AT Ch6

“You earn enough to live on, but you’re still greedy. What, are you trying to leave the Ant Tunnel too?”

“How can I live if I leave this place? I don’t even have an ID.”

“You’re thinking straight. If you’re born in the Ant Tunnel, you should die in the Ant Tunnel. Even if it’s fucked up here, it’s even more fucked up outside.”

Baekyoung actually wanted to leave more than anyone, but she calmly hid that desire.

Even the cell phone she was currently using was registered under someone else’s name, a so-called burner phone.

Born in the Ant Tunnel, she needed money to buy an ID, but saving money from what she earned here was impossible. The room rent and cell phone maintenance costs alone were considerable.

In this narrow place, the amount they took in the name of taxes was twice as much as outside. It was a structure where you couldn’t save money even if you earned it.

And strangely enough, those who somehow bought an ID and went outside returned to the Ant Tunnel before long.

They said they wanted to live like ordinary people, but it didn’t work out. After returning to the Ant Tunnel, they became addicted to drugs or gave up on the world and lived as they pleased before dying young.

“They say that’s how life is.”

“I’ll call you in from time to time to work, so don’t think about nonsense. My good Baekyoung.”

Kim Kwangsoo tapped Baekyoung’s head with his finger.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Anyway, those who go in and out of the underground can’t leave even if they want to.”

In the Ant Tunnel, where all sorts of incidents and accidents occur, the most necessary thing to work in the underground, which not just anyone can enter, is ironically ‘honesty.’

Because the stories that go on underground must not leak out, even the smallest chores required a recommendation from someone trustworthy. Baekyoung, who was desperate for money, also entered the underground through Kim Kwangsoo’s introduction.

Therefore, those who frequented this place couldn’t even dream of buying an ID and going outside. If they did, they would probably be lying on that operating table themselves.

Chairman Jang was a thorough man.

He controlled everything in Cheonghan City through this secret club, which was occasionally visited by high-ranking officials from Seoul.

Thus, illegal activities were carried out by the Ant Tunnel, and legal activities were carried out by the companies they established with plausible names.

Baekyoung couldn’t even guess how much money was changing hands beneath the concrete floor she was standing on.

“I’m not thinking of leaving.”

“Not thinking of leaving? It hasn’t even been a year since you grabbed my pant leg and begged me to save Sooyoung, you rascal.”

Sooyoung.

It was a name she hadn’t heard in a long time. It hadn’t even been a year since that happened.

Sooyoung was the only person she could rely on in this Ant Tunnel. They got along so well that they promised to save money and buy an ID together to leave.

However, that promise was shattered when Sooyoung suddenly started working underground. Sooyoung, who came home drunk every day, naturally started using drugs, and not only did she spend the money she had been saving with Baekyoung, but she eventually started stealing drugs.

When Baekyoung heard that Sooyoung had been dragged underground by someone even though it wasn’t her working hours, she felt the blood in her whole body turn cold.

After finding the money she had saved alone, she went to Kim Kwangsoo to get into the underground. She wanted to somehow get in there and beg them to spare her, but when she found Jang Baekjo in the underground, Sooyoung was already dead.

Once you went underground, you couldn’t get out.

“It feels like it’s been a long time.”

“You and Sooyoung used to say that your dream was to buy a valid ID and get out of here. All the young ones have that dream, did you think only your dreams were special?”

Baekyoung smiled unconsciously at Kim Kwangsoo’s words.

Indeed, all the children who just came out of the orphanage have that dream. However, except for the soldier ants selected by Chairman Jang, they eventually live as worker ants and adapt to reality.

There were many who returned even after going outside, and seeing people who ruined their lives in the end even after returning here, they came to the conclusion that it was better to live in the Ant Tunnel without having vain dreams.

“I thought it was special.”

“Be careful of the Jangs. I heard Jang Baekjo harasses you every time he sees you since that day.”

“Anyway, he’s not someone I can see even if I want to.”

