After the thugs got in the police car, Hwang Jegu talked a bit more with the detective. A few minutes after the police car departed, men with terrifying impressions swarmed in front of the bookstore. They were allied with Hwang Jegu.
As they were about to immediately move somewhere, Lee Donggu quickly grabbed Hwang Jegu.
“What about Cheonguk?”
“Don’t worry, I took care of the school too.”
“Then what about Sangwon? Is he safe?”
He blocked Hwang Jegu’s path again as he turned around without answering. Looking at Hwang Jegu’s eyes, he seemed to know the answer. Lee Donggu, who realized the question was stupid in the current situation, was seized by thunderbolt-like sadness. Still, he’d grown attached to the kid. Even though only his mouth and fists were alive and his head was a bit empty, what an adorable kid he was.
“Let me see him.”
“……”
“Whatever state he’s in, please. Take hyung. Let me see him.”
A chilly gaze came down from above Hwang Jegu’s blood-stained mask. He sent a slight nod to someone standing beside him. It seemed to be a friend. The one who received Hwang Jegu’s instructions gestured for Lee Donggu to come.
Lee Donggu quickly prepared to leave. There were no customers in the store anyway, and he planned to just lock the door and go out to call the owner.
In the meantime, Hwang Jegu was preparing for another fight. He spoke to those gathered around.
“Just patrol, please. I have to go finish off the last one.”
“Where are you going?”
“The hired muscle office. The guys there are the ones who got Sangwon.”
He added as he tightly wrapped bandages around both hands again.
“I’m going there alone.”
Hwang Jegu mobilized all forces to choke off those guys’ breath. Thanks to the manga cafe part-timer’s text message, he was able to move a bit more quickly.
He left the guys who stabbed Jeon Sangwon as the last target. Because he had to pay them back tenfold separately.
First, he spread a false rumor that the police had appeared at the redevelopment committee office to disperse the hired thugs. Several of the hired muscle who were in the office ran away and hid in a karaoke bar underground. The guys who bother to hide one more time are the culprits. Hwang Jegu chased after them.
The four who attacked Jeon Sangwon were hiding in a karaoke room with the lights off. He kindly gagged all four of their mouths with towels himself, then paid them back exactly double.
Then he had one guy call to summon the committee representative old geezer. At the words that they’d cut Hwang Jegu’s Achilles tendon and brought him, the committee representative rushed to the karaoke bar like lightning.
He tied the committee representative’s hands too and sat him in a chair. Now it was time to divide the enemies.
When he threatened that instigating assault would be discovered by the police, the committee representative shamelessly denied it.
“Instigate? The fact that your friend got hurt has nothing to do with me at all!”
“Fuck…! That old man! You called me yesterday and told me to take care of it!”
“Now, do you have evidence? Do you have evidence!”
“I’ll kill you, you old bastard!”
The thugs’ resentment flew toward the committee representative. It seemed they realized they’d been used by the representative only when they were put in a situation of being charged with attempted murder. Hwang Jegu shook his head.
“To trust that old man as your backing. Did you really think he’d protect you from going to jail?”
This time the committee representative fearlessly growled at Hwang Jegu.
“Aren’t you the one who got on the thugs’ bad side? If you’d just kept your promise, would those thugs have caused this ruckus? If you’d just kept your promise, you would’ve handled ten times more money than you’re making now! You’re paying the price for looking down on us….”
Hwang Jegu’s merciless fist flew at the representative’s face. The representative who flew back and fell with a thud crawled backward, trembling.
“You have to pay the price for cutting my right-hand man too, don’t you think?”
The representative looked at Hwang Jegu with an expression like he was about to cry, clutching his lower jaw with blood streaming down. His expression said his right hand was fine, so what did he mean?
“The kid those thugs beat to a pulp is my right-hand man. Are you deaf?”
“You guys…! I’ll throw all of you in the slammer. Just wait and see! I’ll throw you all in. I don’t care!”
“Go ahead. I don’t know who will protect Representative-nim until then, though.”
The representative’s face turned white. It seemed he finally grasped the situation. Hwang Jegu, who was looking around, picked up an ashtray placed in the middle of the karaoke table. He heavily struck the representative’s temple with the ashtray.
When his earlobe burst and blood trickled down over his face, the representative began to sob. Hwang Jegu crouched in front of him and called the police.
