2. A Boy from Seoryeong

Tae Mujin was from a red-light district.

Even before Mujin was born, his mother worked in a prostitution establishment in Seoryeong. There were rampant rumors that his father was a gangster, but he had never seen him, so there was no way to confirm it, nor did he have any desire to. He often heard comments that he looked very different from his sister, who was five years older, suggesting they had different fathers.

The three family members lived in a cramped room that shared a small yard with the prostitution establishment.

As Mujin grew older, he dimly realized what his mother did, leaving across the yard when the sun set and only returning home in the morning.

For Mujin, sex was money, the hardship of labor, and the violence, like the blue bruises his mother occasionally bore. In their impoverished household, Mujin diligently ran errands, delivering items like sanitary pads, condoms, and birth control pills on credit for the women at the establishment, contributing even small change.

Then, one day, his mother, who had gone out with a regular customer, didn’t return home. Soon after, his sister, who had become a middle school student, also ran away, and Mujin had to start earning a living himself.

It was around that time that Mr. Choi, who ran a gambling house in Seoryeong, began to take notice of Mujin.

He didn’t know how many times he had chased the boy away. Every time he saw the child loitering around the gambling house, emptying ashtrays or running cigarette errands, he would kick him out, but the boy would return like a gnat as soon as he turned his back.

He acknowledged the boy’s persistence. However, the child’s diligence was nothing but a nuisance.

Then, the boy began to look different when Mr. Choi noticed that the frequent small fights among customers, which happened several times a day, had suddenly decreased.

One day, Mr. Choi took the time to carefully observe what the child was doing.

Before the day was over, Mr. Choi realized that the boy wasn’t just persistent. The child was quick-witted. It seemed almost instinctive.

If a customer was on a winning streak, the child wouldn’t approach carelessly. Gamblers were extremely sensitive to luck and disliked any change in their surroundings when the game was going well. They would get irritable, fearing that the flow might change even slightly and break their momentum.

He wondered if such a small child could possibly know that. However, when he saw the boy subtly empty an ashtray for a customer who was continuously losing money, or bring a new drink, constantly diverting their attention, he slapped his knee in realization.

Then, if a good hand came up at the right time, they would mistakenly think that their luck had turned because of the child loitering nearby. Each time, Mujin would earn a decent tip. Such generosity was rare in a place like Seoryeong, where people who had seen it all gathered for their last stand. And the child brought that money back to himself, a kind of tribute to establish his presence in the gambling house. He was only nine years old then. Mr. Choi clucked his tongue.

Nevertheless, Mr. Choi chased the child away again. The child’s quick wit could be a poison in this place.

Seoryeong was a place where even seasoned gamblers would cheat each other, fall apart, and then crawl back again. The child’s keenness was just an early sprout that could easily be culled. Surely the quick-witted child wouldn’t fail to understand Mr. Choi’s intentions. Mr. Choi was determined to firmly push the child away.

That resolve changed on Lunar New Year’s holiday, a month after Mujin started frequenting the house.

It was a peak day for the house. Gamblers, usually shunned by their families, would gather money from relatives or extort it during the holiday, betting big. Mr. Choi had hired two card mechanics for the peak season, but they were caught by members of the Seowonpa gang.

“Mr. Choi, how can you pull a stunt like this? These bastards are cheating right at the start of the new year!”

“Oh, why are you doing this? You know I can’t stand looking at cheaters.”

Pushing away Mr. Choi, who was trying to calm him, the gang member, with reddened eyes, began to overturn the house, searching for the missing cards. Mr. Choi and the card mechanics he hired pretended to be wronged, but their insides were burning. The gang member causing the ruckus was known for using a knife at the slightest provocation.

“If I find the hidden cards, you’re all dead right here.”

The gang member pulled out his knife and began to tear and lift the yellow linoleum floor. Mr. Choi fumbled for the pocket knife in his back pocket, confirming it was there. The hidden cards were surely under the linoleum. He swallowed hard, thinking he would truly see blood on New Year’s Day.

But strangely, beneath the torn linoleum, there was nothing but swirling dust.

“You, you bastard. You’ve been hovering around emptying ashtrays earlier, haven’t you?”

When he couldn’t find what he wanted, the gang member pointed at Mujin.

The gang member stripped the boy naked on the spot, even pulling down his underwear. When he checked between his legs and still found no cards, he pressed the blade of a jackknife against him.

“Where did you hide them?”

The boy shook his head again.

