With the afternoon sun at its zenith, glaring down on them and casting long shadows, Han Sungoh, who was slumped on the floor clutching his wrist, could not even look at Shiwoon. Seeing the man reluctantly turn away as the sun bore into his eyes made Shiwoon feel satisfied.

He had left the scene quickly, despite the efforts of the official and team leader Shin Taemin to pacify him.

"Think of what you are doing right now, Hunter Kim Shiwoon," Shin Taemin had said with a troubled expression.

"That's right, please reconsider carefully before quitting like that!" The Bureau official had said with a pleading look.

Shiwoon had shrugged them off before walking to his car. He didn't look at his rear view mirror even once as he drove away. The police officer ahead was forced to scramble to remove the tape before Shiwoon's car tore right through it.

He was driving aimlessly, taking roads he did not know to sites he rarely saw. The black screen of his phone meant that he was moving around blindly. All he knew was that he didn't want to go home.

As he drove, the bitter taste of regret began to crawl into his mind. He had said what he meant and he had meant what he said. He should not have said it anyway. Employees all around the nation kept their mouths shut and endured even when they were mistreated. Why couldn't he have done the same? Now he had said he would resign and that left him where he was before he had become a Hunter. Jobless, with a stream of never ending dark clouds looming in the horizon.

He stopped by a convenience shop to buy six bottles of soju before turning on his GPS. If he was going to get as drunk as he hoped to be, he thought he ought to do it where he stayed.

When he finally arrived, it was nearly three in the afternoon. He had been driving around the city for more than two hours. The time had just passed him by without him realising. It felt like he was back in the convenience shop again, sitting behind the counter at night, watching the empty roads outside and looking at the unwavering yellow glow of the streetlights.

With a sigh, he stepped into the house. His family's shoes were all absent. His mother was probably at her shop, making a new pair of shoes. His sister was likely in her office, poring over the accounts. And he could imagine his brother working at a construction site, labouring away his days instead of finally going into the army. Perhaps Sungwoon worried that without him at home, the family's balance would collapse. After all, Shiwoon was hardly a good son.

He shook his head with a bitter smile as he set the soju down on the living room table. Walking into the kitchen, he found a bag of chips. They would be good enough for a drinking snack. After washing a shot glass, he stepped out, opened the bag of chips and a bottle of soju and started to drink. The alcohol tasted just a little sweeter. Was it because his life was so bitter?

His gaze circled the room. When it landed at last on the portraits standing proudly on the drawers table, it refused to leave. Standing at the center of all the pictures, beside the beaming graduation photos and the family photo they had taken before he went into the army, was an old picture of their once whole family. He could see it even from where he was sitting.

Shiwoon had asked his mother once, in high school when everyone around him was starting to go out with someone, why she had fallen in love with his father. She was a beautiful woman even now, a gently aging flower that had not quite lost all of its luster, but she had been a radiant beauty in the pictures of her in her younger days.

She had told him simply that she had fallen in love with his father's warm smile and genuine heart.

Even in the picture, Shiwoon could see that while both he and Sungwoon were pouting unhappily about being dragged along for a photo, his father had a wide grin and glimmering eyes.

He wondered why he couldn't have been born more like his father. To be as happy and as kind as the man meant that he would have looked resplendent even in rags.

'Father, why didn't you teach me to be more like you?'

During the last conversation he had with his father, Shiwoon had asked his father how he could be more like him. His father had laughed.

"Why would you want to be more like me," he had said, "do you want to make shoes for the rest of your life?"

"Pa," Shiwoon remembered saying, "there's nothing wrong with being a shoemaker."

His father had chuckled before ruffling Shiwoon's hair into an unruly shape. "Right, there's nothing wrong with being a shoemaker. I just regret it sometimes, you know."

He stared, wide-eyed, unable to understand his father's response. "Why?"

"When I think of how I couldn't give my children all they could want because of my own lacking, my heart aches."

"You don't lack in anything at all, Pa!"

"Aigoo," his father had said, "our Shiwoon is so good! But still, you know, being a man means being able to give your family everything they could want."

"Then, one day, I'll be rich and give you and everyone else everything you want!"

He remembered his father laughing, a pleasant sound that he had never learned to get sick of. "Okay, it's a promise!" His father had extended his pinky to Shiwoon and Shiwoon had made it official.

"Promise!"

The laughter that came out of his throat now, thinking back upon that final conversation, was bitter and short. He didn't remember much of his father. Both he and Sungwoon had been too young when their father had died. Say whatever you might, however, Shiwoon knew that his father had been a good man.

"Father," he said while shaking his head, turning his head away from the piercing gaze of a dead man, "I couldn't live up to the promise again."

