Free Web NovelYamsaengi stood with his back against the rusted iron gate, waging war against the drowsiness pressing in on him. Who in the world was supposed to come to a place like this at such a dead hour—and to somewhere this deserted, no less—was beyond him.
He was standing watch at the entrance to an abandoned factory. It had been left to rot long ago, and there was not a single house nearby, let alone a streetlamp. The only things pushing back the black darkness were the faint moonlight and the sloppy fire lit inside a dented oil drum.
Just then, the heavy iron gate behind him opened, and a man in a fur cap stuck his head out.
“Yamsaengi. Want me to take over?”
“No.”
Despite the curt refusal, the ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) man came all the way out anyway and firmly shut the gate behind him. Standing beside Yamsaengi, the man in the fur cap swept his eyes over the area. The barren lot held nothing but scattered piles of lumber and a single van parked across from them. He was staring into the dark when he suddenly paused, then turned to look at Yamsaengi.
“Quit it.”
“Quit what?”
“You were whistling just now.”
Yamsaengi frowned at the bizarre accusation.
“When?”
“I don’t even know how to whistle.”
“Huh? Guess I heard wrong.”
As the man in the fur cap tilted his head in confusion, Yamsaengi said,
“Wasn’t it just the wind?”
No sooner had he finished speaking than a cold gust swept through the lot. The man in the fur cap flinched. Maybe it was the wind, but all at once it felt strangely colder. Yamsaengi listened for a moment to the rustle of leaves riding the breeze, then cautiously asked,
“And him?”
Instead of answering, the man in the fur cap slowly shook his head. Yamsaengi looked up at the sky with a dark expression.
What in the world was his boss thinking?
Yamsaengi had been at Kim Seonghun’s side for a good while now, but this was the first time he had ever found the man unfamiliar.
To be precise, it had started yesterday morning.
The Kim Seonghun Yamsaengi knew was cheerful and straightforward. Of course, like most men who lived by their fists, he had the flaw of being stupid as hell. A loud man who liked to talk and tease his underlings, Kim Seonghun had acted like a completely different person since yesterday. The healthy color in his face had vanished overnight, leaving him hollow and bloodless. He neither ate nor smiled. Everyone had been startled by how different he seemed and asked what had happened, but instead of answering, Kim Seonghun had only stared at them with burning eyes.
By afternoon, he had disappeared without a word to anyone. He reappeared only after half a day had passed. When he returned to the office, Kim Seonghun ordered one of his men to get the car ready. Even when asked where they were going, he did not answer—he simply pointed in a direction with one finger. The place they reached by following those directions was this very spot. Along with the order to guard the gate, the only thing he had added was that they were to wait.
There had been no explanation of why, or for whom—none of the things he would ordinarily have told them. After issuing those blunt instructions, he headed into the warehouse inside the building, and when the others trailed after him, he even drove them all back out, saying he wanted to be alone. He gave off such a violent, forbidding air that no one dared approach him carelessly. So his men took turns standing watch at the gate.
Spending endless hours waiting without the slightest clue what was going on was no small misery. Yamsaengi was loosening the stiffness in his neck by cracking it from side to side when the man in the fur cap suddenly smacked him on the shoulder and spat out a curse.
“Damn it, you really want to die?”
“What now?”
“Where do you get off feeding me that bullshit? Damn, man. You ought to go into acting.”
The man in the fur cap snickered.
“So what the hell are you talking about?”
“What do you mean what, asshole? Cut it out already. I’m not falling for it now.”
“What are you even saying? Speak so a person can understand you.”
“You just whistled again.”
Yamsaengi’s face turned serious on the spot. It was written all over him: What kind of nonsense are you talking about?
The smirk slowly vanished from the fur-capped man’s face.
He had definitely heard whistling.
Not once, but twice.
A bizarre sensation he could not put into words slid down his spine.
“What is it with you and this whistling crap? I haven’t heard a thing—”
Yamsaengi was frowning as he spoke when—
Flash!
In an instant, everything before them turned stark white. Yamsaengi and the fur-capped man hurriedly threw up their hands to shield their eyes from the sudden light.
“Wh-what the hell?”