The knife tip pricked the boy’s right cheek. Blood flowed down to his chin, beading like a red fruit. When the knife tip touched his cheek, the boy flinched but didn’t even whimper. Most thought he was too terrified to make a sound, but Mr. Choi sensed otherwise.

The gang member brutally pressed the boy’s cheeks, forcing open his mouth and thoroughly searching inside. Despite the roaring threats that echoed through the gambling house, the boy continued to shake his head. Finally, the gang member spat and left the house, and Mr. Choi immediately rushed over to check on the boy. The wound wasn’t deep, but the angle of the knife tip had twisted, leaving a distorted scar.

“Let’s go to Dr. Kim’s clinic quickly! I don’t know if he’s open for the New Year, but we have to stitch it up somehow.”

However, unlike the frantic Mr. Choi, the boy calmly picked up the ashtray on the floor. Then, he put his hand deep into his throat and vomited several times. What dropped onto the ashtray with thick saliva was a hanafuda card folded in half.

It was the “Rain” card that the gang member had been searching for.

It was a “Rain” card depicting the gate of hell where corpses were hung in the days when the dead were discarded outside the city walls. It was also a card that was counted as a “double-pig” to appease ghosts. Looking at the child presenting the hanafuda card with a blood-smeared face, Mr. Choi thought it was truly uncanny.

They drove Mujin to the hospital, but it was closed, so they ended up at Dr. Kim’s house. Dr. Kim stitched the boy’s wound and said a significant scar would remain. Returning to the house, Mr. Choi smoked a cigarette, observing Mujin for a long time before finally speaking after half a pack.

“Your father only knew how to use his fists, but you’re naturally gifted with a mind and courage for this kind of work.”

The boy’s eyes, as he looked at Mr. Choi, were large and dark, appearing somewhat like a young animal at first glance, but there was an unusual coolness for his age.

“Why? Are you curious who your father is? Shall I tell you?”

“No. Do I need to know?”

His calm voice made him sound even more like an old soul.

A mind that quickly read the game, swift sleight of hand, and above all, the courage not to even whimper when stabbed by a knife. Mr. Choi clucked his tongue, thinking the boy was born with useless talents. Such abilities were rare in Seoryeong, but they were also a nature that would prevent him from escaping this quagmire.

“Go home and rest until tomorrow. Come every day starting the day after tomorrow. But you also have to go to school. At least you should avoid being illiterate and know how to calculate so customers don’t rip you off.”

“Yes.”

Mr. Choi was very pleased with Mujin. He especially liked the boy’s indifference, his lack of asking unnecessary questions. He pulled out a few banknotes and pressed them into the boy’s hand. It was Mujin’s first earnings.

As Mr. Choi had shrewdly observed, Mujin adapted quickly. It was glaringly obvious.

People who had hit rock bottom were constantly addicted to something. Usually, it was alcohol, sex, or gambling.

However, like drinking seawater, their thirst remained unquenched, and addiction spurred more addiction. And there were those who exploited these addicts: gambling house operators and brothel madams. Mr. Choi was no exception. And then there were the gangsters who extorted protection money from Mr. Choi, and the police who took bribes from the gangsters. A constantly rotating symbiotic relationship, driven by mutual greed.

Mujin understood precisely which greed to ensnare, into whose hands to place that snare, and with whom to join those hands.

Around the time Mujin entered high school, Mr. Choi’s house reached its heyday.

No one regarded Mujin as a boy anymore. His menacing physique, nearly 190 cm tall, easily subdued most adult men. Among the gamblers in Seoryeong, Mujin was called a “technician,” not for gambling skills, but for wielding violence skillfully, efficiently, and without an ounce of mercy.

Under Mujin’s management, gamblers who absconded with money were extremely rare. No matter how large the stakes, the clean distribution based on the outcome led to word-of-mouth recommendations, and the gambling house thrived day and night.

Occasionally, when problems arose, Mujin would voluntarily take the fall and go directly to the police station. Punishment was difficult under juvenile law, and while Mr. Choi felt the loss, Mujin had accumulated quite a network within the police force through the bribes he intermittently delivered.

Around that time, small and large gambling rings also appeared at school, but Mujin sneered and let the future patsies enjoy themselves as much as they wanted. The “tributes” the children voluntarily offered were distributed to the teachers who were greedy for money.

“Was it ten years ago? I went to a famous fortune teller, and she told me I’d have good fortune with children in my later years. So I cursed that fortune teller out. ‘Damn it, how can I have children when I can’t even sow my seed?’ I yelled. But that fortune teller must have been truly skilled. Seeing my life turn around thanks to you in my later years.”

