Chapter Text
Seong Gi-hun was not exactly the kind of person who inspired boundless sympathy. He had a smile, confidence, and trendy bangs (trendy curtain bangs from the 90s, but Gi-hun still thought it was the peak of style). He also had a rude attitude that was unbecoming of a man in his late twenties.
Gi-hun had a face that thought it deserved more than a nine-to-five. A grin made for late nights, a jawline that looked better leaning against a bar counter than hunched over car parts at Dragon Motors. Everyone around him seemed to be settling down — his classmates were getting married, popping out kids, taking wedding photos under cherry blossoms like it was some kind of national obligation. Gi-hun? Absolutely unbothered by the topic. He had a cheap flip phone and a pack of cigarettes in his pocket. That was all he needed.
He lived with his mother, sometimes in a bar, sometimes with his close friend, Park Jung-bae. It depended on how much he drank and how far he was from his family home.
He was, frankly, a brat. The type to stay up drinking soju on a Tuesday and then show up to work with sunglasses, claiming he’d “hurt his eye.” The type to charm his way out of trouble with a smile, then immediately land in worse trouble because he couldn’t stop himself. Immature didn’t even cover it — his mother had once called him a grown-up baby bird that refuses to leave the nest, and he still wasn’t sure if she meant it lovingly or not.
Playboy? Maybe. He liked to think so. Women laughed at his jokes, men bought him drinks, and lately… well, he’d noticed something he hadn’t expected, something that made him pause longer than he usually allowed himself. A hand on his thigh — sometimes a girl’s, sometimes a boy’s — and he didn’t recoil. Not entirely. Not the way he thought he should. It was confusing, thrilling, a little dangerous. He liked attention, liked touch, liked the way desire felt without rules.
He liked sex, period — not the responsible, married kind his friends were already fumbling through, but the messy, spontaneous, fun kind that left him wondering whose shoes he’d borrowed to get home.
So, no, he wasn’t married. He wasn’t even close. He was twenty-six, almost twenty-seven, and the only thing he was faithful to was his hairstylist. And Jung-bae. No spouse. No children.
To be honest, he was a little afraid of children. Not the responsibility itself — he was terrified of that. Children screamed, talked, and needed constant attention. They didn't understand adult life, although it wasn't as if Gi-hun understood it either. He only knew that if he worked, his mother wouldn't kick him out of the house. He learned a trade at technical school, and he was into cars. That's why tinkering with engines every day didn't bother him so much.
Gi-hun had a rhythm to his life that could almost be considered an art form if you squinted hard enough and ignored the smell of instant noodles that clung to his clothes like a second skin. Work at Dragon Motors was a series of small, meaningless victories and larger, catastrophic failures — a dent here, a missing bolt there, a coworker scowling as he leaned casually against the assembly line like he owned the place. He had a knack for showing up at precisely the wrong moment, catching the manager's attention with some sarcastic remark that was half charm, half disaster, and somehow skirting the disciplinary committee by the skin of his teeth.
The break room was a sanctuary for the mundane, but Gi-hun treated it like a stage. He would sip lukewarm coffee with a half-smirk, half-grimace, playing Snake on his flip phone as if it might somehow elevate him above the general chaos of the factory floor. Even his cigarettes, though mostly a ritual excuse to leave work early for a few moments of freedom, were handled with a kind of reverence. He lit them as if summoning a minor deity, inhaling the smoke slowly, enjoying the sting at the back of his throat, thinking vaguely of the nights ahead where he’d be nowhere and everywhere at once.
“I'm going to the store. Wanna anything?” he muttered to his friend so that no one else in the workshop could hear, because he didn't feel like shopping for everyone. Someone always ended up not paying him back, and Gi-hun was not a charity organization.
It was different with Jung-bae. They had been friends since their first year of technical school, and they had found work here together, so they had spent more than ten years together.
Jung-bae was probably the only person in the world who could put up with his difficult character in the long run. Gi-hun also had a childhood friend, Sang-woo, but he left for America right after college, and they drifted apart. Besides, Sang-woo was probably a little too smart for him. Jung-bae was perfect — just as moronic as he was, only a little more subdued when necessary.
When Gi-hun's mother kicked him out of the house some time ago after finding out that her son had invited another man to bed in HER house, Jung-bae put him up in his small studio apartment until Mal-soon was overcome with remorse and told Gi-hun to come back.
Gi-hun remembered that quiet, awkward conversation in the dark room, the window wide open on a February night, sharing a can of beer and a cigarette. When Jung-bae asked if Gi-hun really preferred guys. And when he wasn't an ass, not really. He was just… fine with it.
“A new liver, maybe. And cigarettes.”
Gi-hun looked at him with pity. Jung-bae just raised his eyebrows slightly, looking as if he wanted nothing more than to get out of there.
“I don't know if they'll have liver,” he sighed, his voice still low. “And to eat, do you want something? I'll have tteokbokki.”
