#048
Eden suspended operations for several days to prepare for the main party. More than half of the gaming tables and chairs that had filled the first floor were cleared away, and only authorized personnel were allowed to enter.
The sight of the golden corridors, usually packed with people, now completely empty was strange and even eerie. It was like seeing a castle abandoned by its owner.
“What do you think? It’ll be killer to have a party here, right?”
Yeon Tae-soo approached Yoo Seong-woo from behind, speaking in an excited tone like a child. Yoo Seong-woo felt the warmth enveloping his back as he looked down.
The empty Eden, viewed from the second-floor railing, felt more imposing than when it was full. With the people who usually covered the floor and walls gone, it revealed just how luxurious this place truly was. The guests who used to fill this place now seemed like impurities in comparison.
“It’s magnificent,” Yoo Seong-woo said briefly as he turned around. His eyes met Yeon Tae-soo’s, who was right in front of him.
“Won’t you regret it?”
This beautiful place might be destroyed. It might be taken away. Yet why are you making a move? And in such a flashy way?
“I might regret it a little if our Seong-woo is sad about not being able to play at Eden.”
It seemed he didn’t care about Eden either way. Yoo Seong-woo looked down at the first floor again. Yeon Tae-soo rested his chin on Yoo Seong-woo’s shoulder.
“Look, we’ll put a stage there. And a piano on the stage. You’ll perform there.”
It seemed he had completely adopted the term of endearment ‘you’ now. He had been calling him that since not long after they met, so Yoo Seong-woo had gotten quite used to it.
Yeon Tae-soo explained the party plans one by one. His excited low voice tickled Yoo Seong-woo’s ear.
Most of what he said didn’t register. There was something Yoo Seong-woo wanted to ask.
About that day, when he had yelled at Yeon Tae-soo to get out, Yeon Tae-soo had never once asked why he did it.
Even when they went to see the night view, he only hinted at it without asking directly, so Yoo Seong-woo had thought he might bring it up seriously as time passed. But seeing that he hadn’t said anything until now, it seemed he might never ask. That made Yoo Seong-woo even more anxious.
‘Does he know something?’
Although they hadn’t known each other long, they had spent several months together. They had already spent two seasons together. Given the personality of Yeon Tae-soo that he had observed, it seemed like he would have questioned it thoroughly, but the fact that he hadn’t said anything yet made Yoo Seong-woo wonder if he had guessed something and was keeping quiet.
It felt ominous and unsettling.
Yoo Seong-woo could easily imagine Yeon Tae-soo’s reaction if his identity was discovered.
‘He would kill me. No, I’d be lucky if he just killed me.’
Hadn’t he said multiple times with his own mouth that he hated androids? Would someone like that give an android a gentle death?
Just a few months ago, he was ready to use and torture that security android they caught until he was ready to discard it.
He couldn’t forget the expression on Yeon Tae-soo’s face that day. The cruelty he showed, the blood flowing on the floor…
Although he thought that this place, Yeon Tae-soo’s embrace, was the safest place, that was only if his android identity wasn’t discovered.
‘The malfunction symptoms are more unstable than I expected…’
His body was breaking down faster than he had anticipated when he decided to entrust himself to Yeon Tae-soo.
If he was discovered, there would be no hell worse than this place. If so, there was only one answer.
‘I should run away before I’m completely exposed.’
Feeling the warmth on his back, Yoo Seong-woo tried to steady his breath. Red warning messages obscured the golden Eden.
He needed to make a plan. A plan to disappear from this place without a trace, without Yeon Tae-soo knowing.
***
The day of Eden’s party arrived. Unlike usual, anyone could enter as long as they didn’t bring weapons or dangerous items, so all sorts of people flocked in.
Kim Ji-heon increased the number of security personnel and armed them all. At first, it almost became chaos due to the influx of people, but there were no fools who would act up in front of men in black suits holding machine guns. Order was naturally maintained.
Outside Eden, a long line of people waiting to enter stretched out. Even with a three-hour usage limit and managing the waiting crowd to avoid disturbing nearby businesses, the stream of guests seemed endless.
“So this is Eden…”
“It’s obnoxiously luxurious.”
People gazed at the building where important figures came and went with dazed expressions. They looked around Eden with a mix of dejection, admiration, bewilderment, and shock. This imposing palace glittering with gold was so alien it could rightfully be called another world.
A place that could justifiably borrow the name of heaven. That was Eden.
The urge to curse at the rich and those addicted to gambling soon passed. The feeling of drinking the sparkling welcome drink from glasses handed out at the entrance and stepping on white marble that reflected their faces was enough to elevate their mood and offset those negative feelings.
