GBH 56

Choi Se-kyung contacted students at school and obtained eyewitness accounts of Hong Jae-min being seen around Myeong-dong. He turned his sedan towards Myeong-dong. Since it’s a place with high foot traffic including not only residents but also tourists, it was difficult for cars to enter. Se-kyung got out on the main road and sent the driver away.

Finding Hong Jae-min in the bustling streets of Myeong-dong was like finding a needle in a haystack, but Se-kyung wasn’t too worried as he had come out with the fake Song Yi-heon to get some fresh air. He planned to pretend to look for Hong Jae-min and then show him around Namsan depending on the situation.

Se-kyung had guessed that the fake Song Yi-heon was from the countryside and expected him to be wide-eyed at the sight of Myeong-dong, but as expected, the fake Song Yi-heon looked around the streets with interest, if not as much as soccer or basketball. Se-kyung had no way of knowing the truth that the soul of gangster Kim Deuk-pal was looking around with renewed interest after coming to Myeong-dong after a long time.

They walked to find Hong Jae-min, whose whereabouts were unknown. As they approached the busy streets of Myeong-dong, food carts that had been occasionally visible became ubiquitous. Various types of appetizing street food stimulated the sight and smell to open tourists’ wallets.

However, Se-kyung was perplexed as to why, out of all the street food, a wrinkled bug the size of a fingernail was being held out in front of her.

The fake Song Yi-heon held out a beondegi (silkworm pupae) on a toothpick and said, “Isn’t beondegi delicious?”

Afraid that he might insist on feeding him if he even politely said it was delicious, Se-kyung responded with a pale smile. Kim Deuk-pal had quickly bought it wanting to share the joy of discovering this delicious treat, but when Se-kyung firmly refused, he chewed the beondegi with displeasure.

Thinking that Hong Jae-min wouldn’t be lounging around Myeong-dong for sightseeing, they searched for him in the secluded back alleys where old shops were crammed together.

As Kim Deuk-pal was looking around while eating beondegi, a sudden thought made him smile wickedly. Biting his lip to hide his mischievous smile, he abruptly held out the paper cup containing beondegi. The ends of Se-kyung’s eyebrows rose like mountains.

“If you eat this, I’ll grant you one wish.”

While Kim Deuk-pal wouldn’t usually force someone to eat food they disliked, playing pranks was different. Just seeing Choi Se-kyung’s troubled expression was already making his tightly closed lips twitch. Seeing this person, who usually seemed to have their facial expression default set to ‘kind smile’, looking unusually uncomfortable, Song Yi-heon’s lips spread into a smile that was not just wicked but almost devilish.

“…Anything?”

When Se-kyung, who he thought would refuse, showed interest despite his discomfort, Song Yi-heon boasted loudly.

“Yeah, anything I can do.”

He confidently promised this much to sway someone who detested beondegi. The thought of being asked about the original Song Yi-heon or Kim Deuk-pal’s soul identity belatedly crossed his mind, but he didn’t withdraw, complacent in the belief that surely Choi Se-kyung, second to none in primness, wouldn’t eat beondegi.

He was grinning at his cute expression of serious hesitation and was about to put away the paper cup to stop teasing him when Se-kyung snatched it away. Then he crumpled the paper cup soaked with beondegi broth, put the pointed edge to his mouth, and tilted his head back. It happened in an instant.

“Hey! Choi Se-kyung!”

He lunged to take back the paper cup, but the height difference was insurmountable. Choi Se-kyung pushed Song Yi-heon’s head away with his long arm and turned his head to the other side, his Adam’s apple bobbing greatly. After several gulps, he showed him the empty paper cup upside down. As only the broth that had soaked the beondegi dripped down, he smiled triumphantly.

“Keep your promise, ugh-.”

Se-kyung, who had been smiling happily, turned pale and covered his mouth.

People passing by on the street glanced at the bench as if on cue. It seemed that Choi Se-kyung, lying on the bench in broad daylight with his long legs stretched out carelessly and his forearm covering his eyes, had piqued their curiosity. In reality, he had collapsed from the shock of eating beondegi.

Kim Deuk-pal, who had returned from the convenience store, tapped his forearm with the water bottle he had bought.

“Hey, get up. Drink some water.”

“I don’t feel well…”

As Se-kyung mumbled in a dying voice, Kim Deuk-pal lightly flicked his forehead.

