„There he is!” the Bear told Su Won when the one named Scorpion, a young man about 23, rushed to follow SinJu out of his club, looking more like a trustful puppy than a man, and after SinJu got in his car and the vehicle slowly moved away from the club, the young man bowed behind the car.

„Rat!” Su Won hissed through the teeth, watching in disgust at Scorpion who he had considered being his friend once and not only once he helped him to avoid troubles because Scorpion had had a difficult life, with addicted parents drinking who were always beating him and he was forced to sleep under cartons, bridges or in unheated metro stations.

Namely in an unused metro station, Dja Iun and a few of his fellows from his gang found Scorpion one evening when they were passing by that place and they saw him jerking from the street and descending in a hurry the stairs in the underground.

Shortly after, they saw around 15 men, all of them carrying bars and different other things used for fighting who followed the Scorpion in the underground.

„That one won’t get off lightly,” the Bear told Dja Iun when they stopped and watched in silence that short race after the Scorpion.

„If he gets off lightly or not, it depends on him,” Dja Iun answered and, with his hands in his pockets while having a lollipop in his mouth, he walked up the road. But he stopped, feeling that not everybody followed him, and when he watched back, he saw Su Won still standing in the same place, squeezing his fists while his eyes were sparkling because of anger because he also passed once through something similar like that poor guy that they saw chased by those men was passing at that moment and only God saved him from death then because he couldn’t pay his debts and also Dja Iun was who helped him to escape death. „Su Won, what are you doing? Hurry up and let’s go!” Dja Iun told the young man, but Su Won seemed not to have heard him and rushed to descend the same stairs in the underground, still squeezing his fists.

„What is he doing?” his friends wondered. „He asks for trouble!” said another guy smiling and they followed Dja Iun who didn’t want to let Su Won alone, surrounded by enemies. So, he also entered the underground. But before doing this, he swore at Su Won because he considered that because of his good heart this young man was really stupid bearding a lion in his den only to help others.

Descending the subway’s stairs in a hurry, Dja Iun saw the misery and the disorder that was ruling there: newspapers tossed around mindlessly, soju bottles, someone’s shoe who passed by accident there and fell prey to the beggars and vagabonds that swooped upon him, asking for money, and the poor guy came off with a whole skin only after running away, leaving behind a big „trophy” - his shoe.

„Hey, Bear, I heard that you were looking for a paw,” Jae told the Bear in mockery, kicking the shoe, dusty and bitten by mice, with the top of his leg which rolled toward the other young man’s legs.

The Bear didn’t get his tail down instead: he took his hands out of his pockets, took the shoe in his hand and, to watch it better in that shadow, he narrowed his eyes, staring at the sole of the shoe. „Size 43. Oh, I think it’s your paw, Jae, because only you are wearing the size 43. My shoes are barely getting at 40,” and the young man’s remark made others laugh and start to joke at Jae’s expense.

„That’s enough,” Dja Iun told them, who was stopped only a few steps from them and, still with his hands and his pockets and moving the lollipop from one corner of the mouth to the other, he motioned his guys to follow him, but in silence.

While approaching the spot, they heard deaf yells and hits, a sign that the fight between Su Won, the one he was trying to help, and the rest of the bandits was afloat. And this was so because getting on the old main platform of the subway, Dja Iun, and his guys saw Su Won on the ground, twined, while two guys were kicking him.

Scorpion was also there: kneeling in front of a big guy, with his arms at his back grabbed by another gorilla, while the one from in front was slapping him with both palms.

„That’s enough!” Dja Iun shouted, as loudly as possible, when they got only a few meters from the other guys.

These ones, somehow surprised by the unexpected „help” for their victims, at first stared at Dja Iun and at the 5 men that were following him. Then, they looked at each other because being around 15 guys they outnumbered the others, so they just smiled.

