Do that again?
I don’t want to feel that dog-like feeling again.
Woof woof, woof woof woof!
Fucking hell, if he’s not going to answer, he should take the hint and hang up. Is he planning to cling on until the very end?
“Yes, this is Han Taesung…”
—Taesung. Do you want it shoved in your ear hole too?
Making vulgar remarks in such a refined voice—he’s cornered the market on that. Taesung squeezed his eyes shut, his entire face scrunched up.
“It was on mute, so I didn’t hear.”
—I can hear your bullshit all the way over here.
“You can hear that?”
—What?
Oh, wasn’t he talking about the ringtone? Taesung cleared his throat and changed the subject.
“What do you need?”
—Are you handling the job I gave you properly?
“It’s barely been any time since you assigned it, and you’re already nagging…”
—Baekjin Shopping Complex. Have you at least been there, Taesung?
Jang Hyeokjin’s voice was beginning to edge with anger. Hearing that tone made Taesung feel as if something had been shoved down his throat, choking him. Taesung unbuttoned his shirt collar that was fastened tight up to his Adam’s apple. At the same time, he let out a breath with a cough, barely managing to breathe.
“Yes, yesterday.”
—Did you talk to that bastard?
“The vegetable shop owner isn’t the building owner. There’s a separate money source…”
—So? Just tell me straight whether you met him or not.
His stomach churned. He felt like he was going to throw up. Was it motion sickness? I should’ve known from the moment Manager Kim, that son of a bitch, started driving like shit.
Taesung rolled down the window, put a cigarette in his mouth, and turned his gaze outside. The road that had been moving smoothly was now completely jammed, with cars of all kinds lined up bumper to bumper. After lighting it and taking a drag, his stomach settled down a bit. Taesung glared at the grayish smoke dispersing in the air and answered in a raspy voice.
“I didn’t meet him.”
He’d expected a tongue-lashing to follow, but Jang Hyeokjin only snorted.
—Really?
His chest tightened again. With trembling hands, Taesung hastily brought the cigarette back to his lips. The tip burned down rapidly.
—Today, no matter what, meet that bastard, present the negotiation proposal, get an answer, and report back to me. Do you understand what I’m saying, Taesung?
“Yes.”
The call ended before Taesung could even finish his response.
That son of a bitch… Does he already know? Did he send Taesung knowing full well that the person who bought the building shares is Hyun Jaeha? If Hyun Jaeha, that bastard, has reappeared, he could just tell him to handle it—so why does he specifically insist on meeting the ‘building owner’ to negotiate?
Right, if Jang Hyeokjin knew the truth, there’s no way he’d be this soft about it. It’s just that Taesung saw Hyun Jaeha yesterday, so he’s getting worked up on his own for no reason.
“Hey, Manager Kim.”
“Yes?”
“I’ll drive, so clock out.”
“I clocked in less than an hour ago though?”
“So what? You want me to make you run errands?”
“No, that sounds great.”
Manager Kim glanced furtively at Taesung and grinned. Inside that big head of his, he’s probably already picturing himself half-sprawled on the sofa like a Roman aristocrat, plucking Shine Muscat grapes and petting Mango.
Lucky bastard.
Even in the morning, the produce shop had a steady stream of customers. While elderly people who’d come rattling their shopping carts were examining whole bags of thousand-won onions, the shop owner he’d seen the day before was walking around selling sunchokes or whatever they were.
“You heard what the expert said on TV, right? These are so good for diabetes.”
“How do you eat them?”
“You eat them like potatoes. You can steam them with rice, braise them, stir-fry them. If you have a food dehydrator at home, you can dry them and brew them as tea. This isn’t food, it’s medicine—medicine.”
This is no different from a quack medicine peddler.
“Hey, boss!”
The woman glanced sideways at Taesung. But without any particular reaction, she turned to offer a sunchoke to another old man. Would you like to try one raw? Should I cut you a piece? At the mention of getting something free, customers who’d been fingering spinach and cucumbers swarmed over.
“Hey, damn it, can’t you hear me talking?”
The woman seemed to plan on hiding from Taesung in the crowd, but unfortunately, since they were both noticeably taller than the people around them, they ended up awkwardly making eye contact over the gray-haired heads of the elderly. Just then, the woman thrust something out. Overwhelmed by her brazen attitude, Taesung reflexively accepted it without even knowing what it was.