Mr. Choi, whose only hobby was drinking alone, tilted his soju glass. Mujin, who was organizing ledgers nearby, let Mr. Choi’s words wash over him, letting out a dry laugh. Mr. Choi, who had once been successful in business, had accumulated massive debts due to gambling addiction, and his body was apparently not well after being caught and beaten while trying to run away.

“I’m no fortune teller, but I know one thing for sure. You’re going to make a big splash in this business. But Mujin,”

Mr. Choi emptied his soju glass in one gulp, grimaced, and continued,

“Don’t do that. You absolutely must leave this place. No matter how successful you are here, everyone eventually falls. I’ve never seen anyone who didn’t.”

“사장님 (Boss/Mr. Choi), if you don’t want to fall, don’t pick fights with the Seowonpa gang. It seems like they’re eyeing you because business is good, but if they decide to come after you with bad intentions, you won’t be able to handle it.”

“Ah, those damn bastards. What have they done to take half! Our house doesn’t even need their fists because we have you. And you should also start moving out of that cramped room. Why bother staying there and lending your fists for free?”

Despite having earned a considerable amount of money, Mujin still lived in the shabby cramped room that shared a yard with the prostitution establishment. Now, no one dared to ask Mujin for credit errands, but instead, if a customer caused trouble, the women at the establishment would frantically knock on the door of Tae Mujin’s room.

The Seowonpa gang, who operated the establishment, tended to let things slide when customers did whatever they wanted to the women, as long as they didn’t abscond with money. So, when violent customers arrived, the women would ask Mujin for help, and Mujin, though frowning as if annoyed, usually obliged. Thanks to this, the nickname “technician” was extended to include “pimp,” but Mujin didn’t mind.

Mr. Choi, who found it strange, once asked if it was because he thought his mother or sister might return. Mujin only smiled briefly.

“Anyway! I’m only going to do this for one more year and then I’m leaving this dirty business. You can either take over the house, Mujin, or sell it off.”

Mr. Choi rattled the empty soju bottle at his mouth, repeating what he always said. He sang, banging on the table, that if he just made it through this year, as the fortune teller had predicted, his hardships would end, and he would have great luck for the rest of his life.

However, Mr. Choi never saw the great luck that was supposed to come after just one year.

It was only when Mujin saw the name tag on Mr. Choi’s ankle in the hospital morgue that he learned his name for the first time. Detective Yoon, who had been receiving money from Mujin for years, awkwardly explained the cause of death.

“It seems the Seowonpa guys had it in for him. Mr. Choi apparently played a card mechanic and got caught... Tsk, still, what these bastards did...”

All ten fingers were severed, making fingerprint identification impossible. Nevertheless, only cerebral hemorrhage was listed as the cause of death on the death certificate. Mujin silently looked down, then pulled the white sheet back over him.

“Tae Mujin, don’t go stirring things up trying to get revenge for nothing.”

Revenge? Mujin let out a short laugh and said,

“Why would I do that?”

“Ha, Mr. Choi took in a homeless beggar like you and fed him. I always said you shouldn’t take in a black-haired beast. Only the dead man is pitiful, you rude bastard.”

“That watch suits you very well.”

Detective Yoon’s mouth froze. The expensive watch on Detective Yoon’s wrist was a common lure the Seowonpa gang used when integrating new members into their organization.

“...This bastard, just because I got a promotion and bought this as a纪念 (纪念; jinian; keepsake), why? Hey, Tae Mujin!!”

Leaving Detective Yoon, who was spewing curses with a reddened face, Mujin had Mr. Choi’s body cremated without a funeral. As Mr. Choi always said, he had a tree burial on the mountainside where the house was located. For the memorial table, he placed a bottle of soju and some dried snacks, which Mr. Choi enjoyed. Mujin smoked an entire pack of cigarettes in front of it. Revenge, what nonsense. It was preposterous.

He heard that Mr. Choi had made a bet with the Seowonpa gang over the house. Despite Mujin’s repeated warnings.

Mujin couldn’t be sure if Mr. Choi had actually used card mechanics, or if he had been framed by the Seowonpa gang using the pretext of an unused trick. The important thing was that Mr. Choi, unable to break his old habits, had risked his life on chance until the very end.

‘No matter how successful you are here, everyone eventually falls. I’ve never seen anyone who didn’t.’

Mr. Choi proved his words with his death. It was a common gambler’s end. Mr. Choi was not a good person either. How many lives had ended like that in Mr. Choi’s house? A revolving food chain. Nevertheless, Mujin didn’t dislike Mr. Choi.

‘So Mujin, you absolutely must leave this place.’

