“Boss. Bohol has been completely taken over.”
“Good work. You’ve done well.”
“Do we move on to Cebu now?”
“For now, send a few of the boys over and just get a feel for the mood.”
Sandro lightly patted his subordinate, who had worked so hard, on the shoulder.
Lately, Sandro had been expanding his power like a madman.
He no longer used the name “Bahala Na.”
He had replaced it with “Sandro Group.”
Sandro Group had become the undisputed number-one organization in Bohol.
It was possible because loyal members and enormous funds backed him.
He absorbed the small organizations and crushed the large ones.
Now, no one could do business in Bohol without Sandro Group’s permission.
If Sandro Group did not allow it, it was difficult to even start operating, let alone continue.
Having seized firm control of the distribution network, Sandro Group supplied liquor, food ingredients, and the like.
They delivered nothing to any place Sandro Group had not approved.
The underworld was firmly in Sandro Group’s grasp.
The reason Sandro was pouring so much effort into expanding his power was none other than Alex.
The lunatic who had suddenly shown up one day saying he wanted to buy Marian.
The lunatic who had walked into a gang office holding Marian’s hand and brightly asked how much she was.
I had thought he was crazy, but he turned out to be even crazier than I’d imagined.
I thought he was a mad dog and tried to discipline him with a club, but instead, I was subdued in an instant.
But in that moment, I saw it.
His attitude, showing no hesitation when he fired a gun.
And yet he had aimed for places that wouldn’t kill, even if the bullets hit.
That was when I felt it.
He was someone I could never defeat by force.
Even in the moment he pulled the trigger, I could sense composure from him.
I didn’t know what kind of life he had lived,
but it was clear he had survived somewhere like hell.
He never spoke of the past.
He only spoke of the present.
He did not dream of the future either.
That side of him looked somewhat uneasy.
He looked like a man who only lived for today.
It seemed as though Alex had no future.
Alex had brilliant ideas and money.
He had no hesitation in spending either his ideas or his money.
For the hospital bills of the members who had been shot,
and just because we had brought him a few bags, he handed over money without a second thought.
Even so, he did not make unreasonable demands or try to climb over our heads.
Out of nowhere, he proposed becoming business partners and said we should go into tourism.
And what about when he bought Emerald Canyon and Lumina Lake?
Who would have thought to pay money and buy those places?
Everyone had just thought that since they existed, anyone could go and use them.
Buying those places became a stroke of genius,
and Candy Tour became Bohol’s top travel agency, owning two resorts.
Sandro was fully satisfied and happy with his role as general manager at Candy Tour.
Of course, he did not like the name Candy Tour, but that was not important.
The organization members’ satisfaction was also very high.
Their salaries came in reliably every month, along with bonuses and even social security insurance.
And there were the bundles of money tossed their way from time to time as well.
The members took pride in Candy Tour’s uniform.
They would not tolerate getting that uniform dirty.
But Alex was different.
He did not wear the uniform.
That did not mean he wore suits to carry himself with dignity as the CEO either.
He always went around in shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, and a fedora.
He said it was the most tourist-like outfit.
He had been staying here for over a year now, and he was still calling himself a tourist.
He really was a lunatic.
That was why I felt uneasy.
I was afraid he would leave the moment his sightseeing was over.
Afraid he would leave this place once he decided there was nothing left to see.
Just as he did not seem to dream of the future, he seemed to have no lingering attachment to this place either.
He looked like someone who could put everything down and leave at any time.
Until Sandro spoke to him, he had lived in the tiny one-room place he had first found after coming here,
and for meals, he only ate things like the lunch boxes the employees ate.
He was the CEO, but he neither expected nor demanded special treatment.
He was earning a tremendous amount of money, but most of it was used as funding for other businesses or handed out to the employees.
He seemed attached to nothing.
I had never seen him buy anything for himself.
Not to money, not to people, not to power,
he was attached to nothing at all.
That made me terribly anxious.
Because he looked like someone who could leave at any time.