He looked again at the photo. His father had been wearing a flannel shirt with obviously mismatched patches. His mind turned itself towards the gleaming watch in his room, bringing the two together for comparison. It was a stark contrast.

He downed the glass of soju, before opening a new bottle. He had known the truth when he was sober but he had buried it beneath layers and layers of gentle two-faced lies. Now that he was drunk and vulnerable and alone before his father, it all seemed to spill out. Like water finally bursting through the walls of an underground cave, the truth always shines through, he thought.

He had been lying to himself all this while. He wanted to be rich for his own reasons. Somewhere along the way, he had fallen off the path his father had tried to set him on, the right path, and landed on a path that left him walking alone. He didn't care about any of them. At any rate, he didn't care enough about anyone. Protecting himself was his top priority. His image, his ego, these vitriolic things had become too precious to him.

He had messed up and he didn't want to admit it.

He was selfish and he wanted to deny it.

He just wanted to be like his father, but he had forgotten the face of the man who raised him and the way that the man had lived his life.

By the third bottle of soju, he found himself snivelling and begging for guidance from a man he had seen lying in a coffin. After the fourth, he was unable to stop the tears. When he finished the sixth, his mouth was dry and his eyes were dry and they were puffy red and he knew that he could not allow himself to be seen by anyone in that state. He took a shower carefully, went carefully to bed.

*

His family hadn't bothered him in his troubled sleep. It was only when the morning shone through the thin curtains in his room, along with a fierce ache in his head, and he went to wash up that he finally saw his mother, looking at him with eyes of concern.

"Morning, mother." He said.

"Morning,” she said, “are you feeling better?”

He smiled. “I’m feeling better. Excuse me, I need to use the toilet.”

“Okay. Come and have some hangover soup when you are done.”

When he walked into the kitchen, he saw that there was a bowl of rice and a large bowl of soup. His mother was seated at the head of the table, as she always was on the rare occasion they dined together as a family.

"Your sister and brother had to go to work, though they wanted to speak to you when you woke up," she said as he began to eat.

"I see."

"Why did you get so drunk last night anyway? Is something wrong?" She asked. There it was - everything else had been small talk, the prelude to the big question.

"Nothing's wrong, mother." He said coldly.

"You know, Kim Shiwoon," she said with a frown, "ever since that time after you were discharged from the army, you've been too formal."

"I see. Sorry."

She was getting just a little agitated, he could tell. "There you go again. Did I ever demand you speak exclusively in formal language? Did your father ever teach you to do so?"

The mention of his father pricked his heart. "No. I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "Anyway, are you sure you are okay? We were all worried after seeing how much you drank yesterday."

A part of him ached to tell the truth. But being a man meant being able to give one's family everything they wanted and he did not think they would want to hear the truth of how he was a worthless, jobless man again. He did not think she would want to hear him whine about how difficult it was at work, when her own work involved hours and hours of painful, careful labor. He did not think she would want to hear him cry about how much he missed his father, when surely she must still mourn the death of the greatest husband in the world.

So there was only one thing he said because it was the only thing he could say.

"I'm fine, don't worry, mother."

A sweet lie was better than the bitter truth.

She opened her mouth. It seemed like she was about to say something but she thought better of it and stopped. She nodded. "Leave the dishes when you are done. I'll wash them before I go to work."

It was a tacit acknowledgement of the things that could not be said, he knew. She was trying to extend some concern to him. Still…

"It's fine, mother. I'll do my own dishes. Thank you for the meal."

He wanted to be the man who gave his family everything they wanted.

*

He left his phone turned off as he went on another journey around the city. It was not a joy ride - there was nothing happy about the car, be it the music or the mood - but it did take his mind off more troubling things at least.

He had told his mother that he would be training but he didn't make his way towards the Bureau building. He could sense that someone, like Oh Jinwoong or Kim Sangshik, would have been informed about his actions yesterday and would try to bring him in to speak to their superiors. It would not be a good talk.

He stopped at a street he had never been to and ate in a restaurant he had never eaten in. The food was too cold and too bland and he did not like it, though he thanked the owner for the food anyway.

When the night came, he had already driven past enough random streets in the city that he thought he could draw a map of Seoul. He drove based on the signboards along the way, slowly making his way back to Hongeun-dong based on the familiar names he saw. By the time he reached the neighborhood, it was nine.

Was she hanging around the neighborhood waiting for him? A wry smile crawled onto his face as he drove up to her, who seemed to be walking towards the subway station.

"Hey, Park Sunha," he rolled down his window and called out, "need a ride?"