Jung-bae, unlike Gi-hun, had a talent for looking bored without actually being boring. He had one of those flat expressions that suggested he had already seen the worst of humanity, though in truth, the most scandalous thing he’d witnessed lately was Gi-hun tripping over his own feet and spilling a half-bottle of soju down his shirt. His hair was slightly too long, always falling into his eyes, and his hands were rougher than they should’ve been for someone only twenty-six. He was really a chatterbox, a fool, until someone put him together with Gi-hun. Then he seemed a little less bold and more subdued — sometimes he even seemed responsible.
“So take some for me too,” Jung-bae said after a pause, leaning back until his chair creaked dangerously. “And Coke. My blood sugar is too low. I need to wake up.”
Gi-hun was rapidly approaching thirty, and he couldn't cope with it. He still felt young — he looked young, acted like a high school kid, and enjoyed the carefree lifestyle he led. He thought he was in it together with Jung-bae until his friend found a girlfriend and started saving up for a ring. Then, suddenly, he became more cautious.
He didn't really like the girl, to be honest — and the feeling was mutual. He was sure that Jung-bae must have often found himself in very awkward situations, not wanting to let either of them down.
Her name was Yeon-hee, and she had the kind of face that would have looked perfectly at home on a wedding invitation. Too polite, too smooth, with that almost frightening neatness that Gi-hun had never once in his life been accused of. She dressed in pressed blouses, pale cardigans, skirts that never had a wrinkle, as if even the wind was too afraid to muss her hair. Gi-hun thought she was stiff, but what unsettled him most was the way her eyes seemed to narrow whenever she looked at him. Not even in pure judgment — more like calculation. Like she was tallying his behavior, his habits, his lack of ambition, and weighing the risk of letting her boyfriend keep such a friend.
He knew he embarrassed her. Whenever he showed up to meet Jung-bae with a hangover smile and a shirt that hadn’t been ironed since purchase, Yeon-hee’s lips pressed into that thin line, and she glanced away, as though pretending she didn’t know him. She once, not even trying to hide it, asked Jung-bae if Gi-hun really had to come along to the movies with them. That stung, though he laughed it off, loud and careless, joking that he’d buy the popcorn so they’d at least get something out of the deal.
The strange thing was, Yeon-hee wasn’t even wrong. She had a point. Jung-bae could do better than wasting time with him. Gi-hun knew it, though he never said it. He carried the awareness like a stone in his shoe, irritating but never enough to make him stop.
It wasn’t that he needed Jung-bae, not really — but Jung-bae was the only one who knew him through and through, who’d seen him flounder and fall and still dragged him along to the bar the next day. To lose that would feel like losing his balance on a rope he’d never learned how to walk properly in the first place.
And with each cigarette, Gi-hun wondered when he — the last person in his life — would finally leave. Because even someone like Jung-bae had to have limits to his patience.
The world outside didn’t make sense. Everyone was moving forward too fast. His mother, for example, had been pushing him for years to settle down, buy a small apartment, and find a wife who would finally get him in order. She loved him — he knew she did — but she also loved to remind him of every flaw he had, as if the repetition might shame him into growing up.
He sometimes wondered what it would’ve been like if Sang-woo hadn’t gone to the US. Sang-woo, who was too clever, too clean-cut, too everything. Next to him, Gi-hun had always been the clown, the sidekick, but at least they balanced each other. They had history — childhood games in Ssangmun-dong, shared lunches, arguments about girls. Now it was just postcards and the occasional letter, formal things written in tidy handwriting that didn’t sound like Sang-woo anymore.
Ssangmun-dong.
Despite everything, he wore his origins like a badge of honor. He didn't usually get attached to anything, but his hometown was different. Whenever he moved, he would shout his origins from the rooftops, even if no one asked.
And his job. Working at Dragon Motors wasn't prestigious. The walls were yellowed from years of exhaust fumes, and the radio in the corner always seemed to be stuck between two stations, crackling every time someone walked by.
He knew the factory wouldn't last forever, but he didn't know what “forever” would look like. He couldn't imagine himself in an office, couldn't imagine sitting still at a desk while the clock ticked. At least cars made sense. You could take them apart, lay each piece on the floor, and, if you had enough patience and persistence, put them back together again. Life didn't work that way, and that made Gi-hun feel uneasy.
At least it was a steady job, and the salary and pathetic bonus were enough to keep his mother's anger at bay. It was enough for soju, cigarettes, and the occasional new shirt.
And, after months of saving, for this beauty.
In the corner of the workshop stood a black motorcycle, a cruiser. Yamaha. A great model that Gi-hun had dreamed of since he finished elementary school. And after years of dreaming, he finally bought it.
Cheaply, from a shady acquaintance of a cousin of his friend from technical school, but still. It was unregistered, but still.
With some strange license plates, which he didn't even bother to check — he preferred to live in ignorance.