There’s a fight at ○○ Karaoke here. Please come quickly. After reporting, he made a proposal to the representative.
“Then let’s settle at this point. Those thugs only live in jail for a few months and come out, but instead they got knocked around by me, right?”
The representative trembled in fear looking at the four men whose clothes were soaked in blood.
“Representative-nim, just get beat this much and go to jail.”
“If I go in, you too…!”
He held out his cell phone in front of the representative who was being stubborn with a flushed face.
When he played the adultery video saved in the album, the committee representative was dumbfounded and closed his mouth. It was a face that had given up everything.
“I never hit anyone though. Isn’t that right?”
“……”
“You fell down by yourself. These guys here too fought and hit each other, but nobody hit them.”
With the thug bastards, he’d already agreed to being personally retaliated against by Hwang Jegu on the condition of not filing a criminal complaint with the detective about the Jeon Sangwon incident.
There were people who got hit, but no one who hit them. That was what happened in this space right now.
The representative got up, exaggerating his injuries. He awkwardly spat blood and spat it on his own suit, making a fuss going oh my, then grumbled.
“If you originally lived a street life, you should find a way to succeed there… why are you doing this? Are you going to change your life path…? Now? Jeez.”
The police knocked on the door. Hwang Jegu explained the situation as they all agreed to say together. The sinners were divided and loaded into ambulances and police cars.
The hyung responsible for the hired muscle contract approached beside Hwang Jegu who was watching that scene.
He raised his arm covered in tattoos and grabbed Hwang Jegu for the last time.
“Your Majesty, if you hand them over to the cops like this… you can never… never set foot in the Dongdaemun back alleys again. Let’s not do this.”
It wasn’t an unknown consequence. It was something he’d decided after accepting everything.
“Your alliance getting into it with our guys. Yeah, I’ll accept that’s reasonable. Let’s finish with each other. But sending them to jail is a different matter, huh…? Why… why didn’t you listen to the representative? Don’t tell me you’re really pulling out?”
When conflict arises in this world, directly handing them over to the cops isn’t the rule. Because numbers are also an important force, everyone wants to minimize personnel losses with each other. However, Hwang Jegu had already made his decision. He had no intention of following anyone’s persuasion.
“If we split here. You’re never ours again.”
The heat round singer king competition was starting tomorrow at 1 PM. Only by putting all the main parties involved in the detention center would sparks not fly to Yeon Cheonguk. He couldn’t leave even the slightest possibility of retaliation.
Now that he’d already failed to protect Jeon Sangwon’s safety, Yeon Cheonguk’s safety was a duty to Hwang Jegu that no variable could break.
Hwang Jegu left him with a final greeting and turned around.
“Take care.”
Jeon Sangwon, who had fallen into shock from losing a lot of blood, was recovering safely. Thugs deliberately stab mainly the lower body, avoiding vital points to avoid attempted murder. Fortunately, perhaps because it wasn’t revenge based on grudge, the stab wounds weren’t deep for having been attacked by four people. Tendons and ligaments in various parts of his lower body were damaged, so he had to be in a wheelchair for a while.
If it was fortunate, it was fortunate that he didn’t suffer fatal injuries. However, this incident left Hwang Jegu with a fatal emotional wound. Guilt, an indelible scar, regret about what if he’d pulled out a bit earlier.
The manga cafe part-timer shed tears looking at the injured Gakseori. Even now he was beside him being a conversation partner.
“Fuck, I wanted to ride Lotte World’s Atlantis before I die. They say it opens next month, fuck.”
“Don’t be dramatic with that kind of talk, you?”
Detective Lee rushed into the hospital room with a tired face. He held out ice cream to Gakseori, then immediately started nagging upon discovering Hwang Jegu.
“You were absent again? Really, aren’t you going to get expelled doing that? You still have unexcused absence days left?”
Gakseori, who excitedly received the ice cream despite being a patient, answered instead.
“No, the Emperor still has 4 days left.”
As expected, Gakseori gave the wrong answer.
The remaining days were 0.
As of today, Hwang Jegu failed to meet the minimum attendance days.
He didn’t even answer the phone call from the school office since he already knew. He didn’t blab to the detective and Gakseori either.
It’s not such an important problem anymore. If it’s a necessary thing, he’ll just accept it.
The important competition with Yeon Cheonguk’s debut and the rest of his life at stake was tomorrow. He couldn’t postpone handling all of this to the weekend.
