Chapter 10

“And here I thought you were about to drop some massive secret,” Ho-joon scoffed. “Uncle, isn’t this just because hearing the name Mangcheon reminded you of that car crash years ago? Fine, refusing cases from that region ever since is your personal prerogative, but why go spooking Mu-yeong-hyung for no reason? Having a loan-shark syndicate involved is already terrifying enough.”

This was completely news to Seo Mu-yeong. Come to think of it, Kim Sang-beom had never once assigned him a job connected to Mangcheon either. A man like Sang-beom wouldn’t reject business over a trivial fender-bender, meaning some serious incident must have occurred before Mu-yeong joined the firm.

“Were you badly hurt back then, Boss? Are you alright now?” Mu-yeong asked in concern.

Shaking his head dismissively at the concerned inquiry, Kim Sang-beom replied, “It was about ten years ago. Aside from the occasional ache when it rains, I’m fine.”

“It was about ten years ago. Aside from the occasional ache when the weather turns, I’m perfectly fine. At any rate, don’t push yourself too hard on this,” Sang-beom warned.

“Yes, that’s my plan as well,” Mu-yeong agreed.

At the prompt agreement, the tension in Kim Sang-beom’s expression eased noticeably, though his scowl quickly returned the moment his eyes landed on the pastry crumbs littering the linoleum.

“Lee Ho-joon, you bastard, did a firecracker go off in your hands? Wipe that floor properly! And Mu-yeong, make sure you clear some time tonight before you head down to Sejong.”

Crouching down with a wet wipe in hand, Ho-joon jerked his head up.

“Why? Uncle, are we having a company dinner tonight?” Ho-joon blurted out.

“Yeah,” Sang-beom grunted. “Let’s put some grease in our bellies for once. The workload’s getting heavier, so we need a proper meal if we’re going to get anything done.”

“Then let’s get pork belly!” Ho-joon cheered, pumping a fist. “Hyung, you’re down, right? I am a little worried about Uncle’s beer belly, though… Ow! Uncle! My mom is watching everything from heaven, I swear! Ah, Kim Gyeong-ran-ssi! Your brother is picking on me!”

Smacked on the crown of his head, Ho-joon flailed theatrically, crying out in protest. From the croissant still clutched in his fist, an even more bountiful cascade of pastry flakes rained down.

Sitting down at his desk, Seo Mu-yeong finished off the rest of his pastry while organizing today’s audio transcripts. The sporadic alerts popping up from his monitoring application revealed just how thoroughly Choi Yook had dug into his background.

The location of the orphanage where he had grown up, the names and student records of his elementary, middle, and high schools, even the specific army division in which he had served—yet throughout all of it, the name Mangcheon appeared nowhere.

Because as a young child, Mu-yeong had fled across the mountains into the neighboring municipality. Barely an elementary schooler and half-dead at the time, he could no longer recall clearly how he had managed the crossing in the dead of night. Mu-yeong recalled his grandmother’s stern admonition:

“Never seek out a shaman’s shrine on a whim, and never return here again.”

Fourteen years had passed since he had deliberately avoided even glancing at news related to Mangcheon City. Yet now, in the end, he was poised to break that very command.

Mu-yeong’s heart hammered against his ribs—half with dread, half with yearning. For Mangcheon was, in truth, nothing less than his second hometown.

It was not that his days with his grandmother remained as fond, cherished memories. Quite apart from trusting and loving her, Mu-yeong had never been able to hold a proper conversation with the woman. All that existed between them was her issuing orders and him obeying them.

To a young boy whose daily life had once been filled with soccer clubs and tumbling across playgrounds, being trapped inside the house without uttering a single word had been an ordeal worse than prison. He had yearned to run around within the room at least, but that too was forbidden. Anything that might generate noise was unconditionally prohibited. With no television, no computer, and no phone, he was nevertheless forced to study day after day.

Unable to bear it any longer, Mu-yeong had taken to rolling violently across the floor. Feeling as though his stifled chest would burst if he did not do at least that much, he had rolled over and over, back and forth between the wardrobe and the far wall.

Unable to watch the pathetic spectacle any longer, his grandmother had taken him to a small neighborhood library. Glancing up at the colossal, ancient tree standing at the entrance path, she locked eyes with Mu-yeong and warned, “You must never breathe a single word, and above all else, you must never let anyone discover your name. You are never to wander away from this immediate area. If you disobey even once, I will lock you inside the house forever.”

Nodding frantically, Mu-yeong had gathered the long, cumbersome folds of his hanbok skirt into both hands and dashed into the library. Even the grand public library at City Hall he had once visited with his mother had failed to move him, yet this far older, weathered library looked to him like an amusement park.

Startled by the sudden intrusion, the librarian sharply scolded him to walk quietly. Even that reprimand felt like a welcome blessing to Mu-yeong, who bowed well past ninety degrees with his hands politely folded over his navel before tiptoeing toward the reading room.

And there, he beheld a boy reading a book.

Even now, Mu-yeong could paint that scene with absolute perfection in his mind. An early summer afternoon; beyond the window, tree leaves shimmered like spun gold, and sheer curtains swayed gently in the breeze. A soft, delicate shadow fell across the boy’s face like a veil.

Pale, porcelain skin that seemed untouched by the sun; straight black hair lightly brushing the nape of a slender neck. A pristine, wrinkle-free pressed shirt, and delicate fingers turning the pages with steady deliberation.

Not even the gentle draft slipping through the window frame could disrupt the boy’s focus. His tranquil gaze and rhythmic movements were more reverent than church prayer, more breathtaking than his grandmother’s ritual dances.

