Debt Collectors
“The deepfake videos that spread across the entire world… I’ve recovered them. You should be grateful, don’t you think? How did I recover them? Think about why I did it.”
Kim Ui-jae grinned wickedly as he deliberately dredged up memories Yeon-jae had tried desperately to bury. The disgust on her face was almost palpable.
Thinking of the sister she had lost because of those fake videos made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and her throat tighten. Something sour and rotten rose inside her esophagus.
She pressed her hand to her forehead, her expression twisted in revulsion.
“So what exactly changed? Did our sister come back to life? Is life suddenly turning into a flower-filled road for me?!”
She let out a bitter laugh, the sound finally cracking free after the absurdity of it all. The insane laughter only made Kim Ui-jae’s lips twitch with satisfaction.
He reached down, picked up the card that had fallen from her lap, and placed it on her knees. When she lifted her head, she stared at the card and let out another soft chuckle.
“What’s this? It’s not compensation, is it? Some kind of consolation prize? Or what… do you think if I accept this I’ll start cooperating with you people?”
“One side got what they wanted, the other side lost everything. We can make a deal. Use it however you like. This is the best settlement I can offer you.”
Kim Ui-jae wiped the remaining blood from his hands on the small mirror hanging on the wall beside them. His neatly combed hair had come loose, strands falling messily across his forehead.
“Settlement…? You want me to eat it and die?”
Yeon-jae’s sharp glare made Kim Ui-jae’s lips press into a satisfied smile.
“No. We were already sharing the same pot. Walking away now would be a waste, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t share anymore. Fuck, you’re disgusting.”
“Once you’ve stepped foot in Echo Research, you can’t escape the label of criminal. Crime breeds more crime and dulls the senses. Still… your expression is better than it was yesterday.”
“I have no intention of removing the criminal label. I’ll become even worse than before.”
“Then that’s even better.”
Kim Ui-jae flicked the wet hand towel into the nearby trash can and sat down on the sofa. He leaned forward, eyes locked on her.
Yeon-jae unconsciously wrapped her arms around her stomach, eyes wide with fear she had no right to feel. The acquired terror was humiliating.
She despised Kim Ui-jae… yet she was terrified of him.
“Let’s work together. Jeong Yeon-jae, you take revenge on those bastards, and I get what I need. No one loses. Or… disappear quietly and no one will ever know.”
***
“Hey, hey, hey! Drink slowly, slowly.”
Dong-cheol kept refilling her soju glass as Yeon-jae tried to down it. She slammed the empty glass down, then ate the side-dish steamed egg that appeared, as if trying to soothe her sour stomach.
The fragrant smell of grilled pork belly, the spicy and savory bean sprouts, and the savory fermented kimchi filled the table.
Dong-cheol watched Yeon-jae eat everything together with rice and meat, then gave Jaman a subtle signal. Jaman grumbled as he left to pick up hangover medicine. Yeon-jae rubbed the rib bones with the car Kim Ui-jae had brought and gulped her soju straight from the glass.
“Oh, this kid. It was soju all along? You disappeared every time there was a drinking party—how did you hold out?”
Soju sloshed inside the cup she had set down hard.
“There’s something I’m curious about. Who is the Echo representative? Honestly, I don’t want to get tied up with that bastard Kim Ui-jae anymore.”
Dong-cheil’s face stiffened slightly at her sharp remark as he glanced around at the surroundings.
“Whoa, I didn’t know Kim Lawyer was involved with you like that. And our representative is different. Whoever it is, it’s not Kim. You know that, right?”
“Then what the hell is Kim Ui-jae? Why do you all suck up to that bastard?”
“Who the hell sucks up? Are you scared of shit and running away? Or just because it’s dirty? You think a lawyer who sides with people like us is normal?”
“He’s from the Sahwa family.”
“What? Whoa, I really didn’t know! Seriously?!”
Dong-cheil launched into a long speech, voice full of innocence. It seemed he truly had no idea who sat at the top of Echo Research.
But Yeon-jae knew exactly who Kim Ui-jae worked for. The Sahwa family. Kim Ui-jae was a dog licking the boots of the person sitting at the very top even there.
In this world, prosecutors, lawyers, and people from various fields all coexisted by exploiting each other’s weaknesses.
Some even kept their own confidential informants. To them, information was both a lifeline and raw material for expanding power.
That was why Echo Research assigned them confidential informants.
Yet today Kim Ui-jae had named her as his own confidential informant.
‘Things are quite tangled, but once we unravel them, it’s not that hard. We just need to take down one person. You and me, Jeong Yeon-jae. A public target.’
“A public target?”
“Want to hear? Pretty tempting, right?”
If he wasn’t interested, he was lying.
Yeon-jae instantly understood what public target Kim Ui-jae meant.
Sa Hee-eon.
The beloved youngest grandson of the man at the very top. The person the two of them—Yeon-jae and Kim Ui-jae—wanted to reach.
But wasn’t Hee-eon the carefree youngest grandson of the Sahwa family? Someone who had secretly lived such a free and hidden life that even his family had given up on stopping his marriage.
Then why had he attached himself to the Sahwa family like a tail…?
Yeon-jae sat at the crossroads with no signposts, lost in thought.
Every sip of alcohol changed her thoughts, and every time she listened to Dong-cheil’s comfort instead of her own, she felt shaken.
“I overheard something roughly earlier.”
Dong-cheil placed grilled pork belly on her plate and tilted his soju glass. He asked carefully, “You were wrongly kicked out of school because of that… it was really because of Lawyer Kim?”
She glanced at him, then refilled her glass with a faint smile.
“It was exactly like a game of Go where we rolled around like stones on the board. No wonder no one could find anything. This place really is a snake’s nest.”
“Hey, a snake’s nest is…! Sigh, fine. Drink when it gets complicated.”
“Life is too unfair.”
She spat another curse and gulped her soju. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became that her entire life had been a bottomless pit.
She had committed no crime, yet she had become a criminal, been humiliated, and her life had collapsed. She had become the sacrifice of someone’s desire. A naive, foolish young woman in her early twenties who only knew how to study.
“When I was in university, I did tutoring part-time. I saved my tuition with scholarships and wanted to earn a lot for living expenses.”
“Of course. A hungry young person. But wait, you were a four-year scholarship student? That’s rare. You must have earned some money, right?”
“Um… the person was Jo Seong-jun. He was a broker recommended by a somewhat famous senior in that world.”
Dong-cheil’s relaxed expression hardened the moment Jo Seong-jun’s name came up.
“He said it was a good-paying gig. Later I found out the house belonged to Yoon Jun-mo. Just a kid who studied well and was a little arrogant… I still don’t understand. Why did that bastard make a porn video with my face?”
“…What?”
“Deepfake. Or so I think they called it. A humiliation video.”
“This… this bastard! Where is that dog?! Take me to him!”
Dong-cheil slammed the table, veins bulging on his forehead. The stainless steel top wobbled violently from the force.
Yeon-jae laughed weakly, drunk on the alcohol.
“I don’t know. He’s probably living well somewhere. Yoon Jun-mo reported me to stop his kid from committing a crime. He attached ridiculous charges… saying I sexually assaulted a flower-snake tutoring teacher. That’s how I became a tutoring teacher who sexually assaulted a minor.”