Passion Novel - Volume 3 - Chapter 78 - Secret

He couldn’t tell when he’d lost consciousness. The faint whirring of a machine in the distance was so irritating that Jeong Taeui opened his eyes. His double vision returned to normal after blinking once or twice.

Even after opening his eyes and his vision returning, his head felt foggy for a while, and he stared blankly at the clock. The annoying sound was his alarm clock.

“……”

He hated being woken up by mechanical sounds, so he never used an alarm clock. He only set one occasionally for emergencies, when he absolutely had to wake up early at a specific time. Even then, due to his instinct to detest alarm clock sounds, he’d usually wake up a minute or two before it rang.

He reflexively turned off the alarm, then wondered why on earth this clock had rung. He realized the answer after the clock’s second hand had almost completed a full rotation while he stared blankly.

“……Ah.”

Jeong Taeui mumbled briefly. From 4:30 AM to 4:40 AM on the 27th, for ten minutes.

—It absolutely has to be that time.

A resolute voice echoed in his ears. Jeong Taeui checked the clock again, several minutes having passed while he was in a daze, still half-asleep. The clock, set for 4:15 AM, was ticking away.

It was a good thing he’d set the alarm, just in case. He almost slept through everything, completely oblivious.

Jeong Taeui put the clock down and got up. He needed to turn on the computer, then quickly go to the bathroom, wash his face, and clear his head. His mind was still too hazy.

“……Ugh.”

However, the moment he took a step out of bed, Jeong Taeui collapsed onto the empty floor. Not only were his legs weak, but his groin throbbed, and he swallowed the groan that instinctively escaped his lips.

He wouldn’t need to go wash his face after all. That certainly sobered him up.

Jeong Taeui lay sprawled on the floor, clenching his fists and trembling, then opened his eyes. Curses threatened to spill from his lips. He glanced at the bed. On the sheets of the empty bed, there was a hazy, sticky, dried stain. He glared at it fiercely, as if the stain itself were Ilay.

Damn it. It hurt like hell. At least it was more bearable than before, probably because Ilay hadn’t forced it all the way in like last time. Compared to that time, when it felt like he was being dug out from the inside, his insides tearing and aching, now it just felt stiffly spread open at the entrance, which was almost a relief. Jeong Taeui rested his forehead on the bed and let out a long, groaning sigh. It would be absurd to resent Ilay now. Although it felt like he had been dragged into it, he hadn’t been tied up, nor had Jeong Taeui properly refused. In fact, he had even tried to cooperate somewhat later on, so it was awkward to resent Ilay for forcing himself on him like before.

But his body was in pain, and he couldn’t help feeling resentful.

“Am I really an idiot…?”

He wondered if he had no capacity to learn. Why had he done that with him again, after suffering so much last time? And in this barren relationship, where only hollow regret remained after they were intimate. Jeong Taeui tore at his hair, sighing.

It felt empty and bitter. Even a one-night stand from a bar wouldn’t leave him feeling this empty. He thought himself foolish for accepting someone who lacked basic human decency, who didn’t even treat him as a person, and yet still telling himself he didn’t dislike humans in general. But this was already almost a personality trait, and even if he recognized it and tried to change, it didn’t work.

Phew. Jeong Taeui exhaled heavily once more, then suddenly jolted awake and looked at the clock. A few more minutes had passed during his brief slump due to his body’s exhaustion. Jeong Taeui scrambled towards the computer and turned it on. It would be a disaster if he messed up the task he’d been asked to do—in truth, it was more like an unspoken obligation than a request. Besides, whatever it was, it must be important to his uncle or McKin.

Jeong Taeui turned on the computer and crawled onto the chair, sitting down, then frowned again. His buttocks ached the moment he sat. Even more chillingly, he felt that familiar trickling sensation from below, which he’d experienced once before. He quickly reached out and grabbed the first shirt he could find, placing it on the chair to sit on. I’ll have to throw this shirt away.

Thinking about it, it was outrageous. That damned bastard had gotten his fill, then gone back to his own room, refreshed, leaving Jeong Taeui practically delirious and passed out. Of course, lying next to him would have felt very strange too, but the attitude of just satisfying his desires and being done with it made him feel like a masturbation device, which was unpleasant.

