A meat restaurant somewhere in Gangnam, Seoul.
Daehun, whom I was seeing for the first time in a while, had changed a lot.
For one, his formerly frail body had bulked up tremendously.
He had clearly been working out a lot.
“Long time no see. You doing well?”
It was Daehun who greeted me first.
I pushed aside the slight awkwardness I felt toward the changed Daehun and returned the greeting.
“I’ve been doing fine. What about you?”
“I’ve been fine too. Is this the first time since we got our unit assignments?”
“Right. I was deployed pretty much right after getting assigned to my permanent unit.”
“How was deployment?”
How was it?
Should I tell him about a deployment stained with blood and vengeance?
But unlike how I felt, Daehun looked like he knew nothing.
About me. About our team, too.
I didn’t think there was any need to tell him.
It wasn’t a story I wanted to bring up anyway.
“It was so-so. Deployment is tough, you know. Harsh, hard. Seeing the kids preparing to deploy even now, I feel bad for them.”
“Hahaha. Our Inbae has changed a lot. Hearing the word ‘pitiful’ come out of your mouth.”
“Huh?”
“Back then, you were the most pitiful guy in the world. I was next.”
“That’s right. We were.”
We were.
Back in Special Warfare School,
I was the most pathetic, pitiful bastard in the world.
But try going to Congo once.
Your standards for what is pathetic, pitiful, wretched, miserable, and regrettable change.
After going to Congo, I was no longer a pitiful child.
And I, who had received so much love from my older brothers in the army, was no longer a pathetic child either.
Ordinary.
A soldier who received his salary steadily every month.
I was becoming an ordinary adult who worried about his job and housing after discharge.
Sometimes, someone who could give candy to little kids.
I was becoming an adult who could give advice to the young rookies heading off to deployment.
It had only been three years and seven months,
but the Gong Inbae of then and the Gong Inbae of now were very different.
We drank soju and ate pork neck at Gangnam Station, bustling with people,
and talked about our boot camp days.
Stories about our training instructors.
Stories about Special Warfare hand-to-hand combat training.
Stories about airborne training.
Talking about the hardships,
it was fun in itself.
Thinking back now, it was training we absolutely needed,
and I felt like I could handle it even better if I did it now,
so why was it so hard back then?
I found myself thinking about it again.
It had already passed,
a completely worthless conversation, but it was enjoyable.
I could just laugh.
It was only three years ago, but it felt like ancient history.
Seeing my past self constantly, I felt a little embarrassed.
We moved to a second location.
A chicken joint in an alley full of beer pubs.
A place so old-looking that you’d wonder if such a place even existed in Gangnam Station.
Should I call it a hole-in-the-wall?
Daehun, taking a sip of beer, suddenly asked.
“Are you applying for extended service?”
“No. I said I wouldn’t.”
“Really?...”
“Why?”
“Then what are you going to do after discharge?”
“I’m thinking about it. I haven’t decided yet. What about you?”
“I’m getting discharged too.”
“What are you going to do when you get out?”
“What do you mean? I have to take back what was my dad’s.”
Your dad’s?
You said your dad was a gangster.
You said he died in a suspicious accident.
It was an accident that seemed highly suspicious,
but you were young and powerless, unable to investigate the incident,
so you said you entered Special Warfare School to build strength and learn.
To get revenge.
Seo Daehun’s near-perfect personal statement still rose vividly in my mind.
But this guy talking about revenge,
about taking back what was stolen from his dad—
there was no anger in his eyes.
The kind I had seen in Poapi,
the kind I had felt myself,
the rage to kill someone—wasn’t there.
His dad was a gangster,
and to take that back, he’d need to be pretty well prepared.
No matter how well he prepared, charging in alone and getting what he wanted wouldn’t be easy.
Maybe because my military occupational specialty was intelligence and operations.
Gathering intelligence and making plans before an operation was natural.
Setting up Plan B and preparing up to Plan C was natural.
Master Sergeant Lee Wonjun,
no, now Hyung-nim Wonjun, had taught me that.
