Chapter 6: interlude

“Hey, Dad! Mom! I’m going out!” Baek Jinsung called out from the front door.

“You better not be going out to drink all day, you rascal!”

“See you later, Jinsung! Don’t come back late for dinner please!”

Both his parents said simultaneously in response. One in Criticism and another a heartening goodbye from his father and mother respectively.

Tying his shoes’ laces, Jinsung yelled back, “Don’t worry Dad! I’m just meeting Jihu over some coffee. And Mom, I’ll be here in time for dinner!” And stepped out of his house.

Outside, an array of eyes caŧching houses greeted his views from either side of the road. Jinsung took to the sidewalk, leisurely making his way across the neighborhood in the direction of the nearest bus stop. It was a short 5-minute walk toward the bus stop, during which he occasionally stopped to greet the various inhabitants of his neighborhood that were hanging out outside their houses.

‘I’m missing driving a car. I should start looking for a driver's job at least to scratch my itch.’ Jinsung idly thought while waiting for his bus. With autumn coming, the wind was slightly chilly and the temperature outside was starting to become colder. ‘ I should start dressing a little bit warmer, going out in a shirt isn’t going to cut it anymore’ He mused again, rubbing his hand together. He didn’t have to wait for long, soon enough, his bus arrived and Jinsung hopped in without delay.

The ride to the commercial district was a quiet one, Jinsung passed it in silence while listening to some music. Before long, he found himself sitting at the terrasse seat of a local café called ‘Eunhyue’s place’, waiting for his friend's arrival with some muffins and a cup of cappuccino.

‘As always, Seol Jihu-sunbae is late,’ Jinsung sighs despondently. He took out his phone to entertain himself and started texting Shiyung.

Jinsung took a sip of his coffee while waiting for Shihyung to answer back.

Shihyung
Huh, are you always out drinking
in the morning?

Their conversation carried on like that, with Jinsung trying and failing to convince his junior to accompany him for drinks with his friends. At some point, he promised to introduce Shihyung to some older girls from his female friends' side or even some around his age from his younger sister's friend group. Only for Shihyung to refuse with a…

Shihyung
… lol no thanks, it’s alright
I’m already good in this department
I have a girlfriend

‘Pfff’ Jinsung nearly spat out his drink. ‘The fuck? Shihyung? The same rude, antisocial prick who doesn't give a damn about socializing. Did he bag himself a girlfriend? When? How?’ Mind reeling from this small revelation, he inquired back.

He hesitated… before deciding to add a lol at the end to not appear rude.

‘I don’t know how Shihyung is able to text like that, youngsters really… geez.’

Shihyung
My neighborhood,
imma present her to you one day.
She’s older than me so
she’s a little shy about dating me.
Gotta force her to just accept we’re dating now.

Jinsung raises an eyebrow. ‘Kek, this kid. Are you going to blackmail her or something?’

Shihyung
Lmao, one sided?
Who do you take me for?
Of course not! Pfff, with my rizz
It’s not harassment, but seduction.

What the heck does rizz means? Is that rice? Before Jinsung asked him for clarification, someone spoke to him.

“Care to bring me in whatever it is that you’re doing that’s so interesting?”

Lifting his head, the view of a clear-shaven, brown hair man wearing a blue suit greeted him.

“Jihu-sunbae! As always you’re late.”

“Eh, pfff. Unlike some people who are quite free, I’m still working and busy. I’m on my break, I took the time to come to see you, and yet this is how I’m being greeted.” The suited man shook his head in reply.

Jinsung laughed disarmingly, “Come on Sunbae, it’s been long since I last saw you. You can forgive my impoliteness for this much. Take a seat Sunbae, You’re still taking your coffee black right?” Motioning Seol Jihu to take a seat, He waved at the waitress to order another cup of coffee.

Seol Jihu rolled his eyes and sat down, “Still the same old, I see that the military didn’t manage to change your manners.” Loosening his tie, he fished a cigarette from his breast pocket and a lighter from his pants, lightened it, and took a drag. “How are you doing? Is the little missus alright too?”