The man who sold it to him had avoided eye contact, counting the crumpled bills too quickly, and had disappeared before Gi-hun could even check if the engine turned over. But when he kicked the pedal that first time and the bike roared, rough and guttural, something in his chest had answered like a drum.
So, yes — he had an illegal motorcycle, and all he did with it was carefully avoid the street near the police station in Mia-dong, which was difficult because both the station and Dragon Motors were located in the center.
If they caught him — oh dear, if they caught him, they would take away his driver's license. And probably the motorcycle too. And if he caused an accident, they would put him in jail. The law was a bitch, but it also wasn't like Gi-hun wasn't taking a conscious risk.
And then there was the other fear. Not death, not accidents — the police. He’d imagine the blue lights flashing behind him, the siren tearing through the night, the officer’s voice barking at him to pull over. He’d picture himself in handcuffs, his mother’s face pale and tight with fury, her shrill voice echoing in his ears as the neighbors whispered.
The worst part wasn’t even the idea of jail. It was losing the bike. Losing that feeling. Losing the only thing that seemed bigger than Dragon Motors, bigger than Ssangmun-dong, bigger than the whole dreary rhythm of his life.
So, he told himself he’d be smart. Careful. He’d only take it out when the streets were quiet, when the chance of running into the cops was slim. And if he happened to push the throttle a little too hard, if he happened to chase the wind until his eyes watered and his hands ached from gripping the handles, well — what was the point of having the damn thing if he didn’t use it?
Still, sometimes at night, staring at the ceiling of his room, he thought about it differently. About the boy he’d once been — scrawny knees, dirt under his nails, pressed up against the gate of a mechanic’s shop just to stare at the motorcycles parked outside. He remembered the ache of wanting, the way it lodged in his chest, a quiet hunger he never admitted to anyone. And now here it was. Not the perfect dream bike, not the gleaming showroom model, but close enough to fool the boy he used to be.
Maybe, just maybe, that was the real danger of it — not the cops, not the crashes, but the fact that for the first time in a long time, he felt like he wanted something enough to be afraid of losing it.
“Have you forgotten already?” Jung-bae muttered maliciously.
Gi-hun snorted.
“I haven't forgotten,” he replied lightly. “Tteokbokki, Coke, and a new brain for you.”
“Liver. You can buy a brain for yourself,” Jung-bae corrected him, but Gi-hun just laughed melodiously as he walked away toward the huge garage door.
One of his middle-aged co-workers noticed it and shouted for Gi-hun to buy him something, but he didn't even turn around, dismissively waving his hand at him.
The July air was hot but not stuffy. The sun was beating down, so he put on his sunglasses. Hands in his pockets, a trickle of sweat running down his neck, his slightly wet bangs now looking as if they had been styled with gel. He walked along, humming some song, barely reaching the highest notes. It had been playing constantly on the radio lately and had somehow stuck in his brain. He couldn't get it out of his head.
He had thirty minutes. Thirty glorious minutes to escape the metallic hum of engines, the faint stink of oil and sweat, and the conversations about torque and assembly schedules that made his brain itch.
The supermarket was about five minutes away. The tteokbokki stand was literally right next to the parking lot. But first, he had to leave the main road and walk through a few narrow streets between housing estates.
It was particularly dingy here. Gi-hun was made for better surroundings. Apartment buildings in big cities, in modern, developed countries. New York in the US, or Los Angeles and Koreatown. Or Tokyo. Or even that damn Seoul, as long as it wasn't Mia-dong, as long as it wasn't Gangbuk-gu, but some apartment at the very top of a skyscraper in Gangnam-gu.
But he didn't complain about Ssangmun-dong. Never. Which didn't change the fact that if he could, he would move.
Where it was more modern in terms of technology, it was also more modern in terms of views. People were walking, or rather running, towards new technological inventions, towards the big world. Everyone lived their own lives, too busy to stick their noses into other people's business — not like here in the provinces. Your neighbor knew better than you what you had for breakfast yesterday, and as soon as you opened the fridge, two blocks away, they were already wishing you bon appétit.
Gi-hun fought his whole life. From the moment he was born, he rebelled constantly. He didn't want a pacifier until someone took it away from him, he didn't want diapers, and then he did, he didn't want to sleep, but he also didn't want to stay awake — basically, he did anything to spite his mother. And she, despite everything, treated him like the apple of her eye.
He loved her more than life itself, but he forgot about her too often. Sometimes he realized this, but it didn't bother him much. Whenever he tried to be nice to her, she immediately thought he was trying to suck up to her because he wanted something. That's why their relationship was mainly based on. Mal-soon constantly asking her son to get his act together and pull himself together, and he just did more and more crazy things that made her ashamed of him.
Like when he brought that guy to bed? He didn't know what had gotten into him then. He never invited anyone over. Only Jung-bae, but not for sex, of course. He always met up with others at their places or public toilets.
It wasn't that his mother caught them in the act — no, then he would have burned with shame. She caught them just before — before the first piece of clothing fell to the carpet, when all their intimacy was limited to kisses.
