Soo-hyun tore along the dotted line of an antacid stick and squeezed it into his mouth. Even though several days had passed since his discharge from the hospital, the pain in his upper abdomen still tormented him occasionally. The doctor had advised him to avoid alcohol, cigarettes, and spicy foods, but had overlooked the most important factor: stress. And there was one more person added to the list of people causing him stress.
“Ho-beom must be busy these days? He hasn’t shown his face around here at all.”
Kim Woo-young followed him around, chatting. As he said, Soo-hyun hadn’t seen Yang Ho-beom since being discharged. Not even a single message asking if he was okay. Yet somehow, porridge was delivered at every meal—he must have given instructions to the kitchen staff. The expression on the face of the employee who brought the porridge looked thoroughly displeased.
Soo-hyun sighed and went to the bedroom. For some reason, Kim Woo-young had been staying at the penthouse more frequently than before. The problem was that whenever he stayed, the place would end up in complete disarray. Sure enough, while arranging the bedding, a heavy piece of metal fell to the floor.
Bending down to pick it up, Soo-hyun couldn’t close his mouth.
It was a pair of handcuffs.
When he picked them up, he realized they weren’t toys. They were real. He looked at Kim Woo-young.
“What? It’s my preference.”
Seeing the handcuffs brought back unpleasant memories, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.
As he put them aside, Woo-young pointed at Soo-hyun’s face with the hand holding his cigarette.
“Is that Ho-beom’s doing?”
Soo-hyun rubbed his jaw where teeth marks were clearly visible. Ho-beom had bitten him below the jaw during s*x, and everyone he met had made a fuss about it. He should have put a bandage on it. People who didn’t know better envied him, saying he must have a passionate girlfriend.
“No, it’s not…”
“Don’t lie. You were sick for days, and then had some wild fun, huh?”
Kim Woo-young made a suggestive hand gesture, slapping his palm on top of his fist repeatedly to simulate a s*xual act.
Soo-hyun pretended not to see and started cleaning.
“How was what I gave you before? Did you try it? It was top quality.”
He mimicked smoking with his mouth, then made a popping sound with his lips in an O shape. He seemed to be referring to the marijuana he had given him earlier. When Soo-hyun didn’t answer, Woo-young slyly approached and took something out of his pocket, dangling it before his eyes. It was a capsule.
“This is new. If you slip it into a drink when you’re having s*x, it’s absolute heaven. You’ll meet God right away, I’m telling you.”
Looking at the pill, Soo-hyun bit his lower lip gently. He might be weak to temptation, but he wasn’t stupid enough to repeat the same mistake. Getting involved with Kim Woo-young would only make him look bad to Yang Ho-beom. Right now, what he needed was Yang Ho-beom.
“No thanks.”
As he turned to leave, Woo-young followed him.
“There are no side effects.”
“I don’t want it. Before—”
Soo-hyun stopped mid-sentence and turned to look at Woo-young. His eyes were pleading, begging him to take just one pill. Whenever he met this man, he felt like a lab rat. Like he was always trying to feed him new drugs to check their effects.
“I nearly died trying to quit drugs.”
“That’s exactly why it’s perfect. Since you know how scary it is, you won’t get addicted easily.”
What nonsense is this? Soo-hyun gave him a sidelong glance.
“If you keep this up, I’ll report you to Director Yang. Then you might meet God faster than with any drug.”
Kim Woo-young flinched and quickly put the pill away.
“Why do you have to say it like that?”
Even as he said this, he kept interrogating Soo-hyun about what medications he had taken before treatment and how much he had used. Whenever they met, Woo-young’s interests seemed centered on drugs. s*x would probably be next. What were Yang Ho-beom’s interests, then?
“By the way, I’m curious about something.”
“Yeah? Ask me anything.”
“What does Director Yang do when he’s not here?”
“What do you mean what does he do? He works. He’s incredibly busy.”
“Does he have a lot of work?”
“You didn’t know? Besides this hotel, there are several others. He owns multiple resorts too. Oh! Recently, he even started an entertainment agency. You know Lee Yoo-min, right? That super hot social media star. He recruited her too. Not sure if she slept with Ho-beom though.”
“……”
“You should ask him for a favor too. Isn’t your face too pretty to be cleaning?”
