Chapter 6.2

EunHa exited her school in her gym uniform. Her skirt had been slashed to shreds by a box cutter and was now inside her backpack. Within a week since she had transferred into this school, she had become an outcast. This was because she had consistently ignored any kid that came up to speak to her. When a clique of them began to provoke her by asking her if she thought she was too good for them, EunHa went to her homeroom teacher and reported them, and so they retaliated several-fold.

Three days had passed since all her textbooks had gone missing. Today, she discovered her uniform skirt slashed to shreds in her locker. Even though she desperately wanted to return to the United States, the distant relatives that took her in were not financially stable.

Should I just quit school?

She wanted to quit school and earn money to leave this place. She no longer wanted to stay in the place where her parents had died, and it was becoming difficult to continue to receive her relatives’ dissatisfied looks. Just as long as she could purchase a plane ticket, she’d make it work. As she was thinking this, someone called out to her.

“So you’re EunHa.”

EunHa raised her head and looked at the person who spoke. She stared at the person who had a scar on his brow and stopped in her tracks.

“……”

“Do you know who I am?”

She had never met this man before. Wearing a black coat and leather gloves, the man grinned at her. Observing his sharp face, EunHa had a feeling that she shouldn’t get close to this man. She answered softly.

“…No, I don’t.”

“I’m your father’s friend. Don’t you remember me?”

“…I didn’t see you at the funeral either. How can I trust that you’re actually my father’s friend?”

EunHa shook her head. As he gazed at her, a strange smile stretched across his lips.

“You really don’t recognize me.”

“If you come near me, I’ll call the police.”

As her hair fell and covered her face, EunHa murmured softly. 6 months had passed since she had witnessed her parents’ horrifying deaths, but she still had a difficult time speaking with people. She had developed sociophobia.

“Here. Will you believe me with this?”

The man held out his cellphone to her. EunHa’s eyes lowered to the screen. She saw a picture of her father and this man.

“Go ahead and swipe through the rest.”

EunHa remained where she was and didn’t move, so the man touched the screen himself. She saw many photos flash by.

“I thought I wouldn’t have any photos of us together, but there were more than I expected.”

What he said was true. She saw many pictures of her father with this man in many locations. Some pictures showed them with other people, and there was even a photo of them together at a fishing hole.

The last picture was a group photo. At the center of a group of men in suits, her father was in a tuxedo as he stood next to her mother in a wedding dress.

Tears began to well up in EunHa’s black eyes. She thought that she didn’t have any more tears left to shed, but her heart still twisted whenever she saw a picture of her parents.

“You were still in your mother’s belly here.”

The man’s eyes became cloudy as he recalled the past with a smile.

“We were so shocked when he suddenly told us he was getting married. We were still so young back then, and we didn’t have anything to our names. When you father told us your mother was pregnant, we were all so surprised and happy for him. I remember we got insanely drunk that night.”

“…I think I’ve seen enough.”

EunHa quietly murmured, and the man put his cellphone back into his pocket.

“Then are you willing to talk to Ahjussi for a little bit?”

“About what?”

Even though she was still eyeing him cautiously, she no longer avoided his eyes.

“About your parents’ deaths.”

The playground was empty. Only the sound of the wind whistling through the leaves could be heard.

Sitting on a paint-chipped bench, the man was smoking a cigarette. EunHa sat by his side in silence when the man didn’t begin speaking. Suddenly, she broke the silence.

“If it’s about that night, I’ve already told the detectives everything I know. I don’t know anything. I didn’t see the men’s faces.”

The man took a deep drag of the cigarette before letting out a long sigh, blowing out the smoke.

“The most incompetent organization in Korea is the police.”

“……”

Unable to agree or disagree, EunHa just stared at him quietly. The man finally finished his cigarette and threw the cigarette butt on the ground before fiercely grinding it with his shoe.

“I didn’t come here to ask you about that day.”

“…Then why did you?”

“The man who was your father… He was like family to me. For 15 years, we served the same boss and went through all sorts of hardships together.”

“…So you’re also in the mob?”

EunHa raised her head and asked him. Even though her voice sounded indifferent, her black eyes widened as they slightly trembled.

“So you knew what kind of work your father did.”

“I heard the detectives talking about it.”

EunHa pleaded to the detectives to catch the people who did this, but they brushed off the murders to be a result of a conflict between two gangs. Even though her father was a man of few words, he was an incredibly tender man when it came to his family, and he was the smartest man in the world. To think that the office he had been pouring his heart and soul into was actually a criminal organization. That was the first time EunHa had heard about this.

“So do you hate and fear the fact that I’m also in the mob?”

EunHa silently shook her head.

“You can be honest.”

A black van rolled up to the front of the playground. When the driver lowered the window and stared at him, the man raised his hand and gestured for him to wait for a while longer.

“Well, my father was also a member of the mob. And you’re also a friend of his.”

The man looked at her and grinned. The scar on his brow deepened.

“How fortunate.”

“…What is?”

“Nothing. I’m just glad that this neighborhood is so quiet. It’s perfect for conversations like this.”

The wind blew against the old swings, making them creak. A dry, dull leaf fluttered down and flew away with the wind. EunHa wet her dry lips and called out to the man.

“Ahjussi.”

“Hm?”

“Do you know who killed my mom and dad?”

“…And what if I do?”

“Can you tell me who it is?”

SungHo bit his lip. When he didn’t answer, EunHa raised her voice a bit more.

“Ahjussi, you said you were my dad’s friend. Please tell me.”

EunHa’s eyes filled with tears once more. With his hands in his coat pockets, he merely stared at her with steady eyes.