…Still, it was a relief that he was gone now.

Jeong Taeui unfolded the memo he’d received from McKin. It would have been difficult if Ilay had been lingering.

He checked the clock and saw that there were only a few minutes left until the designated time. Jeong Taeui quickly scanned the memo, which he had casually glanced at and folded away when he received it from McKin. At the very top, there was a string of characters that looked like a web address. Next to this impossibly long address, there was a short warning attached: be careful, because if the address was subtly wrong, the connection would automatically be blocked.

This is where it gets annoying, Jeong Taeui thought, frowning.

Below that, two passwords were written. And one filename. Below that, a few lines of incomprehensible equations were written.

“…? …?”

Jeong Taeui suddenly tilted his head.

The equation looked familiar somehow. To be precise, it wasn’t an equation. It was a mix of numbers, alphabets, and symbols, and if anything, it was closer to a chemical formula. The long chemical formula was so complex that even if he had stayed up all night memorizing it for a high school exam, he would have long forgotten it by now, so there was no reason for it to look familiar. Perhaps he had seen a completely different formula somewhere and felt it was familiar because its format was similar.

While Jeong Taeui tilted his head and tapped the memo with his fingernail, the time arrived.

He carefully typed the address written on the memo, making sure not to make a single mistake. When he clicked connect, the screen changed. It was a kind of protocol screen. After entering the password, an endless list scrolled down. He glanced at the clock. There was far too little time to search through that list one by one. More accurately, there were too many files.

This is troublesome… he muttered, clicking his tongue, but the very next moment, Jeong Taeui relaxed. The lists were countless, but they were neatly organized. There was no need to rush. He just needed to find one file and download it. Unless the computer suddenly crashed, he could finish with plenty of time.

He quickly found the filename written on the memo. When he selected the file, a new password window appeared, and he entered the second password. Soon, the file began to transfer.

He’d thought he needed to hurry since it was only for 10 minutes, but it was almost comical how quickly the file downloaded, taking less than half the allotted time. After closing the program before the time ran out, Jeong Taeui looked at the memo again. All he had to do was check if it was the correct file and then send it elsewhere.

Jeong Taeui slowly tapped the desk, tap, tap. He wondered if he should drink some water before checking the file. Actually, a cigarette or beer would be better, but he had neither right now.

He had almost successfully completed the task, but he didn’t feel good about it. He had a rough idea of the situation’s structure. Jeong Taeui had helped with a similar, though not identical, type of work before. Rather than helping, he had accidentally witnessed it and pretended not to know, but in some sense, that too could be called helping.

“That’s also aiding and abetting…”

He mumbled that with distant eyes, and then he realized: this time, it was unmistakably aiding and abetting. He had even helped with his own hands, so there was no room for excuses.

Nine times out of ten, it was confidential information leakage and sale.

It was hard to believe that his uncle and McKin were simply trying to embezzle money as accomplices. He guessed it was highly likely for securing funds. It was the same everywhere. What was called ‘jockeying for position’ required surprisingly a lot of money. In some cases, it was an unimaginably large sum. If a key position in UNHRDO was involved, the amount wouldn’t be small. Since they wouldn’t frequently engage in such high-risk activities, that file must be worth its weight. The value of a single file downloaded in a few minutes would probably be an amount Jeong Taeui could only ever perceive as a number in his lifetime.

“Uncle… isn’t this too much?”

Jeong Taeui mumbled complainingly, sighing, knowing his uncle wouldn’t hear him. If his uncle had heard, he would have said, “Didn’t you agree to it even though you suspected from the beginning?” But Jeong Taeui wouldn’t have done such a thing if it wasn’t for his uncle’s request. Not just because of the moral issue, but most of all, the risk was too great. Given that a specific time was designated, the security must have been separately arranged, and at least since he did it at his uncle’s word, this incident wouldn’t bring risk back to Jeong Taeui. However, if that weren’t the case, it was a dangerous bridge he would absolutely not want to cross.

Jeong Taeui sighed and stood up. He wanted to drink some water to wash away the tightness in his chest.