The van parked across from the iron gate had erupted with blinding headlights. Yamsaengi slowly pried open the eyelids he had clamped shut.
And what he saw when he finally managed to look—
was a stranger standing on top of the vehicle.
The figure was hard to make out, swallowed by darkness behind the glare of the headlights. All they could see was the outline. Was that the person Boss had said to wait for? While Yamsaengi was still struggling to make sense of the unexpected situation, the stranger lightly jumped down from the roof onto the hood.
Thud.
The first thing that caught the eye was the immaculate toe of a dress shoe, spotless down to the last speck.
“Wh-who the hell are you?!”
The man in the fur cap, who had only just noticed the stranger, shouted belatedly. The stranger slid off the hood with effortless ease and stepped slowly out of the darkness. A tall man in a sharply tailored navy suit emerged into view.
Both hands were tucked into his trouser pockets. It was a crooked, casual stance wholly at odds with his formal appearance. The man lifted one arm and opened his broad palm beside his shoulder.
“Hi?”
Yoon Taehee greeted them brightly.
*****
Yamsaengi and the man in the fur cap could only stare blankly at the man in front of them, struck speechless.
He was dressed far too well for how bizarre he looked.
Deeply arched brows. Curved eyes. A crooked pug nose. And...
a beaming smile.
It was a mask.
The man was wearing a traditional mask that looked as though it had been lifted straight out of a textbook. The lower half of it was open, so they could see his clean jawline and the curve of smiling lips. A sharply tailored suit paired with a faded traditional mask—there was no combination more grotesque, or more unheard of. There was something outright frightening about him, and the two men stood frozen.
“What was that noise just now? Did someone come?”
At that moment, a voice rang out from behind the two rigid men. Another man was coming out after opening the heavy iron gate, but the instant he stepped outside, he flinched and grimaced.
The headlights were glaring straight at him.
Shielding his eyes with one hand, the newly emerged man spotted Yoon Taehee and grew visibly shaken, just like the first two. With his head shaved clean, he shot the fur-capped man a look demanding an explanation, but the other only frowned and shook his head. The shaved-headed man asked, all caution,
“Wh-who are you? Did Boss call you here, by any chance?”
Without answering, Yoon Taehee lowered his gaze and quietly looked at their feet.
All three of them had shadows attached to the ground beneath them.
Which meant they were human.
And from the way they kept saying “Boss, Boss”...
Quickly grasping the situation, Yoon Taehee slowly curved his lips.
The report from the Covert Division after their field investigation was as follows:
The child who had been admitted to the hospital had taken his medication and fallen asleep as usual. His mother had briefly stepped out of the room, leaving the deeply sleeping child behind. In that short interval, someone had entered the room while the child was alone.
That person had not laid a single finger on him.
Still, there was one notable irregularity: the visitor had taken the doll the child treasured. After picking up the doll, the man left the hospital. That much had been confirmed through the CCTV footage.
After that, the Covert Division had tracked him discreetly.
The man who had visited the hospital room was named Kim Seonghun. He had no connection whatsoever to Jugyeong Construction, and was nothing more than a neighborhood thug who swaggered around with a few underlings, playing at being organized crime—a completely ordinary man.
After Kim Seonghun left the hospital room, the child had fallen unconscious.
After a moment of thought, Yoon Taehee finally spoke.
“Yeah. So where’s your boss?”
For an answer that had taken so long to come, the tone was absurdly light.
The shaved-headed man’s already rough-looking face twisted into something even uglier. Strange mask. Oddly insolent attitude. Everything about this man felt suspicious. But it was still too early to judge carelessly. Boss had given them no information at all, and if the man who had come looking for him had hidden his face, maybe the two of them were plotting something in secret without the underlings knowing.
He was suspicious, sure—but the fact that he had shown up, right on time, in a remote place that was difficult enough to reach made it possible he really was the person Boss had been waiting for. With no way to read Boss’s intentions, the shaved-headed man found himself trapped in frustration. After a brief moment of thought, he gave a signal with his eyes.
For now, he would guide him to Boss.
Yoon Taehee walked toward them, slow and unhurried. His tall frame was intimidating in itself.
