Chapter 44

As soon as I could work up the courage to the next day, I called Lee Sunhee. I felt nervous for some reason. I didn’t know what Seolhee might have said to Sunhee over the past few days. She could have told Sunhee that she blamed me for the bad breakup that caused her to lose hope. Even though Taejun had assured me that it wasn’t my fault, I didn’t know if Sunhee felt the same way.

“Hello?”

“H-hi Sunhee-noona,” I stuttered. “It’s uh… it’s Baek Jaehyun. I just wanted to give you a call to ask how things are… with... with–” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence.

“Ah, Jaehyun-ah,” she said in surprise. “Thanks so much for calling.” That was a relief to hear. Sunhee didn’t seem to have any ill will towards me. She continued, and as she did, I could feel just how stressed she must have been as well the last few days. “It’s been a little hard… The hospital is still keeping her in the 72-hour hold, so I’ve only been able to see her once a day. She hasn’t… she hasn’t really said anything to me or our parents. But she seems to be recovering okay.”

“That’s good to hear,” I said. “I mean– the recovering part, not the other thing,” I added hastily. “I… I hope she feels well enough to talk to you soon.”

“I do too,” Sunhee said sadly. “Jaehyun-ah, thank you.”

“It’s nothing…”

“No, I mean, for being there when she needed you. None of us would have known if you hadn’t found her.”

I found it a little surprising that she hadn’t left any messages for anyone else, and the fear that I was the cause of her decision to try to end it all tried to resurface. I fought it back down with Taejun’s words.

I never had any control of her actions, I told myself.

“Sunhee,” I choked. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry to you and your family. It’s, it’s… I–”

“What?” Sunhee interrupted. I heard the alarm in her voice. “What are you talking about?”

“I– I broke up with her that day,” I admitted. “I said some things—”

“Jaehyun,” Sunhee said, somewhat forcefully. I froze. “I know. She told me. But it’s not your fault. You just broke up with her. People break up all the time,” she said.

I swallowed hard. “I never would have… If I knew…”

“Jaehyun,” Sunhee said. “This isn’t the first time she’s done this.”

“... What?” That revelation stunned me. Reckless as Seolhee was, she had an overwhelming love for life. It was why her suicide attempt had been so shocking to me. But now I was hearing that she’d tried it before.

“You didn’t know, did you? Seolhee’s…” Sunhee trailed off. “She has some trauma she’s never been able to get over.”

I didn’t know if I should ask, or if I even deserved to know. We’d casually dated for several months, and ‘officially’ dated about a month, but we’d hardly ever talked about our respective pasts. I never brought it up because I didn’t trust her anymore. And she’d never brought up hers.

“She never told me anything about that,” I said. I was starting to sound like the world’s worst boyfriend.

“I’d be surprised if she did tell you,” Sunhee replied.

I still felt terrible. I had told Seolhee I wanted to get to know her more, but I’d barely put any effort into doing so. All I’d ever figured out was that she had developed an unhealthy mentality that her worth to others was entirely derived from her sexuality. Now it seemed obvious that past trauma was what had given her that mentality. I’d learned more about Seolhee these past few days than I had in all those last months.

“I… well– Sunhee… could you tell Seolhee that I’m sorry when you see her?” I asked quietly.

“There isn’t anything to be sorry about–”

“No, there is. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I didn’t get to know her more, and that I didn’t know enough to help her,” I said sadly. “And that I’m sorry for breaking up with her and about what I said to her over the phone.”

Sunhee didn’t ask me what I had said. “It’s okay, Jaehyun. But I’ll tell her. It wasn’t wrong of you to want to break up with her,” she added. “I heard about what happened at the club from Eunsoo.”

That gossipy bitch. Though maybe I couldn’t begrudge him for telling Sunhee about the events leading up to Seolhee’s attempt.

“The one who’s most at fault that night though is Sungmin,” Sunhee said suddenly and angrily.

I was surprised to hear her saying that about her boyfriend. “What does Sungmin have to do with it?”

“He’s the one that gave her the drugs.”

Now I had someone who I could wholly focus all my feelings from the past few days at. It was almost terrifying how quickly my anger engulfed me. I’d always been overwhelmed with rage when I was in a fight, but this was beyond that. I couldn’t see straight. My pulse was thudding deafeningly in my ears, and I felt almost dizzy when I moved. I heaved with gulping, heavy breaths like a bull in a bullfight.

