Hwang Jegu was leaning both arms on the table, watching the storm he’d caused as if watching a fire across the river.
“Dick my ass… you’re the one who looks dick-sized to me.”
“What?”
“That’s where our princesses need to sit. So if you’re done eating, please. Move. Thank. You.”
For Kkakdugi, it must have been absurd that some green punk who’d suddenly barged in was picking a fight. No matter how splendid his build was and even with scars, he was at most a teenager. To their eyes, he must have looked laughable. Kkakdugi kicked the sofa aside and stepped right up to Hwang Jegu.
“What the fuck is this bastard doing…? Hey man, did you sniff glue?”
Gakseori and all his friends awkwardly prepared for the sudden combat readiness, but Hwang Jegu remained motionless while seated.
For Yeon Cheonguk, who knew Hwang Jegu’s leg hadn’t fully healed, it was worrying.
“Everyone stop…! If you’re going to fight, go fight outside. You’ll have to pay for everything, okay?”
The boss’s voice was drowned out weakly. Kkakdugi kicked Hwang Jegu’s shin hard with his shoe. It was enough force to make the sofa shake noticeably.
“They say ignorance is courage, but when you learn wrong from watching gangster movies somewhere and act like this, you think you’ll just get beaten a few times and it’ll end?”
Then—smack! The sound of flesh being struck sharply was heard and Hwang Jegu’s head whipped to the side. The force of the slap was so strong that his neck could be seen swaying from the recoil.
“Should I make it so you can never walk around with that pretty face again?”
There was no room in Kkakdugi’s head to think about the aftermath. There seemed to be nothing but rage that he needed to break and crush this green kid right now to gain a sense of victory. His eyes were rolled back with money-blinded fury.
From that point on, the color completely drained from the boss’s face. Even the customers were terrified at the scene that looked like something was about to happen.
Judging it meaningless to try to stop them any further, the boss evacuated everyone inside the shop outside. Yeon Cheonguk was also pushed out the door in the confusion. While still clutching Kkakdugi’s Motorola cell phone.
What followed was real violence, not a warning. A thick fist aimed precisely at Hwang Jegu’s nose shot up high.
“I have this thing where I hate good-looking guys. I’m gonna smash your face and grind it up…”
Hwang Jegu still hadn’t lifted his head, as if caught off guard. A fist was swooping down from above like lightning to shatter and collapse his nose bridge, yet he was still looking down, gathering his wits. Gakseori tried to rush in and cling to his arm but was blocked by another punk.
Yeon Cheonguk’s soul jumped greatly. There was no time to rush inside, it was instantaneous…!
Thud, the sound of a fist hitting something solid was heard. With the force of the full-strength downward strike, Hwang Jegu tumbled and rolled to the right side of the sofa with a clatter. It was a noisy breakfall like a Hollywood action scene. His face was fine as he rolled his body and stood up bracing the floor.
Hwang Jegu raised his left arm.
“I got hit.”
He seemed to have luckily blocked the fierce punch with his forearm. For Yeon Cheonguk, who’d let out a breath of relief, there was still tingling tension remaining.
“I got hit, you saw that, right?”
“……?”
At Hwang Jegu’s words thrown toward Gakseori, Kkakdugi tilted his head in confusion. What unfolded next was swift as lightning.
Hwang Jegu moved at a speed the eye couldn’t follow. He didn’t allow for any dawdling timing. It was a much more agile movement than Yeon Cheonguk’s steps trying to enter the shop again with a sense of justice.
His large chest bent forward and he wrapped his arms around Kkakdugi’s waist, shoving him forcefully. Due to the fast speed, the sleeveless basketball uniform design shirt Hwang Jegu was wearing rode up. It was fierce enough force to push back the sofa and table where the third-rate punks had been sitting with a rumble.
The two men who rolled on the floor together struggled with all their might for a moment in a tussle, then rose to their feet together in an instant.