But Daehun didn’t have a prepared expression.
He just looked like someone saying, “I’m gonna make a lot of money later.”
Like someone saying, “I’m gonna be successful later.” Like he was grasping at clouds.
“What?”
“I told you. I’m going to kill every bastard related to my dad’s death.”
Why did those words sound so much like empty boasting coming from him?
Had he ever killed anyone?
I had killed people in Congo, whether I liked it or not,
and had taken revenge filled with rage,
but I never wanted to do it again.
But Daehun spoke of death too lightly.
I hated even uttering death.
“Really, how?”
“I just go in and kill them all.”
What?
Was that his plan?
Surely not.
There must be something.
Please tell me there is.
“How? Who are you going to kill, and how?”
“I just go in and wreck them all.”
Ah... fuck.
This is wrong.
“Just go in and wreck them? Seriously?”
“I built my body like this to do exactly that. I trained my ass off for four years.”
Yeah. I can tell you worked out hard.
I was going to eat pork belly, but Daehun changed the menu to pork neck.
Saying he had to manage his body.
But. This isn’t something you can do just by working out hard.
You need at least some intel on the enemy.
“What’s the organization’s name?”
“Ah... the organization’s name? Wait...”
Daehun thought for a moment and finally answered, as if he had just remembered.
“Geumho Faction. It’s the Geumho Faction. The name changed from my dad’s time, so I got confused.”
“So you’re saying you’ll take a knife, go in, and kill everyone. Is that it?”
“That’s the fastest and most effective way. Gangsters have their own way. This is the gangster way.”
“And if you die doing that?”
“No way. You have no idea how hard I trained. They’re just neighborhood thugs. If I go in with a knife, it’s a hundred percent guaranteed.”
This isn’t right.
My anxiety and worry were gradually becoming reality.
“And then?”
“Huh?”
“Say you go in with a knife. And you kill them all. Then what?”
“What do you mean ‘then what’? Once those bastards are dead, it all goes back to Dad.”
“If killing those guys makes your dad’s stuff come back, wouldn’t it be better to just plant a bomb? Much easier and simpler.”
“Why are you like this? Gangsters have their own way.
“Then what if the guy who killed your dad isn’t there. Then what?”
“I go kill them too.”
“And if the police catch you? You just become a murderer.”
“I’ll avoid them well...”
“You only think that because our country’s police don’t investigate much. Once they start investigating for real, it’s no joke. They find everything.”
“.....”
“And say you kill everyone and take over as boss. Then the guys under you won’t come to kill you? Won’t take revenge? You’re taking revenge like this, aren’t you?”
“What about the organization members? The businesses? They all just listen to you and follow you? A twenty-three-year-old kid?”
“What about internal strife if the organization collapses?”
“What about other organizations? Will they just watch an organization that suddenly weakened?”
“Ah!! Fuck, then what am I supposed to do? I’ve come all this way thinking only about that. Are you telling me not to?”
“Who said don’t do it? I’m saying if you’re going to do it, you have to prepare properly.”
“Fuck, what is there to prepare? You just stick a knife in their throats.”
“Do you really believe that? You think that’s enough?”
Daehun’s eyes wavered.
It seemed Daehun knew too.
That this wasn’t how it was done.
But he probably couldn’t not take revenge either.
If he didn’t take revenge, he would have to deny everything he had lived for and leaned on until now.
His head said he should stop,
but his heart couldn’t.
So he only spoke of revenge with his mouth.
Those clear eyes told the tale.
Eyes that truly thought of revenge,
eyes prepared for death, didn’t look like that.
I understood.
He must be scared.
The more he knew,
the more he tried to make plans, the more reality he must have seen.
He must have been terrified.
He must have wanted to run away.
If he gave up revenge, everything that had sustained his life would collapse,
but if he took revenge, the chances of success were too low.
Failure meant death.
So he only spoke of revenge with words.
He had to justify himself somehow, even if only like that.
I will take revenge.
I’ll just kill them all.
It’s nothing.
Just go and slit their throats and come back.
Then it’ll be done. Like this.