It only grew and grew as I made my way to Sungmin’s apartment. I didn’t know if I’d find him there, but perhaps it would have been better if I hadn’t.

I wanted to kill him.

By the time I was outside his door, I felt like my vision had turned red. All I could focus on was how badly I needed to cave Sungmin’s face in. I took it out on his door first, slamming my fist over and over into it. I didn’t even feel the pain that I should felt striking something so hard.

Unfortunately for Sungmin, he was home.

“Who the hell?” he swore, as he opened the door. His eyes widened at the sight of me.

My fist caught him squarely on his jaw. Sungmin managed to keep his feet by grabbing at some built-in shelving. “What the FUCK, Jae?” he shouted at me as he stumbled back.

I grabbed his shirt and slammed him against the wall. “Why did you give Seolhee that shit?!” I yelled into his face. His hands grabbed my wrists but he couldn’t break me off as I shook him hard. Even though Sungmin was far stockier than me, I was so filled with rage that I almost lifted him off his feet.

“I didn’t know she was going to fuckin do that,” Sungmin hissed at me. “Let go, you asshole!”

“Does it fucking matter?!” I shouted.

Sungmin had enough of my abuse. He kneed me and drove the air out of my lungs. When I wheezed for air, he broke out of my hold. My cut arm throbbed and I stumbled back with a pained hiss.

I started back but Sungmin laid me out with a kick to the chest. As I struggled to right myself, he yelled back.

“Will you fucking calm down, Baek Jaehyun?! You come into my fuckin’ house–”

That sounded far too familiar to what his father had said to Taejun. It filled me with renewed rage and I launched myself at him. He couldn’t react fast enough and I toppled him right over.

I pinned him down by his neck and struck him. “She almost fucking died!” I bellowed into his face.

Sungmin gagged but unlike me when Comet put me in the chokehold, he didn’t panic. He punched into my diaphragm again, but this time all I did was cough hard into his face. “That isn’t my fucking fault,” he hissed at me. “I didn’t tell her what to do with that dope.”

“Yeah? What did you think she was going to do with it, dumbass?!”

“What she usually does!” Sungmin snarled as he struggled to get out from under me. I cuffed him hard and he groaned.

“Were you the one that turned her into an addict?!” I hissed at him. “Were you her goddamn dealer?!”

“She was already one when I met her.” Sungmin grabbed my arm and the pain that flared up from my cut almost made me let go of him. “As for being her dealer, fuck off! You should know. A girl like her has more than one.”

A flash of red hot anger squeezed my throat hard and for a moment I couldn’t breath. I returned the sensation back to Sungmin and squeezed down into his neck. He managed to choke out my name right before I cut off his air properly.

“Jae–!”

“I should kill you right now,” I seethed. He choked and sputtered for air.

Rational thought had left me. I couldn’t visualize the consequences. I wanted Han Sungmin dead. I wanted his whole dogshit family dead for everything they’d done to me. Sungmin’s eyes bulged as they stared up into mine. I stared right back with blind, unyielding fury. Every ounce of pain and suffering I’d ever felt was crystallized into a razor sharp point. In the grand scheme of all my suffering, Sungmin had played a minor part, but right now he was the only one I could take it out on. I wanted to drive it all, all that pain, all that rage, all of it, deep into Sungmin and watch it bleed him out.

I really might have killed him right then and there, but fortunately for me, Sungmin fought back. His hand found something heavy on the ground and he slammed it into the side of my head. My vision went white, and I collapsed. Sungmin broke free as I struggled on the ground senselessly, reeling from the impact.

“You crazy fucking gaesaekki,” Sungmin cursed at me in a hoarse, pained rasp. “Are you trying to get the damn jjapsae fucking called here?!” His front door was still open, and his neighbors could probably hear the commotion.

I shook my head fiercely, trying to shake my vision straight again. Even dazed, my anger was still murderously hot. “Let them come,” I snarled. “Let them come and arrest your shitty drug dealing ass!”

Sungmin grabbed me this time and hauled me to my feet. He cuffed me for my words, sparking stars back into my clearing vision. I couldn’t fight him as he dragged me back towards the door. “Go fuck yourself. Get out of my house,” Sungmin growled.

