Just then, Gong Haejin stepped into Dohui’s line of sight. His large frame surged forward, completely blocking the manager from view.
Beside where the two men were bound, a drum barrel blazed with firewood burning fiercely inside it. It was the only source of warmth in this desolate place.
Gong Haejin positioned Dohui in front of it and bent slightly at the waist to meet his eyes.
“You’ve thought carefully about what you want to ask, right?”
“……”
When it actually came to opening his mouth, it wasn’t easy. His lips refused to move, as if glued shut. Dohui curled his toes inward. The warmth reaching him was nice, but the atmosphere and setting made it impossible to simply enjoy. Nobody was chasing him, and yet he wanted to lift his feet and run.
Gong Haejin clicked his tongue in a rhythmic tick-tock, tick-tock. It likely meant they didn’t have much time. The same went for him, he supposed.
“Why……”
The fading words slipped out barely above a whisper.
Gong Haejin tilted his ear close to Dohui’s lips as if to listen. It turned into a posture that looked like whispering, but Gong Haejin paid no mind to anyone else’s gaze. He had always been like that from the beginning.
“Why did you do it…… I didn’t, I didn’t know, it wasn’t me…… why did you say that……”
“The one you should be asking that is already dead, Dohui.”
“……If that person says it wasn’t me, says the truth — you’ll let me go, right?”
Gong Haejin appeared to think for a moment, then straightened up. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.
“Of course, that’s how it should go.”
Saying so, he drew out a pure white cigarette and placed it between his lips.
“I’ll ask for you.”
The delicate filter, looking as though it would snap at the slightest touch, trembled between his lips.
When Gong Haejin asked, the driver said that Dohui had planned everything together with them. The driver — who had just pushed Dohui off a hollow cliff — spoke with surprising steadiness for someone supposedly paralyzed with fear. As though it were the absolute truth.
Dohui was dumbfounded. I did that? I’m an accomplice? He tried to ask just that, but the men surrounding him wouldn’t allow him to get any closer.
Dohui’s voice rose and wrapped around the hollow surroundings. The resonating sound made the driver flinch.
The manager, too, had apparently planned things together with Jinho. They were to move on the day the goods came in. It had originally been Jinho’s job to handle it, but when he left for Europe, Dohui ended up taking over. That was all.
The confession came out in fragments — and what followed at the end of it was horrifying.
Their heads wrenched completely backward, they wept openly. Whenever they tried to scream something, only muffled, mangled sounds came out intermittently — they had been gagged again after confessing.
“Sending them off in one go is the easier method, I suppose.”
Pyo Mingyu stared at Gong Haejin with an expressionless face. He was waiting for the signal. One small nod and that sharp blade would slice across their throats without mercy.
“Ugh……”
Dohui let out a dazed sound.
“Listen well, Dohui.”
I don’t want to do that to you.
Gong Haejin’s voice rolled into his ear and drove itself into his brain like a thumbtack. Those few short words repeated in succession, pinned in place. Even now that Gong Haejin’s lips had gone still, it kept repeating.
“We’ll begin.”
Pyo Mingyu, after exchanging a look with Gong Haejin, barely moved his lips. At the same moment, Dohui drew in a sharp breath. It felt like the breath was catching somewhere and wouldn’t go down.
In an instant, the memory of the last man’s death surfaced vividly. A scene that had felt unreal. Blood had erupted like a fountain — like something out of a low-budget horror film.
Dohui’s hands and feet trembled. His limbs turned stone-cold. Every time he tried to draw breath, only white vapor puffed out.
Gong Haejin pulled Dohui closer to the burning drum barrel. In the flickering blaze, the figures of the men farther away wavered and distorted. It looked as though they were screaming inside the fire.
The world around them was utterly silent. As if every sound had been killed. Even for winter, not a single bird called out.
“Begin.”
Ignoring Dohui’s reaction entirely, Gong Haejin gave a short command.
“Mmph! Ugh!”
The manager’s skin was sliced first, sharp and clean. It didn’t seem meant to kill immediately — he writhed in agony.
At that, the driver beside him thrashed wildly, all four limbs bound to the chair. The image of him calmly framing Dohui just moments ago was nowhere to be found — with death right at his doorstep, he seemed to be dragging up every last ounce of strength from the floor trying to escape somehow.
