Chapter 2
At some point, light flickered in the complete darkness.
Blue, then white, then briefly yellow, before plunging into darkness again.
After this repeated twice, something in his consciousness stirred. Perhaps the changing daylight had reached his closed eyelids.
If it happened twice, that meant two days had passed while he remained unconscious.
“Not yet…?”
“A towel… This one… Get this out. And bring some clothes…”
Since when?
Occasionally, he could hear voices. They were distant, muffled, as if submerged underwater.
“Take it off… No, this is too small…”
“This is… the biggest one…”
The old man’s rough voice was familiar, but the young boy’s voice was not.
He could hear them faintly, but he couldn’t open his eyes. He wanted to move, but his body remained frozen, as if trapped under sleep paralysis.
It was an eerie, bizarre experience—neither fully conscious nor unconscious.
A third yellow light, presumably another sunset, settled on his eyelids. That meant it was now the third evening of his unconscious state.
“Is it okay to just leave him like this?”
That evening, the voices were clearer. The woman’s voice outside the door was unfamiliar—probably it was Song Dae-gil’s nurse. Even in his state, he could guess that much.
“I think he should be taken to a bigger hospital…”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of him.”
After hearing Dae-gil’s words, he slipped into deep sleep as if all his worries have been vanished.
Somewhere inside, he had feared being trapped in that half-conscious state forever—ears open but eyes closed.
Ah… I’m just sleeping.
Taegeon, relieved by Dae-gil’s words, finally let go of his lingering thoughts and drifted into a peaceful dream.
A horse with an injured leg can travel a thousand miles in an instant. How much more so would it be for the ‘horses’ (Horses – Refers to rumours) of the people of Songdae Village would take to travel, who live in close quarters within earshot of each other?
Of course, It didn’t take much of a time to reach everyone’s ear. It even took a slightly extreme route during the move.
“Taegan came to Daegil’s house again.”
“Wow. Did he get stabbed?”
“Don’t talk nonsense. This time, someone stabbed him straight into the heart.”
“Are you being serious? If you get stabbed in the heart, won’t you lose your life?”
“It’s a good thing he is still alive.”
It had already been three days.
The man still hadn’t woken up. Of course, he hadn’t been stabbed in the heart, but he had collapsed with blood clots and hadn’t regained consciousness for three days. So it wasn’t unreasonable for rumors to spread that he was already dead.
Even Haein, who lived under the same roof, couldn’t be certain whether he was alive or dead.
Daegil insisted that he was sleeping well, but Haein had never looked inside his room herself—partly out of discomfort, partly because she didn’t want to. So she had no idea.
Well, I doubt Grandpa would be hiding a body.
Anyway, it seemed like all the elders in the neighborhood knew about the man that Daegil had spoken of: “You don’t know him, but I do.”
It was the morning of the fourth day.
“Did he really die?”
The owner of the supermarket, Yongsun, asked Haein, who had recently stopped by. Her face, blinking in curiosity, was reflected on her black sunglasses.
Haein smiled faintly and waved her hand.
“No. Grandpa said he’s going to wake up soon.”
“Oh, really?”
Daegil spoke to her when she was leaving the living room as he overheard that she was going to the supermarket.
“I guess that kid will open his eyes soon.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I feel like I’m going crazy.”
I think he may have intentionally informed me about it, knowing that she’d be bombarded with more questions as she walked down the hill.
“Oh my, thank goodness. He should wake up, no matter what. How can he die at such a young age? He might be a good person. He is the property of the Republic of Korea, so he must have a long and happy life.”
That’s right. Wherever I go, people always say he’s a good person. But since I’d only ever seen his face covered in blood, even though we lived under the same roof, I was the only one who hadn’t seen that supposedly good face.
Haein, who had packed sesame oil, eggs, and snacks into her shopping cart, slowly pulled over the plastic chair that was next to the door and sat down.
Yongsun, who was rubbing her palms in front of a small electric heater, glanced at her. The corners of her mouth twitched, as if she was secretly hoping that she would ask about the guy. Her gaze was conveying the words, “What are you curious about?”
