***

The Chinese restaurant in Dongdaemun Market was infested with cockroaches.

I worked sixteen-hour days there, delivering food and washing dishes, and survived on whatever scraps were left behind.

Even then, I only ate once a day. If I didn’t force myself to eat enough so that my throat felt full, my stomach would burn throughout the next day.

While making deliveries, I cleared food waste. While washing dishes, I peeled onions. Before long, I was sent out to run errands around the market.

After three years of that, I was finally allowed to work at the knife board.

The knife board.

From that day on, that became my name.

On the island, they called me ‘Mute’.

On the mainland, they called me ‘Knife Board’.

No one ever cared to ask what my real name was.

When I left the island, my sister shoved a piece of paper with my name on it into my hand, but I couldn’t read it. I had never spoken my own name out loud.

Still, I had finally started using a knife.

My wages increased, but every coin went straight towards paying off the debt, so nothing really changed.

Even so, it felt like a promotion to me.

“Learn it properly. Once you’ve got the knife down, you’ll pick up the grill in no time.”

The head chef seemed to take a liking to me, probably because I worked hard and never complained.

Maybe he thought he could teach this clueless outsider a thing or two.

He never swore at me.

I learned by doing exactly as I was told.

For example, onions should be cut into wedges with the core removed.

For fried rice, dice them evenly.

For jjambbong, they had to be sliced thickly.

Each vegetable had to be cut with a single, clean stroke of the knife.

If the blade fell twice, the texture would soften.

The knife must be kept sharp enough to cut with the lightest touch.

This was the first time in my life that I had truly learnt something instead of just getting by.

Using a knife was far more interesting than delivering food.

The head chef taught me something else, too.

“No matter how you make a living with a knife, if you’re illiterate, you’ll be an easy mark.”

Then he tossed me a basic Korean workbook intended for young children.

It was humiliating.

However, I knew that if I pretended to understand, I would only embarrass myself further down the line.

So, during the day, I chopped vegetables until my arms went numb.

At night, with those same aching arms, I practiced writing: giyeok, nieun, digeut.

Once I had memorized all the consonants and vowels, I reached for the crumpled piece of paper I had hidden under my pillow.

“Kim… Yong-beom.”

I said my name out loud.

Kim Yong-beom.
I had a name.

Not long after that, I was sent back to doing deliveries.

“Just go to the loan office and drop it off. With a face like yours, no one’s going to ask questions—so don’t worry.”

‘What is this? Why do I have to do this?’

I didn’t ask.

Wrapped in a faded page torn from a calendar was a bundle of cash.

I could tell at a glance that it was protection money, intended as tribute for the loan sharks who controlled the market.

I packed the cash into the metal delivery box alongside two bowls of jjajangmyeon and an order of sweet and sour pork, then stepped out into the alley.

The loan office was only three alleys away. It wasn’t far, but navigating coffee vendors and porters hauling heavy loads always slowed me down. It was faster to cut through the shopping arcade, even though it was slightly further. By then, the shops were already closing.

Inside, merchants were packing up and stretching long poles to pull black tarpaulins over their stalls. I slipped through the narrow passageway alone, moving quickly.

One by one, the lights went out behind me.

Somewhere, the slow, dragging tune of a trot song could be heard: Kung-jjak, kung-jjak.

I walked faster than that.

A thug with a battered face opened the door to the loan office. I had seen him a few times during deliveries. When they had nothing better to do, they would sit inside playing cards and eating jajangmyeon.

But today felt different.

As I stepped inside, there was no sound of cards slapping against the table.

Instead, a man was sitting there with his legs spread wide, leaning back as he smoked and looked completely at ease.

I had never seen him before, yet he made such a strong and unpleasant impression that I knew I would recognize him anywhere.

He wore worn suit trousers. Dirty trainers.

He didn’t look like a thug.

Kneeling in front of the long table, I opened the delivery box. I set out the dishes one by one: jjajangmyeon, sweet and sour pork, pickled radish and onions.

Then, suddenly, a hand shot into the box.