That comment seemed to suggest that since he’d already slept with Ho-beom once, he should use that as leverage to ask for favors. Soo-hyun responded with an expressionless face.
“He must make an enormous amount of money then.”
“Why? Doesn’t Ho-beom spend money on you?”
“I’m just curious. He’s so young, I’m a bit envious…”
No sooner had he finished speaking than a message arrived.
Soo-hyun’s eyes widened slightly as he checked it.
It was Seo Min-jun.
[Want to have dinner together?]
His mouth involuntarily tightened. After sending a message asking “What time?” he realized Kim Woo-young had silently approached and was standing next to him. Soo-hyun was startled and quickly closed the screen, putting the phone in his inside pocket. Kim Woo-young smiled with a lecherous look.
“Who are you hiding from?”
Soo-hyun didn’t answer and turned on the vacuum cleaner. As the whirring sound started and he rubbed it over the carpet, Woo-young came beside him and babbled something. He was saying nonsense like “Are you cheating?” Soo-hyun pretended not to hear, finding it absurd. When he didn’t respond and focused on cleaning, Woo-young got bored and left, saying it was boring.
Left alone, Soo-hyun took out his phone again.
[7 o’clock. How about that place from before?]
It must be the restaurant where they first met. Judging by the staff’s attitude, Seo Min-jun seemed to be a regular there. After sending a message saying okay, he felt so unsettled that he couldn’t focus on anything. Soo-hyun tossed aside the vacuum cleaner and ended up sitting on the sofa, taking out a cigarette.
After finishing his duties, Soo-hyun changed clothes and headed to the subway station. As he descended the stairs to catch the train, he had the feeling that someone had been following him. He stopped at an underground shop, picked up a hat and looked in the mirror. Sure enough, behind him was a man in a black jacket and black baseball cap, glancing at him from another shop.
Who could it be? One of Kim Tae-shin’s men? Or someone Yang Ho-beom had planted? Or Seo Min-jun? There were so many suspicious people that he couldn’t even guess who it might be. For now, he pretended not to notice, put down the hat, and moved toward the subway platform.
As he stood in line behind other people, the man who had been following him took a position a little distance away. Then came the announcement that the subway was arriving. Soo-hyun, maintaining a calm expression, put earphones in his ears and nodded his head, pretending to listen to music.
The subway arrived, the screen doors opened, and people started boarding one by one. As expected, the subway was packed with people. Having boarded last and standing right by the door, he heard the announcement that the doors would close shortly.
With a hissing sound, just before the doors closed, Soo-hyun jumped out. The doors closed completely, and the subway began to move its massive body. Then his eyes met with the man who had been following him. He was in the middle of trying to move to Soo-hyun’s car. Realizing things had gone wrong, the man roughly took off his hat and glared at him with a fierce expression.
Soo-hyun smiled mockingly and shook his head.
“If you’re going to do it, do it properly.”
He immediately took out his phone. As he was sending a message to Seo Min-jun saying he would be late, someone put an arm around his shoulder. At the same time, he felt something chilling against his side. Turning his head in surprise, he saw Kim Tae-shin licking his torn lip and smiling creepily.
“Baek Soo-hyun. Do I have to come escort you personally?”
When he frowned and tried to move away, the man pressed the knife tip further in. Soo-hyun put his phone in his pocket and looked at the man. After the rush of people had left, there weren’t many people left on the platform. Behind Kim Tae-shin stood two of his henchmen.
“You and I, we still have accounts to settle, don’t we?”
“Well… I don’t really… understand…”
“Would a breathing hole in your side help you remember?”
“You always speak so scarily, haha.”
“Don’t laugh, I might get attached. No, actually, getting attached to you might not be so bad.”
Let’s go up, pretty boy. He grabbed Soo-hyun’s shoulder tightly and turned him around. People were just coming down the stairs. With Kim Tae-shin beside him and his men in front and behind, Soo-hyun was trapped with nowhere to go. Inwardly, he cursed, thinking his life never had a single peaceful day.
All the way up the escalator to ground level, Soo-hyun could only think about how to escape. On the other hand, he had a sliver of hope that as long as Yang Ho-beom was around, Kim Tae-shin wouldn’t dare harm him carelessly. After all, wasn’t Baek Soo-hyun quite useful to Yang Ho-beom right now?