He remembered her expression. Her mouth curved dangerously, her lips parted. Her eyes widened significantly, her pupils shrank. He threw the guy out of the house before she could even utter a syllable.
And then she screamed. Damn it, she screamed for at least an hour. Then she started crying. She hid her face in her hands, acting as if Gi-hun was literally the worst thing that had ever happened to her.
It wasn't even that Gi-hun was dating men as well as women. That is — it was also about that, of course. But, above all, she was concerned about what people would say. And then Gi-hun started yelling. That she always said she was ashamed of him, what kind of mother she was.
So that was actually the exact reason why Gi-hun was kicked out of the house back then.
The argument with his mother had been a long time ago, but it still sat heavy in the back of his mind like grease that refused to wash off. Even when she forgave him, even when she pushed a bowl of kimchi stew in front of him with all the irritation and tenderness only a mother could combine, there was something different. Her eyes lingered too long on him, suspicious, almost waiting for him to slip again.
And maybe he wanted to — out of spite, out of defiance, out of that stupid reflex he’d had since birth to do the opposite of what anyone asked of him. If she wanted him to hide, to marry some polite girl, to wear a suit and stand with his hands folded, then maybe he’d do the reverse. Maybe he’d kiss whoever the hell he wanted, and maybe he’d do it loud enough that the whole damn block could hear.
But the truth was, for all his bravado, Gi-hun didn’t feel brave. He felt like a man standing on a cracked floorboard, daring people to step closer, praying they wouldn’t. It wasn’t easy, being a man like him in 2001 — not in Mia-dong, not in a factory where the only jokes men — much older than him — knew were about breasts and football. You learned quickly which parts of yourself to keep hidden. You learned how to laugh along with things you didn’t actually find funny, how to drink until you could forget what you wanted, how to act so unaffected that people mistook it for confidence.
So, yes — he wore sunglasses even when it wasn’t sunny. He leaned against the walls like he owned them. He threw his smile around like it was free, though it cost him more than anyone knew. That was the game. Play the brat, the playboy, the idiot who didn’t care. If they thought you didn’t care, they couldn’t touch you.
So he told himself, he would be fine even if everyone went away.
The alley he entered was empty.
He dug a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, along with a square metal lighter with a convex, shiny silver skull. It was a lighter he had never bought — it had simply appeared in the pocket of his jeans after some party, and it had stayed there ever since.
He put one of the short, thick cigarettes in his mouth and opened the lighter. Without pausing for a second, he rubbed the metal knob, but nothing ignited except his skin.
He tried a few more times, but there wasn't a single spark. He frowned, clicking again, and then, for literally two seconds, there was a small flame above the lighter. He seized the opportunity, bringing his face closer, and the cigarette lit up. He immediately took a drag and blew out a cloud of gray smoke.
So he moved on, feeling the warmth fill his lungs. He sighed, and the sound echoed softly down the alley.
He entered another street. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, closing his eyes.
Silence.
Almost.
As if on cue, he heard a strange sound — something like whimpering or sobbing. He looked around slightly, but saw no animals, no one. He shrugged and kept walking. He took a drag, harder than usual, and then he heard a few quick steps, followed by a light tug on the corner of his shirt from behind. He began to choke on the smoke, turning quickly, ready to fend off an attack.
But it wasn't an attack.
It was too soft for that. Too hesitant, like the brush of a moth’s wing against his sleeve. His whole body, taut as a spring for that split second, unwound with a jolt that left him almost dizzy. He coughed harshly, smoke scraping his throat, eyes watering as he bent slightly at the waist to catch his breath. The tug remained, light but insistent, at the corner of his shirt.
When he blinked the sting out of his eyes, he saw it — not a mugger, not some drunk staggering out of a side alley, but a boy. Crying.
For a second, they just stared at each other. Gi-hun, with his sunglasses and messy hair, and the kid, with his oversized T-shirt damp from tears and sweat.
“Um… ah-ahjussi…”
Gi-hun froze, the word stabbing into him like a knife.
Ahjussi...?
He was twenty-six. Not forty. Not balding, not stooped. Twenty-six, with bangs that still held up after hours in the factory and a grin that still got him free drinks. Ahjussi? He wanted to grab the word out of the air and stomp on it until it was dust.
The boy reached him, tugging at his sleeve, hiccupping still. “I—”
And then burst into tears once again.
Gi-hun stared down at the kid, then slowly lowered his sunglasses, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Okay, calm down,” he sighed, looking around slightly, as if waiting for someone, some ajumma, to suddenly appear and take responsibility for him. However, the street was completely empty, as if to spite him.
The boy wiped his tears with his small hands, his nose all snotty, which made Gi-hun grimace slightly.
“First of all,” he said, voice flat, “everything but ahjussi. I’m not an ahjussi. You see this face? I don’t even have wrinkles yet. Got it?”