The waiter came back with Seol Jihu’s cup and deposited it on the table. Jinsung chuckled, “Yuri is fine, I missed her a lot. She grew up a lot ahaha, She’s in her last year of high school and she even reaches my shoulder now. Everything alright, College a bitch and a half, I already missed a whole semester and came late for another, so I’m going back next year for my third year.”

“Want one?”

Being offered a cig, Jinsung shook his head. “I’m trying to stop smoking.”

Seol Jihu raised an eyebrow, “Euh. Really? Alright.” Then shrugged. “That's neat, you should do your best to quit. Your father wasn’t pleased when I got you hooked on cig”

Jinsung laughs awkwardly while scratching his head. “Sorry for that, I know how nagging the old man can be sometimes.”

Seol Jihu waved his hand, “Nah, it’s alright. Introducing smoking to a teen wasn’t my proudest accomplishment honestly. It’s all good.” Cracking his neck, he brought out a small yellow file folder. “Here, I ask an old buddy of mine who’s an investigator to dig into your new friend's past. Later on, with the result of the investigation, I ran it to a friend who owed me one. He works in IT, so he was able to take an in-depth cursory look into things like bills payment history, annual salary, credit score, etc… There's a USB key within it”

“Thank.” Jinsung took the file folder from his hands. He briefly took a parsing look at the files before closing the folder and placing it on the table. “Did you take a look?”

“No, not particularly. Though as per standard, I’ve been notified that the investigation didn’t reveal anything illegal or shady like tax evasion, fraud, identity theft, or any white-collar crimes. The only thing I know is the name of the person investigated and two minor things that the investigator has flagged.” Seol Jihu answered, “Why?” dragging a puff.

“No, for nothing, just checking. It didn’t reveal some criminal connection or something right?”

Seol Jihu paused with his cup in hand, “I wasn’t going to ask initially but now I have to, knowing you. Are you looking after someone dangerous?”

Jinsung refuted, “No. It’s nothing dangerous, at least as far as I know.” He stopped, idly steering his cup. “I’m looking into the family situation of a good friend of mine. His situation is pretty unusual, so I wanted to take a look into it for him. Also, you didn’t answer my question.”

Seol Jihu hummed, “I see. Rest assured then, I wasn’t made aware of dangerous stuff, and you can take a look at it for yourself later on.”

“That's good then, thank you again for your help. What am I owning you?”

Seol Jihu smirks. “Several drinks for me and my team.”

“Damn.” Jinsung winced. Seol Jihu chuckled, “We have a newbie on the team, so prepare yourself for paying the bill. Team welcome’s party are quite wild.” Jinsung’s wince grew worse.

On this note, they started to trade barbs and make idle small talk about their past shared work experience and what they’re doing right now. Soon, it was time for Seol Jihu to go back to his shift.

“Well, it was pleasant to see you again, Jinsung. Take care and don’t hesitate to pass by to visit the team.” Seol Jihu said with a smile on his face, getting up from his seat.

“Take care of yourself Sunbae, and greet everyone for me. I’ll see you all at the party.” Jinsung replied while also getting up to shake his hand goodbye. Seol Jihu took his hand and drew him in a hearty hug, patting his back.

Before long, Jinsung watched Seol Jihu’s back as he was walking out of the café in the direction of a black Hyundai with tinted windows.

Sitting back, he took a last gulp of his cold cappuccino, opened the folder, and started reading it. Truthfully, he wasn’t usually the type to put his nose in other people's business. However, Shihyung's circumstances were too unusual and he felt like something wasn’t adding on. If his friend had asked for his help to look into his past, he would have made use of his connections to help him uncover it.

‘But knowing him, and I was right, he didn’t ask for my help. He’s too stubborn.’

So, It fell on him to make sure that Shihyung wasn’t dealing with a shady past or a fishy adoptive family with criminal underbelly connections.

After a while, Jinsung released a sigh of relief while slumping in his seat. The investigation of his past and adoptive family has indeed highlighted two small incongruities but luckily enough, nothing else much alarming.

No criminal activity or connection, no shady debt, and no white-collar crimes. At least there was that. Though the last one may have been good for Shihyung if the investigation had revealed some proof of his relatives committing crimes.

