His bloodshot eyes, vessels burst and red, fixed on Sa Gong-hyun. In those eyes, stained with blood and difficult to discern the pupils, fear was deeply evident.
His limp body soon heavily fell to the floor with a thud. Groans crept through the air layer. The thick smell of blood, like molten iron poured over, covered the room.
Kim Jung-han approached and offered a handkerchief. Taking it, Sa Gong-hyun wiped his hands first, even before the blood that had splattered on his face.
“Next time, cut off the tongue first. Or pull out the teeth.”
“Yes.”
Sa Gong-hyun stood in place and confirmed that Chairman Jang’s struggles had completely ceased. He slightly pushed his body with his shoe. It seemed he had fainted from suddenly losing a considerable amount of blood.
“That. Did you look into it?”
“Yes, we’re still looking into it.”
“Find it as soon as possible. On the way to taking him to the hospital, find and clean up any places where evidence might remain.”
“Yes.”
Having received the answer, Sa Gong-hyun turned around with a clean movement.
“Go in.”
A precarious silence swirled behind his light steps.
***
Sa Gong-hyun slowly raised his hand that had been rubbing his eyelids.
He put his hand in his jacket’s inner pocket and took out his phone. It was a new one he had procured because the phone he used previously had become too dirty.
It was an affair he could have adequately played along with, but when he fell for such an obvious smishing attempt, it only led to more trouble.
He manipulated the phone with concise movements. Soon, what appeared on the screen was a digital map.
What was blinking inside was Do Jae-young. To be precise, it would be Do Jae-young’s bracelet.
After confirming that the marker was blinking at his house, Sa Gong-hyun put the phone away. Just then, the car slowed down.
The car, which had briefly waited in place, soon slowly entered the garage.
Previously, he always sent the car ahead before entering the alley, but that changed since he started staying at his house. No, rather than saying it changed, it would be more accurate to say it reverted to how it was before.
Sa Gong-hyun, who got out of the car, moved his steps. The guard who was standing at the iron door connecting the garage to the house opened the door in sync with Sa Gong-hyun’s walking pace. Ver, who had noticed his return home, raised his head from where he was lying in front of the sofa.
“He fell asleep a little while ago.”
“I see.”
“Then rest well, Executive Director.”
Another guard who had been waiting inside the house left after a brief report. Sa Gong-hyun’s gaze wandered around the interior.
“Now for the next news. Chairman Jang In-soo of Sebin Construction is hospitalized in a comatose state and will likely be unable to participate in management in the future…”
Jae-young was sleeping on the sofa. In the direction where he had curled up, the anchor’s voice continued steadfastly. He didn’t seem the least bit concerned about the news of Chairman Jang, who had been kneeling at his feet and spitting blood just a short while ago.
Sa Gong-hyun approached Jae-young without hesitation. His vision was filled with the sight of him lying down in attire that was ambiguous—neither fully dressed nor undressed.
He turned off the TV that was loudly chattering. He carried the body that had uncomfortably fallen asleep on the sofa to the second-floor bedroom. As he laid him on the bed, Jae-young moved slightly.
Sa Gong-hyun sat on the edge of the bed and watched his sleeping lover’s face for a long time.
He didn’t know. He never expected that he would keep his eyes on a man who was merely amusing to him for such a long time.
Feeling possessiveness toward a man, deploying guards in his space to monitor him, bringing the dog he had been raising outside into his home for him.
The artificial lighting that he always kept on no longer had its purpose, everything.
None of this was in any part of the planned range.
***
It wasn’t planned from the beginning. It just happened that the situation of becoming entangled with them disturbed Sa Gong-hyun’s peace of mind.
When your main business involves things not permitted by the country, frequent incidents occur under the guise of managing key clients, but called surveillance.
One day, he was informed that a client had secretly invited a high-ranking police officer to his residence.
Among the key clients, few knew Sa Gong-hyun’s face, but this client was a special management target. He was one of the few clients.
He had only ordered an investigation out of concern for any potential discovery. The news he learned in less than two hours was the ridiculous story that the client’s child had been scammed.
Having lost secret funds that had already been laundered, they couldn’t file a report and planned to inquire secretly using connections.
It was then that Sa Gong-hyun learned through Kim Jung-han that the identity of the scammer was none other than Cha Seung-kwon. There was one person who always moved with him, but his face was never revealed as his appearances on CCTV were always edited out afterward.
It was evident that this man was Cha Seung-kwon’s weakness. Judging by how he left his own appearance intact while meticulously erasing everything about the man, it seemed they weren’t just an ordinary relationship.
To this, he had scoffed that one was a foolish man, and the one who was scammed by that foolish man was a pathetically stupid man, and let it pass.
About a year passes after that. Sa Gong-hyun, who had been sitting on the bare floor leaning against the bed, opened his closed eyes.
With his head fully tilted back, the bright orange ceiling was the first thing he saw. A rustling sound and angry moans reached his ears. His more relaxed eyes picked up the gun that had been placed haphazardly.
Sa Gong-hyun pulled the trigger following the direction of the sound. There were no bullets fired from the gun with an empty magazine. However, he saw the ignition that occurred inside the metal and heard the gunshot.
Though the form was dimmer than before, it was clearly visible. All the corpses that had died before him had grotesque forms.
It was a hallucination caused by the drug he occasionally sought as a painkiller when he had severe headaches.
The headache quickly subsided, the effect of the drug was intense, the dependency was low, and above all, the drug components didn’t remain in the body for long. After taking the drug and sleeping, his head would quickly clear. All those conditions often dispelled any hesitation in an instant.
The corpses made up of gathered sounds were losing their forms one by one. The surroundings became quiet, and the orange lighting, which had taken form and flowed fluidly, gradually found its place.
How much time had passed after that? Only after an immeasurable amount of time had passed, at least to him, did the door open carefully.
“Executive Director, it’s Kim Jung-han.”
The focus that had been fixed on one spot despite the presence finally wavered. Sa Gong-hyun’s head turned slowly, yet crookedly.
“…I would have told you not to come.”
His deeply sunken voice extended unkindly. Whenever he sought the drug, he would turn off all his phones for two days and live in seclusion.
Kim Jung-han, the obedient puppet, should have been waiting silently until his master’s seclusion ended. Not coming unexpectedly like now and disturbing him.
“I came because I have an urgent message to deliver. …There’s a problem with the president… …it seems, …awkward… …is in the midst of explaining.”
Kim Jung-han’s voice cut off, and quite a long silence passed. His once smooth brow suddenly furrowed. Sa Gong-hyun, who had closed his eyes again, raised his hand to rub his eyelids.
“Again.”
“LN Logistics’ President Choi has been conned by a swindler and lost most of his funds. The amount lost is substantial, so it seems the operation of the company has become difficult. He came on his own to beg us not to touch his family. First, we need to turn the company around, so we need to manage the situation, but for that, Executive Director, you would need to approve…”
“What did he fall for?”
“He was scammed in a gambling fraud three days ago.”
LN Logistics was a business that Sa Gong-hyun had unofficially acquired previously. He removed his hand that had covered about half of his face. His pronounced double eyelids signaled that he was currently in an extremely displeased state.
“He dared to gamble with my money.”
“Yes, it seems he tried to cover the losses from logistics procurement issues, squandered it, and then went back in after bribing a professional gambler, but appears to have been played instead.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