Right before he threw me out, I managed to jerk free. “You almost killed Seolhee,” I hissed at him again. My now-jumbled brains couldn’t think of anything else to say other than my main grievance with him. Sungmin froze.

“Don’t blame me, Jae,” Sungmin said. His voice choked up in the middle. I stared at him incredulously. There was no way Sungmin felt guilt. He was a goddamn jopok. “I didn’t know she was going to do that,” he said shakily.

I huffed. My anger had dissipated somewhat, but I still wanted Sungmin to pay. Just not with his life. Prison would do. “I don’t give a shit,” I seethed. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know how you’re ruining lives selling the shit you do. You’ll pay for what you did, Sungmin. Your neighbors might not call the cops, but I will. You, your dad, your gang… if I can’t send you all to hell, I’ll send you to prison where you can rot in a pile together!”

“Jae,” Sungmin said in alarm. “You wouldn’t–”

Who the hell was Sungmin to tell me what I would or wouldn’t do? I spun around and started to walk out his door.

“You came into my house and assaulted me!” he yelled at my back. “You almost killed me! You’re going to share that part with them too?”

I spun around and fixed him with a murderous look. “Who are they going to believe? You, a jopok’s son and a drug dealer, or me, the NIS golden boy’s younger brother?” I scoffed at him.

Sungmin’s eyes widened. I laughed cruelly at him. “Yeah. You’re fucked, Han Sungmin. And the best part is, I don’t even have to lift a damn finger to screw you over.”

I walked away.

Even though I’d confidently told Sungmin that I was about to narc on him and his entire operation, standing in front of my brother some time later, I couldn’t help feeling like a crappy schoolyard tattletale.

I was still turning over my thoughts as I sipped my drink next to Taejun. Today I’d snuck in some alcohol for Taejun (but also myself). I wasn’t sure if Taejun would take kindly to my rule breaking, but he’d been amused, and had even helped me hide it in his ward. Overall, I think my stunt cheered him from the day’s boredom. But my gloomy mood from my earlier encounter with Sungmin returned, and Taejun quickly noticed.

He looked up from the paper he was helping edit on my laptop. “Jae, did you hear me?”

“Huh?”

“I asked you a question,” he said lightly. “You drunk already?”

“I haven’t even finished this first one,” I snapped irritably.

He was taken aback by the fierceness of my reply. “You’re in a mood,” Taejun commented. “Something you want to tell me about?”

I exhaled and steeled myself. “Han Sungmin’s a drug dealer for the Seven Directions gang,” I said.

Taejun’s eyebrows lifted slightly. I’d briefly mentioned Han Sungmin’s involvement with the Seven Directions gang before but at my request he hadn’t looked into it or tipped off his colleagues who were the investigators of the 7D gang case. And now I was suddenly bringing it up.

“Why are you telling me this now?” he asked levelly.

“Sungmin was the one who sold Seolhee the shit she overdosed on,” I replied hotly. Now that I’d started I needed to steamroll through before I lost my resolve to rat on Sungmin.

“I see,” Taejun replied slowly. “Are you telling me this brother to brother, or are you asking me as a federal investigator to look into it?” Taejun pulled out his phone and laid it down next to the laptop. He gave me a serious look that asked me to decide. I almost lost my resolve then. Once Taejun made that call, there really was no going back.

I tried to recall the rage that caused me to almost choke out Sungmin earlier. It came back terrifyingly quickly. “I want that gaesaekki to rot in prison for what he did. I know he moves a lot of product for them.”

Taejun exhaled through his teeth. “My colleague has been searching for leads into the Seven Directions gang’s narcotics operations. But, he’s your friend,” he reminded me. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

I don’t know why he was hesitating now. He’d always been so dogged in his investigations.

“Fuck him,” I said. A sudden flash of inspiration came to me. “I can even give you the address of a warehouse in Old Ansan where they move product from.”

“Jae,” Taejun said sharply. “How do you know that?”

I suddenly turned red, remembering how I had inadvertently helped him. “H-he.. he asked me to pick up something for him. He never told me what it was, but I’m pretty sure they were narcotics.” I was pretty sure even though I’d never actually looked inside that package. Sungmin had also basically confirmed it when I confronted him over it.