Otherwise, it would have been too hard to live.
Thinking that way, Daehun looked different again.
“Inbae.”
“What?”
“Help me.”
“With what?”
“With taking back what was my dad’s.”
“You crazy bastard. You’re out of your mind.”
******
Now, with a month and a half left until discharge.
I was still doing well, organizing supplies at the supply warehouse.
Of course, I wasn’t the one doing it.
“Set the damaged ones aside separately. It’ll be a headache if they get mixed in later.”
“Yes, sir.”
I was piling more work on top of the soldiers working hard,
when someone came running frantically.
“Staff Sergeant Gong Inbae, the Commander is looking for you.”
“Me? Why?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Understood.”
Knock, knock, knock.
“Come in.”
I entered the commander’s office.
Besides the Commander, two men in black suits were sitting there.
Even at a glance, they looked unusual.
“Sit over here.”
Following the Commander’s words, I perched on the edge of the sofa.
“Then I’ll step out for a moment. Please speak comfortably.”
As soon as I sat, the Commander left, and the man in the black suit spoke.
“Nice to meet you. We’re from the National Intelligence Service.”
“Yes? The NIS?”
I was slightly surprised by the unexpected words.
Why would the NIS want me?
Am I suspected of espionage?
I can even call Kim Jong-un a son of a bitch.
“We monitor servicemembers being discharged, and Staff Sergeant Gong Inbae caught our eye. Your performance is outstanding. Wouldn’t it be a waste to be discharged just like this? There are still many opportunities to work for your country. How about taking an opportunity to work for your country?”
What kind of bullshit is this?
If they just asked me to work for the NIS, I might consider it.
If the conditions were right, I could work there.
Good pay, good benefits, the NIS isn’t bad.
Plus, it carries prestige.
But an opportunity to work for my country?
What the fuck has the country ever done for me?
Work for your country.
It turned a blind eye when I was starving.
Now you’re giving me an opportunity?
Are opportunities only given to those with full stomachs?
“I believe I’ve fulfilled my duty and service to the country sufficiently?”
I signaled a polite refusal.
A sophisticated way of putting it.
Had they not expected my sophisticated answer?
A look of bewilderment crossed the black-suited man’s face.
The man beside him added.
“Rather than deciding so hastily, how about thinking it over a bit more?”
“What are the conditions?”
“Conditions? What do you mean?
“Salary, benefits, annual leave, things like that.”
“That follows standards set by the state...”
“Take what you’re given?”
“Rather than that expression, we would like to say that there are regulations, and we follow those regulations.”
“And the workplace?”
“That can vary depending on the situation. In Staff Sergeant Gong Inbae’s case, you would operate as a black agent, so the workplace would vary by operation.”
“I decline.”
There wasn’t a single thing I liked from start to finish.
If I was going to accept those conditions, I would have applied for extended service.
I already have plenty of bonus points.
There’s no difference between that and the army.
Why be a black operative for the NIS of all places?
A black whose name won’t remain even after death?
Did they expect loyalty to the state? Patriotism? Things like that?
I don’t have those.
The parents who should have taught me those things left home and were gone,
and my teachers were too busy slapping me to have time to teach loyalty.
How could someone like me have had a chance to learn loyalty or patriotism?
These two seem to have completely misunderstood me.
They probably thought my good performance came from loyalty.
They should have read my personal statement before coming.
Ah? Maybe they misunderstood because I wrote it too much like a novel.
“In any case, please think it over once more and contact us.”
The man in the black suit seemed to realize further conversation wouldn’t be good,
and quickly wrapped things up, handing over a business card.
On the card was written “Haegwang Industries.”
********
On the way back to the barracks after the meeting with the NIS.
My phone rang.
An unfamiliar number.
“Hello?”
“Hello? Is this Staff Sergeant Gong Inbae?”
“Yes. Speaking?”
“Hello? I am Hwang Byeong-il, CEO of a specialized security firm.”
“A specialized security firm?”
“Yes. I have something I would like to discuss with you, Staff Sergeant. Could you spare some time?”