Not Bad Chapter 4
Twenty-two hours later, Phuket time was PM 11:30.
Among the passengers boarding a flight from Phuket to Hawaii via Japan, only Lee Da-in was the sole individual without any travel luggage.
When she stood at the A counter as instructed by Yoon Tae-jung, the flight attendant who checked her passport handed over a first-class ticket.
The moment she took the ticket, Da-in was as good as already on the mission. Until the headquarters issued her orders to withdraw, there was no way for her to exit the operation.
Last night, while wrapping up the mission in Thailand, she had spent endless hours pondering the matter.
The realization that she knew the name Kwon Hee-jae and the location of Sihyang had forced her back a decade or more into the past.
Of course, no one else in the world would be curious about a mundane and ordinary tale of someone else. She had no desire to relive her own gloomy and frustrating past either.
Until Yoon Tae-jung mentioned the Dangsan Tree through Dan Sneyer’s mouth.
“What are you talking about! I never sold it! How can Mr. Kwon buy my house!”
The man was dressed in expensive clothing, making it hard to gauge his age, but he still appeared no older than early twenties even if she stared at him for a long time.
He gave the impression of being a specimen of a being who had grown up without a care in the world from a respectable family.
“Well… I certainly paid according to the set price, then acquired the building and land. Ah… You should ask Lee Woo-yong, who participated under the proxy qualification.”
The instant the grandfather heard the name of his elder brother from the man’s mouth, his legs gave way and he collapsed with a thud.
When the startled Da-in rushed out to the courtyard, Kwon Hee-jae was already supporting the grandfather to his feet.
Yet the grandfather shook off the hand extended with a sorrowful expression.
Da-in approached her grandfather in silence and helped him up. She had learned from an early age not to burden adults with her thoughts, so she simply hoped the man would leave quickly, like someone plugging their ears.
“You look quite pretty.”
The man gazed down at her as she supported the grandfather, curving his thin double eyelids in a faint smile. At those words, the grandfather pushed her behind him and waved his hand dismissively.
“Something feels wrong. I’ll talk to my son and get back to you right away.”
“Please don’t worry. I have no intention of doing anything here immediately. Rest comfortably, and when the time comes, just leave. I only stopped by because I was passing by the area today.”
“Got it. Go already!”
The grandfather seemed to not want to show his young granddaughter the sight of him breaking down.
The man maintained his formal demeanor until the end, but Da-in felt unease from his attitude.
Perhaps it was the instinctive pressure of standing before such an imposing figure. Or maybe it was merely a minor inferiority complex toward someone living in a world completely different from her own.
Anyway, the man slipped his hands into his pockets and stepped casually toward the car that had been left behind.
Kwon Hee-jae was a man tilted diagonally in a world built on horizontal and vertical lines.
It was their first meeting.
She had only learned the truth late, but it had been her grandfather who sold the house and land. Using his special position as a lawyer, he had forged his seal and sold the property to Kwon Hee-jae.
The grandfather had gone looking for his elder brother again and again, but he had been unable to do anything.
Instead, the elder brother had boasted that he had saved on inheritance tax. The grandfather had forgiven that brazen, ungrateful elder son.
He had simply blamed himself for raising the wrong children. He had apologized to Da-in, his eyes reddened.
***
“The cleanup was quick. Ah, please bring me a bourbon.”
From the seat beside Da-in, who had her eyes closed with earphones in, came the voice of Dan Sneyer.
She opened her eyes and saw a flight attendant setting down a welcome drink for Dan. Da-in had requested an ice water, then turned on her tablet.
“Why are you taking this ordinary mission, Mr. Sneyer? You don’t seem suited for it.”
Dan sipped his bourbon, savoring it as if something had finally been set down.
“They offered a lot of money.”
“Ah… as expected, money always wins.”
“At least we aren’t doing this to protect our honor.”
“We aren’t doing this to get a reason to kill either.”
His tone was sharp, like he was poking at last night’s events. Da-in ignored Dan’s intense gaze and tried to plug her earphone back in.
But suddenly a large hand shot up from below her chin and gripped it tightly.
“Ouch!”
Pain shot through her jaw as if it had dislocated, causing her body to jerk backward. Dan, who had grabbed her chin, half-rose from his seat. The weight pressed against her, cutting off her breath.
“We’re a team right now, and I’m your superior. Did you not receive proper training? If you trained under me, you wouldn’t speak so casually.”
