Chapter 6

I had confirmed with my own eyes that he was in one piece today, which fulfilled my quota. There was no reason to tangle ourselves up any further. Nodding to myself, I started to turn toward the supermarket doors. That was genuinely my intention—and I would have walked right inside, too, if my vision had been just a fraction worse.

Was it sheer coincidence that the mottled discoloration on his forearm caught the corner of my eye, or was fate playing a twisted joke on me? In the lingering late-summer heat, the short sleeves of his school shirt left his arms bare, and stark across his pale skin bloomed a cluster of dark, purplish-blue bruises. Leftovers from those loan sharks the other day, most likely.

…I’m wearing a mask right now anyway. One meal can’t hurt, right?

“Hey,” I called out before I could stop myself. “Want to go grab some spicy stir-fried pork?”

The slender ankles moving down the sidewalk faltered to a halt. When young Ji Gyu-hwa looked back over his shoulder, his jaw looked unusually gaunt and pinched.

“No,” he said. “I have to go home.”

“Aw, come on. That spot doesn’t take single-portion orders, so they won’t let me eat alone.”

“…”

His dark eyes clouded with quiet conflict. He hesitated on the curb for a long beat before his shoulders sagged in silent surrender. In my book, anything short of a flat No, I hate pork counted as a yes. Grinning beneath my mask, I spun around and marched down the street, and after a moment, the soft scuff of sneakers fell in behind me like a shadow.

With the kid trailing me like a reluctant little tail, I slid open the door to the diner where I had eaten breakfast that very morning. A warm, damp wave of air greeted us, thick with the pungent, mouthwatering aroma of gochujang and sizzling pork fat. The instant we dropped into a booth, I held up four fingers to the owner. The adult Ji Gyu-hwa I knew was a bottomless pit at the mess table.

“Is someone else joining us?” the boy asked, setting his rustling grocery bag on the empty seat beside him.

“Nope. Why, not enough?”

“Not enough?” he echoed, his voice cracking with sheer disbelief.

Letting out a heavy sigh, I raised my hand toward the kitchen again. “Boss, make that five portions over here!”

“How are the two of us supposed to eat five portions?” Ji Gyu-hwa protested, leaning across the table.

“Two for you, three for me.”

“I can’t eat two portions.”

Fickle little punk, bossing me around when I’m buying. “Boss, just make it four after all!”

The boy stared at me. “Can you actually finish three portions by yourself?”

“Polished off three this morning, too.”

“Then why did you drag me along?”

“To feed you.”

At my blunt answer, Ji Gyu-hwa’s mouth snapped shut. Reaching for the metal utensil box on the edge of the table, I laid out a spoon and a pair of chopsticks on a folded napkin in front of him—before freezing mid-motion. Fuck. Muscle memory from being the squad maknae. Rookie habits really did die hard.

“Hey,” I grumbled, tapping the table to cover my tracks. “What kind of kid sits across from an adult and waits for his elder to set out the silverware?”

The boy stared blankly at the water cup, spoon, chopsticks, and napkin neatly arranged before him, then gave a single slow nod. Yeah, that’s more like it.

“…Boomer,” he muttered under his breath.

A what now?

Before I could reach across the table and flick his forehead, the diner owner bustled over and set a wide, shallow pan brimming with fiery red stir-fried pork onto our tabletop burner. As the sauce bubbled and caramelized, sending up a rich, spicy steam that clung to the inside of my nose, I spooned a generous mound of meat and onions over the boy’s bowl of fluffy white rice. I had been fully prepared to rap his knuckles for that boomer crack, but out of respect for the pork, I let him off with a pass.

“Eat up,” I said.

“Okay.”

As I picked up my spoon, however, Ji Gyu-hwa frowned at my face. “Aren’t you taking off your mask?”

Poised to shovel a massive bite of pork and rice into my mouth, I froze, my free hand awkwardly tugging at the damp fabric covering my jaw. “I’m keeping it on.”

