SU | Chapter 1.3

Yoo Han rolled his eyes between the man and the nameplate. The man, likely Ji Youngwon, had a much neater appearance than the thug in his memory. His high nose bridge, shiny skin, and eyes slit horizontally without double eyelids gave him a stern and cold demeanor. He was at least 20 cm taller than Yoo Han, who was around 173 cm tall. Yoo Han’s eyes began to flicker with admiration, unable to believe such a neat person could be the owner of this shabby errand center.

Ji Youngwon slightly raised his eyes. The puppy-like gaze that had been sizing him up seemed oddly familiar. He sighed briefly and picked up a piece of paper and a pen from the desk. The sound of his shoes echoed as Ji Youngwon walked over and sat on the sofa opposite Yoo Han.

“What brings you here?”

Yoo Han looked at the man curiously, sensing he didn’t remember him. “I’m looking for someone.”

Ji Youngwon nodded nonchalantly, tapping the pen on the glass table.

“Simple location is fifty. Direct retrieval is two hundred. Assault adds three hundred, and minor requests like recovering stolen money or items are fifty each.”

Yoo Han’s eyelashes fluttered as he mechanically listed the services. The mention of “assault” made his heart race.

“Isn’t commissioning an assault illegal?”

Ji Youngwon tapped the pen on the glass table at regular intervals, lost in thought. Where had he seen those damn puppy eyes before?

“If it’s not a missing person case, chasing someone down is illegal too.”

“……”

“Don’t get all innocent about legality here. Just tell me what you want.”

Yoo Han clutched his bag tighter as Ji Youngwon’s tone sharpened.

“No assault needed. Just locate the person, and find the stolen money and items.”

Ji Youngwon leaned over and scribbled on the paper. His assertive personality was evident.

“Location fifty. Money fifty. Items fifty. Total one fifty.”

His handwriting was terrible. Yoo Han struggled to decipher the scrawled letters as he moistened his dry lips.

Ji Youngwon added as if offering a favor.

“Got a message to send? That’s on the house.”

He flipped the paper over, revealing a contract form with spaces for name, age, phone number, and address all blank. Hesitant, Yoo Han moved his lips.

“Dog…”

“……?”

“Son of a bitch.”

Ji Youngwon’s eyes narrowed.

“Son of a bitch. I’ve told you it’s not pure gold, it’s 14k.”

“……”

“Please pass that along.”

After a moment, Ji Youngwon chuckled and filled out the memo section of the contract. He collected the name, age, and a photo of the person Yoo Han was looking for and recited soullessly.

“Advance is fifty percent of the total fee. That’s seventy-five thousand won in cash by this evening. If we fail, there’s no refund. Sometimes the people we find are already dead, and those nutjobs ask for a refund.”

Ji Youngwon tapped his temple with the pen tip where he had said ‘nutjobs’.

“Of course, we’ve never failed to locate anyone, so don’t worry.”

Yoo Han turned pale as the talk of advance payment caught him off guard. It took a while for his mind to come back to him, not even considering whether the fee was prepaid or postpaid.

“Uh, ahjussi. I mean, CEO, that is.”

Ji Youngwon tilted his head at the sudden mention of “ahjussi”. That voice definitely sounded familiar.

“…ahjussi, if you’re going to give me something… instead of the Jeonju bibimbap, please give me tuna mayo.”

In a flash, Ji Youngwon recalled the clueless guy he had encountered at the convenience store.

“Sorry, but is it possible to pay after the service?”

Ah… That face seemed oddly familiar. The image of him, cowering like a drenched puppy yet speaking back fearlessly, flashed through Ji Youngwon’s mind.

“What? You want to pay later?”

When Ji Youngwon asked again as if he had heard wrong, the puppy in front of him started stomping his feet nervously as he spoke.

“Instead of an advance, I’ll pay triple the amount you quoted for the initiation fee.”

Ji Youngwon closely examined the man’s face, whose large eyes seemed out of proportion to his face. The light natural brown hair covering his eyebrows was the first thing that caught Ji Youngwon’s attention. Flawless skin, tired bags under rounded nostrils, and dry, pink lips followed in quick succession. Even at his best, he looked to be in his early twenties.

His clothes suggested he didn’t care much about appearance; he was wearing a stretched white T-shirt and a green checkered shirt thrown on carelessly. Faded jeans and worn-out sneakers completed the ensemble. A pitiful young man with no visible means of income. His appearance screamed poverty.

“Haah…”

Ji Youngwon sighed deeply. He was a man sensitive to time. He would invest time in anything profitable, but he wouldn’t waste a second on anything else. And just now, this naive-looking kid had dared to waste more than five minutes of his time.

“What’s your name?” Ji Youngwon tossed the pen carelessly onto the table. Yoo Han swallowed dryly before responding.

“Yoo Han.”

“Your family name.”

“It’s Yoo. But you can just call me Han.”

“Okay. So, family name Yoo and given name Han?”

Yoo Han rubbed his dry eyes weakly and replied with a feeble yes. He was too exhausted to notice Ji Youngwon’s informal tone.

“You mentioned something about 14k gold?”

“How did you know?”

“You said it earlier.”

“…”

“Son of a bitch. I told you it’s not pure gold, it’s 14k.”

Yoo Han flinched and nodded. Ji Youngwon lounged comfortably on the sofa.

