“Grandfather!”
Jaeha wrapped his arms around Hyun Hongwon’s back. Then he gripped his clothes tightly and burst into tears. Though the tears started as pretense, the wailing that followed was sincere. The tears that hadn’t come when he heard the news of Hyun Sejun’s death, when he faced the corpse covered in white cloth, or while keeping watch at the mourning hall began pouring out as if a precariously tilting dam had collapsed.
It was fortunate.
Because the delicate and emotional Hyun Sejun would have wanted Jaeha to cry to his heart’s content at his funeral.
They held Hyun Sejun’s Samujae at a temple in the city center.
Inside a Buddhist hall more splendid than any house Jaeha had lived in with him, the Hyun Sejun in the enlarged ID photo taken around college graduation smiled with a young, clear face Jaeha had never seen.
Throughout the Samujae, Hyun Hongwon held Jaeha’s hand tightly.
As they left the Buddhist hall, a man leading a group also dressed in black approached Hyun Hongwon.
Though no one explained, Jaeha could tell instinctively.
It’s you.
‘Jang Hyeokjin’.
“I apologize for being late, Chairman.”
“Mm.”
More strength went into Hyun Hongwon’s hand gripping Jaeha.
“Is this the child?”
Hyun Hongwon pulled Jaeha behind him to hide him. Jang Hyeokjin looked back and forth between Hyun Hongwon and Jaeha and let out a scoffing snort.
“He’s pretty, just like the rumors say.”
Jang Hyeokjin reached out his large hand and roughly patted Jaeha’s head. Before he could even express his disgusted feelings, he passed them and headed to the Buddhist hall.
“Where are you going!”
Hyun Hongwon shouted in an angry voice.
“I’m going to at least offer one last stick of incense. We were engaged once, weren’t we?”
Hyun Hongwon kept his mouth tightly shut and just pulled Jaeha’s arm forcefully. Though he didn’t shed tears, the old man’s eyes were bloodshot red with burst blood vessels.
Hyun Hongwon clearly knows that Jang Hyeokjin is behind Hyun Sejun’s death.
But why is he allowing Jang Hyeokjin to dare offer incense at Hyun Sejun’s memorial?
“When your grandson was first discovered, his condition and his own testimony said someone kidnapped him at that time.”
“After seeing his only father die in an accident, the child’s mind has been coming and going. That day too, he wandered the mountains looking for his dead father and ended up like that.”
“Still, there are people who saw the marks on the child’s wrists then, so shouldn’t we at least investigate?”
“Are you going to make this child whose mind isn’t sound even more difficult! Huh? If the kid then completely loses it and has an accident, will you take responsibility?”
“No, Chairman. We’re not saying we’ll interrogate your grandson, just a few questions…”
“Enough! I know my own child well. Do you think I’d just sit and watch if my grandson was kidnapped?”
Why did Hyun Hongwon send the police away even after seeing the binding scars remaining on Jaeha?
“My child, now you can live without any worries. If there’s something you want to eat or have, say so anytime. This grandfather will do anything for you, so don’t hate your father who went first. That guy wouldn’t have wanted to leave so emptily with such a pretty child behind.”
Why doesn’t this ‘Chairman’ who has so many people under him seek revenge for his beloved son?
The answer was simpler than expected.
Because he’s a coward.
When a toad meets a predator, it inflates its body. Because it lacks the ability to flee nimbly, it tries to protect itself by intimidating the opponent that way.
Hyun Hongwon resembled that toad. While always bulging his eyes wide and shouting in a booming voice, if anyone even slightly rubbed him the wrong way, he’d slam desks or bang his cane on the floor, not hiding his anger. Yet he was just like a toad that inflated only its body like a balloon with no substance, unable to strike the opponent or threaten their life.
Hyun Hongwon was very fearful. So to protect himself, he amassed a vast fortune. But when that very money became the cause threatening Hyun Hongwon, he couldn’t bring himself to give up his wealth because of the fear that he might return to impoverished times. To package his own cowardice, he used his family as an excuse.
Hyun Sejun was once such an existence. Hyun Hongwon deliberately turned a blind eye to Jang Hyeokjin’s tyranny, making the excuse that it was all for ‘Hyun Sejun’s safety.’ He tolerated Jang Hyeokjin with the naive thoughts that if he married Hyun Sejun to Jang Hyeokjin, it would work out well, and surely he wouldn’t kill the biological father of his own child if Hyun Sejun bore his child.
