Thirty minutes before noon, downtown Jeonju was crowded with tourists looking for a place to have lunch. However, a small cafe near Guie Reservoir in Deokcheon-ri, about 13 kilometers towards Mudeungsan Provincial Park from the city, was quiet and devoid of people. The early spring’s yellow sunlight danced on the wooden deck installed on either side of the cafe entrance and the empty outdoor tables.
Lee Young-jin pushed his car into the gravel parking lot. Gravel crunched under the tires. He parked his car next to an unremarkable black wagon and got out.
It had been a refreshing 35-minute drive since he got off at Jeonju Station and boarded a rental car.
He opened the glass door and entered. Ding. A small bell hanging on the door rang.
Inside the cafe, soft pop music played. The smell of coffee and bread filled the air. Lee Young-jin slowly looked around the cafe. The south and east walls of the cafe were made of glass, allowing sunlight to pour in unchecked, and customers were sparsely seated at tables set at wide intervals. The wooden floor shone so much it was slippery. The sweet scent of cream, the smell of baking bread, the aroma of coffee, and the scent of wood mixed to create an indescribably nice smell that permeated the entire cafe.
Lee Young-jin slowly walked across the cafe towards a four-seater table by the window. With each step, the floor pressed down and faintly creaked. A staff member wearing a black apron was placing a plate and coffee cup on that table.
“Your order of apple arugula brie cheese croissant sandwich and today’s coffee is ready.”
“Oh, thanks. This looks delicious. The weekend brunch here is the best. No tourists, not noisy.”
“Is it not because the coffee is good?”
“Of course, that’s part of it too.”
“Ha ha. Enjoy your meal.”
“Yep. Thanks.”
A familiar voice babbled on.
Lee Young-jin walked towards the table. The smiling staff member lightly bowed his head in greeting and passed by him. A man occupying the four-seater table came into view. A large frame, muscles still well-developed even three years after retirement, the posture of someone who never stopped training, ready to leap up into a defensive or offensive stance, sitting with his back straight and feet firmly on the ground.
Without hesitation, Lee Young-jin approached and pulled out the chair opposite to sit down.
The man, who had been beaming with a sandwich and coffee in front of him, looked up in surprise. And simultaneously, coffee spurted out of his mouth.
“Cough, puff, cough, huh…”
Saliva mixed with expensive coffee soaked the walnut wood table.
The man coughed, groping on the table for a glass of water. After gulping down a few sips in one go, his breathing finally calmed down.
Lee Young-jin simply watched him quietly.
The man managed to pull the corners of his mouth into a smile, but they trembled.
It was Choi Yoon-seok.
“Y-You, Young-jin… Long time no see. How have you been? Ha, haha. What brings you here? Still looking pretty. A, are you here in Jeonju for tourism?”
Lee Young-jin silently shook his head.
“I came to ask about Uncle Jung-hoon.”
Choi Yoon-seok’s forced smile cracked. His trembling hand reached for the coffee cup and brought it to his lips. Lee Young-jin calmly waited while Choi Yoon-seok sipped coffee without tasting it. After a long minute, Choi Yoon-seok finally put down the coffee cup.
“I didn’t do it.”
As soon as the coffee cup touched the table, Choi Yoon-seok blurted out. Lee Young-jin stared at him blankly. His large, cow-like eyes blinked several times. His eyelashes fluttered. Choi Yoon-seok licked his dry lips repeatedly, emphasizing again.
“Really, I didn’t do it. I don’t know anything about it.”
Instead of pressing him, Lee Young-jin just looked at him. He pondered what question to ask that would make Choi Yoon-seok open up, his eyes undulating as if peering into deep, dark waters. At a glance, it seemed as though he was lost in a daze, further emphasized by his dense eyelashes under half-lowered eyelids. Choi Yoon-seok licked his dry lips again.
“Really, I don’t know anything. I wasn’t that close with Jung-hoon, just worked together once, no, a few times in the past, that’s all.”
He was evasive.
Lee Young-jin remained thoughtful.
“Really…”
Choi Yoon-seok stuttered.
“I really…”
His throat grumbled. His voice was scratchy as if he was rolling gravel and sand particles in his dry mouth.
“I don’t know anything… damn it.”
He exhaled a long breath. Then, he glanced fleetingly at Lee Young-jin’s plump, shiny lower lip as he hiccupped.
“Actually, it’s not that there was no contact at all.”
“From Uncle Jung-hoon?”
Lee Young-jin’s voice rose slightly in anticipation.
Choi Yoon-seok shook his head.
“No, no. From Teacher.”
Teacher?
Lee Young-jin just blinked.
He had sought out Choi Yoon-seok because, not long after Jung-hoon lost contact from China, Choi Yoon-seok also became unreachable.
Jung-hoon’s loss of contact was in China, and there was little Lee Young-jin could obtain from the empire of the Big Brother. Therefore, Lee Young-jin’s focus shifted to another individual who had disappeared around the same time, Choi Yoon-seok. As a middleman, Choi Yoon-seok had extensive connections and was also close to Jung-hoon. If Choi Yoon-seok had gone into hiding around the same time as Jung-hoon, there must have been a reason, and Lee Young-jin speculated that perhaps Choi Yoon-seok had helped Jung-hoon go into hiding.
While Choi Yoon-seok had gone into hiding, if Lee Young-jin wanted to find someone (with a few special exceptions like some regions in China), there was hardly anyone he couldn’t find.
But the Choi Yoon-seok he found was now saying something Lee Young-jin had never imagined.
“Sigh. As you know, Young-jin, I, um. That is, you know a bit about how government operations work,”
said the former NIS black agent.
“Jung-hoon and, what’s her name, Park Eun-young. That woman. I heard they were caught right before the joint investigation with China was about to start. Anyway. Teacher contacted me to look into someone for him.”
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