“Taking on a job from a kid who can’t even afford a triangle kimbap, and now begs for help—what makes you think I’d trust you?”

“…”

“Huh? You think I have time to waste?”

The poor young man’s face flushed with color. It seemed he hadn’t heard Ji Youngwon’s harsh refusal because he was glad that Ji Youngwon remembered him from the convenience store.

“Ahjussi, I thought you didn’t remember me.”

Ji Youngwon squinted his eyes and scrutinized the impoverished young man’s expression.

“I wanted to thank you for the drink.”

The genuine joy on his face made Ji Youngwon’s mood plummet momentarily. It didn’t seem like he was trying to play any tricks, probably not back then either. The way he suddenly cursed and then cowered, biting his lip—that was the humbled face of a survivor, well-equipped to disarm Ji Youngwon.

As Ji Youngwon stared at him silently, heat crept up Yoo Han’s ears. Was he considered to be playing tricks? Realizing too late, he was overwhelmed by shame.

Then, with a squeak, the office’s metal door swung open. The clerk who had shown Yoo Han to the office earlier approached, holding cups of takeout coffee in both hands.

“Here are two cups of coffee, Director.”

It was the cafe clerk from earlier, who spoke in a Seoul accent tinged with a regional dialect. Ji Youngwon brushed his bangs back with a gesture of his chin. Gu Kangsan, the right-hand man of the detective agency, placed the cups on the table.

‘Is the cafe also run by Ji Youngwon…?’

Yoo Han quietly set the bag he had been clutching next to his thigh. After an invigorating morning walk, he was quite thirsty. Yoo Han opened the lid of the disposable cup and downed the Americano in one gulp.

“Pfft!”

It all happened in an instant. Yoo Han, as if ambushed by a surprise attack, spat out the coffee in less than a second. Coughing violently, it seemed the coffee had backflowed.

‘Did they brew this with cigarette ashes?’

Though he couldn’t often afford to buy brewed coffee from cafes, at least he knew enough to tell good from bad taste. Startled by the abysmal taste, the atmosphere turned even colder.

“Spit out the coffee I brought you?”

Ji Youngwon’s words made Yoo Han hastily lift his head.

“I’ll clean it up. I’m sorry. It was just a shock… Sorry.”

Yoo Han pulled out a towel from his bag and quickly wiped the table. Gu Kangsan scratched the back of his head with a skeptical expression.

“Ah… seems like it was quite a touching taste.”

Yoo Han shook his head vigorously as he continued to clean.

“Sorry, it really tasted bad…”

Although his voice was subdued, his words were quite audacious. Gu Kangsan widened his eyes in disbelief.

“Really? It was so bad you had to spit it out?”

Ji Youngwon, with a twisted smile, asked Yoo Han what was so funny. The chill ran down Gu Kangsan’s spine as he glanced at the young client’s head.

“I’m sorry.”

Yoo Han apologized again and then tightly rolled up the coffee-stained towel, stuffing it into his bag. Ji Youngwon exhaled wearily at Yoo Han’s messy behavior.

“Kangsan, maybe we should give up on the cafe. Let’s hire some new staff soon.”

“Oh, no, Director.”

Staff? Yoo Han’s eyes sparkled as he zipped up his bag. He looked around and then added a word.

“If you need staff, just let me know. …I can help.”

The smile vanished from Ji Youngwon’s face at that moment. Yoo Han, unaware of the man’s expression, continued with his head bowed.

“I can easily help with the cafe. I’ve only worked for a week, but I’ve used a coffee machine before and can learn quickly. The coffee you brought out now, I can do better than that…”

Ji Youngwon stood up and walked over to the desk, leaning against it.

“It sounds like you’ve got it wrong. It’s not you helping us; it’s us helping you.”

He knocked a cumbersome nameplate off the desk with the back of his hand. His movements, free from hesitation, indicated that the games were over.

“No place to go, looking for a job, asking for help to find someone, and getting back stolen money, huh? How is that you helping us?”

Yoo Han’s shoulders tensed up under the suddenly changed atmosphere.

Ji Youngwon pulled a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. As Gu Kangsan quickly came forward with a lighter, Ji Youngwon lit a cigarette and exhaled the smoke sharply.

“What’s with this bum spouting nonsense early in the morning, it’s infuriating.”

“…”

“Do I look like a philanthropist to you? If you’ve understood, then get lost. The jokes are over.”

The air grew heavier as Yoo Han awkwardly stood up, clutching his bag. He understood the man’s words, but the harshness of the response somehow made him feel even more desolate.

The man who had handed him a drink, showing kindness as if offering charity, and the man in front of him now seemed like two different people. It was an unkind act, devoid of empathy. Even at the convenience store, despite his rough manner, the atmosphere had been much softer than it was now.

Yoo Han’s eyes welled up with resentment. If it was going to be like this, he shouldn’t have shown kindness, shouldn’t have flaunted his business card, shouldn’t have sat next to him. A completely illogical resentment surged within him. He felt like a three-year-old.

‘Calling me a bum is a bit much.’

If the request was financially impractical, a polite refusal would have sufficed instead of harshly dismissing him with curses. The muscles in Yoo Han’s jaw tensed.

“I wasn’t joking. I really meant it when I said I’d triple the initiation fee. Kim Minjae, no, that bastard took five hundred, but if we can find that money, I can give it all to you.”

“…”

“Triple of one hundred fifty is four hundred fifty, so it’s definitely possible.”