„Min An Sook?!” Kan tried to surprise the deliveryman by calling his name when he saw him. Yet, eventually, the surprised ones had been Yoon Suk and he because, when he saw them, An Sook broke into a run as though chased by the devil. An Sook even threw the box he was carrying in his arms toward them, trying to impede them from following him thus. Seeing the man running away from them, Kan slapped his forehead, mumbling, „Ah, damn, right what I needed: exercises. And… what the hell are you still here?” Kan yelled at his partner when he saw Yoon Suk next to him, calmly chewing his gum.
„And? Where should I have been?” Yoon Suk simply asked.
„On the moon, dude, on the moon!” After that, pushing Yoon Suk from behind, Kan forced him to follow An Sook. Not alone, of course, because Kan ran after them right away.
***
An Sook’s chasing wasn’t an easy one for sure. The man was fast and this caused a lot of problems for Kan, who was gasping while running after him. That’s why the detective suddenly shouted as though grabbed from behind by the devil, „Damn Psycho! Why does everyone run away from us when the only thing we want from them is to talk to them?”
Not listening to an answer from Yoon Suk, Kan stopped. Looking around, he clearly saw the empty crossroads where he stopped. Yet, wherever he looked, he didn’t see either his partner or the delivery man. That’s why he frowned. „Where did they go?” Kan asked, cooking his nose.
Eventually, he winced when Yoon Suk turned left and got right before Kan. Yet, Kan said nothing. He only kept staring at his partner with pumped eyes when he heard this one saying, „I think we’ve lost him!”
„You think or you are sure about this?” Growled Kan.
„Both?!” Responded Yoon Suk, grinning.
A bad decision, in fact, grinning, because this enraged Kan even more, who suddenly yelled at him, „Yah, Oh Yoon Suk, you know we can’t lose that bastard! If we do this, if we lose that idiot, we’ll be the rats of the Prosecution for an entire life, and… There he is!” Yelled Kan, breaking into a run when he saw An Sook turning right at the next crossroads.
Looking toward where Kan pointed, Yoon Suk saw only the back of the deliveryman. Thus, sighing because he understood that running again was inevitable, Yoon Suk followed the two. Thus, getting next to Kan eventually, who was gasping, he heard the detective begging while saying, „Yoon Suk, tell that bastard to stop! Right there! Right now!”
Grinning, the young detective said, „You are the older one here, sombe! You should tell him this!”
„I told him, but he didn’t listen to me!”
„Then, you should find a better way to make him listen to you!” Yoon Suk teased his partner. After that, getting to the place where An Sook turned right, he did the same.
„Damn it!” Yelled Kan, forcing himself to run faster. „I’m sick of all this, I swear! And… Ah, Min An Sook, just wait you, devil! If I put my paw on you, you’re definitely a dead man!”
***
„Aaa! Aaa! Aaa! Easy, man or you’ll break my arm,” shouted An Sook when Yoon Suk twisted his arm after he caught up with the deliveryman and pushed him against the wall to cuff him. „I still breathe, man! I still breathe!”
Instead of a verbal answer, An Sook felt a slap over the back of his head. This made him keep his mouth shut. Moreover, when he heard Yoon Suk saying, „Yeah, you still breathe, but he… definitely not!” After that, grabbing his arm, the young detective forced An Sook to look at Kan, who was squatting not that far from them, trying to catch his breath.
While loudly breathing, Kan mumbled barely heard, „You… bastard! You… took the last drop of life out of my body, idiot! I… I…” After that, still breathing quickly and pointing with his arm toward the deliveryman, Kan stood up and headed toward the two, yelling eventually, „What did you run away, rat? Don’t tell me that because we are cops or I swear…”
„Sombe, we’re still in the street,” said Yoon Suk.
„Yeah, I know, but… still, this one doesn’t escape alive from here if he doesn’t tell us all he knows.”
„To tell you what?” An Sook snapped at Kan. Yet, he right away kept silent, feeling the pain crossing his body when Yoon Suk twisted his arm to his back, forcing him to kiss the wall eventually.
The deliveryman’s dare drove Kan crazy. „Ah, you, son of a…,” hissed the detective through his teeth. Yet, understanding that Yoon Suk was right and that they were still in the street, something that could have caused problems later, he decided to breathe in deeply to calm down. He did that because he was aware that after SolHi’s daring of walking on the street wearing only that jacket on her, the last thing his team needed was more problems. That’s why he contented himself with only saying, „Tell me about the gift box, Tom!”
„The gift box? What gift box?” An Sook asked, furious because that twisted arm at his back hurt like hell.
„The one you delivered not long ago. With a dead body in,” said Yoon Suk, forcing the prisoner to look at him with pumped eyes.