„Get lost, trot!” one of the aggressors told Dja Iun - a chubby man, about 1.9 in height and half bald while the other half of the head was covered with a black, thinning, and crisp hair, long up to the shoulders. Later, they found out that his name is In Ho or how others knew him - Owlet: why he chose this nickname for him - only God knows. In time, others started to make fun of him calling him a Horned Owlet, and this was something that made everybody laugh, even Dja Iun’s boys were making fun of this.

„I told you to get lost. Didn’t you hear me?” Owlet hissed through the teeth, seeing that Dja Iun and his boys didn’t even move from their places, keeping to staring at them with superiority. „Ah, you, trash,” he growled when he arrived in front of Dja Iun and, raising his hand to punch Dja Iun’s head, he turned heels over his head because Dja Iun suddenly turned to 45 degrees still with his hands into his pockets and Owlet passed by him, but because of the force he had used for punching, he couldn’t keep the balance and, eventually, he slipped on the floor mudded with grease added on it because of a long time without being cleaned by someone.

But Owlet quickly managed to come into his senses and, standing up while swearing a good stick, he swooped upon Dja Iun, trying to teach him a lesson. But… Dja Iun also wasn’t a guy who often goes to church: since a little child, he showed his character, and often, if not twice or thrice a day, he was fighting with someone at school, on the street, or wherever it was necessary. He was known as the brawler of the village. Yet, he was a good fighter and he also knew to defend himself, because Dja Iun’s father had had a taekwondo school and Dja Iun learned there to fight and defend himself. But… after his father had been killed so suddenly on the street, and later he found out that his father’s death was just the result of an old resentment because the one who killed him not only once had been „earthed” by the victim who had been a good coach and he almost always had managed to win a lot of pots at the competitions while his rival who also had a taekwondo school couldn’t even win the bronze medal, and all these events and news changed Dja Iun completely and made him angry with everybody.

The conflicts between the two men were older and were at first only by words. Then, the aggressor brought Dja Iun’s father to trial, insulting him and accusing him of every single bad thing that happened to him, but seeing that he didn’t manage even so to make him go away, he decided to end his rival's life and one evening rainy night of summer when Dja Iun’s father was turning back home on a narrow and dark street, he’d been stabbed by his killer and died immediately because of the heavy bleeding.

Dja Iun was living then with his grandparents because his mother had died when he was very little, and his father, because of training sessions and competitions, „packed” the kid into a sunny December morning when he was only 13 and he’d been left later in his maternal grandparents’house to grow up there. 4 years later, Dja Iun was an orphan, both of father and mother, and this made him completely savage, fighting with everyone he considered his enemy and making thus others feel the same suffering he was suffering.

Then, his hatred increased when the aggressor received only 10 years for his crime, due to a good lawyer who spoke in his favor in the trial, pleading uncontrollable emotional state of mind and that when he committed the crime he was out of control.

„Garn!” Dja Iun murmured right in front of the judge, kicking the chair on which he had sat before and not paying minimum attention to the judge that was hammering with his small wooden hammer in the desk, asking for silence.

Thus, Dja Iun became the brawler of the school and of the village, and he had respected only his grandparents whom he was helping how he could, and if they asked him why he does this or that or if he likes to have always his face full of wounds, the teenager answered that it was to defend himself and that he’s not weak or griper to leave others to trample him under feet as it happened to his father who despite everything bad others did to him, he only considered that the law has to make the aggressors pay and this killed him eventually, as Dja Iun considered.

Seeing Owlet swooping against him again, Dja Iun took his right hand out of the pocket and when his rival tried to punch him, Dja Iun grabbed his fist and squeezed it with his palm, pushing the wrist in front and this was damn painful that Owlet suddenly started to ask for mercy and complain.

But he still looked for trouble when Dja Iun released him and, after demanding his hooligans in a shout to attack the others, Owlet also jumped over Dja Iun.

The fight lasted for about 15 minutes, while a lot of punches and palms reached their target, the bars split up when they hit the backs of the victims, making them kneel or fall on their stomachs. But yet, Dja Iun won eventually, and this was only due to a strict discipline because he learned this from his father within the training and he taught his boys too to be disciplined while training and in life because only this way one can survive in this world full of beasts and if necessary, they must become one. However, Dja Iun also taught them never to attack without a reason or if their life isn’t in danger and his command was a law word for those 30 young men that gathered around him, in time, becoming part of his gang.

