He rummages through his inner pocket and pulls out something that flashes sharply.
A cold blade that gleams vividly even in the darkness.
The moment J sees the weapon K has pulled out, even his emotionless expression changes.
“D-don’t do this, K.”
“……”
“H-hey. C-calm down…”
“Think about it, J. Would you be able to calm down? When my precious son has become like that.”
“Min is not your son! Get a grip, K!”
Crazy lunatic bastard.
How many fathers in this world would madly thrust their cock into their own son’s hole?
You’re insane.
You just live burying that madness in stinking money by throwing money around.
And this world is insane too.
This rotten, festering world that doesn’t punish bastards like you. No, not only doesn’t punish—rather gives you wings.
A world where everyone’s gone mad in the food chain.
K’s actions were faster than J’s muttering with a smirk.
Startled by K’s action of flying in like lightning and striking his solar plexus, J staggered and fell backward. K skillfully twirled the knife he was holding and immediately aimed the fierce blade. Indeed, it was skill befitting a former renowned knife wielder. Even in this situation, an inevitable chuckle burst out at himself for having such leisurely thoughts.
J bursts into giggles for the first time.
Two men grappling like beasts in the darkness.
Coldblooded ones without blood or tears.
A mad sociopath who may have killed who knows how many people for his own pleasure and profit in his lifetime, and a taciturn psychopath who closed the door on emotions long ago.
This absurd knife fight scene between the two.
Just because of that little brat.
Because of that insignificant existence I captured… I caught.
J laughs.
Hahaha.
Hahahaha.
Hahaha!!!
Toward J laughing like a madman, K plunged the blade without hesitation.
On that particular day, Mom applied red lipstick for a long time.
Mom, who usually doesn’t wear heavy makeup at all, had her lips thickly coated looking like a bloody clown, which seemed somehow scary to young Min’s eyes.
“How is it, Min? Does Mom look pretty?”
Eyes curving affectionately.
The eyes he loves most in the world.
Good Min couldn’t bring himself to give an honest answer to such a mother.
“Yeah. You’re pretty.”
“How much?”
“The most in the world! Mom is prettier than Snow White.”
……That was the last image of Mom he saw in his life.
Mom.
Don’t go.
…Please don’t go.
Mommm!!!
The accident scene was indescribably horrific.
An accident sequence impossible to understand logically.
A 1-ton truck swaying this way and that from drowsy driving attempted to force entry into the first lane and got tangled with another vehicle that happened to be overtaking. That dizzying moment caused a chain collision, and Min’s parents’ vehicle, which happened to be going at its own speed, ended up taking the trip to the afterlife in that accident. It was truly a miserable situation where one’s nose gets cut off even with eyes open.
Mom’s bloodstains below the bright red rouge mark—drip drip drip.
Literally forming bright red blood, flowing down like a river.
A river of blood.
And a river of oblivion.
The end.
Mom!
Mom, the lipstick isn’t pretty at all.
Actually, I was so scared.
Why did you put on such bright red lipstick that day! Why!
Let’s wipe it off right now, Mom.
Red is ominous. Someone said it means death.
Let’s wipe it off, Mom.
Let’s change it to pink.
The dead woman’s eyes beneath the car suddenly flash open and she forms a bizarre smile—grin.
According to what he later heard from grandmother.
On that day, in addition to Min’s parents, a boy of similar age also died in the accident.
That boy and a female passenger presumed to be his mother.
The sedan they were riding in together was crushed beneath the truck that rear-ended them.
Both died instantly on the spot.
***
AM 6:30
His whole body feels heavy, as if thoroughly beaten with a club.
Beyond his thickly sunken vision, finally now, light enters.
The boy slowly raises his gaze thinly as if his eyes are dazzled.
“Are you coming to, baby?”
It was K.
Unbelievably.
It seems he nursed him by his side all night long.
The lukewarm towel in his hands drips warm moisture as if to prove it. It appears he changed towels all night to maintain his body temperature.
Why is this man.
Why is this man, violent beyond measure, trying to keep me alive?
Why.
Wasn’t all that ugly and chaotic torment enough?
To keep me alive and repeat the same thing again?
He feels like a hysterical fit might erupt.
The boy screams with all his might.
Ahhh.
Ahhhhh!
Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
K gently embraces the boy screaming while convulsing all over like a patient with latent epileptic symptoms, soothing him softly as if to a baby—shh… shh…
Like a lie, the boy regains stability within the man’s broad embrace.
“You were talking nonsense all night.”
K lets out a low sigh and lightly licks the boy’s sweat-drenched face. The moment his long sticky tongue like a male dog’s touches his skin, his whole body reflexively shrinks. Normally K would have been annoyed by Min’s such behavior. But now, for some reason, he seems to be in a very good mood.
Is it simply because I opened my eyes?
“Still, I’m glad you opened your eyes, Nastassja.”
Seeing him call him Nastassja, it seems to be his usual self.
But this kindness that’s awkward beyond measure.
The suffocating uncomfortable air.
“Tell me what you want to eat.”
“……”
“Now that I think about it, didn’t I say the other day I’d grill you some meat?”
If he eats meat with this body, he’ll probably vomit everything up after picking up just one piece.
The boy realizes like a ghost that his appearance, exhaling excited breaths, seems quite unstable somehow.
And J.
He’s not here—the very source of all this pain.
When K harasses and humiliates him.
Even when he holds him, J who would watch distantly and indifferently from a step away.
Why isn’t he here?
He who has no morning sleep always used to wake up at dawn.
Discovering the haggard face dry with fear looking around the room searching for something, K speaks in an ominous voice.
“J… are you looking for J?”
“……”
K laughs lightly and tucks the boy’s sweat-soaked hair behind his ear.
Looking like this, he’s exactly like an ordinary father.
Could he have lived this normally too? If only he had decided to do so from the start.
Why did he choose a life worse than beasts?
“He was taken to the emergency room at dawn.”
K said something shocking.
Toward the boy whose eyes widened, he drove in the final wedge firmly.
“I personally called it in. I could have buried him in the ground easily, but that bastard…”
“……”
“I cut off exactly two of his left fingers. This knife was too dull to cut the wrist.”
K shows the boy the blood-stained knife.
Whether it’s truly not an empty word, the vividly clinging red blood gives off an unpleasant fishy smell.
“Nastassja.”
“……”
“If you want, I can kill that fucking bastard.”
