The abandoned factory’s old metal shutter was flung inward like crumpled paper. Beyond it, a massive black sedan roared in, charging into the factory like a madman.
The blinding beam of headlights cut through the air tangled with rainwater, dust, and the fishy smell of blood like a blade.
A scene of naked violence.
The car body stopped just 1 meter behind the skinhead man who had been surrounding Yeohwi. The tires scraped against the wet cement floor, letting out a sharp scream.
“What the fuck! Who the hell is that?”
The skinhead whirled around in shock, his face twisting.
Right when he’d been injecting fear and pain into Yeohwi to break his will, an uninvited guest throwing cold water on everything—fury surged through him to the top of his head.
“Hey! What are you all doing? Take care of that!”
At his chin gesture, the black-suited men around grabbed their steel pipes tighter and surrounded the car.
At that moment, the stopped vehicle suddenly accelerated sharply. With the acrid smell of burning tires vibrating through the air, the car body unhesitatingly knocked down the thugs like bowling pins.
“Uaaaagh!”
“Fuck, khak!”
“You, you crazy…! You have a death wish or what!”
Amid their outcries, the driver’s door opened roughly. A man walked out into the rain.
A suit soaked in the downpour. Disheveled hair. His shirt collar flipped by the wind beat against the nape of his neck, and his wet black hair was scattered messily over his forehead, half-covering his sharp eyes.
Dowon’s gaze pierced not toward the thugs surrounding him but behind them, toward the blood-covered lump sprawled beneath the car trunk.
It was Seong Yeohwi.
He was in a wretched state. The white sweater had become so covered in dirt and blood that its form was unrecognizable, and bright red blood flowing from his head mixed with rainwater, staining the floor. He lay collapsed on the ground as if he’d suffered merciless violence, not moving at all.
“Ha, tsk. Well, well… A big shot has arrived. What are we gonna do now?”
The skinhead smirked, tapping his palm with the steel pipe. It was bravado to hide his flusteredness.
Dowon didn’t answer.
He stood frozen as if someone had pressed the pause button.
More than anything, what froze Dowon’s gaze was Yeohwi’s hands.
Hands that must have clawed at the dirt ground in resistance. From those fingertips, dark red liquid continuously dripped and seeped into the puddle pooled on the floor.
Traces of several fingernails brutally ripped out.
Next to them, a broken watch rolled around like a lump of scrap metal.
The sound of reason snapping rang like an auditory hallucination.
Dowon strode toward Yeohwi, stepping through the muddy ground. Following the movement of his shoes, muddy water splashed up diagonally. At that moment, the thug closest to him, startled by his approaching momentum, reflexively swung his steel pipe.
In a split second, Dowon ducked his upper body and burrowed inside the pipe’s trajectory. His shoulder struck the opponent’s solar plexus hard, and simultaneously his hand snatched the guy’s wrist.
Crack.
Instead of the impact sound that should have come from the steel pipe, a chilling bursting sound of human bones dislocating rang out. Dowon had completely twisted the guy’s wrist in the opposite direction.
“Kyaaaak!”
As if not willing to wait for him to finish screaming, Dowon’s elbow struck upward at the guy’s jaw. With just one blow, the man collapsed onto the puddle of rainwater with his eyes rolled back.
“That, that bastard! Block him first!”
The rest of the guys cursed and rushed at him all at once. Wooden clubs and metal objects flew through the rain. Dowon kicked at the back of the knee of an attacking guy, bringing him to his knees. Then using that momentum, he grabbed the collar of a guy trying to ambush him from behind and threw him against the wall.
Bang! The man who hit his head on the concrete wall slid down powerlessly.
He wasn’t just some obvious businessman. To escape the abuse he’d suffered in his childhood and to protect his own body at any time, he’d repeatedly trained for survival—boxing, practical jiu-jitsu, and more. Until now there’d been no reason to step into the ring, but now was different.
Dowon threw his body toward the old metal ladder on the left side, secured space to protect his back, then indiscriminately struck the faces of the guys surrounding him. Each time Dowon’s fist connected, sturdy men fell like autumn leaves with suppressed groans.