The moment he stood up, the pain he’d forgotten resurfaced, and he grabbed the desk, groaning ugh again, but he could still move, albeit awkwardly. Jeong Taeui cursed, mostly at Ilay, as he got some water.

“……”

He put the bottle to his lips and slowly drank water, staring blankly at the ceiling. Someone must have put medicine in the water. It tasted unusually bitter. Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue bitterly and put the bottle down. His mouth still tasted bitter. He didn’t want to be involved in this kind of work, but even apart from his own involvement, he felt uneasy.

Did Uncle do things like this at UNHRDO?

Jeong Taeui sighed and leaned his head against the back of the chair. He hadn’t expected moral integrity from his uncle. He wasn’t naive enough to hope that his uncle would stay far away from the corruption within and live a noble and clean life, nor was he such an upright person himself.

But he wished he hadn’t been shown it so directly, right in front of his eyes.

“Well… what can I do?”

Jeong Taeui mumbled briefly. The bitter feeling didn’t wash away, but he convinced himself that it wasn’t something he could do anything about.

“It’s better to quickly finish unpleasant tasks and forget them. Let’s see…”

Jeong Taeui sat back down in front of the computer. All he had to do was compare a few lines from the memo to check if he had received the correct file, then send it to the address written below.

Jeong Taeui opened the file, muttering, “If I received the wrong file, I’m screwed… and time’s already passed,” and frowned, letting out a small “Oh,” at the endless string of garbled characters. It looked like it had been somewhat organized with line breaks to make it easier to view, but Jeong Taeui still couldn’t understand the file’s contents. Indeed, it was designed to be difficult for anyone to understand. But though he couldn’t understand it, it felt familiar. Jeong Taeui chuckled softly, recalling the papers scattered around the living room like scribbles when he lived with his brother. His brother never properly organized such things. His uncle, who happened to see them, had clicked his tongue, saying, “There are so many people who would cherish even one of these as a treasure, and you just spread them out like this?” but his brother had simply shrugged nonchalantly.

Whenever Jeong Taeui cleaned the living room, he almost always gathered those numerous papers, but he never knew what was written on them. Until he came here.

…He felt depressed again.

Jeong Taeui sighed and picked up the memo. Then he began to compare it with the characters filling the screen. The first few lines and the last few lines, as noted on the memo, matched. Fortunately, it seemed he hadn’t received the wrong file. Now all he had to do was re-transmit this file, and he’d be done…

Jeong Taeui propped his chin on his hand and stared intently at the screen.

It definitely looked familiar. It wasn’t just because the characters looked similar to the papers his brother used to scribble on.

Jeong Taeui tilted his head. Even staring at it like this, there was no way he could understand its content, so it felt like looking at a puzzle book. A guy like Morer would probably love this. Of course, unlike a puzzle, this had no solution, and for those who knew, it was probably nothing short of an explanatory document itself.

“3…7…7…0…2…. …Huh…”

Jeong Taeui stared at the regularly arranged formula, his finger tracing down the screen, when he suddenly stopped.

It was familiar. No, not just familiar, it might have been a formula Jeong Taeui had actually seen before. His brother usually improvised equations, then quickly grew bored and tossed them aside, but sometimes he would hold onto the same papers for several days, lost in thought. Once, long ago, when his brother held onto the same paper for five days, Jeong Taeui thought it was strange and sat opposite him, looking at the paper upside down. No matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t understand it, but he remembered joking to his brother about how if he took only the first letter of each vertical line and read them backward, it spelled out their home phone number—a meaningless coincidence. At that time, his brother calmly explained the content to his brother, who wouldn’t understand it anyway, but Jeong Taeui didn’t understand even half of it. When his brother saw Jeong Taeui’s blank face staring at him, he paused for a moment, then concluded with words Jeong Taeui could understand.

‘I just need to fill in a few empty lines in the middle, but I can’t quite solve it. But… maybe it’s better if I can’t solve it. If I use this as a base for designing something, it will turn out to be quite dangerous.’