As they emerged above ground and he was being dragged away, a familiar man was standing in front of a black sedan. Leaning against it as if it were his own car, with a cigarette in his mouth.
Kim Tae-shin stopped in his tracks.
“How the hell did that bastard…”
Kim Tae-shin gritted his teeth with an incredulous expression. Soo-hyun belatedly remembered the mole that Yang Ho-beom had said he planted. He instinctively looked at Kim Tae-shin’s henchmen. Was it one of them? Or someone else? He was curious how Kim Tae-shin would react if he found out the truth.
By now, Yang Ho-beom had walked right up to them.
“Why do you keep hanging out with Kim Tae-shin?”
Always speaking like that. Soo-hyun rolled his eyes once, and as he tried to move, Kim Tae-shin pressed down hard on his shoulder and applied more pressure with the knife tip. Soo-hyun couldn’t move and remained caught by Kim Tae-shin.
Ho-beom, with the cigarette clenched between his front teeth, smiled at Kim Tae-shin. It was similar to the day when his land was taken, and he had slapped Ho-beom’s face and choked his neck. Soo-hyun could tell that Ho-beom was about to explode.
“Are you going to dance with knives here?”
Kim Tae-shin twisted his lips.
“I wouldn’t mind.”
Ho-beom unbuttoned his suit and spread it wide open. Go ahead, try it. The gazes of passersby began to gather one by one. What’s going on? Is there a fight? Don’t look, they might be gangsters. Tension hung thick between the two men, and someone even suggested calling the police.
In this intense standoff, surprisingly, Kim Tae-shin backed down first.
He hid the knife at his waist and shoved Soo-hyun roughly toward Yang Ho-beom.
“Take him. Today’s not the only day.”
When Yang Ho-beom snickered, Kim Tae-shin cursed, “f*cking bastard,” and walked to his car. As soon as Kim Tae-shin got into the back seat and his men sat in the front, Yang Ho-beom turned and strode toward them. He yanked open the back door, instantly grabbed Kim Tae-shin by the hair, pulled him out, and ground his lit cigarette into his neck.
Aaaagh! A piercing scream rang out, and people walking by stopped in their tracks, horrified.
Ho-beom then punched Kim Tae-shin in the face. Bam, bam! With the sound of bones being crushed, his henchmen jumped out of the car. When the struggling Kim Tae-shin went limp, Ho-beom threw him into the back seat and slammed the door shut.
Then, like nothing had happened, he took out a handkerchief and wiped the blood from his hands.
Kim Tae-shin’s men who had rushed out gritted their teeth and glared but didn’t dare to attack. Ho-beom looked at them with a cold smile and tossed the handkerchief in their direction. Soo-hyun watched anxiously, worried that Kim Tae-shin might rush out.
Belatedly, a scream-like shout could be heard from inside the car.
The men who had been glaring murderously got into the car and hurriedly drove away.
As the car left, Yang Ho-beom walked over without hesitation, and Soo-hyun instinctively backed away.
“I didn’t meet him on purpose!”
Ho-beom silently grabbed Soo-hyun by the nape of his neck and dragged him to the black car. Despite Soo-hyun’s struggling and demands to be released, he shoved him into the passenger seat and slammed the door fiercely. Just then, a message came from Seo Min-jun. He was asking when Soo-hyun would arrive.
At that moment, Yang Ho-beom, who had sat in the driver’s seat, snatched the phone away.
“It’s Seo Min-jun?”
In the confined space with just the two of them, Soo-hyun felt suffocated.
Ho-beom cursed as he wiped the remaining blood on his hand with a wet wipe. His gaze was murderous.
“Weren’t we supposed to tell each other when meeting him?”
This was unfair. Who was it that hadn’t been seen for days and hadn’t contacted him?
Though he wanted to speak confidently with his chest out, he couldn’t help but shrink back because of what had just happened.
“I was going to tell you! But you haven’t been around lately… So…”
Ho-beom returned the phone.
“Were you saving the call to make soup later?”
Now he reached for Soo-hyun’s other hand.
When Soo-hyun flinched, thinking he might hit him, Ho-beom glared at him once, then pulled the seatbelt across.
There was a click, and he started the engine.
“Where’s the meeting place? I’ll take you there.”