Kim Kwangsoo put his hand on Baekyoung’s shoulder at her old-mannish answer.

When he first saw Baekyoung and Sooyoung, he clicked his tongue inwardly, thinking it must be hard to live with those faces.

Sooyoung went underground less than a year after leaving the orphanage. If you had a pretty face, you could earn more money, and if you did well, you could even be called a wealthy man’s mistress.

Kim Kwangsoo thought that Baekyoung would follow Sooyoung and come down to the underground where she couldn’t see the light, and sell her body.

There was no way for people who come underground to escape the Ant Tunnel. However, there were loopholes in this hellish place. There was definitely a way to catch a man and make him fall in love with you and change your fate.

How much pure affection would the guys who play in a place like this have, but the naive guys who come for the first time sometimes become obsessed with love and take the women of the Ant Tunnel out with them.

“If you still want to get out of here, there’s a quick way. Stick to Jang Baekjo.”

He said that because Jang Baekjo often looked at Baekyoung with snake-like eyes.

Kim Kwangsoo, sitting on the operating table with his buttocks, took out a cigarette and gestured for the other guys who were still there to leave.

“Stick to him? What are you talking about.”

The Jang family put their minds to work and made the ants come here on their own because it was not a one- or two-time thing to bring a kid who didn’t want to work underground and have them run away, and break their legs.

At first, they create an environment where worker ants seem to have a choice. However, because they couldn’t do other jobs outside, the number of jobs they could do gradually dwindled. Then, children with pretty faces were bound to come down to the underground on their own.

Those who chose the last option don’t even think about escaping from this place and become buried in it.

Sooyoung was one of those cases. At first, she also started with chores. Then, she fell into the money she earned by selling her smiles and body, and finally couldn’t resist the temptation to forget the world by getting intoxicated on drugs.

Knowing that, Baekyoung didn’t believe the words that she could earn money underground.

Even with the burner phones they used, the room rent in the Ant Tunnel, and the cost of food, it was tight, but in order to decorate themselves more beautifully, they needed more money than they earned, and they had to pay bribes to enter the wealthy’s rooms.

The price of drugs skyrocketed for those who were already addicted to drugs, and in the end, they were forced to take out loans from the private lenders they operated. In that way, the debt increases, and the money in hand disappears.

“You could really change your fate.”

“Haven’t I seen and heard too much to believe that?”

At Baekyoung’s words, Kim Kwangsoo smiled as he smoked a cigarette and roughly flicked the ashes on the floor. Baekyoung frowned involuntarily when the cigarette ashes fell on the spot she had just wiped.

“Yeah, keep living so smartly. I’m curious to see how long you can last, Baekyoung.”

“I just live because I live every day.”

After finishing her answer, Baekyoung pushed the mop again. She pretended to wipe the cigarette ashes with a blood-soaked mop and swept over Kim Kwangsoo’s shoes, and he was horrified and jumped up.

“You bastard!”

“Next time, please call me after you’ve at least rinsed it with water before the blood hardens. My shoulder is going to fall off.”

“I give you a lot of money!”

“Yes, thank you.”

Kim Kwangsoo stared at Baekyoung’s face again, who gave a soulless answer. No matter how many times he looked at her, she had a pretty face. If you wanted to see a face like that in the Ant Tunnel, you had to go underground. The Kim Kwangsoo of the past did not expect to see such a person here for years instead of underground.

Her eyes, nose, and mouth were neatly embedded in her small, fist-sized face. Only half of her eyes were visible because of her long bangs, but if she put on a little makeup on her sharp nose and reddish lips and put on pretty clothes, men would go crazy.

There were unspoken rules in the Ant Tunnel. No matter how rampant crime was, if you messed with kids who were good enough to work underground, Jang Baekjo would drag them to the hospital without anyone knowing and peel off even a single skin tissue and sell it all over the country. That’s why Baekyoung was still alive and well because even the worst people living here didn’t mess with faces like that.