“Who told you to eat it all? You should have eaten just one, who gulps down that stuff so recklessly? Did you even chew it?”

Kim Deuk-pal scolded him, still incredulous thinking about it again. He thought he would eat just one or two, he didn’t expect him to be so stubborn as to eat it all. Wondering if he had eaten so persistently because he really wanted to ask about Song Yi-heon’s soul and Kim Deuk-pal’s soul, he tried to hide his worried thoughts by asking boastfully. Since Choi Se-kyung had overdone it, this time he wouldn’t be able to brush it off.

“So, what’s your wish?”

Se-kyung lowered his forearm from his eyes. Seeing his expectant eyes, wondering if he had indeed eaten the beondegi with a purpose, Kim Deuk-pal even had the absurd impulse to punch Choi Se-kyung in the stomach to make him throw up the beondegi and invalidate the wish. Song Yi-heon’s brown eyes tightened with tension.

“Let’s play together.”

So when Choi Se-kyung said that with a bright smile that made his look almost foolish, Kim Deuk-pal couldn’t help but let his guard down completely.

“Geez, you ate something you hated just for that?”

Kim Deuk-pal sighed and helped Se-kyung to his feet.

“Hey, get up. Let’s go.”

When tension eases, the remaining vigilance becomes lax. Kim Deuk-pal didn’t realize Se-kyung was seeping through the cracks of his lowered guard, and he didn’t refuse when he put his arm around his shoulder.

* * *

The place Se-kyung took the fake Song Yi-heon was an arcade. Kim Deuk-pal had secretly hoped for an escape room or VR room that he’d only heard about from the girls in class, so he was initially disappointed. However, the arcade had a retro concept, and he soon became lost in nostalgia looking at the familiar interior from those days.

“It’s been a while.”

Kim Deuk-pal became wistful upon seeing the Hodori doll, mascot of the ’88 Olympics, displayed on the entrance shelf. The tiger doll wearing a sangmo (hat with a spinning ribbon) and the Olympic rings necklace looked the same now as it did back in ’88.

“Hiya, I went through hell back then…”

The past tends to be beautified, but there was nothing to beautify about that period.

Kim Deuk-pal had come to Seoul a few years before the ’88 Olympics. He had some money at first, but after alternating between homelessness and orphanages, one day he found his pockets completely empty. Just when he was at a loss wondering if he’d starve to death, thanks to the increase in jobs in preparation for the ’88 Olympics, Kim Deuk-pal was lucky enough to get a job at a factory through unofficial means. Although the salary was meager and the treatment was the worst.

In those days when labor laws weren’t as emphasized as they are now, personal insults were common, and delayed wages or messing with allowances happened frequently. This was especially severe for Kim Deuk-pal, who was a minor with no education. While he should have been pursuing youthful dreams with his youth as capital, Kim Deuk-pal had his youth sucked dry by the factory before he could even become a young adult.

If it were now, he wouldn’t have stood for it. Why did he just take it so pathetically back then? Well, he was so poor then that he was desperate, afraid to spend even a single coin. Kim Deuk-pal recalled his teenage years when he would whip his head around at the sound of a rolling coin, hoping to pick it up. In fact, when he heard the jingle of coins, he turned around in surprise.

Se-kyung, who had exchanged a 10,000 won bill for change, was shaking 500 won coins. Kim Deuk-pal pointed at the row of game machines lined up side by side and said:

“Hey, I can’t play these.”

The game machines with stools covered in artificial leather, controlled by joysticks and buttons, had games like Bubble Bobble, Galaga, Double Dragon, and Final Fight installed.

“Oh really?”

Se-kyung scratched his cheek awkwardly.

“I can’t play them either.”

“Then why did we come here?”

“I thought you might like it.”

Kim Deuk-pal rubbed his goosebump-covered arms. He clicked his tongue, thinking that he knew Choi Se-kyung was sensitive, but his intuition was beyond good, almost at the level of divine inspiration. He had intuitively guessed Kim Deuk-pal’s age just from their conversations.

In fact, Choi Se-kyung didn’t know the exact age of Kim Deuk-pal’s soul. He had just remembered things Kim Deuk-pal had said before and thought he might like a retro atmosphere, so he brought him to a place he knew about.

