Five years old.
To reach their dream of South Korea, his parents had taken young Cheol-jun across the frozen Yalu River, arriving in Yanbian, Jilin Province, China. A Korean-Chinese contact they had arranged with in advance guided them to a church.
But during that process, his parents were caught by the Public Security Bureau.
Cheol-jun was very small and managed to hide beneath a church pew, evading capture.
His parents had told him to never make a sound. So, Cheol-jun was even careful about how he breathed.
Beneath the pew.
In that cramped space, Cheol-jun could only stare helplessly at his mother and father’s legs as they were dragged away by the police.
Tears streamed down his face, but he swallowed his cries.
Because they had told him to never make a sound.
Long after the door closed, he continued to weep silently.
The Korean-Chinese contact who had guided Cheol-jun’s family had already fled.
The church officials were also taken in for questioning by the authorities.
And just like that, at five years old, Cheol-jun became a fugitive.
It was a bitterly cold winter.
*
*
*
Lee Jae-kang looked down at the cold corpses of the Black Dragon gang members.
They were the bastards running the North Korean drug smuggling ring here in Yanbian.
Even if he killed them like this, another syndicate would soon take their place, but it was the Company’s order, so he simply obeyed.
His gaze drifted out the window.
Sigh…
Since he had been operating in Dandong until recently, he hadn’t secured any reliable informants or escape routes here in Yanbian.
There was surely a safe house, but the Company hadn’t informed him of it, leaving him no way to make contact.
Furthermore, he had briefly returned to Korea after his mother—his only living relative—passed away, only to be hurriedly thrown into this operation, so his preparations were somewhat lacking.
He had to get out on his own.
Walking slowly out of the building, Lee Jae-kang looked over the bustling marketplace and placed a cigarette between his lips.
He lit it, scanning his surroundings.
Rushing draws attention. He had to move slowly.
Like a man with nothing to hide.
The afternoon market was crowded.
Vendors shouting at the top of their lungs from every stall, people haggling, carts piled high with goods, and the chaotic noise of Korean and Chinese mingling together.
Exhaling a long stream of smoke, Lee Jae-kang walked slowly.
Eyes fixed forward, but keeping his peripheral vision wide.
He moved while staying within arm’s reach of places he could duck into at any given moment.
He had known since he entered that the area was crawling with plainclothes police.
Word of his movements must have leaked from somewhere.
Jae-kang had been involved in countless operations in China over the years. To the authorities, he was a massive thorn in their side.
Fortunately, they only had a rough physical description; his actual face was still unknown.
One in the left alley, two straight ahead, one behind the tofu stand.
He didn’t rush.
Instead, he slowed his pace even more, deliberately stopping in front of the tofu stall.
Pretending to fish for change in his pocket, he checked if their eyes were fixed on him.
It didn’t seem like they were watching him yet.
Good.
He bought a block of tofu and slipped it into a bag.
The elderly owner thanked him in Korean.
Jae-kang gave a short reply in Korean.
Naturally, like a local.
He started walking again.
Just three more blocks to an alley, and around the corner was the motorcycle he had parked.
He just needed to ride that bike out of Yanbian.
A simple route.
The simpler it was, the less suspicious it appeared.
He had passed two blocks.
Something on one side of the market caught his eye.
He didn’t stop. He just kept walking, shooting it a quick glance.
In a corner between the stalls, something was huddled beneath a piece of tattered sacking.
At first, he thought it was a bundle.
But looking closer, it wasn’t.
It was a child.
A very small child.
Covered in a blanket that looked like a dirty rag, only their eyes peeked out, but for some reason, that gaze strangely bothered him.
Though their eyes met for only a split second, the look felt as if the child was watching something highly entertaining.
Twitching an eyebrow, Lee Jae-kang kept walking.
One more block down, and the alley entrance came into view.
Just past that alley was the motorcycle.
Right then.
Two plainclothes police officers were walking straight toward him.
In an instant, their eyes met.
The two exchanged a few words and began walking directly at him.
Damn it…
The moment he turned around now, it would be over.
Ducking into another alley would look too suspicious, and the distance to the officers was too short.
Taking a deep drag of his cigarette, Jae-kang’s mind raced.
Haa…
He couldn’t think of a single way out of this situation.
Even if he somehow subdued those two, other officers would come running in no time. They’d blow their whistles the second they sensed something was off.
With an impassive face, Jae-kang flicked the ash from his cigarette.
Can I take them out quickly enough…?
The closer the officers got, the faster his heart beat.
Because today might just be his last.
Just then,
“Uncle!”
Quickly turning his head, he saw a small figure come rushing over to grab his hand.
“Mom says there are customers waiting, she told you to hurry back!”
Completely caught off guard, he looked down at the child, maintaining as much composure as possible.
It was the kid from earlier. The same round eyes from beneath the tattered sack.
Jae-kang quickly replied in Chinese.
“Yeah, I’m heading back now. Just wanted to finish this cigarette first.”
The child grinned.
“If you take this long just to buy tofu, Mom’s gonna nag you again.”
“Hah, as long as you keep quiet, it’ll be fine.”
“For free?”
