A police car entered the underground parking garage, its emergency lights flashing.
“I see it. I see it. You’ve gone too far. Just a little further back, it’s the black car. I’ll try making noise with my head.”
I banged against the window with my head to make noise.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
“Don’t hit your head; just scream. We can still hear you.”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes.”
Thankfully, the call was still connected.
Our country’s system is totally the best.
I had reported it to 112,
and when I said I was currently kidnapped and tied up, the call stayed connected all the way to the officers dispatched here.
The Republic of Korea’s system is the best.
I had been banging my head against the window to make noise in case the police couldn’t see me and just left, but they said I didn’t need to do that.
Did I bang on the window with my head for nothing?
They said they could hear me even if I just shouted?
“Here. Please save me.”
“Here.”
Even as I shouted, in case the officers couldn’t see me,
I moved up and down, making the car rock.
When the parked car started shaking, an officer noticed and came over.
Had he responded thinking it was a prank call? Or perhaps nothing serious? He was startled to see me tied up.
He quickly tried to open the rear door to rescue me, but it was locked.
Only after trying all four doors one by one did the officer realize they couldn’t be opened,
and he spoke to the officer standing in front.
I thought he was talking nonsense into thin air, but he was speaking into his body cam.
“In accordance with Article 7 of the Police Officers’ Duties Performance Act, I will use my weapon to break the window and rescue the civilian.”
“I will break the window. Please move as far away from the window as possible, as fragments may fly.”
This was directed at me, right?
I squirmed and moved from the rear passenger seat to the seat behind the driver.
The officer, confirming that I had moved,
drew his extendable baton and swung it sharply.
Crack!!
The window shattered, and the officer reached through the broken glass to open the car door.
“I’ll help you get out.”
Hands tied behind my back.
Legs bound tight.
A cord connecting me to the seat so I couldn’t escape.
It was all clearly captured on the body cam.
The officer who broke the window, perhaps worried there might be trouble later,
maybe feeling the body cam footage wasn’t enough evidence, took out his personal phone and snapped a ton of pictures of me and the car.
Something I’d never felt in my life.
I felt like a model.
I was even a little excited.
The officer grabbed his radio and called for an ambulance.
“We need an ambulance. One kidnapping victim.”
Then he looked at me and spoke.
“We’re going to the hospital first. We’ll check where you’re hurt and then investigate.”
“Yes. I understand.”
Soon after, an ambulance arrived and took me,
and the police stayed behind to conduct a brief search of the car.
From the glove box came rope, a knife, cable ties, and more;
from the trunk came a bundle including a sashimi knife, steel pipes, and baseball bats.
From the police perspective, this was absolutely not something they could overlook.
An investigation was absolutely necessary.
“Officer Kim, run the plates on this and contact HQ for backup.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Chief. Officer Kim, who’s on the scene, just contacted me. It really is a kidnapping.”
“What??”
“And when we looked up the vehicle the victim was found in, it’s a company car registered to Mujin Construction.”
“What? Really? Did God lend a hand? Okay. Great. We’re going to thoroughly take down Mujin Construction this time. Mobilize every available personnel. We’re moving out immediately.”
“Yes, sir!!”
Squad Leader Go immediately requested cooperation from the police SWAT team and headed straight for Mujin Construction.
‘I swear I will catch you today no matter what.’
Squad Leader Go made that vow once more.
Mujin Construction.
A company that had been small but solid,
swallowed up by Yang Namhyeok through loan sharking.
With thugs running it, its performance and revenue should have hit rock bottom,
but instead, Mujin Construction experienced rapid growth.
It won every major and minor contract put out by the local government.
But in that process, there were far too many suspicious movements.
The CEO of a rival company disappeared,
and the head of a civic group opposing a construction project was seriously injured in an accident.
The representative of the tenants’ association opposing redevelopment suddenly left for abroad.
They had requested search warrants saying an investigation was necessary, but all were denied.
And the officers who requested the warrants were all transferred elsewhere.
No matter how he thought about it, it was strange.
Getting involved with Mujin Construction always ended badly.
