Chapter 4
“Hey, shouldn’t you go to the funeral?”
Chief Han Jongmu asked calmly. His voice carried at least a hint of condolence. However, Baek Haegyeon replied sharply, as if he had just heard something absurd.
“Do I look like I want to get my head chopped off at my age?”
“Excuse me?”
Baek Haegyeon stood up and slipped on the jacket draped over his chair.
“Gangsters are sticklers for formalities. If I don’t go, that might actually happen.”
“Uh… Chief Baek.”
“I’ll be taking some time off for my father’s passing. I won’t be sending out an obituary.”
“Do what you must.”
Checking his phone for a moment, Baek Haegyeon added, “They were kind enough to send me the location of the wake. I’ll be back in one piece.”
The personnel at the table, who had seen him off with nods or slight bows, were suddenly gripped by the exact same doubt.
Do people usually promise to return in one piece when heading to a funeral?
But no one voiced that question out loud. Baek Haegyeon had already vanished without a trace, as if diving straight into the gloomy weather.
* * *
The moment the car engine started, the radio news began to play.
“Today, during the National Youth Judo Championship, a promising young judo athlete, Guk Jiho, suffered an injury and was forced to withdraw from the match. Regarding Athlete Guk’s condition, the coaching staff…”
The anchor’s voice rang clear, cutting through the sound of the rain. Baek Haegyeon turned off the radio with wet fingertips. In the darkness, the blue light from his phone blinked. It was a message from the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Bureau.
—Director of the Criminal Investigation Bureau Jang Eunhyeong: The weather is somehow perfect for this. Pull yourself together and head home.
Haegyeon stared blankly at the message before letting out a heavy breath and muttering, “Perfect weather, my ass… It’s a little early, fuck.”
He took off his wet jacket and tossed it onto the passenger seat. As his rain-soaked shirt clung to his skin, the shape of an ink-black tattoo covering his entire shoulder peeked through.
Baek Haegyeon collapsed forward, burying his head against the steering wheel, and stayed still for a moment. The idling car provided a regular, subtle vibration, like an animal catching its breath.
He quietly felt the pulse beating at his temples. As night fell, the intensifying rain battered the car. The wipers moved faster, sweeping away the water pushed by the rubber blades.
Things had happened faster than anticipated, causing a hiccup in his plans. He would have to push all his scheduled moves forward a bit. For everything to fall perfectly into place, it had to start today, right here at this funeral.
With a somber gaze, Baek Haegyeon checked the item he had just loaded into the backseat of his car.
Wrapped tightly in a plastic bag, it was the methamphetamine confiscated by the Seoul Seocho Police Station.
* * *
May the deceased rest in peace.
Condolence wreaths lined the hallway of the Yeongseon University Hospital Seoul Funeral Home, stretching all the way from the entrance to the end of the corridor.
The text on the left ribbons all started with “Corporation,” but they were nothing more than hollow names used by thugs playing businessman under the guise of CEO titles. Hwando also owned a few of those corporations.
The place was swarming with black suits. Mourning attire was standard, but the atmosphere here was entirely different.
Among the unusually large number of mourners, there wasn’t a single woman; only the roughly forged physiques of men who made a living by putting a price on their bodies stood out.
Stationing burly guys in their twenties along the hallway was both a show of force and a security measure. Weddings and funerals were rare opportunities for gangsters from all over the country to gather in one place, so at events like this, even a single wrong look could easily trigger a bloodbath.
“Greetings, sir!”
As Baek Haegyeon entered, dozens of men bowed at the waist. Their voices were booming and disciplined.
They’ve been trained well in their greetings.
As he stepped toward the entrance, murmurs drifted up from beneath the bowed waists.
“I think that’s the youngest hyungnim.”
“The youngest? Baek Haegyeon? Then why the hell are we bowing?”
“Should we stop him from going in?”
“Hold on. You don’t think he’s here as a cop, do you?”
The shoe racks were crawling with black dress shoes that looked like beetles. The line of people waiting to pay their respects to the deceased stretched far outside the wake room. With an unimpressed face, Baek Haegyeon went to the very back and got in line.
A gangster’s funeral was no different from any other. If it was a peaceful passing at a ripe old age, the mood was lighter; if it was the opposite, the atmosphere was heavy, devoid of chatter.
Judging by the low whispers and the highly suspicious energy lingering in the hall, it seemed the deceased hadn’t met a particularly good end.
As if to ease the boredom, loud, resentful voices occasionally erupted from the wake room.
“Haesin! I really can’t just sit back and take this. For the hyungnim to go like that…”
Haesin.
“When did Haeumi get back from Japan? You poor thing.”
Haeumi.
“And what about Haegyeon? That motherless bastard won’t even show his face at his own father’s funeral!”
Haegyeon. The names of the three brothers came out of different people’s mouths one after another.
He couldn’t just stand there and listen to them blatantly curse him out. Especially when they were treating him like an ungrateful son who wouldn’t even show up to the funeral.
Looking down at the sea of black crowns, Baek Haegyeon pushed past the crowd and walked ahead. Those who were shoved and bumped into each other spat out disgruntled curses, but he paid them no mind.
The scent of flowers wafted heavily from the entrance of the wake room. Even prominent figures and assemblymen usually set up three-tiered altars, but this one had a whopping five tiers of chrysanthemums. They must have insisted on making everything as big and excessive as possible. If it weren’t for the thick smell of incense, one might have mistaken it for a flower shop.
That was just how tacky a gangster’s taste was.
The incense sticks were also packed so tightly they resembled cigarette butts jammed into a public ashtray on the street.
