Chapter 12
After packing my clothes and belongings and leaving the ruined motel, I headed to Hongdae, a place in Seoul that encompasses pleasure, luxury, and the mystique of foreign cultures.
Itaewon is similar, but it has fewer”customers”compared to Hongdae. Perhaps because of this, Itaewon and Hongdae, while appearing alike, were districts that walked distinctly different paths.
My last visit to Hongdae was at least five years ago. My memory is a bit hazy, so it might have been even longer.
It wasn’t out of any interest in pleasure or luxury that I visited Hongdae back then.
After becoming independent, I started my university life in Seoul, supported by the government’s Youth Independence Support Fund, provided only to orphans.
But starting was all I could manage. While others effortlessly stood at the starting line and strode forward, just reaching the starting line was my limit.
To sustain life and accumulate knowledge and experience, you need money, no matter what. Even combining the money I had painstakingly saved since childhood and the government support, it wasn’t enough to cover even half of my university expenses.
No matter how much I scrimped and saved, I couldn’t make ends meet with living expenses and tuition until graduation, so I ended up juggling part-time jobs and my studies.
During the day, I forced myself to attend the tightly scheduled lectures, and at night, I worked under a bar owner, a job that supposedly paid decently.
I had to practically give up on a normal life just to barely cover my living expenses and tuition, so I worked in Hongdae, where the bar business was particularly good.
Of course, there’s no place in Seoul where the bar business is bad, but Hongdae was a place that attracted customers in their 20s and 30s who were overflowing with youthful energy, free time, and an eagerness to spend money, even if it meant going into debt.
Naturally, it was a structure designed for success, and it was only natural for me, working there and sacrificing sleep, to earn a decent income.
Ah, I won’t go into detail about suffering from chronic fatigue due to working sleepless nights, my biorhythm being disrupted making it difficult to focus on my studies, or my spirit being worn down by troublesome customers.
The important thing was the role of Hongdae.
As Hongdae was a chaotic street filled with luxury and pleasure, there was always fierce competition among the businesses.
Just like countless restaurants in Shinchon boasted catchphrases like”This place was visited by so-and-so celebrity”or”This place was featured on this TV program,”Hongdae also craved to attract as many suckers as possible.
Among them, the main targets were the nouveau riche with deep pockets, those consumed by their desires for women or men, or alcoholics who went wild at the mere mention of alcohol.
Want to attract customers’ attention and interest? Then create an aura of something special!
Attract women to attract men, and attract men to attract women!
Spread flyers to let everyone know about those d*mn clubs with their d*mn underdog DJs and rappers!
Scour the streets for buskers with decent looks, pay them peanuts, put them on stage, and exploit them to the fullest!
If necessary, collaborate with the underworld’s tough guys, utilize women, alcohol, and even some suspicious drugs to maximize profits!
That was the truth of the nightlife that ordinary people didn’t know.
Putting that aside, I had experience working to earn money in that chaotic night city. After all, it was a world where you couldn’t even breathe freely without money.
So why am I visiting Hongdae now, on the verge of turning 30? Because I needed the secret underworld that ordinary people didn’t know about and couldn’t easily access.
After visiting the spirit burial ground and experiencing those things at the ruined motel and coin laundry, I finally realized I didn’t have my own tools for the job.
To use an analogy with a Catholic exorcist, it’s like holy water and a sacred cross; for a shaman, it’s bells, a fan, or a knife.
To scrub those pitiful souls, destined for h*ll due to their unforgivable sins, squeaky clean with bleach and send them to heaven, I need my own tools.
Even self-proclaimed ghost hunters carry protective talismans or magically treated objects, but all I have is a Bible I snatched from Father Seong.
And I’m not even a Christian, so it’s completely useless unless I’m taking an open-book exam on the Bible.
If I’ve decided to abandon my past, my identity, and even my future, I must now do my best to live as Han Dae-ri.
I must not just endure hardships and lead sinners to repent and be quickly delivered to heaven, but establish my own existence and walk my own path.
“It’s quiet because it’s daytime, huh.”
Although the distinction between day and night is meaningless in Seoul, a shining metropolis of Korea, Hongdae is the district where the difference between day and night is most pronounced.
‘To be precise, the disparity between morning and night is immense.’
Hongdae’s mornings are quieter than anywhere else in Seoul.
The streets are littered with someone’s vomit, scattered flyers, plastic cups placed everywhere like decorations, and sanitation workers and garbage trucks silently working to clean it all up.
If the mornings of a metropolis are a time overflowing with life and energy, only death lingers in the mornings of Hongdae.
Even that desolate sight improves somewhat as the day progresses, slowly starts to come alive in the evening, and by nightfall, it begins to rampage like a runaway train with no brakes.
Anyway, I visited here for business during the day, not the night. Because if I came at night, there would be too many people I’d naturally get involved with, people I’d have to go through, and people who’d ultimately cling to me annoyingly.
The core and alpha of nightlife is money. And people who unexpectedly need urgent cash need a place to get it late at night, even after the last train has left.
P*wn shops and private lenders exist for those very people. And right now, I was knocking on the door of a p*wn shop.
Bang, bang, bang!
“Anyone here!”
No answer. Is she dead?
“Even the old hag who was so picky when taking items couldn’t overcome the flow of time… Ugh!”
“You cheeky b*stard. I’m not dead yet.”
I awkwardly smiled at the sight of the grandmother poking me in the side with the end of her cane.