Mu-yeong had been thoroughly overwhelmed by the boy’s composure and dignified grace. It felt as though he had caught a glimpse of some unattainable, exalted realm that a restless, fidgety child like himself could never reach. Once the initial shock subsided, a massive exclamation mark flared in his young mind:

I want to become friends with him so, so badly!

It was the most fervent yearning that had welled within him since arriving in Mangcheon. Naturally, befriending the boy would be far from easy. At that age, a gap of just a few years dictated an entire world, and just as the boy seemed like a mature adult to Mu-yeong, Mu-yeong would undoubtedly seem like a mere child to him.

Furthermore, Mu-yeong was strictly forbidden from uttering a sound under his grandmother’s orders. Fortunately, if there was any silver lining, it was that talking was already forbidden inside a library.

To begin, Mu-yeong slid forward a folded slip of paper asking if they could be friends. The boy merely cast it a fleeting glance and offered no response whatsoever. The way his eyes snapped immediately back to the printed lines was exasperatingly resolute—and strikingly cool.

Mu-yeong revised his notes. He asked why the boy liked books so much, how many he had read, and what the book he was currently reading was about. Though Mu-yeong clung to him day after day, the reaction remained identical: cold, indifferent disregard, as if Mu-yeong were not even worth acknowledging.

Still, Mu-yeong refused to surrender, writing anew across the pages of his notebook:

—What is your name??

Seeing the question, tension clenched the boy’s jaw. It was the very first crack in his perpetually impassive mask. Snatching the notebook, he pressed his pencil down firmly beneath Mu-yeong’s scribble, writing out each character with deliberate precision:

—Don’t ask my name.

It was truly sharp, elegant handwriting. Thrilled beyond measure, Mu-yeong hastily scrawled crooked, oversized letters directly beneath it:

—Can I ask your age then??

Beaming brightly, Mu-yeong stared up at him with sparkling eyes. The simple fact that he had received a response made him overwhelmingly happy.

Up until then, the only two people Mu-yeong had interacted with in Mangcheon were his grandmother and the librarian. Yet his grandmother treated him with unbending severity, and the librarian clicked her tongue in annoyance even when he sat completely still.

With his mother, he used to chatter about why red beans were red; with his father, he would measure how tall he had grown. He had possessed so many friends back then, with distinct topics reserved for every single one of them.

Mu-yeong desperately needed someone to share idle chatter with. If that someone could be this boy, he felt he would desire nothing more in the world.

The pure, radiant smile blooming across Mu-yeong’s face showed no sign of fading. As if the boy before him were the most dazzling creature on earth, Mu-yeong locked his eyes onto him with ardent adoration.

The warm afternoon sunlight gradually heated the wooden desk. The boy’s stiff, guarded expression softened little by little. Letting out a wry, incredulous chuckle, he scrawled smoothly beneath Mu-yeong’s handwriting:

—Older than you, obviously.

That was how their conversation began. Counting on his fingers, Mu-yeong figured out that the boy was exactly three years older. Compared to Mu-yeong, who was barely of school entrance age, the boy belonged to an untouchable, majestic league: an “upperclassman.”

—Then I should call you hyung.

Mu-yeong wrote the note while glancing down at the hanbok skirt he was wearing. Though he was forced to wear these clothes and keep his hair long because of his grandmother, calling the boy oppa was an absolute impossibility. Naturally, the boy wore an utterly dumbfounded expression.

—It should be oppa, not hyung.

—I like hyung, I hate oppa.

—Just because you like it doesn’t mean you’re allowed to call me whatever you want.

The boy added in writing that social conventions dictated it. Mu-yeong felt a twinge of resentment.

—There are so many things I hate in this world, can’t I have just one thing I like??????

Hook-like question marks cascaded in an endless row. As he was about to draw the seventh question mark, Mu-yeong made up his mind to dig his heels in, gripping the pencil with all his might.

—If I can’t call you hyung, I’ll call you hyung-nim! I won’t call you anything else!!

When Mu-yeong set the pencil down with a triumphant grin, the boy pressed a hand to his temple, utterly defeated in logic. Instead, he wrote down a question Mu-yeong could never answer:

—So what is your name then?

—Not telling.

—Then I don’t want to tell you mine either.

Glancing sideways at Mu-yeong, the older boy readjusted his grip on the pencil.

—Fine, just call me hyung. But I’m going to call you whatever I want.

—What are you going to call me???

Full of anticipation, Mu-yeong looked up at him with glittering eyes. Chuckling under his breath, the boy penned a tidy response:

—Little mutt.

He could never allow himself to be called that. Leaping from his chair, Mu-yeong waved his hands furiously in protest—only to be caught by the librarian making her rounds and sharply reprimanded.

Had the older boy not intervened and claimed responsibility, the severity of the scolding would have been far harsher. Slipping back into his seat, Mu-yeong gauged the boy’s mood before picking up his pencil again:

—I don’t want that. If it has to be an animal,

As he wrote the words, an odd pang pinched the bridge of his nose. Sniffling softly, Mu-yeong completed the sentence:

—call me Elephant.

Because that was what the parents he could never see again had called him. It had been his prenatal name as well as his pet name.

—“Our Elephant, our baby Elephant, the prettiest Elephant in the whole wide world.”

Mu-yeong gazed at the older boy with earnest eyes. Looking back at him in quiet silence, the boy wrote in the notebook:

—Alright.

The reddish hue of the setting sun washed over the written letters. Evening was fast approaching. It was the first time since arriving in Mangcheon that hours had slipped by so swiftly.

Hurrying after the boy as he exited the library, Mu-yeong held open the notebook. Knitted brows relaxing, the boy only then sensed something out of place.