„What?” An Sook finally shouted. „What the hell are you talking about, detective? What body? Don’t fuck with me, ok? Yeah, maybe I’m an ex-convict, but… I’m clean, ok?”
„Then, why did you run?” Yoon Suk snapped at him.
„Because I’m allergic to idiots?” An Sook jokily responded. Yet, understanding that it’d been a bad idea, he right away said in a serious tone, „I’m tired of cops, man! Every day something shitty happens and the guilty one is considered Min An Sook! You come to my work, asking me this or that without taking into consideration that you’re causing me problems this way. And, yeah, I ran because I’m tired, ok? I want to live, but I can’t because I’m always hunted by you.”
„Something you actually deserved, dude, for selling drugs to the kids,” said Kan, imitating An Sook’s voice. A response that made An Sook nervously move in his place. After that, looking elsewhere but not at Kan, the deliveryman heard the detective saying, „So, what’s the deal with the box?” Looking at Kan, An Sook saw him squatting to light a cigarette.
Understanding that he won’t go away without saying at least something, An Sook cooked his nose, calmed a little bit, and, only after that, he asked, „What box, man? I deliver a lot of boxes every day. I’m not sure which one you’re interested in.”
„This is simple,” Yoon Suk responded instead of Kan, who was smoking. „A big one… big enough for a dead body to fit in. And… it had a big red bow above it. Come on, man, I’m sure you know which box I’m talking about. Why? Because I’m also sure that this isn’t something you deliver every day. Or yes?”
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
An Sook frowned eventually, but not because of what Yoon Suk said. He did that when he saw Kan standing up. More than that, he felt a little bit afraid, knowing very well what kind of old devil Kan was. Yet, he didn’t say anything. That’s why Kan asked him shortly after this, „What about the box, Tom? Did you remember something or not? And, stop hiding behind my partner’s back! Don’t be a chicken! You’re more than 30 now and you should answer for what you do, looking me straight into my eyes and not from behind someone. So, did you remember which box or not?”
„Yeah, I remember,” mumbled An Sook, taking a step aside and scratching the back of his head. „Yet, even if I remember which box, I swear I didn’t know what was in it. I swear.”
Kan burst into laughter. „Come on, man, don’t make me laugh, ok?! You didn’t know what was in? Really? You carried a box all the way and you didn’t know what was in? Do you think I’m a newcomer in this job or what?”
„And do you think I have laser eyes or what?” An Sook snapped at the detective. „I’ve been hired to deliver that box, not to check what was in. That’s all! I can’t see through it because… if I could do that, I wouldn’t have carried it for sure because… I’m tired of you breathing down my neck.”
„Can you prove it? That you’ve been hired?” Asked Yoon Suk.
„Yeah, sure! It’s all in the message they’ve sent to me: the address where to take the box from and where to deliver it eventually. It’s all I know and… I still have the message if you want to see it.”
Looking through An Sook’s pockets, Yoon Suk finally found his phone. After that, checking the text messages the deliveryman received, he found the one he needed… the one An Sook told them about. Yet, when he made a call to that number, he found out, in amazement, that it was an invalid number. „To be damn!” Yoon Suk cursed.
„And I’m not even surprised!” Said Kan. Then, looking at An Sook, Kan asked him, „So, man, tell me, who has got it out for you so bad that he wants to see you in jail? Come on, man, say something! I don’t have all night long to spend with you!” After that, giving a small notebook to An Sook, Kan smiled, seeing how fast that one was writing names on that paper.
***
„Why are you staring like a dumb at that minivan?” SolHi asked DooSan when she got next to him and saw him staring at the van of a TV station.
„Nothing important. Just… memories,” he randomly responded.
„Memories about you and… Min SinJu?”
DooSan stared at her with a sour face, „I told you already that you are a stalker.”
„And I told you already that I’m so in love with you that I can’t even breathe when you aren’t by my side. I’m dying, honestly, if I don’t know, even for a second, what you do. Don’t be silly, ok?! You’ll better tell me what’s behind your story. Hatred? Love?”
DooSan said nothing after this. He simply turned his back to her and looked in the distance. That’s why SolHi kept insistently looking at him. And, eventually, she managed to find out that answer when DooSan said, „It’s a long story, that’s not worth mentioning it actually.” Yet, even if he said this, DooSan was lying to her because he was the only one who knew the truth he was so desperately trying to hide in his past.
***
5 YEARS AGO.
A punch knocked Min SinJu down, right in front of the journalists. Thus, he and the attacker gave the journalists the perfect chance to write their spicy stories that were meant to get on the first page of the yellow magazines. How not the other when the one who punched SinJu was no one else than Han DooSan, who was only two steps from his enemy, staring at him with the eyes of a beast.