It was a piece of sunchoke. With a starch toothpick firmly stuck in it.
Is this person messing with me?
“Hey, who the…”
“Hyung!”
The woman paid no more attention to Taesung. As if her sole mission was to sell off all the sunchokes brought in today, she focused only on carefully slicing sunchokes for the customers who’d gathered around.
Instead, a familiar voice reached his ears from somewhere. Taesung shuddered at the creeping sensation down his spine and turned around.
There was only a fluttering advertising flag that read “We Buy Fruit” and a couple of elderly people poking around to see what was happening on their way back from shopping at the traditional market.
“Haha, hyung, where are you looking? Over here.”
A bright, cheerful laugh.
Just from hearing the sound, the image of a grinning kid’s face clearly formed before his eyes. Taesung hated his laughter. Because whenever he heard that endlessly bright and warm sound, as if he didn’t know anything about the dark parts of the world, the world Taesung stood in felt more hideous and filthy, making him feel endlessly miserable.
What’s so good that you’re grinning like that? Your biological father ran off before you were born—who knows if he’s dead or alive—and the father who raised you died a miserable death after suffering hardships he never deserved because of you. Your grandfather who took you in is dead too, the inheritance you should’ve received was all snatched away by that bastard Jang Hyeokjin, and you ran away in terror, hiding like a rat—so what the fuck is there to be happy about?
Taesung looked across the street. People were passing by sparsely, but Hyun Jaeha wasn’t among them. No matter how far away he was, there was no way Taesung wouldn’t recognize that conspicuous face.
“Hyung, you need to look up.”
As if drawn by the voice, he tilted his head back. He saw the silhouette of someone precariously crouched on the railing of the 4-story building’s rooftop, looking down at Taesung. The pale sunlight happened to be shining on the back of that person’s head, so he couldn’t make out the face due to the shadow, but just from that fluttering, wavy hair, he could tell who the silhouette belonged to.
It was Hyun Jaeha.
Jaeha was stretching out his arm freely, waving his hand.
“Don’t you dare run off—just wait right there.”
“Haha, why would I run away? Hyung came looking for me.”
That damn ‘hyung,’ ‘hyung.’ Did he eat his age through his asshole? How long is he going to call me that childish title?
Taesung immediately rushed into the shopping complex. Even though it was midday, the hallway was dim and gloomy. The narrow corridors branched out in all directions like an anthill—who knows how many times they’d subdivided each floor. Taesung randomly entered a corridor lined with suspicious herbal medicine shops and labor center signs, looking for the stairs. A faint arrow pointing to the 2nd floor was dimly drawn on the emergency guide light that cast a murky green glow. Taesung thought it looked just like Hyun Jaeha’s eyes and followed the arrow.
Inside the building were shops lined up selling miscellaneous goods—who knows who even came to buy them. But he couldn’t see any stairs. He asked an old shop owner who was dozing off in front of a janggi board where the stairs were. The owner only answered, “Over there, over there.”
“Fucking hell, if there’s a fire, everyone’s gonna die because they can’t find the stairs.”
Why can’t I find the stairs that everyone else says are ‘over there’? Why do I keep getting lost in the wrong alleys when others manage to find their way just fine?
“Only hyung would die. Other people all know where the stairs are.”
This time the voice clearly came from behind him. Taesung whirled around, startled. The stairs that he couldn’t see no matter how much he looked were right there.
“I was getting old waiting. Though even then, I’d still be younger than hyung.”
Taesung gritted his teeth. Then, suppressing the urge to hurl insults, he gestured toward Jaeha.
“Come down here.”
“Hyung should come up. You already looked around the first floor. We haven’t seen each other in a while—does it look like there’s a suitable place to catch up down there?”
“Ha, then don’t you dare move from there.”
“I’m good at waiting. You know that, hyung.”
Taesung, who’d been about to start walking, stopped dead at these words and looked back at where Jaeha had just been, his brow furrowing. Jaeha had already disappeared—who knows when he’d moved. Only the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs echoed through the narrow corridor.
He ran up the stairs in one breath—stairs whose corners had been worn round from countless people going up and down. Only after climbing four and a half floors did he see the rooftop door, half-closed.
Taesung kicked the door open, exhaling the breath that had risen to his throat. The moment he stepped onto the rooftop—completely different from the dim interior, flooded with white sunlight—the densely packed high-rise apartment complex crashed into his field of vision like a wall of water rising just before a tsunami.
