The Taste of Lies Chapter 6

The car engine started, and inside the vehicle, the smell of mold from the heater, dirt, and sour sweat mixed together. The police car wound its way down the dark mountain road. The car was quiet. Finding the silence awkward, Officer Kim reached for the radio. A program he’d heard during the day was being rebroadcast.

Letting the overly bright voice wash past his ears, Youngmin glanced at the rearview mirror. Still upset at being treated like a child, Sangtae had his arms crossed and his cheeks puffed out.

Had he ended up earning his resentment after all?

Between driving, Youngmin kept stealing glances at the rearview mirror—things he didn’t need to see. As they approached a curve, his eyes met Sangtae’s. Sangtae curled his lips upward, then licked his lower lip. His flicking tongue brimmed with a mean heat. Whatever it was, he was up to no good.

“Mister, they say your mom is the police chief’s mistress, right?”

Screech!

The patrol car slammed to a halt.

Anyone in that moment, hearing such words from a kid’s mouth, would have been startled enough to hit the brakes.

Even after the car stopped, Youngmin stared blankly at the center of the steering wheel. Officer Kim grabbed the overhead handle by the window and let out a startled breath. Sangtae also pressed his chest and blew out a puff of air through his nose.

“Hey, you! How dare you say such nonsense to a police officer!”

Officer Kim shouted at once. Dropping his tensed shoulders, Youngmin turned his head toward Officer Kim.

He’d hit the brakes largely because of Sangtae. But how could he know about the rumors surrounding him? How could a local high school kid know about suspicions raised only within the patrol station?

“Ah, no. I only told my wife…”

“I didn’t hear it from Mister’s wife, though?”

Sangtae cut in. Officer Kim hurriedly repeated, “Shut up, you!” and scolded him. Youngmin wiped his face with his palm.

Was Officer Kim the only one who’d blabbed to his wife? And had Officer Kim’s wife kept her mouth shut? The rumors about Youngmin jumped over the patrol station fence and spread like wildfire, one tail chasing another. And they had even occupied the ears of a fearless, reckless brat.

Pathetic.

Vroom, the patrol car began moving again. Sangtae watched Youngmin’s reaction, then opened his mouth once more.

“Mister’s mom is the shaman who lives in front of the county office, isn’t she?”

“No, this kid just keeps—”

“Shut your mouth over there. I want to confirm it.”

“Hey, ‘over there’?”

At the words “over there,” Officer Kim got heated and made a gesture of thumping him on the head.

At this rate, he really was going to cause an accident. Please, just let us go quietly. As Youngmin sighed, both their gazes turned to him. He’d tried to stop Sangtae, but now even Officer Kim’s eyes were burning with mean curiosity.

“I’ll make it clear.”

Youngmin said.

“I’m from Incheon, and both my mother and father lived in Incheon. My only connection to Mukhyeon is that my registered birthplace is here.”

“So you’re not the mistress’s child?”

“…My mother passed away from cancer a few years ago.”

“…”

“Satisfied now?”

Youngmin asked in a flat, uninflected voice. It wasn’t that he blamed Sangtae, but the boy stuck out his lips and muttered, “No,” in a small voice. His expression subtly lost its edge. Youngmin continued.

“Let me ask something too.”

“Go ahead.”

“Why did you get hit?”

The direction of the questions shifted. Sangtae’s lips twitched, as if he’d never expected Youngmin to ask him that. It seemed like it would take quite a while for him to answer. Did even delinquents have loyalties they had to uphold?

“What’s the reason for getting beaten up at a reservoir empty lot in the middle of the night? Did you do something to deserve it?”

“I didn’t just get beaten up, you know?”

Sangtae took the bait. He shot back immediately, then added in a rapid tone.

“If you want to catch those bastards, why don’t you try going to the hospital emergency room?”

“So you hit back too. That makes it mutual assault. Looks like we’re headed to the station, not home.”

Catching Youngmin’s cue, Officer Kim played along. There was no way the kids who’d scattered to avoid the police would suddenly file a report, but Sangtae fell for it again.

