Kill Your X Chapter 67

“That’s true, but do you have a good plan?”

I don’t know if this is the right thing to do. But one thing is certain: if I hesitate here, all that will be left is regret.

Life is far too short to spend it just regretting. Each passing day is precious.

“You have the video streaming account you used when you first exposed my father’s corruption, right? Please post an announcement there. That you’re going to live-stream the search for the bodies.”

Without a word, Detective Nam just stared intently into my eyes. It was the sharp gaze of a man who has dealt with countless criminals. He quickly saw through me, that I wasn’t joking. The confusion was evident in the way he touched his face here and there.

“May I ask why you want to go that far?”

At that question, Ma Yubin naturally came to mind. The way he lied so calmly without a single change in his expression.

“Because it’s infuriating.”

Detective Nam didn’t press for more reasons. He didn’t seem to want to shake my resolve and ruin the plan, and he seemed to guess that I must have my own reasons for it.

“Let’s go to the mountain tomorrow when the sun is up. One person will have to hold the camera for the live broadcast, so it would be better to call one more person for support to help us dig.”

When I asked if he knew anyone who could help, Detective Nam shook his head. He said he’d been cut off not just by friends but also by his family because of this whistleblowing incident.

“What should we do? Should we try to find a foreign laborer in a pinch? I’m sure there’s at least one person who would do it if we pay them well.”

“In that case, I’ll just call an acquaintance of mine. A trustworthy friend just came to mind.”

Someone with enough stamina to climb a mountain and dig, and who wouldn’t look at me with disgust even if it was revealed someday that I like men. It would be hard to find a more suitable person in my entire, seemingly wide yet narrow, circle of connections.

“I’ll contact that friend separately. It’s late, so you should head home now. The three of us will move together tomorrow.”

✽✽✽

“Sunbae….”

“If you can’t do it, go back now. I won’t resent you. I know this is an unreasonable favor.”

Hyun Jin, who met me at the appointed place and heard the full story once more, was at a loss. He hesitated, watching Detective Nam load a spare shovel and simple broadcasting equipment into the car trunk, running his hands through his hair. He remained in that state until the trunk closed and Detective Nam got into the driver’s seat first.

“It’s probably better if you just don’t go. I’m sorry for calling you out of the blue. I must have lived my life wrong, since you, Hyun Jin, were the only person I could think of to ask for something like this.”

“No, no. I’ll go too.”

Hyun Jin, his hair a mess, quickly shook his head.

“It’s fine. I was being shortsighted. No matter how much I promise to keep you out of trouble, just getting involved in something like this must be an incredible burden.”

As I started to walk to the car, Hyun Jin stood firmly in front of me, blocking my way.

“Sunbae. That’s not the point right now. It’s surprising enough that we’re suddenly going into the mountains with shovels to find bodies, but the killer is none other than your father, Sunbae, and he’s the prospective police commissioner? Wow, what kind of crazy situation is this? Is your mental state okay, Sunbae?”

“Hey, if you two are done talking over there, let’s get moving. We need to finish the digging while the sun is up.”

Detective Nam shouted, rolling down the window.

“Yes. We’re coming now.”

I was worried until the end, but when I led the way, Hyun Jin trotted along behind me.

I got into the passenger seat of the car, and Hyun Jin got into the back. Detective Nam, seemingly with a lot on his mind, was silent for a long time after he started driving.

I could see Hyun Jin, a talkative person by nature, dying in the back seat from the suffocating silence. To save my commendable junior and also to satisfy my personal curiosity, I spoke up first. It was an issue I wanted to address at least once.

“Detective Nam, when did you first notice something was off? Was my father involved in that kind of corruption throughout his entire time as a police officer?”

“It wasn’t like that from the beginning.”

His empty gaze traced a part of the past. Detective Nam continued speaking a little slowly.

“Song Jeonggun, your father, was a just and responsible person, just as you said, Gyujin. At least, he was when I first joined as a rookie cop. I remember him as a Sunbae who had many respectable qualities.”

Hearing about my father’s past from someone else for the first time felt somewhat unfamiliar.

“Then why…”

“The reason Song Jeonggun changed was probably because of the factional strife within the police force.”

“Factions?”

“Your father, Gyujin, didn’t graduate from the police university, did he? He started his career as a regular patrol officer.”

This was a fact I was well aware of. It was a factor that had definitely played a part in turning my father into a hero among the public, and if he were to be promoted this time, he would become the first person from the rank of patrol officer to rise to the position of Commissioner General.

“It’s gotten a lot better now, but back then, the discrimination between the police university and non-police university factions was extremely severe. The police station in Gangnam where Song Jeonggun worked for a long time is still talked about as being particularly bad in that regard.”

I knew he was born into a family that wasn’t well-off and was a self-made man, but I didn’t know there was a complicated backstory tied to his educational background. It made sense, because the image I had of my father after I had grown up a bit was always one of him holding his head high and proud.

