The man just stared at me without a word. Just as the silence was beginning to feel ominous, he opened his mouth.
“Me? Kill you?”
Oh.
Right — I’m not even worth killing. Is that it.
“Never mind then. Either way, there’s no need to kill him.”
“Why.”
If I asked this man to do it, I felt like he genuinely would make that canvas shoe disappear without a trace. I couldn’t even remember what the guy looked like anymore.
Oh — there was exactly one thing I did remember.
“He was still young.”
“…….”
I’d expected the man to do whatever he pleased regardless of what I said — but he gave a small nod and backed down, as though he understood.
Unexpected.
So he can be reasoned with.
I still didn’t quite understand what his criteria were — but either way, the canvas shoe kid was alive. Getting my arm in a cast was entirely my own fault for going out to save him in the first place. And the reason for the fracture itself, if you really wanted to get technical about it…
I raised my eyes and looked at the man.
It’s this bastard’s fault.
If this man hadn’t twisted my arm the way he had, it might not have gone straight to a fracture. But I had no intention of pressing that point, so I kept my mouth shut.
“Thank you for the treatment.”
As I tried to pull back the foot he was holding, the man caught my ankle. He hadn’t used force — but it was threatening enough.
I stopped pulling away. He slowly looked me over, then shifted his gaze to my other hand — the one without the cast.
Why is he looking at my right hand?
The man let go of my ankle and this time took hold of my hand. My hand, specifically — the back of it.
“…It wasn’t there before.”
What wasn’t? Is he talking about my arm hair?
“This wound. It wasn’t there.”
“…Pardon?”
“Who was it.”
Jun, if I remembered the name right.
This time, the player who had stepped on my hand was in danger of having his throat grabbed.
The man’s brow slowly narrowed. The change was subtle, but he was clearly angry. I glanced down at the back of my hand. Anyone could see this wasn’t just a wound from a simple fall. The longer my silence stretched, the deeper his gaze dug in. As if he could see straight through me.
It’s nothing much.
It was just a scrape on the back of my hand.
Not a broken bone, not torn open to the flesh underneath. A minor wound that would scab over and fall off on its own — and yet I couldn’t tell him the truth.
Because I was remembering the client whose face had been slammed into the wall at West Hollywood. Nearly caving in his nose, convulsing from the impact — and I had no way of knowing what had happened to him after that.
If I told the truth…
A chill ran through me involuntarily.
Change the subject.
I slowly pulled my hand free from his grip and spoke.
“…It looks ugly, doesn’t it.”
“What?”
“Is that why you keep asking about it?”
I cast my eyes down as if I’d been hurt by all the prying. Even as I did it, I thought there was no way something like this would actually work on him. If anything, wouldn’t it just irritate him further. I watched carefully for his reaction.
The man’s brow furrowed even more than before. He shook his head, placed his hand on my thigh, and leaned in closer.
“No.”
“…….”
He came so close it made me uncomfortable, and I leaned back — but the man caught my waist and spoke again.
“I’ve never thought that. Not once.”
“Your hand on my waist…”
“…….”
The man took my right hand, avoided the wound, and pressed his lips to it.
“It’s pretty.”
“…….”
It didn’t stop there. His crimson tongue came out, and moved toward the back of my hand —
Thud.
I pressed my cast against his forehead. The man didn’t push back with any force — but he didn’t retreat either. His tongue hovered dangerously close to the back of my hand, close enough to land at any moment.
“…I get it, so please put that tongue away.”
At that, the tongue slipped back inside. The corner of the man’s mouth curled upward quietly. He was simply smiling — and yet the air and temperature of the room seemed to shift, in some strange way.
The man’s hand, which had been at my waist, slowly traveled upward and this time caressed the nape of my neck. His fingertips traced over my skin as if drawing something there. It gave me goosebumps for some reason, and I grabbed his arm and said:
“I should be heading back now…”
That was when it happened.
Rrr—
My phone buzzed from somewhere. I got off the bed to find it. The sound led me to the trousers I’d been wearing when I arrived. I rummaged through them, and sure enough — a phone barely the size of my palm was vibrating away.
The caller was…
My landlord?
Outside of signing the lease the first time, we’d never spoken on the phone — and now, out of nowhere, the landlord of my single room was calling. I’d actually needed to call about the gas leak today anyway, so the timing was slightly disorienting. Come to think of it, the gas was probably still leaking right now. I’d tell the landlord about it, end the call, and get back as soon as possible — that was the plan as I picked up.
But…
— Hey, young man! I heard the coal briquette gas leaked! Oh my, are you in the hospital right now?
“No, I’m fine. But the gas is probably still leaking, so I need to get back right—”
— That was a close call! Still, this works out nicely, actually!
Nearly dying from a gas leak works out nicely?
The landlord continued.
— I was going to ask you to vacate anyway because of the redevelopment! Who’s still using coal briquettes these days, honestly! I won’t charge this month’s rent, and I’ll throw a little extra on top of the deposit — so go find yourself a new place!
Click.
And just like that, the call ended.
I stared blankly at the screen of the phone that had just been hung up on me, one-sidedly.
…What just happened.