Years ago, when I was working part-time at a bar, I used to p*wn items I had forcibly taken from troublesome customers who tried to dine and dash, with the permission and coercion of the manager.
I’d pay for the attempted dine-and-dasher’s drinks with the money I received, and kick them out of the bar, telling them to retrieve their pawned items from XX P*wn Shop when they had the money.
Of course, unlike the malicious dine-and-dashers, I often frequented p*wn shops and private lenders on behalf of customers who were genuinely out of money and desperate.
There were quite a few instances where seemingly wealthy people couldn’t pay their bills and would offer strange jewels or figurines, asking me to exchange them for cash.
“Tsk tsk, what brings you crawling back here, you grown man? If you worked nights in your foolish youth, you should be working days and living honestly now.”
“I’m living honestly, now as I was then.”
“You were chasing money, even sacrificing your own body with night work, so I can only imagine. Come in.”
The p*wn shop owner opened the door, secured with a double lock of iron bars and chains, and readily let me in.
To be honest, I thought she wouldn’t remember someone like me after all these years, but seeing how sharp she still is, her memory must be quite good.
‘Well, she must have this kind of ability to run a p*wn shop alone, where all sorts of items and money change hands.’
I’d heard that p*wn shop owners need sharp eyes and quick wits to survive in this business, as there are often stolen goods and dirty money involved.
Mrs. Kim Bok-ja, walking ahead of me, has been running this p*wn shop since long before I was born, so someone like me can’t even fathom her level of expertise.
I was led to a small drawing-room inside the p*wn shop building, where Mrs. Kim Bok-ja would entertain special guests and conduct business over tea.
As a mere bar worker, I had occasionally glimpsed guests being led here, but this was the first time I was invited in.
“What will you have? Sweet peach tea for a young man’s taste? Or green tea for an old woman’s taste like mine?”
“Compared to you, I’m still quite young, so I’ll have the peach tea.”
“I was worried you didn’t know your place, but you seem to know your age at least. Tsk tsk.”
Mrs. Kim Bok-ja placed a peach tea bag in a rough teacup, poured boiling water from a kettle over it, and set it on a saucer in front of me.
She, however, placed a chilled convenience store green tea, bought during her walk, in front of herself.
Elderly people usually dislike cold things, saying it makes their teeth sensitive and upsets their stomach, but Mrs. Kim Bok-ja was a progressive elder who often enjoyed iced Americano even when I visited late at night.
“I wish I could have something cold too…”
“Then you should have called ahead, you rotten thing.”
“I lost my smartphone due to some business.”
Dressed in a tan coat and carrying a large duffel bag on my back, I looked suspicious no matter how you looked at it.
“Are you on the run, deep in debt? You look quite well-dressed for that, though.”
“Do I look like someone who’d be in debt?”
“Well, you’ve been obsessed with money since I first saw you, but you weren’t the type to covet wealth beyond your means. So what is it? Did you k*ll someone?”
“…”
I carefully chose my words here.
Twelve. According to Father Seong and Deacon Yohan, I punished a total of twelve sinners while wandering the streets, out of my mind.
In fact, it’s undeniable murder.
“Half right, half wrong.”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
“I did commit murder, but it wasn’t me who did it.”
Mrs. Kim Bok-ja took a sip of her iced green tea and stared at me with wide eyes.
This was the look Mrs. Kim Bok-ja often gave customers who tried to p*wn items, claiming,”This is a truly expensive and valuable item, so give me a better price.”
Time and again, customers failed to deceive her sharp eyes and ended up walking away with the fair price.
“I’ve been running this p*wn shop for over 50 years, and I’ve only misjudged a person once.”
I know that person was her husband, who passed away from illness before her.
“My eyes, boasting a 99.99% accuracy rate, are telling me you’re not a murderer. There must be complicated circumstances involved, so I won’t pry into the details.”
“Thank you.”
“So what brings you to this old woman? You’re not going to shamelessly start working nights again, are you?”
“I need items. Items that look like they have a story behind them.”
“What kind of story?”
“The supernatural kind, please.”
Mrs. Kim Bok-ja clicked her tongue and slammed the plastic bottle down.
“Did you hear it from the old man who’s gone?”
“I heard a lot from him while enjoying drinks and cigarettes together. I apologize if I’ve overstepped.”
“That d*mn old man. He should have died peacefully instead of leaving trouble behind…”
Mrs. Kim Bok-ja never accepts stolen goods or money related to dirty crimes.
But I had heard from her deceased husband that there were quite a few times when she accepted strange and bizarre items, for reasons I couldn’t understand.
When her husband asked why she accepted those seemingly worthless items and piled them up in the warehouse, Mrs. Kim Bok-ja reportedly answered like this:
━Items with stories shouldn’t be released carelessly into the world. They’ve luckily come into my hands, so I’ll keep them safe and take them all with me when I d*e.
Mrs. Kim Bok-ja, who always grumbled at customers and neighboring shop owners, answered her husband so politely, that I once said I couldn’t believe it and got smacked on the back of my head.
“Items with stories that shouldn’t be released into the world, I need them, so I came here to ask for your help.”
“You cheeky young man, saying such things to an old woman on her deathbed. Do you really want to d*e young?”
“If you don’t trust me, I’ll put my life on the line.”
I quietly bowed my head.
“Please trust this Han Dae-ri and invest in me.”
