In a Maze...

Chapter 18

Jinyoung woke up to the pain in his hands and discomfort in a cold place. The light from the lamp hung on the wall, not very far from him, rushed into his eyesight. The whole place was in utter silence and looked like a deserted place.

He felt drained and his head was dizzy with too little energy even to move. He tried to adjust his eyes to the light and register his position and where he was. Soon he discovered why his hands were so much in pain. They were tied tight at his back, the chains grazing his wrists.

He was in a chair, with his hands tied, and in a large room, which looked old but had a nice design, with the high walls, but with no furniture. The entire room was bare.

He had just taken a momentary glance around the room and then his eyes fell on another person present in the room. It was a man and Jinyoung could see only his back.

The man was near the lamp and a closed window, with his back facing Jinyoung and in a long black coat.

Jinyoung tried to recall how he was here and qestioned in his mind, if he was in fatal danger. He remembered he had driven to the hotel according to the address in the e-mail, but instead of finding a hotel, he only saw a building, which was to be pulled down and forbidden to enter, by a noticeboard. While being confused, a hand suddenly appeared before his face and pressed it. And that was the last thing, having happened before he gained conscious now.

He figured that hand was that man's and it was he who had brought him here. And he wondered whether he was now exactly inside that building he had last seen.

Had he been abducted or some business rival trying to take him down? Either way, he had no help and was completely in this man's hands. His heart was gripped at the thought that there was no way he could get out of this and would never be in the human world again.

After several long, torturing minutes, the man slowly turned around to him and the blade of the knife in his hand shone under the light.

Only now Jinyoung could see the man's face and guessed he was in his fifties. His face was the definition of roughness and his eyes, which were fixed on Jinyoung, held malice and bitterness. His body appeared to have so much strength, despite his age, giving the look of someone, who had had manual jobs throughout his life. The room seemed to have been more cold in his presence.

Jinyoung and the man set their eyes on each other, with no words passed for several, agonising seconds. Jinyoung felt the man's unemotional gaze penetrated even his heart, sending shivers down his spine.

"Who're you?" Jinyoung broke the silence, "Why am I here? What do you want?"

The man laughed: the whole room resounded with his laughter, which sounded as if it was challenging the whole world. Jinyoung felt himself shrinking small under that laughter.

"Today is the end," the man declared, with his voice sounding colder than his eyes, "The day has come for me to finish what I've started."

The man held up the knife and his fingers, very softly, ran over the sharp, shining blade. Jinyoung's eyes followed every action of his and caught a glimpse of something engraved on the handle.

The man stopped playing with his knife and fixed his eyes back on Jinyoung.

"You were just a child," the man said, his voice calm and stable, "Do you not remember the two men who visited your house very often and loved you as they would have done their own sons?"

Jinyoung could feel only cruelty in that man and rejected recalling anything. His head was cloudy, only wanting to know the answer to why he was here.

"Your father, Chang Younghwan and I were once the best of best friends. Brothers, if you want to call us so," the bitterness stirred in the man's eyes and the mention of his father alerted Jinyoung.

"Gwangju uprising, that was when we met. Acquainted and tied to be friends, while demonstrating for democracy. Students, young and enthusiastic. Then, after the uprising, we all left college and worked together hard, till we could own a small business. You see, we were together since the very beginning. Throughout the years, it had been difficult. Then things were getting to settle and success was before us when your father had already got a child, Chang Younghwan was just settled down in his marriage, and I in mine."

Jinyoung could now recall this man, who along with uncle Younghwan, had always been with his father, and both of them, he considered his two uncles.

"Then things gone downhill. Your father and Chang Younghwan accused me of cheating the company money. Yes, I did but I had several reasons for doing that. Yet they wouldn't listen to me explain, wouldn't accept my apologies and instead put me on trial. My wife was pregnant then and she hated me for shaming her and her family. For three years, I was in prison and never saw my child, never knew whether it was a girl or boy. She had left me when I finally returned home. She and her family had disappeared and I've never seen my child and never saw my wife again. Your father and Chang Younghwan, they'd destroyed my life and family. I never forgave him. And for years and years, I'd lived, kept myself alive for only one thing. To take revenge myself on them. To destroy them and their families. But Park Byungchul, he died on his own and escaped my hands. But his family, their lives finished in my hands."

"You're the murderer. You killed all those people," said Jinyoung, with animosity.

The man moved to him and standing before him, gripped his face and turned it upward. Jinyoung could feel wrath, bitterness, mockery and victory all mixed in the man's eyes.

"You'll be one of them soon. In fact, you were supposed to die sooner, after your stepbrother. Let the innocent people in this matter die first, that was what I had planned. But you became a good case to be left when you were the centre of everyone's suspicion. So I let them consider you the culprit. Why should I change their attention, by killing you too fast? But now my work is almost done, and the only thing left is to finish you."

The man's strong, hard hand left Jinyoung's face and ran over the blade before Jinyoung's eyes.

"You're a lunatic."

Jinyoung muttered and an instant punch launched on his face, leaving a salty taste at the corner of his lips. He shut his eyes and the only image appeared in his mind was Mark. He only longed for Mark and to see him for one last time.