The boy sniffled, blinking up at him, confused but nodding earnestly.
“Great,” he muttered, pursing his lips. He took a closer look at the boy.
A white, slightly loose T-shirt, a short-sleeved plaid shirt over it, and neat, clean jeans. His hair wasn't very long either. Probably eight or nine years old, but Gi-hun didn't know much about children.
It was more that the kid didn't seem neglected. At first, Gi-hun thought he might be the child of beggars or alcoholics who had come to ask him for money. But this kid didn't look like he wanted money from him.
Gi-hun rubbed the back of his neck, sunglasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. He exhaled smoke, watched it curl and drift into the hot July air, disappearing like every intention he ever had. “Alright, kid,” he muttered. “So what’s the deal? You lost? You drop your ice cream somewhere? Cat stuck in a tree?”
The boy hiccupped again, his face scrunching up. He tried to speak, but what came out was a wet garble, heavy with sobs. Gi-hun tilted his head back toward the empty street, scanning. Still no one. Not a single adult in sight. Just him, the boy, and the echo of his own exasperation bouncing off the cement walls.
He took a drag on his cigarette.
It reminded him suddenly of the afternoons he used to spend trailing after Sang-woo, back when they were small enough to play tag in alleys. Sang-woo always hated it when Gi-hun lagged behind or scraped his knees. He’d scold him, shove him forward, but he’d also know where to take him, what to do. Sang-woo was good at that — being decisive, responsible, being the one people turned to. Gi-hun never was. He’d always been better at running away than stepping in.
He slowly crouched down, resting his forearm with the still-smoking cigarette on his bent knee so as not to appear so tall and unapproachable. Up close, the boy's face was stained, his eyelashes wet, and his nose covered with snot. It was a messy, unfiltered sadness. Gi-hun felt a stomach-churning discomfort he couldn't name.
“Hey. Breathe,” he said, softer than he intended. “You’re gonna choke on your own crying like that.” He flicked his lighter open and shut absentmindedly in one hand, metal clicking sharply in the quiet. The boy hiccupped again, tried to steady his breathing. “What’s your name?”
The kid gulped, wiping his nose with the heel of his hand. “J-jun-ho.”
Gi-hun put the lighter back in his pocket.
“Cool name,” he replied, turning his head slightly to take another drag.
“Really?”
“Hell yeah,” he nodded, quickly blowing the smoke out to the side. “So, where's your umma, Jun-ho?”
“Ah,” Jun-ho shuddered, somewhat surprised by the question. “She's in Busan, at work.”
Gi-hun's eyes widened.
Where the hell?
“Then what are you doing alone in Seoul?” He stood up straight, now completely wanting to rid himself of responsibility for the situation. Anyone, any adult who could be entrusted with this boy.
Jun-ho shook his head so hard his damp fringe flopped across his forehead. “Not alone,” he muttered, though his voice was small, the syllables breaking apart like cheap glass. “With my hyung. He told me not to go anywhere alone, but I didn't listen.”
Gi-hun tilted his head, squinting at the boy through his sunglasses, which had slid down again. With my hyung. The words hit him oddly, tugging at some half-buried memory he’d rather not exhume. He thought of afternoons when he was a kid, trailing behind Sang-woo like an unwanted shadow, the neighborhood dust sticking to his shins, always a step behind. Always being told, Don’t do this, don’t touch that, don’t run off. And of course, he had run off. That was who he was — the kid who bolted. The one who got lost on purpose, if only to force someone to come looking.
But this Jun-ho, this little mess of sweat and tears, didn’t seem like he’d done it on purpose. He looked like the kind of kid who wanted to listen, who wanted to do what his hyung said, but who had slipped up, maybe for a second, and now carried the entire guilt of the world on his small, narrow shoulders. His mouth quivered, not just from crying but from shame, that awful, hot shame of having disappointed someone whose opinion mattered. Gi-hun knew that shame too well.
He let the cigarette hang between his lips, a crooked punctuation mark, while he studied the boy. Neat clothes. Clean nails, though a bit bitten at the tips. He wasn’t neglected, not some stray kid with lice and dirty socks. He belonged to someone. And that someone — the hyung — was somewhere nearby. Probably tearing his hair out, maybe running through the streets screaming.
This hyung couldn't have been an adult. After all, Jun-ho was probably not even ten years old, so his older brother couldn't have been much older. He was probably just a teenager whose mother had told him to take care of his younger brother, but instead, he was hanging out with his friends.
Gi-hun was going to teach that punk a lesson as soon as they found him.
“Alright,” he muttered, voice low, as if negotiating with himself more than the boy. “So, you’re with your hyung. Where’s he now? Did you two get split up in the market? At the bus stop? Hm?”
Jun-ho’s lips trembled. “Police station,” he whispered.
Gi-hun raised his eyebrows, the cigarette slipping dangerously from his lower lip. “Police station?” He plucked it out and flicked ash onto the ground, frowning. “Did he get into some trouble?”
