“I gave you… money.”
“Just go there and show your face. If you, someone with a known face, step up, it’ll help with the contract. Does hyung want something big?”
“Right. This isn’t weird.”
“It’s difficult. If the company finds out about this……”
The bomb Haram dropped was fraud. However, that fraud wasn’t committed by him but happened because his family sold Haram’s face and name to receive investments.
In the entertainment industry, such things happened particularly often. Since faces were well-known, they were convenient to exploit, and when money earned from a young age before even becoming an adult was entrusted to parents, there were often humans who acted as if it were their own money.
Haram, who had a particularly soft heart, took all the blame to protect his family and fell to ruin.
“Ah really! You, can’t you trust hyung?”
The man in front of Haram roughly grabbed Haram’s arm and pulled him, urging him to answer. Haram made a pained sound as if his grabbed arm hurt.
“Kang Haram.”
Then, Sehyun strode toward them. There was no hesitation in his gait. Haram, startled by Sehyun’s appearance, turned around.
“Sehyun-ah. Doha hyung……”
His eyes were full of bewilderment. He seemed not to want this to be discovered, but Sehyun had absolutely no intention of pretending not to notice. This was also the third time.
“Hello?”
Sehyun, who reached Haram’s side, bowed 90 degrees. Then Haram’s family members awkwardly nodded their heads in greeting.
Seeing that, Doha felt uncomfortable standing alone at a distance and hesitantly headed toward them.
“What are you doing.”
Sehyun asked Haram. His gaze intensely stared at Haram. His face, then his arm. Then the hand of the man holding Haram’s arm awkwardly fell away.
“Uh? Well……”
Haram fidgeted with the hand that had been held. The smile that usually bloomed around his mouth whenever their eyes met was nowhere to be found.
“You know me, right? I’m Lim Sehyun, a group member with Haram.”
Sehyun was treating them with utmost politeness. It was unexpected. Doha observed Sehyun’s actions.
Was he thinking of persuading them well with words?
Sehyun continued his next words crisply.
“Did you come to beg?”
Uh…… No. There was no such deep meaning at all.
The atmosphere rapidly froze at Sehyun’s words that flowed out bizarrely. The two people didn’t immediately understand the meaning and looked at each other with dumbfounded faces.
“……What, what?”
Sehyun’s hyung asked back with an incredulous voice.
“I’m asking if you, a young person, came to suck up the money your younger brother earned with his blood and sweat.”
“This person right now……”
“Hey, Kang Haram.”
Sehyun called Haram, and Haram flinched in surprise and looked at Sehyun.
“What is OnX to you?”
“Uh……?”
“What am I to you, someone you’ve known for nearly ten years.”
Sehyun clearly showed signs of being hurt. Perhaps it was upsetting that until things got this far, Haram hadn’t shown him even once that he was having a hard time.
“Decide right here. Are these people really your family? If you say these people who will steal from you—your money, your credit, even your future—are your family, then I’m thinking of being moderate about it too.”
“……Sehyun-ah.”
“Fuck, are you a sucker? After burning all your youth since trainee days to earn money and giving it all away, what’s left. Money? Yeah, that’s no big deal. After using up your money and your fame, what do you think comes after?”
“……”
“Will you only see reality after giving away all your organs? These people don’t think of you as family. You’re just an ATM that spits out money.”
At Sehyun’s words, Haram’s pupils shook violently. He probably knew it himself. But that’s how the fence called family is. The relationship where blood exists, an inescapable sense of debt that exists to the very end.
“Are you really okay with your life being completely ruined because of those people who committed fraud using your name and flew away?”
“Look here, aren’t your words too harsh?”
Haram’s hyung roughly pushed Sehyun’s shoulder. Then Haram’s mother grabbed both their arms and opened her mouth.
“That’s right. There seems to be some misunderstanding……”
“Misunderstanding? Is there even a single penny in Kang Haram’s bank account right now? A few days ago you went to see the CEO and asked him to settle Kang Haram’s payment in advance. Did Kang Haram agree to that?”
“Who are you to butt into family matters right now!”
“Does he also know that you’re selling Kang Haram’s name to that so-called investment company and gathering suckers blinded by money?”
When Sehyun strongly pushed away Haram’s hyung’s arm, he rushed at Sehyun, breathing heavily. The man’s hand grabbed Sehyun’s collar.
“What does a young punk like you know to be blabbering?”
