The wind coming from the Han River carried the smell of rust and stagnant water.
The Seongsu industrial district at 3 AM looked nothing like Seoul. No neon lights, no glass storefronts. Just rows of massive corrugated metal warehouses swallowing the darkness.
He stepped out of the taxi. He paid the fare with his good hand and didn't wait for the change.
He walked through narrow alleys cluttered with broken wooden pallets until he reached the address.
An old warehouse, its front gate locked with rusted chains. He navigated around the building through an alley barely wide enough for two people, until he found the back gate. A heavy iron door, completely devoid of any exterior handles.
He didn't knock. He leaned his back against the cold concrete wall beside the iron.
The cold seeped through his coat, awakening every bruise on his ribs. He slipped his good hand into his pocket, where the folded map lay, while his left arm remained bound by the medical brace under the fabric.
3:10 AM.
Absolute silence. Not a single sound emerged from inside the warehouse. No talking, not even the echo of footsteps.
Then, the sound didn't come from the alley. It came from behind the iron.
A muffled thud. Then the scraping of something heavy against the floor.
The door rattled. Someone was hitting it from the inside. A desperate, weak hit.
Suddenly, the iron door was violently shoved outward.
A man fell onto the wet asphalt in the alley, panting with a sound like a death rattle. His white shirt was torn and covered in dark patches that looked black in the gloom. He tried to get up, but his knees failed him. He slipped, his face falling near Ji Hun's shoe.
The man looked up in terror.
When he saw Ji Hun standing beside the door, his eyes widened. It wasn't a look of fear. It was the look of a drowning man who had just spotted a wooden plank.
He looked at Ji Hun as a passerby. As a savior. His tear-filled eyes were pleading silently. *Save me.*
He didn't say it, but the look was heavier than any scream.
A shadow appeared behind the man.
Manager Choi stepped out of the iron door. He was wearing his elegant gray suit, but his jacket was off, and his shirt sleeves were neatly rolled up to the elbows. He held a thick iron pipe in his hand that was slowly dripping.
Choi looked at the man lying on the ground, then raised his cold eyes to Ji Hun. He wasn't angry. He looked like an executive annoyed by a minor administrative error.
"I didn't ask you to come inside," Choi said in a calm voice, wiping blood off his shoe. "Hold him for a second, Ji Hun."
The man on the ground looked back at Ji Hun. This time, the look shifted. The hope that was gleaming in his eyes a second ago began to tremble.
He was waiting to see Ji Hun attack this executioner. He was waiting for the noble boxer to intervene.
Ji Hun didn't move. The freezing wind hit his face.
The man on the ground. Choi in front of him.
And in his right pocket, he felt the weight of the folded paper. The map. Seung Woo Park's house sitting inside the red circle.
If he helped this man, he would escape. And if he escaped, they would tear the neighborhood down over his coach's head tomorrow.
Ji Hun closed his eyes for a fraction of a second.
He slowly leaned down.
The man on the ground trembled and tried to crawl backward. But Ji Hun reached out with his good hand and grabbed the man's torn collar. The grip wasn't violent, but it was heavy, firm, and irreversible.
He pinned him to the ground.
The look of hope died in the man's eyes. The stare that had begged for salvation turned into horror, then into pure contempt. The man realized the truth. This young man standing in the dark wasn't a passerby. He was just another one of their dogs.
Ji Hun didn't look away. He absorbed the full weight of the contemptuous stare. He let it carve into his soul.
Choi stepped forward. He grabbed the man by the ankle and coldly began dragging him back inside. The man didn't resist. He had completely surrendered.
Ji Hun released his grip.
"Close the door behind me," Choi said without turning around.
The man was dragged into the darkness of the warehouse.
Ji Hun grabbed the edge of the heavy iron door. He looked one last time at the smear of blood on the asphalt.
Then he pushed the door, and shut it.
The sharp crash of the metal cut through the silence.
Ji Hun was left alone in the dark alley.