The boy shook his head a bit too fast.
“No, he works there!”
The kid talked a lot, but at the same time didn't tell him anything. Gi-hun no longer understood what was going on — his mother in Busan, his hyung, a teenager working for the police. It didn't make any sense.
“Yeah, right.”
“Seriously!” he said insistently. “He's the best cop in the world!”
Gi-hun blew smoke out of his mouth, which made Jun-ho grimace dramatically, almost theatrically. The man's face soured. He looked at the cigarette, then at the boy, then back at the cigarette, more than half of which was still left.
He sighed and dropped it on the ground, stomping on it with his shoe.
“You can't do that!” Jun-ho exclaimed, clearly outraged by this littering of the environment.
“Oh, yeah?” Gi-hun snorted. “I wasted it just so you wouldn't make a face. If you still have something to say about it, I'm leaving.”
He turned slightly on his heel, but before he could do so, he felt his shirt being pulled again. “No, don't leave me here! Please, help me!”
Gi-hun froze mid-step, his whole body stiffening as the small hand tugged insistently at his shirt. He turned slowly, almost reluctantly, and crouched again, the July sun glaring off the metal of the nearby cars, turning the alley into a furnace. Sweat clung to his neck, sliding down in thin rivulets beneath the messy curtain of hair that refused to obey any comb or product. He could feel the weight of the city pressing in — the distant roar of buses, the tinny music from a street vendor, a dog barking somewhere beyond a brick wall — but for the moment, all of it seemed to fade, muted under the sharp, desperate energy radiating from the boy.
The most logical option would have been to simply take the kid to the supermarket, do his shopping, and then hand him over to the cashiers. But there was something about this boy that aroused in Gi-hun an inexplicable empathy that he felt too often.
“Ah, shit,” Gi-hun muttered under his breath.
He looked down at the boy — red eyes, trembling lip, chest still heaving. And against all his better judgment, against every instinct that screamed you don’t do kids, Gi-hun sighed again.
“Fine. Let’s go find your hyung. Police station’s close anyway.”
Jun-ho’s face lit up instantly, as if Gi-hun had just promised him a trip to Disneyland. “Really?! You're the best!” he chirped.
He moved on without even waiting for the boy. The kid ran after him, already in a better mood. All in all, it was hardly surprising that he had gotten lost here — these streets really did form a maze, and you had to know the area well to avoid getting lost. When Gi-hun started working here, he sometimes had to wander around the neighborhood a bit before he found his way.
They walked a little further, right next to a property where the owner kept a large dog, a pit bull. Jun-ho jumped back slightly and hid behind Gi-hun, quickly intertwining his hand with his. The man shuddered at the touch, then sighed heavily once again.
The sun beat down mercilessly, the concrete radiating heat so strong it felt like walking on the surface of a stovetop. He noticed the sheen of sweat glistening along Jun-ho’s temple and the way his small shoulders hunched instinctively, as if bracing for something terrible that hadn’t yet come.
“What's your name?” Jun-ho finally asked, lifting his head, his face no longer showing any trace of his earlier agony and tears.
“It's Gi-hun,” he announced, then puffed out his chest proudly, as if on cue. “I'm from Ssangmun-dong.”
Jun-ho nodded, then sighed. “I don't know where that is.”
“It's not far,” Gi-hun replied briefly, looking around to make sure they wouldn't get hit by a car. “Jun-ho, are you sure your hyung works for the police?” he asked, because the image of the boy's brother as a teenager wouldn't leave him alone. “Isn't he too young for that?”
Jun-ho looked at him as if Gi-hun had just grown a second head. “He graduated from the police academy not long ago,” he explained. “He’s... twenty-five.”
Gi-hun almost choked on his saliva.
“Your hyung is that much older than you?”
Jun-ho just shrugged, as if it wasn't his problem. Gi-hun scratched his temple, wondering why he had gotten himself involved in all this in the first place.
He stared down at the hand, then at the boy, then sighed. “Well, fine. Hold on. Don’t start crying again. You're a brave guy, aren't you?”
And that, somehow, triggered something in Jun-ho that Gi-hun didn't want to know existed.
“I am brave!”
The boy grinned, gap-toothed, and began chattering immediately.
And that was how it started.
“Do you like tteokbokki too? My hyung says it’s bad for my teeth, but I don’t care. One time, I ate five skewers of fish cakes and didn’t even throw up. Do you have a car? You smell like a car. Is that your job? Do you drive really fast? My hyung drives like an old man—”
The rest of the walk to the police station was… educational. Junho jabbered incessantly about everything — the traffic lights, the smell of the rice cakes, how fast he could run, which car was fastest, and why Gi-hun’s hair looked so weird today (in his opinion, too shiny). Gi-hun found himself responding, sometimes with sarcastic quips, sometimes with genuine curiosity. The kid was ridiculous, yes, but there was a certain energy that made the sun hotter, the street narrower, the city somehow less grim.