It left a bad taste in his mouth.
Then, a fellow officer had responded to a report of a fight at a Mujin Construction site.
But that officer was found dead at the Mujin Construction site.
The cause of death was a fall.
The conclusion was that he had stepped wrong while inspecting the site at night.
It had been a junior officer cherished by Squad Leader Go.
This couldn’t be.
No matter how he thought about it, this was connected to Mujin Construction.
But his superiors wouldn’t authorize an investigation,
and instead kept piling other work onto Squad Leader Go.
Even while doing other work, Squad Leader Go and his team had always been gathering evidence to catch Mujin Construction.
So they could catch them at any moment.
Then a kidnapping report came in, and the kidnapping vehicle was a Mujin Construction car.
God had lent a hand.
They could use the kidnapping as a pretext to raid them immediately.
Not suspects, but flagrant offenders.
They could just arrest everyone first and start from there.
If they turned the place upside down, something would turn up.
These bastards were already looking at three years or more just for the kidnapping.
Slap! Slap!
The sound of fierce slapping echoed realistically outside the chairman’s office.
But the employees outside acted as if they couldn’t hear it, focusing on their own work.
Chairman Yang Namhyeok was personally beating Jin Beomgyu and Heo Yeonggi upon hearing they had lost the delivery bag.
After unbuttoning the jackets of the men standing like stone statues and slapping them, Yang Namhyeok returned to the sofa, perhaps tired.
Lighting a cigarette, Yang Namhyeok asked in a drained voice.
“Beomgyu.”
“Yes, Chairman.”
“Are you asking me to believe that? Could you believe it if you were me?”
“Of course I couldn’t believe it, Chairman. I can’t believe it myself, so how could you? But Chairman, if I had pocketed the bag, would I have come back here? Wouldn’t I have fled far away? The moment I realized something was wrong, I came straight to you. I don’t know what was in the bag, but I will recover it somehow. So please do not doubt my loyalty, Chairman.”
At Jin Beomgyu’s plain and honest answer, even Yang Namhyeok seemed somewhat shaken.
He took out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and lit it.
“(Drag) Hah~~ Beomgyu. How long has it been?”
“It’s been 25 years, Chairman.”
“That’s a long time. But Beomgyu, if you were the type to run off with it halfway, would I have entrusted you with the delivery?”
“.......”
“At the very least, I knew you wouldn’t betray me, which is why I gave you the delivery. If you had pocketed it, I would have cut your Achilles tendon, not just slapped you. I know that. Still, I can’t let a mistake go unpunished.”
“Yes, Chairman. I will accept whatever punishment.”
“Do you know what you went to deliver?”
“I didn’t check the contents.”
“You wouldn’t have. With your personality, you would have just done as told.... There was 100 million won in cash inside. It was a bribe to give to Assemblyman Kim to look favorably on this bid. No matter how times have changed, nothing beats shoving cash at someone. Even if we exclude the mistake with Assemblyman Kim, that’s 100 million won. What are you going to do about it?”
“...I’ll sell my organs if I have to and come up with it.”
“How much would you get for those rotten organs? Don’t do that. This time, that Assemblyman Kim...”
Just as Yang Namhyeok was about to give a secret order, the chairman’s office door burst open, and several SWAT officers and police officers stormed in.
“We are arresting Yang Namhyeok, Jin Beomgyu, and Heo Yeonggi as flagrant offenders of kidnapping under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Crimes. You have the right to remain silent...”
Yang Namhyeok was bewildered, not knowing what was going on,
and Jin Beomgyu and Heo Yeonggi also looked at each other with expressions of disbelief.
But that moment was brief.
Handcuffs were immediately placed on their wrists, and they were loaded straight into a police car and transported to the station.
********
Taken to the hospital, I underwent several examinations.
This level of injury was something I got all the time, so I hadn’t needed separate examinations,
but they insisted it was absolutely necessary and examined me.
It’s not like they were going to pay my hospital bills, yet they ordered so many tests.
When I took off my clothes for the examination, my body was covered in injuries.
The traces of the thug who had brutally beaten me in the car remained clearly on my body.