Dan’s expression was as cold as the moon. The pressure in his blue eyes staring down at her caused Da-in’s lips to tremble faintly.
But what she felt on her face was not fear.
Dan, who had been looking down at the crushed Da-in on the seat, spotted the glass cup lodged beneath his own chin.
The woman gripping the body of the weakest glass cup raised his jaw higher with a poisonous gaze.
“How about it?”
It would be faster to shatter the glass cup against Dan’s neck than to snap hers.
But would she really do it?
Dan let out a low chuckle and relaxed the hand gripping her jaw. He raised both hands to his shoulders in surrender and plopped back into his seat.
“You have a temper too.”
Da-in rubbed her aching jaw and glared at Dan as if she wanted to kill him. Dan smiled as if it were nothing and raised his hand to call the flight attendant. He rudely ordered another bourbon and retrieved a packaged eye mask.
“Treat your superior with respect, Da-in.”
Then he downed the bourbon the attendant brought in one gulp, sat up straight, and put on the eye mask. Da-in nervously raised the center partition.
She cursed Yoon Tae-jung for sending this kind of guy as her partner.
She massaged her slightly dislocated jaw, then opened the document stored on her tablet.
Every curse she knew swirled in her mouth, but they quickly faded away along with the name Kwon Hee-jae.
“Kwon Yeon-woo…”
Kwon Yeon-woo was the son of Kwon Hee-jae, who would soon turn eight years old according to Korean reckoning. That meant they had married roughly eight years ago, which aligned with the time when her grandfather had passed away.
“Da-in-ah, do you know what’s buried under the Dangsan Tree in front of your house?”
On that day the grandfather had been personally peeling persimmons to hang them one by one on the drying rack as a winter snack for his grown granddaughter.
It had probably been about three months before his passing.
Back then they used to twist together a string to make it, but the world had improved so much that he smiled with a face that still had only leather left on it.
“People say the tree is haunted and never touch it, but that’s all nonsense. It’s the tree my father planted when I was little. It grew so well I started calling it the Dangsan Tree myself. So when I die, you have to dig under there. Got it?”
Da-in, who had been eating a persimmon slice, raised her voice in protest, telling him not to say such horrible things.
“Hehe, the brat.”
The strict yet affectionate grandfather had been her only protector and the pillar of the world. Da-in had been a child tossed into the grandfather’s arms as a newborn.
She did not know the full details, but as soon as she was born, her parents divorced and hurriedly left the infant behind with the old man and vanished.
She had learned that adult divorces had various reasons. Fortunately, Da-in was not the type to get caught up in personal emotions, so she followed the grandfather like a duckling.
That calm personality had made her the number one ranking shooter in the high school shooting competition’s rapid-fire category. The supervisor and coach had called her a hardworking prodigy.
Her worries and anxieties had vanished from her mind like dew on a flower, and she could simply focus on aiming at the target without any other thoughts.
Of course, the temptation of becoming a national team member had come to her, but Da-in had chosen the police university.
Perhaps because her grandfather had repeatedly told her he wanted to become a public official. She preferred a stable salary as a policeman over competing for the chance of becoming a national team shooter.
Thinking back now, she had been drawn to the police profession like a bee or butterfly to a flower.
She should have noticed the grandfather’s expression wavering when she said she wanted to become a police officer.
She should have listened to his words to think about it again.
Da-in, who had passed as a top scholarship student at the police academy, had begun her dormitory life and naturally grown distant from her grandfather.
It was around that time that her grandfather’s health had rapidly deteriorated.
“Hello.”
It had been when she received the news of his hospitalization due to pneumonia on top of his chronic illness and broke her leave to visit the hospital.
She had opened the hospital room door and collided with a man who was coming out at the same time. It had been Kwon Hee-jae, whom she had not seen in four years.
Even as the grandfather coughed violently, the man smiled faintly and greeted her.
Da-in felt her blood run cold from the unnervingly calm smile. It seemed as if all the misfortune that had struck her now was caused by the man in front of her.
His shell had hardened and his atmosphere had sharpened compared to the first time they met. Amidst the man who carried an unknown danger, a faint scent of crime clung to him.
And a strong perfume scent too.
The man passed by her silent glare without a word and crossed the hospital corridor. The gaze of two men who looked like guards fixed onto the man walking by.
The grandfather had not lived through that winter and passed away.