The password was still 0000.
Instead, he sent a text to Yeom Chaewoo telling her to change the password herself. Of course, she was no different from Jaeha in that regard, so it would probably be filled with numbers like 123789.
Five minutes from the station. As soon as he climbed the stairs, Jaeha looked up at dozens of windows hazily reflecting the cirrocumulus clouds spread across the sky like spilled paint. It was a building with quite some age to it. At night, the light shining from each window could hide its shabby exterior, but in the bright daylight that revealed every flaw, there was no helping it. Even the window colors were different from the new buildings standing tall around it.
The market price would be lower than the surrounding newly built officetel buildings, but still, it would be quite expensive. It’s near the station and in the middle of a commercial district.
That alone was enough for irrelevant people to overflow.
Anyway, once night fell, it would shine just like the other buildings.
‘Even when finding a place, he picked and moved into a place just like himself.’
Jaeha thought as he fidgeted with the electronic cigarette in his pocket.
Unlike the road where buses and cars flowed endlessly, there weren’t many people coming and going on the sidewalk. Jaeha scanned the shopping complex directory attached to the building entrance. Among all sorts of miscellaneous businesses jumbled together, he noticed a familiar seolleongtang chain restaurant sign.
Seolleongtang, not bad.
‘My hyung better not be dead in there.’
Jaeha got on the elevator, swinging the heavy seolleongtang bag casually.
Naturally, Taesung’s front door was firmly shut.
His finger, about to press the doorbell without thinking, hesitated in midair. Jaeha only rolled his eyes to stare at the pitch-black door lock. The finger that had been hovering above the doorbell circling moved toward the touchpad. When he lightly tapped it, white numbers lit up.
How would Taesung have set the password?
Considering his personality that disliked paying attention to trivial matters, he might have left it at the default number, but who knows. Taesung was also someone who liked to give meaning to all sorts of things.
-Beep beep beep.
An error sound flowed out. The door lock seemed to be rejecting Jaeha with its whole body. Jaeha furrowed his brow for a moment. This time he pressed 2580 as if sliding.
-Beep beep beep.
This is kind of annoying.
Birthday. Taesung’s birthday. Actually, he thought this was unlikely. He didn’t welcome his own birthday. Because it was the day he was abandoned, not the day he was born.
As expected, it wasn’t that.
He entered Chairman Hyun Hongwon’s birthday. As expected, it wasn’t that either. He entered the death anniversary. This wasn’t it either.
That bastard kissed up to grandfather with all sorts of ass-kissing and didn’t even set him as the password?
Jaeha put the seolleongtang bag down on the floor.
His finger, which had been hesitating for a while, slowly moved toward Jaeha’s own birthday.
The last digit hesitated a bit more, then one beat late.
-Beep beep beep.
“This fucking bastard.”
And unable to hold back any longer, he kicked the front door.
The old man at the key shop was right. Fucking door lock. If there’s no fucking key, you’d at least give up on opening it, so why are you letting just anyone press numbers? If some bastard happens to get the number right by chance, will you open wide for whoever it is? Letting any dog or cow come and go, you fucking bastard.
How many times did he kick it? The firmly shut front door burst open.
“Isn’t this guy completely fucking crazy? Fuck, why are you kicking the door in broad daylight, you crazy bastard!”
From the moment Jaeha had been pressing the door lock repeatedly, Taesung would have turned on the video phone and peeked to see who was trying to ‘break in’. And after confirming it was Jaeha, he must have held his breath and hid. Like an ostrich burying only its head in the sand to avoid a predator.
Thinking about how he eventually crawled out reluctantly, seeing Taesung glaring at him with his whole face flushed bright red and breathing angry breaths made him seem quite cute.
Jaeha picked up the seolleongtang bag again and held it out to him.
“I bought seolleongtang, so I was worried there wouldn’t be anyone to eat….”
But what Taesung grabbed wasn’t the seolleongtang but Jaeha’s collar.
“Yeah, good timing, you fucking bastard. I had something to ask you.”
Jaeha was yanked inside the entrance. The door closed behind him. Beep, click. He liked at least the fact that the door lock automatically secured the door at any time.
Taesung pushed Jaeha against the firmly closed front door and pressed down on Jaeha’s throat with his brutish forearm. Jaeha made a choking sound as his windpipe was blocked and looked down at Taesung’s arm. Above his wrist, which had been tied up all night and was bruised and swollen, his forearm muscles writhed as they pressed down on Jaeha’s windpipe with all their might.
“You fucking bastard, what exactly is your intention? What do you want from me! Yeah, did you want to see me get fucked that badly? Is that why you went to see Jang Hyeokjin at the crack of dawn?”
