Chapter 9

Blocking

On April 29th, the Sillim-dong intersection merchants' association held an emergency meeting in the back room of the soup restaurant.

Seven of them showed up: the soup restaurant owner, the phone store manager, the pharmacist from across the street, the convenience store owner, the couple who ran the dry cleaner's, and the association's treasurer, Oh Malsun. Doyun, who wasn't a member, had no seat and stood in the doorway.

"So what you're saying, Malsun-unni, is that tomorrow at 4 p.m. a hole's opening right in the middle of that intersection?"

The soup restaurant owner set down her soju glass as she asked. There was no telling from her voice whether she believed it.

"Not what I'm sayin'. What that young man's sayin'."

Oh Malsun jerked her chin at Doyun. Seven pairs of eyes landed on him at once. Taking in their stares, Doyun remembered something from ten years ago—no, ten years from now. The night before a debut showcase, going around to the shops near the venue to ask for their patience about the noise. That time, too, about seven people had stared at him like this.

"Please just close your shops from 3:30 to 5 tomorrow afternoon. Pulling down your shutters would be even better. And please don't stand by any windows facing the intersection."

"That's our busiest time of day."

The convenience store owner. A man in his fifties, arms crossed.

"I know."

"You know how much my store makes in an hour and a half?"

"...I don't."

Doyun answered honestly. He really didn't know. The owner looked like he couldn't believe it.

"But whatever comes out of that hole breaks windows. As far as I know."

The soup restaurant owner poured herself another glass. The dry cleaner couple looked at each other. The pharmacist took off his glasses and wiped them. Nobody said anything.

Then the phone store manager held out his phone. The Sillim Station bus stop video. It was at 3 million views now.

"This is him, isn't it? On the pharmacy steps."

The pharmacist put his glasses back on and looked at the screen. Then he looked at Doyun.

"...That was right outside my shop that day. I'm the one who cleaned up the trash can that rolled down."

For the first time, the dry cleaner leaned in toward the phone screen.

Oh Malsun laid her palm flat on the table.

"I'm closin'. The PC bang upstairs too. Clearin' everybody out. You lot do what you want. But lemme say one thing."

She looked around at the seven of them, one by one.

"Three weeks ago this young man called the hole at Sillim Station. The very next day he called the one in Mangwon-dong. If he's wrong tomorrow, I'm out thirty million and I sell his kidneys. But if he's right—who's payin' for your windows?"

The room went quiet.

The convenience store owner uncrossed his arms.

"...An hour and a half, right?"

April 30th, 2 p.m.

Doyun stood in the middle of the intersection and looked down at the ground. Where the four white crosswalk lines met, an old patch job had left a square mark in the asphalt. In the past-life news footage, that exact spot had split open.

He opened his notebook and sketched the intersection. In ten years as a manager, he'd drawn hundreds of venue blocking charts. Stage, seats, entrances, emergency exits, the path the artist walked from the waiting room to the stage. The stage on the page had turned into an intersection, but he drew it exactly the way he always had.

Rift location: dead center of the intersection. According to the past-life record, three things that looked like gray wolves. F-rank. They wandered the intersection for the first five minutes, then one of them leapt at the first-floor window of the PC bang building. Nobody knew why it had picked that spot. Someone said later it was probably because a person had been standing behind the glass.

Today, nobody would be behind that glass.

Then where would the wolves go?

Doyun looked at the soup restaurant, the phone store, the pharmacy, and the convenience store, the four corners of the intersection, one by one. All shops that had agreed to pull down their shutters. Which left wherever a person was standing. And only one person was scheduled to be standing.

Ten meters diagonally from the center of the intersection. The sidewalk in front of the bus stop.

"You stand here, Taeha."

At 3 p.m., Doyun drew a circle on the spot in chalk. Taeha stepped into it. He held the wooden sword, and instead of the motorcycle helmet, he wore a hockey helmet Oh Malsun had dug up from somewhere. This one fit.

"Why here?"

"Nothing behind you. I had a demolition crew come take out the glass wall of the bus shelter earlier. One street tree beside you. If a wolf comes, it can only come from the front."

"...A demolition crew?"

"With Grandma's money. 300,000 won to take out one bus shelter glass wall."

Taeha stamped his foot inside the circle. Solid paving blocks.

"Mister, this isn't a game."

"I know."

"In games, when you die, you start over."

Doyun didn't answer. Instead he held the blocking chart in his notebook out in front of Taeha. The intersection, the rift, three arrows. And one circle.

"The first one's coming straight for you, guaranteed. You're the only person here. The second and third follow the first. Wolves move as a pack. So if you take down the first one fast, the rest will hesitate."

"How do you know that?"

"...Saw it in a documentary."

Taeha stared at Doyun from inside the helmet for a long time. Then he nodded. The documentary line had gone in one ear and out the other. But Sillim Station and Mangwon-dong had both gone exactly the way this guy said.

3:30 p.m. The shutters around the intersection came down one by one.

The soup restaurant went first. The owner stopped halfway, glanced once in Doyun's direction, then pulled it all the way down. The phone store, the pharmacy, the dry cleaner's. The convenience store didn't pull its shutter until 3:45. The owner showed out his last customer from the register, checked the clock, and clicked his tongue.

The police handled the traffic. The night before, Doyun had called Moon Jaeseok. Tomorrow, 4 p.m., possible rift at the Sillim-dong intersection. Moon Jaeseok was silent for a long time, then said that passing along a tip from someone who'd declined to state his reasons to the police required grounds. Doyun said he had no grounds. Moon Jaeseok was silent for a long time again. Then he hung up.

At 3:40 p.m., two police cars pulled up at the four approaches to the intersection. Increased patrols, they said.

At the second-floor window of the PC bang, PD Park had his camcorder up on a tripod. Oh Malsun stood beside him with her arms crossed. She stood half a step back from the window. Doyun had asked her to.

Doyun stood at a corner of the intersection, in front of the soup restaurant's shutter. Fifteen meters from Taeha's circle. The side of the stage, out of the camera's frame.

3:58 p.m.

The intersection, empty of cars and people, was silent; only the traffic light changed from green to red all by itself. A plastic bag tumbled past the convenience store in the wind.

Taeha adjusted his grip on the wooden sword. The sound of him letting out a long breath inside the helmet carried all the way to Doyun, fifteen meters away.

Doyun put his two phones in his two pockets. There were no calls to make today, so his hands were empty. In ten years, he had never once stood beside a stage with empty hands.

4 p.m.

At the dead center of the intersection, the old square patch lifted.

☾