Dohui was lying on the sofa. Gong Haejin slowly stroked his hair. Dohui moved his trembling arms and pushed himself upright.
“Stay down.”
Gong Haejin flicked his fingers. From somewhere came a scream — Aaagh!
“Quiet.”
A single word from him, and the sound was snuffed out. Dohui’s head turned.
“You know him, don’t you?”
“……”
It was dark and hard to see clearly, but it was the person Dohui remembered.
The man who had claimed to be Jinho’s uncle. He was bound to a chair. From his swollen lips, saliva and blood ran together in a slow, slick stream. Between ragged breaths, faint pleas seeped out. I’m sorry, please forgive me — words like those.
The suit he wore was torn, creased, hanging off him in tatters. The cold, composed figure who had brushed past Dohui’s greeting without a glance was nowhere to be found.
“Is that the bastard who called himself the uncle?”
Gong Haejin squared his already large frame and walked toward the man. He yanked the blood-and-sweat-clumped hair upward in one sharp pull.
Dohui felt as though his breath had stopped. It was horrific. Both eyes were so swollen they had turned into bloody pulp. The bridge of his nose had caved in, ruined. Deep bruises — bluish-purple — spread across his cheekbones and forehead. Completely swollen and disfigured beyond recognition.
“Th-that person……”
“He’s the one who handed you the bag, right.”
Dohui scrambled off the sofa in a rush and drove his knees into the floor. Even so, he didn’t stop. He crawled forward on all fours and grabbed onto the man’s legs.
“P-please, say something. Tell him it wasn’t me. That I didn’t know…… please, just say…… hh—”
The man with his head wrenched back seemed to no longer have the strength to speak. A thin exhale slipped from his parted lips. His face was a mess of every kind of liquid.
“It’s the truth. Jinho — Jinho told me it was a gift from his uncle. How could you do this to me…… how could you!”
Dohui was nearly wailing.
The man’s glazed eyes watched Dohui’s desperate cries slowly, taking it all in.
“The kid’s asking you something. You should answer kindly.”
“Y-yeah…… that’s right……”
“Say it so it’s clear what you mean.”
“I…… told him I was his uncle.”
The man’s lips cracked apart. Dohui couldn’t wait and pushed forward.
“……Jinho — what about Jinho? Did he know? That it was drugs?”
“Jinho…… was the one who suggested it first. He knew exactly when the drugs would be coming into the club…… and at what time.”
Dohui’s lips slowly fell open. His face — having gone days without proper sleep or food — was gaunt to a pitiful degree. The hollows beneath his sunken eyes twitched for just a moment.
“And this time…… it was your turn.”
“……What? Wh-what do you mean……? N-no! I don’t know anything about this. Why are you lying……!”
“……It’s the truth. It was your turn.”
Do you remember splitting up the stolen drugs, the man added.
The ground Dohui had barely been standing on collapsed beneath him. No, no…… it wasn’t me. I really don’t know anything about this. Dohui shook his head toward Gong Haejin again.
“Right — you’ve denied it so persistently I was almost ready to believe you. But now my faith is wavering.”
Gong Haejin hurled the man’s head back down like he was tossing aside a rag. The men standing behind him immediately shoved a thick gag back into the man’s mouth.
Dohui’s legs gave out. All strength drained from his limbs at the sight of the man’s wrecked state. He’d meant to say don’t lie, please tell the truth — but all he could manage was to breathe.
Gong Haejin folded his large frame down. He looked down at Dohui, face-down and sobbing, and asked:
“You want to kill this bastard?”
“……”
“Want me to help?”
Said gently — but that was a devil’s whisper.
He reached out his hand, and someone passed him a long, sharp blade. It looked dangerously like the kind used to fillet raw fish.
He turned it over and held it by the blade end, then extended the handle toward Dohui. Dohui’s sobbing hiccuped to a stop the moment he saw the dark handle.
“People like you junkies have zero loyalty anyway. So I’ll give you a chance. A chance at redemption.”
“……N-no. This is……”
“You’re going to have to. If you pull it off, I’ll wipe out your entire debt.”
Gong Haejin took Dohui’s hand and placed it over the knife handle. The weight of the thing forced into his grip was more than he could bear. His entire arm shook.
“I’ll explain it once, so listen.”
If you slash the throat or stab the solar plexus, it’s instant death. If you want to keep someone alive and suffering, slice the stomach. His voice was more gentle than it had ever been.