That night, Su Won had landed himself with a fractured skull, a hand, and a few of his costal cartilages broken. Also, he had a bad lump in the corner of his right eye and he had it for about 3 weeks. Yet, he never regretted this because even if Scorpion reached the Emergency Room unconscious, he still survived, and later Su Won brought him into their gang.

Even if Su Won considered Scorpion a good friend, not the same happened to Dja Iun who disliked the guy right from the start: he also didn’t know why, but he considered Scorpion a fake person as a coin with two faces, capable to bite even the hand of the one who’d been his best friend. But, for Su Won’s sake, Dja Iun accepted Scorpion into his team.

But Su Won was regretting that decision now, after Dja Iun’s death who had always told him to be wide-awake, especially with those he considered his friends, and he's been right as if he anticipated that the one who’ll deceive the gang eventually will be Scorpion.

Scorpion, by his real name Nam Sang Ki, was a slippery fellow who was always looking for profit and, vastly, he wanted that profit for himself, always complaining that he’d been left behind by the others, that he was living in the shadow of his gang and that they never believe him, and this was always reminding Dja Iun about the one who left him an orphan because that one too, like Scorpion, loved to complain about others, but he never saw his own defects or did something to make things work for him.

„Let’s follow him,” the Bear told Su Won, slowly tapping on his back and awakening him from his day-dream this way, because Scorpion, after parting company with SinJu’s bodyguards, seemed to the two young men extremely suspicious close of SinJu and of his gangsters and so suddenly, without nobody suspecting this, and they decided to follow him after spotting that he was heading toward another local, often frequented by him after leaving Dja Iun’s gang. So, while walking up the road with his hands in his pockets and humming a melody, his former friends were following him, hidden in the shadows, noiseless and at a slow step, like the cats that were always used not to lose their prey from their paws.

***

„Where is he?” SolHi asked, after approaching the Bear and Su Won, a few days later after they saw Scorpion bowing behind SinJu’s car.

„In that club, over there,” Su Won murmured, spitting disdainfully aside as if this chase of the one whom he practically took out of the death’s clutches, left a bitter taste in his mouth.

„I see that your friend likes „the girls” a lot, SolHi murmured with irony, seeing the miniature image of a go-go dancer next to the night local’s name „Nocturnal Pleasures.”

„More like… he likes the vice-dolls,” Su Won said furiously, kicking the edge of the footwalk. „One of us is dead because of him, but it seems that he loves life a lot.”

„Why not love it?” SolHi said, taking the two young men by surprise. „Or what, did you believe that those who stabbed someone’s back will cry if he dies? If so, you are really innocent.”

„We thought that at least he had some respect for Dja Iun because not only once we got him out of trouble,” the Bear said in half a voice. „But… seeing him now… it seems to me that none of us knew him well ever.”

SolHi frowned, but not because of what she heard, but because she felt that the anger took over her, more after finding out that Min SinJu had something to do with her friend’s death. „Never expect respect from a Scorpion, Bear. Those like him can offer you only venom and not for protecting you. But… we’ll find out soon how far this one was involved in Dja Iun’s death.”

„Do you want to enter that club, detective?” Su Won asked her.

„Yeah. I’m really interested to see what he’s looking for in that club for being such a loyal client. If it’s something illegal, then he’ll give me the perfect chance to arrest him.”

„We’ll follow you, then. Not for nothing, but it can be dangerous for you.”

„Ia, Su Won, it can be even more dangerous with you two there. Do you know why?! Because that fellow knows your face. As soon as you will step over that club threshold, someone will tell him and he’ll be gone. Or, he’ll be killed as the waiter that tried to escape from them. I don’t need another dead guy in my consciousness… not at least he talks.”

„And yet, Su Won is right. It’s dangerous inside there, more entering alone,” the Bear added.

