5566 - Lethal Trap (Translation)

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Being a parent is one of the hardest things you'll ever do, but in exchange it teaches you the meaning of unconditional love.”

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 French Vocabularies & Notes:

1 Franprix & 8 à huit: French convenience store, equivalent to Seven Eleven, Woolworths, etc.

2 Putain: .

3 La coiffeuse (female): the hairdresser.

4 Je voudrais me faire couper les cheveux: I would like to get my hair cut.

5 S'il vous plait: please.

6 Chef de la police: Chief of the Police.

7 C’est moi: it’s me.

8 J’ai envie de me teindre les cheveux: I would like to dye my hair.

9 RAID or Recherche, Assistance, Intervention, Dissuasion (Research, Assistance, Intervention, Deterrence) is a special tactical forces unit from Paris. The men wear body armour and carry sub-machine guns.

 

Time passed in a breeze. In the past few weeks, things settled down for the better.   Amber and Paris were progressing as well as they could be. I could see the soft, gentle look in Amber’s eyes whenever she observed the little-devil-has-returned-to-a-little-angel’s antics or smile. No joke, the smile looks so much like L’s, and a bit of Amber’s.   Unfortunately, despite being contented with Paris, I knew that Amber wasn’t completely happy. All she wanted was L right there with her.   Not that I blamed her. All I wanted was L right here with us too. If he was, I wouldn’t be committing the first criminal act I had ever done in my life. Seeing Amber struggling with Paris’ birth registration and the way the French like to make things complicated, I contacted an old acquaintance, Se Hun Oh, to make a birth certificate and obtain a citizenship for Paris, without her biological father’s declaration. Se Hun worked for the government and had helped many foreigners gain their permission to stay in France, and some other related affairs with official documents. I didn’t know how and why he was still free from jail; I guess he was just fortunate. It took less than an hour for Se Hun to earn the long-awaited, legit birth certificate.   As for me, I decided to stay around for a while and began to look for a job at restaurants, hotels, schools, and hospitals. Everything was going fine until that particular day. I was walking past Franprix1 when I saw him. My eyes rounded in shock at the sight of him in Toulouse. He may be a casual passer-by to everyone else, but not to me.   I fastened my cap on my head and sprinted off the other way. I need to find Min Ho. No, I have to find Amber first. I took out my phone and called the Choi’s resident. I waited for someone to pick up, but no one did. I cussed, “Putain!2”, which earned a disapproving glare from an old woman passing by.   I called Amber’s phone and waited for her to pick it up. For the past months since she arrived in Toulouse, she had been using Min Ho’s old Nokia phone. I bought her a Samsung phone, a twin to Yuri’s and mine, as a congratulatory present the other day—it was an excuse for her to accept it. She did, but she insisted that she would pay me back as soon as she could.   “Hello? Yeol?”   “Amber, where are you?”   “Hairdresser. What’s wrong?”   “I’ll see you there,” I said and hung up. I quickly dialed up Min Ho’s phone, not caring what he was doing at that point of time at work. It was urgent. When the line was connected, I immediately spoke, “Min Ho, it’s urgent. Meet me at the hairdresser Amber’s at!”   “Sung Yeol, I’m at work!” he rebuked, his tone neutral but I could sense the sharp edges around it.   “Do you want to capture a criminal? If you do, you’ll come see me at the hairdresser!” I stated in a threatening manner.   I ended the call and raced through the crowd to my destination. Even though he was in the other side of town, I needed to find Amber before he did. Even if he found out I was here, it wouldn’t matter, as long as Amber and Paris were safe. When I reached the hairdresser, the door chimed as I opened it abruptly. Two old women sitting on the waiting chairs watched me with curiosity.   I spotted Amber sitting on the seat with a female hairdresser behind her, asking what she wanted. Paris’ stroller was right next to her. I heard Amber saying to the la coiffeusse3, “Je voudrais me faire couper les cheveux4, s'il vous plaît5.”   “No!” I screamed out into the salon with my hand reached out into thin air desperately. Amber calmly turned to me, her eyes questioning. Everyone else looked on as if I was some crazy Asian. I grabbed on to Amber hysterically. “Don’t cut your hair! Please!” Amber’s eyebrows rose at my plead and I took it as a cue for me to explain. “I can’t answer you here in public, Amber, but trust me, you’ll need that long hair to keep you and Paris safe.”   “Yeol,” she said, her brown eyes confused. “What are you talking about? I want to cut my hair; I don’t like long hair.”   The door chime rang again and I whirled around to see Min Ho catching his breath. “What the hell is going on, Sung Yeol? You do know that I was just promoted as Chief. If I get fired because I came here for nothing, you’re taking responsibility of me and my family.” He glared at me with those piercing eyes.   I put my hands up in surrender and sweat fell on the side my cheek, but fortunately, the air conditioner was flowing through the space. “I can’t explain here, Min Ho, there’s too many people.”   Min Ho looked around the salon to prove my statement. But as it turned out, I didn’t need to because when Min Ho’s radio crackled, he got the answer.   “Chef6, c’est moi7, Onew. Dong Woo reported that Hammer just shot dead a man and his two sons on the head in the north side. You should head to the place of occurrence now. Hoya and I are on our way.”   I would have laughed at how that Onew dude called Min Ho “Chef”, but given the situation, it wouldn’t be appropriate.   That was all Min Ho needed to make sense of the situation. He locked eyes with me and I nodded. He sprinted off, leaving the people in the salon dumbfounded. Some, who understood English, were in panic as they started calling their beloved, I guessed, frantically.   I spun around to Amber and whispered into her ear, ignoring the perplexed hairdresser. “Listen, Am, that man who was reported to Min Ho is my dad’s underling. He’s not in Toulouse just to wreck havoc, but also for you and Paris.” Amber’s eyes expanded in fear and her hand automatically grabbed a hold of Paris’ stroller. The baby was sleeping soundlessly without a care in the world of what was awaiting her.   Not that I had any proof, to be honest, but I just knew. Hyun Ah must have told Appa. There was nobody in Toulouse who Appa and Uncle had any association with, therefore it must be for Amber that he came.   “Look, don’t cut your hair. It’s to cover yourself up. For all they know, you have short hair.” Amber was still stunned as I shot a look around the salon and called this petite girl over. “J’ai envie de me teindre les cheveux8, s’il vous plait5.”
Not that Hammer would do anything to me, but just in case he would report to Appa, I thought it was better to go undercover.  As Amber decided to have a trim cut, I asked the petite girl to dye my hair black and cut it shorter and neater.   Time for a makeover.

