*This is Woojin's past. It will be told from a third-person point of view.
15 years ago.
The basement of the abandoned factory on the outskirts was dark even in broad daylight. The damp walls smelled of mold, and water dripped from the ceiling at regular intervals. Inside the filthy factory, young Woojin was crouched at the end of the hall in front of an iron door. His arms, visible beneath his oversized black clothes, were covered in bruises. Inside the iron door was a woman who had been dragged in a few days earlier.
Woojin brought the woman food twice a day. Every time he walked down the corridor on his dirty bare feet, they made a slap-slap sound. That day too, he opened the iron door carrying a tray with cold rice and water. The woman was sitting with her back against the wall. She had a calm face and blazing eyes, unbelievable for someone who had been kidnapped.
“Leave it there.”
After Woojin set down the tray, the woman asked him a question. Woojin straightened up and looked at her. The short Woojin and the woman sitting on the floor were almost at eye level.
“Have you eaten?”
No one had ever asked Woojin something like that before. Unable to get the words out, Woojin never answered. He might have grown frustrated by the silence, but the woman showed no sign of dislike. Instead, she looked at Woojin's skinny wrist and pushed about half the rice to the edge of the tray.
“Let's eat together.”
“…Then you'll get hit.”
“By who?”
A cracked voice came through lips dried out and crusted with blood. Faced with the question from that upright posture, Woojin closed his mouth again. The woman didn't press him further and set the rice down.
“If you're hungry, eat. When no one is around.”
If he ate, he'd get hit. But he was hungry. He clutched the hem of his dirty clothes with his filthy hands and hesitated. Whether the woman was pretending not to notice or not, she wasn't even looking his way. He grabbed the cold, stuck-together rice that looked nasty and yellow, and wolfed it down. Even then, the woman didn't look at him. It was his first meal in two days. There was food for the hostage, but not for the kid. With no side dishes at all, Woojin shoved the rice into his mouth as if it tasted good.
It didn't take even three minutes to finish the rice. Woojin pushed the tray back toward the woman, wiped his mouth, and came back out as if fleeing. After closing the iron door behind him, he stood there for a while. Only the sound of dripping water echoed through the damp corridor.
*
That night, gunshots rang out above ground. Woojin jumped in surprise and sat up. The room was damp and windowless, similar to the woman's solitary cell. Woojin, asleep on the floor with a ragged cloth over him and his body curled up, heard his own heart pounding thud, thud as he forced himself awake. When he went near the door to check the gap so he could see outside, big men were running around with tools in their hands. The old lights in the corridor swayed back and forth, casting a chaotic glare everywhere.
At first the gunshots were short bursts, then they came one after another. Startled by the loud noise and the sound of footsteps rushing toward him, Woojin hurried back under the ragged cloth. As if this place were his own bomb shelter, he curled up inside. And then, soon after, the door opened.
“Hey, kid!”
The man who came running down the stairs grabbed Woojin by the nape of the neck. It was the same man who was always drunk and used to beat him. There was blood on the man's clothes, giving off a fishy smell. Woojin trembled, but he made no sound and shed no tears.
“Take the woman and go out the back. If you lose her, you're dead.”
The man yanked Woojin, who had been lying down, up by the neck without mercy, threw the key he'd taken from his pocket onto the floor, and went back out into the corridor. The closer the gunfire got, the more white dust fell from the ceiling. He wasn't crying, but with trembling hands he picked up the key from the floor and, after looking down the hall, rushed up the stairs. The staircase down to the basement was still damp. Whether that was from sweat pouring down like rain in fear or from the humidity of the factory, he had no way of knowing.
Woojin went straight to the end of the corridor and opened the iron door with trembling hands.
“Come out.”
The woman studied Woojin's face.
“Is something wrong?”
“Q-quickly.”
Woojin led the woman this time toward the left side of the corridor. His feet slipped on the wet floor more than once. His soles and calves were already bleeding from being scraped by protruding chunks of concrete. On the left side of the basement there was an old iron staircase. That was the back door the man from the organization had mentioned.
From behind them, screams and gunshots were still mixing together. If they only climbed the old iron stairs, they'd reach the back door. The moment Woojin put his foot on the first step, a man above staggered down toward them. He was an organization member bleeding from his side. When the man spotted the woman and Woojin, he let out a rough breath.
“…You brought them well.”
Then footsteps in dress shoes came from the opposite end of the corridor. When Woojin turned around, a blood-soaked man was walking toward them from the end of the hall. There was a gun in his hand. The woman's eyes widened.
“Honey!”
The organization member immediately raised his gun and aimed at the man. The trigger would be pulled any moment, and that man who was walking toward them so proudly would die. As always.
But young Woojin hesitated. What should he do? Should he stop him? That thought took over his mind. The usual kidnapping, the usual raid, the usual fight. There was nothing special about anything in the organization Woojin belonged to. …But if that man died, this woman wouldn't make it out alive either. It was a prediction as instinctive as breathing. I want this woman to live. Even if she doesn't get angry at me, even if she doesn't hit me. He was grateful to the woman who had worried about him and given up half her own meal.
