Gong Haejin squeezed his dry, gritty eyes shut and then opened them. I need to look into this thoroughly. It’s only possible because I’ve tracked every movement of the bag, down to the exact timestamps.
“I didn’t know. If I had, I wouldn’t have done it. J-Jinho just said I only needed to receive the bag for him…… So that’s why. I’ll track down the rest of it and bring it back to you.”
For someone who had blindsided him so thoroughly, the excuses coming out of this kid’s mouth were pathetically flimsy.
Gong Haejin retrieved the folding chair propped against the corner of the wall and opened it up. This place always carried its own particular stench — stale and damp. A space where the smell of betrayal hung thick in the air. No matter how many times it was swept, scrubbed, and disinfected, that never changed.
It was a place where he brought people who got in his way and turned them into the living dead. It was only mildly unusual that the one sitting there now was a kid who didn’t quite fit the scenery he’d built over the years. Not that it changed what he had to do.
Creeeak — the chair let out a bleak groan beneath Gong Haejin’s weight. Even that small sound made the kid shrink further into his neck. As if there was anything left to hide.
The padded jacket pulled all the way up to his nose was the only thing Gong Haejin was willing to let slide right now. The kid peered out with round, wide eyes but couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact, staring at the floor instead. More precisely — at the tips of his shoes.
“Now it’s my turn to answer. I broke the cheap door lock. Given the size of the unit, it didn’t seem like multiple people lived there. No shoes out in the entryway…… So your family was out, and you were there alone? Consider yourself lucky they were gone. I would’ve finished what I came to do either way.”
Dohui’s pitch-black, round eyes darted frantically. He looked like he was dying to ask what had been done to his home. What kind of idiot hides stolen goods at his own place. Right there in the entryway, no less. Practically advertising it as free for the taking.
The more he thought about it, the more his irritation surged. The image of that apartment, ransacked in the search for the missing items, came back to him. He had passed through the entryway into the cozy living room and pushed open the master bedroom and the small room. He had paused briefly then. The master bedroom was neatly made up, but the small room laid bare the kid’s habits without filter. The crumpled blanket, the curtain left half-drawn — it said everything.
The sentiment was short-lived. Dozens of shoe prints had been ground into Dohui’s living space, and the appliances had been rendered useless. The sofa was slashed. The mattress reduced to rags.
The night before, his shoe had left its mark on that bed too — the very bed this little bastard had slept in without a care in the world. The unsettling warmth that lingered there had been irritating in its own right.
“If the door lock is broken……”
“Then the front door would be wide open.”
Dohui looked up at him in shock before jerking his head away. Then he mumbled under his breath, as if piecing together the implications.
“The, the door being open is bad, it’s r-really bad……”
“If you’re lucky, someone might report a break-in. Except the real thief is you.”
The kid’s fingertips had been trembling anxiously — he stuffed his hands under his thighs. A laugh almost escaped without permission. When Gong Haejin rose from his seat, the kid’s head lifted slightly. Gong Haejin shrugged off his coat, draped it over the backrest, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from inside his jacket.
Fzzzt — an orange glow swallowed the end of the cigarette. Even after inhaling the acrid smoke, not a trace of his frustration eased. This wasn’t going to resolve itself easily unless names started spilling out of this kid’s mouth. Losses were part of doing business, sure — but a loss was still a loss.
“P-please, let me go home.”
“So you can come back with the door shut?”
“I’ll, I’ll ask my friend what’s going on. Oh! I have my uncle’s number in my phone. A, a number that’s not saved under a name. Try contacting that number.”
“How considerate of you, finding a replacement to take your spot in here.”
Dohui’s phone had already been in his possession for some time. He couldn’t afford to sit around listening only to what this kid said. He had long since taken note of the family and friends in the contacts, as well as the number that had last been called the day before. What an idiot.
“Please……”
Tears spilled from those round eyes again, inevitably. From eyes already stained pink, transparent tears fell without strength. His forehead, drenched in sweat with damp strands of hair stuck flat against it, was rather round too.
What am I supposed to do with this.
He knew how to make a person suffer properly. He could slash through Dohui’s conscience without hesitation and make his life hell. Or just give him a decent beating. One hit looked like it might shatter bone, but the kid was still a guy. He’d survive to some degree.
It was then that Dohui, crying in muffled silence, had the nerve to ask.
“……B-but, is that real?”
“……”
“Is it what I’m thinking…… is that what it is?”
With quite the innocent face on him. If this was an act, he was practically award-winning.
“How would I know what you’re thinking.”
“D-drugs……?”
“Well — did you think that was something from a corner store?”
It was a meaningless question. Even so, Gong Haejin answered calmly. The desperation trembling in the kid’s voice was doing something to lift his foul mood, if only slightly.
