Water of the Womb p13

The tattooed woman stared me down as though she was assessing me, but there was no change in her apathetic, cold eyes. "You're one of his sons, then, I guess." She punched in a number on a mobile intercom system that looked like those outdated walkie talkies. "Park Jungho-ssi, one of the Baek brothers is here to see you. The younger."

Ice water flooded through my veins at the sound of his name. Even though I knew that I was most likely seeing him, I had hoped that maybe I would only need to talk to one of his lackeys.

"Send him up," a grouchy voice crackled through the intercom.

The woman looked at me and pointed at the staircase leading up from the back of the front office. "Go upstairs." She returned her focus to the game on her phone I had interrupted.

I made my way to the stairs apprehensively. As I took the first step, I heard voices coming from the basement below. I caught the sound of someone protesting, then a dull thud. I shuddered and, despite my earlier reticence, picked up my pace and ascended hurriedly.

To my surprise, the stairs led immediately to a luxuriously furnished open space. The expensive furniture and plush rug contrasted sharply to the stark lower floor. I felt my heart in my throat. The racks of guns and ill-gotten trophies that I naively hoped as a child to see in Park Bonghwan's house were openly displayed here. Rare animal pelts and bared swords decorated the walls. It was almost cartoonishly similar to what I had expected to see back then. A man was languidly sprawled on a leather sofa. He didn't look up at me from his phone (I think he was playing the same game as the woman downstairs) but I recognized him as the other man who had been with Park Bonghwan that day, and I tried to keep my heart calm. At the end of the room, a second man sat at a glossy mahogany desk. It was Han Jungho.

He had noticed me taking a look around his office. "I see you like what I've done with the place." His voice rumbled like rocks in a river, low and throaty. I'd never heard any other voice like that, and I shivered to remember it. I hastily blurted out my most polite greeting, bowing low and holding it. He waved me over. "Sit down."

"I-I'm just here to deliver the money my father owes." I hated that I had stuttered upon first speaking. I took out the envelope of money I had just withdrawn from the ATM.

"You'd better sit down," growled the other man from the sofa. I hastily obeyed. It seemed like the guy on the sofa was probably Jungho's guard/muscle. Not that it looked like Jungho needed it. He himself was an enormous man with scarred arms rippling with muscle.

Han Jungho gestured impatiently with his hand and I quickly handed the envelope to him. I sat and nervously watched him as he counted it out with practiced efficiency. "Well, damn," he said. "It's all there."

Hopefully they would let me go now. But that didn't seem to be the case, as Jungho asked, "Where did you get it?"

I knew instinctively that it was dangerous to tell him, lest he target me for payments over my father. I held my tongue.

A moment later the man on the couch rose up and grabbed me by the shoulder, squeezing tight. I choked on my heart in my throat again from the pain of his crushing grip. "He asked you a question," the bruiser said threateningly.

"I made it from my work," I stuttered out.

"And you kept this much back from your parents? You're a disgraceful son," Park Jungho said. My face burned. I often thought that way about myself when I looked at my savings, but to hear someone else say it was a new pain I hadn't yet experienced.

"Do Hoon pays you well, doesn't he?" So he knew where and for whom I worked after all. Panicked, I hoped that they wouldn't bring Mr. Do into our conflict.

I didn't know if it was a rhetorical question or not, but I didn't feel like testing their ire. "I work a lot," I said quietly, in case they had wanted an answer. I mentally begged them to let me go now, but they didn't.

Han Jungho dug through a drawer, and my pulse spiked. What was he going to take out? Belatedly, I caught sight of his metal bat leaning ominously against the wall behind him. The many dents in its silvery surface seemed to wink maliciously at me.

It was a cigarette. Jungho stuck it in his mouth and lit it. He took a long drag off it and exhaled the smoke pointedly at my face. I barely kept from coughing.

"I'm glad you finally showed up," he said. "I've been looking for you to talk about your debt."

My debt? I supposed he must be lumping my father and I as one entity.

He studied my face. His bruiser had loosened his grip after I had answered, but now he laid his other hand on my shoulder. I shifted uncomfortably, not knowing what was going to happen next.

"Do you know how much your father owes us?"

I nodded. The sum was burned into my mind and always hovered above me like a doomsday counter.

"Do you know why your father owes us that much?"

"Park Bonghwan said he got it from some other guy," I stuttered. I didn't actually know what the reason was, but he was always racking up debt for any number of reasons.

Jungho broke into a wide, predatory grin. "He didn't get it from Il-sung. Your mother did."