“The detectives won’t tell me anything. They told me that it’s best if I don’t know these things because I’m too young. It doesn’t make any sense. My mom and dad died… They died right in front of my eyes…”

A tear dripped down EunHa’s cheek.

“What killed your parents was ‘YongSung’.”

YongSung.

EunHa blinked when he finally answered her.

“Yong…Sung?”

“Yeah. YongSung’s leader, Noh HyungChul, ordered for the death of your father, our leader’s right-hand man, in order to start a conflict between our two organizations.”

YongSung’s leader. Noh HyungChul.

EunHa bit down on her lips until they bled. She carved that name into her brain. Her eyes were red from crying.

“Our organization will avenge your father no matter what. So there’s no need to worry.”

“…I want to help too.”

SungHo looked at her with a blank expression. The sunken scar on his brow deepened.

“What did you just say?”

EunHa grabbed on to the hem of his coat. Her white, thin hand was shaking. Her long hair was stuck to her wet cheeks. Looking a mess, she pleaded once again.

“I want to do whatever I can to help. Please, even if it’s just cleaning. So can’t I just go with you, Ahjussi?”

The man burst out laughing as he lit another cigarette.

“Please, Ahjussi.”

An indescribable gleam entered the man’s eyes as he looked at her.

“…You are very much like your father.”

Another hot tear traveled down EunHa’s cheek. She rubbed it away with her hand.

“Your father was incredibly smart and talented. He was a bit stubborn, but… it’s such a shame that he went like that. If he were alive, he would definitely have made it to the top of Serim.”

SungHo bit the cigarette and got up from his seat. He began taking off his leather glove.

“Once you hold this hand, you will become a part of my family.”

He blocked EunHa as she held up her own hand without hesitation. Whoosh, the cold wind rustled her hair making them stick to her wet cheeks.

“Before you hold it, think carefully. Becoming a member of my family means that you must follow my orders no matter what.”

“…All right.”

“If you betray me, I’ll kill you. Just because you’re my hyung-nim’s daughter doesn’t mean you’re an exception. If you’re scared, run away now.”

EunHa shot up from her seat and snatched his hand. SungHo laughed in his thin voice. His damp, cold hands tightened on hers. It felt as if she were holding a slippery snake in her hands.

That day, only her backpack holding her shredded skirt was left behind on the bench, and EunHa had disappeared. Before she had gone missing, an eyewitness claimed to have seen her getting into a black van of her own accord. But other than that, no one could find any trace of her.

KyungHyun rushed to her bedside and grabbed her wrist. A sob tore out of EunHa’s mouth.

“Let go… Let go!”

After SungHo had taken her away, a bloody war had begun between Serim and YongSung, just like he told her. Ultimately, both organizations had lost hundreds of men, and the conflict had come to an end.

The leader who SungHo had served died, and SungHo took his place. He then sent her to the United States and ordered her to study there. It seemed that he had bigger plans for her than having her clean. However, she didn’t hear any news of the death of Noh HyungChul, YongSung’s leader.

“Get ahold of yourself, Lee EunHa!”

“What do you know… Let go, let go of me!”

SungHo had told her that it was too dangerous to attack Noh HyungChul now, and when EunHa had screamed and cried at him, he put her in an underground warehouse for three days where she saw no light. She thought she would starve to death, and in the haze of fear, EunHa realized what position she was in.

If she didn’t follow SungHo’s orders, he could kill her. She wouldn’t be able to escape, and even if she did, he’d catch her and kill her. Once she realized this truth, EunHa’s attitude changed.

“I want to die… I’m going to die!”

She did everything he ordered her to do. She picked up many languages and learned to seduce men. She didn’t decline the missions where she was told to extract information in bed. If he told her to crawl on all fours naked, she crawled. If he told her to lick the floor, she licked. In order to gain his trust, she did everything so that she could avenge the death of her parents.

However, for 10 years, she never knew that the man right in front of her eyes was the man who killed them.

Her whole body trembled with shame. It would be better if she just died. Her hand began to bleed as she tightened it around the glass shard in anger. The blood ran down and dripped onto KyungHyun’s hand on her wrist.

“Now that you know who actually killed your parents, shouldn’t you fix your gaze onto him? Knowing you, that’s exactly what you should do!”

KyungHyun bitterly hissed through his teeth as his eyes turned pitch black. Captured by his gaze, EunHa screamed.

“You don’t know anything, so don’t give me that bullshit!”

In the meantime, KyungHyun’s grasp was gradually tightening. It felt like he was really going to snap her wrist.

“Ugh…!”

In the end, EunHa dropped the bloodstained glass shard onto the bed. KyungHyun didn’t let go of her wrist. Because the blood wasn’t circulating through his grasp, her hand began to turn white. Tears continued to drip down her face. As he watched her bite her lips, KyungHyun lowered his head to hers and whispered.

“I’ll help you kill Kang SungHo.”

“Superintendent Shin… That’s…”

“Don’t butt in.”

The woman stepped back and shut her mouth.

“That bastard fooled you for 10 years. Isn’t it a waste to just die now?”

Her tears continued to roll down her cheeks. She felt as if her head was going to explode. She didn’t think she could stop the urge to bite her tongue and die right here, right now. EunHa shut her eyes and spoke through her gritted teeth.

“Knock me out.”

“…What?”

“Make me sleep. Let me go to sleep!”

“Sedative.”

She felt a stinging pain on her arm. As she panted for breath, EunHa began to count backwards from ten. When she got down to five, everything was still clear. She felt as if her body would burst into flames from her anger at Kang SungHo.

“Give her another one.”

“But sir…”

“Do as I say!”

Still trembling, EunHa counted down to three. Her mind turned black, and everything turned dark. As she lost consciousness, she wished she would never wake up.\n