The Director hurriedly followed the young man who looked precarious, but it was useless. Because the young man started running.
“Yohan-gun!”
The young man didn’t stop his legs even while staggering precariously as if about to fall at any moment. To the Director’s eyes, that retreating figure looked desperately urgent to an unusual degree.
But it was just before the young man was about to exit through the wide-open gambling den door.
“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
A sudden scream filled the hall.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap!
Then someone rushed into the gambling den and shouted like this.
“Cl-cl-close, close the door! Close the door here, the door!”
That person was one of the VIPs who had ‘actually’ entered here, like the Director, Teacher, and young man.
“What’s the matter?”
The staff member who had been chasing the young man changed course and asked the new VIP. Then the person who received the question gasped, clutched their left chest, and shouted hysterically.
“S-s-s-someone died! And, and the person I saw near the, the corpse is chasing me and coming here, th-they’re definitely a, a murderer, a murderer, so pl-please close the, the door, just close the door first, please!”
A cold silence descended everywhere. However, that silence didn’t last long.
“Murder? Did they just say murder?”
“Y-you must have seen wrong, right? What crazy bastard would do such a thing here, in the Godfather’s domain?”
“Quiet! Everyone be quiet!”
“Madam, could you please follow me for now? Let’s move to another place and hear your account…”
“The door! Close the door first!”
All kinds of chaos swept through the hall.
And then.
“Huh?”
Crackle.
Crackle crackle.
Crackle crackle crackle!
As small noises came from radios installed here and there throughout the hall, the appearances of the secondary guests filling the gambling den ‘turned off’ in an instant.
The hall that had been almost packed with people became empty in a moment.
“What the hell is going on?”
The Director, who had been covering both ears with his hands in surprise at the electrical crackling sound, couldn’t hide his bewilderment and muttered, then discovered the back of the young man standing blankly in front of the still-open door.
“Yohan…”
“Joseph-gun!”
The VIP who had been shouting to close the door sharply called the young man and pointed at him.
“I told you there was a strange person! I saw them, that person wasn’t a guest like us and wasn’t staff either! That person saw me, so it’s dangerous, I’m saying, so close the door! Hurry!”
That shout was so loud that even the Director, who was some distance away, found it painful to his ears, but strangely the young man still remained dazed.
“Joseph-gun!”
The young man suddenly raised his head to look outside and muttered.
“It can’t be, right?”
“Joseph-gun, can’t you hear me?”
“He didn’t come from the first incident, right? So it can’t be, right?”
“That’s right, you can finally hear me! Close and lock the door… No, where are you going! I said there’s a suspicious person!”
The voice of the VIP watching the back of the young man who wasn’t listening and was hastily leaving the gambling den turned almost into a scream.
“Don’t do that and right now… Aah!”
Shortly after, they let out a real scream too.
“Ugh!”
Thud!
Because the young man had collided with something and rolled back inside the hall.
And then…
“What?”
Thump.
Thump thump.
Thump thump thump.
From the corridor where silence had descended, unusually heavy boot sounds could be heard, and then someone threw open the half-open door wide and appeared.
The Director couldn’t even think to blink and stared intently at that new ‘guest.’ His mouth slowly opened.
A sound mixed with a groan flowed out.
“You are…!”
***
That day, Son Yowan suddenly realized the ‘truth.’
‘I’m fucked.’
That’s what.
This morning.
“Ugh…”
He woke up from sleep and his whole body ached as if he’d caught a cold. A moment later, he realized.
‘Damn, it’s real.’
It wasn’t ‘as if’ he’d caught a cold—it was a real cold.
“City people have no heart…”
Son Yowan groaned and raised his upper body.
The floor was very cold and hard. Naturally. Because it was a stone floor. And not even indoors but in front of the entrance of the accommodation building.
“They must have seen me coming and going, so how is there not a single person who helped.”
For a moment, Son Yowan sat cross-legged blankly on the marble stone floor. Memories of why he was sprawled outdoors in such a state passed through his mind sporadically.
Last night…
He drank. Hmm, quite a lot. Actually, he drank enough to make his nose crooked. So he became a dog and slept outdoors, then woke up only when his body became chilly.
‘Damn, I should have drunk more moderately.’
Usually he pretended otherwise, but it seemed to show in these trivial parts.
‘Because the alcohol was free.’
The sign of having lived without eating or enjoying much, that is.
Anyway, so he drank without knowing limits, and drank more. He even dragged over the few peers here and made a ruckus while playing. He caught and played with people who said they didn’t want to. Still, he only caught the bespectacled bastard who ran away as if seeing a bug whenever he saw him, and politely let the women go.
To properly act like a debauched rich bastard, he should be indiscriminate between men and women, but Son Yowan found it very difficult to deal with women his age. To be precise, there existed a fear engraved in his body. He was certain that any guy with a noona not much older than him would feel the same.
Anyway, they made a ruckus drinking… Staff came requesting them to move because other guests were uncomfortable… so they moved locations… Starting with that, they went around here and there playing, night came, dawn came…
Then his film cut off and he apparently sprawled here and slept.
‘Oh?’
‘Film’—he felt somewhat proud despite the situation, thinking he’d just used quite an antique expression.
It was said that among the upper class these days, it was trendy to deliberately collect and use items from before the world’s funeral that weren’t used in modern times, and even when expressing something, to compare it to those old objects. Just now, it was worth having known that and studied hard. Although he’d only seen film in books, not even the real thing.
‘But I slept outside doing that?’
Son Yowan, who had been struggling to recall yesterday’s events, suddenly became bewildered.
‘Even if I was drunk, still?’
His (scary) noona had said until calluses formed in his ears to eat meals outside by begging (off others) but sleep inside (at home). So Son Yowan, no matter how out of it he was, even if he crawled around on all fours like a dog, would crawl into a place with a roof to sleep.
‘Though that was sometimes a real doghouse.’
So surely yesterday too, half-asleep, he would have tried somehow to get under a roof…
“Ah.”
He suddenly remembered. The fact that someone had grabbed him trying to go inside and laid him down here.
‘Who was that bastard?’
Son Yowan wracked his memory, but the results wouldn’t come easily. Damn, he didn’t know. Memories around that time were hazy as if wrapped in fog. All he could remember was that someone kept dragging him, trying to enter on two legs or four legs, and throwing him here, and eventually he couldn’t overcome sleep and for the first time in his life ended up sleeping outdoors…
“Ah, shit, it’s cold.”
Son Yowan hurriedly pulled his collar together and trembled. It was so cold that his muscles were starting to ache—if he stayed here longer, it really seemed like something terrible would happen.
He entered inside while ruminating on his resentment toward whoever had thrown him at the entrance.
“If I just remember who it was, they’re dead…”
The building he’d just entered, and where he’d been lying occupying the entrance until just before, was none other than the VIP accommodation. It was also where the room he was staying in was located.
Nevertheless, as soon as Son Yowan entered inside, he reflexively narrowed his eyes. If he didn’t, he felt like he’d unconsciously bow his head deeply at how luxurious the interior was. Honestly, just smelling the scent from the air here made him break out in cold sweat.
‘If I took one wall decoration from here and sold it, couldn’t I live for about a year without working?’
No. Maybe 10 years, no, maybe I could live my whole life without working…
Son Yowan immediately recalled when he’d felt a similar feeling. It was when he went to find that damn old man.
That is, Chairman Son, a wealthy person counted among the first in this region—Son Yowan’s biological father.
Son Yowan was Chairman Son’s illegitimate child. However, he didn’t acknowledge that fact. Illegitimate child? That was an insult to his mother.