By the time they were two blocks away from the station, Gi-hun had learned:
- Junho had a collection of toy cars that he insisted were superior to Gi-hun’s knowledge of actual engines.
- He could list every rank in the police force, whether he understood it or not.
- He adored his hyung, Hwang In-ho, the rookie cop, with the intensity of a small tornado.
- He asked exactly thirteen questions per minute and expected answers.
Gi-hun glanced at the time on his phone and concluded that tteokbokki was out of the question for today. He would drop the kid off at the police station and buy himself and Jung-bae some cup soup or instant noodles. They were really close, literally only like two minutes away.
Jun-ho kicked a pebble down the sidewalk, sending it skittering across the sun-baked pavement until it rattled against the gutter. His voice picked up again almost immediately, as if he’d been waiting only for the sound to die before filling the silence once more.
“My hyung is really fast. Not when he's driving a car though… but! He once caught a thief just by running! He can run faster than a bus.”
“Yeah? Faster than a bus? Kid, unless that bus was parked, no way.”
“No, really! And he’s strong too. He can lift me with just one hand, like this.” Jun-ho flapped his skinny arm in the air to demonstrate, nearly tripping over the curb.
Gi-hun instinctively grabbed his hand tighter, and his other hand shot out toward him as if to provide additional support. The jolt surprised him — it wasn’t just the physical reflex, but the sharp, protective ache that stabbed through his chest when Jun-ho stumbled. He cursed under his breath, steadying the kid, and pushed him forward.
“Your hyung sounds like a superhero,” Gi-hun muttered, voice dripping with sarcasm.
Jun-ho didn’t catch the sarcasm — or ignored it. “He is!”
“Cool, yeah,” he muttered, though the word tasted sour.
Jun-ho, oblivious, still barreled on: “I think he would like you.”
Gi-hun stopped mid-step. He turned his head slowly, one eyebrow lifting in incredulity. “What?”
“You’re funny,” Jun-ho insisted, tugging at his hand again. His small fingers were sticky with sweat, and Gi-hun felt the clammy press against his own palm like a brand. “And you don’t get mad when I talk a lot. My hyung says I talk too much, but he never tells me to be quiet. And you don't too. So I think you two would get along. He doesn't really have any friends anyway. He spends all of his time with me.”
The words hit Gi-hun strangely. He wasn’t used to being described as someone’s type of person — not by kids, not by adults, not by anyone. Usually, he was just “the lazy one,” “the screw-up,” “the guy who can fix a carburetor but nothing else really.” But here was this boy, gap-toothed and sweaty, declaring with unshakable confidence that his cop-hyung would like him.
Gi-hun barked out a sharp laugh, not amused but startled, the sound bouncing off the brick walls of the street. “Kid, if your hyung’s really a cop, I’m the last person he’d want to get along with.”
Jun-ho tilted his head, confusion flickering in his wide, dark eyes. “Why?”
The question cut sharper than Gi-hun expected. He scratched at his neck, the skin itchy with heat and discomfort. He thought about it — how to explain that some people were made for rules, for straight lines and shiny shoes, while others, like him, had been born crooked with illegal motorcycles. When his father was still alive, he had told him once, drunk on cheap soju, that some people were nails and some were hammers. Gi-hun had never figured out which one he was, only that he was always bent out of shape, always ending up in someone else’s toolbox.
“Because,” he said finally, the word dragged out like gravel, “I don’t like cops.”
Jun-ho had already opened his mouth to deny it, perhaps even argue, but before he could utter a word, a noise sounded behind them.
A metallic scream of brakes slicing through the air, sharp enough to make Jun-ho flinch and squeeze his hand tighter. Gi-hun turned his head, already annoyed, already ready to curse out whatever idiot driver thought these side streets were a Formula 1 track.
Then came the slam of car doors, multiple, fast, purposeful. Boots hitting the ground, the shuffle of fabric, and urgency. For a split second, Gi-hun’s instincts from a hundred street fights told him: wrong kind of energy. Trouble.
A figure stormed out, tall, broad-shouldered despite the rookie’s stiffness still clinging to him, the sharp lines of a uniform crisp against the sweat-stained day. His jaw was set like stone, his eyes burning with panic that found instant release in fury. And before Gi-hun could even register the shift in air, before he could let go of Jun-ho’s small hand, the rookie was on him.
“Hey—”
The first blow landed across his cheek, hot and shocking, spinning him sideways. The second came quick, a fist slamming into his chest, knocking the breath from his lungs. He staggered, the taste of blood already rising sharp in his mouth.
“You bastard! Pedo! Pervert!” the uniform barked, voice cracking with rage. “You think you can take a kid off the street, you scum?! Jun-ho, get in the car!”
The metal frames of his sunglasses broke on his nose, tearing his skin, and Gi-hun could already feel streams of blood running down his face. He barely managed to shield his head before another blow rattled his ear. He saw flashes of sunlight, brick, a blur of Jun-ho’s terrified face.