The result was this. Even after Hyun Sejun fled saying he’d given birth to another man’s child, Hyun Hongwon couldn’t embrace his son while reading Jang Hyeokjin’s mood and let him die miserably on the street. When Hyun Hongwon discovered Jaeha at the funeral home, he must have felt relieved. Because if Jaeha hadn’t existed, there would be no excuse left to avoid ‘avenging his son.’
“This is all for you, Jaeha. So from now on, don’t even mention ‘that day’ aloud. Understand?”
Hyun Hongwon swallowed his resentment toward Jang Hyeokjin under the pretext that he now had to protect Jaeha.
Jaeha actually didn’t hate his terrible incompetence that much.
Because he resembled Hyun Sejun, who endlessly, endlessly fled while changing residences.
No, Hyun Sejun must have resembled Hyun Hongwon.
The saying that blood can’t lie was this terrible.
Hyun Hongwon entrusted Jaeha to Han Taesung, who followed him like a duckling following its mother. He’d essentially used Taesung—who was practically ‘Jang Hyeokjin’s subordinate’ while simultaneously desperate to be recognized like a son by Hyun Hongwon—for the most appropriate purpose.
At first, he suspected him for not recognizing him at all.
But soon Jaeha realized that Taesung wasn’t clever enough to pretend not to know even while knowing the other party was the ‘kid he met in the mountains.’
And Taesung wasn’t weak enough to loosen his grip just from having his hand scratched by a mere kid. The moment he answered the phone, he must have known—or precisely because he knew—that the young child the ‘hyungnims’ were looking for was Jaeha, so he let him go. Han Taesung was that kind of person. An idiot who pretended to be mean-spirited and to do all the dirty work alone, but whose heart was pathetically weak, not living up to his face.
But at the same time, Jaeha realized.
If they had said then that bringing Jaeha back was ‘Jang Hyeokjin’s’ orders.
Taesung would have tied Jaeha up tight without a moment’s hesitation and presented him to them.
Because Han Taesung was that kind of bastard.
Like the wound on Jaeha’s wrist, the wound that had remained on his hand had also healed before long.
The traces Jaeha left on him disappeared so easily like this.
What makes Jang Hyeokjin different?
Why don’t the scars he leaves on people ever disappear permanently?
By the side of Hyun Hongwon who endlessly cowered fearfully before Jang Hyeokjin, keeping by his side Han Taesung who like a dog that can never forget its first master would wag his tail and run to Jang Hyeokjin only to get beaten and return, Jaeha pondered this point for quite a long time.
And the conclusion he reached was that Jang Hyeokjin was a bastard who could go exactly one step further than ordinary people.
Even before a sheer cliff where even those who think themselves bold would stop, he goes exactly one step further.
While ordinary people would stop at half-beating someone begging for their life saying they’d do anything if only spared, Jang Hyeokjin would ultimately pour concrete over them.
Hyun Hongwon thought that if he turned away and abandoned his son who’d fled and gone into hiding after giving up everything, Jang Hyeokjin wouldn’t kill him, but he ultimately cut off Hyun Sejun’s lifeline.
It must have been the same for Han Taesung. Even though his subordinate who’d obeyed like a limb clung and begged him not to for the first time, Jang Hyeokjin pushed him into hell.
They say he ‘crosses the line.’
The boundary between the everyday and the extraordinary. Though he only stepped one foot beyond that simple solid line, it evokes terror in ordinary people as if he’s exceeded ‘human limits.’
That made them revere Jang Hyeokjin.
That made Jang Hyeokjin despise them.
Then, Hyeokjin.
To deal with you, I need to cross the line too.
I should become the same kind of crazy bastard as you, so that the superiority you felt while dealing only with normal humans becomes meaningless.
Jaeha couldn’t help but laugh as he lifted the bundle of money taken from his jacket.
To Jang Hyeokjin, money is God.
Then this is Jang Hyeokjin’s blood, Jang Hyeokjin’s flesh.
Our President Jang couldn’t even imagine throwing money on the street for no reason.
Because that’s the ‘line’ Jang Hyeokjin can’t cross.
Yellow bills scattered in the dawn air like fallen leaves.
People gathered like a flock of pigeons seeing ramen crumbs.
Coo, coo coo, pecking at the feed.
The street became clean in an instant.
