Rustle, rustle. At the sound of thin paper turning, he opened his eyes drowsily. He blinked his dry eyes until his vision fully returned. He’d definitely been outdoors, but now he could see an indoor ceiling. It was an unfamiliar scene. As consciousness returned, he felt his stiff wrist. Medication was entering his body through a tube. Seungun instinctively pressed against the bed and sat up.
His mind quickly retraced the scenes that had passed. In front of the car door, Gi Siyoung had grabbed his shoulder and arm and set the dislocated bones. He’d lost consciousness with a scream. And when he opened his eyes, he was here.
He wasn’t alone in the hospital room. When he turned his head, Gi Siyoung had placed the script he was reading on his lap and was looking at him.
“What happened?”
His cracked voice sounded terrible. Gi Siyoung swept over Seungun’s appearance as he coughed awkwardly in embarrassment.
“These days, if you live like that, it’s not called diligent but pitiful. You looked like the type who’d be clever, ripping off whatever you could, but I guess first impressions aren’t everything.”
“The Gi Siyoung-ssi who says that seems like someone who lives true to their first impression.”
“I guess you’re all better now.”
“What did you say?”
“Let me ask you something.”
“What is it?”
Gi Siyoung suddenly got up from his seat. He put down the script on the table and approached the bed.
“Did you get hurt from falling too?”
Suddenly, the top of the patient gown was lifted up. He almost screamed in surprise. Seungun slapped the back of his hand. But Gi Siyoung continued without showing any sign of pain.
“The color seems light for an injury from today…”
The bruise was on his flat lower abdomen. Seungun stretched the patient gown down to his knees and snapped.
“Why are you looking at someone else’s body?”
Gi Siyoung showed no sign of embarrassment even while handling someone else’s flesh. While telling people not to touch his own body without permission.
“I didn’t look because I wanted to, I saw it when the medical staff were treating the abrasions.”
“……”
“Don’t work until you’re fully healed, rest here.”
“Here?”
Seungun looked around the spacious hospital room.
“The company is paying for everything, so stay as long as you want. It’s covered by insurance. If you want to stay longer, tell me. Anyway, you got hurt because of me.”
“It’s not because of Gi Siyoung-ssi.”
“I’m not without a share of responsibility.”
“……”
“If I had gotten my motorcycle license earlier, this wouldn’t have happened, and you wouldn’t have had to overdo it as a substitute for me. I really hate feeling uneasy, so let’s settle accounts clearly.”
“……”
“Oh. Give me your phone.”
“Why do you need my phone?”
“No, wait. It must be here.”
Gi Siyoung recognized Seungun’s condition and opened the closet next to the bed. Inside the empty closet, Seungun’s belongings were neatly placed. Siyoung brought out Seungun’s phone from among them.
Seungun wasn’t pleased that Gi Siyoung had his phone in his hands. But he didn’t care and tapped both his own phone and Seungun’s phone simultaneously.
Gi Siyoung showed Seungun his phone. An incoming call from an unknown number was in progress.
“It’s my personal number.”
Gi Siyoung lightly tossed Seungun’s phone onto his lap. The vibration that had been ringing for a while had already stopped.
“Gi Siyoung-ssi’s personal number? What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Contact me if you need me.”
“What?”
“Don’t use it for useless things, but when you’re really desperate, when you want to use my help, contact me.”
“……”
“Then I’ll appear right away and grant your wish.”
Actually, there probably wouldn’t be much use for it. That’s what he thought, but Seungun saved it as “Gi Siyoung 2” for now.
“Like a genie?”
“A genie? You mean the blue fairy?”
“Yes.”
“Sure, if you want, I’ll appear like him at least once.”
Gi Siyoung grinned.
It was still a smile that feared nothing in the world.
The hospital room where Seungun was staying was wider than his home. Tedious time passed, so awkward that idling felt strange. Because he had time to spare, Seungun sat on the bed and just changed meaningless TV channels. When he did that, he’d think of the laundry piled up at home, and the dry clothes on the drying rack he hadn’t managed to take down.
While pressing remote control numbers, if Gi Siyoung’s work appeared on a movie channel, he’d fix the channel and watch. Life was so busy he couldn’t keep up with famous movies or dramas that came out at the time. While spending a few days here, Seungun binge-watched all the works where Gi Siyoung appeared as the protagonist.
There, Gi Siyoung had a thousand faces.
Even characters that might not have been so popular if someone else had played them, when Gi Siyoung acted them, he watched without noticing time passing. He seemed to understand why people were so enthusiastic about Gi Siyoung. He had a 100% intuition that unless something unusual happened, Gi Siyoung would be on people’s lips until he died, enjoying wealth and glory.
He looked at Gi Siyoung’s face until he was sick of it, then dozed off. Even during sleep, the noise that sounded like white noise suddenly went “click,” and turned off. The fine hairs at his ears stood up sensitively.
The nurses who came in briefly at dawn didn’t arbitrarily turn off the television the patient had left on. When the sound that had been chattering at a small decibel was sucked into darkness, Seungun immediately sat up.
“……”
As soon as he looked around, someone from behind started choking his neck with an incredibly thick forearm.
“Keurk! Kuk!”
It was a surprise attack. He immediately couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t ordinary strength. The intruder’s forearm was thick enough to cover Seungun’s face. The bedding became a mess and the large bed creaked and moved. Seungun, who had struggled desperately, fell “thud” under the bed. Even then, his neck was being choked.