Alex existed in the deepest part of us,
but Alex himself acted like an outsider.
Alex was loved by everyone,
but Alex himself did not seem to know he was loved.
So Sandro wanted to let him know.
That he was precious to us.
That he was our family.
That was why Sandro decided he would make Bohol Alex’s home.
A place where he could lean and rest whenever he wanted,
a place where no one could touch Alex.
No matter what great sin Alex had committed,
even if he had killed someone and been issued an Interpol red notice.
At least here in Bohol, he would be allowed to live in peace.
We would protect Alex.
That was the only thing Sandro thought about.
That was why he had taken complete control of Bohol.
Sandro was happy with the life he shared with Alex.
He wanted to stay with this lunatic.
Doing crazy things with a lunatic was fun.
He wanted to preserve this happiness.
******
Is this really okay?
Everything is going well.
This wasn’t what I set out to do, so I don’t know why things are turning out like this.
Things keep flowing in directions I never expected.
I don’t know why.
I was unemployed.
An unemployed high-school graduate living in a goshiwon.
A loser who had been discharged from the army, joined a security company, and failed to last even five months before quitting.
I had no abilities.
I lacked social skills and had no outstanding talents.
I was just a deliveryman who had luckily obtained an ability other people didn’t have, called Inventory, and used it to deliver drugs for a living.
That was me.
A loser barely scraping by through drug deliveries.
Now it looked like I wouldn’t even be able to do that anymore.
The immigration office found my travel route suspicious and slapped me with the code SSSS.
I had no choice. If I wanted to keep delivering drugs, I needed to make up a plausible excuse.
A job that wouldn’t draw suspicion even if I frequently traveled overseas.
That was a travel agency.
I made travel agencies in both Korea and the Philippines.
I had no intention of making money with a travel agency.
I only needed proof to justify frequent entries and exits from the country.
Since it would be strange to create a travel agency and have no customers, I decided to just operate it normally.
With the mindset that it wouldn’t matter even if it ran at a loss.
I ran the travel agency with the intention of covering my smuggling routes.
But the travel agency is doing well.
I thought simply following existing routes would leave us without competitiveness,
so the Emerald Canyon and Lumina Lake I bought with money became huge hits.
Countless people flock there every day, saying they want to see them.
I limited the number of people on the tour to one hundred a day,
but several times that number flooded in.
And half of them were tourists coming from Seoul.
In the meantime, I even bought two resorts.
One five-star resort, and one resort still under construction.
Having the tour guests stay at the resort brought advantages in many ways.
Costs went down, and I was able to operate the rooms more efficiently.
Especially for a tour like ours, where the schedule included one night of camping at Lumina Lake, it was far more efficient because there was no need to leave the rooms empty for that day.
Once the resort under construction, the Emerald Resort, opened, we would be able to use both resorts, so things would become even more efficient.
Once I started operating resorts, the flow of money improved even more.
Profits became much higher.
That was when Daehun contacted me.
I felt sorry for Daehun, who was still wandering around unable to settle down in Gunsan, so I made him an online gambling site.
This had nothing to do with Candy Tour. I made it separately with my own money.
Just so he could have some spending money.
But why is that doing well too?
So much money poured in that we needed to launder it.
We were barely managing to launder the money using coins and transactions.
I even picked up an arms dealer for practically nothing.
Truly, something new was happening every single day.
To the point where even I was struggling to handle it.
These days, I can’t even calculate how much I’m earning.
By the time I finish calculating, more money has already come in.
I lacked nothing.
I was affluent.
But...
But... is this the life I wanted?
No, did I ever even have a life I wanted?
I looked in the mirror.
In the mirror stood a young man wearing a Hawaiian shirt.
A young man who looked like a tourist, but somehow seemed uneasy.
I asked the me in the mirror.
Is this really the life you wanted?
Is this place really where I belong?
Is this my home?
I could not answer.
Then what if I leave this place?
Will I have a home somewhere else?
Will the life I wanted be there?
