had sexual experiences from then on. A year earlier than even the precocious me, and secretly with someone he didn’t want.

My jaw ached from clenching my teeth so hard.

The following year, the man became Rank 2, and at the age of sixteen, he had a chart as long as Yoon Ki-beom’s. The appearances of the two boys, which had been distinctly different until then, became identical before I knew it. Of course, if you looked closely, the man looked a little thinner and more delicate, but it was difficult to tell the difference unless you knew the boys well. I was sure that even if you swapped the photos, no one would notice.

Nevertheless, Choi In-ho did not use any flowery language for the boy named Shim Kang-woo. Rather, he seemed to be struggling to find fault.

For example, his semen is clear and transparent, which is a concern for his health. His pubic hair is short and sparse, making him unmanly. His skin is dry and lacks elasticity. His buttocks are small, and he has no muscle in his thighs and abs. His penis is only big and has no charm. He wrote down such ridiculous flaws as shortcomings.

The Man’s semen was probably clear because of frequent sexual activity, and his pubic hair was not short and sparse, but neatly trimmed as if he had deliberately trimmed it, and his skin was as soft and elastic as silk. He must have lacked muscle because he wasn’t eating well, and his buttocks were small but luscious. As for his penis, its shape and size were so wonderful that it made me, who was a heterosexual to the bone, want to suck it.

What am I doing?

I laughed at myself for getting angry and making excuses for the Man’s so-called flaws written down by a pervert. And in this situation, when time was of the essence.

“I miss him.”

I really missed him. I wanted to hug the man and kiss him.

Spending a hot night with the man felt like a past life.

I looked down at my wristwatch. The numbers on the digital watch were leaning heavily towards 3 a.m.

There were still two more ledgers to look through. To get to the year the man graduated, I had to look up to at least 1989. Besides, I hadn’t even opened the work log.

But even if I wanted to spend more time, I couldn’t. There were things I needed to talk to the man about. There were important things that I had to talk about.

Tae-heun moved the car, feeling impatient that he had wasted precious time trying to find flaws in Yoon Ki-beom, who was already dead.

While wondering what to say to the Man, my thoughts involuntarily shifted to the orphanage. There were more than one or two differences from what Kim Young-ja had said, but except for the misunderstanding of the Man’s date of birth, most of them were trivial, so there was nothing particularly problematic.

But there were only two things that bothered me. The year of his breakup with Choi In-ho and the year he moved to Pyeongtaek. I thought I could find out the exact facts by looking at the work log.

Then my thoughts went back to the Man, and suddenly the child came to mind.

“That’s not it.”

I sighed.

The girl who went to Daejeon to find Yoon Ki-beom was not the child’s mother. The age range was completely wrong. the child was born in March 1990, so the child must have been conceived around the summer of 1989.

According to Kim Young-ja, Yoon Ki-beom died in 1987. So there is a two-year gap until 1989. Then it was highly likely that Ji-hye was not Yoon Ki-beom’s the child, but the Man’s.

“Shit. It’s complicated.”

No. Maybe it’s a simple story.

After Yoon Ki-beom died, the Man, who somehow stole Yoon Ki-beom’s identity, meets a woman he loves as soon as he becomes an adult and starts a family. But the woman dies while giving birth to the child. Or a situation arises where they can’t raise the child together, and they decide to separate, and the man decides to raise the child alone.

“Simple.”

Tae-heun pondered alone and came to his own conclusion.

Thinking about meeting the Man, I felt the burdens I was carrying, the boxes I was carrying around, felt heavy.

I didn’t want the man to see these materials. The Man’s past, a past so explicit that he didn’t want to show it to anyone, was left in photos and words. Did the man know? He probably didn’t. He wouldn’t want to know.

Tae-heun sighed, glancing at the file folder on the dashboard. I couldn’t let him see that. Especially those photos.

I decided to change cars and headed downtown. Everywhere I looked, there were rice paddies, so it was hard to pinpoint where downtown was. I followed the road and saw a relatively large apartment complex, so I went there first. I drove around the complex, gauging the parking space. It wasn’t spacious, but it wasn’t so tight that I had to double park.

Based on my past experience, Tae-heun parked the car near a car that looked like it had been left for a long time. After getting out of the car, I checked the building and location where I parked, and then put on the cover. It wasn’t too difficult to find a covered car in the summer, so my car looked natural.

The floor of the complex was muddy from the rain, and there wasn’t a single light coming out of the houses. The same was true even if I cast my eyes far away. It was difficult to go anywhere in such a place without a cell phone or a car.

Fortunately, there was a security office and a management office near the entrance of the apartment. An elderly Driver was dozing off in the guard post.

When I knocked on the window, the Driver slowly opened his eyes. His face was full of fatigue. The Driver yawned loudly and opened the window.

“I’m sorry. Sir. I was wondering if I could call a taxi.”

“A taxi?”

Then, he slowly came and sat down at the desk located under the window. Then, he handed over a flyer that he seemed to have received from a taxi company for the intruder of the dawn.

“I’m sorry, but could you call me a taxi? I came to a friend’s house and suddenly had something to do, so I’m leaving.”

At Tae-heun’s lie, the Driver immediately picked up the phone without showing any signs of annoyance.

The taxi arrived in 15 minutes. The Driver greeted Tae-heun with a bright face despite the late hour. But when Tae-heun told him his destination, he openly frowned. He made it clear that he couldn’t take me if I was going to die.

“I’m going fishing.”

Tae-heun said with a smile.

“With your bare hands?”

“I’ve already brought the equipment. I came out for a while to run errands and my car broke down, so I’m going back.”

When I made an excuse with a troubled expression, the Driver asked with a sullen expression, ‘Welcome?’

“Seoul.”

“Did you come to see a friend?”

“Yes.”

The taxi Driver talked about his Seoul friend for a very short time and then asked if I knew how many reservoirs there were in Gimje. I had no idea, but I said a rough number, and from then on, there was never a moment of silence all the way to the reservoir.

The Driver’s stories were endless. Every story that came out of his mouth was amazing and interesting. Maybe it was because I had only heard heavy stories all night, but it was quite enjoyable to hear the Driver’s exaggerated anecdotes.

Tae-heun got off at a spot slightly away from the spot at the reservoir where the man had promised to meet Kwon Yong-joon. It was to avoid Jeong Jae-jin’s people who might have come early to pick him up. At least I needed time to meet the man and talk to him before they did.

I walked as quietly as possible and as far away from the water as possible. Tae-heun, wearing black clothes and a black hat, used the darkness as a weapon. I was getting closer and closer to the meeting place.

Chapter 176