“Ok,” Taejun said. The chillness of his response was reassuring. He didn’t instantly tell me that I could be in trouble too. “But does he know that you know he gave Seolhee the drugs?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Then you telling me to call this information in may not be a good idea.”

“Why not?” I snapped.

“Because the gang might target you for retaliation if we do investigate Sungmin and the warehouse,” Taejun replied.

“Yeah? Like the first time they tried to target me for retaliation?” I scoffed. Nothing had come out of it. Sort of. (I’d gone back willingly and paid off the debt so honestly they hadn’t even had to try…)

“This is different,” he said. “You won’t be able to make another deal like last time.”

“Then send me to Beijing,” I snarked. Though I’d started off apprehensive about telling Taejun, the more he was objecting the more I wanted to see it through.

He snorted at my brash reply. Taejun picked up his phone without breaking eye contact with me. When I didn’t stop him, he sighed and started to dial.

“Alright. I’ll make the call.”

Taejun gave me extremely strict instructions to not leave the hospital for any reason for the next few days. Not for work, not for cram school, not for food or coffee or snacks, not for any reason. I asked him if he was really going to send me to Beijing.

“Yes,” he said. “But it’ll only be a short while. And I’ll be there as soon as I’m cleared for travel too.”

That was a little terrifying for me. Despite saying it so callously before, watching him arrange travel plans right in front of me really cemented that it was reality. And a reality I had told him I was willing to accept. But being in an entirely foreign country all by myself was a future I had never imagined.

A suit came by to visit Taejun the next day. The moment after I was introduced to Investigator Cha, I was asked to step outside, of course. Taejun had told them it was an anonymous tip. As far as the NIS knew, my trip to Beijing was incidental. It was a private favor Taejun had called in rather than an official witness protection plan.

“The raid in Old Ansan was a huge success. And so was…” I heard Investigator Cha boast as I left the room. I really wanted to stay and listen to the details, but hearing even that much internally thrilled me to know that I’d done some damage to the gang that had oppressed me for so much of my life.

I tried to lurk around to try to catch more snippets of the conversation, but their voices dropped low as they discussed the results of the raid, and I couldn’t hear much with the door closed.

Finally they started to speak a little louder, but disappointingly, no more details about the raid were forthcoming.

“You’re incredible, Agent Baek,” the other guy said. Ugh. Figures the first thing I could hear clearly was more praise directed at my brother. “Not many people can topple a narcotics operation while bedridden in the hospital.”

“I’m not bedridden,” I heard my brother scoff. “But I don’t deserve that praise. I didn’t do anything. I just got a tip from a source.”

“You have a knack for digging up those sources that others don’t,” the agent laughed. “At any rate, this is a big win. And a much needed morale boost after the Incheon Incident.”

My brother must have replied with something I couldn’t hear, because Investigator Cha continued after a pause.

“Focus on recovering, Agent Baek. I know you’re frustrated, we all are–”

“We were blindsided. Completely blindsided,” my brother replied hotly. “They told me today… {...inaudible…} and Officer Song didn’t {... inaudible …}... That’s fifteen (...inaudible…} … we have no damn clue who those assailants were!”

“Calm down, Taejun,” Investigator Cha said in alarm. Their voices dropped low again and they continued on inaudibly. I was frustrated. Fifteen? Fifteen what?

Investigator Cha came out a few minutes later, catching me by surprise. I hoped he hadn’t seen me jump away from the door when he opened it and feigned teenage nonchalance. He gave me a suspicious look.

I bowed as I bid him goodbye.

When I went back in, I could see that whatever my brother had been talking about with Investigator Cha had agitated him. His expression was dark as he stared out the window. Whatever he was looking at was miles away.

“Are you– are you alright, hyung?” I asked tentatively. It was a dumb question. He clearly wasn’t.

“Grab me a beer, will you?” he asked, in a voice that didn’t sound like my brother’s. That voice was so tired, sad, and defeated. I couldn’t bear hearing Taejun like that.

“Hyung,” I said. He turned to look at me and I hugged him like he had hugged me when I was struggling the other day. “You’ll get them,” I said fiercely. “You’re my hyung, and the best fucking agent the NIS has ever seen. No one fucks with Baek fucking Taejun.”

Taejun hugged me back tightly. He choked out a little half-laugh.

“Don’t curse,” he said.