No, to be precise, one side wasn’t rising to his feet but being dragged up. Kkakdugi could be seen with his collar grabbed in one of Hwang Jegu’s hands.
“Hiii…!”
The eyes of the boss hyung, who’d been stamping his feet, widened. Kim Yuyoung, who’d covered her mouth with both hands, also screamed. Her face, heated with fear, reddened all the way to the tips of her ears.
Crash—with an ear-splitting bang, Kkakdugi’s head was slammed onto the table glass.
“Fuc… grab him! Gra…”
When Kkakdugi, whose body convulsed as if bouncing from the shock, looked for his colleagues, Hwang Jegu picked up a glass cup that was nearby. When he made a motion without a word that he’d break the glass on his head, the punks hesitated.
“Motherfucker!! What are you doing…!”
Kkakdugi, who’d been jerking his prone body around, soon closed his mouth. Trickle… The second cherry parfait that hadn’t been fully drunk fell onto the guy’s cheek.
Hwang Jegu’s eyes were full of irritation as he poured the parfait on the guy’s face.
Footsteps squeezed into the shocking scene. Then something unexpected happened. Two police officers and two men in plain clothes were running up in unison from below the stairs.
They ran up stomping loudly on the stairs and opened the shop door without hesitation.
Police…? Plain-clothes detectives…?
Could it be that when Hwang Jegu was resting his chin and writing a text earlier, he’d personally contacted a detective he knew?
If so, he didn’t randomly enter Canmoa and deliberately pick a fight… it meant he sensed something was strange and called the police… but how could that be?
The question was brief—when Yeon Cheonguk discovered the detective was restraining Hwang Jegu as well, he rushed into the shop. In any case, since the crisis was averted, he had a duty to help Hwang Jegu.
“I-illegal debt collection. Those people.”
Having finished speaking, Yeon Cheonguk handed Kkakdugi’s cell phone to the detective. The detective who’d been pressing Hwang Jegu softened his expression slightly after hearing Yeon Cheonguk’s story. Hwang Jegu spoke informally to the much older detective and shrugged his shoulders.
“Arrest. You told me to catch criminals.”
“…Everyone follow us for now!”
The police tried to put both the third-rate punks and Hwang Jegu in the car to take them to the police station. Yeon Cheonguk also followed them down the stairs. While keeping his eyes on the nape of Hwang Jegu’s neck as he sighed as if annoyed.
His girlfriend, who’d been standing gathered with friends beside the building, gestured worriedly. Yeon Cheonguk waved at her then went to stand next to the boss. As the punks got into the police car one by one, the situation seemed to be settling down.
Then in one moment, his body swayed greatly. Yeon Cheonguk was instantly pulled staggering into the crowd of onlookers.
“Gasp…!”
It was because of the hot force snatching his wrist. Pulled by the grip strength, he ran a few steps and looked up in a daze to find Hwang Jegu in front of him.
Hwang Jegu, who’d grabbed Yeon Cheonguk’s arm, suddenly dashed forward. Because of the force that seemed like it would break his shoulder or make him fall, Yeon Cheonguk had no choice but to run at full speed too.
“What… why! Why are you running?”
The detective yelled something from behind them, already quite far away, but it couldn’t be heard. Following Hwang Jegu as he cursed “fuck!” then grinned excitedly while running at full speed was overwhelming enough.
“Hey, Hwang Jegu! Why are you running!”
He’d called him by the forbidden name again. Hwang Jegu ran like crazy as if he hadn’t heard those words. He ran through the crowd while gripping Yeon Cheonguk’s wrist. Yeon Cheonguk also had to run putting extreme strength into his thighs and lower body like when competing in a 100-meter dash.
Two pairs of legs kicked off the asphalt road and ran. Having suddenly become fugitives from the detective ahjussi, they couldn’t run half-heartedly either. They had to run for their lives.
The downtown street was full of people who’d poured out for the World Cup game street cheering. It was all a sea of red everywhere. The two ran against the red tide.
