Substitute-Chapter 121

His heart stopped.

Jiwon knew he was dead.

Death was nothing much. Quiet. Dark.

It hurt like hell, instead, when life came back.

Park Geonwoo and Kim Yunho dragged Son Geonwoo over and tied him to a tree. Tight, so he couldn’t thrash or inch off on his belly.

Then they threw a leafy branch over him, and Son disappeared perfectly from sight. No one would know he was there.

The two who’d finished their job came to Jiwon, who was standing with both hands on a trunk.

“Let’s sit for now.”

The three of them sat in a small circle on the soaked ground.

“We’ll untie him later,” Park said.

“After you go.”

“Go where’s Jiwon going?” Kim Yunho shot back with a face like, I’ve heard everything now.

“So what do we do now? Shouldn’t one of us go keep watch?”

Hyped up, Yunho chattered about what to do next.

“One hundred million—are you kidding me?”

He looked giddy at the thought of winning the game.

“Yunho, sorry, can you give us a minute?” Park asked in a calm voice.

Yunho hesitated, then belatedly went, “Oh—right.”

“Got it. Make peace while you’ve got the chance.”

He stood up.

But he didn’t go far.

“Is that your idea of giving us space?” Park needled him.

Yunho stuck out his lower lip. “With the rain this loud, you can be right next to me and I still won’t hear you.”

Grumbling, he moved a few more steps ahead.

Barely five steps, yet even his silhouette vanished. That’s how deep the forest darkness was.

“You okay?” Park asked.

Jiwon gave a small nod.

Honestly, he didn’t have the clarity to decide whether he was okay or not. His eyes were open and he was breathing, so he figured he must be. The aches and stabbing pains everywhere—well, he’d been beaten half to death, what did he expect.

Meanwhile, he had no trouble recalling the questions he had for Park. Looked like the brain damage he’d worried about wasn’t there.

“Where were you?”

I was trailing you.

Drowned out by the rain or not, that’s what it sounded like Park said.

“Then you knew I was looking for you.”

Yeah.

“Then why did you just hide?”

I was worried.

“About what?”

Park lifted a shoulder.

Jiwon swallowed with effort and asked the next one.

“Why didn’t you let me go to the Counseling Room?”

Instead of answering right away, Park looked at him in silence.

Jiwon had already given up expecting a clean answer from Park; he’d already dealt with Choi Minjae, the undercover cop who’d brazenly claimed he knew nothing. Even if Park did know something, it wouldn’t change anything.

“Man comes back from the dead and he’s got a lot of questions,” Park said.

“Because I came back from the dead, I’ve got more questions.”

Park snorted a laugh.

“You look like you got ground into paste.”

He veered off.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t recognize you as you. You could say you’re me and everyone would buy it.”

Now that he said it, they did look more alike than usual. To the point it felt like he was staring into a mirror.

It was a weird feeling.

“You could say you’re me and people would believe it,” Park repeated.

Jiwon raised his brows, not following—then jerked with a stab of pain. God, that hurt.

“If you get caught while you’re running, say you’re Park Geonwoo. I’ll pretend to be you.”

Park whispered it with a face full of mischief.

Out of nowhere. Jiwon had no idea how to answer.

Even if they looked alike, it wasn’t like people wouldn’t tell them apart—but more than that, Park knew Jiwon was planning to run.

“Why are you helping me?”

No—back up.

“Me, running? What are you talking about?”

Jiwon eyed Park warily.

He seemed to know everything, but guesses and facts often diverged, so Jiwon was careful.

“Let’s not waste time,” Park sighed, wiping rainwater from his face with his palm.

“Jiwon,” he said.

“I don’t know anything.”

Here we go again.

Park overlapped with the image of Choi Minjae saying, “I don’t know anything.”

“What do you mean you don’t know anything? How is that even possible?”

“It is. I just do what I’m told.”

Park gave a faint smile.

“I just do what I’m told.”

What is wrong with everyone.

Choi Minjae said it, now Park too, digging his heels in that he knew nothing.

“‘What you’re told’—by who?”

Jiwon pressed him.

“Who told you, and why, to tell you to do it?”

Park shrugged again.

“You a cop? Or a spy?” Jiwon’s voice rose.

“Christ, listen to you. If I were, that’d at least sound cool.”

Didn’t feel like a lie.

“I wish I had an honest job, too.” Park’s face looked a little lonely as he said it.

Jiwon fell back into confusion.

“Weren’t you here to make money?”

“I was.”

“And?”

“The guy who referred me here told me to do some odd jobs too. Call it a side gig.”

So Park had come in through a broker, too.

Naturally, Jiwon thought of his own broker—Han Seoho—who doubled as a plant for the organizers.

“They have side gigs like that?” Jiwon asked.

“Yeah. You walk out of here with a big payout—why wouldn’t you do a little extra. Some people skim off thousands as a finder’s fee.”

Fair enough.

He wasn’t wrong.

When the project ends, Park stands to make at least 700 million won. If the broker knew that, of course he’d ask for a cut.

“He said he wouldn’t take any money. Fine by me.”

In Park’s case, instead of a fee, the demand was to run errands.

“Can you tell me who the broker is?”