I felt like the ceiling had collapsed on me. I didn't know what possible reason my mother could have for borrowing a ridiculous sum like that. I tried to shake my captor off but the bruiser's grip held me still. "T-thats impossible," I struggled to say. "Why would.. why would she—-"

"That's funny that you don't know. She said it was for your college tuition." The ceiling had already fallen on me, but now it felt like a steamroller was trying to crush the rubble above me.

"I never— I never even applied—I didn't even," I stuttered helplessly. I hadn't even finished high school.

"Well you obviously didn't go to university," snapped Jungho. "But either way, the money's gone, so she or your father must have used it for something else." He continued as my thoughts crashed around in my head like caged birds. "It's a pretty good little scheme she ran, actually. She specifically asked Il-sung, who was pretty new. All he knew about your scummy family was that your hotshot brother was off at some fancy university. So he believed her when she told him you were going to go to one too. Well, now Il-sung is less a few fingers, and the rest of us are left fixing this mess."

I couldn't believe it. Why are you listening to this asshole telling you all this? a voice in my head screamed. He was a lawless gangster. Everything he was saying could all be lies. Anger took hold and suddenly I found my voice again. "I want to speak to Park Bonghwan-ssi. How do you expect me to believe any of this?"

"Park Bonghwan's gone," said Jungho apathetically. "He failed to collect. That's the problem I'm trying to avoid right now." With the henchman holding me down, he got up casually and walked over to a filing cabinet and took a piece of paper out. "If you don't believe me, see the contract for yourself."

He slid the piece of paper across the desk. My eyes widened in shock as I scanned down it. It was true. My mother's name was written and signed on it, and ….

"That's your name right there." Jungho tapped a thick finger against the document. It was undeniable now. Right in the section of the document listing the reason for the loan was my mother's handwriting. For my son Baek Jaehyun's college tuition.

In a surge of panic fueled adrenaline, I actually managed to stand despite the henchman's hands on my shoulder. But I wasn't able to escape like I had hoped to do. He shoved me back down. "Sit down!" he shouted.

Jungho glared at me and I felt any bit of resistance I had managed to summon flee instantly. I was completely in a panic now. "Up to now, your father's been the co-signer paying back the loan. But he's not reliable. You, however… you've always done whatever you could to get the money to pay it back. Now that's the kind of guy I want to do business with!" He pointed at me, but for all my panic it felt like he had pierced me with a spear.

"So I want to do this, Baek Jaehyun-a. I want you to be the new co-signer and our primary contact from now on. Your name's on this contract already." He tapped the contract again. "So let's –"

There was a sudden commotion downstairs. The voice of the front desk woman, apathetic no longer, was arguing with someone. Jungho snapped his attention from me to the stairway. He nodded to the bruiser, who let me go and started towards it. But he had only take a couple of steps before someone had rushed up the stairs and stopped, casting a menacing figure.

It was Taejun.

I stumbled out of my chair, but whatever relief I might have felt at his sudden appearance dissipated as soon as I saw him. His anger had always given him a commandingly powerful aura that always suppressed me and made me feel small and outmatched. But that was nothing compared to him now. With his long black coat, he looked like a tall, dark avatar of fury, with eyes burning with hatred and rage.

"Han Jungho," he said, in a dangerously ominous low voice. "What are you doing with Jaehyun?" I had heard my brother's voice angry before, but again, never to this level. Each word was like a dagger, sharp with hatred and threat. Even though it wasn't directed at me, they pierced through me, and I was terrified of my own brother.

Somehow, Park Jungho didn't seem too affected. "Baek Taejun," he rumbled, with almost an amused tone of voice. "So you've finally decided to show up." He stalked around his desk, confidently as a tiger through the grass, to stand next to me.

The henchman stepped forward threateningly, but Taejun snapped his burning glare over to him. "Stand down," he snarled. To my surprise, the henchman obeyed as meekly as though Jungho himself had given the order.

Jungho frowned. Either he was angered by Taejun's treatment of his subordinate, or disappointed by his subordinate's immediate surrender. "Jaehyun-a and I were just talking about the money he owes me. I haven't harmed a hair on his head," Jungho rumbled. Like he had done on that day, he patted my hair like I was nothing more than a dog. I flinched away.

I didn't think Taejun could get any more angry, but somehow he did. I could almost see dark flames of wrath emanating from him. "You know damn well you've done it before," he said through gritted teeth. "I won't give you the chance to do so ever again. Let him go. He doesn't owe you anything."

He held out his hand to me. "Come here, Jae. Let's go." I knew why the henchman had obeyed him so easily. In this state, it was impossible to oppose him. Despite having been petrified since the moment he had appeared, I found myself taking a step forward. Jungho grabbed my arm and yanked me back.