“Well, when else would we get to come to a place like this if not today?”
“That’s true. It’s not a place we’d usually even get to peek at.”
Just being able to see Eden, where important people usually frequented, for just a minimal entrance fee was satisfying enough for them.
To accommodate the many people, almost all the tables on the first floor had been cleared, but gambling tables and slot machines remained along the walls. There were already a few with bloodshot eyes, but most were kicked out before they could properly enjoy the games and get addicted. Today, there was also a time limit on visitors’ gambling.
‘It’s a headache if people with nothing get addicted. It’s annoying if people keep asking to be let in after the party ends.’
That’s what Yeon Tae-soo said, but Yoo Seong-woo somehow felt he had a different intention.
‘If ordinary working people get addicted to gambling, Haeya-dong will really collapse.’
No matter how low-class this place was, there were people who lived diligently, maintaining their livelihoods. They were the real foundation of Haeya-dong. Not those who sat glued to Eden, spinning slots with empty eyes, or those having messy sexual encounters in VIP rooms.
But even if Yeon Tae-soo really had such intentions, what did it matter?
It would just be kindness shown because they were human. It had nothing to do with him, an android.
Yoo Seong-woo was standing at the same second-floor railing as a few days ago, looking down.
At the innermost part of the first floor, in a wide circular space, there was a stage with a grand piano on it. It seemed they had moved the one from the second-floor room down here.
At some point, the people who had been chattering and laughing turned their attention to one side. The voices exchanged diminished and gazes concentrated. The host of the party had appeared.
Yeon Tae-soo appeared. Instead of his usual black suit, he was neatly dressed in a black coat with many buttons that came down below his knees. Badges glittered on the matte black coat.
What he wore was the dress uniform of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces.
“He was a soldier…?”
Someone cautiously brought up the topic.
“No wonder. That’s why he knows about the officer’s corruption.”
“Did he report it because he couldn’t stand seeing a fellow officer commit corruption?”
Many people had wondered how Yeon Tae-soo, the king of Haeya-dong and owner of Eden, knew so many high-ranking officials, no matter how large and magnificent this building was.
That question seemed to be answered now. If he was a soldier, an officer, it made sense.
“Then his hand and eye… did he lose them in the war?”
“A disabled veteran? Yeon Tae-soo?”
All sorts of speculations flew around, but Yeon Tae-soo didn’t correct them. He merely raised the glass in his hand.
“I won’t say much. I don’t intend to waste my precious guests’ time. Eat, drink, and enjoy yourselves to your heart’s content.”
His flippant tone didn’t fit the image of a whistleblower who had turned a country upside down or someone wearing a noble uniform. However, most people who had seen him around Haeya-dong didn’t find it strange.
They just raised their glasses in return with welcoming expressions. Yeon Tae-soo had opened Eden, which was previously allowed only to a select few. On top of that, he was a soldier who had even blown the whistle for the sake of the country. People’s favorable impression of him was already inflated to the maximum.
Natural noise filled the corridors again. Everyone eating and drinking was smiling. A few better-dressed individuals approached Yeon Tae-soo. They were regular patrons of Eden who had visited frequently before.
Yoo Seong-woo was watching this scene from the second-floor railing. A black mask firmly covered his face. Perhaps because the mask covered more of his face than a regular mask, he felt at ease even with the performance approaching.
Yeon Tae-soo was conversing with people. His behavior seemed exactly the same as usual. However, the atmosphere was different.
‘You really intend to wage an all-out war.’
For whatever reason, Yeon Tae-soo had said he didn’t accept himself as a war hero. Even though he had led the country to victory.
Yet now he suddenly stood before people wearing a uniform. That uniform certainly had an effect. The message conveyed by the ‘uniform’ was clear. Especially in this country where the war had ended just a few years ago.
The matte black coat was like a black hole in the glittering Eden. If the starless universe were personified, wouldn’t it look like that?
Why was he so dark yet beautiful? Was it because he was human after all?
Yeon Tae-soo, who unlike usual was wearing an elegant old-fashioned watch instead of a functional one, briefly checked the time and stopped his conversation with the person beside him to look up. He immediately found Yoo Seong-woo leaning on the second-floor railing, as if he had known he was there all along.
It seemed it was time. Yoo Seong-woo touched the mask he was wearing to check it. The scent of paint that hadn’t fully dried yet caught in his olfactory sensors.
It was time to appear before the people. It was time for him, created for performance, to finally fulfill that function.