Dohui looked down at the knife in his hand. So finely sharpened it caught the light — it looked brand new. Over it, his tears fell in slow, heavy drops, like rain that had taken its time coming down.
“If you’d just…… let me go home……”
Dohui scraped together what little courage was left at rock bottom. It was the only thing he could do, but he gave it everything he had.
“Why? You can’t do it?”
Gong Haejin asked.
The eyes watching Dohui shone brighter than they ever had. Like a child who had found a new toy. Those eyes — looking almost innocent at a glance — made Dohui’s spirit shrink in on itself.
He had not the slightest intention of going along with this — and beyond that, he had no right to punish that man no matter what. If someone had committed a crime, you called the police. Why did this man want him to kill someone.
When his thoughts reached that point, Dohui swallowed back his breath.
Gong Haejin had been a man above the law from the very start. The way he carried out private punishment without a second thought made that plain enough. How had it come to this.
When he closed his eyes, his room came to mind. The room his mother had given him — facing due south so the warm sun always came pouring in. The home he’d loved so much, warm even in the dead of winter.
Dohui tightened his grip on the knife handle. Hard enough that his knuckles went white. His whole body trembled. The weight was too much, so he gripped it with both hands.
Now……
Dohui extended his arm and swung it down in one sharp motion. The sharp tip that traced an arc through the air did not land on the man who had deceived him into carrying that bag.
It flew toward the man who, despite all his pleas of innocence, had ordered all of this — the man who had ultimately ground his humanity into the dirt.
“You little—”
Gong Haejin read his intent in an instant and caught Dohui’s wrist.
“Ugh……”
The wrist — thin as a bare winter branch — trembled violently. Even so, he didn’t let go of the knife. His once-pretty brow was twisted into a hard knot.
“Wrong direction.”
“……”
“You should have stabbed that one over there, not me.”
The reprimand trailed off and Gong Haejin smiled faintly. He quite liked the backbone he was seeing. A bit like an angry little puppy. A temperament that suited the name joy rather well.
Gong Haejin plucked the blade from Dohui’s grip with ease.
“Let me show you how it’s done.”
Saying that, he flung Dohui’s wrist away like shaking off something clinging to him. Dohui was thrown back, and Gong Haejin, now at a distance, readjusted his grip on the knife handle.
“Ugh——!”
He’d only squeezed his eyes shut against the bone-deep pain and opened them again — and what had he missed.
Dohui looked at the gagged man’s eyes. Save me. I don’t want to die. Get me out of here. That was what they were saying. Had his own face looked like that just moments ago.
Before Dohui could even right himself, the man’s skin parted with a sickening scrape. Through it, blood poured like a faucet had been turned on full blast. Something warm touched Dohui’s toes as well.
Aaaah! The man could not resist. Everything flowed exactly as Gong Haejin, who had created this situation, had willed.
Dohui clutched his head and screamed. He couldn’t withstand the horrific sight and gasped for air. Here and there, the blood-soaked knife dropped in front of Dohui. Hik! Dohui’s breath lurched inward.
“If you come at someone with that half-baked resolve, you’re the one who ends up getting hurt.”
Gong Haejin grabbed Dohui by the collar. The thin t-shirt stretched mercilessly under his rough grip. Hhk — hk. Tears streamed without pause from the corners of Dohui’s eyes.
“You want to kill me?”
“……”
“Go ahead and try.”
He looked down at Dohui with those cold, serpentine eyes. Dohui’s face, darting between his two eyes in turn, had gone from flushed red to a pale, drained blue.
The one Dohui had wanted to kill was this man — the one who had shoved him into this pit. Until that very morning, he hadn’t imagined his fate would change like this.
“I’ll give you more chances. It doesn’t have to be now, so whenever the day comes that you kill me — I’ll let you go then.”
“Hh……”
“Mingyu, you heard that?”
From somewhere came a crisp reply: “Yes, I heard.”
“It’s been witnessed.”
Gong Haejin released his grip on the collar. Dohui’s body dropped suddenly and hit the floor. Before he could even make a sound, a massive, crushing pain exploded through his abdomen. Gong Haejin had kicked him.
The breath left him entirely. As if the passage in and out of his lungs had been sealed shut, he couldn’t do anything at all. His blurring vision twisted. Something thick and dark crept along the floor in slow rivulets, spreading until it reached right before his eyes.
