Of all the business cards to choose from, I had to pick this one. It was fortunate that it was a card Seung-kwon had kept; otherwise, he would have stormed out.
“The boss stepped out for a bit, and I usually handle all the inquiries. As you can see from the price list, with so little information, it’s going to cost you double the base fee. You look like a student, will that be okay?”
Jae-young stared at the man’s appearance as he tapped the yellowed paper with his fingertips. A long sigh escaped him.
“Don’t make me… repeat myself. Just tell me when your boss will be back.”
He spoke through gritted teeth. The man’s eyes widened at the sudden informal speech combined with an irritated tone. He stiffened awkwardly and his lips twitched.
“…He went to the bank, so he should be back soon.”
“Call him right now. Tell him to get his ass back here if he doesn’t want to miss out on a client. You get paid per case, right? I’ll help you meet your daily quota all at once. If he gets here before I stand up, double what you quoted.”
The man, who had twitched one eyebrow when Jae-young first spoke briefly, now openly stiffened his face.
Ahem, ahem, the man who probably wouldn’t think of quitting smoking despite having phlegm in his throat all day, kept clearing his throat. His posterior, shifting in his seat multiple times, seemed to be debating whether to stand up or not.
“Well, if you wait a little, he’ll be… Ah, here he is. Please stay seated. Boss, we have a customer here.”
The man, who had been rubbing his lower jaw in apparent confusion, raised one hand while looking behind Jae-young. Jae-young tilted his head back fully to check the face of the man said to be the boss.
He was a man that Seung-kwon had met before. Jae-young remembered that while they were eating together, Seung-kwon had interrupted his meal to go outside the building and receive documents from this man.
Jae-young straightened his head after immediately recognizing the boss. In the meantime, the investigation agency boss sat down in the seat where the man had been sitting.
“How can I help you?”
His speech was much more polite than his employee’s. Jae-young could have asked him to check his email, but instead he pulled up the photo on his own phone and held it out to the man.
“Please check if this person is alive or dead. If possible, the reason why he ended up like this too.”
“Mr. Lee Dae-ho, some paper please.”
“Ah, yes.”
The man who had been unfriendly to Jae-young immediately became respectful. Jae-young watched disdainfully as the man took out a sheet of paper from a metal drawer and placed it on the table.
“Please look at this and write down any personal information you know about the person you’re looking for. Even brief information is fine.”
The investigation agency boss took out a pen from his jacket’s inner pocket and handed it to Jae-young along with the paper. After receiving and examining the contents of the paper, Jae-young placed it back on the table.
“I don’t know anything. He’s a man I don’t know. Since he suffered this in Incheon, he might be living in that area.”
Hmm, the boss paused briefly at Jae-young’s concise response. He extended his hand to his male employee. The employee brought a calculator in response to the boss’s gesture. The boss handed the calculator to Jae-young without pressing many buttons.
“The timeframe is about a week. You can transfer the payment directly to the account indicated here.”
“I have one more job to entrust to you.”
“What is it?”
Jae-young, who had been looking down at the calculator with lowered eyelids, raised his eyes.
“You know Cha Seung-kwon, right?”
“…Cha Seung-kwon?”
“Has Cha Seung-kwon recently commissioned any jobs from you?”
“…”
The investigation agency boss’s face subtly hardened. Jae-young, who had been sharply observing the boss’s complexion, soon smiled briefly.
# One Internal Enemy is More Dangerous Than a Hundred External Enemies
It quickly got dark. Jae-young irritably looked up at the street lamp that was flickering as if it was broken. Stroking the top of his cap, he walked dejectedly.
After moving around busily all day as if being chased by something, his energy was quickly depleted. His shoulders felt inexplicably stiff and his eyes were tired. As Jae-young was patting his shoulders, something suddenly caught his eye.
A luxury sedan parked carelessly in front of the shared housing complex. There were no households in this neighborhood that could afford such an expensive car.
It must be Sa Gong-hyun who had come to visit. He was extremely surprised. It was also bewildering. After what had happened last night, he never dreamed that Sa Gong-hyun would come looking for him first. At that time, Sa Gong-hyun had a very embarrassed look on his face.
People with Sa Gong-hyun’s temperament tend to become sharper when their weaknesses are exposed. They never seek to rely on others.
Although the discomfort he had felt then hadn’t completely disappeared, the longer the gap between them, the more likely Sa Gong-hyun could flee further away.
So if he needed to visit, he thought he should do it as soon as possible. Jae-young had thought tomorrow would be appropriate, and if even that made him anxious, he had planned to visit as early as dawn.
That had been the plan. But contrary to his expectations, Sa Gong-hyun had appeared as if nothing had happened, leaving him dumbfounded.
Before entering the building, Jae-young hid his phone and the test results he had received from Jung-yoon in the flower bed. Then he calmly entered the shared housing complex entrance.
As he was sluggishly climbing the stairs, the acrid smell of cigarettes hit him. What crazy person would smoke inside the building? Frowning, Jae-young covered his nose with his knuckles and looked up.
The sensor light brightened, recognizing Jae-young’s presence. His lips parted just as his fiercely squinted eyes looked upward.
The silhouette visible within sight was Sa Gong-hyun. He was sitting on the stairs in front of the entrance, which was seven steps up from the entrance, smoking a cigarette.
“…Hyun-ssi.”
Jae-young opened his eyes wide in surprise.
“Where have you been dressed like that?”
Sa Gong-hyun moved only his eyes to examine Jae-young’s appearance.
He placed a cigarette between his index and middle fingers and put it in his mouth. When he took a deep drag, the cigarette tip glowed red.
Smoke poured out from his lips, which were slightly biting the filter. After exhaling all the smoke, Sa Gong-hyun inhaled from the cigarette again. All the while, he thoroughly observed Jae-young.
With force in his fingertips, Jae-young gripped the stair rail and stared directly at Sa Gong-hyun. Just as he kept his lips tightly shut, Sa Gong-hyun dropped his cigarette on the ground and stood up.
The gesture of grinding out the cigarette with his dress shoe was neat. He leisurely descended the stairs. Jae-young reflexively took a step back. For some reason, his throat felt dry, and he felt an impulse to grasp it with his hand.
Paying no heed, Sa Gong-hyun approached and removed Jae-young’s hat. Click. The sensor light, which had seemed unusually long-lasting today, chose that moment to turn off.
Instead of the orange-tinted light, the streetlight seeping in flickered across his face. The face with uneven shadows remained impassive. Unlike yesterday when he had appeared disheveled, he now looked immaculate.
“…How did you get here?”
“Thinking you might not come today, I came to find you instead.”
Sa Gong-hyun answered immediately, as if he had been waiting. When he reached out his hand, Jae-young’s body instinctively flinched. The touch that gripped Jae-young’s slender neck was surprisingly gentle.
The texture was so contrary to before that his legs almost gave way.
“Did I also strangle your neck?”
It was a very calm question. No trace of guilt was felt. It almost sounded like casual conversation. Sa Gong-hyun frivolously countered Jae-young’s silence.
“Kiss marks suit you well. But hand marks, not so much.”
“…”
His gaze, which had seemed to be fixated on Jae-young’s neck, slowly moved upward. When their eyes suddenly met, Jae-young’s lips moved silently.
“It won’t happen again.”
“…”
“I promise.”
Without a word of apology, he arbitrarily promised Jae-young. That he would never do it again. Even though the mental breakdown didn’t come and go according to his intentions, Sa Gong-hyun spoke with certainty.
Jae-young quietly looked up at his face. Suddenly, his conversation with Jung-yun echoed in his ears.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