“You people still haven’t stopped this nonsense?”

Without missing a beat, the man pulled out the bundle of cash I had deliberately left untouched.

He was seated higher than the loan shark, and because of that, the man didn’t dare confront him. He simply jumped up, fidgeting, trying to retrieve the money.

“Ah, come on now, why are you doing this? We’re all just trying to make a living here.”

“You. What’s your name? You don’t have the face of a thug.”

The man pushed the loan shark’s face out of the way and addressed me directly.

Ash fell from the cigarette he flicked—landing softly in front of my knees.

I snapped the lid of the delivery box shut and stood up.

‘What’s the point of knowing my name?’
‘I’ve got no name worth giving to someone like you.’

When I ignored him, the loan shark answered for me.

“Why ask for something like that, sir? He’s just some Chinese restaurant delivery brat.”

‘Sir.’

He was a detective.

A squad leader.

He was the kind of detective who barged into people’s lives without warning, sniffing around for anything they could use to arrest someone.

Nevertheless, being a detective gave him a certain presence.

“So thugs think they’re better than some restaurant worker? What a joke.”

“Well, even thugs need some talent. This one here was carried straight from some island by the woman he calls his sister to pay off gambling debt—and ended up stuck washing dishes for good.”

I wondered what that woman—once called my sister—was doing now. Was she smiling somewhere, relieved, like a rotten tooth had finally been pulled out?

“You’ve got a temper. How’d you manage to stick it out and pay off your debt? Never even tried to run?”

‘He sure asks a lot of pointless questions.’

“You told me to pay it, so I paid it.”

“Yeah, but why?”

“If I tell you, will you clear my debt?”

“Hey, you b*stard! Do you even know who you’re talking to—”

“Let him be. He’s interesting.”

While I stood there in silence, the detective ground his cigarette out against the lid of my delivery box.

“How much do you owe? Not the interest—the principal.”

“If I tell you, will you clear it?”

“Kkachi, this b*stard keeps talking back. Go on—tell me the principal. I need to keep my hands to myself, you know.”

“Ah, come on, this is a loan business—how can I talk about the principal, sir?”

“Why do you keep making me repeat myself over something so simple?”

The detective kicked over the bowl of jajangmyeon the loan shark had been mixing, then let out a low chuckle.

“Boss, your temper… seriously.”

Even as he brushed the splattered sauce off his forehead, the loan shark kept smiling. Even being treated like trash in front of some delivery boy, he had no choice but to laugh.

‘So the squad leader really has that much power?’

“The principal’s almost paid off.”

I looked at the loan shark again, making sure.

“I’ve paid most of it already.”

The squad leader stood and tapped the loan shark’s shoulder with the bundle of cash. It thudded against him like a brick. The man hurriedly grabbed it.

“Take the rest of his interest out of that.”

“What? Ah—why here? This is…”

“Don’t like it? Then return all of it to its rightful owner.”

As the detective moved to take the money back, the loan shark groaned and tightened his grip.

‘Pathetic. It’s not even their money.’

“I’ll pay it myself.”

The moment I spoke, the squad leader slapped me across the face—then burst out laughing.

“You got money like that?”

“As you can see, I’m broke. I just don’t want to owe any more. Do you think I’d take on another debt knowing who you are?”

“I like how you use your head—and your mouth. Let’s see if the rest of you’s any good. Come with me.”

That’s how I went from being a debt-ridden delivery boy who lived off scraps to becoming a detective.

But the moment I became a detective, I found myself in the midst of a den of thugs — I had become one of them.

“Didn’t you say he didn’t have the face of a thug?”

“If he only lived by his face, it’d be a waste of those knife skills.”

The squad leader coaxed me with a grin.

“Knife board.”

Shadow detective.

I was the right-hand man of the Mia gang leader — the one who wielded the knife.

That was me.

I had always lived like that, taking whatever came my way.

I hit others so they wouldn’t hit me.

I swung a knife so that I wouldn’t die.

It was like being thrown into the sea and having to learn to swim in the waves.