“I’ll kill you,” the rookie growled, pinning him against the wall, forearm pressed hard against Gi-hun’s throat. “You sick freak. Luring children—”
Jun-ho’s voice pierced the chaos, shrill and desperate. “In-ho, stop, I'm scared! He was helping me! I asked him to!”
But the words barely registered in the red haze burning behind In-ho’s eyes. His breath came hard and fast, hot against Gi-hun’s cheek, the tremor of barely controlled fear vibrating through every muscle.
He sucked in a ragged breath, spitting blood from his mouth, and tilted his head enough to glare up at the face above him. A young cop, sharp jawline, uniform too new, eyes blazing with righteous fury.
And Gi-hun hated him instantly.
He felt something in his chest constrict — anger, yes, but also the humiliation of being mistaken for what he wasn't. He had been manhandled in a public place, and the man who’d done it — Hwang In-ho — hadn’t spared the ceremony of regret.
“Do you know who you're dealing with?” he hissed, his voice raw but steady, catching the word like a weapon. He shoved back against the pressure on his throat, eyes narrowed, teeth bared. “I'm Seong Gi-hun from Ssangmun-dong! I pay my taxes! And the police beat me up on the street!”
The man looked at him again, now with a hint of terror — as if he had just realized what he had done by reacting too quickly, too rashly.
He stepped back, and Gi-hun could finally breathe. He looked at the patch on his uniform — a pathetic uniform, not that of a detective, but of a traffic cop. It was clear that he was new; his vest still smelled of plastic and the factory. Hwang In-ho, it was embroidered on his chest.
“I’m going to sue you,” Gi-hun continued, his voice raw but steady, catching the word like a weapon. He shoved back against the pressure on his throat, eyes narrowed, teeth bared. “I’ll fucking sue you for assault. You don’t get to beat the shit out of anyone in the street because you can’t control your imagination. You think your badge gives you the right?”
He staggered slightly, and the world spun before his eyes for a moment. He could still taste blood on his tongue and feel the pain — sharp pain in his jaw, his nose, his chest. He thought that he should've hit back. Because he had wanted to. He had wanted to so much. To swing, to claw, to prove he wasn’t just some punching bag. But there had been a badge in the way, and a kid watching. And Gi-hun knew — somewhere deep, beneath the pride and the bruises — that hitting back would’ve destroyed more than his jaw.
Hell, the fucking superhero-cop-hyung that Jun-ho kept talking about. You two would get along. Now, the kid was standing there staring at the whole scene with tears in his eyes and his mouth agape.
The silence that followed was suffocating. Even the city seemed to pause — the distant roar of a bus engine, the whine of cicadas in the trees, all muffled under the hammering of three heartbeats: one erratic and panicked, one pounding with fury, and one choking on guilt.
The rookie didn’t apologize. He couldn’t. The word wouldn’t fit in his mouth. Maybe his pride wouldn’t let it. Maybe his fear wouldn’t let it.
But the look in his eyes betrayed him — a flicker of realization, a crack of shame, the kind of awareness that burrowed deep and wouldn’t leave, no matter how tightly it was buried.
And Gi-hun saw it. He saw it, and it only stoked his fury hotter.
Jun-ho sobbed louder, pulling at his brother’s sleeve, still begging him to stop, even if they had already stopped. His small body was trembling with confusion and terror. In-ho kept staring, his face carved from stone, but his eyes — his eyes betrayed him. Wide, wild, and hunted, like someone who had just realized he’d lit a match in a room filled with gasoline.
And Gi-hun, bloody but unbroken, spat on the ground at his feet.
“Fuck cops,” he muttered.
Gi-hun finally pushed off the wall, chest heaving, knees weak but legs moving on instinct. The heat of the sun was unbearable now, pressing down on him like a physical weight, but he welcomed it — anything to replace the lingering pressure of In-ho’s forearm against his throat. He spat blood onto the pavement again, the bitter taste sliding down his throat, and wiped the trickle from his cheek with the back of his hand, cursing under his breath.
He glanced briefly at Jun-ho — the boy who had taken up his entire break, but at the same time made Gi-hun feel a little more valuable for a moment — only to be called a pedophile and a pervert a moment later.
He started walking away, slow at first, testing the strength in his limbs, feeling the ache in his ribs, and the sting across his jaw. He felt as if someone had thrown him off the tenth floor and told him to walk. He didn't get many blows, but those that he did receive, delivered with the precision of a police academy, effectively left him feeling a little dazed.
He could still feel In-ho’s gaze burning into the back of his neck, a mixture of outrage and fear, like a phantom hand gripping his shoulders. He didn’t look back. He wouldn’t. There was no point. The kid’s brother — the overzealous, righteous, rookie cop — was standing there frozen between fury and shame, and Gi-hun had no interest in waiting for whatever hesitation or guilt might follow.