“Crazy… Monster-like bastard…”
As the situation that should have been one-sided turned against them, the skinhead frowned and stepped backward. He realized the scene had spiraled out of control. Dowon slowly turned his head to stare at him. A glint flashing beneath eyelashes wet with rain. It felt like a murder notice.
But then, from outside the factory came a loud siren sound along with the sound of multiple engines. It was the security team.
The situation had completely reversed.
“This won’t work, boys! Let’s get out of here!”
The skinhead shouted to his remaining gang and fled toward the back door. The security team members Dowon had called came rushing after the little rats disappearing into the rain.
“Chase them! Don’t let them get away!”
The abandoned factory remained after the crowd rushed out like an ebb tide. Only heavy silence remained there. Even the sound of rain pouring through the skylight hole seemed to hold its breath and just watch cautiously.
Dowon approached Yeohwi slowly, breathing heavily.
His shoes trampled the puddle that had turned reddish-brown, mixed with blood.
“…Seong Yeohwi.”
Dowon knelt on the ground. His suit pants got dirty, soaked in the muddy ground, but he didn’t care. He carefully lifted Yeohwi’s collapsed body into his arms. His limbs hung down limply, drained of strength.
The devastation he faced up close exceeded imagination. It was horrific.
Yeohwi’s face was swollen from the beating, and his lips were so torn that their shape was unrecognizable. One eye was bloodshot red from burst capillaries. Moreover, blood that had flowed from his head half-covered his face.
Most terrible of all were Yeohwi’s hands.
Both hands hanging limply.
Of the ten fingers, a full four fingernails had been brutally ripped out. Dark red blood dripping from where the flesh had been torn away stained red the white sleeves of Dowon as he tended to Yeohwi.
“…Ha.”
From Dowon’s mouth flowed a crushed lament like a sigh.
As if hearing that call, Yeohwi’s eyelashes trembled and his swollen eyes opened with difficulty. When he discovered Dowon’s face wet with rain in his hazy vision, his shoulders convulsed slightly with relief.
“Dowon-ssi…”
Yeohwi instinctively burrowed into Dowon’s embrace. He buried his blood-covered face in Dowon’s chest. The end of his sobbing voice cracked pathetically, having swallowed too much water.
“It was Do Jingyu…”
Yeohwi muttered in a voice mixed with bloody foam. Pain surged each time he moved his torn lips, but he didn’t stop.
“Don’t talk. Don’t say anything.”
Dowon pulled Yeohwi into a crushing embrace.
“That old man, to make me submit… to become an informant reporting your every move, Dowon-ssi…”
“Stop it, Seong Yeohwi.”
“If I didn’t, he’d drag me away and lock me up just like this…”
Yeohwi desperately gripped the edge of Dowon’s wet shirt with hands trembling from having fingernails ripped out. Proportional to that strength, Dowon tightened his hand embracing Yeohwi’s back.
“But I, I held out…”
Yeohwi smiled faintly. The smile that bloomed over his wretched face paradoxically looked somehow sacred.
“I said absolutely not. That I could never, ever sell you out, Dowon-ssi, even if I died…”
Dowon gritted his teeth. His jaw muscles bulged.
“…Yeah. I know.”
He lifted Yeohwi up. Yeohwi let out a groan of “urk” as if his broken ribs were being pressed, but he didn’t let go of Dowon’s neck.
“We’re going to the hospital. Just hold on a little.”
As he tried to carefully lay Yeohwi in the back seat of the car, Yeohwi shook his head in refusal.
“…Don’t want to.”
“What?”
“Next to you… I want to sit next to you…”
Yeohwi stubbornly looked toward the passenger seat. Even in this situation, his obsession with insisting on the seat next to him—Dowon swallowed down something surging up.
Silently opening the passenger door, he seated Yeohwi. His touch fastening the seatbelt wasn’t very composed.
He got into the driver’s seat and started the engine. The car soon raced through the rainy road.
“Dowon-ssi…”
Yeohwi murmured while looking out the window. Rainwater flowed down the glass, creating tear tracks on Yeohwi’s reflected face.
