The three people, Jeong Rok, Jung Yoon, and Yoo Bo-ha, settled down with hot coffee in a quiet café not too far away.
The part-timer, who had happily taken their order as the first customer, repeatedly glanced at the three exchanging serious words, fiddling with his phone.
Mindful of the part-timer, Yoo Bo-ha hesitated for a long time.
However, under Jung Yoon’s persistent and probing gaze, she seemed to have no choice but to open her mouth carefully.
***
Jung Yoon, sitting at the far end of the quiet hall, didn’t let Yoo Bo-ha evade him.
It might be a painful memory, but he couldn’t allow it. Putting his apologetic feelings aside for a moment, Jung Yoon asked a direct and piercing question.
“If you truly don’t remember anything, why did you try to run away when you saw us?”
Yoo Bo-ha seemed momentarily flustered by his cold voice, but she wasn’t greatly agitated, perhaps having already anticipated this.
“…I was just flustered.”
However, her physical reactions—trembling fingers, rapidly blinking eyelids, drying lips—couldn’t be controlled, making her nervousness obvious.
Jung Yoon keenly observed Yoo Bo-ha’s complexion and expression.
“Ms. Yoo Bo-ha.”
Jung Yoon was racking his brain, trying to figure out how to persuade her.
Yoo Bo-ha was avoiding eye contact and showing with her whole body that she wouldn’t cooperate.
Just then, Jeong Rok’s cold voice cut through Jung Yoon’s thoughts and stole his lead.
With just three syllables, calling her name, Yoo Bo-ha was greatly startled and clutched her chest.
She was even sweating cold. Just as Jung Yoon thought something was off, Jeong Rok brought out the very sentence he had considered a low blow.
“We found out you’re an illegal overstayer, Ms. Yoo Bo-ha.”
Her gaze, which had been continuously lowered and avoiding theirs, stopped for a moment.
Her eyes widened, and her chest slightly swelled as if she had gasped for air.
Jung Yoon was equally flustered.
They had promised to use the weak point as a last resort, so he hadn’t expected Jeong Rok to bring up the illegal overstay issue so abruptly.
“If a proper investigation begins, your name will be submitted to the court. Can you handle that?”
Jeong Rok lowered his voice and hardened his mouth.
His uncharacteristically stern demeanor made not only Yoo Bo-ha but even Jung Yoon tense.
“If I cooperate… will you overlook it?”
The silence that had lingered between the three for a moment was broken by Yoo Bo-ha’s voice.
She looked skeptical of Jeong Rok, but knowing there was no other way, Yoo Bo-ha became quite submissive.
“Of course. From that moment on, Ms. Yoo Bo-ha becomes an important witness for us.”
Jeong Rok raised an eyebrow as if asking why she would inquire about something so obvious.
At his reply, Jung Yoon’s expression momentarily stiffened, but he couldn’t stop him.
If Yoo Bo-ha had seen something definite, the investigation would certainly become much easier.
Just completely removing Jang Chang-hyun from the list of suspects would save a lot of effort.
If, by any chance, Yoo Bo-ha remembered even a single face or distinguishing feature, it would be nothing short of a jackpot.
All their hard work would be compensated.
Jung Yoon lowered his gaze and tightened his lips.
He clenched his hands, shoved into his pockets, and painstakingly crushed his tactless conscience.
Yoo Bo-ha didn’t open her mouth easily.
Conflict, along with a bit of fear, gradually appeared on her seemingly indifferent face.
Her pupils, recalling something, were trembling violently.
Looking at her like this, Yoo Bo-ha didn’t seem to be merely afraid of forced deportation.
Jeong Rok, perhaps noticing this, handed Yoo Bo-ha a bottle of water he seemed to have gotten from somewhere.
Did he buy that too?
Jung Yoon looked up at the ceiling, lost in thought.
And then, Yoo Bo-ha, who had taken the water, fiddled with the bottle, hesitated, and then opened her mouth.
“That day… perhaps because it rained so much, the bus didn’t come.”
Her voice, trembling slightly as if she were standing there at that very moment, lost strength.
Her voice, almost like she was on the verge of tears, squeezed out the story of that night onto the table.
***
“No matter how late, the bus never arrived more than 5 minutes past its usual time. But that day, the bus didn’t come even after 20 minutes. I was so cold and hungry… I saw a supermarket nearby, so I headed there. Bare-bodied.”