Haein pursed her lips behind her mask, which was pulled up to the tip of her nose. Daegil had said she didn’t need to know about that guy, but since there were people around who did, she couldn’t help but feel curious.
“I….”
After a moment of hesitation, Haein cautiously asked, tilting her sunglasses up slightly.
“…Madam, do you know that man well?”
Yongsun raised the corners of her lips meaningfully, stroking her chin while gazing somewhere above the diagonal line.
“Hold on, Depending on how far the scope of ‘well’ goes, I could say yes or no, right?”
It was an ambiguous answer. It was also the response of someone who was holding a tightly knotted bundle, judging whether the other person was worthy of untying it.
Haein grabbed a chocolate bar from the shelf next to her knee and handed Yongsun a two-thousand-won bill.
Her gaze fell on the money. Her newly tattooed eyebrows twitched slightly in satisfaction.
Yongsun picked up the bills with her index and middle fingers, smacked her lips, and sat up straight.
“Young lady, your circumstances are not easy, so I am going out on a limb and trusting you. You must not go anywhere and reveal anything. Do you understand?”
Haein nodded vigorously, leaning in so close that their foreheads almost touched. Yongsun’s eyes darted around the empty store entrance, just in case.
“That’s why I’m saying….”
Haein, climbing the hill, took a break on a bench halfway up.
It wasn’t far from the supermarket to her house, but she often stopped here because she liked the view.
She unwrapped the chocolate she had purchased in exchange for information and frowned as she chewed on the cold, whitened piece.
“So… is he really a gangster?”
Yongsun had given her a total of eight pieces of information.
• The man had moved to this village when he was ten years old.
• His father was the boss of a large organization that dominated Gyeongsang Province, but for some reason, he crossed over to Jeolla Province and hid in this village. His mother, however, had not come with him from the start, and it was uncertain whether she was alive or dead.
• When he was seventeen, his father and he left the village in the middle of the night without a word. Not long after, black-clad men were seen searching the village, leading to suspicions that their location had been compromised.
• His father died not long after that for some reason.
• Seven years ago, he reappeared at Daegil’s house with a bloody face.
• He once said, “I work for a company in Seoul,” but it’s likely not a respectable one.
• After disappearing for another seven years, he returned. He turned thirty-two this year.
• His name was Nam Tae-geon.
And one more thing…
“Haven’t you seen his face? Wow, you really need to keep your mouth shut. As the young people say these days, ‘he’s out of this world.’ He’s so damn handsome.”
Too handsome to take your eyes off.
Whatever he did, it made him come home covered in blood every time. I could only reasonably assume that it wasn’t much different from what his father used to do.
Yet, the elders of the neighborhood had been fond of him since he was young and didn’t seem to care what he did.
They acted like it was nothing, but they waited every single day for him to wake up, as if he were their own child.
But Haein, who didn’t know much about men, somehow felt a chill as she rubbed her arms.
Yongsun had said, “He looks handsome, but he’s actually quite rough. He’s been worse than his father since he was little. But he’s really kind.”
More brutal than his father, the boss of an organization, but with a kind heart? What kind of irony was that?
Regardless, it was about 90% certain he was in the dark world. The realization made me feel awkward for no reason.
“Sister!”
Su-cheol waved his arms wildly on the hill. It seemed like he had stopped by Dae-gil’s house while she was at the supermarket.
It seemed that Su-cheol was just as curious about the man as she was, and he would climb the hill like that whenever he got the chance.
Haein asked Soo-cheol, who was running towards her while hugging his legs that were tired from climbing.
“You didn’t go to work?”
Su-cheol, who barely managed to catch the breath in front of the bench, spoke with an expression on his face that she had never felt before.
“Oh, I’m going to go now. But that’s not important right now.”
White breath fluttered between Su-cheol’s dry, chapped lips. Su-cheol pointed to Dae-gil’s house with a more moved expression on his face.
“That guy opened his eyes.”
The beautiful eyes behind the black sunglasses immediately grew wide.
“Really?”
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