The Trash Wants to Live

If I search, there may be someone who can read memories somewhere, but…

There might be such a person in the US SNT. They would probably be able to introduce me if I asked them.

I wish I could recruit them secretly… 

The fact that my memory was not perfect could be my weakness. It was a little drastic, but if they dug into it, the fact that I wasn’t the real Ki Yoon Jae could be exposed.

So I thought it would be better to find Ki Yoon Jae’s memories through someone I could definitely control. In that respect, Ki Hyun Joo was eliminated. I didn’t know what would happen if she knew I wasn’t Ki Yoon Jae. However, it was impossible for Kwon Jae Hyuk since he had already been pledged to me.

I’m not the one who asked him to do it though…

I wanted someone like Ki Hyun Joo who was also capable of finding what I wanted, who had no restrictions on the boundaries between legal and illegal, and whom I could control—be it with money or any other means.

That was how I remembered Jade, the grey man. I tried to find him through Ki Hyun Joo in order to hire him, but he could not be found anywhere. 

”You said you can’t find him?”

”Hmm, yes. No one has seen him since the contract we requested.”

There was no way to find out because the account that received the contract payment was also a Swiss account. I thought had about giving up, but Kwon Jae Hyuk came to me that evening.

”Are you looking for Maker Jade?”

”Huh? Yes…”

When I answered like that, something suddenly came to my mind. 

Since Kwon Jae Hyuk has experienced the future, wouldn’t he know his location? That was what I thought.

”By any chance… Do you know where he is?”

”Roughly.” Kwon Jae-hyuk replied, “He might be in Las Vegas right now.”

”How do you know that?”

I was just asking. I didn’t necessarily want an answer, but Kwon Jae Hyuk heard my question and smiled meaningfully.

The smile seemed to question the extent of my curiosity. I waved my hand and tried to say no, but Kwon Jae Hyuk was a little faster.

”A little later on, we’re going to capture a criminal from a gang in the United States.”

“…”

“We will investigate whether he has committed any other crimes… Perhaps a few years from now, we will discover the circumstances surrounding Jade’s murder.”

“…”

“Well, that could happen.” 

I shuddered at his words. Kwon Jae Hyuk’s words were really harsh compared to his friendly smile. Anyway, it was coincidently a city in the same state as SNT, and it was one of the best cities to travel to in the United States. Thus, my request to tour Las Vegas after touring the Ministry of Science and Technology passed without a doubt. 

The others might have wanted to travel to other states or cities instead.

As I had hoped, we arrived in Las Vegas where Jade was and walked out of the hotel secretly with Kwon Jae Hyuk’s ability before I questioned him.

“But do you know where he is? We are in America, and this is a very big city.” 

Can we find him today? 

When I anxiously asked him, Kwon Jae Hyuk, who was walking with his arms around me, looked in a certain direction.

”You’re lucky. It’s not that far from here.” 

Something seemed to have caught his attention. It was raining while he was holding onto me; Kwon Jae Hyuk moved even quicker.

Eventually, he stopped in front of a neon sign with an arrow and cocktail pattern heading diagonally down the stairs.

“Why here?”

Kwon Jae Hyuk chuckled. I looked again at the cocktail neon sign. 

Why?

There’s nothing here. Why does Kwon Jae Hyuk keep smiling? 

He whispered to me, “Wait a minute.” Then he extended his finger and poked me in the middle of my forehead. A warm and strange sensation flowed into my forehead and soothed my mind.

“Huh?”

“Do you see it now?”

“How is this…?”

“Well, I’m sure he’s a genius. I think he realised the concept of the Force without the knowledge from ancient times.”

Kwon Jae Hyuk pointed to a black machine near the neon sign. I thought it resembled a set-top box… perhaps it was a jamming device that prevented me from recognising the entrance of the store. When Kwon Jae Hyuk disturbed whatever was obstructing my mind and eyes, I realised that the bar was in front of me.

I looked at the neon sign with a cocktail and arrow and had thought that there was nothing… On second thought, I had thought he was joking because it was ridiculous.

“Let’s go in.”

”Yes.” 

So I went in and acted brazenly. I felt that if I pretended to look for someone for no reason, this wary person might run away. 

I brushed my hair and scanned the interior of the bar, but there was only a blonde woman looking at us with a slightly surprised look on her face. Her name was Jamie.

Is he really here? 

While talking with her, I glanced at Kwon Jae Hyuk, and he pointed at her with his finger so that Jamie could not see.

“That’s him.” 

Jamie didn’t hear it because he whispered in Korean, but I heard it clearly. 

Is she Jade? 

I recalled Jade in Ki Yoon Jae’s memory. He was a tall, handsome, South American man with dark skin. Jamie was a glamorous, blonde, white woman and I thought that she was likely to be six feet tall… Which didn’t match. 

Ah. 

There were a few strange things when I looked closely, thinking that there should have been something to obstruct recognition just like outside. Not only was her posture not upright, but her fairly wide shoulders were noticeable even though she was covered with clothes. Her fingers were also long and thin, and when I looked closely, it was a man’s hand with thick fingers.

That’s why I couldn’t find him.

But how did the gang find and kill this person? I was so dumbfounded. I was afraid that he would run away without listening to me, so I hid my true intentions and talked to Jade to assuage him. After a bit of a struggle, I was able to talk to him like this. 

“Do you remember? There was a commission you did for the Sungwoon Group three years ago.” 

The man who said he could create anything with his unusual abilities was well known among the gifted people. If he wanted to, he could make gold or get counterfeit money that was the same as the real thing.

Tensions hit the nation’s leaders that the economy might be at the mercy of one man.

Well… the world isn’t that easy.

As I said before, this power was great, but he was not Superman. There was a limit to one’s ability. Since he could not produce many things at once, Jade would have had to spend years producing counterfeit bills to dominate the economy. 

It was better to make something else that could sell at a higher price than to make counterfeit bills. The same was true of the contract requested by Sungwoon.

“Sungwoon? Huh? You’re the boy from back then?”

Jade sized me up. Nevertheless, he looked unsure.

“I don’t think so. You were lifeless and completely dead back then, but now…”

I was surprised at the ‘me’, who used to be stiff, could laugh and speak fluently. I shrugged my shoulders. 

“Maybe it was because of puberty.”

“Ohh…”

Jade burst into laughter at my joke. He took out a small stool from below the table, sat there, and propped up his chin.

“So, how did you know I was here?”

“That’s…”

There was no way I could say: “The person sitting next to me saw the future!” Thus, I had no choice but to smile awkwardly and shift the blame onto someone else instead. 

“I’m a little… close to the U.S. government.”

“Damn… Is the government still monitoring me?”

I avoided eye contact slightly when I saw Jade sighing, saying that he knew it. He must have had that reaction because he had such a hunch.

He looked back at me with a displeased look on his face.

“In any case, what can I do for you?”

“Uh…”

“You said you had something to suggest?”

“Oh, I want you in our guild…”

“I refuse, all right? Get lost.” 

I frowned when Jade waved his hand at me to get lost without even listening to me properly. Nevertheless, he didn’t care and just told me to go.

“I mean, you didn’t even listen to my story until the end…”

“Do I need to listen until the end? I don’t even want to join anyway.”

“Hmm…”

I squinted at him. Even when I stared, Jade just continued to wave, telling me to get lost. As I kept staring at him, I ended up whining and clicking my tongue.

I didn’t want to do this, but… I tilted my head and looked at him as I spoke interrogatively.

“You. You sold the contract knowing there was a flaw in our contract.”