Actually, the story wasn’t about Min SinJu, who's been punched, but about the reason behind that punch. Thus, as the journalists weren’t stupid at all, they knew that it was important not to lose even the smallest detail of that case. That’s why their blitz was continuously flashing, taking pictures of the two, just as the cameras were shooting all the time.
Seeing this, seeing himself as the main character of a spicy story, SinJu looked with hatred at the journalists and at all those cameras that were immortalizing his shame. He would have liked them to go away and leave him alone, but it was something he wouldn’t have had eventually. He was more than aware of this, that’s why he felt that everything that happened drove him completely crazy. How else when he saw himself the prey of those „crows” that were waiting for him to see him dead and trampled underfoot?! Something he didn’t want to give them… the satisfaction of seeing him on his knees. That’s why he suddenly jumped to his feet and approached DooSan, who was still staring at him with the eyes of a mad devil. Then, getting before DooSan, SinJu hissed through his teeth, right into DooSan’s right ear, „Have you lost your mind, devil?” Yet, while saying these words, SinJu grinned and looked at the journalists, forcing a smile eventually.
Deeply breathing in to calm down a little, DooSan responded, „The devil between you and I is you, Min SinJu, you, son of a…” Then, when the flash of a camera blinded him, DooSan looked elsewhere. Even so, staying with his eyes closed, DooSan said, „A view that it’s so delicious, I must accept… you and I surrounded by these „devils.” Ones that might be interested in a really interesting story I can tell them. So, what do you say?! Should I tell them the story of a journalist that has been threatened with death for telling the truth? Also, I can tell them the story of the gorillas that are working for you, those you sent to kill her. What did you say? Should I tell them this story: yes or no?”
„She ran away, right? Alive and safe. So, there is no story to tell anyone.”
„Are you sure about this? That there’s no story behind all this? If yes, then… you are stupid, Min SinJu! And… do you know why? A simple reason in fact… the freedom of mass media. Something you violated the moment you forced someone to run abroad to save her life. That’s why I’m asking you: should I tell them this story or not?”
„I don’t really understand what impedes you in telling it. The consciousness?” Said SinJu, ironical.
„No. The respect for that person, who asked me not to involve myself with you. Yet, ups… I’m damn stubborn, Min SinJu. And, as I simply hate injustice, I’m here, ready to throw this „bait” to the journalists, the seed of a spicy story, which makes me damn curious to know if they lynch you or not after hearing it. And yeah, I just wait for seeing you crouched under their feet… like a damn stinky beetle.”
SinJu smiled. Then, touching DooSan’s right shoulder, SinJu pretended to clean it of dust. Instead, while doing this, he said, „And? Do you really think that I’m scared, Mister Han? Of course not! On the contrary, I’m more than calm! Why? Because I’m clean, even cleaner than the virgin waters. Nothing can involve me in this dangerous game. Not even the one you mentioned before.”
„What about a witness, huh?" Said DooSan, smiling, satisfied.
Min SinJu laughed instead. „Are you talking about that old fox?” He asked DooSan. „If yes, you’re definitely stupid, Han DooSan because… who do you think will believe you? Mass media? People? Nobody. Why? Simply because… „others” will „smell” the deal that old Fox had with me, something that can bring you both a lot of problems. If you don’t believe me, you can ask him.” After that, SinJu grinned, extremely satisfied and proud of himself. More than that, he was confident in what he said, aware of something DooSan didn’t know. That’s why he afforded the right to outline those words he told DooSan, convinced that he could hurt his enemy this way.
By saying this, Min SinJu definitely reached his target because he heard DooSan swallowing hard shortly after this. DooSan did that not because SinJu took him by surprise but because he knew what „deal” this one was talking about. That’s why he told SinJu shortly after this, „A deal arranged by you. Yet, you won’t escape so easily, Min SinJu! Not at all because, by doing this, you only managed to turn me into your worst enemy, one that will hunt you every day, like a cat hunts the stinky rat every day… everywhere. More than that, I assure you that I won’t rest ever… not until I see you knocked down and asking for mercy, closed, for an entire life, inside a maximum security jail.”
After DooSan said this, his eyes started to spark savagely, throwing flames everywhere. Yet, it was all he could do at that moment. Yes, everything he could do because he couldn’t afford the luxury for the journalists to find out the reason why he hated Min SinJu. Not at that moment when he didn’t know if the journalist he talked about was safe or not. Even so, this didn’t impede him to want Min SinJu dead… at any cost.
He winced eventually when SinJu said, „What can I tell you, Han DooSan?! Good luck! You’ll need it while you declare war on me! Even so, I’m afraid for you. Why? Because… It makes me remember your brother, the one who also died for being stupid. So, be careful, Han DooSan, even when you cross the street because… you don’t know when you can end up like your brother!” After that, leaving DooSan behind him, shaking like an Aspen leaf, Min SinJu headed toward his car.