“Song Jeonggun wasn’t on the fast track for promotion from the start. He consistently achieved outstanding merits for his years of service, yet he was unusually often passed over for promotion. On the other hand, his colleagues who joined around the same time steadily climbed the ladder.”

“Are you saying it was because my father wasn’t a police university graduate?”

“Only the person in charge of personnel appointments at the time would know the truth, but it seems that at least Song Jeonggun came to that conclusion. Seeing that must have hurt him deeply inside. The reward would have been all the more desperate for someone from a poor background who had worked so hard.”

Simply catching criminals well wasn’t enough. After coming to that realization, my father slowly began to change.

“I don’t know the exact reason why Song Jeonggun started colluding with gangsters. After he joined the violent crimes unit, he got special promotions for handling a series of difficult cases, but since he had always been good at his job, no one suspected him at that point. On the contrary, the majority opinion was, ‘Song Jeonggun is finally getting the recognition he deserves.’”

“It seems he started benefiting from it too often after that.”

“That’s right. We don’t get childishly jealous just because a colleague is doing well. However, there were times when we got the feeling that Song Jeonggun was colluding with the gangster kids. When you work in the same space and spend more time together than with your own family, you get a kind of intuition, a gut feeling from the atmosphere.”

Still, it was only a hunch. He said the two missing detectives were the ones who sensed something suspicious and secretly launched an investigation. Coincidentally, those two were police university graduates.

What clues had the two missing detectives found? What was my father so afraid of that he tried to silence them with death? I was honestly scared of the truth I would soon discover.

“Detective, did you post the broadcast announcement?”

“…I haven’t posted it yet, I just wrote a draft. It would be a problem if I posted it in advance and the police showed up to interfere.”

“Then when will you post it?”

“Let’s publish it when we’re close to the place where the bodies are buried. People in our country react very quickly. By the way, Gyujin, are you sure you remember the location exactly?”

“It’s been ten years, so the surrounding environment has probably changed a bit, but there are a few elements to identify the spot. It’s not a very big mountain either, so if we search diligently, we should be able to break ground before sunset.”

At that, Hyun Jin, who had been just rolling his eyes in the back seat, chimed in.

“By the way, where is Posan-eup? I’ve traveled a lot domestically so I’m pretty knowledgeable about geography, but I’ve really never heard of Mt. Woojung.”

“Did you say you’re twenty-five this year, Hyun Jin? Young people probably don’t know about it. There’s absolutely nothing to do around there. Especially the Mt. Woojung area is all a water source protection zone, so development is impossible and it’s isolated from residential areas. The mountain is too small to be interesting for hikers to covet.”

“In short, it means it’s the perfect place to hide criminal evidence. That’s really scary.”

I was worried, but once the ice was broken, Detective Nam and Hyun Jin started chatting amiably. As they kept talking, Detective Nam’s expression unknowingly relaxed. I was so relieved that Hyun Jin had such a people-friendly personality.

The car sped down the road, and the three of us smoothly approached our destination. We’d need some strength for the digging. When asked if he wanted to eat a bowl of ramen at a nearby rest stop, Hyun Jin shut his eyes tightly and refused. He said he had skipped breakfast this morning as well.

“I feel like I’d get indigestion if I ate anything right now.”

“There are times you can’t digest food? I thought you could chew up titanium.”

“Ah, Sunbae. Are you joking right now? I may look like this, but I’m very delicate on the inside.”

“Don’t worry too much. There’s no guarantee that things will work out perfectly, but there’s no guarantee they’ll be a total disaster either. Right?”

At that, Hyun Jin’s gaze towards me became greasy.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Well, Sunbae. I knew from the start that you were a good person, but.”

“But?”

“Seeing you now, you’re even more, more cool. I think I liked you because I subconsciously knew you were such a decisive person. Hong Hyun Jin’s eye for people is insane, for real.”

As the conversation somehow flowed into a strange atmosphere, Detective Nam glanced back and forth between us. It would be weird to explain my relationship with Hyun Jin here, so I just laughed it off vaguely.

“Anyway, this damn popularity. I was perfect in every way, so now I’m trying to ruin my family background to add a touch of humanity.”

At my self-deprecating joke, Detective Nam let out a faint sigh. That was all, but in that moment, I felt a greater sense of kinship with him than with my own flesh-and-blood father. It was a very strange thing.

✽✽✽

On a sunny afternoon, we arrived in front of Mt. Woojung.

With several portable flashlights attached to our waists, Hyun Jin and I each took a large shovel from the trunk of Detective Nam’s car.

“Haah, this, sss.”

As we did some light stretching to prepare for the climb, Detective Nam looked troubled from a short distance away. While checking the broadcasting equipment, he held his cell phone up high, spun around in place, and then put a hand on his hip.

“Detective, is there a problem? Ah, don’t tell me…”