PEN Vol 4 Ch. 12

Reflection 3 

November arrived, ushering in winter. A cold north wind, laced with a chilling air, began to blow, stinging their cheeks. It was a season where the wind was becoming quite harsh.

Cheon Sejoo, wearing a black padded jacket and a cap pulled low over his eyes, sat in an old, unheated van, sipping coffee. White steam puffed out from the slightly opened lid of his disposable cup. As he savored the bittersweet aroma, Haewoong, who was sitting beside him eating snacks, yawned and stretched.

“Ah… This is really getting tedious.”

At the monologue-like remark, Cheon Sejoo chuckled and glanced at him. Haewoong, having not slept properly, had a face as puffy as a loaf of bread. Cheon Sejoo, laughing at his appearance, jerked his chin towards the back of the van.

“I’ll watch, so you get some sleep.”

“I can’t… If I look refreshed, Sunhyuk hyung will yell at me for sleeping alone.” 

“Then I’ll smack you once before we get off. He won’t know you slept then.”

Cheon Sejoo replied in a relaxed voice to Haewoong’s grumbling. Hearing that, Haewoong laughed by himself. However, realizing that Cheon Sejoo’s laughter wasn’t joining in, he blinked and looked at him.

“You’re joking, right…?”

“Well…”

“…….”

A smile played on Sejoo’s smooth lips. Haewoong stared blankly at him for a moment, then shifted his hips to Cheon Sejoo’s other side and slapped his own cheeks with both hands.

“I need to wake up…”

It seemed he’d succeeded in rousing himself. At his murmur, Cheon Sejoo chuckled softly and turned around.

Several monitors were set up in the back of the van they were in. They were currently surveilling a room salon¹ operated by Kang Junmyeon, the president of DG Construction, the core company of the DG Group. The owner of the casino that Kang Junmyeon frequented in Hong Kong was known to be Jason Lee, a rival of Liu Yuan, a triad² member closely associated with DG.

If Kang Junmyeon had secretly joined hands with Jason Lee, the repercussions could have reached DG itself, so Shin Gyoyeon couldn’t stand idly by. This was because a huge amount of investment was flowing into the massive casino resort construction project in Hong Kong, which DG was promoting with Liu Yuan.

It had been quite some time since Shin Gyoyeon ordered them to keep an eye on President Kang. After months of lurking in the shadows, trailing Kang Junmyeon, Cheon Sejoo, and his team members were all feeling incredibly bored.

“When did Chuljoo say to wake him up?”

In the back of the van, amidst the tangled wires and monitors, Yoon Chuljoo lay wrapped up like a cocoon in a sleeping bag. While Cheon Sejoo, Moon Sunhyuk, Goo Haewoong, and Seo Jinyoung were at least working in shifts, Yoon Chuljoo, their hacker, hadn’t left the van for a month, except for brief trips to a nearby bathhouse.

Wrinkling his nose at the faint, stale odor emanating from Chuljoo, Cheon Sejoo drew the curtain separating the driver’s seat from the back.

There was no need to constantly monitor the screens anyway, as facial recognition software was installed on the cameras they’d set up, automatically flagging any faces whenever someone appeared. If any of Jason Lee’s organization members registered in their database, or any unknown individuals appeared, an alarm would sound, so it wouldn’t be too late to check by then.

“I think he asked to be woken up at five. About thirty minutes left? Wait. No, huh. Manager, is it really 2 PM? No way… It feels like twelve hours have passed, but it’s only been two hours since we switched shifts? This is horrible.”

Haewoong, looking at his watch, suddenly sighed and clutched his head. Cheon Sejoo didn’t respond, as being bored with the waiting was nothing new. However, at the mention of 2 PM, he pulled out his muted phone and checked it. A message from Sejin had arrived thirty minutes ago.

Mutt
I don’t get this.
[Photo]
13:23

The problem in the photo Sejin sent was from high school freshman-level math. With CSAT (College Scholastic Ability Test/ college entrance exam) just two weeks away, it seemed Sejin wouldn’t even score a level 5³ in math. Even with a stroke of luck and good guessing, a level 6 would be a stretch. 

Cheon Sejoo sighed and took out a notebook and pen scattered in the glove compartment. He copied down the problem Sejin had sent and wrote the solution beneath it in one go.

“Oh, linear equation.”

“Do you know how to solve this?”

Haewoong, peering at the notebook from beside him, chimed in. At Cheon Sejoo’s question, Haewoong exclaimed with a bewildered expression, as if asking how he could even ask such a question.

“Manager, you may not know it, but I graduated from the Korean National Police University! I can solve this much. The Police University isn’t that easy to get into!” 

“I know. I was just asking.”

Despite having dropped out, Haewoong took immense pride in being a Police University graduate. Apparently feeling his alma mater had been looked down upon, he grumbled for a while, then, seeing Cheon Sejoo take a picture of the solution to attach to a message, he asked,

“That kid’s doing high school freshman math now? Wasn’t he doing middle school math just a few months ago?”

