CH 29.3

It was evening. Yaba came out with the excuse of going out to buy ramen. He bought ramen at the supermarket and purposely got a black bag. The corporal punishment warehouse, which was about a 10 minute walk from the hostel, was near an abandoned factory, so there were few people. It was a place where he and Cocaine had been castrated, so even in his dreams, it was a shuddering place.

He looked around and approached the corporal punishment warehouse. Though the thugs had important data there, as if there was a shortage of workers, there was no separate watcher. But after tonight, they would increase security, and the chance would be gone forever.

The warehouse door had an iron chain with a lock, wrapped around it. All the windows were soldered with iron plates so that no sound could be heard when the eunuchs were tortured. However, the gangsters never dreamt that once a eunuch singer had dug a secret escape. That singer became a corpse later, leaving nothing but his great achievement.

Yaba went to the back of the building and knocked under the wall and at some point a different sound was heard. Digging hard in the ground below, he saw a small hole. There was not enough space for a distracted mass to enter, but it was up to a person to demonstrate superpowers in case of an emergency.

Yaba took a deep breath and made his body as small as possible. He shoved his body into the hole. There was a box on one side of the cobweb-covered warehouse. He rummaged through the box and found a DVD labelled ‘N’. Cha Yiseok became a regular at Sky Lounge two months ago, but apparently he had been a regular on the basement floor prior to this. The original had been deleted, so if he removed the copy now, no one would be able to see Cha Yiseok in the video.

First, he took out the N-labelled DVD and pulled out only the disc. As he moved his hand, he raised his ears as if he could hear a sign of movement . If Giha knew about this, he wouldn’t sit still. He could even press the remote control…

“Ah.”

Yaba exclaimed. Why didn’t he think of that! If there had been no poison, the chips also might not even exist. If he thought about it logically, there’s no way there’s a chip that could even be a bomb and used for location tracking. Location tracking was something you could do with your phone. Even the eunuch singers might have been brainwashed by Giha and believed in it like a rock. It might have been an illusion that Methadone’s head was blown off, and now he could be wandering around just fine. Then the worm crawled through his skin and laughed at him with its round body trembling.

Is your head reliable? Are there any chips? Or not? Is there? Is there not?

Chip chip chip chip chip chip chip chip chip…

Yaba smashed the noisy things with his palms. These days, he thought that the number and amount of bugs had decreased, but it started again.

But if the chip was real…

The DVD loading was slow. Even when he closed and opened his eyes, the self-harm marks on his wrists remained the same. Maybe this act he was doing in the warehouse right now, and the fear he felt right now are also an illusion? As Cocaine said, could he have invented another delusion to escape the shock of the no-poison incident?

He just did not know. Now he was confused about where the boundaries between reality and delusion were. He buried his nose in his lap and grabbed his hair. Suddenly, the screams of children echoed in the darkened warehouse. Dizziness washed over. Yaba bit his lips tightly. Okay. What was clear was that Cha Yiseok existed. If only he was real, if only he was not fantasy…

He fussed around his hand again. He had quite a few DVDs that he picked out like that. The hands that were about to grab it and break it stopped. He wanted to see what Cha Yiseok would look like in the DVD, but also he didn’t want to see it. The last thing he wanted was for him not to be in there. However, as long as Cha Yiseok actually exists, he thought that it would not matter what form it was. First, the empty case was put in place, and then the DVD was placed at the bottom of the bag containing the ramen. He got out of the warehouse and refilled the hole.

Now the problem was how to pass this onto Cha Yiseok. Hewondered if he should call and ask him to come out, or if he should hand it over if he happened to meet him at Cha Myunghwan’s house. If he didn’t have a chip, he could visit him at any time. The penalty points were still plentiful. But maybe the penalty points were less than he thought.

What kind of expression would he make if he told him this? He probably didn’t even dream that something like this was recorded. He was excited to see the response he would have when Cha Yiseok said thank you and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he took out his phone and checked that his number was fine. It was about time he turned the corner of the apartment and entered the front door. Morphine was coming down the stairs.

“Oh, goodness, you lunatic! Have you been to a ramen factory? You scared me! Give it to me quickly!”

Morphine recklessly stole the bag Yaba was holding. Yaba was so shocked that this almost made his heart skip a beat.

“Give it to me!”

Yaba instinctively pushed Morphine. Morphine tumbled and shouted

“I just want to see what you bought, so why are you freaking out?!”

“Ramen is ramen, right?”

Yaba clenched the bag of ramen noodles. Sweat dripped down his back.

“What’s the matter?”