Ah, fuck. Jang Hyeokjin again.
So it was because of Jang Hyeokjin that he was actually choking me like he was going to kill me for once.
Jaeha slowly raised his gaze. As the sensor light went out, his olive-colored eyes were stained with gloomy darkness. Taesung momentarily thought that color was just like an unpleasant swamp. He flinched and closed his mouth, but didn’t relax the strength in his arm.
“You fucking bastard, I know you can move your tongue. Answer me!”
He gritted his teeth and pushed Jaeha harder with all his body’s strength. The sensor light lit up again with Taesung’s movement. The eyes that had been thick like a swamp cleared to a watery color.
“Hyung…. Why are you like this, so scary….”
Was it tears that physiologically seeped out from lack of breath? Jaeha’s long eyelashes became moistly wet. Taesung, who had been about to threaten him once more, closed his mouth. The arm pressing down on Jaeha trembled.
“Kuk, I… felt sorry that hyung would be in a lot of pain, so I came to at least leave this….”
With a voice as faint as his thinly escaping breath, the seolleongtang bag he’d been holding onto to the end dropped with a thud. Taesung flinched in surprise and removed his arm. However, in less than a second, he realized he’d ‘again’ done something stupid.
“You idiot bastard, really.”
A fist flew toward Taesung’s nose bridge. Taesung hastily raised his arm to block his face. Jaeha showed him his fist that had stopped right in front of his nose, opening it wide. And he smirked at Taesung, who could only blink his eyes at the absurd situation, then kicked the back of his knees without warning.
“You, fuck….”
I think something similar happened before too.
I really don’t have good compatibility with that little bastard, Taesung thought as he buckled his knees with a thud.
First, he’ll kick me to death. Neutralizing Taesung is the priority.
But for some reason, instead of beating Taesung more, Jaeha grabbed his hair and dragged him into the house.
“How can your learning ability be this poor? Even goldfish stop chasing before you drop food if they’re fooled by empty gestures a few times, but our hyung is gasping with his gills even after being had a hundred times. This is why even after being thrown away like a rag, you crawl back into Jang Hyeokjin’s pant leg again. Hyung, please show some development.”
Goldfish or whatever. Taesung wasn’t in a position to be swayed by his every word. Deflecting all of Jaeha’s words off his ears, he suddenly grabbed his knees. As soon as he did, he got hit on the head a few more times. That fucking bastard is killing all my already scarce brain cells. Taesung ground his molars and rammed Jaeha’s lower abdomen with his rock-hard head, whose only redeeming quality was being solid.
Judging by the strange sensation against his forehead, it seemed he’d hit more than just the lower abdomen.
“Fuck, you little….”
Jaeha’s body fell to the floor. Taesung didn’t miss the opportunity and climbed on top of Jaeha. Blood dripped down from his nose at the excitement of finally getting a chance to smack this goddamn bastard’s face. Taesung roughly wiped it with the back of his hand and raised his blood-stained fist.
He expected him to throw a fit, but Jaeha was more docile than expected as he was subdued. Under his disheveled wheat-colored hair, he blinked those characteristically unpleasant eyes and calmly stared at Taesung’s fist.
Even though this time he didn’t pretend to whine or act cute and pathetic, Taesung felt the strength keep draining from his clenched fist. Sweat pooled in his palm. He opened his fist and clenched it again. All I have to do is just bring it down like this. Then I can shatter that sly nose bridge in one go.
The corners of Jaeha’s mouth curved into a twisted smile.
A mocking whisper leaked out between his red lips.
“Are you really going to hit me? Hyung?”
Taesung drew in a frustrated breath. Even the flowing blood pushed back up his throat.
“You beat me to death and even shoved your dickhead in my asshole, so is there any reason I can’t hit you?”
“I’m allowed to do that. Think about what hyung did.”
“You little…. I told you how many fucking times that was a misunderstanding.”
“Not that. Before that.”
The fist grazed past Jaeha’s left ear and slammed into the floor. Jaeha didn’t blink an eye and watched the arm trembling right next to him.
“So what. Hyun Jaeha, did you die or something? You ran away just fine. You seem to have a fucking lot of money too. If I hadn’t gone then, do you think your life would have been different? Do you think you with your fluffy down feathers could have beaten Jang Hyeokjin and taken Wonin Construction? You were fated to get fucked by Jang Hyeokjin anyway, so in the end, fuck, didn’t you survive because of me? Because I did that idiotic thing. Huh?”
Why does he keep avoiding eye contact while saying that? Jaeha just shrugged his eyebrows once and answered quietly.