It was a day when it poured so heavily that an umbrella was useless.
Bo-ha, who worked nights in a metropolitan city about 30 minutes by bus from Chunwon, looked up at the sky resentfully, desperately waiting for the bus.
However, the bus didn’t appear even long after its scheduled time.
Growing anxious, Bo-ha thought she should call work and looked around.
“I need to get out of this wretched neighborhood soon…”
It was only around 7 PM, but the road beyond was completely dark.
Bo-ha, searching for a public phone booth, suddenly recalled the supermarket and looked up.
It was a supermarket about five minutes’ walk inward from the bus stop.
Was there a public phone?
Her memory of the shabby, infrequently visited supermarket was hazy.
Still, having no other option, Bo-ha adjusted her umbrella and crossed the single-lane road.
The quiet alley, a mix of rain and wind, was eerie.
The ceaseless downpour soaked into the faded concrete walls, and raindrops, forcefully striking the low roof, splashed all over her shoulders and exposed calves.
Bo-ha cursed under her breath as she walked.
Soon, a lit supermarket appeared.
Bo-ha narrowed her eyes, lifted her heels, and peered forward.
At the supermarket entrance, a small public phone was attached to a wall pillar.
She couldn’t be sure if it worked, but believing it would, Bo-ha quickened her pace.
However, soon she saw squelching muddy ground.
Veins bulged on Bo-ha’s slick forehead.
This is driving me crazy.
Hugging herself against the cold and pulling her umbrella tighter, Bo-ha walked, trying to find patches of ground with less pooled water, darting this way and that.
Eventually, the public phone drew near.
Bo-ha, whose nose was already itchy and sniffled as she headed for her target, stopped at a dull thud sound coming from somewhere.
The sound came from inside the dimly lit store.
Bo-ha briefly turned her gaze that way, but then the distant sound of a bus made her turn her attention away from the store’s interior.
“Ah…”
The long-awaited bus simply passed the empty bus stop.
The bus sound, which had grown louder, now gradually faded again.
Bo-ha, watching the receding bus in vain, found herself standing in front of the public phone.
“What is this… Ugh, seriously.”
A curse word involuntarily escaped her lips.
Up close, the public phone line was cut.
Bo-ha glared irritably at the store entrance.
If it’s like this, why even have it here?
Bo-ha grumbled, biting her lip, and was about to turn away when she heard another strange thud, thud from behind her.
Finally, Bo-ha stopped. It was that damn curiosity bubbling up.
Anyway, since the bus had just passed, she didn’t know when the next one would come…
Bo-ha approached the door, both to warm her cold body and to satisfy her curiosity.
And just before she grabbed the doorknob, she saw something stark red and wet through the thin, fogged window.
“What is that…”
The moment she tried to look closer, a gust of wind blew.
The thin, flimsy metal door rattled noisily.
Bo-ha clapped her hand over her mouth, as if struck by lightning, suppressing a scream.
It was because an instinct, a gut feeling that she absolutely must not make a sound, pressed down on her whole body.
Just then, thump, thump, slow footsteps were heard.
Bo-ha froze, gripping her sluggish thighs as if forcibly tearing them away, and moved sideways to hide.
A groan escaped her as if in spasm.
Bo-ha, who had unknowingly dropped her umbrella, clamped her wide-open mouth shut and hid under the stairs leading to the rooftop next to the store.
It was difficult to control her trembling hands.
It was blood, wasn’t it?
It was blood…
Her mind was completely crimson.
Panicked, Bo-ha had tears in her eyes and desperately prayed for the footsteps she heard to disappear.
I’ll really live diligently and virtuously from now on.
No, I’ll go back to my home country.
I’m sorry.
She confessed all her wrongs in her mind, pleading again and again to someone who couldn’t hear her.
The rain was still pouring heavily.
The rain, which had been only terrible moments ago, now felt like a blessing.
It was a tremendous relief that her breathing was masked by the sound of the rain.
How long did she endure like that?
Just as Bo-ha’s fingertips were turning bluish and the sensation in her toes was fading, clunk, whoosh.
The sound of a door opening.
Reflexively, she lifted her head, and a large, black figure, appearing as vast as a mountain, came into view in front of the umbrella Bo-ha had discarded.
Something held in the man’s hand, who seemed unfazed despite his body being thoroughly soaked by the pouring rain, then caught her eye.