 

∞∞∞

 

After that day, news of Hammer’s massacre chain progressed to the worst. A young man not that much older than me who worked at 8 à huit1, an eight-year-old girl, and a family with three kids under five were gunned down. It seemed that Hammer was going around for little kids and couples under twenty-five. They must have thought L, somehow, managed to get to Toulouse and be with Amber since his body was not found at the lake. Nevertheless, Paris’ news must have come from  Hyun Ah; that was the most logical explanation of the whole situation.   Amber was gripped with terror. I had never seen her like that before—not that I had seen a lot of her.  She said to me once, “I’m so much more afraid of losing my life, Yeol. I’m scared of what the consequences are for Paris. I have so much more to lose now.”   Knowing Se Hun was good with spying, I asked him to spy on Hammer and report things back to me. Meanwhile, Min Ho sent a member of his ‘army’ named Tae Min Lee to join Se Hun. To be honest, I had no confidence in that Tae Min Lee dude. He looks too slender, his shoulders are barely broader than his hips, and he’s shorter than me—not that I have anything against people shorter than me.   Min Ho gave me a disapproving look. “Don’t judge a book by its cover. Look pass his physical attributes, he excels in Judo, Hapkido, Taekwondo, and Karate.”   I raised my dark eyebrow at him incredulously. At some point, I got to meet his other subordinates. Min Ho’s force consisted of Jin Ki Lee or Onew, the head in combat and weaponry (basically Min Ho’s second-in-command), Tae Min Lee, the right-hand man, Sung Jong Lee, the left-hand man, Hoya, the “watcher”, and Dong Woo, the trainee. Tae Min went in Hoya’s place to work with Se Hun as Hoya had another case to solve that week.   I could hardly believe my eyes when I met Sung Jong Lee for the first time. He is the same man as Tae Min Lee, meager and weak-looking. What is with the Toulouse police system? How does Min Ho expect them to protect Amber and Paris? I just wanted to scream at him. Dohamma Hammer was a bold, crazy man. I could not remember how many times he had been in jail, only to escape again somehow. Uncle and Papa had always loved him working by their side, though they were also extra careful towards the man’s shrewdness. He was capable of doing just anything for money. The fact that he had been wrecking chaos against innocent people was just a warning for Amber. And the girl actually understood his motive, the smart girl that she is. She didn’t show it, but I knew she had been very anxious and restless for the past days. She did not let Paris out of her sight and had been carrying her everywhere on a baby sling.   “And why are they all Korean?” I cocked an eyebrow as I looked on at Min Ho.   He put on a smug face. “Because Koreans are the best.” I gave him a disapproving look for being racist. He erased the expression immediately. “I’m kidding. It just happened this way.”   All my judgments regarding Min Ho’s men went out the window that night, the night Hammer made a move towards the Choi’s property. Such a daring move to take against the Chief Police Officer of Toulouse, I would say. After Se Hun and Tae Min reported to us that Hammer was to be on action on a specified night, Min Ho collected his ‘army’ to guard and watch around his house. The ladies and Paris were inside the living room, while Alice and Jaden were already asleep. The lights were turned off. It was a complete blackout. It was like a scene from World War II where the act of minimising light for protection from attack was universal in Britain; with families hiding under the basement of their house or crouching near the walls as the helicopters or planes hovered above them before dropping bombs.   Except our war was different.   Onew and Min Ho guarded the front door as they looked through the window for any sign of Hammer. Tae Min and Hoya took control of the right side of the house, Sung Jong and Dong Woo the left side, while Se Hun and I were at the back. We had our guns ready in our hands and a Beretta in the leather holster attached on our waist for backup weapon. The only times I had touched a gun was when I went hunting with Papa and Uncle, but it was not something that we did regularly, hence I felt rather awkward.   “You alright there?” Se Hun asked, his brows cocked in a pompous manner.
“Yeah,” I sang earnestly and looked around the sky line for any sign of Hammer. Not that he could fly, but he could be anywhere right now.   Se Hun was watching the site with me, his eyes solemn as they darted across the brick wall surrounding the Choi’s property. In the darkness, I could make out the silhouette of his muscular body underneath