#87

Taking advantage of the moment when the man and the child were asleep, Tae-heun stepped outside and put a cigarette in his mouth. It felt strange to be alone in the darkness after such a long time.

He hadn’t expected the 9 o’clock news to report extensively on the raid of Ilgwang Financial. It was also the first day of the implementation of the separation of prescribing and dispensing, and it seemed that over 3,000 police officers were deployed to forcibly detain around 1,600 health insurance union members who were protesting. Still, he never thought that the news of the merger between the Agricultural Cooperative and the Livestock Cooperative to create the ‘Integrated Agricultural Cooperative’ would overshadow it.

Imagining the near-desperate howls of the Wolf 3, who were obsessed with the broadcast, made him laugh. Detective Park, who had been quietly hopeful, must have been greatly disappointed, while Detective Oh, who had seen it all, might have shrugged and said, “I knew it would be like this.”

The prosecution, police, and National Tax Service, who had steadfastly led the investigation despite the overwhelming pressure, might have felt a sense of betrayal because of this incident. The media was rotten, but it meant that there were places that had been bribed. It went without saying that the targets of the investigation were conglomerates, businessmen, and politicians; they could also be their superiors or colleagues they were close with.

As for Tae-heun… well, he had anticipated this, but he never thought it would start off so blandly. They say the beginning is half the battle, but starting off like this made him feel like he hadn’t even made it a quarter of the way. If he felt this way, how must the public officials who had put their necks on the line feel? There must have been an emergency meeting called.

Moreover, what Tae-heun had to worry about now was not just the downfall of Ilgwang Financial. He was about to break a promise he had made to himself. He had gone through the trouble of killing Lee Seon-jae and helping with the identity laundering, and now, if he were to refuse the offer to send them to Canada, how would they take it? Would they even accept it?

If things went wrong, it wouldn’t just be Tae-heun’s life at stake; their lives would be in danger too. He was talking about a real threat to life, not just a position. Tae-heun and they were both holding onto that lifeline.

Tae-heun chewed on the filter. The bitter taste flowed over his tongue and down his throat.

The only way for everyone to be satisfied was for Tae-heun to take the man and the child to Canada. It would cost extra, but Tae-heun could afford it, so the money issue was practically resolved. Would it be difficult to get a visa? He would have to check first if the man had any disqualifications for traveling abroad.

Anyway, Yoon Ki-beom was a man with a penis and a married man with a child. Even if he went with Tae-heun, he wouldn’t think of them as lovers in the slightest. Even the people from Ilgwang wouldn’t believe the three of them were traveling together.

But would the man really follow Tae-heun to a foreign land? It was a golden opportunity to go to an English-speaking country that many were desperate to visit, especially a developed country. He could go there with nothing but the clothes on his back, and he had a house and a car. He had enough money to live on for a while. Would he waver if Tae-heun said there was no better opportunity for the child’s future?

Tae-heun already had what he wanted to say to the man in his head, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. The man was on the verge of finally holding his own land after living a life akin to that of a servant for the past ten years. His mind was filled with thoughts of the first rice harvest he would plant under his own name next year. He had even said he would raise ducks.

It felt wrong to ask that man to abandon everything he had worked so hard for and leave. Every time he saw him working the grueling farm tasks without a word of complaint, it felt like he was doing something terribly wrong.

Let’s just do it and see. He might resist at first, but in the end, he would follow Tae-heun’s words. He was a good person, after all, a father who cared for his child more than anyone else.

As the pitch-black darkness became familiar, the surroundings became clear. There were mountains over there, fields over here, and the sky above. No matter how dark it was, once you got used to it, you could see. Tae-heun’s future was no different from darkness, but one day, he would see it becoming clearer in this way.

Tae-heun took the cigarette from his mouth and broke it with his fingers.

* * *

Whenever they went to church, the man always wore a short-sleeved dress shirt and dress pants, while the child wore her usual pink dress, shoes, and headband. This time, Tae-heun also dressed in a dress shirt and dress pants like the man. He even wore his favorite watch. The three of them riding in the car together felt like a family outing.

The child was excited, babbling anything that came to her mind, and every time she did, Tae-heun would intentionally tease her. The child reacted vigorously, and since she was sitting in the back seat, she was frustrated that she couldn’t see his face to argue, so she practically clung to the driver’s seat.

“It’s dangerous. You need to sit in your seat.”

The man, sitting in the passenger seat, tried to mediate, but it was no use.

Finally, the man poked Tae-heun in the side and said, “Stop it already,” and only then did Tae-heun relent. The child huffed but soon burst into laughter at Tae-heun’s trivial joke.

“By the way, Ki-beom, you renewed your ID card, right?”

Tae-heun took his wallet out of his back pocket with the hand that wasn’t on the steering wheel and handed it to the man.

“My ID is in there. I lost the old one and had to get a new one.”

He intentionally showed off the ID card he had received from Detective Park yesterday.

The man carefully took the ID out of Tae-heun’s wallet.

