Chapter 6

Chapter 6

This Is a Service (1)

‘I was just asking about Father a moment ago!’

It seemed he had enough sense to pick up on the serious atmosphere.

Uncle Cheol-gu cleared his throat and glanced at me and Mother.

“Ahem, well, that is... the treatment progress is good, so it seems there’s no need to worry about aftereffects. They said she can be discharged now. Ahem!”

“Discharged? But we haven’t paid the hospital fees yet?”

“How much could that even be. Hey, kid. Let’s go home now.”

It meant the uncle had paid the hospital fees.

Mother quickly opened her bag.

“How much was it?”

“It’s fine.”

“Please take it. It must have been a large sum. I don’t have medical insurance either······.”

As an unmarried mother, Mother had raised me by selling vegetables at the market.

So we didn’t have any medical insurance we were enrolled in.

This was a time when medical insurance was only implemented for a limited number of people.

“Ah, I said it’s fine. The treatment was just supplying a bit more oxygen, what large sum.”

Uncle Cheol-gu grinned.

“If you think about it, the hospital fees were solved by that kid too.”

“What?”

“There’s something like that.”

Uncle Cheol-gu winked one eye at me.

The more the uncle spoke, the more Mother’s head tilted to the side.

“What does that mean······.”

“Kid, this is a service.”

Uncle Cheol-gu took out a pair of children’s sneakers from his breast and placed them on the floor.

“There was money left even after paying the hospital fees. And this is a bonus.”

They were children’s socks.

“They said they’d throw them in as a service.”

Whether the confused Mother had question marks floating all over her face or not.

The uncle grinned and casually slipped something into my pants pocket.

When I glanced, it was a 500-won bill.

“Just keep that. Even if it’s a repayment of gratitude, ripping off a kid isn’t my style.”

“······.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

It seemed he was worried I’d get scolded for spending Mom’s money freely.

This guy, despite being built like a bear, has a rather thoughtful side.

“Let’s go.”

“Yes.”

I jumped down from the bed with a hop.

The sneakers that landed softly on the floor were quite to my liking.

I ran after Uncle Cheol-gu, who was walking ahead with big strides alone.

“Let’s go together, Uncle! Mom, hurry up too!”

“Jeong-hyeok!”

The startled Mother also grabbed her bag and coat and followed.

* * *

Vroom.

Mother insisted she could take the bus and firmly declined, but she couldn’t overcome Uncle Cheol-gu’s stubbornness.

Saying it was on the way to pick up some documents left at home, and urging her to get in quickly since there was no time, Mother went “uh, uh” and got into the jeep.

‘Hmm?’

A bundle of documents rolling around on the jeep floor caught my eye.

'Dazzling golden light!'

Why is this sparkling so much?

It was just something with a black cover tightly tied with string.

Documents typed directly on rough paper with a typewriter.

A type that was hard to see in the 21st century, where everything is typed on computers and printed out.

I picked up the document folder as if entranced.

‘Hup!’

The moment I grabbed the document folder, the scene in front of my eyes changed completely.

A movie-like scene with a thin overlay of shimmering blue was sucked in sharply.

* * *

Splash!

Uncle Cheol-gu, tightly bound in a gloomy basement, was hit with a torrent of water.

Traces of torture were blatantly visible all over his body.

-Hey, Park Cheol-gu. Spit it out straight. Who ordered this?

A man in a suit clicked his tongue while shaking the document folder.

At a glance, he was a KCIA agent.

-A bastard who’s a KCIA agent, is it okay for you to be loyal to an individual instead of the country?

-That’s··· cough, not it.

-Then why have you been doing this kind of thing?

-I’m sorry, senior. I was just······.

-I’m asking why a bastard who should be investigating the background of spies has been uselessly investigating the background of U-gwang Construction!

U-gwang Construction?

U-gwang Group is a massive chaebol company that will soon be among the top three in South Korea.

-Park Cheol-gu, I asked who the backer is right now.

-There isn’t one.

-Don’t play around.

Smack!

Uncle Cheol-gu’s head snapped to the side.

Uncle Cheol-gu spat out phlegm mixed with blood, “ptui.”

-Senior, do you know how many people those U-gwang Construction bastards injured while saying they were demolishing the shantytown?

-So? Do you know how many people have been put in a difficult position because of you right now?

Smack!

-What? You’re causing this mess over some shantytown bastards?

Smack!

-You bastard, you’ll really die if you keep this up. Hurry up and spit out the backer. It’s Taeseong Construction, right?

-There isn’t one, that kind of thing.

-It is Taeseong Construction.

-That’s not··· ugh!

Splash!

The guy grabbed Uncle Cheol-gu by the hair and pushed him into a water tank.

-Insensitive bastard. I’m saying it’s Taeseong Construction.

Uncle Cheol-gu, with his whole body bound, struggled with all his might before soon going limp.

* * *

‘Uh······?’

When I took my hand off the document folder, the shimmering blue image in front of my eyes also disappeared.

‘What on earth was that just now?’

It was too vivid.

As if I had been there in person.