See, he should have hit me more carefully.
I could tell from the start when he was hitting me crudely with brute force.
The first punch that knocked me down was very impressive, but after that, it was rather disappointing.
The marks from being bound were vivid on my wrists and ankles,
and my body was full of marks from being hit.
“Oh my~ at this level, we’re looking at about 8 weeks of treatment?”
I received several examinations, but aside from external injuries, there were no major problems.
Still, they said I needed to be hospitalized for stabilization, so I was admitted.
It’s not like they were going to cover my hospitalization fees.
The hospital’s excessive treatment was more serious than I thought.
Shortly after, the police came to see me.
“Can you tell us what happened?”
“Of course. Should I tell you about that day?”
“Yes. Please tell us in as much detail as possible.”
“Yes. I’ll tell you in as much detail as possible. It was a day like any other. The sunlight was pleasant, the air was clear. It was the perfect weather to go to a quiet park, lay out a mat, and look up at the sky. A day that would be even better spent listening to music without lyrics. The last class of the day was English. After class ended at school, I was on my way home on my motorcycle. I had recently bought a motorcycle, you see. It was a Honda motorcycle, and I fell in love with the design at first sight. So I bought it without hesitation. Of course, I got my driver’s license too. I got it at a driving school, and the tuition was a whopping 1 million won. Driving schools are so expensive. So anyway, while I was riding that motorcycle home from school, I got into an accident. Something suddenly banged into me from behind. I lost my balance and fell. You know that intersection, right? The road that turns off from the hospital. There’s a kimbap place there that makes really delicious kimbap...”
I explained the situation in as much detail as possible since they had asked me to be detailed.
I thought my statement might be helpful.
But why was the police officer’s expression rotting away in real time?
Was he feeling sick?
*******
I returned to school,
but Yang Jeongwon did not come back.
I heard rumors that her father had been arrested.
The charges—murder, kidnapping, intimidation, and so on—were apparently very colorful.
There was a very high chance he would receive a sentence of over 20 years.
On top of that, there was the charge of murdering a police officer, so the possibility of a reduced sentence was zero.
As soon as Yang Jeongwon’s father was arrested, creditors came rushing in from everywhere,
and I also heard that Yang Jeongwon had no choice but to flee her home.
I felt a little sorry for no reason.
If I had known this would happen, I would have returned the gold necklace at least.
The reason thugs wear gold necklaces
is because they never know when or how they might have to go on the run.
I had heard that they wear necklaces instead of carrying cash.
They were carrying escape funds around their necks.
Without knowing that,
I had stored that precious escape fund in my inventory.
She probably needed to sell it just to put food on the table.
I felt sorry for preventing that.
There was something a little regrettable too.
I should have taught her a bit more boxing.
I needed to fix her habit of opening with her shoulder when throwing punches.
Only then could she have done her part as a school bully out in society. That’s my regret.
Is this how a teacher feels sending off a student?
But who am I worried about right now?
My own worries are as great as Mount Tai.
Graduation was soon. What was I going to do with my life now?
What should I do to live?
That was my worry.
I would like to go to college, but my grades were terrible.
I had heard there were places that would accept you just for applying,
but I had no desire to waste money attending some weird place.
Otherwise, I would have to live doing delivery part-time work like I had been,
but life is too long to live doing delivery part-time work.
I didn’t have to do delivery part-time work right now.
That was the advantage and disadvantage of delivery part-time work.
The rate was the same whether you had 1 hour of experience or 30 years.
There was no need to spend a long time becoming a delivery craftsman.
There was no reason to dig only one path.
Delivery part-time work could be done when needed, at that time.
At that time, I would receive the same delivery fee as a 30-year veteran.
I considered going on a trip like last time.
I had a motorcycle, after all.
And I still had money left.
But it would be winter then,
and it would be freezing,
riding a motorcycle would make it even colder.
Traveling on frozen roads by motorcycle?
That’s really a no-go.
Motorbike trips were for summer.
During class, I began making a plan for my future.
After agonizing over it for days, I decided on the answer.
“Let’s just join the army.”