“I want to wash up. Draw me a bath.”
Pleasure dripped thickly from Gwok Un’s voice. Do-gyeom rose from his place and staggered over to turn on the bathtub faucet. As the tub filled with water, warmth seeped into his face. Do-gyeom’s tears dissolved into the rushing water.
After closing the bedroom door, Do-gyeom ran straight into Gi-hyeon, who was coming down the stairs at just that moment. Having been absorbed in his work, Gi-hyeon brightened when he saw Do-gyeom.
“Oh, Do-gyeom-ssi. You were here? I’ve been looking for you for a while.”
“……Is there something you need?”
Do-gyeom hunched his shoulders inward. Sensing something different in his demeanor, Gi-hyeon examined his complexion with concern.
“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
Looking at him closely, Gi-hyeon’s face hardened when he noticed Do-gyeom’s swollen lips. He cast a sharp glare at Gwok Un’s bedroom door, then brought his gaze back to Do-gyeom.
“What did Gwok Un do?”
“…….”
“Do-gyeom-ssi.”
At Gi-hyeon’s tenderness, tears welled in Do-gyeom’s eyes. Swallowing them back, Do-gyeom lifted his head and smiled. It was a self-deprecating smile that only someone who had long since given up on themselves could wear.
“It’s nothing. I’ll take my leave first.”
Gi-hyeon stared after him with vacant eyes. The hand that had gripped Do-gyeom’s shoulder went slack. As his firm hand fell away without strength, Do-gyeom turned and walked away. Gi-hyeon watched his retreating figure blankly, a helplessness coiling through his entire body.
As the days passed, the tyrant’s violence only worsened. Like seizures, Gwok Un smashed objects and struck the servants’ cheeks without mercy. In the ten days since his return, countless servants had been fired and hired. Gi-hyeon had thought it would be difficult to find servants given his tyranny, but contrary to expectation, there was no shortage of idle men who hoped to gain his favor and rise in standing. The mansion was in chaos with the psychological warfare between the newly arrived servants and the existing ones. With even the Butler — the sole person with any authority — overworked in place of the grief-stricken tyrant, the mansion was, in the truest sense, bedlam.
“I told you to do the laundry, why isn’t it done?”
“Who do you think you’re ordering around? Do it yourself.”
“What? Did you just say ‘you’ to me?”
“Did you join the army or something? Pulling rank when you haven’t even done your service — the fuck.”
Gi-hyeon chewed his toast while listening to the voices going at it energetically first thing in the morning.
“Do it nicely while I’m still asking nicely.”
“Have that Do-gyeom guy do it — I’m already swamped as hell.”
“He’ll be getting his dick sucked dry in the bedroom for at least three hours, how do you expect him to manage that?”
Gi-hyeon set down his toast and got up from his seat. The servants, catching sight of him, tried to quickly scatter, but they were caught. When Gi-hyeon pressed down on their shoulders, the servants’ faces contorted.
“Argh!!!”
“Where is he?”
“I’m not quite sure what you——”
“Where is he.”
The men exchanged glances as if playing a reading game. Under the crushing grip on their shoulders, they gestured with their eyes toward the second floor. Seeing their gaze directed toward Gwok Un’s bedroom, Gi-hyeon rushed up the stairs and threw the door open. When the door swung wide, the sight of Do-gyeom bound to the bed robbed him of words. The shirt reduced to rags and the buttons scattered across the floor made plain just how violently Do-gyeom had fought back. Too drugged to notice the intruder, Gwok Un mounted Do-gyeom’s waist. Do-gyeom thrashed with every last bit of his strength.
“Since it’s your first time, it’ll be better if you take something. Bear with it just a little — you’ll feel good soon.”
Gwok Un spoke gently, as if granting a favor. Bound hands scratched desperately at the headboard.
“Young Master, please don’t do this…….”
“What did you say?”
“Please…….”
“Can’t hear you.”
When Gwok Un pried his lips open by force, Do-gyeom couldn’t hold out and shut his eyes. Tears flowed ceaselessly down his cheeks. Behind his closed eyes, memories buried deep within his heart surfaced. The precious recollections he would take out now and then, careful not to wear them thin, scattered away into meaninglessness.
‘Your name is Do-gyeom from now on — Kim Do-gyeom.’
Twenty years ago, the Gwok Un who had given him a name was arrogant and bold. The moment Do-gyeom laid eyes on Gwok Un, he was certain that no one more beautiful could exist in all the world. There flowed from him a grace that only someone who had held everything in their hands from the moment of their birth could possess. Do-gyeom thought that the young but ambition-filled boy looked like a jewel he had never seen before. How brilliant and lovely were those two eyes, shining with curiosity. On the night he arrived at the mansion, Do-gyeom lay in the unfamiliar bed and turned the name Gwok Un had given him over in his mind until he fell asleep.
Looking back, there had been days like that.
‘You dare lay a hand on what’s mine?’
Gwok Un had struck the servant who had been tormenting Do-gyeom twice as hard across the cheek. Do-gyeom stared blankly at Gwok Un, blazing blue-white with fury. Being hit was something he had been used to since the orphanage, but someone stepping forward to stop it was a first. When the servant collapsed, Gwok Un simply dropped to his knees right there and kept raising his hand. The hand he lifted was reddened from the repeated blows. Do-gyeom scrambled over on his knees and grabbed hold of his hand. Watching Do-gyeom shake his head without being able to string a single word together, Gwok Un lowered his hand. Rising to his feet, Gwok Un dragged Do-gyeom up to the greenhouse. Under the lush greenery of the greenhouse, he seized Do-gyeom by the shoulders.