Woojin felt something lukewarm rising inside him for the very first time in his life. And that warmth soon shook his heart. The one spark of warmth he received in a place like a cesspool was that warm.
Woojin looked back and forth anxiously between the woman and the man at the end of the corridor. Then, before he had time to think, he ran up the stairs and shoved the organization member's leg with all his strength.
Bang!
The bullet missed and lodged in the concrete wall.
“…You little shit!”
The organization member grabbed Woojin by the nape and hurled him away. His small body rolled down the stairs. A black gun barrel came down toward Woojin, who couldn't even breathe and was curled up. The gun that had just been fired was hot like molten iron. Woojin's body shook violently, but he didn't cry or make a sound. The woman's expression twisted at that strange sight.
“Do you want to die?”
Woojin's body froze. He didn't even think about dodging. If that woman could live, that was enough. Somehow, he felt like he had done his part. Unlike his peacefully closed eyes, his small body was trembling.
The man exhaled, blowing away the hair hanging over his forehead, then kicked Woojin once.
“After feeding you and putting a roof over your head, this is how you repay me?”
Then he aimed at Woojin. Soon after, a gunshot rang out, and Woojin squeezed his eyes shut before opening them. Somehow, he didn't feel pain. It almost seemed like a thunderous roar of “Honey!!” came from far away. When he opened his eyes, thinking maybe he was so used to being hit that even a bullet didn't hurt, what was in front of Woojin wasn't a dark, deep gun barrel, but soft hair blocking his view.
There was a woman in front of Woojin. Blood spreading from her chest quickly soaked her clothes. The woman's body tilted helplessly. Woojin instinctively caught the woman as she collapsed into him. Warm blood ran between his fingers.
“Auntie…?”
The organization member raised his gun again. Before he could, gunfire rang out from the opposite side of the corridor. From that side came the urgent sound of dress shoes running. And two or three more gunshots echoed out. The man's body rolled down the iron stairs.
The smell of gunpowder tore through the damp air.
The sound of dress shoes came closer fast. Running and firing his gun, the blood-soaked man stopped when he saw the woman in Woojin's arms.
“……Honey.”
The man who had run to Woojin sank to his knees on the floor. The hand holding the woman trembled violently. The woman barely opened her eyes. Her lips moved a few times, but no sound came out properly. Her fingertips reached toward Woojin and then fell lifelessly. That was the end.
“Honey.”
The man called again. There was no answer.
The gunfire outside had also stopped by then. Only the sound of water dripping from the ceiling and the man's ragged breathing remained in the corridor. The panting sounded almost like a beast in fury.
Woojin looked down at his bloodstained hands. All he could think was that it was because of him that she died. Fear? Or maybe guilt. His hands were shaking. For the first time, Woojin felt warmth flowing from his eyes. It was tears.
The man held the woman in his arms and cried bitterly before slowly lifting his head. His bloodshot eyes turned toward Woojin. The gun barrel in his hand moved with them.
Woojin didn't run. There was nowhere to go back to anyway. The cold gun barrel touched his forehead.
“How old are you?”
“……Nine.”
The man's face twisted. His finger tensed on the trigger as if he might pull it at any moment.
“My daughter is about your age.”
The gun barrel wavered faintly. The man's voice wavered with it.
“She's got a lot to say these days.”
The man looked down at the wife in his arms. Tears fell from his face twisted by rage. After a long while, the gun barrel moved away from Woojin's forehead. With one arm holding the woman, the man's other hand holding the gun dropped limply to the floor.
“I want you to grow up without bringing shame on yourself.”
“…….”
“Your parents probably wanted that too.”
In the end, the man didn't pull the trigger.
*
That day, Woojin left the organization. The man gave Woojin a place to stay and told him never to come back here. But Woojin didn't know how to live like an ordinary person. He had grown up in the dark his whole life; he couldn't suddenly step out into the sunlight.
Instead, he looked for people like himself. Children who wanted to run away but couldn't. People being hunted just because they refused a job. People who couldn't escape unless they died. It didn't start from some sense of justice. It was just that his own childhood had been so miserable, and he didn't want anyone else to carry that feeling with them. And besides, if he did this, victims like that woman wouldn't appear again. It was a kind of atonement.
A few years later, Woojin went to see the man again. It was the day he brought the first 'friend' he'd ever made. The man, whose face now had wrinkles, laughed after hearing Woojin out.
“I want to save this person.”
The man looked at the person hiding behind Woojin and took the documents. That day, one person died. On paper only. The name and address changed, and the dead person began living again in a place no one knew.
Every time the same thing happened, the files of people processed as dead piled up in the man's study. It wasn't only Woojin's matters he took care of. The man also sometimes 'used' Woojin.
Woojin couldn't come out into the sunlight. Instead, he pulled others out of the basement and sent them into the shadows.
That was how he repaid the debt he owed the two people who had saved his life.