"Maybe he does, maybe not." Jungho glared back at my brother. I felt as though I was trapped between two walls of flames closing in. Soon I would be incinerated. "You, on the other hand. If you think I'm going to allow a damn fed to walk into my house and speak to me like that, you're more mad than they say you are."

His henchman, who until now been as stunned as me as the confrontation between two demons, suddenly regained himself. He stepped forward, his hand going to his belt, where I suddenly saw he had a gun...

In an instant, Taejun had drawn a gun from a shoulder holster, and with an ear splitting bang, the henchman jerked backwards and a bright spray of blood burst from his shoulder. He had a gun too! In all these months living with him I had never seen him with a gun. I hadn't even know he knew how to shoot. (Well of course he does. He finished his draft.)

Before the henchman had collapsed, he had already turned his aim towards Jungho. Despite the fact that I knew it was aimed towards Jungho, I was right next to him, and I too was staring down the barrel. But I was too petrified to do anything.

"Don't make a move, or the next bullet finds its home in your skull," Taejun promised fiercely. "Let Jaehyun come to me now."

Jungho pulled me in front of him. I was so shell-shocked, I didn't resist. "You wouldn't risk the shot with your brother so close."

"Don't try me. I'm the best shot in the NIS Seoul Division." Every word that came out of Taejun's mouth made me shiver. Even though we had argued a lot, never had I heard him sound like this.

Jungho considered his words, deciding if they were true or not. "You've got a hell of a reputation out here on the streets. But I never thought I'd witness you in action myself," Jungho said. Though he spoke confidently, I could feel him tensing.

"I don't want to hear it from the bastard trying to extort my brother. Let him go. I'm losing my patience." From here I could see his grip on his gun tighten, and his trigger finger squeeze ever so gently.

I could tell Jungho was desperately trying not to lose this battle of will. But staring at Taejun was like trying to stare into the sun. It was excruciating.

"I see why they call you the Demon of Inner Seoul. Someone should have hunted you down long ago." Despite his bravado, he shoved me forward. I was finally able to move, and half tripped across the room to Taejun. He shifted to a one handed grip on his gun, grabbed me and pulled me behind him.

"I'm NIS, asshole. They can't touch me." He kept his aim steady on Jungho and started backing us towards the stairs.

Jungho bristled. I had to give him credit for being able to put up so much resistance against Taejun when he was like this. "NIS or not, the next time you show your face in these parts, I'll break every bone in your body," he growled.

"I doubt you'll ever be able to," Taejun snapped. He half pulled, half dragged me down the stairs, keeping me between himself and the wall. There was a couple of men standing at the bottom, and Taejun stepped forward. The lackeys backed away. Clearly, they didn't have the ability to resist Taejun's furious presence like their boss did. The gun probably also helped.

The tattooed woman was collapsed between her counter and the stairwell. One of her legs was bent horrifyingly unnaturally at the ankle. She snarled a curse at Taejun as we passed, but he ignored her.

As soon as the door closed behind us, he commanded me, "Go." We picked up our pace and he kept glancing back, making sure no one was following.

Some distance away, he dragged me over to a parked car and pretty much shoved me in. I didn't think he had a car, so it was definitely a company car. With a screech of the tires, we sped off. He didn't talk, and I was far too shaken up to ask how he had known where I was yet.

With a car, the drive back to Inner Seoul only took half the time it did to travel by train. He parked outside the apartment. I was still stupefied from everything that had just happened, so he had to drag me out of the car and into the elevator.

When we finally made it into the safety of his apartment, I was finally able to ask, "How did you know where I was?"

"I tracked your phone," was his simple reply. Despite how roughly he had dragged me out of the gangster's lair and back into our apartment, he sat me down carefully on the couch (that didn't belong to him) and put a hand to my forehead. It was drenched with clammy sweat. He took my pulse from my wrist. Without an explanation, he undid the first few buttons on my work shirt, then draped his coat over me. It had a smokey smell that I now knew was the smell of gunpowder. "Lay down. Don't move," he instructed. I didn't want to anyways.

As I laid catatonic on the couch (that didn't belong to him), he moved around the house in a frenzy, dialing numbers and speaking rapidly in Korean, English, and one other language I didn't know. I couldn't even understand the Korean in my state, let alone the other two. Every once in a while he checked on me, taking my pulse and feeling my forehead.

The whirlwind of events that had happened today weighed me down like an anchor. I'm not sure if I fainted or just fell asleep, but I lost consciousness.