When Baek Haegyeon entered the room, the chief mourner and eldest son, Baek Haesin, was in the middle of bowing to a guest. Beside him, the second son, Baek Haeumi, stood silently with his hands clasped.
Because the heating was cranked up high, making the room sweltering, the faces of the eldest and second sons, who had been receiving guests for a long time, were flushed red.
“This motherless, fatherless bastard has arrived,” Haegyeon announced.
At the slow, drawling greeting, Baek Haesin straightened his back and turned around.
“…Our little puppy. You’re still alive and kicking, huh.”
The eldest son, Baek Haesin, who called his youngest brother a puppy, smiled brightly. It was as if he was genuinely thrilled to see the youngest brother he hadn’t encountered in years.
The guest who had been bowing read the room and quickly backed away.
Seven years older than Baek Haegyeon, Haesin was a man in his prime. His eyes gleamed sharply like the young leader of a successful company, and his hair was neatly combed back. He had a healthy complexion, a thick build, and was noticeably tall.
“I wanted to come to the funeral. I’ll be sure to attend both of yours, too,” Baek Haegyeon calmly retorted to his older brothers.
“…This punk.”
As Baek Haesin muttered lowly, the second brother, Baek Haeumi, waved his hand as if shooing away flies, sending the other guests and lackeys out of the room.
The space, once bustling with mourners, quickly emptied until only silence remained. Only the three brothers were left in front of their father’s portrait and memorial tablet.
The men, all similarly tall, were roughly at eye level with one another. Baek Haesin looked his youngest brother up and down, taking in how much he had grown since they last saw each other. He remembered him looking boyish, but with his features now more defined, he looked like a full-grown man.
A black suit, a black tie, and a leather watch. It was standard funeral attire, but Baek Haegyeon possessed a neat, upright posture that was entirely different from the gangsters. The corners of Baek Haesin’s mouth curled up.
“If I discipline my little brother now, will I get arrested for assaulting a cop?”
Baek Haesin tapped his brother on the chest. It didn’t look wet on the surface, but the suit his fist touched was completely damp, having soaked up the rainwater.
“Don’t you even have a lackey to hold an umbrella for you?”
“I don’t have anything like that.”
“Did anyone worry that you might get stabbed coming here?”
“No one did.”
Even as he stumbled slightly from the heavy thumps that accompanied each question, Haegyeon remained impassive. Whatever he was feeling inside, he showed no cracks on the surface. Haesin did not like that composed look on his youngest brother.
The reason he resolved to turn his cruel imaginations into reality was precisely because the youngest was being so defiant.
“How heartless. Then again, considering how much money we’ve spent on greasing their palms[1], the pigs at the agency didn’t even send a single wreath. What are they going to do with the hundred bucks they saved?”
“I came instead, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you did.”
Haesin patted his shoulder with feigned affection. At his smile, Haeumi laughed along. Haegyeon also twisted his lips into something resembling a smile.
That was when it happened.
SMACK!
Caught completely off guard, Haegyeon was struck by a heavy fist and collapsed. A single blow split his lip, sending sticky blood trailing down his clean-cut jaw. Because his shoulder had been held in place, the punch had landed perfectly.
“You expected this on your way here, right? I’m taking one of your fingers.”
Haesin flicked his hand, and Haeumi handed him a jackknife. Haegyeon’s hand turned pale where it was crushed beneath Haesin’s knee, the five fingers of his left hand splayed wide across the floor. It took less than a minute for the blade to find the joint.
“Ah… that fucking hurts.”
Pinned beneath his brother’s massive frame, Haegyeon merely complained, offering no real resistance.
Right before the blade could bite into his flesh, Haegyeon used his free hand to pull a clear plastic bundle from his jacket and tossed it. The object tumbled to a stop at Haeumi’s feet.
“What’s this?”
Haeumi, who had been silently watching the punishment, picked up the bag. Inside the clear plastic, tightly bound with a yellow rubber band, was a white powder.
Haeumi immediately undid the band and opened the bag. He gave the white powder a sniff, dipped his pinky into the contents, and tasted it.
Having made his judgment, he chuckled and swept back the bangs falling over his cheekbones. He let out a scoff as he gathered the plastic and wrapped the rubber band back around it.
“Haesin, you might want to take a look at this.”
The blade, which had been pressing diagonally into the finger, was withdrawn. A thin red line, like the mark of a ring, was left at the base of Haegyeon’s left middle finger.
Haeumi held the bag out to Haesin. Haesin, who had been pinning down their fallen brother, stood up with a disappointed expression.
“What is it?”
“Meth.”
“What?”
Without hesitation, Haesin sliced the center of the bag open with his knife. White powder spilled from the ragged tear, scattering across the floor.
“Is this your condolence money? Where did you get it?”
Haegyeon, now sitting on the floor, subtly moved his injured hand away. It looked as though he was trying to avoid touching the drugs. Haesin watched him with interest.
“Why would I give condolence money? I’m a son, too. The source is clean.”
“Just like no one is born without parents, there’s no such thing as drugs with a clean source. It’s not like meth is a shooting star that just fell out of the sky.”
At Haesin’s words, Haegyeon replied curtly, frowning as if he had tasted something bitter.
“…It’s confiscated evidence.”
At the unexpected answer, the two older brothers let out short gasps. The value of the meth scattered on the floor was over a hundred thousand USD.
While Haesin rubbed his throbbing forehead, Haeumi crouched down in front of their youngest brother.
“Little brother, let me ask you a fundamental question. Is a cop allowed to do that?”
He raised his index finger and poked Haegyeon’s forehead.
Translator’s Note
[1] Greasing their palms: gang slang for bribing members of public authority, especially law enforcement.