Running until his stamina reached its limit, before he knew it they were in a residential area with few people. When exhausted Yeon Cheonguk’s steps got tangled, Hwang Jegu stopped his sprint. The afternoon temperature was sweltering heat well over 27 degrees.
He let go of his hand. Yeon Cheonguk looked for a place to sit while fanning his flushed red face.
“Ha… wait, I need to make a call. Haa…”
Yeon Cheonguk walked trudging to a nearby payphone booth. As he crouched down to catch his breath, Hwang Jegu also stepped inside.
“Heok… huk…!”
Unlike Hwang Jegu, who was done after just wiping his sweat-soaked nose bridge, Yeon Cheonguk was panting like someone suffering from the heat. Just how far had they run at full speed! Suddenly feeling wronged, he snapped.
“No… why are you running away?”
“Because it’s annoying.”
“What…?!”
Perhaps because he was looking up while crouched, Hwang Jegu’s build blocking the sunlight looked even bigger. Yeon Cheonguk stood up bracing his knees out of pointless pride.
“Why did you go there. Coming and causing a scene, and how did you get the police…”
“Does 114 get paid a salary while playing around, eating and fucking?”
“……”
Yeon Cheonguk, who was interpreting the meaning, almost choked in surprise. It meant he’d called 114 to ask for the shop’s phone number and learned it was the Canmoa Kyunghee University branch and came.
“The Canmoa boy called my phone twice, so wouldn’t it be stranger if nothing was wrong? When I came, sure enough. I grasped what kind of atmosphere it was in one shot.”
Right, he’d called this bastard. Remembering the mistake he’d forgotten made him feel embarrassed. The pupils looking down at Yeon Cheonguk intently were pitch dark without any life.
“……”
It wasn’t a gaze demanding explanation nor a gaze expecting compensation, nor anything. Yeon Cheonguk thought those eyes were part of the reason he felt aversion toward him.
Because most of the time they were cocky pupils whose intentions were utterly impossible to grasp.
It was the same now. He was just looking at Yeon Cheonguk silently, but somehow it made him feel rushed and shrink.
Suddenly he thought the inside of the payphone booth was too suffocating. It was too narrow a space for two men over 180cm tall to stand. And to think it was an enclosed space filled with the breath of males who’d just run at full speed. He even had the illusion that the glass was fogged up. Even though it was midsummer after the rainy season ended…
The summer sun was setting slowly over the trumpet creeper flowers in full bloom outside the booth. Yeon Cheonguk averted his gaze from beyond Hwang Jegu’s head. When he closed his mouth having no way to explain the strange trajectory of his gaze, Hwang Jegu casually tossed out a comment.
“Your hand strength was strong, you bastard.”
“…What?”
“It was just right for massaging.”
No, he didn’t even want to add an explanation that his gaze was strange. He just avoided his eyes because the guy was both hateful and scary. “Unpleasant” would be the perfect expression.
“Did you lose your virginity?”
At the out-of-the-blue question, Yeon Cheonguk looked at him pathetically then nodded. Hwang Jegu’s eyes curved long. It was a laugh saying how ridiculous.
“Since you’re a horny bastard, even when your family situation is a mess and guys like that come looking for you at your part-time job, you were probably still fooling around dating. With your rotten mindset.”
“……”
He’d let his guard down for a moment. Apart from breaking the shop’s fixtures, he’d briefly mistaken this bastard for a good person for the fact that he’d satisfyingly chased away the punks! Yeon Cheonguk responded with renewed hatred.
“Why did you come when you could’ve just ignored the missed calls?”
“To watch more. Your shitty and debauched mindset.”
Even though their rough breathing had subsided, the air inside the booth became even damper. Yeon Cheonguk straightened his back that had been leaning against the glass while being pushed by him. Their bodies became so close they were almost pressed together.
It was when he tried to open the booth door after glaring at him one last time. Hwang Jegu slipped in front to block the way.
Sticking his hands in his pants pockets and turning his body at an angle, he said.
“Don’t you want to try more shitty and dirty things?”