It was absurd — I’d been kicked out in an instant. So that was why the deposit and rent had been below market rate.
I was about to call the landlord back immediately, but before I could, a notification went off on my phone first. A transfer alert.
And then a message arrived.
📎 pf.png
010-xxxx-xxxx
I’ll handle clearing out your room myself, so don’t worry about it. Put in enough so you won’t feel hard done by. You understand, right? Nothing good comes from making a fuss.
A text message with a quiet threat tucked in — it was beyond absurd.
Infuriating as it was, pushing back any further would only cause exactly the kind of noise the message warned about — so I decided to let it go. Compared to the previous landlord who’d told me to sue him if I wanted my deposit back, this was at least marginally better.
Three hundred deposit, thirty thousand a month.
He’d said he wouldn’t take rent, and on top of that he’d added two hundred — so five hundred total had come into my account.
I pressed my fingers against the ache gathering between my brows.
Still — in Seoul, as long as you had money, you wouldn’t end up out on the street. There were plenty of vacant rooms, whether studio apartments or study rooms.
I couldn’t expect deposit and rent as cheap as before — but for just myself, five hundred was more than enough to find somewhere to put my head down.
The problem was that it wasn’t just me anymore.
The image of that patchy, disheveled ball of fur came to mind. Muki, trembling in my arms, never knowing when the end might come — the thought weighed heavily on me.
A study room won’t work.
Muki couldn’t stay there with me.
If I could find a studio that allows pets…
Five hundred probably wouldn’t cut it. I had a little over three hundred million set aside… Money could be earned and saved again.
…Maybe move out of Seoul.
It would be cheaper than the city, after all.
The West Hollywood contract had me tied down for a year — so the plan was to find a pet-friendly studio for a year, even if it cost a bit more, and after that, consider moving to a smaller city. That was what I was thinking when I suddenly felt a gaze on me.
I looked up — the man was watching me intently.
Did he hear the call?
He could’ve heard it — I didn’t particularly mind — but the situation itself felt awkward.
Without thinking, I avoided his gaze and quietly started to get up.
“I’ve been in your debt a great deal. I’ll… be on my way now…”
“Lunch…”
“Pardon?”
“It’s lunchtime.”
I checked the clock on my phone at that — just past one in the afternoon. Everything had been such a blur I hadn’t even noticed the time passing.
“Ah, yes. Enjoy your meal. The clothes — I’ll wash them and bring them back later…”
“Do you like crab?”
“…….”
He’d been cutting me off before I could finish a sentence since earlier — was that just a habit of his.
He was a VIP client, so I couldn’t let it show — I just nodded vaguely. If I didn’t like animals, I wouldn’t have considered living with one in the first place.
“Yes, I like them.”
“No allergies either?”
I’d run carrying that dusty clump of fur pressed against me without any issue, so no allergies either.
“No.”
But — why does he keep asking.
“I’m just wondering why you keep asking about dogs…”
Don’t tell me he wants to adopt Muki. He’d helped me, and I was grateful for that — but knowing his violent nature, even if he wanted to adopt, I intended to refuse.
And then the man opened his mouth.
“To eat.”
“……!!”
I almost threw a punch.
“…….”
I barely stopped myself.
Haah.
One deep breath, then I opened my mouth.
“I’m sorry, but… I don’t eat dog.”
At my words, the man tilted his head slightly with a puzzled expression.
“You said you liked them just now.”
The fact that he’d taken that to mean for eating was the more alarming thing. What on earth was going on in his head, that he could say something like that after witnessing everything at the vet. It was getting hard to hide my revulsion toward him. Looking at a man whose moral compass had completely rotted — it made my spine go cold. But I couldn’t let those feelings show. For now, he was still the esteemed VIP client.
I quickly tamped down the disgust and emptied my head as much as I could. When dealing with this man, that was the only way.
Hadn’t I experienced it enough times by now. How merciless and cruel he was.
There was nothing to be gained from rubbing him the wrong way.
I smoothed out my voice to refuse politely one more time.
“Not to the extent of eating a pet.”
You psycho.
That last part I swallowed back down my throat.
But at my answer, the man made a strange expression. He was looking at me with a deeply complicated look on his face — and it was unmistakably one of someone who was quite flustered.
“…You’re keeping it?”
“Yes.”
It was odd that he seemed newly surprised — he’d even asked about the meaning of Muki’s name.
His eyes shifted left and right with visible unease, then he asked again.
“…The crab?”
Something felt off from that point on.
“…Pardon?”
“You said you were on a deep-sea fishing vessel… was it from back then. But then why didn’t you report it…”
How did he know I’d been on a deep-sea vessel… no — more than that, I noticed from what he was muttering that our conversation had completely derailed. I hurried to wave my hand and clarify.
“No, no! Muki.”
“Muki?”
“Yes — Muki, the dog, a dog, woof woof. I’m sorry, I heard ‘dog’ when you said ‘crab’…”
“Ah. …I thought you had a peculiar taste.”
“…….”
And I thought you were a psychopath.
The man smiled slightly and asked.
“Then you’ll eat?”
There was no reason to refuse.
“Yes.”