„And… who told you that I’m alone? I never go hunting alone. Hey, guys, come here!” she shouted and a few moments later SuJin, inspector Yu, detective Kan, and Yoon Suk approached them.

The Bear and Su Won took a few steps back because even if they didn’t know the four men, they were sure that they were detectives that came with SolHi.

„Don’t worry, guys,” SolHi told him. „None of them are after you… at least not until finding out that you had also to do with Dja Iun’s death. We are after Scorpion only. So… keep an eye on the road, in case he tries to leg it. Did we agree?”

„¡Yes, ma’am!” the Bear and Su Won answered in one voice.

„Great then! Let's go, guys!” she told the four men and she was the first to head toward the local.

„What the hell am I doing here?!” Kan mumbled unsatisfied, following the others because he got in that team by chance after they’ve already decided to start a scorpions’hunting.

Actually, SolHi intended to come alone to the local, after receiving the Bear’s text message that they found the Scorpion, but … she didn’t see SuJin approaching her from behind who right away felt that she was planning something, so, he quickly „picked up” the phone from her hand and read the text message.

„Yu SuJin, give it to me!” SolHi yelled at him, but the young man wasn’t stupid at all: until she got next to him, he managed to read the message and understand what she was planning. But not even after approaching him, SolHi could recover her phone, because being taller than her, SolHi was forced to jump to get to the palm of his raised hand, but even so, it was too high for her.

But… SuJin’s loud voice that was reproaching her that she wanted to beard a lion in his den brought inspector Yu into the office because he was just turning to the office and when he entered, he saw SolHi and SuJin’s little fight, and after he found out about her plan, he also told it to Yoon Suk, demanding the young detective to come immediately to the office and as Kan was in the same car as Yoon Suk, he’d been also forced to come with them.

And, even if Kan wanted SolHi out of all that trouble, he also knew how stubborn she was and that she won’t stop. So, he „self-invited” to their „scorpion’s hunting,” even if he had no desire to do that.

„Ah, prosecutor Han, I thought that you are a strong enough man to bridle this woman, but you couldn’t even make her stay home,” Kan mumbled while entering the club.

***

The inside of the club „Nocturnal Pleasures” is very common. Built from red bricks, the owner decided to keep the „rustic” as he used to name it. So, everywhere inside the club were seen those red walls with white lines between the bricks from the finishing material.

Then, here and there, also on the walls, were seen pictures that were considered extremely valuable by the owner, but it was standing out a mile that the canvas had been painted by second-rate or maybe third-rate painters that had no idea about what kind of caricature they’ve painted on the canvas and this was indisputably a hint that they chose a wrong profession.

But… who really cares about this while an idiot that doesn’t know the first word of painting or art bought them and he also put them in a visible place as something extremely valuable?!

„This is what I call something in good style,” Yu said in mockery while descending the stairs, and he spotted a caricature representing a man’s hooked nose on one of the paintings.

„Should I give you something similar when you retire?” Kan teased him, being two stairs behind him.

Yu instead didn’t get his tail down and, after looking both at Kan and at the „nose” on the canvas, said in mockery: „I think it fits better to you. Look: the same nose as yours.”

Kan rewarded him with a barely heard growl, a hint that Yu managed to animate the „bulldog” that was living in Kan’s soul, but as everybody knew that the detective overflew with kindness, for many of them that bulldog’s growl was more similar to the grinning of a puppy than as something dangerous.

„He’s there!” SolHi told the three men when they got to the base of the stairs where she had already stopped.

Thus, they saw what she was seeing: Scorpion sitting on one of the sofas covered with blue velvet, on a lateral and protected side of the club, but still visible while descending the stairs. And he wasn't alone: a few young women were accompanying him, half-clothed, and who weren’t only serving him to drink, but they were also kissing and hugging him, sticking on him as if they were chewing gum stuck on someone’s hair.

„Ogo, sweet life,” SuJin murmured, but a flip in his head, hit by his father, quickly brought him back to reality and he squeezed his lips, understanding that he had talked too much.