Contrary to Jiwon’s expectation that he’d clam up, Park spoke freely.

“Don’t know his name. Just looked like a regular middle-aged guy. Polite, though.”

For a second Jiwon tensed, wondering if it was Detective Kim Gyeongseok—but the “middle-aged guy” Park described wasn’t Kim. Still, he felt like the man had a job similar to Kim’s.

“And that guy told you not to send me to the Counseling Room?”

Coming in through a broker and doing errands in lieu of a finder’s fee—Jiwon could swallow that. Entirely plausible.

But telling Park not to let him go to the Counseling Room didn’t make sense.

Only Director Kim Hansoo and Jiwon knew what had been said in that room. Manager Kim probably knew, and with CCTV, maybe the Horn-Rims or the Monkey did too.

Which meant this “middle-aged guy” was an insider. Likely a manager.

A manager is helping me? On what basis? Knowing what I can do? Knowing who I am?

No matter how he turned it over, it didn’t add up.

“Gwak Chan too?”

“Yeah. Seems like the same broker.”

“So the broker who brought you and Gwak Chan in told you to help me?”

Park gave a quiet nod.

The more Park talked, the deeper Jiwon sank into a maze.

“Did he give you a reason?”

“As if. I’m an errand boy. I do a few errands and I’m done.”

Park wiped his face with his palm again.

Then pressed his lips together.

His look said don’t ask more—or rather, there was nothing more to say.

But Jiwon had no intention of stopping.

If not now, there’d be no chance. He asked what he wanted to ask.

“Then trying to kill me—was that one of the errands from that guy too?”

Park’s face took on a strange look.

After a moment, he slowly shook his head.

“That was the drug. A hallucination. A really terrifying one.”

His gaze drifted into the air.

“To my eyes, you were... never mind. I wasn’t myself then. You know how dangerous the drug is.”

He turned back to Jiwon, seeking agreement.

“Anyway, I’m sorry. I mean it. I never meant to really hurt you.”

He apologized—but couldn’t quite meet Jiwon’s eyes.

He made it so convincing that Jiwon didn’t press further.

He couldn’t remember whether they’d dosed the Studio that day or not—but with them, it was more than plausible, which made it harder to push him.

“I’m tired,” Park sighed.

Jiwon was exhausted too. Not because he’d died and come back, but because meeting Choi Minjae and Park Geonwoo had only multiplied his questions instead of giving him answers he’d thought he’d get.

Fuck. Why is everything so complicated.

He’d thought he was the only one full of secrets, but everyone was.

From day one he’d known the guys chosen for this project weren’t ordinary. There were killers and thieves and cops. More than a few seemed mentally ill.

Most, like Han Seoho, worked in nightlife or sold their bodies on the side, but there were plenty with respectable jobs others would envy. A handful were still students.

With a cross-section of humanity like this, of course there were going to be secrets—but still, this was too much. He hadn’t found a thread to pull—everything was more tangled.

Should I go find Gwak Chan now?

What for—he’d just play Twenty Questions too.

Jiwon erased Gwak Chan from his mind.

Screw it. Just escape.

He decided to keep it simple—he had neither the strength nor the time to keep hunting people down and asking questions.

While he and Park were talking, the whipping punishment ended. The whistle echoed from the speakers again.

The seekers would be on the move soon.

“Let’s get up,” Park said, reaching to help—but Jiwon stood on his own, steady.

“For a guy who died, you’re looking awfully fine,” Park joked.

“Right? Considering I was fine even when you tried to kill me, I guess it’s not my time yet.”

Park only laughed at Jiwon’s pointed comeback.

“If I stay—” Jiwon asked him one last question. “If I don’t run, then what happens?”

There was one thing both Gwak Chan and Park had overlooked. Both were acting on the premise that Jiwon would escape. The broker—the “middle-aged guy” who gave the errands—obviously, too.

Why are they so sure? Based on what?

Do they know what brought me here?

Jiwon hadn’t planned on walking out of here alive in the first place.

If he hadn’t realized his revenge plan was ridiculous, if he hadn’t heard what Gwak Chan told him, if he hadn’t narrowly escaped death at Park’s hands, he’d still be burning with vengeance, throwing himself into the game. He would’ve tried harder than any crew member to take first place.

The change in his heart had been pure chance.

And he hadn’t told anyone what he really wanted.

So what made them so sure he’d run?

“Good point,” Park said—caught flat-footed, as if the thought had never occurred to him.

“Well, I just did what I was told.”

He landed on a conclusion far too easily.

“Whether you run or not isn’t my department. So—you staying?”

He threw it back.

Park had asked the question, but he didn’t wait for the answer—he strode forward and called out to Kim Yunho.

Yunho, who’d been hiding, stood up.

“My legs are asleep.”

He started to wet his fingers with spit, then stopped.

No need. He already looked like a drowned rat.

For some reason, that made Jiwon laugh.

The three of them here like this—and the situation—felt like a black comedy.

Jiwon giggled like a madman.

Park and Yunho laughed too.

They clutched their bellies and looked at one another.

After laughing for a good while, it hit Jiwon that the two of them {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} were probably laughing for reasons very different from his—and all at once, he wanted to cry.