Mujin knew well that those words, now a dying wish, had always been sincere.

Snow swirled like a vortex. Mujin looked down at Seoryeong below the white-covered mountain and suddenly felt utterly fed up with it all. He emptied the bottle of soju and finished the meager funeral.

________________________________________

After that day, Mujin stopped visiting the house.

Persistent pressure, almost like threats, came from the Seowonpa to take over management of the house in Mr. Choi’s place. Everyone assumed Mujin was trying to raise his price and would naturally join the Seowonpa, but Mujin was preparing to leave Seoryeong.

Around that time, he received a call from his sister through the madam of the establishment. It was the first contact in ten years.

She wasn’t living far away. Mujin clucked his tongue as he saw his sister’s house after a two-hour motorcycle ride. It was a shabby dwelling, not much different from the house they had lived in together. Two children he had never seen before.

“Mujin... Mother passed away the year before last.”

Mujin nodded calmly. He thought it was a bit earlier than he had expected. She had only lived with the customer she ran away with for two years, and after that, she repeated the same life in the establishment. If she had left two children, she should have at least lived well. It was a mediocre life, not worth listening to at length.

“Sister, are you doing well?”

“Yes... I have to be. Leaving you alone like that... I’m really...”

His sister kept pulling the sleeves of her long-sleeved knit sweater down. It was winter, but she was wearing a turtleneck that came up to her chin. He knew without having to look.

Women in Seoryeong didn’t wear short clothes even in summer to hide the traces of violence. Though she wore heavy makeup, the yellowish bruises on her cheeks were not concealed. Sensing Mujin’s menacing gaze, his sister’s words quickened.

“The children’s father is good to me when he wants to be. It’s just that sometimes he drinks and causes trouble... But he dotes on the kids. That’s the only reason I live. But the second one is a bit...”

His sister adjusted the young child in her arms. The child had been banging its head against its mother’s chest as if it were a wall.

“The children’s father says he’s going abroad to earn money... I don’t have the confidence to take care of the kids by myself. I looked into it, and apparently, sick children like our second one sometimes get better when they go abroad. The weather is warmer than here. It’s good for outdoor activities too. And there’s less discrimination.”

His sister suddenly began to talk about various things, as if filled with dreams.

About an acquaintance of her husband’s who started a business in Vietnam and how her husband was going to help him there, and expectations that the children would adapt well to the natural environment there.

Mujin thought his sister’s voice, full of hope, sounded pleasant. He wanted to keep listening, but his sister’s words were gradually trailing off. They drifted aimlessly, lost, hovering between the two of them.

Mujin didn’t want to end what might be his last conversation with his sister. But her voice, growing tearful, made him feel sorry for her, so he placed the shopping bag he had brought onto the table. Unsolicited contact from Seoryeong always involved money.

His sister’s eyes widened as she opened the shopping bag, which contained all the money Mujin had saved while working at the house. Soon, they filled with tears and blurred.

“Mu... Mujin... I’m sorry. Hngh... Sister... I’m sorry, I’m so sorry...”

His sister cried endlessly in front of the wads of cash. Outside the window, heavy snow was falling, as predicted that morning.

After parting with his sister, Mujin immediately headed to the ski resort. Heavy snowfall often reduced visibility, leading to numerous accidents. Lift malfunctions due to strong winds were also frequent, so after he quit the house, Mujin was often called in as emergency personnel.

He received a call asking him to come to the black diamond course and immediately changed into his patrol uniform. He excused himself from the long queue and boarded the gondola. Three customers immediately followed him, a family seemingly there for night skiing.

A middle-aged man, who seemed to be the father, sat next to Mujin. He gave a respectful nod to Mujin, dressed in his safety officer’s uniform, as if to say, “You’re working hard.” Opposite them sat a boy engrossed in his phone game, and finally, a girl took the remaining seat.

Mujin didn’t take off his helmet and leaned deeply into the seat back. His head felt dull, and he closed his eyes for a moment. He felt a dull ache in his shoulders and ribs. Although he had made a quick trip to his sister’s house that morning, it wasn’t physical fatigue.

What’s family, anyway? A self-deprecating laugh escaped him.

“Dad, it’s only a day and a half. My friends and I are just going to eat delicious food, see pretty sights, and then go straight to the airport.”

Mujin turned his head towards the melodious, richly varied voice.

The girl opposite had just taken off her helmet and was pushing back the hair clinging to her forehead and cheeks. His eyes fell on the name written on the season pass around her neck.

Yoon Yiseo. It wasn’t the girl’s appearance that instinctively made him look at the name. Although she was quite striking.

