Baki returned to Choi Bongpal's base to find it nearly empty.
He pushed the door open and swept the room with a glance. A few chairs had been knocked sideways. The ashtray on the table still smoldered, smoke rising in a thin, unhurried column. Someone had left a jacket in the corner and hadn't come back for it.
A subordinate came rushing out and nearly ran straight into him.
Baki's hand shot out and caught the man by the collar.
The subordinate froze, turned his head, and looked at Baki with pure panic written across his face.
"What happened?" Baki asked.
"The warehouse." The man swallowed. "It's been attacked. We're going for reinforcements."
Baki let go of his collar.
"Take me there."
---
The warehouse sat on an old street near the port.
Baki saw the fire before he got close. Orange light bled through the gaps in the warehouse windows, and the sea wind pushed the black smoke toward the water. The whole street smelled of burning.
The subordinates rushed in with fire extinguishers.
Baki followed them inside.
The smoke was thick. He narrowed his eyes and walked further in. White foam sprayed from every direction, coating the crates and debris on the floor.
Then he looked up.
Choi Bongpal was hanging from the ceiling.
Her body was wrapped in iron sickles, suspended upside down between the ceiling beams, her hair falling loose and covering half her face. Her expression was completely blank.
Baki stood there and looked at her for a moment.
"What are you practicing?" he asked. "New training method?"
The blankness on Choi Bongpal's face cracked.
"You, you shut up." Her voice caught, losing its usual steadiness. "Get me down from here!"
"What's the rush." Baki was already walking toward her, his tone still completely unhurried. "You look fine up there."
"Baki!"
---
The subordinates poured in one after another. The first thing every single one of them did upon seeing Choi Bongpal was go completely silent for three seconds.
Then everyone moved at once.
Baki had already gotten there first. He worked loose the knots holding the sickles in place, steadied her body with both hands, and lowered her down from the beam. The moment Choi Bongpal's feet touched the ground she straightened her collar, rearranged her expression back into its usual indifference, and looked at the room around her as though she had not just been hanging upside down from the ceiling.
One of the subordinates looked around and went pale. "Boss, all the supplies are burned."
The others caught on and started talking over each other.
"That whole shipment."
"All of it, gone."
"What do we do now?"
Choi Bongpal raised one hand and gave a single, unhurried wave. "Relax."
Everyone went quiet.
"The supplies were fake," she said, brushing the ash from her sleeve in the same tone one might use to comment on the weather. "I was planning to sell that batch to Japan anyway."
The silence lasted approximately two seconds.
Then the warehouse erupted.
"Boss Bongpal is the best!"
"She planned this all along!"
"Boss Bongpal is the smartest person alive!"
"The whole thing was already set up!"
Choi Bongpal neither confirmed nor denied any of it. She simply lit a new cigarette, drew a long breath, and let the smoke out slowly.
Baki stood beside her and watched all of this without saying a word.
---
The subordinates began organizing the warehouse.
Baki and Choi Bongpal walked out and stood together on the old street outside. The sea wind came in from the port, carrying salt and the faint smell of fish, and blew a strand of hair loose across her face. She raised a hand to push it back. It didn't stay.
"Who did this?" Baki asked.
Choi Bongpal tucked the strand behind her ear and exhaled a breath of smoke. "A group of kids entered Busan a few days ago," she said. "They advertised themselves as buyers from Club Vivi."
Something shifted in Baki's eyes.
Club Vivi.
He had taken that job during his time at White Tiger Job Centre. It was not a job he thought about often, but the outcome was clear enough. After it was over, the club had shut down. It had never reopened.
"That place closed down," he said.
"I know." Choi Bongpal flicked the ash from her cigarette. "That's what made it strange. But those kids found my warehouse and told me they'd burn everything if I didn't cooperate." She paused. "So I decided to see what they actually wanted."
"What did they want?"
"To meet the four crew heads of Busan."
Baki was quiet for a second.
Then he laughed. Low, short, and genuinely amused. He had met those four the last time he was in Busan. All of them high schoolers, every single one backed by members of the Jinrang Gang. "Those kids?" he said. "That bunch of brats?"
Choi Bongpal didn't answer immediately.
Baki turned his head and looked at her. His tone slowed down, picking up something at the edge of it. "Hold on." He looked at her more carefully. "Those kids are the ones who left you hanging up there?"
Choi Bongpal's hand stopped in midair.
"That was my own arrangement," she said, her voice came out a little harder than usual. "I didn't want the four crew heads finding out I was the one who gave them up. So."
"So you had yourself hung from the ceiling," Baki said. "To look like a victim."
"Yes."
"Hung from the ceiling by a bunch of high schoolers."
"I arranged it myself."
"You arranged to be hung from the ceiling."
The tips of Choi Bongpal's ears went red. She shoved the cigarette back between her lips, drew a hard breath, and turned her eyes toward somewhere else entirely. "Are you done?"
"Not yet."
"Baki."
"Alright, done."
Another gust came in off the water. The port lights in the distance cut the surface of the sea into fragments, flickering and unsteady.
Baki pushed his hands back into his pockets and the conversation settled into something quieter. "I met with Sang Baek."
Choi Bongpal didn't turn her head. But her movement paused for just a moment.
She didn't ask for details.
Baki didn't offer any.