Thud — he toppled over. Bound to the chair in that awkward position, he couldn’t even crawl, just flailed uselessly. Wails tore out through the gag. Dark eyes streaming with tears looked up at Gong Haejin.
“Mmmph, mmph…… ugh……”
Thrashing so hard, blood poured freely from the bound wrists. Even so, he couldn’t get loose — and Pyo Mingyu casually propped him back up as he squirmed like a larva. And he, too, was not killed in one go.
The driver paid the price for attempting to escape. He was cut in various places across his otherwise unharmed limbs. Even to Dohui’s eyes, they were deliberately avoiding the vital spots. As if the goal was to make the suffering last as long as possible.
The driver cried, screamed, trembled. In a slurred, broken voice, he begged to be spared. That voice was too wretched to bear.
“Watch properly.”
“No……!”
Dohui turned away. He couldn’t bring himself to look. It felt as though the pain was being transmitted directly to his own body — his limbs shook violently. Nerves frozen stiff from the cold couldn’t do their job.
He’d been stabbed so many times the flesh was in tatters. The driver, drenched a deep red like a piece of raw meat, had his gag removed at some point — but he could no longer scream. Blood pooled between his teeth. Every time his lips moved, a gurgling, bubbling sound escaped from somewhere deep inside him.
After a few more spasms, he went limp and slowly opened and closed his eyes. A gaze that had already recognized death turned toward Dohui. As if to say — you’re next.
Trickle…… trickle……
Wispy curls of steam rose from between Dohui’s legs.
“Hah……”
The strength left Dohui’s legs and he crumpled to the ground right there. He squeezed his eyes shut and clutched his head.
Huff…… huff……
The sound of his own breathing was deafening.
“Not entertaining?”
Gong Haejin’s question snapped him back to his senses. He’s insane…… completely insane. Every last one of them here was out of their mind.
The man’s bloodshot eyes stared at Dohui with a wild gleam. Dohui swallowed hard and began to crawl. His legs wouldn’t obey him.
The dust blanketing the floor left a long trail marking his path. Please let me live. Please……! Dohui screamed in a voice choked with terror. He’d meant to say something like that, but the sound tearing through his own ears felt like it didn’t belong to him. Still he kept screaming. I have to get out, I have to get out…… I’m going to die. Next time it’ll be me.
Heedless of the wet fabric between his legs, he crawled with everything he had. His legs wouldn’t straighten. Hic, hic — breath wouldn’t come. His vision swam and blurred, making it impossible to see clearly.
A pair of pitch-black shoes appeared side by side in front of him. Planted shoulder-width apart, solid as pillars. As if to say they weren’t moving.
The figure bent its knees slightly. Dohui’s eyes lifted weakly upward — because a hand had reached down to catch his chin and tilt it up. With every exhale, pale wisps of breath scattered.
“You’ve made a mess of yourself again. I showed you that so you could enjoy it.”
“P, please…… let me live……”
“Here we go again.”
He was right on the edge of losing consciousness. He wished he could just pass out like this. How wonderful it would be to plunge in an instant into some faraway dream. But that kind of luck never came to Dohui.
Grabbed by the hair by Gong Haejin, he was made to crawl like a dog — dragged even closer to the two men.
Blood, torn flesh, tears, hair matted with dirt — and lastly, an expression twisted from absorbing the full force of agony to the very end. No matter how much he cried, no matter how tightly he shut his eyes, it kept appearing.
“Wrap it up.”
“Nngh!”
The final scream was wrung from the very depths of the man’s body. Dohui clapped both hands over his ears. Gong Haejin was saying something, but it was swallowed whole by the screaming and nothing got through.
“……you, ……did well.”
“……like a god……”
“You…… if you…… ……will……”
In the fragments of voice drifting through, he looked up with eyes brimming with tears.
How much time passed, and how — he couldn’t tell. The two of them died quietly in the end. As if the first death — throat cut in one swift stroke — had been the anomaly.
Gong Haejin punished them with cruelty. He held both of Dohui’s ears in his hands and angled him so that the final moments of the two men were carved into him. Which meant he never once let Dohui go. And neither did their gazes.
Two corpses lying in spreading pools of blood — eyes wide open.
He blinked.
He met those eyes again.
Eyes that had gone dim and empty — the soul long fled, no longer focused on anything — and yet Dohui knew.
It’s over now.
His vision flickered and went dark in an instant.