“Those bastards keep giving me jobs without telling me what they are. The 50,000 won per job is tempting, but they won’t tell me what the job is and just say to do whatever they say… Does that make any sense? If it’s a job worth 50,000 won per go, why would they be running their mouths telling me to do it instead of doing it themselves?”

He huffed as he spoke. The content wasn’t good. Youngmin and Officer Kim exchanged glances. Officer Kim jerked his chin—meaning, since Sangtae had taken a liking to Youngmin, he should ask.

“So. Are you going to do it?”

“Why would I do that? I don’t even know what it is. Besides, those bastards… Ugh, forget it. I don’t want to get tangled up with them.”

“Who are those bastards?”

“Forget it. I don’t know either.”

Sangtae clamped his mouth shut like a clam. Even Officer Kim stepped in and asked several times, but his lips wouldn’t budge. You wouldn’t be able to do anything even if you knew. With that look in his eyes, Sangtae just grinned slyly.

“Never mind. Stop the car. I’m getting out.”

Consistently answering the follow-up questions with sneers and silence, Sangtae pointed beyond the window. A single-story house with a tin roof wedged into a corner at a three-way intersection, the roof so low it looked like it might collapse to the ground.

Sangtae got out of the car and disappeared into the darkness. Youngmin followed him out. Officer Kim poked his head out the window.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll walk him to his door and come back.”

“Hey, it’s right in front! …You’re making a fuss, making a fuss. This is why newbies are a pain.”

Officer Kim folded his arms and sank into his seat. Not long after, Youngmin also vanished beyond the headlights.

∞ ∞ ∞

Creak.

The lion-head handle on the blue front gate was rusted. In the darkness, both blue and red appeared as a single color, and the lion looked like it was weeping. Youngmin stepped into the yard, where broken earthenware jars lay scattered and weeds grew up to his knees.

“Ahem, hmm, hmm.”

He deliberately cleared his throat to make his presence known. Sangtae, who had been climbing the wooden veranda, turned back. All the lights were off, and the house was as quiet as a dead animal.

“What?”

“Aren’t there any adults home?”

“No.”

Kicking off his slippers with a flick of his feet, Sangtae stepped onto the veranda. The white sneakers lying beside the upturned slippers caught Youngmin’s eye. In contrast to the collapsed heels, the toe caps were clean—they didn’t look like they’d been worn much. His body had shot up before the soles could even wear down.

Other than the slippers and sneakers, no other shoes were visible.

“Are your parents working late?”

Sangtae’s eyes went round. It wasn’t as if Youngmin had asked in a foreign language, but Sangtae seemed unable to grasp his meaning. After rolling his eyes for a while, he suddenly narrowed them. Letting out a deflating sound, Sangtae laughed.

“No. They’re not here at all. My father is dead, and my mother abandoned me here. My grandmother on my mother’s side passed away last year… Mister, what are you doing?”

The moment he heard those words, Youngmin couldn’t resist the impulse. He stepped onto the veranda in his shoes and opened the leftmost door. Creak, the warped wooden door made an unpleasant sound.

“What are you doing, I said! Y-you should take your shoes off before coming in!”

Sangtae followed him barefoot into the kitchen. Youngmin ignored him and went straight to open the refrigerator door.

“…”

The light didn’t come on.

It had been off for so long that even the empty refrigerator felt warmer than the outside air.

Dust had gathered in the dry sink.

“Mister, Mister!”

“…”

Youngmin didn’t hear Sangtae’s shouts.

A house with no electricity, an empty refrigerator, the absence of adults, a skinny boy teetering on the edge of delinquency. It was obvious what all this pointed to.

The boy had been neglected.

Even before entering the house, Youngmin had suspected Sangtae was alone. The dead refrigerator was merely conclusive evidence of that hypothesis. If he couldn’t read that much, he might as well quit being a cop.

Youngmin was flustered for a different reason.

Why had I wanted to confirm his poverty?

“Satisfied now?”

Sangtae threw Youngmin’s own question back at him.

“No.”