“Haha. You little rascal!”
The police officers approaching Jae-kang tilted their heads for a moment, then brushed right past him.
Patting the child’s head, Jae-kang started walking toward his motorcycle.
At that moment, the child tugged at his hand.
“I told you we have to hurry.”
“……”
“This way.”
Looking quizzically at the kid pulling him toward a different alley, he discreetly widened his gaze to check on his motorcycle.
At the end of the alley, a faint wisp of cigarette smoke hung in the air.
It seemed there was an officer waiting by the bike as well.
Led by the child’s hand, Jae-kang slipped into the other alley.
After walking hand-in-hand for quite a while, the child stopped.
Then, he stared intently at Jae-kang.
His eyes brimmed with immense curiosity.
Jae-kang asked in Chinese.
“Who are you?”
At that, the child replied in Korean.
“You’re Korean, aren’t you, Mister? From the South!”
“……”
“Hand over that tofu first.”
Snatching the tofu right out of Jae-kang’s hand, he began devouring it ravenously.
Jae-kang just stood there, staring at the sight in sheer bewilderment.
Wiping his mouth after polishing off the entire block, the kid grinned.
“I saw a motorcycle I didn’t recognize in the neighborhood, so I kept an eye on it. Next thing I know, the place is swarming with police. I’ve seen cops in this market plenty of times, but the ones here today felt different.”
“……”
“So I thought, ‘Ah, they aren’t just here to catch North Korean defectors.'”
Even accounting for malnourishment stunting his growth, he looked about six years old at best, yet he spoke entirely like a calculating adult.
“But the moment I saw you, Mister, I knew. Ah! They gathered like that to catch this guy.”
For the first time, panic flashed in Jae-kang’s eyes.
In that brief moment of eye contact, this kid noticed what even the trained police had missed?
“If you were just a common criminal, they wouldn’t have sent plainclothes cops. You’re a secret agent from the South, right?”
Jae-kang shook his head slowly.
Haa…
He could no longer treat this kid like a child.
He had to treat him like a shrewd, dangerous adult.
Smiling brightly, the kid spoke again.
“I’ll help you get out of here.”
“And? The price?”
“I want to go to South Korea.”
“Not right away.”
“I know. Just take me with you for now. I’ll be useful for your escape. We can talk about the rest later.”
“……”
The boy furrowed his brow slightly.
Then, he looked out toward the street.
“I’ll scream.”
As Jae-kang looked at him in sheer disbelief, the kid gripped his hand tightly.
“I’m Cheol-jun. Ri Cheol-jun. Seven years old!”
Without even waiting for an answer, he started walking, hand still holding Jae-kang’s.
“What are you doing? Aren’t we going?”
“Haa…”
As Jae-kang reluctantly followed, the boy smiled radiantly.
It was their first meeting.
Right as winter was ending, and the first warm breezes were beginning to blow.
*
The child, who said he had survived alone in Yanbian for two years after escaping North Korea and losing his parents, was incredibly smart.
Having never attended school, he could neither read nor write, but he possessed razor-sharp instincts.
His Chinese was indistinguishable from a native speaker’s, and within just two months of living with Jae-kang, he could converse flawlessly with a South Korean accent.
Moreover, his ability to read people was better than most adults—even better than someone formally trained.
He could pinpoint exactly whether someone was dangerous or safe to ignore.
His situational awareness was also extraordinary.
If an urgent situation arose while they were out, he would move toward the safest route even faster than Jae-kang, without a word being exchanged.
He was usually just a bright, cheerful kid, but in those moments, his sheer genius flared to life.
Jae-kang had asked if someone had taught him.
The boy simply replied that he had figured it out naturally, because he had to in order to survive.
Was that really something you just figured out naturally?
Living with him, Jae-kang knew for sure.
This child was exceptionally special.
Jae-kang took a drag of his cigarette, staring quietly at the boy walking ahead of him.
Skipping along.
A carefree gait.
He was small.
Far too small.
He claimed to be seven, but anyone would believe he was only five or six.
The child turned his head and beamed.
“Uncle!”
“Hm?”
“Is it true that in South Korea, there’s actually food left over?”
“Huh?”
“I heard kids there leave food on their plates because they’re too full!”
“Well, that does happen quite a bit.”
“And the streets are completely lit up at night?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“And there are so many cars packed on the roads that they can’t even move?”
“Right. The traffic is a nightmare.”
“That’s amazing!”
Cheol-jun grinned broadly.
“What color is the sky in South Korea?”
“It’s just sky blue.”
“For some reason, I feel like it’ll be way brighter!”
“……”
“I want to hurry up and go see it!”
It was like this every time they spoke.
However, finding the safest way to send Cheol-jun to South Korea took much longer than expected.
More than anything, it was because a slight sense of greed had taken root in Jae-kang’s heart.
The lingering hope that maybe he could return home with this adorable child continually delayed his decision.
The boy seemed to have realized this early on, yet he never pressed him on the details.
About a year into their time living in Dalian.
The title “Uncle” had become quite natural.
About two years into their life in Dandong.
The title “Dad”—initially adopted just for cover—became even more natural.
