“How much did you look into Sa Gong-hyun?”
“I know enough. When did I say I was operating on that bastard? Just provide the connection, just the connection. A friend I know… no, I said cousin, right? My cousin runs a business, and the business is doing so fucking well that he wants to move the headquarters to Seoul. Just leak that much. I’ll take care of the rest.”
You don’t know shit. Jae-young stared at Ju-seong with a displeased face.
Ju-seong originally didn’t touch those with social status. He mainly scammed ordinary citizens. So what wind had blown to make him target Sa Gong-hyun?
He said he wouldn’t touch Sebin, so he must be planning to use Sa Gong-hyun’s position. Or his connections?
He wondered if Ju-seong wanted to know why he was under operation and then get involved. Jae-young’s group would soon finish their work, and then Sa Gong-hyun, knowing this…
“Think carefully, Do Jae-young. If you ignore me and leave like this, you’re facing certain table death.”
Sa Gong-hyun, knowing this…
“It’s not like cooking porridge and giving it to a dog… it’s literally just cooking porridge. Do you understand?”
He would first target Ju-seong, who claimed to be a cousin. Beyond that, Jae-young didn’t want to think. After all, Jae-young had to backstab him and leave Korea anyway.
He didn’t want to think about anything else.
“Do whatever you want.”
It wasn’t his business whether Ju-seong got caught then or not. Whether he died or not. Jae-young had already warned him, and it was Ju-seong who had ignored the warning.
“You’ve thought well, bro. Your hyung is saving you. You could have gained trust by speaking up right away, right? It’s about sharing good things and helping each other. I’ll leave my business card. Contact me on a burner phone, not yours. Save the number nicely. That’s what family is for.”
If they became deeply involved like this, one of them would be eliminated. Unless both of them ruined their jobs, they couldn’t both succeed. He should know that…
Jae-young rather hoped that Ju-seong would be the one in that situation. No matter how quickly he moved, it would be difficult for him to finish the job faster than Jae-young’s group. It had to be that way.
It couldn’t be helped if Ju-seong, who survived after all the ups and downs, harbored malice towards Seung-kwon and Jae-young and came after them. Jae-young had no obligation to care that far.
Jae-young swore as he watched the front door through which Ju-seong had left.
“…Fucking bastard.”
As soon as the footsteps penetrating through the front door disappeared, Jae-young searched for his phone. He immediately connected a call to Seung-kwon.
Biting his thumbnail harshly, Jae-young threw the phone onto the bed as it switched to voicemail. This was already the third time. During Jae-young’s three attempts to call, Seung-kwon hadn’t answered a single call.
“What are you doing that you can’t answer the phone?”
The irritation that had been building finally erupted. Jae-young nervously ran his hands through his hair as he sat on the bed. Even deep breathing couldn’t calm his troubled mind.
This wasn’t something he could solve alone. Now that Ju-seong had taken Sa Gong-hyun’s business card and Jae-young had introduced him as his cousin, Ju-seong could contact Sa Gong-hyun at any time. It was just a matter of time.
He fell into deep thought. He tapped his leg nervously to facilitate clear thinking. With his head bowed and his interlocked fingers holding the back of his neck, Jae-young raised his eyes.
He picked up the overturned phone and checked the call log.
He immediately called Ju-yeon. Jae-young switched the phone to speaker mode as it rang. He brought the screen down and opened the location tracking application to check Seung-kwon’s location.
When he lightly pressed the blinking dot, Seung-kwon’s officetel address appeared.
“Is he sleeping…?”
He drummed his fingertips rapidly on his thigh. The continuous ringing eventually changed to an unwelcome female voice. It was the damn voicemail guide.
Jae-young abruptly ended the call and sprang up from his seat. He rushed out of the house without even grabbing his outer garment.
While trying to hail a taxi, he received a call from Ju-yeon. Jae-young immediately answered and moistened his lips with his tongue.
—Oh, Jae-young. Did you call? Noona just saw it because I was taking a shower.
Just then, Jae-young boarded a taxi that had stopped in front of him and recited Seung-kwon’s officetel address to the driver. He conveyed the current situation to Ju-yeon while anxiously staring out the window.
Regardless of what intentions Han Ju-seong had, he couldn’t just sit back and watch.
Jae-young stood in front of Seung-kwon’s officetel and pressed the doorbell. Without waiting, the front door opened immediately. He passed by Seung-kwon and entered.
“What’s going on?”
Seung-kwon’s hair was wet. Rather than being wet from washing, it seemed like he had been sweating. His breathing was also shorter than usual.
He calmly put on a bracelet on his left wrist. The bracelet Seung-kwon wore was of the same design as the one Jae-young wore. The GPS bracelet that supposedly had a bugging device built in.
“What were you doing that you didn’t answer the phone? Were you exercising?”
“Yeah, I was exercising.”
“And how did you hurt your arm again?”
His gaze inadvertently rose to the bandage wrapped around Seung-kwon’s forearm.
“Got bitten a bit.”
“By whom… Don’t tell me, Ver?”
“Yeah.”
“…”
Seung-kwon acted as if it was nothing, placing one hand on his waist while tousling his hair with the other. Jae-young’s face stiffened slightly.
“…So what did you do?”
“Why do you keep worrying about that since last time?”
He let out a sigh along with his voice. His voice was slightly lower than before.
“Jae-young.”
“…”
“That’s your problem. You give your affection too easily while pretending not to. I just used anesthesia, so don’t worry unnecessarily. He’s probably running around fine by now.”
Feeling uncomfortable with his sweat-soaked body, he took off his top and entered the dressing room. Jae-young could only stare blankly at Seung-kwon’s back.
Was I really like that…? It was a statement he didn’t want to accept.
He softened his frozen expression, gently chewing his lower lip. He exhaled a long breath. Belatedly trying to shift his thoughts, he looked around the house. What he unconsciously noticed was that Seung-kwon had gone out and returned.
The GPS had consistently shown the same location, but the air wasn’t stuffy enough for him to have exercised at home. Moreover, there wasn’t a single drop of moisture on the dumbbell rack that filled one side of the living room.
Of course, the possibility that Seung-kwon had exercised outside and returned couldn’t be ruled out. However, his suspicious feelings were stubbornly rising because…
“You came because you had something to say, right? What is it?”
Because he had a history of deceiving Jae-young before. Jae-young, who had been looking down at the dumbbells, raised his head. Seung-kwon’s figure was reflected in the transparent glass window.
Besides talking about Ju-seong, there was much more he wanted to say. He wanted to ask what on earth Seung-kwon was thinking. He understood that Seung-kwon was undergoing some unwelcome changes, but not knowing what they were was frustrating.
“Han Ju-seong came to see me.”
“Really? Why did he?”
“He wants me to be a bridge. It seems like he’s trying to get into a different construction project using Sebin.”
There wasn’t any noticeable change in his expression. Seung-kwon showed no signs of surprise, nor did he frown.
Jae-young turned around to clearly confirm his expression. At the same time, Seung-kwon turned his body. He picked up his phone from the table and sat on the sofa.
“Just play along for now.”
“…”
“I’ll find out what he’s up to…”
“Is that all?”
Jae-young immediately cut off the end of his sentence. Seung-kwon, who had been checking his phone, raised his eyes.
“Aren’t you curious why he specifically came to me and not to you?”
“Why is that?”
“Because I leaked information. Don’t tell me you knew about this too?”
Seung-kwon chose silence.
He had suspected it. The instruction to play along sounded like a conclusion reached in the early evening.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