“I…… I d-didn’t know. My friend just asked me to receive it for him…… He said it was his uncle. It was dark so I couldn’t see his face well. He said he was g-going to America……”
“Boring. Try a different story.”
“He said his uncle normally lives in America. That’s all I know……”
Gong Haejin took one more long drag from the filter. As he exhaled a slow stream of grey smoke, Dohui’s brow furrowed slightly.
“Ah — you don’t smoke, it seems.”
Nod, nod. The kid moved his small head.
Gong Haejin bent one knee slightly in front of him — lowering himself to the small kid’s eye level. Then he took one more pull from the filter and blew the smoke directly into his eyes. Dohui snapped his eyelids shut, but it seemed the smoke found its way in through his nose — a rough fit of coughing tore out of him.
Cough, cough.
Gong Haejin watched him cough for a moment, then stubbed the cigarette out against the thick padded jacket. A fitting hole was burned into the black padding.
Hk — the kid who had been coughing sucked in a sharp breath. He must have tensed, fearing the ember would reach his skin. Lucky or unlucky, the lit end was stubbed out at a spot that didn’t touch his flesh.
“Next is your forehead.”
“Ugh……”
“Crying doesn’t solve everything. Stop whimpering like a child and act like an adult. Take responsibility properly. Understood.”
He said that while reaching for the pack of cigarettes again. At that, the kid pulled the hand from under his thigh and grabbed Gong Haejin’s wrist in a sudden grip. The kid’s fingertips were ice-cold. The trembling hand that held him was slender and long.
“You don’t like pain?”
Gong Haejin sneered, glaring down at the hand wrapped around his wrist.
There was a flicker of defiance in the gaze looking straight back at him. Yeah, that’s more like it. That’s the only way I’d even consider giving you any credit. Gong Haejin smirked.
“Should I snap your fingers one by one.”
At those words, the kid yanked his hand back immediately. Every reaction laid the kid’s inner state bare with perfect transparency — it wasn’t even funny.
“Im Dohui.”
“……”
“Playtime ends here. From now on, you’re going to be very well-behaved for me.”
“What do you……”
“It means you’re going to pay for making a fool of me. By whatever means necessary.”
As Gong Haejin’s hand drew in close, Dohui pulled back. There was nowhere left to retreat, but the effort sent the chair — barely holding together to begin with — lurching sideways. That was exactly what it was here for. When something needed to be extracted, you tied someone to this chair and kicked it, and both the person and the chair went down together.
Gong Haejin caught the kid’s shoulder just as he was about to topple, steadying him, and smiled.
“It’s not like we’re back to wooden planks and torture chambers.”
With each word he spoke, a little more despair seeped into Dohui’s face.
Gong Haejin had decided from the start the most effective way to break him. He had a talent for that sort of thing. Beat him senseless, destroy him psychologically — or toss him to the subordinates to be handled accordingly.
The order of what to start with had already been determined.
“Im Dohui.”
“Yes? Yes?”
He was so startled he answered twice. Dohui had to think — over and over, dozens of times — about how to hold his body, where to direct his eyes, what words to bring out.
The man had maintained a faint, composed smile and an even voice throughout, but he was terrifying enough to make skin crawl. It fit far too well with the ice-cold exterior he carried. The pressure of not knowing what this man might do to him at any given moment was rapidly eroding Dohui’s reason.
Please believe me. It wasn’t me. He had said it dozens of times, but the man remained unchanging. Jinho had been supposed to come straight to Dohui’s place once he landed. He was so wronged he could go mad. The smell of the betrayal his friend had poured over him was nauseating in its unpleasantness.
How could he……
How could he……
That resentment stretched on and on. Never quite completing itself. Over and over.
Gong Haejin’s hand moved swiftly and seized Dohui’s padded jacket.
“Stay still. Let’s make this easy.”
At those words, his body locked up like ice. The zipper of the padded jacket Dohui had pulled all the way up to his throat slid open with a long, drawn-out sound.
Exposing everything tucked inside without mercy.
That sound sent a deep chill crawling across his skin. It sounded like tearing thin paper. Dohui realized, only too late, that the padded jacket had been his last shield.
Gong Haejin drew the zipper down at his leisure. Even from a standing position, he pulled it all the way down with ease and spread the jacket open slightly. Cold air slipped through the gap and rapidly cooled the body heat that had built up. Dohui shuddered against the chill.
A bleak winter draft filled the room entirely. The space had no heating at all.
Even so, Dohui had been sweating in a sorry state. The shirt underneath clung to his skin. His pants — and even down to his toes — felt clammy enough to be unsettling. He hadn’t even registered it until now.
“Your face is red too.”
“……”
“Now — what was it we said we’d be doing together?”