These were definitely games that men of Kim Deuk-pal’s soul age would enthusiastically dive into. If Kim Deuk-pal had grown up normally, he might have played these games too. But at that age, Kim Deuk-pal was busy cutting grass in the countryside, sleeping rough at Seoul Station, running away from abusive orphanages, or working day and night in factories, so he had no contact with such games.

Even Kim Deuk-pal himself thought his life had been hopeless, and it was because it was hopeless that he became a hopeless gangster. While he could endure the endless bottom of life, it was hard to bear the feeling of falling every hour, so he joined the organization with a sense of giving up.

Kim Deuk-pal blamed his rough fate on being an uneducated illiterate.

Well, it was a dead life anyway. Trying to shake off his dead life, Kim Deuk-pal focused on the game machines and found one game he knew.

“I know how to play Tetris. Do you?”

His young subordinates had once bought computers for their dorm, obsessed with online games. Living under the same roof but in separate rooms, the subordinates urged Kim Deuk-pal to play too. When he tried to escape saying he couldn’t even turn on a computer, they persistently caught him and taught him.

Kim Deuk-pal, who couldn’t even double-click a mouse, thus stepped into the world of games. Unlike the games his subordinates mainly played like Go-Stop, Poker… the game he became addicted to was the bewitching Tetris…

“I know it.”

“Hey, sit down.”

If that was the case, no more words were needed. Kim Deuk-pal chose a machine first and sat down, cracking his knuckles, while Se-kyung sat at the opposite machine.

Watching Choi Se-kyung insert coins into the machine, Kim Deuk-pal also inserted coins and leaned over the control pad. Song Yi-heon’s mischievously smiling face was reflected on the game screen. In his past life, Kim Deuk-pal had been the undisputed Tetris champion, beating all his subordinates. Not knowing the truth that his subordinates had deliberately lost and praised him, he was excited at this rare opportunity to beat Choi Se-kyung.

He’s just a kid, I should go easy on her. Though he thought this, Kim Deuk-pal’s eyes flashed with competitive spirit for the first time in a long while.

A cheerful start sound rang out. Song Yi-heon’s thin fingers moved brilliantly over the stick and buttons, and his eyes chasing the falling square blocks gleamed with excitement. Song Yi-heon’s quick reflexes were more than enough to capture Kim Deuk-pal’s strategy, and he was certain victory was within reach. The blocks on the screen stacked neatly, and his excited, heavy breathing sounded like a victory trumpet.

And then Kim Deuk-pal cried out…

“Let’s play again!”

It was Choi Se-kyung’s victory.

* * *

When Song Yi-heon, unable to accept his successive defeats, showed signs of madness trying to exchange a 50,000 won bill for coins, his eyes bloodshot from challenging until exhaustion, Se-kyung dragged him out of the arcade. Unable to accept losing like this, Song Yi-heon tried to resist by planting his feet, but realizing how unseemly this was, he left the arcade with tears in his eyes.

Only after eating a hearty dinner of knife-cut noodles and dumplings at a famous restaurant did Song Yi-heon forget about Tetris and rub his full belly. Wondering where to go next, he adjusted the strap of his bag on one shoulder and looked around, when Se-kyung, who had come out late, tapped his shoulder.

“Want to go to Namsan?”

Although there was no need to go since he had used the wish token on the arcade, Song Yi-heon nodded. It was better to give up on finding Hong Jae-min today anyway, as it had gotten dark and difficult to distinguish faces.

“Let’s walk. To help digestion.”

As they walked the night streets, chatting about trivial things like seeing the night view at Namsan, they heard the sound of blows. It was a small sound that wouldn’t be heard without paying attention, but Song Yi-heon had already heard it, and the small sound of blows gradually grew louder, mixed with screams and curses.

Song Yi-heon stopped to locate the sound. It was coming from an alley between a traditional pub and a meat restaurant. A fight was breaking out in the alley sandwiched between brightly lit signs on both sides.

“Let’s not get involved and go.”

Se-kyung pulled on Song Yi-heon’s arm.

However, Song Yi-heon persistently peered into the darkness. At first glance, it looked like everyone was rolling around fighting together, but upon closer inspection, several people were beating up one person. Every time cars passed by on the opposite side of the alley with their headlights on, the faces of the entangled fighters were briefly illuminated.

Among the faces fleetingly lit up like fragments, the moment he distinguished a familiar face, Song Yi-heon shouted.

“Hong Jae-min!”

He threw down his bag and ran into the alley.