The car accident in which Shihyung’s parents died almost four years ago was the famous Soyang river bridge crash. A truck driver transporting flammable materials has lost control of his vehicle and crashed into oncoming traffic. The resulting crash caused 27 deaths and 11 gravely wounded. From the deaths, Shihyung’s parents were part of the casualties, along with nine children, and notably a famous lawyer in charge of a scandal case involving Brazza.

The second thing highlighted was concerning Shin Donseuk's suspicious recent sale of his old house– less than one year ago to later the ownership change of Jeon Shihyung’s late parent's house from the inheritor Shihyung to his uncle Shin Donseuk. Apparently, Shihyung transferred the ownership of his late parent's house to his uncle.

‘Somewhat, I doubt it’ Jinsung furrowed his brow while thinking about this part. This was definitely suspicious. There was quite a lot of information in this folder, information that he was sure would help his friend and serve him well.

‘Now, how I’m going to give him that without coming out as creepy or stalkerish, Geez…’

Jinsung sighed tiredly.

---

On the drive back to the company, Seol Jihu’s younger colleague asked him curiously, “Sunbae, who was the guy you were talking with? You seem to be quite close.”

Seol Jihu took a drag from his cigarette. “You wouldn’t know about him, but he used to work with me. Like you, I was his supervisor in charge of training him.”

“Wait! What? Really?”

Seol Jihu sighed, pressing his cigarette against the ash tray. “Yes,” And asked. “Seung Ho, have you ever heard of the Geunhwa’s incident?” His trainee shook his head. “No, I don't think I ever heard of this. Why?”

Seol Jihu closes his eyes in reminiscence, “I would be surprised if you had ever heard of it. After all, this incident happened… hummm… when was it? I think it was six years ago… quite a long time now. How nostalgic, time sure flies.” Seol Jihu sighed while gazing through his front door glass. “I was still a newbie myself when it happened. I managed to get a job at Simtech’s security division after being released from the military. I was still young and fresh at the time. That day, one of the teams in charge of the security detail of the CEO’s niece raised an alarm.”

Seung Ho gulped. “What happened?”

“As you can guess, the CEO’s niece was kidnapped while she was playing in the park with some friends. The team in charge of security was assaulted by some gangsters, but luckily they managed to raise the alarm before being subdued.” Seol Jihu looked at his trainee from the corner of his eye, seeing that he had his attention, he continued his tale. “From our little investigation, it was a local gang from Geunhwa that was at the origin of the kidnapping. They called themselves ‘The Red Tigers’, they weren’t a big deal, just a small two-bit gang– a typical small gang with standard operations ranging from protection’s money to racket, and acting as muscle for loan sharks and shady nightclubs– that somewhat was ordained to kidnap and then later on release the CEO’s niece.”

“Are there really people dumb enough to kidnap a member of the Ha family? The family in charge of Simtech, one of South Korea's big four and primary army manufacturers?” Seung Ho asked in incredulity.

Seol Jihu chuckled, “Believe me, there are all kinds of dumb and crazy bastards in this world. For the 99% of sane people, there is always going to be 1% that insane.” He quickly cleared his throat hoping to change the subject. “Anyways, with some major local gangs' help, we manage to determine where the young miss was taken. A small decrepit building in the red-light district. I was part of the rescue team, we arrived on site with five teams, surrounded the building, and were about to storm it. But…” Seol Jihu trailed off with a faraway look on his face.

“BUT WHAT?”

Seol Jihu snapped out of his daze, “... But we were already too late.” He muttered. Seung Ho was about to let go of the steering wheel to shake him but before he could, Seol Jihu bellowed in irritation “Keep your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road!”

“Heep! SOrry! Yess! Team leader.”

“You're too fickle for your own good. Goddamn, keep watching the road!” He sighed, massaging his brow. “Anyways, when we arrived, we could hear some faint cries and groans. So we quickly storm the building, afraid for the young miss's safety, and inside… inside… It was pandemonium. It was as if someone had released a piece-size tornado in the building.”

