His gaze was directed toward the glass window that opened up the entire side. The place where he was sitting was the building of the new headquarters to be moved to in a few weeks. Though the office was sparse as it was just roughly set up, he liked it that way.
And right in front of the glass window was a man kneeling, covered in blood, and trembling all over. The elderly man was wearing a suit of considerably luxurious material.
An indifferent gaze reached the man.
The man, with his pupils out of focus, could not steady himself and kept falling forward. The organization member standing to the side tried to raise the man, but it was of little use. It seemed the drug’s effects still remained.
Sa Gong-hyun removed the cigarette from his mouth. He put out the messily burning ember by crushing it in the ashtray. His lips parted slowly.
“How long has he been in that state?”
“About an hour, sir.”
The smoke lingering in his mouth scattered completely. As soon as he finished speaking, Kim Jung-han’s voice followed closely. Sa Gong-hyun looked down at the man without emotion.
“Wake him up.”
“Yes.”
As his order fell, an employee standing guard nearby poured water from a bucket onto the man. The man, drenched with a fierce splash of water, reflexively flailed.
The man, exhaling rough breaths, shook his face dry and looked around. Soon, his eyes met with Sa Gong-hyun’s, and he took a deep breath.
“…Hyun-ah!”
The man who had regained his senses called out Sa Gong-hyun’s name. Sa Gong-hyun, with a kind smile on his lips, stubbed out his cigarette on the ashtray. He nodded toward the man as if telling him to continue.
“Listen… Can you listen to me for a moment? Hmm?”
The man’s voice trembled pathetically. The way he crawled toward Sa Gong-hyun’s feet using only arm strength was quite wretched. Due to his cut Achilles tendon, the blood soaking around his ankle left traces wherever he crawled.
“Chairman Jang.”
Sa Gong-hyun looked down deeply at Chairman Jang, his business partner and the head of the corporation he belonged to. It was a truly ironic situation.
Even though he was just a small organization, he was once a man who walked under him with people beneath him. That was the case until Sa Gong-hyun reached out his hand, saying they should do business together.
Until he said he would pay off his debt, so they should raise the company together.
Until then, Sa Gong-hyun, who thought he was standing on equal footing, was now at the very top line, commanding the organization. Many organization members followed him. Naturally, the man had become a toothless tiger, or something of the sort.
By the time he felt things had gone wrong, most of Sebin’s assets had already fallen into Sa Gong-hyun’s hands. Although it was he who had raised the company that was originally on the verge of bankruptcy, he never imagined the situation would reverse to this extent.
“Yes, yes… I’m listening, sob… I’m listening.”
Chairman Jang barely swallowed the pain climbing up from his toes through his entire body. He steadied himself on Sa Gong-hyun’s shoe and exhaled a labored breath. The moisture and bloodstains on his hands left desperate traces.
His pronunciation was blurred as the drug’s effect hadn’t fully worn off, but he felt miserable at the thought that if the drug hadn’t acted as an anesthetic, he couldn’t have endured even this.
“Was what I said difficult to understand?”
Chairman Jang, who had been trembling as if his breath might stop at any moment, stiffened. A moan that seemed to scratch his Adam’s apple leaked through his pale lips.
“Look.”
Sa Gong-hyun, who had been staring blankly down at Chairman Jang, nodded toward the glass window. Chairman Jang painfully turned his head in that direction. His appearance was so pitiful that all personnel except Sa Gong-hyun and Kim Jung-han had to lower their heads.
“If you had been a bit more cautious, it would have been you sitting in this seat looking out at the view right now.”
“…”
“Instead of eating away at my time like this, you could have been wasting your own time.”
“…Hyun-ah.”
Chairman Jang’s pale complexion turned back toward Sa Gong-hyun.
He looked dryly at the hands helplessly clasping his shoes.
He lightly shook his foot as if shaking off something dirty. Soon, the shoe that had landed started to press on Chairman Jang’s hand.
“Ugh!”
“I told you.”
“I, sob, I made a mistake. So now stop…”
“Having a lot of greed is not a sin, but you should be selective about where you direct your greed.”
“Please… Please just let me live. Hmm? I won’t do it again…”
“You seem to have forgotten all about living in luxury and avoiding a cell, all thanks to me.”
“…G-give me one last chance.”
The elegant foot movement that didn’t match the situation suddenly stopped. Chairman Jang looked up at Sa Gong-hyun with a face full of hope. In contrast, the face he met was excessively cold.
“Why should I?”
“…”
“There are countless people crazy about sitting in that seat.”
“Ugh!”
Sa Gong-hyun rose from his seat while stepping on Chairman Jang’s hand.
“Isn’t that right, Director Yu?”
His gaze turned leisurely. Among the organization members, he could see Director Yu standing, sweating profusely and trembling.
Director Yu was the man who would take over as chairman after Chairman Jang’s life ended and his role was completed.
He had called him to warn him that this is what happens when you covet what belongs to others, so take note. Despite his face being pale, his stance of standing firmly on his own legs was quite decent.
“…H-Hyun-ah.”
“We don’t offer second chances. This is something Director Yu should also deeply engrave in his mind.”
Sa Gong-hyun exhaled a low breath.
“You’ve worked hard all this time. Let’s end it here and rest comfortably, and when the time comes, you can go then.”
“…Please, I beg you.”
“I will maintain your dignity to the end, for the sake of my business.”
There wouldn’t be much dignity, but his following words were full of mockery as he smiled elegantly. He moved his steps leisurely.
“Hyun-ah! I…! I said I was wrong! Hyun-ah!”
The desperate cries unfolding behind him pierced the eardrums of five pairs of ears.
“You’ll regret it! How you’re living with a Korean identity, and why you’re staying here…! I have all the evidence! Yet you dare to cast me out like this!”
As Kim Jung-han walked ahead of him and opened the door, Sa Gong-hyun half-turned.
A strange silence descended to the point of causing tinnitus. Sa Gong-hyun sharply scanned the faces of the remaining people.
“He talks too much.”
It was instantaneous when he, who had muttered in a low voice, pulled out a fountain pen from Kim Jung-han’s chest pocket. His steps returning to Chairman Jang were calm, but the hand that threw the pen cap to the floor was rough.
“If it’s regret, I’m already feeling it.”
Sa Gong-hyun bent down and firmly grabbed Chairman Jang’s chin. Chairman Jang struggled to escape Sa Gong-hyun’s grip, but his hands, trampled and crushed with no strength left, just flowed down feebly.
Chairman Jang’s jaw was forced open by the grip. Sa Gong-hyun positioned the fountain pen with its nib facing downward on his tongue and applied pressure.
“You see, I extremely dislike when someone touches what’s mine.”
“Uh… urgh!”
The fountain pen deeply plunged into the wriggling tongue. As if not seeing Chairman Jang writhing with his eyes rolling back, Sa Gong-hyun pressed down on the tongue with an expressionless face.
Whether he had finally lost consciousness, Chairman Jang’s struggles subsided. Sa Gong-hyun’s hand applied force again.
He dragged the fountain pen embedded in the tongue downward.
“Kheok…!”
Blood splattered in all directions. Even with blood spraying on his face, Sa Gong-hyun didn’t bat an eye.
Thud—
With a dull sound, the fountain pen rolled on the floor. Sa Gong-hyun released Chairman Jang’s chin as if throwing it away and leisurely stood up. Chairman Jang grabbed his own mouth, emitting bizarre groans. Blood continuously gushed from his tattered tongue.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