“It’s definitely better than the old one, right?”

“Yes. It’s plastic, so it feels just like a card. It even sparkles.”

The man examined Tae-heun’s ID photo closely. He added, “You look good in the photo.” The child in the back seat stretched out her hand, saying, “Dad, me too!”

“Do you happen to carry your old ID with you, Ki-beom?”

“Oh, yes. Just for keepsake.”

He asked just in case, and as expected.

“Take it out. That way, the child will know what’s changed.”

Tae-heun said, and the man took out a paper ID from his wallet, believing him. Tae-heun snatched it before the man could hand it to the child.

“What’s this photo? When on earth was it taken?”

It was clearly a photo taken when he was around twenty years old. He looked too young to be called a young man, more like a boy. At most, he looked like a teenager who had just graduated high school.

The coating on the ID was worn out from how long he had used it. Looking at the issuance year and date, it was reissued in the winter of the year he had returned to this town with Ji-hye. Tae-heun had to get it reissued five times because it would easily get damaged if it got wet, but the man had used his for a remarkably long time.

Tae-heun pretended to look at the photo while memorizing the man’s ID number. A number seen once, especially one he intended to memorize, would never be forgotten.

“Who would look at this photo and think it’s the child’s father? They’d believe it’s Ji-hye’s older brother. Right, Ji-hye?”

While the man’s youthful face looked a bit boyish, he had a different aura back then. He seemed a bit darker somehow. Perhaps because of that, it felt like looking at identical twins who resembled each other a lot. Tae-heun handed the man’s ID to the child in the back seat.

The child, holding both Tae-heun’s and the man’s ID in her hands, seemed completely captivated by the shiny new ID. She kept changing its position to see the hologram change in the sunlight, and then she turned her gaze to her father’s ID. Perhaps seeing it for the first time, she tilted her head and asked, “Is this really my dad?”

“It doesn’t look like my father.”

“It was taken when I was twenty-two. I was thinner back then.”

The man explained calmly. The child seemed fascinated that the young boy in the photo was her father and kept staring at it.

“The new ID photo isn’t that one, right?”

When Tae-heun asked teasingly, the man pulled out the renewed plastic ID and handed it over. The photo used for the ID was rather shabby.

“Did they take it like this at the photo studio? Wow, they charged you for this?”

The lighting and composition were a complete mess. The man was handsome, but for an ordinary person, it seemed like their features would be so blurred that you wouldn’t be able to see their eyes, nose, and mouth.

“No. They took it for free at the town office.”

The man said proudly.

“Indeed, good-looking people don’t care about the tools. Now that I look again, the photo turned out well. It’s not that it was well taken; it’s just that Ki-beom is good-looking, so it turned out well.”

Tae-heun pretended to praise the ID photo while actually praising the man’s good looks. The man, feeling a bit awkward, turned around and spoke to the child.

“Ji-hye, if you’re done looking, give it back. You might lose it.”

The man took back Tae-heun’s and his own ID from the child.

Thanks to the newly issued ID, Tae-heun felt good as he received his wallet back from the man and put it back in his back pocket.

This was the third visit to the church. However, this time the atmosphere was distinctly different. It wasn’t just because he was about to go on his first date with the man. There were unusually many people, as if it were a particularly special religious day. Moreover, every town resident he encountered was so friendly, even exchanging greetings.

Brother Oh, who had never shown his face at church, brought his family and introduced them, while the village chief appeared with some people who seemed to be directors of the Agricultural Cooperative, acting all friendly. He was so warm to the man and the child that it almost brought tears to Tae-heun’s eyes.

“It’s nice and lively here.”

The man, oblivious to everything, just smiled and said he liked the neighbors’ kindness.

Tae-heun maintained his usual business smile but often wiped the smile off his face. He needed to look at the current situation with a clear head. It was too obvious. Their intentions, their kindness. He never thought he would see the bottom of human nature again in this rural village, having seen it so often when he was Lee Seon-jae. He lamented.

This was all his fault for being reckless. He should have firmly said no when the youth association president asked if he had come to look at the land. Or at least, when Brother Oh was making a fuss a few days ago, he should have said he was just there to rest and that the expensive watch the youth association president saw was a keepsake from his deceased father. That would have prevented this situation.

Of all times, the man was there, and he didn’t like how they were treating him, so he acted pretentiously, something he would never have done otherwise. It didn’t help the man at all, damn it. It only took a moment for a person to become foolish.

In this atmosphere, it seemed unlikely that anyone would believe him if he insisted he wasn’t alone. Although it was a bit late, he had no choice but to call Detective Oh Dae-ho to quell the rumors about him. It seemed that only someone like Detective Oh, who had deep trust among the villagers, could make a difference.

Tae-heun immediately called Detective Oh, but he didn’t answer. There had been a raid yesterday, so he shouldn’t have overslept, and it seemed he was busy with work. Tae-heun left a text message right away.

「S.O.S」

Having written this much, he expected to hear back today.