When I regained it, it was dark outside, and Taejun was sitting on the other end of the couch (that didn't belong to him), arms crossed and head tipped downwards like he was resting. But as I sat up, he straightened up and looked at me. The ferocious anger from before had completely left him, and now he just looked tired and stressed. He got up and handed me a glass of water that had been sitting on the coffee table. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

I gratefully gulped the water. "Not great," I admitted. "But better than before."

Taejun felt my head again. It must have been improved because he didn't bother to take my pulse after. "You'll be alright," he said gruffly. "Are you hungry?"

"After that? Hell no." My stomach was still twisting itself up into knots at the memory of the flash of fire from Taejun's gun, and the spray of blood from the gangster he had shot.

My feisty response must have cheered him up somewhat, because he let out a huff of amusement and ruffled my hair like he had always done when we were kids. As I had done as a child, I dodged out of it with a face. Taejun looked even more cheered at my attitude.

"You can have this back." I pulled his long black coat off me and held it out to him. The smokey smell was gone from it, but remembering how transformed he had looked while wearing it still made me feel uncomfortable under it. He took but just draped it over the other end of the couch (that didn't belong to him) instead of putting it away. He flopped down to sit near me.

"Do you always have a gun?" I said, despite my fear, I was morbidly curious.

"Do you really want to talk about that?" Taejun gave me a weird look.

"Yeah. Are you really the best shot in the Seoul NIS?"

He laughed dryly. "No. But I'm pretty good." I believed it. The speed with which he had drawn his gun and accurately aimed at his target for a non fatal shot had been terrifying to witness.

I remembered something weird that Jungho had said to Taejun during their short, tense standoff. "Han Jungho called you the Demon of Inner Seoul. What's that all about?"

"Those gangsters love their little nicknames. It doesn't mean anything." He seemed uncomfortable with this conversation.

I persisted. "He knew who you were," I commented. "Why?"

He gave me a wry look. "Because I keep tabs on and investigate lowlifes like him. Jae, what do you think I do all day at work?"

Type on his phone and hole himself up in his office space, I thought. "I dunno. I mostly just see you on your computer or phone."

"That's at home," he told me. "During the day it's a lot more legwork."

"So you do stuff like that all day?!"

"No. Only sometimes." He watched me, probably gauging my now stunned expression. "Why are you so curious about my work all of a sudden? You've never asked before."

"You literally just rushed into a gangster den by yourself with one gun! You're either crazy or you just do that a lot." I honestly had just thought he just ran around after his boss doing … paperwork or something.

He let out another amused puff. "A bit of both. But that was mostly crazy... though I didn't just have one gun."

The fact that he did stuff like that at all was incredible to me. I had no idea that whenever he went out to work in the mornings, he might get hurt or not come back. He had been so nonchalant and diligent, and had never shown any hesitation about it. It felt weird that Han Jungho had known about him, possibly even longer than I had known Taejun was in Seoul.

"If your job is to investigate gangsters like Han Jungho, why didn't you just arrest him when I told you about him?" I tried not to think about how even though he had saved me today, he might have had the ability to have prevented all of these events from happening at all.

"I investigate," he explained patiently. "I don't go around making random arrests. And it's not like I watch every gang in Seoul. Jungho's gang and territory is someone else's assignment. I promise you I didn't know about him."

It was a good enough explanation, I thought. But still not very satisfying. Taejun certainly had no qualms bending to rules to spy on me, but not to prosecute actual villains. Despite my earlier nap, I still felt weak and exhausted from the day's events. Taejun noticed. "Go wash up and rest. I've made arrangements for you to leave tomorrow."

Dazed, I didn't even register his words, and just stumbled off to take a shower. It wasn't until halfway through the shower that I woke up a little more and realized what he said. I shut off the water and dried myself quickly. Still half wet, I shoved myself into my clothes and ran back down the hall. "Wait. You said leave?! Where am I going?"

Taejun was a bit startled to see me bursting out of the bathroom with my hair still dripping wet. "I'm sending you to the embassy in Beijing," he said testily. "Depending on the situation, it might only need to be a short while."

"To Beijing!" I cried. "I don't speak Chinese!" For some reason, my scattered brain decided to blurt the first objection that popped into my head, despite it being the smallest.

"Doesn't matter, you'll be staying with–"

"What about Mom and Dad? They're literally in the hospital right now because of what happened last time I didn't help!"

"They dug their own grave, they can lie in it," Taejun said coldly. This man had ice in his veins.