“W-wait a second!”
At that moment, Yamsaengi, who had been hesitating, called out to stop Yoon Taehee just as he was about to pass through the gate. The man in the fur cap and the shaved-headed one both turned toward him with puzzled looks.
“Th-the headlights... how did you turn them on?”
Yamsaengi rummaged through his padded jacket and pulled out the van key.
“I’m the one holding the key. So how did you turn the headlights on?”
Everyone but Yamsaengi looked as though they had just been struck in the back of the head. The man in the fur cap, who had been standing with him the whole time, finally seemed to understand what had happened; his mouth fell open and he froze where he stood. They had all been so overwhelmed at the sight of the stranger that they had forgotten the sheer strangeness of his entrance.
A man who had turned on the headlights of a vehicle with no key in it and stood soundlessly atop the car.
And that was not the only impossible thing.
This was the kind of place no one could reach without a car.
Yet the man had appeared on foot.
“......”
The lips visible beneath the mask slowly drew into an arc.
“Good question. How did I do it?” freёwebnovel.com
Yoon Taehee turned his back and looked directly at Yamsaengi. The other three all flinched and took a step back. The shaved-headed man put a hand on the dagger tucked at his waist, ready to spring and subdue him the instant anything happened.
“Ah, should I show you something fun?”
After standing there for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck, Yoon Taehee abruptly reached inside his suit jacket and pulled something out.
It was a small metal case.
When he opened the lid, the thing inside was nothing more than square sticky notes.
“These are incredibly valuable. I practically begged the Ritual Implements Department to give them to me, so I don’t usually use them if I can help it. But today I’ll make a special exception and show you. Because I’m in a pretty good mood right now.”
The underlings exchanged looks, unable to make sense of what he was saying. Yoon Taehee peeled off the sticky notes one by one and slipped them between his fingers.
There were three in total.
“Watch closely now. A surprise show during the intermission.”
Yoon Taehee spread his palm, laid the notes across it, and blew softly.
His breath made the paper flutter as though it might fly away at any moment. Then, one by one, the notes rose gently into the air. It was the sort of sight one could scarcely believe even while seeing it with one’s own eyes. The three pieces of paper, suspended in a neat line in midair, began folding themselves at the same time. With each fold, they grew smaller, and their shapes more intricate.
And when the sequence finally came to an end, what had taken shape—
was a bird.
Not a single fingertip had touched them, yet their forms were perfect. They were beyond comparison to ordinary folded paper cranes. The head, the wings, the body—every part had been creased with exquisite precision.
“Say hello. Their name is Black Oblivion Birds. Just like the name says, when morning comes, they forget everything that happened in the dark. That’s why some people call them foolish, pitiful birds...”
Yoon Taehee began to explain kindly, but none of the underlings seemed capable of hearing him. The man in the fur cap was rubbing his eyes, pinching his own cheek, and making a complete spectacle of himself. Yamsaengi and the shaved-headed man simply looked as if their souls had left their bodies. If, just as Yoon Taehee had promised, this was meant to be a surprise show, then it was an overwhelming success.
Unbothered by their reactions, Yoon Taehee went on speaking.
“But I see it differently. Night is the gutter of life, isn’t it? Most ugly things happen at night. You end up seeing things you should never have seen, learning things you were never meant to know... so in that sense, forgetting the night isn’t foolish or pitiful at all. Maybe it’s a blessing instead.”
The three paper birds did not move so much as an inch. They looked as if they had been frozen inside an airtight vacuum. Slowly, Yoon Taehee stretched out his arm. The moment he gently touched the back of his hand to them, the paper birds astonishingly began to flap their wings. The birds circling nearby drifted down and landed lightly on the back of his hand.
“Well then... shall we call the show over, gentlemen?”
Once he finished speaking, Yoon Taehee gave a small twitch of his fingers. The paper birds perched on the back of his hand folded in their wings and hunched their bodies, like creatures preparing to launch themselves into the air. Yoon Taehee snapped his thumb and middle finger together.
Snap.
“In the name of the Naja, I confiscate the night.”
Yoon Taehee muttered the words carelessly.