„Leave the boy to enjoy life, ogre. Why are you holding him in leash?” Kan teased Yu. „You also were 19 once and I’m sure that at his age you had not only one girl loving you.”

„Actually, at his age, I was cleaning the floor of the restaurants to earn something for food and school, and later I was learning a lot to become a detective, and when I was two years older than he is now I had two more mouths to feed and one of those mouths belonged to the one you look to offer more „freedom.”

Yu’s confession held loose to Kan who while passing by the inspector, with his hands stuck in his pockets, said with irony: „this means you knew to live life well at that age if you had a child. Others, at 30, don't know what to do with it. So, be thankful to this young man that he appeared in this world and knocked you into shape.”

SuJin smiled because even if he knew well that the haggle between his father and detective Kan was nothing else than a simple badinage among colleagues or friends, yet, he felt flattered and somehow protected.

„Do you feel like taking wings?” Yu hissed through teeth toward his son, seeing him grinning with pleasure.

„Not at all, pap,” SuJin hurried to answer. After this, he „rushed” to pass by Yu, trying this way to avoid feeling another flip on the top of his head that Yu was about to hit.

Only the two of them, Yu approached SolHi while Kan and SuJin asked for a table and the waiter led them immediately toward one. Kan instead disliked that table and did everything he could to get another one, with a better view of Scorpion’s table.

„Are you saying that the guy moves in the same circles as Min SinJu?” Yu asked SolHi who kept staring at Scorpion.

„Mmm. Here’s the evidence,” she said and she gave him her phone. Then, understanding that if she continues in the same place, staring at Scorpion, she can give the game away, SolHi headed toward the table at which Kan and SuJin were already sitting.

Seeing the photos with Scorpion bowing behind SinJu’s car, inspector Yu ironically smiled: „I thought that puppies are old-fashioned now, but it seems I’ve been wrong.” After this, he headed toward the same table as SolHi did.

Arriving at the table, SolHi motioned to SuJin to change places with her and he sat right away next to Kan, allowing SolHi to sit in a place where she was difficult to be spotted by Scorpion because even if she never saw him while meeting Dja Iun she was still afraid not to be recognized because the majority of the gang knew that she’s a detective and that she had been close to Dja Iun who had had strong feelings for her.

At the moment SolHi sat down and wanted to watch Scorpion, this one turned toward their table and looked at them.

Seeing Scorpion’s movement, Inspector Yu right away sat down next to SolHi and bent a little toward her as if he intended to kiss her, but he was just pretending, to protect her.

The inspector’s move made Kan and SuJin stare at him in amazement. After this, SuJin cheerfully murmured: „I have now something stinky about you, pap, and if you don’t do what I want, I’ll tell mom about this.”

Kan slowly hit the boy’s head as Yu used to do. „Ia, Yu SuJin, are you a man or what?! A real man never betrays another, especially if that man is his own father.”

„And if he’s my father, I have to accept him for being unfaithful to my mother or what?”

„Ia, Yu SuJin, when I’ve been unfaithful to your… you… let us get out of here and…,” Yu stuttered, but not because of what happened with SolHi or because he was afraid that SuJin will tell his mother about this because his wife loved him so much and trusted him that’s why such words heard from her son would have just passed by her ears, but because Yu understood that if his boy knows that much about extortion it means that he had a lot to work with him to make him a real man.

„I was just joking, for God's Sake,” SuJin said cheerfully after seeing his father’s killing glance focused on him. „Don’t worry, old boss, your „affair” with a younger colleague is absolutely safe.”

„Yu SuJin, I suggest you watch your tongue,” SolHi whistled. „This younger colleague disliked your bad joke. So… change the subject.”

„Yep,” SuJin murmured and he right away took a glass of beer off the waiter’s tray who approached them to bring the order.

Kan instead took the can right away from SuJin’s hand, telling the waiter: „for children only juice, please!” and this made SuJin grimace while the others burst out laughing.