As if Uncle Cheol-gu was really being tortured like that.

I could feel even every breath and every bit of cold air intact.

It was something I had never experienced in the past.

I touched the black document cover again with a trembling hand.

“······.”

Nothing happened.

Nothing was visible.

It was quiet.

‘Did I just see something that wasn’t there?’

[No.]

Startled me!

The answer came from elsewhere.

[Strange. It seems you peeked at what I saw.]

The underworld messenger appeared like smoke from the passenger seat and said.

[This guy’s trip to the Yellow Springs is in one week.]

I remembered.

Not long after Mother passed away, the Guro-dong shantytown was forcibly demolished.

The landlord’s grandmother also lost her house that way and was driven onto the streets, but at that time, Uncle Cheol-gu was already dead.

‘Uncle Cheol-gu dies in a week? From torture?’

The underworld messenger didn’t answer.

Instead, he only glanced at Uncle Cheol-gu.

“Ugh!”

Suddenly, Uncle Cheol-gu stopped driving and started shivering all over, shuddering.

[A fellow with good intuition.]

Swoosh.

The underworld messenger disappeared as if cotton candy melting in water.

Uncle Cheol-gu rubbed his arm and kept glancing sideways toward the passenger seat.

“What, what is it? It was really creepy just now?”

“Uncle, what is this?”

I picked up the documents.

Uncle Cheol-gu looked through the rearview mirror and became serious.

“Kid, that’s important, so put it down. You’ll be in big trouble if you look at it carelessly.”

“Are you investigating the background of U-gwang Construction?”

More precisely, a tracking investigation regarding U-gwang Construction’s slush funds.

Screech!

Uncle Cheol-gu suddenly pulled the jeep over to the side of the road and snatched the documents from my hand.

“You didn’t see it. Forget it. Got it?”

This guy really has no backing at all.

Is he brave or stupid? You’ll really die if you keep that up.

U-gwang was a representative chaebol company that grew through collusion between politics and business during the military dictatorship era.

Mother also spoke with a serious expression.

“U-gwang Construction is those people who go around each house causing trouble, saying they’ll push down the shantytown and build apartments, right?”

Uncle Cheol-gu kept his mouth tightly shut and stared straight ahead.

He pressed his temples hard with a long sigh.

But at Mother’s next words, he suddenly turned around.

“The day before yesterday, they even came to our house and threatened us a lot, saying to move out immediately, that next time they won’t leave nicely.”

“Those guys caused trouble again? Was anyone hurt?”

A sigh came out naturally.

‘The forced demolition will start soon.’

I glanced at the document folder the uncle had retrieved.

The fact that the man torturing the uncle was trying to pin the backer on Taeseong Construction bothered me for no reason.

“Uncle.”

“It’s an adult matter. The kid doesn’t need to know.”

When Uncle Cheol-gu pressed the audio button, 70s trot music began to flow.

-I came embracing dreams. I came~♬ Push aside all sadness and pain, all of it~♬

It was the legendary popular song released in ’75 that instantly made Song Dae-gwon a star.

Uncle Cheol-gu started singing along loudly.

“Nothing is impossible. If you try~♬ The day the sun shines brightly will return~♬”

Vroom.

The jeep raced forward vigorously.

I crossed my arms and looked out the window.

The streets of Seoul were completely different from the 2020s.

Instead of high-rise buildings densely lined along the main roads, small buildings stood sparsely.

The people walking on the streets and the number of vehicles coming and going were also clearly different from the past.

‘This is a big problem. There’s no way compensation will come out even for our family living in a rented room. Looking at the bankbook, I can tell. With our circumstances, there’s nowhere suitable to move to right away.’

My brow furrowed on its own.

‘Either sell Father’s watch, or contact Father’s house and get help. I don’t know what the adults’ circumstances are, but we can’t live on the streets in the middle of winter······hmm?’

Just now, I saw something flashing with golden light at a newsstand near the bus stop.

It was bursting with light like fireworks.

“Uncle, stop! Stooop! Pull over! Quickly!”

Screech!

Uncle Cheol-gu had to make a second emergency stop.

“Why? What? Why? What’s going on?”

“I’ll get off for a moment! I’ll be right back!”

“What? Why? Why are you suddenly like this?”

Leaving the adults with question marks floating above their heads behind.

I hopped down from the jeep and sprinted at full speed.

I really wanted to confirm the unusual golden light I had seen earlier.

Somehow, it felt like I absolutely had to.

‘The golden light that burst like fireworks over there earlier······ found it!’

The housing lottery being sold at the newsstand near the bus stop!

I rubbed my eyes hard with the back of my hand.

Even looking again, golden light was bursting brilliantly from the lottery tickets.

‘Wow, I have to buy this!’

I unconsciously gulped down dry saliva.

In my pocket is the 500 won that Uncle Cheol-gu gave me earlier, saying it was a service.

‘One lottery ticket is 100 won.’

I decided to close my eyes and go for it.

“Housing lottery! Give me this one!”

The lottery drawing day is today.

My heart is already pounding.