Chapter 19
Hyungoh sat gently on the neatly made bed with its crisp white sheets. Following Herick to the room, Hyungoh couldn’t help but be amazed by the mansion’s scale, which was impossible to ignore.
Centered around a sculpture of naked baby angels intertwined with each other, terraced swimming pools extended toward the garden, with three white-brick mansions clustered like triplets, and enormous trees that seemed to have been planted in layers beyond the garden, perhaps to conceal the mansion.
On the sun beds by the pool, several people were lying and enjoying sunbathing. When one of them, who’d been chatting casually, spotted Herick passing by the sculpture, he greeted him.
“Hey, Herick.”
“Mate.”
Herick responded indifferently.
“Thanks for last week.”
Mate, a burly-looking man, approached Herick and Hyungoh with a smile while exhaling cigarette smoke. However, Hyungoh could immediately tell that his mouth was twisted.
“Thanks to you running off to Korea, we got a nice beating for nothing.”
“Running off? That’s a hurtful way to put it.”
“Haha, you sly snake. I’m just saying us capos should get along better.”
“You guys were the ones who misunderstood the RFI they gave us and created confusion.”
We almost failed to close a very important deal because of that. Because of some bone-headed idiot’s stupid mistake. As Herick shook his head with a regretful face, Mate maintained his forced smile while slicking back his wet hair.
“Confusion, Herick? We handed over the RFP in the end. And that wasn’t my mistake, but your subordinate’s, wasn’t it?”
“That guy left my nest and switched to yours a month ago, Mate. Surely you aren’t confused about that fact as well?”
“It’s not ‘as much as a month’ but ‘only a month.’ Could you master another department’s system without any errors in such a short time if you were him?”
“Yes.”
Why couldn’t I? Herick replied as if it were obvious.
“Just bullshit.”
Son of a bitch. Mate’s facade finally crumbled as he cursed and clicked his tongue. Why throw guys who used to handle drugs over to us who deal with weapons? It’s like telling us to go screw ourselves, isn’t it?
No way, haha. If it bothers you so much, why don’t you ask the boss directly? Herick shot back with a friendly smile.
Hyungoh stood blankly beside Herick, eavesdropping on their conversation. With unfamiliar terms popping up, he couldn’t understand exactly what they were discussing. Is that man a mafioso too…? Well, he must be. From what he overheard about being in charge of weapons, he was probably a mafioso who mainly dealt in arms trafficking. Mate, who’d been frowning deeply either because of the sunlight or his bad mood, finally showed interest in Hyungoh.
“And who’s this Asian guy?”
“Ah.”
Herick glanced at Hyungoh and grinned.
“Our savior.”
Mate’s expression softened as he looked at Hyungoh with curious eyes. Savior? Hyungoh also looked at Herick with surprised eyes. M-me? Hyungoh slightly pointed at himself. Herick nodded. Yes, that’s right, you.
“What, is this Asian kid going to smash the Cenaline Family for us?”
Mate mentioned a rival organization with a sneering tone. He lightly looked Hyungoh up and down. Hyungoh retreated a step back at his gaze. I’m almost thirty, yet he calls me a kid. Hyungoh timidly glared at the man’s broad chest.
“He’s more impressive than that.”
“He doesn’t look very strong.”
“He is. Strong enough to turn Michael into a gentle lamb.”
“Michael?”
Mate’s eyes widened. The Michael I know? Herick nodded slightly. There’s no other man named ‘Michael’ around here.
“Who are you?”
Mate took a step toward Hyungoh and asked with curious eyes. He looks ordinary on the outside. I thought he might be a lover, but seeing his dull atmosphere with no trace of sensuality, that didn’t seem right. Well, Michael himself doesn’t care about such things at all. I wonder if his thing is properly attached.
When Mate first met Michael, he’d been flirting with him, enchanted by his pretty face, and nearly got shot to death. Unlike his mysterious and beautiful appearance, Michael was excessively cruel and cold. He was a man who wouldn’t blink an eye even if he saw someone’s limbs being torn apart right in front of him. He’d probably even doze off, saying it was boring. That’s what Mate thought.
Due to a recent subordinate’s mistake—though he didn’t want to acknowledge that dimwit as his subordinate—Mate had to be summoned by Michael, and after getting beaten nearly to death, he woke up in his own bed. He even had an IV in his arm.
Honestly, it was his first such experience. He wasn’t weak enough to pass out from being hit by someone. He’d never seen anyone with better stamina than himself. At sixteen, when he first entered prison, he underwent an initiation ritual of group lynching, but even with broken bones and twisted muscles, he’d never lost consciousness. For this reason, Mate couldn’t help but acknowledge Michael even more as his superior.
Of course, Mate wasn’t the only one who suffered such treatment. Herick, who could be considered Michael’s right-hand man, routinely got beaten to a pulp whenever there was an opportunity. There wasn’t anyone in the Family who hadn’t felt Michael’s hand.
“Could you back off a bit? Your greasy face is making Choi uncomfortable.”
“His name is Choi? Chinese?”
“Korean.”
“Oh-ho.”
So that’s why Herick went to Korea. Mate’s eyes sparkled.
Hyungoh gradually hid behind Herick to escape Mate’s persistent gaze. On Mate’s bare upper body, several scars of varying sizes were engraved. Particularly, there was a long knife wound that ran from his solar plexus, through the groove of his distinct abs, to his navel, and it clearly showed signs of having been treated illegally. It looked like a giant centipede with dozens of legs outstretched, taxidermied into the skin.
Hyungoh was sufficiently exhausted. Isn’t it too harsh to spend the rest of my life stuck among people like this? His head was spinning. Michael, I’m sorry, but I already want to run away.
