Laughter came through the phone.
– Why are you looking for that kid at this cabaret, he’s at the committee office. Who is this? Did you get beaten up somewhere again and come crawling and whining to tattle on him?
“…Yes. I need to meet him right now. Where’s the committee office?”
***
When she suddenly mentioned a committee, he thought it was slang among them, but it was literally that. Yeon Cheonguk headed to the committee office that was promoting redevelopment of a certain entertainment district commercial area.
That Hwang Jegu was involved in such a place was far beyond expectations. It was a world far beyond what Yeon Cheonguk could imagine. As Hwang Jegu felt distant and unfamiliar again, a bit of fear also crept in.
Dongdaemun Fashion Town sparkled with neon lights. Female singers’ highly addictive techno music shook the streets. After walking a few more minutes, he arrived at a commercial area densely packed with nightclubs, room salons, love hotels, cabarets, and massage parlors. He’d distributed flyers from Myeongdong to around here before, so he was fairly familiar with it.
The World Cup fever was still hot. The subway station and shopping districts were plastered with advertisements for the World Cup All-Star Game to be held in Sangam, and posters for <Post World Cup ‘Dae~han Min-guk’> to be broadcast on KBS. The public’s enthusiasm extending to the K-League was outside Yeon Cheonguk’s interest.
Inside Yeon Cheonguk, an even bigger and more massive heat was burning.
XX-dong XX Commercial Area Redevelopment Promotion Committee.
He opened the door to the third-floor office with an acrylic sign. Two men were sitting on a sofa reeking of cigarette smoke watching the news.
– Typhoon ‘Rammasun’ is landing on the Korean Peninsula after passing through Japan. Soon the entire country will be in its influence range….
“I came looking for Hwang Jegu. I have something I absolutely must tell him right now.”
“Our Majesty went on a site inspection with the higher-ups?”
“What?”
“Keke… He’s at a hotel near the development area.”
Hwang Jegu wasn’t here either. They briefly told him the location of the underground bar in the hotel where key committee members were gathered.
Yeon Cheonguk came down the dark stairs and walked the flashy street again.
When he didn’t want to meet, he’d keep coming around making life difficult. But when he had business and tried to find him first, he was no ordinary person to deal with. This wasn’t even like visiting three times to recruit Zhuge Liang.
He arrived at the hotel after passing street stalls messily scattered with pickets opposing the Cheonggyecheon restoration project.
Hwang Jegu was in the dark underground amid acrid smoke. Standing before the glass door coughing at the cigarette smoke filling the corridor.
Yeon Cheonguk took a deep breath and threw open the door. People who were probably one of the following—legal professionals, financial sector figures, big-money businessmen, political hangers-on, city administration officials with redevelopment information, or real estate experts—were sitting in groups of three to five at dark wine-colored tables.
Everyone’s eyes turned to the door. Yeon Cheonguk was overwhelmed by suffocating tension.
“What’s this?”
“Who is it.”
As he swallowed dry saliva under the pouring fierce stares and strong pressure, a faint sigh came from the table on the left.
“Ah…… fuck.”
It was the low voice he’d heard after several days. Hwang Jegu, with his elbow propped on the sofa table armrest, was looking at Yeon Cheonguk with his eyes rolled up high.
“Who brought him….”
Here. It was sarcasm he could fully infer even without hearing the rest.
“Must be a friend.”
“Friend?”
Hwang Jegu, who giggled, slowly raised his upper body.
Among the older people in a mix of suits and patterned shirts, Hwang Jegu wore black clothes from head to toe. Though he concealed his presence with a black knit shirt with a small logo and black work pants, he had the power to draw more attention than anyone else in the room.
“You want to see me that badly. Anyway….”
Hwang Jegu lightly kicked the ground with his right foot while tilting his head toward his center.
“Come. Come and suck it.”
Rough laughter echoed. In the thick cigarette smoke, the mockery of the audience felt so loud his ears nearly went numb.
“I came because I have something to say, so let’s talk outside for a moment.”
“Something to say? What could this bastard have to say to me….”
Hwang Jegu slowly rose from his seat and turned his body. As Hwang Jegu walked toward Yeon Cheonguk passing the next table, he picked up a liquor bottle placed next to a decorative item and slammed it down on the table.
“Ah! Comic books.”
“There’s no way he came here for such a trivial thing….”
“It must have been fun crawling around with comic books in his mouth to offer them, our slacker with nothing to do.”
“……!”
Yeon Cheonguk was momentarily swept by shock and frowned. Hwang Jegu was scanning Yeon Cheonguk up and down, unable to continue speaking.
“I don’t see any comic books. What are you going to offer and present now?”
Hwang Jegu, who shifted his gaze to the hip bag, wore a slight smile. In the front pocket of the hip bag Yeon Cheonguk was wearing was the lighter he’d dropped the other day. A smile filled his sturdy, sharp jaw.
“Ah, a light?”
Hwang Jegu clapped his hands once loudly. Then he trudged backward and sat perched on the sofa armrest. Spreading both legs wide and stretching them out, he roughly struck his own thigh.
“Now, crawl over.”
“……”
“Hey, what are you doing. If you stole my time, you should conscientiously at least do this much. Bring the lighter obediently in your mouth. If you lick my face as service, I’ll give you a snack too.”
The paper he pulled from his pocket and spun once was a promissory note.
Hwang Jegu had an excited expression. Deep eyes full of anticipation kept staring at Yeon Cheonguk. With a face that said he was going crazy with enjoyment of this situation, Hwang Jegu, who had been beckoning his hand as if training a pet dog, finally moved his hand between his legs. He beckons the promissory note again in the empty space.
The command continues once more.
“Come and take it in your mouth.”
The people in the room probably cheered. His ears went completely numb. Yeon Cheonguk’s eyes didn’t take in the people around him, and he couldn’t hear their laughter either.
Yeon Cheonguk turned his back on the scenery before his eyes. It was when he walked quickly and reached the automatic door button.
“Where are you going on your own, stop there.”
At the voice that made the hall quiet, Yeon Cheonguk stopped walking stiffly.
“Ha…. Not fun…!”
When he looked back, Hwang Jegu was tilting his head back and glaring at the air with an unbearably bored expression.
“It’s admirable that you had the courage to come all the way here when you can’t even play properly. Fuck.”
Hwang Jegu, who bowed his head deeply again, got up from his seat and trudged over. The now-familiar body scent and voice covered the door.
“Did you eat your fill of humiliation? I served you a lot, was it delicious?”
It seemed he’d become hazy from the cigarette smoke spread in this unsuitable place, and it also seemed he’d become dazed from the successive shocks. Now in Yeon Cheonguk’s head was only the thought that he didn’t want to exchange any more words.
“There’s nothing to eat and it was at least fun, but now even the interest has dropped. Go rub your ass somewhere that fits your level. If you’re bored, go use your lower body on some weak bastard or something.”
Bang, the air shook from the weight pressing on the glass door. If the hand had missed by just a few centimeters, Yeon Cheonguk’s head would have smashed into the door.
Hwang Jegu wore a faint smile with half-opened eyes. Soon after, a calm low voice flowed into his ears.
“Come again. If you want to be humiliated not with words but with your body too.”
“……”
“Holes are always welcome. I’ll personally widen them for you.”
Leaving behind chilling words, Hwang Jegu struck the button with his fist. The automatic door opened smoothly.
He ran without looking back in case the door opened again. The whole time he ran, Yeon Cheonguk shouted alone.
Motherfucker. Fucking bastard.