‘No one can hurt you here — not even yourself.’
His nails dug roughly into Do-gyeom’s shoulders, but Do-gyeom couldn’t tear his eyes away from Gwok Un.
‘……Why?’
‘What?’
‘The person you hit just now is better at the work and…… has been here far longer. Why…….’
Gwok Un burst into scattered laughter as though the question were absurd. He cut Do-gyeom’s words off with irritation.
‘How could you compare what’s mine to vermin like that?’
‘…….’
‘If anyone gives you trouble from now on, tell me. I’ll break their fingers.’
Gwok Un’s fierce words were the ones Do-gyeom had been waiting and waiting to hear. Unconditional protection and affection had only ever existed inside a television screen. It was a luxury like the designer watch gleaming on Gwok Un’s wrist — something he could covet all he wanted but could never have. Gwok Un promised it in a voice that treated it as nothing of consequence. Do-gyeom stared at him with disbelieving eyes. Gwok Un, his anger still blazing, was as brilliant and beautiful as the moment they first met. It may have been a premature decision, but that day Do-gyeom resolved to give everything he had to the radiant boy before him.
‘Young Master. If, hypothetically — just hypothetically — everyone were to leave your side…….’
‘…….’
‘I will never leave. Not ever.’
Even if you slap my cheek and spit on me, I will not leave you. I am yours, and now you are my everything.
‘Isn’t that only natural?’
It was an insignificant pledge, but Gwok Un, having heard the vow, smiled like the sun. It took only a moment to be captured by that smile. No — perhaps he had already been captured long before that.
He always shone like an unreachable star, but there were many moments when he did not.
‘I don’t understand why he’s forcing this on me when he could just put a professional manager in place. With my eye and my vision, I could build any number of Chinatowns…… I don’t want to do it, I said I don’t want to!’
He had grown a full head taller, but Gwok Un still couldn’t hide his emotions. Having had his dream crushed by Chairman Gwok, he looked forlorn as a bird with broken wings. When he poured out the festering resentment churning inside him, Do-gyeom blamed himself for his own helplessness. On days like those, he despised himself for being nothing, and sleep would not come.
If only I had been someone remarkable — at the very least, if I had been someone different, couldn’t I have helped him? Thoughts like those. Writhing in bitter disillusionment, Do-gyeom knelt every night looking at the moon caught in the branches of a tree. He prayed to a god he had not once believed in since being abandoned by his parents.
‘Please let the Young Master achieve his dream.’
Just as the one who had appeared in his short and painful life had saved him, he wished for someone like that to appear for Gwok Un too. Someone who — unlike his own worthless self — could give Gwok Un strength……
‘Say hello. This is my first writer.’
The wish he had prayed for so desperately had been granted, yet Do-gyeom could not smile. The same was true when Gam Eun-hyeong, wearing the same school uniform as Gwok Un, smiled and reached out for a handshake. Having been by his side for so long, Do-gyeom could see at a glance how Gwok Un felt about Eun-hyeong. Do-gyeom watched from a distance as they promised each other a future and exchanged inspiration.
He had known for a long time that Gwok Un did not regard him as an equal. He was something lesser than a pet — stroked when the mood struck and kicked away when it didn’t. Even so, he had wanted to live, clinging to even that shallow affection. As time passed and Gwok Un’s promise faded, leaving Do-gyeom to bear everything alone, Do-gyeom still remained in that moment. When unbearable times came, he would think back on that day and murmur to himself.
‘I am yours, and you are my everything…….’
Do-gyeom let his hands go limp as he watched the man who had been his entire world set fire to his heart. The desperately sustained feeling crumbled and fell away.
Unable to hold back any longer, Gi-hyeon slammed his fist against the wall. Even at the sudden crash, Gwok Un turned around without a trace of surprise. His drug-glazed eyes blinked rapidly, as though they couldn’t recognize Gi-hyeon. Then, recognizing him, Gwok Un smiled languidly. He made no move to cover his naked body and sat against the bed with perfect composure.
“Why are you here? Whatever the case, good timing. Three works for me just fine.”
“Go call your own filthy rats if you’re in heat, you son of a bitch.”
At the stream of profanity he had never heard from him before, Gwok Un let out a hollow laugh.
“That’s a bit much.”
His drunk voice stretched out long. As Gwok Un staggered toward Gi-hyeon, the sharp reek of strong liquor hit him in the face. Gwok Un stroked the bridge of Gi-hyeon’s nose with the same touch one would use to pet a kept animal.
“A man who has so much to lose.”
“…….”
“Why does he act so recklessly.”
Without warning, Gwok Un seized Gi-hyeon by the collar and yanked him close. A metallic fury threatened him. Eyes drenched in alcohol gleamed sharp.
“If you don’t want to end up in the gutter alongside your father, think before you act. Has Kim the painter slipped your mind? He’s looking at a miserable old age because of his own child.”
“Your own end will be more of a gutter than anyone’s — who are you to worry about someone else.”