Seol Jihu gazed at the empty air, remembering the scene. “The tiles were cracked, the furniture smashed haphazardly across the corridor, and the walls… the walls were painted red with bodies littering the floor. We advanced in apprehension, slowly through the small corridor. Ahead, the sound of fighting could be heard. When we took the stairs to the basement, what we saw was even worse…”

Seung Ho stayed silent, keeping his gaze fixed on the road. Seol Jihu released the breath he was holding. “A young man in a high school uniform, bathed in blood from head to toe, his clothes torn from his left side from what seems like a knife wound. He was just there, standing amidst a sea of groaning, broken men, a foot on the leader's head. Nobody was daring to move or do something. It was our team leader, Kim Soohyun, that brought us out of our shock...”

“An-and the young miss?”

“She was alright, terrified but she was alright. She was detained in a side piece behind the main room. We retrieved her, quickly called the police and ambulance, and helped with the evacuation. In the end, there were nine people brought to the hospital, no dead but one is paralyzed for life and another is now a eunuch.” Seol Jihu sighed for the nth time, ”This whole thing was a mess, even with the help of our PR team to prevent the information from spreading to the public, it proved impossible to entirely cover the case. It was too public and happened practically in broad daylight in a popular area, a nightmare for our PR team to deal with… And do you know the worst thing about this whole fucked up?”

“N–no?” Seung Ho replied with trepidation.

“When the police were taking the statement of our mysterious high schooler, they asked him why he didn't go to the police with the information of the gang's whereabouts. In response he said something along the lines of–” Seol Jihu paused, his expression changing, his eyes gaining a thousand yard-stare, tone shifting to a deep bass, he mimed “–’ Those grown-ass adults stole Yuri's Mr.Beast and made her cry. Oh! That and they took her friend’ ”

“What!?”

Seol Jihu laughed out loud, “Ahahaha, This crazy motherfucker basically raided an entire building infested with gangsters because of a rabbit plushie, and ohhh he added as an afterthought rescuing his little sister’s friend, our young miss.” With shaking shoulders, he steadily brought his laughter under control. “In the end, the young miss was brought back to her family, and the young man who single-handedly beat those gangsters within an inch of their life– didn’t face any criminal charge on his record. Nobody was dead, and the company paid for the hospital fee of the kidnappers. We would have lost face if we couldn’t help in any way the boy that saved our young miss, letting him keep a criminal record over this mess, would have been a personal blemish on our CEO’s face. Even more so when the father of the young man in question, is one of the principal drivers of the Ha family.”

“... Thi-this is quite crazy! A high schooler beating up close to ten people. Alone? This is bullshit!” His trainee commented, doubtful.

Seol Jihu shakes his head, “Believe it or not, I wouldn’t lie about this. You can search it on the internet with the keywords ‘Red Tiger’s Geunhwa’s incident’, and you’ll find the article talking about it. Later on, after high school, I was in charge of him. We worked together for two years before he decided to quit and go pursue a College degree. He just came back from his military service, so we met, had coffee, and chatted. Catching up with each other.”

“...”

“...”

“What’s his name?” Seung Ho asked, breaking the silence that was installed in the car.

“Hum?” Seol Jihu hummed, head leaning against the back seat, “Oh! I haven’t mentioned it, didn’t I?” He chuckled briefly before saying. “His name is Baek Jinsung, but in the security division, we used to call him by his nickname–”

Seol Jihu stares at the approaching giant blue and gray skyscraper with the name ‘Simtech’s industries Ltd’ displayed on the giant illuminated billboard.

“–The Mad Beast.”

---

On the bus home, Baek Jinsung sneezed.

---

A.N: Here we go, I didn't planned to write an interlude, least of all one this long. But Jinsung literally hijacked this chapter.

Me : "I'm going to write some characters interactions between Shihyung and Seonha and why not Hannah too, been long since we last saw her. And oh maybe II'll mentioned or introduced the characters that'll kick start the first major arc!"

Jinsung : "Ahahah. No"

Me : "What? No, later."

Jinsung : "It's been 84 years son of a bitch, it's me or I'm not getting out of your head"

Me : "... Fuck..."

Jinsung : " As I thought, eh!"

After five hours of constant writing and editing, Me : "Are you satisfied? "

Jinsung : "Perfection"

Park Hannah raised a finger : "Anoo–" "–Fuck you. No. I'm going to bed."