Seok-ho paid him no mind and blew out another stream of smoke. At the same time, he tossed out a cold, mocking smirk.
Jun-seo quickly stepped back. By this point, anyone would have realized that Seok-ho had absolutely no intention of continuing the conversation—but Jun-seo remained stubborn.
“That’s not the important part. Just listen to what I’m saying.”
He casually dragged the topic back to the beginning and resumed the story he had briefly paused.
“Anyway, that guy’s name is Baek Kyung-wook. And that bastard calls Kim Kang-woo his wife and drags him around by his side. He’s a really sly piece of work. Good-looking too—tall and ridiculously handsome. But his behavior? Absolutely terrible.”
Jun-seo frowned as if to give credibility to his words.
“At school he hangs around with guys who have terrible reputations. And I’ve heard that even though he’s just a student, he goes to bars and clubs and stuff. But the crazy thing is, he’s super respectful to the teachers. And he’s good at studying too. So nobody can touch him. The teachers all kind of know he’s not actually a nice guy, but everyone just keeps quiet about it. Apparently his family background is insane. Something like his father being a National Assembly member. They say the reason Kim Kang-woo can’t even fight back even though he’s constantly bullied by Baek Kyung-wook is because of the relationship between their fathers.”
Jun-seo went on and on about things no one had asked him to explain.
Finally his chattering mouth stopped, and his bright eyes fixed expectantly on Seok-ho.
“If someone saw those two together at a tattoo shop on the weekend, wouldn’t anyone be curious? So what exactly did they come here for, those two?”
Since he had explained things in such exhausting detail, it seemed he expected Seok-ho to respond in kind.
But Seok-ho had absolutely no intention of indulging him.
After crushing the shortened cigarette under his shoe, he turned his back without a word.
“Huh? Hyung? Hyung, where are you going?”
Ignoring Jun-seo calling after him, Seok-ho headed down to the basement of the building.
“Ah, seriously. If someone talks to you, you should at least react so the conversation’s fun. You’ve got zero sense of conversational manners.”
Grumbling, Jun-seo followed him into the shop.
“Hyung, did you eat lunch? Want to go get spicy pork cutlet with me? I heard there’s a really good place around here.”
Ignoring the chatter behind him, Seok-ho rummaged through a pile of documents stacked nearby.
Soon he pulled out an envelope stamped with the words Baekyeon Hospital and shoved it against Jun-seo’s chest.
“You’re noisy. Take this and get lost.”
“Oh, as expected. Our hyung’s quick on the uptake.”
“If it wasn’t for that, why would you crawl all the way over here today?”
“What? I drop by all the time, don’t I? Because I miss you, hyung.”
Speaking shamelessly, Jun-seo opened the envelope and checked inside.
The contents were the trait examination results—the main reason he had come here today.
“So how did it turn out?”
“It’s written there. Same as before.”
“So it’s the same again.”
Nodding slowly, Jun-seo closed the envelope again. He didn’t bother pulling the results out to read them. It wasn’t as if Seok-ho would lie about something like that, so there was no need to confirm it himself.
Instead, Jun-seo grinned.
“Looks like there’s really not much time left doing this anymore, huh, hyung?”
Ignoring the question seeking agreement, Seok-ho crossed his arms firmly with a blank expression. His cold eyes fixed on Jun-seo.
The meaning was clear: if you’re done with your business, disappear from the shop.
Jun-seo immediately read his intention and drooped his brows dramatically.
“Hyung, are you always going to treat your precious younger cousin like this?”
“I’ve never had a cousin like you.”
Jun-seo had put on a pitiful expression worthy of an actor nominated for Best Actor at a film festival—but the response he got was icy.
“Ah, come on. Why are you like this again? We’re still close cousins, you know.”
Jun-seo playfully tapped Seok-ho’s arm.
Seok-ho twisted the corner of his mouth upward.
“We’re not even the same blood.”
The short sentence carried a heavy impact.
A brief silence fell between them. For a moment, something like hurt flickered across Jun-seo’s eyes. This time it wasn’t acting.
Of course, whether it was real or fake, Seok-ho didn’t care.
“Get out. I’m too lazy to deal with you.”
“You really know how to say awful things.”
“If you don’t want to be treated like this, stop coming here. I’ll mail the documents to you.”
“That won’t work. Do you know how much pocket money I get from Cheol-ho hyung for running this errand?”
“Since you brought him up, go tell him this too. Tell him to stop attaching you to me like a watchdog. I’m not up to anything.”
“Nope, nope. I can’t cut off my nice little side income. Not a chance.”
Jun-seo shook his head firmly and wagged his finger. Then he slipped the envelope into the messenger bag he had brought.
“Well, since you won’t eat lunch with me, I guess I’ll go eat alone.”
He had said it hoping to stir some guilt—but Seok-ho didn’t react at all.
Judging by his expression, which looked like you could stab him and not get a drop of blood out, it was obvious the attempt had been pointless again.
“You cold-blooded—”
Jun-seo shoved both hands into his pants pockets and shook his head. If he stayed any longer, who knew what else he might hear.
He turned around without hesitation.
“I’ll come visit again next time. No need to see me off, hyung. Bye. Take care.”
Leaving behind a lively farewell, he disappeared.
The glass door rang with a jingle as it closed, and a welcome silence settled over the shop.
Seok-ho tossed the cigarette pack and lighter he had been holding onto the table with an indifferent flick of his hand. Leaning back heavily into the sofa, he rubbed the stiff muscles of his neck.