Jae-kang taught him everything he knew.
The boy already spoke better Chinese than Jae-kang, so he taught him English, Italian, and Russian.
They went running together at dawn, and hit the punching bags together in the evening.
He had only taught him basic self-defense, but after catching the boy peeking at his workouts and mimicking the moves perfectly, he started teaching him Jiu-Jitsu and kickboxing as well.
He learned physical combat incredibly fast. He reached the point where he could easily subdue a clumsy adult.
Occasionally, Jae-kang would buy elementary school textbooks from secondhand bookstores.
Skipping morality, ethics, history, and social studies—which differed entirely from South Korea—he focused on subjects like math and science that were universally applicable.
The boy solved math problems with ease and showed a deep fascination for science.
Like a sponge, Cheol-jun absorbed everything.
If a child like this had grown up in South Korea, he would undoubtedly have been hailed as a prodigy.
Jae-kang watched the boy with deep affection, and catching that gaze, the boy would shrug proudly, a smug look on his face.
And so, the years slipped by.
Having moved to Shenyang, four years into their time together, right around the time the boy turned eleven.
To Jae-kang, Cheol-jun was nothing less than a real son, and to Cheol-jun, Jae-kang was his real father.
Even while plunging into the crossfire on covert operations during his deployments, knowing Cheol-jun would be there to welcome him home meant black op agent Jae-kang was no longer solitary or lonely.
After his mother’s death, his life had been a void without a single blood relative, but thanks to this child, he was finding the strength to endure.
*
*
—Bang!
One day, when an assailant suddenly breached the safe house where he lived with the boy and shot him, Jae-kang had been in the middle of daydreaming about which neighborhood they should live in once they finally returned to South Korea.
Collapsed on the floor, Jae-kang’s eyes blinked slowly.
His mouth formed the shape of “Shh…”
—Bang!
Bang!
Pressed flat beneath his low study desk, Cheol-jun frantically clamped his hands over his mouth.
He had been told countless times that something like this could happen.
He had been taught exactly how to react over and over again.
And so, Cheol-jun kept blinking his wide, round eyes, his hands firmly sealing his lips.
Because his vision kept blurring, making it impossible to see his dad’s face clearly.
Just like that, holding his breath, he stared at his father’s blood-soaked face and choked back his quiet sobs.
A long time later, Cheol-jun forced himself to snap out of it.
When he had lost his birth parents, he had just felt utterly helpless, but this time, he knew exactly what had to be done.
—”If I don’t return by the promised date, or if you confirm that I’m definitely dead, grab all the documents from the safe and go straight to the Shenyang Consulate. No matter what. Then, say and do exactly what I taught you.”
He quickly wiped his tears.
And then, Cheol-jun crawled out from under the desk.
Eleven years old.
Just like that, Cheol-jun lost his second guardian.
*
*
“Yes. The documents are authentic. It seems he had been preparing them for years. The records of his operation in Yanbian twelve years ago match up perfectly, and we’ve verified that he frequented nightlife venues back then to secure informants. If he had developed a deep relationship with a woman working at one of those clubs, it all makes sense. Furthermore, it appears they reunited by chance four years ago during the Black Dragon syndicate sweep. They seem to have lived together ever since. The child’s statement aligns entirely, and his answers regarding his past life in Yanbian are consistent. He’s suffering from significant shock, so there were moments he rambled a bit, but there isn’t a single reason to doubt his story.”
Jang Soo-hyun, a consulate employee and official white agent for the NIS, glanced over at the boy sleeping soundly on the sofa while on the phone.
She had stayed up all night interrogating him.
She had sneakily rephrased her questions to verify his story time and time again, but there wasn’t a single suspicious detail.
Even trained agents tend to show cracks when they only spew lies, but this boy showed no such flaws.
“Please issue a temporary ID immediately. I will handle what needs to be prepared on this end. Yes. It seems he even secured a few potential guardians back in Korea in case something like this happened. I’ll send the files over, so please contact them as well. Yes. Understood.”
Jang Soo-hyun hung up the phone and let out a soft sigh.
Haa… To think the legendary Kite-1 actually died…
Who would have thought a man hailed as a legend in the history of black operatives would go out so futilely.
The leaked roster was a catastrophic blow.
That intelligence should have been relayed to the agents immediately, but those bastards sitting high up in the Seoul headquarters had tried to hush it up and sweep it under the rug, making the situation infinitely worse.
Right now, chaos was erupting all across China and Russia.
Kite-1, Lee Jae-kang, had been one of the names on that list.
It was probably the work of the Russian Mafia or the Chinese Triads he had dealt with in the past. He must have been caught completely off guard.
Turning her head, she looked at the child again.
His frame was quite small for an eleven-year-old.
Yet, his body looked rather sturdy.
He was sleeping so peacefully now, but she couldn’t forget how he had been on the verge of tears throughout their entire conversation.
The shock must have been immense.
To lose his mother at such a young age, wander Yanbian all alone, and finally reunite with his father, only to watch that very father die right before his eyes.
I just hope he lives a happy life once he gets to South Korea…
Jang Soo-hyun gently stroked the child’s hair.