AT Ch1

The lightbulb above flickered and trembled. Losing her balance, Baekyoung realized another earthquake had struck.

There was no safe place here. In Cheonghan City, earthquakes were commonplace. She couldn’t hear the sounds of people bursting out of their doors and running.

She leaned against the wall for a moment, wondering when the lightbulb would stop flickering.

At least there was light here. Once you left this area, you couldn’t find a lit place for a while. If you stayed inside, you couldn’t tell if it was day or night.

If the electricity, which had been holding out for quite some time, went out, there was no telling who would fix it. No technician would come to fix the electricity, and she, leaning against the wall, had no intention of even replacing the flickering bulb, let alone fixing the electricity.

A building with no windows, where people who entered from the outside couldn’t leave the same way.

Initially, a construction company had planned to build the country’s largest resort here. But after only erecting the framework, it went bankrupt. A hospital then took it over, but couldn’t even add a single brick, and the building was sold from one place to another.

People with nowhere to go settled in the building. And as illegal residents and people doing illicit work filled it one by one, the skeletal building began to change to their liking.

Eventually, it became so intricately intertwined like a maze that no one could know the layout unless they lived there.

Choi Baekyoung, the place where she stood, people began to call it the Ant Tunnel. It had become too large to be called a shantytown, and the name Ant Tunnel was perfect.

If you commit murder, drugs, gambling, fraud, or any crime and don’t want to go to jail, go to the Ant Tunnel in Cheonghan City.

Baekyoung thought this saying was quite amusing. The Ant Tunnel had now established itself in a fairly systematic form. No matter how chaotic it seemed, there was order. They were wary of new people from outside the Ant Tunnel and never trusted anyone without a guarantor born and raised there.

In some ways, it was worse than prison, and she had heard that people joked about choosing between prison and the Ant Hole.

Choi Baekyoung was born and raised here. In other words, she was a , but at the end of the day, just one of the worker ants.

The underground area, down to the fifth basement level, was a restricted area where no one could enter without permission. The first floor was lined with small stalls and restaurants for the people of the Ant Tunnel who needed things, and sometimes for people who were curious about the Ant Tunnel and came to peek around. Most loan sharks were also on the first floor.

The second floor, where people were sick of cleaning up the bodies of junkies who jumped after taking drugs, was eventually given over to the junkies. Unless you were extremely unlucky, you wouldn’t die even if you jumped from the second floor. And even if these guys broke their arms and legs, they would crawl back up to the second floor to do drugs.

The third floor was for gambling, prostitution, and businesses for people who came to spend dirty money from the outside.

On the fourth floor, there was a hospital where those dragged in due to debt performed dark deeds, and cleaners resided. From the fifth floor onwards, residents of the Ant Tunnel like Baekyoung, or those who had been granted permission to enter and settle here, formed a shantytown, living up to the 28th floor.

Since there were no windows, wherever there was a hole in the concrete, it was always filled with cigarette ashes and cigarettes. That was the natural smoking area.

Even though the floors were divided, there were no signs indicating which floor or number it was. So, newcomers often didn’t know which floor they were wandering on.

“…It stopped.”

The earthquake had stopped. The flickering lightbulb was just flickering again.

Baekyoung slowly moved her feet. There were days when she was particularly tired and annoyed, and today was one of those days. She quickly reached the 7th floor, following a path familiar only to her, and turned into the hallway of the building.

It must be sunset.

Baekyoung thought as she looked at the hole in the concrete wall in front of her, large enough for a person to fall through. She liked the moments when she felt the time and weather through the outside air. At times like this, she thought she had a pretty good room.

The second house from the open concrete wall was her home. When the wind and rain were strong, the hallway would be flooded, but the houses on either side of the hole took the brunt of the damage. So, living in the second house was lucky.

The cigarette butts that were always there had been missing for several days. That’s because the person living in the cubicle next to the concrete hole had died three days ago. Except for the dead person, everyone else smoked in their rooms without ventilation, so you couldn’t find butts anywhere else. Even if there were any, they would just kick them and drop them down.

Winter was gone, and the wind had softened considerably. Looking at the sunset covering the harbor and the sea in the distance, the human emotions still left in her stirred, tickling a corner of her heart.

Baekyoung leaned one shoulder against the concrete wall, standing precariously, and waited for this moment to pass.

Crack!

Suddenly, a hole was punched in the front door of the house where someone had died a few days ago. The front door was just a flimsy plywood that could be broken with brute force. Startled, Baekyoung reflexively looked to the side, thinking she almost fell to her death.

She hoped the new tenant would at least save on cigarette money.

“Damn it, why is the door flying off? Is there no privacy here? Everyone’s going to be peeping.”

Bang. Bang.

The other person seemed just as surprised that the door had flown off. The owner of the voice, which didn’t match the curse, seemed bewildered and dumbfounded, and their eyes met Baekyoung’s at that moment.

It was Jang Heejo.

Baekyoung recognized him.

Having been born and raised here, there was no way she wouldn’t know him. If you didn’t know Jang, the youngest son of Chairman Jang, who controlled Cheonghan City and wielded power, starting from the Ant Tunnel’s orphanage (disguised as a place to raise future worker ants), you couldn’t call yourself a native.

Lightly colored hair, eyes similar to the hair color, flawless skin, and a voice with a tone low enough to be considered mismatched with the curse.

Jang Heejo, the youngest son of Chairman Jang, was wearing a white t-shirt and faded jeans that didn’t fit this place, and the heels of his designer sneakers were crushed as he came out of the house.

Baekyoung, who wasn’t surprised by much living in the Ant Tunnel, was genuinely surprised now, her eyes wide.

…What’s going on? Why is he coming out of there?

“What are you going to do about the door? Is there no privacy here? Everyone’s going to be peeping.”

Bang. Bang.

Jang Heejo kicked the broken door even more while maintaining eye contact with Baekyoung, speaking to someone inside.

“This is how it is here, and everyone lives like this. So, why are you getting involved when you could just send one of the kids?”

A voice more composed than Jang Heejo’s, but somehow filled with exhaustion, reached her ears.

Jang Heejo was already over 190cm, but the man with a long scar on his face who appeared behind him was much bigger in both build and head. The man glanced at Baekyoung and then turned away.

“I didn’t want to see Director Jang throwing a fit. And anyway, you said this place is mine.”

Jang Heejo raised the corners of his thin lips and smirked. His gaze was still fixed on Baekyoung.

Realizing quickly that she wasn’t supposed to be hearing this conversation, she carefully moved back so as not to bother them. She could just turn around and go into her room as if nothing had happened.

It was to her detriment to understand their story.

“It was a delivery accident. Anyway, the tracker we put on that bastard never left the Ant Tunnel. He’ll come out of here. When he does…”

Ah, she hated herself for understanding those words roughly.

She naturally moved towards the room next to the one Jang Heejo had come out of and took out her key from her pocket. Then, without fumbling, she inserted the key into the keyhole of the shabby lock and turned it.

Click.

“Hey.”

It was definitely someone calling her.

But she couldn’t decide whether to pretend not to hear or to act flustered like someone surprised by the sudden call.

“Neighbor.”

Knock knock.

Jang Heejo, who had already approached, lightly clenched his fist and knocked on the wooden door with his middle finger prominently raised. She couldn’t pretend not to know anymore.

“Yes.”

“Do you know the guy who died next door three days ago?”