His brother, who spoke with a slight grimace, held onto that paper for a few more days afterward, even though he said it might be better if he couldn’t solve it, perhaps disliking the idea of not being able to complete the formula.

Back then, he didn’t know what he was designing based on it, or what was dangerous. But now, Jeong Taeui could feel his own face hardening.

His gaze was fixed on the file on the monitor, unmoving. Was it a coincidence? Or perhaps a delusion. But as his eyes traced the still incomprehensible string of characters, Jeong Taeui could be certain. He had definitely seen this content before.

“…Ha.”

Jeong Taeui raised his hand to cover his mouth. His gaze wavered unsteadily, disturbed.

If his guess, his conviction, was correct, then his uncle, McKin, and anyone else involved in this business were out of their minds. There’s a difference between leaking information and leaking secrets. This wasn’t something that should be leaked to the outside world. He didn’t know the recipient, but it was obvious what kind of place would want such an item—a place that could make good use of this data, in other words, a place that could excellently misuse it.

Jeong Taeui looked at the clock. It was almost 5 AM. Far too early to call anyone else, but he had to talk to someone now.

Jeong Taeui instinctively picked up the receiver, then remembered he was currently in Canberra. He figured it must be around 8 AM there, so he wouldn’t be waking anyone up. He rummaged through his notebook where he’d written down numbers before.

However, after a long signal, the call didn’t connect. Whether the person couldn’t answer or had left their phone behind, no matter how many times he called, he couldn’t get through.

Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue. His uncle almost never failed to answer the phone outside of regular working hours. He even started to wonder if he was intentionally not answering.

He grew anxious. But on second thought, there was no reason to be anxious. The designated time was merely for securely connecting and downloading the file without triggering security; it wasn’t the deadline to complete everything. That designated time had already passed anyway. Since there was no instruction to transmit the file immediately, he could just leave it for now and figure it out once he got in touch with someone. If worse came to worst, he could even delete it.

Once he realized this, his urgent need to contact someone immediately lessened somewhat. But in its place, an ominous unpleasantness swelled. His uncle couldn’t possibly have been unaware. If they were doing something like this together, then McKin must certainly know as well. And in the worst-case scenario—though it was a highly probable worst-case scenario—what if that formula was applied to something like a chemical weapon?

Jeong Taeui didn’t know what kind of substance’s composition formula the file contained. Perhaps because he didn’t know, his imagination ran wild in a negative direction, but he could easily guess that something traded in this manner would not be safe or easy to handle.

Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue. But sitting in front of the computer, staring at the screen and tearing at his hair wouldn’t make anything better, so he sighed and closed the window. He rubbed his tired eyes with his thumbs. Damn it. He’d wanted to quickly deal with it and get some more sleep, but now sleep was out of the question. He didn’t think he’d be able to sleep.

Coming out of his room so early, much earlier than usual, was partly because he hadn’t been here for a while, but also because he thought McKin might be the first to arrive at the instructors’ office. Jeong Taeui, who had been sitting on his bed staring at his toes for a long time before this thought struck him, suddenly got up, finished getting ready to leave, and tried calling his uncle one more time just before leaving the room, but still, he didn’t answer. He had a bad feeling.

Jeong Taeui put on his shoes and looked at himself in the mirror hanging by the front door. Even to himself, his complexion looked pretty bad. He looked like a sick person. Well, he hadn’t slept properly, he’d been tormented by a madman daily, his mind and body were exhausted, and troublesome thoughts never ceased in his head—if he were still normal after all this, he wouldn’t be human.

Jeong Taeui sighed and left the room. Looking at the clock, it was still dawn. Others would slowly start waking up soon.

He climbed the stairs to the first floor. When his mind was weary, it was not good to keep his body at ease. If his body was comfortable, his thoughts would constantly chase each other. And they were not good thoughts.

Actually, he regretted it a little when he reached about the second basement floor. He should have just taken the elevator. He had to endure the throbbing pain below his waist for a long time, clinging to the railing, before he could continue climbing. By the time he finally reached the ground floor, one step at a time, cold sweat was running down his back. Damn it. I’ll be damned if I ever do that with him again. …

No, he’d probably be dragged into it again. Let me rephrase that. I’ll be damned if I ever let that guy penetrate me again.