“Must be nice being old. Even better to be sucking the bones of a kid young enough to be your son.”
“Fuck, this bastard!”
The atmosphere was heating up. Haram reached out his hands to stop the two. But his hyung kicked Haram.
“What have you been saying to make this bastard act like this!”
The model specimen of a trashy man scolded Haram. Haram fell to the ground. Doha quickly supported Haram who was rolling at his feet.
“Stop, don’t do this here, Gyumin!”
“Look here. Gyumin-ssi. If you’re going to act like a shitty adult, take care of your own business yourself.”
“……Ha, this bastard acting like a celebrity. Just because you’re handling some money at a young age, you think you’re an adult? Can’t distinguish right from wrong with shit packed in your head?”
“Smelling your breath makes me feel like shit will come out.”
“Hey!”
The man swung his fist widely. But Sehyun quickly struck hyung’s Adam’s apple with the edge of his hand.
“Kkeok, keo, kkeok. Kkulleok.”
The man staggered back.
“Gyumin!”
His mother supported the man.
“This…… This bastard won’t listen to words!”
Already having swung his fist, and now talking about words……? Living a life of great inconsistency between words and actions, Kang Gyumin also shook off his mother’s hand and rushed at Sehyun again. He vaguely recalled memories that Haram’s hyung had done judo in the past, quit due to injury, and lived as a gangster.
Isn’t something big going to happen at this rate? Even if you scratch at someone, you should do it moderately…….
“Let’s see if you can still smile when that slick face is all smashed up!”
Gyumin reached out his arm toward Sehyun, but Sehyun lightly dodged his touch. However, Sehyun was gradually being driven into a corner by Gyumin’s movements, who was rushing in recklessly like an angry gorilla.
In the corner of the parking lot were tools and miscellaneous items needed for officetel management. Gyumin, pissed off because Sehyun seemed catchable but wasn’t, picked up pliers that had been carelessly scattered in the toolbox.
“You, you picked the wrong person to mess with.”
“I haven’t even started messing with you yet.”
How does that bastard plan to deal with the aftermath while provoking like that.
“Stop it! Hyung!”
Haram shouted at Gyumin.
“Fuck, shut your mouth!”
The rough voice echoed through the parking lot. Haram approached his mother and grabbed her arm.
“Try to stop hyung…… Sehyun will get hurt at this rate.”
“That’s why you shouldn’t have told others about family matters and created this mess.”
Why did he think it was natural for parents to love their children.
Doha was surprised by the cold look in Haram’s mother’s eyes. The two children who came from the same womb seemed to tip differently on the scale in her heart.
“……Hyung, Doha hyung, Sehyun……”
Haram’s eyes were moist.
“Apologize to hyung for doing wrong. Do whatever hyung tells you to. Then there won’t be any problems.”
Even in the midst of this, Haram’s mother was persuading Haram. Even in this fucked-up situation.
Doha let out a deep sigh. No matter how much this was a device in a novel, even if it was misfortune created for a single story, this was really too much.
“You die, I die!”
Kang Gyumin swung the pliers. Sehyun raised his hand to block his arm, but his posture tilted and he got hit by the pliers on his hand.
“Sehyun!”
Haram ran. But Haram fell after a few steps. It was because he couldn’t properly put strength in his legs due to the shock.
‘Ah, really……’
Inevitably, Doha ran. When he came to his senses, his feet were already running ahead.
“You bastard, I need to see you kneel and grovel.”
Kang Gyumin, having lost his reason, approached Sehyun who was clutching his hand in pain, step by step. Doha looked at the two and ran with all his might.
Ten steps ahead.
Five steps.
Now he just needs to reach out!
Kang Gyumin raised his arm high again. Right when the pliers were being swung down, Doha, who had approached close behind Kang Gyumin’s back, threw his body. He planned to grab Gyumin’s waist and hang on.
But…….
Crack-!
Sehyun, who was gripping the wall and lowering his body, kicked the side of Kang Gyumin’s knee and destroyed his balance. Kang Gyumin’s large body swayed and collapsed with a thud.
And, Doha who had thrown his body at him just like that…….
“Eueok!”
“……Nice catch.”
His face almost scraped the ground, but thanks to Sehyun who discovered Doha reaching out his arm and catching him, he landed in his embrace. Sehyun fell to the ground landing on his butt, and the two were covered in dust together.