Her slender face, framed by abundant hair, was as white and flawless as the falling snow. Long, dark eyelashes cast long shadows over her large eyes with every blink. And contrasting with her innocent features, her lips were excessively red, almost provocatively so.

The clean, stark contrast of black, white, and red was enough to capture anyone’s gaze and hold it.

However, to Mujin, a woman’s beauty had a fleeting and pathetic quality, much like the anxieties of the women in the red-light district. What captivated Mujin’s gaze was the girl’s innocence, something he had never seen in Seoryeong.

“No. It’s dangerous for minors to travel alone abroad without a guardian.”

At her father’s lowered voice, the girl quickly put on a sulky expression. Her father pretended to speak sternly in a low tone, but the corners of his mouth were subtly turned up the entire time he looked at her.

The gist of the conversation was that the girl was planning to go to France during the vacation for a piano competition, and after the competition, she planned to stay two more days to play with her friends. Her father repeatedly emphasized that minors couldn’t travel alone without a guardian.

The girl stopped talking and stared out of the gondola endlessly. She was openly rebelling with her entire body. Her attitude showed no consideration for the other person’s refusal. A sense of relaxed assurance that anything she did would be accepted permeated her.

“Come straight back to Korea after the competition. Instead, let’s leave together, Dad. I’ll take a day off to match your schedule. And since it’s your birthday, you can see everything you want.”

“Really? Really, Dad, you won’t change your mind and say you’re busy again?”

“Sister, you just like going with Dad because you can shop a lot, right?”

“Yoon Yihwan. You won’t get any presents when we get back.”

The girl burst into laughter as the boy scrunched up his face. Her father looked at her laughter with eyes full of love. Mujin found himself looking too, to the point where it would have seemed strange if he hadn’t been wearing goggles that obscured his eyes. The girl’s face was filled with a pure, unadulterated joy.

Sensing his gaze, the girl glanced at Mujin. She looked slightly embarrassed, then pulled out a chocolate bar from her pocket and offered it to Mujin.

“I’m sorry for being so loud.”

Mujin briefly looked down at the silver wrapper before putting it in his pocket. As Mujin silently accepted it, the girl nodded and smiled brightly. Interpreting his acceptance as permission, she began to chatter again. Mujin’s lips curled into a faint smile. The attitude of being easily forgiven for anything surrounded the girl. Her capricious behavior was like that of an innocent child.

Suddenly, a face that was truly a child’s, yet unlike a child’s, came to mind.

When he stood at the entrance to leave his sister’s house, his sister pushed the six-year-old boy’s back, telling him to say hello. As he reached out to pat his nephew’s head, the child flinched and looked up. The moment their eyes met, his throat constricted.

The child was exactly like him. Although his build was smaller than Mujin’s, subtle details like the shape of his philtrum when he moved his lips, the elongated corners of his eyes, and the muscle movements when he furrowed his brows were strikingly similar. The child’s gaze briefly touched Mujin’s large hand, then bounced off as if to the floor. And a resigned, somber aura enveloped the child.

It was a very familiar expression. Children in Seoryeong, accustomed to violence, often had such faces and would hide in the shadowed corners. A man who beat his wife would surely not spare his children.

At that moment, Mujin wanted to smash his sister’s house. ‘Is this really living?!’ He wanted to roar and destroy everything in his sight.

He had a momentary delusion that he had actually done it, seeing the child’s frightened eyes. Mujin quickly rushed out of his sister’s house and got on his motorcycle. On the way back, snow was falling like crazy. The motorcycle, driven at maximum speed, skidded on the frozen, icy road. Mujin lay on the road, staring blankly at the sky, which looked like white curtains fluttering. It was a difficult day to be sane.

By the time he arrived in Seoryeong, he received a call asking him to come to the ski resort due to a shortage of personnel from the heavy snowfall. He thought it was better this way. He didn’t want to think about anything, just endure the snow all night.

Perhaps that’s why. The girl’s smile pierced him so deeply.

Inside the gondola, it felt suffocatingly hot. The girl’s bright smile tightly constricted his throat.

Suddenly, he thought the girl’s white face was like the falling white snow outside the gondola window. Undefiled, not yet having touched the ground.

The gondola was now nearing the summit. Outside the window, a valley covered in snow, like a massive white wave, unfolded. The endlessly continuing white landscape resembled the girl.

Tae Mujin felt an urge to crunch down hard on that pristine white snow with the tip of his foot, making deep, dark footprints.

Or... perhaps he just wanted to stare blankly, as he was doing now.