He had spent less than thirty minutes dealing with that immature high schooler, yet it felt like he had exhausted a considerable amount of energy.
This was why dealing with young punks was so tiring.
Of course, it wasn’t only kids he found annoying. To Seok-ho, most people were simply bothersome.
Tilting his head far back, he stared at the beige ceiling.
Kim Kang-woo and Baek Kyung-wook.
He replayed Kwon Jun-seo’s words that he had half-listened to earlier. He had ended up learning useless information. He hadn’t needed to know that much. Now all it left behind was a vague sense of discomfort.
Most tattoo artists don’t accept minor clients.
Sometimes it’s simply a matter of conscience. Other times it’s to prevent the various problems that could arise later.
Or both.
At the very least, even adults have to sign consent forms before getting tattoos. And in a country like South Korea, where tattooing itself is technically illegal, people are even more cautious.
However, sometimes reckless minors lie about being adults and demand a tattoo. In those cases, even if they obviously looked underage, Seok-ho usually pretended not to notice and let it slide.
To be honest, Seok-ho wasn’t the type to work with much conscience. If it made money, he took the job. When he first jumped into this line of work, it was because he had no choice but to survive.
Now?
Well.
It wasn’t that there was any particular reason. He simply had no desire to pretend to be a model adult. Nor did he see any real need to.
He had become fairly well-known as a tattoo artist now, and he made enough to live comfortably—but he didn’t see why he needed to cling to some moral code.
What benefit did that bring to life, anyway?
And yet today, he had made an unexpected choice. He had turned a customer away. And he had done it using the excuse that they were minors. In the past, that had never happened even once.
Seok-ho thought back to the two people whose atmospheres had been completely different.
More precisely, he recalled Kang-woo.
Round eyes with faint double eyelids. A small nose with a rounded tip. Full lips that were noticeably plumper than the rest of his features. His skin was so pale it almost looked bloodless, and the only color on it was those lips. It looked like a few drops of pale pink paint had been spilled onto a sheet of white paper.
People might call it a pure, flower-like appearance. But the reason it didn’t feel beautiful was because he looked less like a fresh flower and more like a dried one. Well-shaped and easy to preserve—but completely devoid of life. A dried flower that had lost all its vivid fragrance and color. The reddish marks around the back of his neck, barely hidden by his clothes, only reinforced that impression.
And although he was clearly taller than most boys his age, perhaps because of his hunched posture—or perhaps because of his thin frame—he gave the illusion of being small and frail.
That might have been even more noticeable because the man standing beside him, Baek Kyung-wook, was so large.
Seok-ho didn’t particularly enjoy observing people. And yet for some reason, his gaze had kept drifting back to that boy. Probably because the emotion in the boy’s eyes had bothered him.
Yes. It had been resignation.
Eyes that held not the slightest expectation toward life. Eyes a normal high school student should never have.
That expression lingered in his mind as if etched onto his retina, bothering him for quite a while.
“Useless thoughts.”
Still, the feeling probably wouldn’t last even a day. Just a fleeting incident that wouldn’t disrupt his monotonous life.
Better not get involved. Interfering in someone else’s life without reason was never wise.
Seok-ho shook off the distracting thoughts and moved on. Just as he had hoped, before long the memory of Kang-woo faded from Seok-ho’s mind.
Each day passed in a blur, busy enough just focusing on work. Seok-ho’s life was like a hamster wheel. Similar days repeated endlessly, and a slightly unusual day was quickly forgotten. So he never imagined he would see that boy again in such a state. Soaked completely like a puppy abandoned on the street in the rain.
He never imagined the boy would come looking for him.
***
He opened the zipper of his damp bag. Rainwater had seeped into the backpack, leaving the inside a complete mess.
After managing to find a set of clothes that wasn’t ruined and changing in the shop bathroom, the chill in his body finally seemed to fade.
The man had stepped outside with a cigarette and lighter, telling him to wait here for a moment.
Sitting on the sofa, Kang-woo looked around the silent shop. There was something strangely surreal about sitting alone in a shop whose owner wasn’t present.
About five minutes later, the man returned carrying the cold air with him.
A sharp smell of cigarette smoke clung to him. It was a scent Kang-woo often smelled from Baek Kyung-wook, and for some reason it made him a little tense—but he followed the man without showing it.
Soon the two of them left the shop and got into a car.
Truthfully, this wasn’t what Kang-woo had hoped for. All he had wanted was to quietly spend one night on the sofa at the man’s shop and leave. So when the man showed signs of closing up and taking him along, Kang-woo hesitated for a while before carefully making a suggestion.
“I… I can just sleep on the sofa at the shop. Just for one night. I’ll leave when you come to work tomorrow, so please don’t worry about me. You should just go home.”
He was already deeply grateful that the man hadn’t thrown him out. He didn’t want to follow him all the way to his home and make him uncomfortable. But after hearing the man’s response, Kang-woo had no choice but to quietly gather his things.
“What reason do I have to trust you enough to leave you here alone?”
The black SUV the man drove was as massive as his own build. It was so large and tall that when the door opened, a step board automatically unfolded beneath it. Aside from buses, Kang-woo had never ridden in such a big car before.
Fidgeting with the seatbelt, he looked around the interior. The long display panel combining the instrument cluster and infotainment system glowed softly in the darkness.
After scanning the inside for a while, his gaze eventually drifted sideways.
The man handled the large vehicle with ease.
Watching him smoothly turn the steering wheel and skillfully navigate through narrow alleyways, Kang-woo couldn’t help but admire him inwardly.