“That has to be uncomfortable.”

“It is.”

“Then why…?”

“Scars,” I said shortly. More accurately, the future Lieutenant Ji Gyu-hwa could never be allowed to realize that the mysterious benefactor from his middle school days shared the exact same face as his future rookie, Seon Na-won. “A massive, ugly one right across my jaw. Nobody’s allowed to see it.”

At the mention of a disfiguring scar, the boy’s eyes flickered, and he dropped the subject at once, picking up his spoon without another word.

Actually, his question reminded me of a nifty piece of gear I had picked up at a household goods store yesterday. My eyes had lit up the second I spotted it on the rack—one of those sanitary plastic mouth shields worn by cafeteria workers, designed to curve outward from the chin so there was plenty of breathing room beneath, except this model was tinted opaque black to conceal the entire lower half of the face. Turning sideways in my seat, I whipped off my cloth mask, snapped the plastic shield’s bands around my ears like swapping out a Lego minifigure’s head, and swiveled back around.

Ji Gyu-hwa stared at the contraption on my face in utter, stunned disbelief.

“They sell masks with a hole over the mouth, you know,” he murmured in a defeated voice, poking at his rice.

“You mean the ski masks bank robbers wear? I’d get hauled into the station in five minutes flat. Suspicious masked individual apprehended while inhaling six portions of spicy pork.”

A tiny huff of air escaped the boy’s nose. It vanished in less than half a second, but there was no mistaking it—he had just laughed. Even if it was a reluctant, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it smirk, seeing the corner of his mouth twitch upward loosened a knot in my chest.

“Besides,” I added, shoveling rice under the plastic guard, “once the weather turns cold, I’ll switch back to a baklava.”

“…Balaclava.”

Huh? When I glanced up, the boy—whose lips had still been faintly curved—quickly smoothed his face blank and shook his head.

Starving after hauling heavy crates at the landlady’s restaurant all morning, I tore into the pan without thinking, only noticing several minutes later that the chopsticks across from me had gone still. The kid had barely made a dent in his bowl.

“Why’d you stop?” I asked, gesturing with my spoon.

“I’m full.”

“Kid, in this life, the food you put in your belly is the only thing that truly stays yours.”

Ji Gyu-hwa neither nodded nor shook his head, simply staring across the table at me. The adult Ji Gyu-hwa I knew routinely put away three or four servings of meat by himself at squad dinners; on days when an operation went particularly sideways, rumor had it he could demolish six. It was the natural fuel requirement of a man pushing two meters tall, packed from neck to ankle with dense, predatory muscle. An appetite of that scale didn’t just materialize out of thin air in your twenties—a guy built like that had to have been clearing three bowls of rice a sitting since middle school.

Grrrble.

Right on cue, a pathetic rumble echoed from his midsection. Ji Gyu-hwa’s ears twitched, and he wrenched his gaze toward the wall. He was clearly starving, so why the hell had he put down his spoon?

“Do I eat like a feral pig or something?” I asked, suddenly self-conscious. “Am I ruining your appetite?”

I didn’t think my table manners were that bad. People usually told me it was a treat to watch me eat because I enjoyed my food with such gusto. Back home, my ex-girlfriends used to cup my face or poke my bulging cheeks across the table, cooing, You eat so neatly, like a little hamster.

“…Should I slow down?” I scratched the back of my neck sheepishly. “Is it grossing you out?”

Come to think of it, those ex-girlfriends had probably been viewing me through ten-inch-thick rose-colored glasses. My father had been strict about table etiquette, so I took some pride in not chewing with my mouth open, but maybe I had been wolfing the meat down like a starved wild dog.

“No,” the boy mumbled, staring at his knees. “I’m just full.”

Another long, traitorous growl vibrated from his belly. This time, Ji Gyu-hwa ducked his head so low his chin nearly touched his collarbone. Setting my chopsticks down, I peered into the shallow iron pan between us. Only a few shriveled scraps of onion and two stray strips of pork remained swimming in the red oil. See? This is why I said we should order five portions from the start.

