Episode 4 - 2 [The Platform in the Web]
Gyeongseong Station was in celebration.
Japanese flags hung from the front of the station building, snapping in the morning wind. Not one — dozens. White fields, red circles. Every column, every railing, every eave dripping with them. When the wind blew, the fabric cracked like a flock of wings, smothering the entire building in sound.
I moved into the crowd.
The plaza leading to the platform was packed. Mostly Koreans. Mandatory mobilization — the small flags clutched in their hands were proof. The hands holding them hung limp. Until the order to wave came, those flags were dead bouquets.
Right hand in my pocket. Left shoulder — I shifted the shirt slightly to one side. Under the cloth, the hide-and-wire arm made a grotesque shape. Anyone looking closely would have thought I was carrying a wooden plank, not a limb. But the crowd noticed nothing. One Korean man in a Western suit. No reason to stand out.
The numbness in my left hand had reached the center of the palm. I tried to make a fist. Only the thumb bent, faintly. The other four fingers were locked and deaf. The wire had sealed every vessel in the forearm. When the time came to crush the explosive, I would have to force the grip with the tiger's strength — not by bone command, but by muscular detonation.
Then, the flow of the crowd shifted.
Someone stepped onto the welcome platform at the front of the plaza. A black overcoat. A Western bowler hat, not a traditional gat. Gold medals pinned to the chest. Below the medals — the gleam of Oxford shoes.
Father.
Front row. Highest position. He was exchanging handshakes with Japanese officers on the platform. The corners of his mouth were lifted. The face of a 'loyal friend.' The same hands that had straightened a necktie while a son screamed on the table ten years ago were now pumping an officer's hand up and down.
My jaw tightened. Molars locked. My temples throbbed. Vision narrowed. The flags, the crowd, the noise were all falling away, and only the shine of his shoes was sharpening —
I cut the look. Turned my head. Breathed in. The body-heat of the crowd and coal smoke filled my nostrils. Not him. Today is not about him. Today's target is the bomb.
I scanned the station building. Ground floor platform — the welcome crowd — military police stationed throughout. Rifles slung, watching the mass. Two, four, six — ten. Ten visible. On the ground floor alone.
My eyes climbed. Second-floor railing.
They were there too. Figures prone behind the railing, rifles braced on the ledge. Angles invisible to the crowd below — but from where I stood, the gleam of gun barrels was clear. Two. Three. Five. Five snipers.
Ambush.
Dr. Jang was right. This wasn't a welcome ceremony. It was a trap. The moment the independence fighters threw their bomb, the ground-floor police would close in and the second-floor snipers would seal every escape route. Not a single one would get out.
And at the center of that web —
Far left of the second-floor railing, apart from the snipers, a man was standing. Black coat. White gloves. One finger tapping the tip of his nose.
Kageyama. Major.
He was reading his wristwatch. His lips moved. Too far to hear. But I read the shape.
'It's time.'
Kageyama lifted his eyes from the watch and looked down at the platform. One corner of his mouth rose. A hunter's face. The scientist who had pressed his hand against the truck wreckage was gone. This was a cat waiting for a mouse to bite the cheese. The man who had deduced 'not human' in the Jongno alley in Episode 2 had forgotten about not-human things — and was enjoying a human hunt.
'The independence fighters on this platform are your prey, I'll grant you that.'
I looked away from Kageyama.
'But there's something you don't know.'
My left arm throbbed. Beneath the hide and wire, the muscle twitched. The dying hand was wringing out its last blood flow in spasms.
'Your web doesn't only catch mice.'
A train whistle sounded in the distance.
Whuuuuuu —
Far down the tracks, black smoke rose. A steam engine's smokestack stabbed at the sky. The train was coming.
The crowd stirred. Mandatory flags lifted, and the dead small flags began to wave in reluctant rhythm. Cries of banzai broke out here and there. Not sincere. Banzai to survive. Banzai to keep breathing.
The whistle again. Closer. The platform floor vibrated faintly. The trembling of hundreds of tons of steel bearing down the tracks traveled up through the soles of my feet to my calves.
I stood in the crowd. Wedged between shoulders, dead left arm hanging, living right hand in my pocket.
I waited.
Somewhere in this crowd, Young-sik was there. Bomb in his pocket, palms wet, waiting for this moment. Not knowing the detonator had been pulled.
The black body of the locomotive slid into the platform. Steam exploded from both sides. Hot vapor crawled to the feet of the crowd. Smoke and steam merged, and the entire platform sank into fog.
I held my breath.
I couldn't count. Not heartbeats. Time.
The two-hour clock on my left hand was ticking down.