5 AM. The Seoul sky was the color of cold ash.
Ji Hun didn't return to his apartment. He walked for two hours through the empty streets until he reached the Yeongdeungpo district.
He stopped at the end of the narrow alley leading to his coach's house. The air here carried the smell of old burnt coal.
The street wasn't empty.
At the corner of the intersection, two black SUVs were parked. Their engines purred quietly, white exhaust billowing into the freezing dawn air. Behind the tinted windows, the silhouettes of men sitting in silence could be made out.
They weren't there to kill. They were there to be seen. The psychological siege of the neighborhood had begun, exactly as the corporations had planned.
Ji Hun retreated into the shadow of a rough concrete wall, watching from a distance.
At 5:30, the creak of an old metal door was heard.
Seung Woo Park stepped out. He was wearing his worn cotton track jacket and carrying a black garbage bag. His steps were slower than usual, his shoulders slumped. He tossed the bag into the plastic bin, then turned to look at the black cars parked at the end of his street. The old man sighed in distress and rubbed the back of his wrinkled neck.
Then, he turned his head in the other direction.
The old man's movements stopped completely.
Twenty meters away, under a flickering streetlight, stood Ji Hun.
His face covered in bruises, his dark coat stained with the mud of the alley, and his left arm bound under the fabric.
Seung Woo's eyes narrowed. He let the lid of the garbage bin drop from his hand with a muffled thud. His lips parted, and he took one hesitant step forward.
Ji Hun didn't move. His eyes met the old man's.
He looked at the man who had treated him like a son, who now stood inside a red circle on a map in his pocket.
The old man took another step, raising his hand slightly.
Ji Hun stepped back. One step backward, and the shadow swallowed him completely. He didn't wait to see the expression on his coach's face. He turned around and began walking away with quick, heavy steps, leaving the old man standing alone in the cold.
7 AM.
Ji Hun pushed the door of his new apartment open. The place was sterile, silent, and completely odorless.
As he struggled to pull his coat off his injured shoulder, his eyes fell on the small glass table near the door.
It wasn't empty.
There was a thick brown envelope. It bore no name and no address.
He walked toward it. He picked up the envelope with his right hand. It was heavy.
He sat on the edge of the neatly made bed. He slowly unfolded the flap of the envelope.
Stacks of fifty-thousand-won bills, neatly arranged and bound with rubber bands.
He didn't throw the envelope. He didn't clench his jaw.
He stared at the money for a long time. The sound of the iron door locking in the alley echoed in his head, accompanied by the look of contempt in the bleeding man's eyes.
He quietly slid the stacks back in and folded the envelope.
He placed it on the nightstand, and lay on his back, staring at the blank white ceiling.
In that empty space, the old man's hesitant, raised hand remained suspended in the air.