„He can drink a beer today. But only one can,” Yu told his son demandingly after spotting his grimaces, but more after realizing that if he brought him here being that young and without allowing him at least to have a beer it might have been suspicious for others.

About an hour later while they kept playing „spying on the mouse” with Scorpion, seeing him kissing each of the girls who were with him, they saw him standing up, barely standing on his feet, and, accompanied by one of the girls, he walked toward a door seen not that far from his table.

„And… here we go,” SuJin murmured when Kan motioned him to follow the Scorpion because being younger than them, he would have less stuck out. So, SuJin slowly stood up, carefully put the cap on his head, arranged the anorak, and went after the young girl and Scorpion.

God knows what SuJin did, but he managed to „deceive” the bodyguards that were „inspecting” the area so that the clients were not to get in the area with the „special” booths and where could enter only those who had paid for the girls. Namely in one of those booths, SuJin saw Scorpion, sitting on the sofa with the girl on his knees and in xxx hypostases.

„Oh, man, thanks! It’s exactly what I was looking for,” SuJin murmured and took his phone out of his pocket, turning on the video registration when he spotted that Scorpion took off the girl’s brassier, sifted some white dust on one of the breasts and he right away „breathed it in.” „I was really stupid, to be honest - it’s for sure that others lived their life better than I did,” SuJin murmured happily, realizing that he made it in his „top-secret mission.” But he right away hid his phone, spotting a bodyguard approaching and, pretending to be absolutely drunk, SuJin started to sing.

„What are you doing here?” the bodyguard yelled at SuJin, but the young man put on such a beautiful act that he didn’t know anything and because of this he stared with wide-open eyes at the guard who right away „picked him up” and, by force, he pushed SuJin toward the exit door.

SolHi, Kan, and inspector Yu, seeing SuJin pushed from behind up the stairs toward the exit door, right away left some money on the table, paid their order, and rushed to exit the club too.

Right in front of the club, the bodyguard pushed SuJin so hard that the poor young man turned head over heels, feeling a painful hit on his right shoulder after hitting the ground. But even so, SuJin kept acting the fool, rolling on the ground and pretending not to be able to stand up. So, when he noticed his father exiting the club and passing by, SuJin crawled toward him, but on the way, his cap fell off his head and he had to „pick it up” first.

Seeing his son’s great show, Yu looked thunderstruck at him. Yet, he awoke from his amazement so soon when Kan hit his back, motioning not to stay in place. So, at the moment he „accidentally” passed by SuJin, the young man hanged one of his father’s legs, murmuring barely heard: „uncle, what time is it? Today for sure the aliens will come.” So, Yu saw himself „forced to pick his son up,” grabbing his hair at the back of his neck while mumbling that they’ll discuss everything at home.

Arriving in a safe place, SuJin quickly recovered from „inebriety” and he stretched his back, feeling well the pain in his shoulder. „Damn idiot. He could have not used the violence. I was calm.”

„And you could have simply told him that you were looking for the toilet,” his father hissed him through his teeth.

„As if he would have trusted me.”

„Did you get something there?” SolHi asked him.

„Do you think that I’m a newcomer or what?” SuJin answered while happily grinning and then he showed the video with Scorpion enjoying the white pleasure on the girl’s breast.

„Sombe, do I remember wrong, or do you really have a good friend working for the Junk Squad?” SolHi asked, happily smiling, that they got the guy.

„You have eyes on the back of your head, for sure,” Kan murmured, shaking his head reproachfully. After this, he took the phone off his pocket and made a call.

Two hours later, the Junk Squad sought the local out, and among those who’d been „picked up” as suspects was also Scorpion because Kan took care to send to his good friend the video where Scorpion was using drugs, and thus, he became a sure target.

„We have only to wait now,” Kan murmured because the four of them waited and watched how the Junk Squat got into the club and took everything that could be used in a trial out of it.

„Anyway, I don’t think that’s over yet,” SolHi said. „In my regard, this is only the start of our fight against Min SinJu. But… I’m sure that will make justice, eventually,” she added and she first left the place.