A Day Without You

Behind That Smile

After about a month from then, Hongseok visited me at my office somewhere around the afternoon. We caught each other outside the building by chance actually. He had the file in his hand, which was clearly visible from the distance and I took a guess at what that might have been.

But I wasn't ready to let Shinwon know of it yet.

He was with me when Hongseok came to visit, so I told him to go up before me. He barely knew Hongseok himself so, he didn't quite say anything against it. He bowed to him once smiling, before going in through the main gate. Shinwon might not have suspected anything, but I could see Hongseok's eyes following him as he walked away. When he turned towards me, his expression said it all. "You haven't told him yet?", he said, looking at me with a bit of surprise and curiousness. I replied to him back then saying, "Not before I look into it myself". I already knew the guy was trouble and it had already been many years since Shinwon had seen him. I was completely against the fact of him suddenly jumping into the situation, which I knew he would do once he got to know where his hyung was. Shinwon's expressions said it all...

He was not going to stand still once he found an answer.

I was scared of him getting hurt in the process. But... I couldn't even bare to tell him that the person he was looking for was a dangerous guy. That was the first time I thought something through that much. Well, I asked Hongseok whether the file contained what I thought it did and his nod answered that question. He gave it to me right after and explained the things that were inside. "That's where he was last seen. I went there to try and get a hold of where he might be living", he said pointing at the file, then continuing after closing in on me saying, "And that's the building where he was last seen getting into", pointing at a pretty old apartment complex's photo. "These kinds of people are never at one place for too long so, you might want to hurry. I found this information out the night before yesterday's. I saw him get in myself", he said, looking at me with quite a serious expression.

I didn't know what face I was making back then, but he understood how I felt.

In my field of work, people always need to be curious and fast. I was no different. I closed the file and looked at him saying, "I'll go tonight. Thanks for this, I owe you one", smiling after saying so, although I was in no mood to smile at that moment... but he had earned it. He replied with a similar expression saying, "You owe me more than one. Don't try to test my memory hyung", which made us both laugh out loud afterwards. I waved him goodbye, my smile disappearing right at the next second and even though we both tried to hide it, we both knew what we were really thinking behind that laughter. It wasn't exactly a worry about getting hurt. I've been in fights with far worse people before and even Hongseok knew that. We were both worried about one thing.... Shinwon. Even though Hongseok didn't know him well enough, he could see how I was trying to protect this kid from something that technically doesn't even concern me. I was surprised at myself as well. I always told Shinwon to get in there and get things done no matter what happens but...

I guess I couldn't actually let him do that, not at that moment at least.

I packed up my things at work in a bit of a hurry, but I couldn't make it too obvious because I feared Shinwon might catch on. He did ask me, “You’re leaving on time today sunbae?”, smiling as he said those words, clueless of what was actually happening. I smiled back saying, “I have something to look into back at home ha ha. I’ll see you tomorrow, goodnight”, finally taking my bag and getting on my way to go out of the office. 

But his voice caught me off-guard when he said, “Did Detective Yang find something?”.

I froze in my place. I wasn’t surprised that he asked that question because he definitely saw a file in Hongseok’s hand. I tackle a lot of situations where I need to improvise so, I replied quite calmly “Nope. He hasn’t gotten any cases of our interest as of yet. He just visited me to see how our ongoing article is going on”, smiling at him like I usually do. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to him for that moment. He replied with a simple “Ah, okay” while smiling back at me and then bid goodbye to me. I was already late, so I didn’t wait around anymore after that. I called for a cab and went to the address Hongseok mentioned. I remember getting the call from him, a few minutes after I got into the cab. He called me saying, “You’re going there right? I’m on my way too. I’ll meet you near the convenience store on the main street”. I was a little taken aback for I didn’t know he intended to come along. I asked him “I could’ve done this myself, why the worry?”, for I was pretty confident about such things. Although he has helped me many a times under duress, this guy wasn’t a serious threat so I wondered why he worried like he did. He answered that question fast enough saying, “It’s a bad neighborhood to begin with and he doesn’t live alone. I can’t risk it, more so since I’m the one who told you to go there”. And then it came to my mind that Hongseok had written about witnesses saying that this guy was always with two other people. I didn’t have a need to argue with him on the matter, he is a detective after all. I replied for the last time saying “Alright, I’ll meet you at the convenience store”, before hanging up the phone.

We met up where we intended to and went on our way to the housing complex. It was a pretty rundown locality and the people living there didn’t exactly look at the two of us with pleasing eyes. I was too busy checking out the surroundings when Hongseok’s voice caught my attention. “That’s it”, he said, pointing at the building which was diagonally to the right of where we stood. I didn’t want to wait any longer to find the answers. But I didn’t need to work as hard as I intended to. I could see two male figures and a female figure getting out of the building, all laughing and giggling together. The guy's face and hair were too prominent to forget.

“That’s him”, I said in a mere whisper, but I knew Hongseok heard me.

We walked fast in their direction before I called out his name saying “Hwitaek-shi”. He stopped then and there, his smile slowly disappearing as he looked at our direction. He had a bruised up face, bleached hair and a confident expression… just like in the photo. He looked like the typical street thug, nothing about him seemed any different than that. The other two were more or less the same in that sense. The others were standing behind him, looking at us with suspicion. I spoke quickly, so as to end the silence fast. I didn’t delay one bit and jumped right to the main thing. “You know Shinwon right?”, I asked slowly and carefully. I wanted to say more but I was interrupted soon after when he replied “That piece of s**t? Why, he’s still crying because his hyung doesn’t love him anymore?”, slightly laughing at the end of his sentence, which also made the other two smile.

I was this close to beating him up at that moment.

If Hongseok hadn’t stopped me, I probably would’ve. He nodded at me from the side, asking me to stop. I now understand why he did so. Things would’ve gotten a lot worse back then if I would’ve started a fight. But his reply made me furious. He continued saying “Tell him to f**k off would you?”, before leaving us behind with his company.

I despised him. I hated the very face of the guy. But I knew too little back then… now I get that.