"I can't just leave them! Can't you send them too?" The cold, dispassionate look in his eyes gave me my answer. "You're heartless! Those are our parents! They put a roof over your head, fed you-"

"Did they?" Taejun snarled. The anger from before was starting to resurface. "We took care of ourselves pretty much as soon as we could walk, you and I. You might not remember, but I do. Maybe we had a roof over our heads, but that was about it. You and I could have lived under a bridge and had the same upbringing. I raised you. As soon as you were born, Ma put you in my arms and would take off to do whatever she wanted!"

I definitely didn't remember all of that. But I did remember one thing. "Yeah? Well you took off to do whatever YOU wanted the moment you had the chance to do so!"

He drew himself up, and seemed to grow two or three inches to loom over me. "I was seventeen," he growled. "I left you behind but I had no choice! I had to work my damn ass off to change my life. So WE could have a better life. So WE could have this!" He gestured around at the apartment angrily. "So WE could be here, together!"

"Lie some more," I taunted. "If I hadn't gone off to Busan that day, you would have left me to rot in that house with my parents in the what did you say? The grave they dug for themselves?!"

"You should have been in university! I thought for sure you would have made it into college too." Taejun's anger flared around him again. "Besides, even if I had known, I didn't know myself if I was ready yet. You forced my hand early, but it's worked out so far! I don't know why you try to make me out to be a villain constantly. I'm human too! I'm trying here, Jae!"

His words hurt me. I never thought of him as a villain. He'd always been the superhero of my childhood, a perfect role model whose steps I could never follow. The only flaw I had ever seen in him was how easily he had left all his family behind. I didn't know what to say in return, so I simply returned the conversation to an earlier point. "Ma put my name on the contract she signed with the Seven Directions gang. So I'm bound. I'm bound to the contract."

Taejun's eyes narrowed. "Explain," he growled.

Taking a deep breath so I could speak clearly, I related to him everything that Park Jungho had told me today.

"Jae-ya, you dumb ass! Just because your name is on a contract, you're not bound to it," groaned Taejun. Belatedly I remembered he had studied law. "Even gangsters have to abide by contract law even somewhat to keep the heat off them. As long as you don't agree to Park Jungho's idiotic terms, you have no obligation to them!"

My face burned. I hated it every time Taejun proved he was smarter than me. "My obligation isn't to them," I said shakily. "It's to our parents. You're my hyung, but somehow you refuse to understand. Family bonds mean nothing to you."

"Family bonds mean nothing to me?" he hissed in a low voice. "Then why are you here? Why am I letting you live with me, rent free? Why did I show up today to drag your ungrateful ass out of that nest of vipers? You think I don't feel anything for– you're my family, Jae, not those—" He cut himself short. Taejun was again seething with anger, and it took all my willpower to not surrender right then and there to that oppressive energy.

"Come here," he snarled. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into his office. "Sit down!" Angry, but now also baffled, I sat. He had never let me into the office before, let alone onto his computer. He reached over and found a file on his desktop and opened it.

It was a photo, but for a few seconds I had no idea what I was looking at. It was a hanging, red mass, vaguely human-shaped– I almost vomited when I realized it was a body, more or less flayed, covered in blood. I tried to turn away, but Taejun held me down.

"Do you want that to be you?" he said, his voice low and trembling with emotion. "Because it damn well could be one day. Keep looking!"

I didn't want to. No wonder Taejun kept me out of his office. Did he really have to see things like that all the time for work?

"He was just like you, Jae." Taejun's voice, which had been so angry just moments before, felt strained now. "A few years older, but he was just like you. His parents were heavily in debt to a gang, and he had the same ideas as you. He had to help them pay it off. He had a duty to. Well his mother abused that mindset to their demise. In the end, she borrowed far more than he could pay. And this was what he earned. He didn't owe a cent, but because of his parents, he ended up flayed and butchered like a pig. They tortured him well before they killed him." He jabbed at the screen. "They took every organ he had. Even his eyes."

With that I really couldn't take it anymore. I grabbed his trashcan and barely got it into position before I vomited.

"I saw this, and I realized this is the path you're on. Like a goddamn lemming, you'll end up following our good for nothing parents to a horrible fucking death like that." His voice really was quavering now. "I won't let you do that. I can't watch you continue to funnel every won you have to them, only to end up like that."

"Well then you don't have to watch." His oppressive angry aura had completely deactivated. For the first time I could remember, Taejun was afraid. I pushed past him and determinedly made my way to the door.

"Baek Jaehyun!" He shouted, following me. Despite raising his voice, it shook and didn't hold any of the commanding power he usually had. "You walk out that door right now, you don't come back! Ever!"

"Fine by me," I said. After seeing that photo, I just felt cold and numb. I opened the door and let it slam shut behind me.