Herick, noticing Hyungoh’s increasingly pale complexion, hurried along. Tsk tsk. You look like you’re about to faint. Herick subtly wrapped his arm around Hyungoh’s waist, supporting him as he staggered.
He was certainly different from before. Hyungoh once had a look and spirit that was second to none. He’d been calm, but seemed to be holding his breath, ready to counterattack at any moment.
But not anymore. The calmness remained, at least. That much was fine. The problem was that this calmness was a kind of resignation. It was an atmosphere of ‘realistically, there’s no way I could counterattack or anything like that.’ He wanted to escape but lacked the courage, and above all, he feared the consequences—he’d become that kind of timid man.
In truth, while Herick was relieved that Hyungoh had given up on escaping, he still missed the old Hyungoh. Rebelling against the emotion of fear, torturing himself while captivated by the foolish notion that ‘every problem has a solution’—that Hyungoh had been sufficiently attractive.
Herick gently opened the door to the room where Hyungoh would be staying and snickered. Just thinking about those times makes me laugh without realizing it.
He’d been a hero. A very typical hero. And ridiculously, Herick had been saved by Hyungoh at that time. Hyungoh, who’d illuminated himself and extended his hand to him, was like an angel, no, like a god who had come to save him, so Herick had no choice but to take his hand.
He should have bound both hands tightly with chains to prevent him from retracting. But Herick hadn’t done that. Probably because he was still young. It was certainly confusing. His immature beliefs whispered that he shouldn’t serve two gods.
I was young. Too young. Herick thought.
“Herick… can I rest now?”
“Of course. Naturally.”
It was disappointing, but, well, it didn’t matter. No matter how much time passed, the essence never changed. That’s what he decided to believe. After all, he was no longer a child. Herick lightly kissed Hyungoh’s drooping forehead. Startled, Hyungoh looked at Herick with a comical expression.
“It means rest well.”
Herick smiled at Hyungoh. You should rest well. I want you to adapt to this place quickly. Hyungoh watched the slowly closing door with his hands covering his forehead. Herick’s deep green eyes flashed once through the narrow gap in the door and then disappeared.
***
And back to the present.
Hyungoh absently stroked the soft bedding. To be honest, he wasn’t too surprised because he’d already known about the feelings Michael harbored for himself.
Michael had taken a liking to Hyungoh. You could say he liked him… But there was absolutely no sexual element to those feelings. It was natural. Michael wasn’t gay, and neither was Hyungoh himself.
Hyungoh paused for a moment and then resumed thinking. Though he didn’t want to doubt his sexual identity now, what was certain was that Hyungoh did not lust after Michael—or other men for that matter. He believed Michael wouldn’t lust after him either. We’re not that kind of relationship.
If he had to define their relationship, it was love born from a sense of kinship. No, what he meant was, they cherished each other to the extent of thinking of each other as themselves. Unless you’re an extreme narcissist, you wouldn’t want to have sex with yourself. That’s what it was.
In that situation, I ran away. This was also the reason why Michael’s actions were somewhat understandable. The mutual trust between them had reached its peak, forming a tall, shining tower, and then I came charging in with a ‘forget it’ attitude and shattered it.
‘Because after that day, Michael stopped liking you with such a pure heart.’
Hyungoh flopped down on the bed. So what does that mean?
Is he trying to say in a roundabout way that Michael is sharpening his knife of revenge against you…? Hyungoh was horrified. Does that mean Michael has come to hate me? Saying he’s stopped liking me means he’s grown to hate me.
Then why did he bring me here if he hates me? To torment me? For revenge? But Hyungoh recalled Michael calling him with a gentle and soft voice just moments ago. Although he initially threw knives at Herick and acted threateningly, didn’t he ask for forgiveness about the past days in a kind voice the moment he realized Hyungoh had arrived?
‘Stopped liking you with such a pure heart.’ Is that not the line I should be focusing on? Then what else is there?
‘Pure heart.’
The opposite of purity would be impurity, wouldn’t it? Since he said he stopped liking him with a pure heart, it means he started liking him with an impure heart…
Huh?
A drop of cold sweat trickled down Hyungoh’s forehead. What’s an impure heart? What is that? I might be misinterpreting this.
So an impure heart, to like someone with an impure heart… Hyungoh’s body gradually grew cold. L-let’s stop thinking about this. It’s information that’s not certain enough to hastily draw conclusions. It’s content I heard from Herick, not from Michael himself. Besides, didn’t I just accept Michael’s apology a few minutes ago? Because I felt his sincerity.
By that logic, Herick’s advice was also quite serious.
“…”
Whose words am I supposed to believe?
My head hurts. Hyungoh flapped his arms and legs while silently screaming. At that moment, his foot caught on the luggage bag placed on the floor.
Hyungoh, who’d abruptly raised his upper body, glared at the innocent luggage bag. Then, struck by a sudden thought, he pulled out the older of the two laptops from the bag. It wasn’t some grand solution that had occurred to him. It was a kind of tension release, or stress relief. When he turned on the power, warning windows alerting danger rushed in like moths to a flame. And then the entire screen was covered with a black window and teal symbols.
Yes, it was a hacked laptop.
But Hyungoh wasn’t flustered at all. Instead, he looked at the screen with a comfortable expression. Indecipherable symbols and numbers rushed in like a tsunami. Hyungoh, now with a serious face, tapped his knee. He seemed to be waiting for something.
Eventually, the randomly continuing symbols gradually subsided. Hyungoh narrowed his eyes. Soon, a short message appeared with a tick, accompanied by a shallow electromagnetic sound.
- Hello, Hyungoh? It’s been a while.