She jumped as she heard his voice. Turning to look at him, her expression quickly changed to relief, with a slight hint of joy. "Sure." She got into the car and as she put on her seatbelt, she remarked, "It's crazy how we keep meeting here."

"It really is. If it were anyone else, I'd think they were waiting for me." Shiwoon laughed.

"Uwah, you have that many admirers? Congratulations, Shiwoon." She joked while punching his shoulder lightly.

"You should know I am a very attractive man, after all."

"Yes, yes, you are very attractive, Kim Shiwoon." She said with a smile.

"So, what were you doing here again anyway?"

Her expression darkened. "My grandfather's sick and he isn't doing so well."

"Ah. Sorry for asking."

Her face immediately lightened. "No, no, it's not your fault. It's not like you caused him to get sick."

A thought struck him. "Say, Park Sunha," he said cautiously, "do you want to grab a drink?"

She turned to him with a curious look. "Sure, but let's just drink at a convenience shop."

"Sure. I'll drive us to one near your place."

*

Park Sunha volunteered to get the first round and she came out of the 7-Eleven with a pair of beer cans and a packet of walnuts.

"Ta-da~" She extended one of the cans to him.

He took it with both hands while thanking her. The can opened with a refreshing click.

"Is something wrong? Are you okay?" She asked. The look of concern on her face seemed to overlap with that of his mother's from the morning. He shook his head to dispel the memory.

"So, you asked me to drink when nothing's wrong?"

"Ah-" he hadn't meant it that way, though he supposed that was how shaking his head would be interpreted in that situation. "I wasn't answering your question."

She smirked. "Do you just shake your head randomly then? Is it a side effect of being a Hunter?"

"Ah, no, no. I just-"

Park Sunha laughed. "I'm just joking, don't worry about it. But still, are you going to answer my question?"

He bit his lip and decided he needed another sip to make it easier to muster up the courage. After gulping down another mouthful of beer, he decided it was time to open his mouth and start talking. "Yes. Something is wrong."

"Are you fine?"

His lips trembled. They didn't want to say what was coming next. He finished the rest of the can. "No."

Park Sunha looked taken aback by his sudden honesty. "Well, that's not what I was expecting."

"Say, Park Sunha," he said while staring at his hands, which were still holding the beer can gently, "I heard you got into debt a while back."

She froze. Her face morphed into a frightening mask of anger and pain. "You heard from Sangmin?"

He didn't answer. "Can I ask why?"

She sighed. Though her wrath and hurt did not quite melt away, it softened. As did her voice, as she said, "I needed the money to pay for my grandfather's hospital bill."

He looked up at her. He had thought that maybe, just maybe, she had borrowed money for a reason similar to his. But she hadn't. Looking at the simple clothes she wore, he wondered why he had ever thought the way he did. There was nothing to suggest excessive opulence and indulgence on her. "I'm sorry to probe."

She shook her head. "It's fine."

"You know, I thought," he paused as he spoke. He could feel it. He had come to another crossroad. Perhaps this was his last chance to be honest. "I thought that you fell into debt because you were spending outside of your means. Like me."

She looked taken aback. "Like you?"

He had decided to be honest. While driving around, he had settled on what to do going forward. There wouldn't be consequences for speaking the truth. Until the very end, he was just a selfish coward.

"I was buying things I had no business even looking at. Because of that, I incurred quite a bit of debt."

"I see. Then, just like you, can I ask why?"

He smiled bitterly. "Because I thought that that was what I wanted to be. I thought that expensive things were needed for me to be seen the way I wanted to be seen."

Park Sunha sipped her beer and she seemed to be thinking hard and seriously about what to reply. She finally settled on something and opened her mouth to speak.

"I think that success is something simple. For me, if I could help with my parents' business, if I could look after my grandparents as they grew older, if I could help those around me every once in a while, I would be successful. But not everyone thinks the same way. Maybe you were right to think that those things were necessary investments for your success."

Her words were like a heat pack in the midst of a terrible winter. They filled him with a warmth he hadn't felt since high school. When he and Sangmin had been heroes.

She continued to speak. "But to me, the Kim Shiwoon who would feed the stray cats and dogs, who would stop the bullies from mocking the fat and the ugly and the unfortunate, who would carry a girl on his back when she broke her foot, was already a success."

They had descended into a consensual silence after that. Thankfully, she was already close to finishing her can of beer, and he was able to send her home before the quiet could decay into awkwardness.

He sat in his car outside her house, staring at the lights that came on inside as he thought of her words. And at the end of all the musing that he did as he drove back to his house and finally plopped himself onto his bed in his dark room, only a single line remained. It was a line that almost dissuaded him from the decision he had finally settled on after a whole day of driving in the city.

'I… was already a success.'