A wind chime hung from the eaves, swaying gently in the breeze.

The scent of incense wafted out from the shrine, lingering softly in the air.

This was the only place free from the stench of vomit, urine, groans and curses.

In the red-light district, Mia Temple was unique.

What kind of fate would see a temple placed in the middle of a place like this?

How had it come to stand on such unworthy land?

If temple grounds carried the weight of past lives, then this land must be steeped in stubborn, filthy stories.

Perhaps it was karma that had allowed the temple to endure.

But what sin had brought me here?

Was it the sin of being born wrong in the first place?

Or the sin of being born wrong and still refusing to die quietly, clinging stubbornly to life?

If these sins had led me here, how long would I have to suffer to atone for taking a life?

For once, I passed the time without thinking about cigarettes at all.

In one corner of the courtyard, a pile of swept snow remained, still unmelted.

No one came or went, neither in the courtyard nor inside the shrine.

On the afternoons when I met the chief, once every fifteen days, no worshippers were allowed inside.

The chief appeared through the small doorway.

He had a bottle of soju stuffed into each pocket of his grimy jacket — an absurd sight.

“You’re a chief, and you’re walking around with soju bottles in your pockets? That’s embarrassing.”

“I brought them to celebrate a thug like you getting promoted.”

“This is a temple, you know.”

He bit the cap off the bottle with his teeth and held it out to me.

“You met me and suddenly got promoted, huh? You should be treating me.”

I took the bottle he offered and clinked it against his.

The careless toast spilled soju over my hand, but I didn’t bother wiping it off—I just drank it down in one go.

“Even if it’s fast, I’m still just a thug, and you? You met me and ended up wearing that chief’s badge. Did you ever treat me?”

I sat on the wooden floor for a moment, drinking soju, before standing up.

My mouth stung. Still feeling numb, I put a cigarette in my mouth and went out into the yard.

The winter landscape, stripped of all color, seemed bleak.

The wind was harsh, and the chime rang stubbornly in the air. Its persistence reminded me of that girl.

“What’s that girl up to? She didn’t seem like anything ordinary.”

She was the kind of person who would rather break than bend; she was the kind of person who would die if forced.

She was stubborn to the core and never backed down.

Even when a knife was swung at her, she didn’t flinch.

I’d never met anyone like her.

“Guess I’ve reached the point where being called a thug doesn’t bother me anymore—now I’m even being called a human trafficker.”

“They called you a trafficker?”

The chief burst into laughter and told me to treat her well.

I simply nodded, exhaling the smoke I’d been holding in my mouth.

‘Yeah, I’m taking real good care of her.’

I serve her meals, clean up after her when she vomits and dress her, even when she strips n*ked without a care in the world.

How could I possibly treat her any better?

“If you’re taking care of her like that, sounds like an unexpected honeymoon.”

“Is that something you should be saying?”

I frowned at the chief’s sly joke. Whether police or thugs—men were all the same.

“Oh, look at you, acting all high and mighty. Our Kalpan—doesn’t even bother with girls from cafés or bars.”

As if that mattered. Just looking at women like that was already tiresome.

“With a face like yours, you should have at least two or three women hanging off you. Don’t tell me something’s wrong down there?”

I slapped away the chief’s hand as he smacked my lower body.

“D*mn, scary. Every time you make that face, I’m reminded what a perfect place this is for a thug like you.”

The taste of the cigarette turned bitter. I was grinding it out against the edge of the soju bottle when—

“Oh, right. Heard a mute kid showed up at the hwatu factory.”

The hwatu factory…

I looked at him, telling him to go on.

“That kid was looking for Lee Chun-hee.”

Lee Chun-hee.

I thought that if you disappeared like this, no one would be waiting for you.

For a moment, I almost pitied her, thinking that she was similar to me.

But I was wrong.

It seems you didn’t live your life for nothing after all.

At the very least, there’s someone out there looking for you.

“Who was it?”

“Not family. Seems like someone who worked with her at the factory—someone she was fairly close to. Filed a report asking us to find Lee Chun-hee, so I took it down.”

The chief pushed aside the empty soju bottle, lit a cigarette and took a drag to clear the taste from his mouth.

Listening to him belch loudly, I wondered if that girl was managing to find anything to eat.

If she didn’t want to starve, she would have to find a way to feed herself.

“Anyway, keep a close eye on the girl and watch yourself. You got promoted over people closer to the top—there’ll be plenty of eyes on you.”

I gave a vague nod, but something about it must have bothered him, because the chief studied me quietly.

“You’re thinking about something else again, aren’t you?”

“What something else?”

“I told you already. Even if you hadn’t taken care of that pimp, once he was caught, it would’ve been life imprisonment or the death penalty. If that’s the case, better to finish it cleanly and secure your place in Mia’s territory.”

So we could go after the ones even worse than him.

He’d said it countless times.

“That b*stard wasn’t human. Don’t waste time feeling guilty over getting rid of trash like that.”

After watching the chief leave the temple, I set off.

Before the evening’s business began, I went to Mia Market to check on the men, after which I headed over to Dongdaemun.

As most of the money flowing through Mia passed through the loan rooms in Dongdaemun, I had to check the ledgers twice a day, without fail: once after closing to settle the accounts, and again before opening.

Once after closing to settle the accounts, and once again before opening.

This wasn’t the kind of work that could be left to accumulate and reviewed once a week.

The men who had been sprawled on the sofa eating jajangmyeon jumped to their feet and bowed.

They cleared a space for me and asked if I wanted to join them.

I shook my head and checked the ledgers first.

The radio crackled endlessly, blaring out popular songs.

Whenever something was that loud and grating, I thought of her and her never-ending stream of words that never gave me a moment’s peace.

I had endured it for so long that I now felt like sealing her mouth shut with tape.

‘I’m not some thug.’

My job is to ensure that witnesses are properly protected and that nothing happens to them.

I repeated the police code to myself over and over again.

It was the only way I could keep her safe.

“The radio. Turn it off or change the station.”

The crackling only seemed to get worse when I spoke.

No matter how I adjusted the antenna, the static refused to clear up.

It wasn’t because I wanted to listen to pop songs.

I kept the radio on just to hear what was going on in the world.

Without it, the men would have started dragging café girls into the office by now.

Men only ever cared about what lay between a woman’s legs.

There was no way a cheap radio could compete with that, but in an empty, lifeless office, it was better than nothing.

“Yes, sir. I’ll get a new one. Should I just throw this away, then?”

The antenna that I had straightened had tilted sideways and sagged again.

She asked what I did all day when there wasn’t even a TV at home.

She was misbehaving because she was bored and unaware of her situation.

Perhaps if I gave it to her, she would be quieter today.

“Sir?”

“Leave it.”