Jeong Taeui briefly forgot his complicated thoughts and focused his resentment on Ilay. But that only lasted until he reached the ground floor. Jeong Taeui, standing at the end of the hallway where the instructors’ office was visible in the distance, paused for a moment. On days when there were early morning instructor meetings, not only instructors but also captains and Adjutants would come and go early. During the joint training period, instructor meetings were almost always held morning and evening, and today was no exception. Jeong Taeui looked at the clock.

But it was too early for people to be coming and going. It was awkward even for himself, dressed in uniform at this hour. He stood stock still in the hallway, silently staring ahead. No sign of anyone. It seemed no one had come out yet. Even if people other than instructors were mobilized for the meeting, it would still be at least another hour before they started trickling out. Though he knew the chances were slim, McKin wasn’t in the instructors’ office as he had faintly hoped, but he didn’t feel deflated.

His chest simply ached from the fact that this snapping, anxious feeling had been prolonged a little longer.

What should he do? If his guess turned out to be completely accurate, what should he do?

He hadn’t thought about it at all. There wasn’t even a glimmer of an answer. Jeong Taeui slowly took a step. He heard the faint creak of the wooden floor beneath his feet. Only the creaking of wood in the empty space. It felt strange, like entering an abandoned house deep in the forest.

Suddenly, his mood sank. Standing alone in the dimly lit hallway, with no one around.

When he reached the instructors’ office, Jeong Taeui hesitated for a moment. As he slowly opened the door, a bluish darkness lurked inside. How long had it been since he’d seen such light? It felt strange. There was no natural light in the basement floors. It was either bright light or total darkness. If he turned on a small lamp, the light would dim, but it wasn’t this bluish, dim morning light. He missed the dawn outside. He sometimes felt like he was constantly living underground. He wanted to go outside. Perhaps even more so because the time to leave was approaching.

Jeong Taeui stepped into the instructors’ office. In the empty room, without turning on the lights, he sat down at a small table arranged for visitors. And he looked out the window next to it. Of course, there were no windows on the lower floors.

The spacious structure, perfect ventilation system, and lack of anything to desire suddenly felt stiflingly oppressive. Jeong Taeui exhaled quietly and closed his eyes. In such a quiet, bluish dawn, he felt as if he could hear sounds. He suddenly thought of his brother. When was it, there was a dawn like this. His brother was sitting in a rocking chair on the veranda, silently with his eyes closed. The veranda was filled with potted plants his mother had cultivated when she was alive. None of them had bloomed. All were lush with leaves.

Jeong Taeui, who had woken up before dawn and left his room to go to the bathroom, had stopped when he found his brother like that. His brother sat as if buried among the blue, lush leaves.

‘Hyung. Didn’t you sleep?’

Jeong Taeui, with sleepy eyes, glanced at the clock and approached his brother. His brother opened his eyes, looked at Jeong Taeui, and shook his head.

‘No, I just woke up.’

‘Hmm… Aren’t you cold?’

Jeong Taeui, just woken up, rubbed his arms in the dawn air of a late autumn day.

‘A little.’

His brother replied briefly, hunching his shoulders. It was dim, so he hadn’t noticed immediately, but his brother’s lips were blue.

Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue and went back into the room to fetch a coat. He draped it over his brother’s shoulders.

‘You should at least put on some clothes. …Are you having trouble with another problem?’

Jeong Taeui squatted on the veranda threshold, looking up at his brother. His brother would sometimes sit like a doll when he had something to ponder for a while.

‘No. I just feel like I can hear sounds if I sit here.’

His brother, wearing the coat, leaned back in the chair. The rocking chair swayed a couple of times then stopped. Jeong Taeui tilted his head. His brother closed his eyes again, his lips sealed, as if listening intently to something. Jeong Taeui watched his brother for a moment, then, feeling sleepy and needing to use the bathroom, he stood up. And he turned away, accustomed by now to his brother who sometimes spoke incomprehensible things. Perhaps his brother felt this way then. In the quiet, blue darkness of dawn, his brother seemed to want to hear unheard sounds.