When his meaningless flailing weakly went limp, the strength loosened from the terrifying forearm.
“Heoek! Heoek!”
Seungun, whose face had turned purple, crawled on the floor. He coughed so hard it felt like his insides would turn over. He panted with his face pressed against the floor as if to lick the pattern on it. The intruders quietly held their positions until Seungun came to his senses. Then a familiar smell he hadn’t yet noticed hit his nose.
“Hauk, uk…”
“Long time no see.”
A familiar hand with thick calluses. That hand fiercely and precisely struck Seungun’s head exactly three times. In those three times, Seungun’s pupils unfocused. His body, fallen sideways, couldn’t easily get up. The shoulder that had choked Seungun’s neck from behind grabbed his shoulder blade and made him kneel.
“Living well? Looking prosperous?”
“……”
President Gu bent his knees and met Seungun’s gaze. The hand that had struck his cheek grabbed Seungun’s chin and shook it back and forth. Seungun’s body shook like a twig as it was. Because it was wielded skillfully, there wasn’t a single wound on his face. But there was internal injury. The internal injury went up through Seungun’s nerves to his brain, making it stiffen rigidly.
If you don’t have money, you shouldn’t spend it. But there’s a class of people who are eager to spend even when they don’t have money.
Im Seungun’s parents spent other people’s money like it was their own. They said borrowing money was also their effort. Parents have no debt to their children, and children have debt to their parents, they said. Then Seungun gave it not as a loan but morally.
The money Seungun earned couldn’t satisfy them. The places someone who didn’t properly attend university could earn from were obvious. It would have been nice if they had at least paid off the debt little by little with that money, but that wasn’t the case either.
Debt upon debt, and ultimately never seeing the light.
When Seungun’s body grew and his head matured, they held out their hands in their child’s name. Those whose heads hadn’t matured borrowed money even from the underworld without fear. Seungun fell into the hands of President Gu, who moved the claw like a doll caught in a claw machine, exactly as planned.
President Gu wasn’t someone who lived within a legal system where a child could give up repaying a parent’s debt.
Seungun became someone who had done everything under President Gu.
“Eokkaе, look at this kid’s face.”
“……”
“Wow, look at this hospital room too. Even a slave is better off as a nobleman’s slave—his face has brightened compared to when he was under me.”
“Hu, hu, hu.”
Seungun exhaled roughly. The feeling of being choked was still vivid.
“Does that bastard have any woman problems?”
“He’s clean.”
Seungun said while panting.
“You sure?”
“As far as I know… yes.”
From what he’d seen so far, that was the case.
“Drugs.”
“What?”
“Why can’t you understand at once?”
“What kind of drugs are you talking about…”
“Doesn’t he do drugs? Celebrities these days do a lot of drugs.”
“No, I’ve never seen it.”
Seungun shook his head vigorously.
“Seungun-ah.”
“……”
“Let’s do well. Hm? We need to do well. That’s good for you and good for me. You just need to suffer for 6 months, so why are you dragging it out like this?”
President Gu grabbed Seungun’s head and shook it, then threw it hard at the end. The pain in his jaw muscles lasted longer than when he was hit once. Seungun rubbed his numb jaw as if he’d been given an anesthetic injection. When he thought it was all over, President Gu kicked Seungun’s stomach.
“Heoek!”
This was a hospital, so if he went outside, there might be people to help him. Something he wouldn’t normally do, because this wasn’t a place where his screams would be ignored like usual, Seungun’s paralyzed brain made him jump up and stagger, fleeing outside the hospital room door.
“Does he have no learning ability, or what? That stupid bastard is making a sane person go crazy again. Hey, grab him.”
Eokkaе was fast unlike his build. Seungun realized that this wasn’t an ordinary hospital room teeming with patients and guardians when you opened the door.
Before he could get out, his intact elbow was grabbed. His arm was twisted. The door closed and he was dragged inside. Eokkaе slammed the struggling Seungun, whose movements were close to desperation, onto the cold hospital room floor.
“Uk!”
A boot was flying toward his eyes. Seungun curled up his whole body tightly. And shouted.
“That person has two phones!”
The shining boot stopped right in front of his nose. Thud. The boot came back down gently to the floor.
“…What?”
The voice asking back had softened somewhat.
“That wiretapping device from before.”
“……”
“If we do it well, we might be able to install it.”
“Deadline.”
“I’ll try as quickly as possible. When I asked around, even people who worked beside him for a long time found out about his personal phone much later. But I found out much earlier than that.”
President Gu lowered his body. He tapped Seungun’s cheek with the back of his hand while making a fishy smile.
“I should acknowledge that he has that kind of talent.”
“……”
They left the hospital room soundlessly just as they had come. Seungun crawled up onto the bed. On the white bedding was a USB that President Gu had left behind. If he plugged this into Gi Siyoung’s phone and installed the program inside the USB on both Gi Siyoung’s and his own phone, he could operate the wiretapping program on his phone without inserting any separate device.
“Ha.”
Seungun grabbed his aching chest and sprawled out on the bed. The pleasant and spacious hospital room smelled musty as soon as President Gu left. Cobwebs formed from the corners and black mold grew. Anyway, it didn’t seem to be a day for getting beaten dusty. A way to survive somehow showed gaps little by little each time.
“Should I call this lucky?”
Interest accumulated with every breath.
Eokkaе (어깨) – President Gu’s enforcer/bodyguard [Note: “어깨” literally means “shoulder” and appears to be a nickname]