I could not answer that either.
Even I don’t know what life I want.
This mirror can’t answer for me.
There is no answer.
All I can do is live through each day.
All I can do is live every day as a stranger.
.
.
.
“Mr. Gong Inbae?”
“Yes? Who is this?”
“Is this not Mr. Gong Inbae’s phone?”
“Ah—yes, it is.”
Hearing my real name for the first time in a while, I was momentarily confused about who it was.
After living only as Alex, it felt strange to be called Gong Inbae.
It felt like I had been floating in empty air, and the moment my name was called, I was thrown into a gutter.
“This is Mokpo Police Station. Mr. Gong Yongseok is your father, correct?”
It was a name I hadn’t heard in a long time.
Hearing my father’s name made the feeling of being thrown into a gutter even filthier.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I’m afraid I have some unfortunate news. Mr. Gong Yongseok has been found deceased.”
“..........”
“Hello?”
“Yes. Please go on.”
“He was discovered during the course of an investigation. Since there are no particular external injuries or signs of criminal involvement, we are assuming it was a natural death. It appears he passed away in his room while sleeping, living alone.”
“What do I need to do?”
“We’ll need you to decide whether to claim the body.”
“Can I refuse to claim the body?”
“There are some people who do. In that case, the body will be handed over to the local government and a public funeral will be held.”
“Mm...”
“We need you to tell us whether you will take custody of the body so that we can proceed. I know this is difficult, but once you’ve made a decision, please let us know, and we’ll move forward accordingly.”
“Could you give me just a little time to think?”
“It would be best if you could decide and let us know by tomorrow. We can’t keep delaying it either.”
“Thank you for your understanding. I’ll think it over and contact you right away.”
“Then I’ll hang up now.”
Once the call ended, all sorts of memories flowed into my head.
Unpleasant memories I had thought I had forgotten, thought had been forgotten, kept rising endlessly.
It was common for him to punch and kick me recklessly just because he was in a bad mood.
He would overturn the dining table, throw things around, and smash every object in the house.
One day, he said he hated looking at my face because it resembled my mother’s and came at me with a knife.
I was so terrified that I ran away barefoot.
The memory of running barefoot in the cold winter until the soles of my feet were torn open and suffering for a long time afterward.
The memory of being tied up and beaten with a belt because I ran away.
The memory of drinking tap water because I was hungry and rummaging through leftovers.
All those memories wrapped around me.
I thought there might be at least one good memory,
but no matter how hard I tried to find one, I couldn’t.
The more I thought, the more only nauseating memories that made me want to vomit came to mind.
If there had been even a few good memories, I would have gone and held a funeral for him,
but no matter how hard I tried to recall them, such memories did not exist.
So I picked up the phone to tell them that I would give up claiming the body.
But I could not readily press the call button.
All I had to do was call and say I would give up claiming the body, and everything would be over,
but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I simply hesitated.
I don’t know my own heart.
When I was young, I was only afraid of him,
when I grew a little older, I avoided him at all costs,
and after I turned twenty, I lived as if he had never existed.
That kind of person had suddenly popped back into my life.
Dead.
I could simply give up claiming the body and go on living my life,
but it would not go the way I wanted.
I don’t know what feeling this is.
At the very least, I wanted to see him at the end.
To see with my own eyes how miserably he had gone.
Maybe I wanted to boast, “Look how well I’m doing.”
I did not know the reason, but I decided I should go to Korea and hold a funeral for him.
I had no intention of holding a good funeral.
I planned to make it as shabby as possible.
On the ritual table, I would place only some snacks and a bottle of soju.
That was the kind of funeral I imagined for my father.
Shabby, destitute, and pathetic.
One that would make people frown.
My father did not need to drink much alcohol.
Even if he drank a lot, he would only cause a scene there too.
I was weak, so he had beaten me however he pleased, but I don’t know whether he would be able to do as he pleased there as well.
So I should warn him in advance.
And so, I headed for the Republic of Korea.