Throwing a hand into the air, I called out toward the counter, “Boss! Two more portions of pork over here, please!”

“Coming right up!” the owner hollered back.

“And two drinks!”

“What’ll you have?”

“Two Cokes. One Zero—actually, make ’em both Zero.”

Across the table, Ji Gyu-hwa bit down hard on his split lower lip, a tangle of pride, embarrassment, and hunger warring openly across his young face.

“You’re finishing every last grain of rice,” I told him gruffly, feigning ignorance of his bruised pride. “It’s bad manners to quit halfway through a meal when an adult is treating you.”

Only then did the boy’s small hand creep back out to pick up his spoon. My quiet sigh of relief was drowned out by the crisp pop-hiss of two cold cans of Coke Zero.

It wasn’t until we had demolished the two extra portions down to the last caramelized onion that Ji Gyu-hwa finally slumped back against the vinyl booth. Letting out a soft, heavy breath, he wiped his sauce-stained mouth with a paper napkin.

“Good, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Ready to head out?”

He braced his hands on the edge of the table and tried to push himself up, only to wobble and sink right back down—looking for all the world like a milk-drunk lion cub whose spindly legs couldn’t support its own round belly.

“Can’t stand up?” I chuckled, pressing a hand to his shoulder to keep him seated before raising two fingers toward the counter. “Sit tight for a bit. Boss, one bottle of beer over here!”

“My word, your big brother sure knows how to eat!” The owner set a chilled green bottle and a glass on our table, beaming down at young Ji Gyu-hwa. “Your poor parents’ backs must ache trying to keep the rice bin full! You’re the middle schooler who just moved into the villa down the road a few weeks ago, aren’t you?”

I hadn’t realized it, but apparently the kid wasn’t a native of Hwaryeong-do either. At the woman’s friendly prying, the faint, full-bellied softness around the boy’s mouth flattened instantly into a rigid line. He was clearly uncomfortable with the spotlight. Pouring myself a glass of cold lager, I smoothly intercepted her attention.

“Boss, I’m actually on a strict diet right now, so I held back today,” I said, patting my flat stomach. “Normally I put away twice this much.”

“Oh my goodness, really? Well, I believe it! A strapping young man with shoulders like yours needs plenty of fuel in the tank.”

“If my diet crashes and burns next week, I’ll come back and polish off six portions by myself.”

“You do that! Haha, kiddo, you sure are lucky to have such a generous older brother looking out for you!”

While I nursed my beer at a leisurely pace, the boy leaned back against the booth, letting his breath even out and his overstuffed stomach settle. A drowsy, heavy-lidded warmth gradually crept over his face. With his narrow jaw, sun-touched skin, and unremarkable middle-school height, he looked no different from any other thirteen-year-old boy—save for the quiet, bone-deep weariness shadowing his dark eyes.

Ready to get going now? When I raised an eyebrow in silent inquiry, Ji Gyu-hwa gathered his plastic grocery bag and pushed himself up from the bench.

After paying the bill at the register, we stepped out into the cooling dusk. We hadn’t even been inside that long, yet the rich scent of chili paste and roasted pork fat clung to every thread of my shirt. At this rate, just smelling my own sleeves was going to make me hungry all over again by midnight.

“Your villa’s that way, right?” I pointed down the dirt road.

“Yes.”

Our paths split at the corner—his low-rise apartment building lay toward the open fields, while my guesthouse sat in the opposite direction. When I gave him a lazy wave and told him to get home safe, the boy bowed neatly at the waist.

I had paid for a month’s lodging. My plan was simple: work my ass off for the next four weeks, scrape together enough travel cash to cross the mainland, and get the hell out of Hwaryeong-do—for real this time. And if I could make sure young Ji Gyu-hwa was standing on solid ground before I left, I’d be able to board that bus without a single bitter regret lingering on my tongue.

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