At the loud noise, the singers poked their heads out the door. There was also Cocaine.

“What are you doing there?”

After the loud voice, a shadow came up the stairs. After a while, Giha appeared. Yaba’s pulse soared rapidly and he hid the bag behind him.

“What are you doing?”

“No, well, I want to see what ramen he bought, but the lunatic pushed me all of a sudden…”

Morphine, like a snitch, confessed. As Kang Giha’s eyes flew to the bag, his spine stiffened. There’s no chip. Probably not. So, Giha was also a paper tiger. Yaba shook his head.

“What are you so curious about? Do you have anything to do?”

Yaba took out a packet of ramen and threw it at Morphine. He entered the dormitory, leaving only a glare in his eyes. Giha shot a sharp gaze from the bottom of the stairs.

Yaba’s toes trembled as they hit the floor as he came into the room, he pulled out Meth, and locked the door. He poured antidepressants into his mouth. He calmed down a bit, but a cold sweat was on his back. Morphine knocked on the door from outside.

“Lunatic. Everyone is going on a business trip! I have to change clothes, so open the door!”

He took the DVD out of the bag and moved around the room like a decapitated chicken, lifting and placing the bed mattress, opening and closing the closet. It would be a big deal if thugs suddenly searched the room while they were away.

He finally rolled the DVD into a handkerchief and put it in his underwear. When he put on the stage costume, the front was bulging. He covered it with his luggage and went outside.

***

He didn’t expect Kang Giha to accompany him on a business trip. Plus, he made only Yaba get into his car. A van carrying the eunuch singers followed. As they were about to get out of the city, Kang Giha handed him an antidepressant. Even though Kang Giha was busy, he procured medicine through his underlings, and Yaba threw away everything he received. He hugged the bag tightly, fearing that the DVD in his underwear would be noticed. Meanwhile, Kang Giha was looking at an old notebook hanging out in a moving car. He felt Yaba’s gaze, he said.

“It’s data about healers. I’m trying to see if there’s anything more my father has hidden away.”

Yaba felt like someone was pulling the skin off his head. Kang Giha’s father was the starting point of all these tragedies.

“Your dad died doing an experiment when his head blew off because of a healer’s scream?”

It was a self-inflicted death, and a luxurious end for the senile spirit. Kang Giha read the note without saying a word. Yaba asked.

“But why the data suddenly?”

“Cocaine is apparently feeling weird these days. If the healer’s power is exhausted, our sales will suffer.”

“What feeling weird… Don’t be fooled. He is just putting on a pretense.”

“Pretense?”

“You guys think he’s an obedient doll, don’t you? Then, be careful because the day will come when you suffer.”

Yaba looked forward and licked his lips. Kang Giha wrinkled his eyebrows and had a puzzled expression. Imsoo, who was driving in front, said.

“Did you see the little notebook there? There are quite a few phone numbers, there may be someone who’s familiar with your father’s research?”

Giha took out an old notebook and turned it over dryly, then stopped his hand.

“Lim Jinhee?”

“Who is it?”

Imsoo asked.

“My father’s assistant. I can’t forget this name. Because of his affair with this woman, neither his wife nor children care about him. There were originally a few assistants, but they all left because of my father’s madness. But apparently only she was there until his deathbed.”

“After watching his research for the longest time, she must have the most accurate information.”

“She’s a woman I don’t really want to deal with. And there’s no way she’s still using a number from 10 years ago.”

He tossed his notebook away. Imsoo handed him some more old notebooks back with one hand.

“I was looking at the data from time to time and found something interesting. There is a lot of jargon, so I’m not sure if I understood it clearly…”

Imsoo continued.

“Healer who can heal and kill, everyone knows up to this point… It was written that there are healers that can only heal and healers that can only kill.”

“A different type of healer?”

“It seems so.”

“I know there were a few samples my father had come across, but I’ve never heard of healers of different types.”

Yaba became interested in their conversation. He asked.

“Then you’re saying that a healer that only kills can express its power only by screaming?”

Giha replied.

“Who knows. I don’t know exactly because I’ve never seen this type before. Cocaine has both healing and killing powers, but screaming blindly won’t do it. He can only kill when he is surrounded by true despair and fear.”

“Then we can catch a kid who only kills and use it for contract murder. There’s no risk of being trampled by the cops, and it’ll make money. Can I borrow it for a moment?”

Giha smiled and handed over the note. Imsoo said.

“But, boss. When Cocaine asked about the data earlier and told me about it, it seemed like he already knew it. He asked me to tell him something else.”

“Cocaine knows? That there are more types of healers?”

“Yes.”