“Yeah. Isn’t he amazing?”

Cheon Sejoo replied with a faint smile to Haewoong’s question. His words were true. Sejin, who had been struggling with middle school math, was now making decent progress. After sending the photo of the solution to Sejin, Sejoo leaned back in his seat and explained,

“The kid lacks the basics, but his comprehension… isn’t completely hopeless.”

Hearing that, Haewoong covered his mouth with his fist and laughed. When Cheon Sejoo looked at him questioningly, he chuckled, as if suppressing a burst of laughter, then grinned and nudged Cheon Sejoo. Hitting his shoulder with a teasing voice, Haewoong said, 

“Manager, you just sound like a doting dad.” 

“…Dad? What nonsense.”

“Sometimes you seem like you’re raising a child.”

At those words, Cheon Sejoo frowned and laughed as if he’d heard the most absurd thing. It was true that he felt like he was raising a child, but his face expressed that he felt ridiculous being called a “dad.”

After their brief exchange, the excruciating silence returned to the van. Having spent long hours together every other day, they had run out of things to say.

Haewoong seemed eager to introduce Cheon Sejoo to the games he played, but Cheon Sejoo, uninterested in games, didn’t engage in the conversation. Eventually, after about an hour, they talked about movies and organized crime for about 5 minutes, then chose to fall silent again.

Thus, meaningless time passed by. When it was past 4 o’clock, Cheon Sejoo once again took out his phone and sent a message to Sejin.

16:12
Are you on your way to the hospital?

Mutt
Yeah. Are you picking me up later? You can just go home if you’re tired.
16:22

16:25
I’ll be there around 6. Today’s the day the results come out, right?

Mutt
Yeah, the doctor’s making rounds at 5.
16:26

16:31
They said the prognosis for the chemo was good, so don’t worry too much.

Mutt
Okay. See you later..
16:32

Unfortunately, Kim Hyunkyung couldn’t have the surgery in October. Although the tumor had shrunk, her blood test revealed a slight increase in tumor marker levels. However, the CT and PET scans showed no significant problems, and the doctor suggested that it might be due to inflammation from gastritis, recommending another round of gastritis and chemotherapy treatment before reviewing the results again. Today was the day for the follow-up scans, a month after that consultation.

Cheon Sejoo sent Sejin a message saying he’d call later and put his phone away. It would soon be 5 o’clock. Once Yoon Chuljoo woke up and Seo Jinyoung took over from Haewoong, he’d have a moment to breathe. He planned to have a quick call with Sejin by then. Cheon Sejoo instructed Haewoong, who had spread out bags of snacks, to clean up the trash, and then took out a cigarette.

Their van was parked a block away from Kang Junmyeon’s room salon. It wasn’t a place Kang Junmyeon’s men frequented, but there was no harm in being cautious, so Cheon Sejoo only opened the window slightly without getting out of the car.

As he smoked, he saw a figure walking towards him from a distance down the alley. Tall and slender, the man was impeccably dressed in a suit and overcoat. Slowly inhaling his cigarette, Cheon Sejoo narrowed his eyes and watched him.

The approaching features seemed familiar. The moment Cheon Sejoo realized the man emerging from the alley was Han Jonghyun, Cheon Sejoo frowned and extinguished his cigarette.

“Haewoong-ah.”

“Yes?”

“There are rabbit holes or room clubs⁴ around here, right?” 

“There are a lot of clubs. This neighborhood is crawling with druggies.”

“Is that so?”

In response to Sejoo’s casual reply, Haewoong looked around as if wondering what was going on. Then, spotting Han Jonghyun approaching the car, he let out an irritated voice.

“Ugh, that fucking director doesn’t seem to stay put anywhere.”

Haewoong, who had once been slapped by Han Jonghyun, a man merciless to his subordinates, intensely disliked him. It was because of the memory of being severely scolded by Moon Sunhyuk after causing a scene about hitting Han Jonghyun that day. Haewoong, staring at Han Jonghyun with a sullen face, soon asked in a disdainful voice,

“What kind of person is he?”

“I wonder.”

Cheon Sejoo had often thought about Han Jonghyun since the day he met him at Ehwagak, due to what Chae Beomjun had said when they ran into each other on his way home that day.

However, contrary to Chae Beomjun’s worried advice not to get close to Han Jonghyun, Cheon Sejoo wasn’t particularly close to him, so his thoughts about Han Jonghyun’s identity always ended with the internal monologue, ‘Who cares?’ They had only ever run into each other by chance and exchanged a few words; they didn’t even know each other’s phone numbers.

But seeing him again like this sparked his curiosity about his identity once more. Because every time he saw Han Jonghyun, something felt off, like a persistent itch he couldn’t scratch.

“There are rumors he’s our president’s lover.”