There’s no way to know for sure only relying on my fuzzy, distorted memory. Memories from a childhood I’ve largely spent decades trying to forget.
But there is one other person I know whomighthave answers.
I kiss Monroe goodbye when she’s escorted by Sang-cheol to the car. It’s her second to last day at Suyeong Academy before her leave of absence. As she smiles at me and mentions maybe going out to dinner with her mother later, I simply nod and suggest I’ll be with Sang-cheol to pick her up.
Then I make sure Monroe’s mother is out of earshot when I place the call. Thankfully, she’s still adjusting to the time zone from her long international travel, so she’s decided to spend the day in recovery.
It rings a few times before the other line answers. Answered by the sage and whisper-soft voice of perhaps the only other person who ever cared for me after my family died.
“Jin-ah? Is that you?” asks Auntie Yong-sun.
“Yes, Auntie. It is me.”
“It has been so long since you’ve rang me. Is this about the American expat again? She never came to stay with me.”
For a second, I almost forget I ever asked. Back when Monroe was wanted dead by the old Baekho-je Jae-hyun and potentially also a target of the Bulgeomhoe, I had devised a plan to smuggle her to Taiwan.
There, she would be able to stay with an old family friend of mine. The woman who once considered herself my mother’s best friend.
“Uh, no, Auntie. This isn’t about the American expat coming to stay. It’s… something else. I have a question for you.”
“Of course, of course. Is everything alright? Have you been staying out of trouble or is that too much to ask?” She adds a gentle laugh.
“Everything is complicated right now, which is why I need your help. It’s about my parents.”
“Your parents?” she repeats. Any humor disappears from her tone, and she suddenly sounds wary. “Jin-ah, why are you asking about this now? After all these years?”
“Someone is threatening my family. Monroe—the American woman—she and I fell in love. We’re engaged to be married, and she’s pregnant. We’re having a son,” I explain speedily. “Threats have started coming in. Some man calling himself the Black Shell claims we’ll see each other again. He claims it’s been a long time since we last met.”
“That could be anyone. What does this have to do with your parents?”
“There’s no enemy of mine that fits his profile. Which means it could be someone not from my past… but my parents.”
My theory is met with drawn-out silence on her end. I can almost hear her thinking, weighing how much to tell me.
“Auntie,” I press, my tone hardening, “this has to do with my parents, doesn’t it? What was my father involved in?”
“I don’t know the details,” she says reluctantly. She sighs as if physically ailed by my request. “I was close with your mother, not your father. But I… I knew something was wrong. Your father… he was involved with bad people, Jin-ah. Characters from the crime world. I never knew exactly what he did or who he worked with, but I knew enough to be afraid.”
“Afraid ofwhat?”
“Afraid of what might happen if those people ever came looking for him. They eventually did. They killed your entire family, and I... I fled. I was terrified they would come for me too, just for being close to your mother. That’s why I moved here to Taiwan. That’s why I’ve stayed hidden all these years.”
I absorb this revelation, turning it over in my mind. My father—the man I always imagined as a regular civilian living a humble life—was involved with criminals. Bad enough that his entire family was slaughtered as punishment.
“Who were they?” I ask tightly. “The people he worked with.”
“I don’t know. I truly don’t,” she answers. “But there was a man who owned the bar where your father used to do business sometimes. I know of him because he once tried to date me. His name is Baek Dok-su. Last I heard, he still runs the same bar in Jangnim-dong. If anyone knows what your father was mixed up in, it would be him.”
I commit the name to memory. “Thank you, Auntie.”
“Jin-ah, be careful. Whatever your father was involved in... it was dangerous enough to destroy everyone he loved. Don’t let it destroy you too.”
I hang up without responding. Nothing will stop me from getting to the bottom of what’s going on.
I go alone to the establishment in Jangnim-dong. Where normally I’d bring a few hubaes with me, I decide it’s best to tackle this matter alone.
Hubaes like Min-gyu are dutiful, but they haven’t exactly been the most useful as of late, and, even worse, can be said for lazy and incompetent lieutenants like Nam Joo-wan.
