GBH 38

 In the narrow alleyway with cracked asphalt, Choi Se-kyung looked up at the crumbling yellow sign. The building was so old that it wouldn’t have been strange if the peeling paint on the sign had fallen off at any moment. It was his first time witnessing in real life the kind of small inn often seen in movies.

When Kim Deuk-pal attempted to enter, Se-kyung grabbed his hoodie to hold him back. There was no intention of causing trouble, but it was hard to ignore the severely cracked cement walls.

“Are we staying here?”

“If we’re unlucky, we won’t be able to sleep here either.”

The conditions for minors to use a lodging facility together were quite strict. Choi Se-kyung, who ran away from home, and the two of them did not have the consent of their guardians, so Se-kyung could not stop him any longer because they would end up on the streets if they made a mistake.

“The owner must have changed.”

Kim Deuk-pal muttered worriedly. It had been over ten years since he personally visited the inn, and he had only heard reports from his subordinates. Since he hadn’t received news of the owner’s death, it was unlikely that the owner had changed, but even if he had gone down the road of eternal darkness overnight, Kim Deuk-pal would have just nodded his head.

However, contrary to his concerns, the inn was just like it was when Kim Deuk-pal had visited it ten years ago. In the small space, time had been preserved with a long bench, marked by the marks left by someone’s buttocks, a long fortune tree that had never been fresh, and opaque glass covering the window.

Kim Deuk-pal played the front role and bowed his waist slightly against the small window. He cleared his throat and let out a deep voice that didn’t match his young voice.

“Are you there?”

The window slid to the side and an old man with white hair peeked out his face. The wrinkled old man’s eyes were dim, and he looked at the guest for a long time before responding.

“How old are you?”

“… I’m a minor, but he’s an adult.”

Kim Deuk-pal grabbed Choi Se-kyung and brought him in, thinking that it was unreasonable for him to pretend that he was an adult with a face like Song Yi-heon. When the old man alternately looked at the two people, Choi Se-kyung cautiously introduced herself.

“I’m his brother.”

Kim Deuk-pal frowned. Choi Se-kyung bowed and covered the window so that the old man could not see his appearance.

“Why is the younger brother running wild when there’s an older brother?”

“Because the child is young and full of energy.”

“He’s going to cause some trouble. Older brother, you’re going to have a hard time.”

“I put up with it because he’s cute.”

Kim Deuk-pal hit his kneecap from behind. Choi Se-kyung explained softly without flinching.

“We came to our relative’s house, but there wasn’t enough room. We’re just going to sleep and leave early tomorrow morning.”

Choi Se-kyung pulled out his wallet. The old man glanced at the wallet full of cash, then turned his gaze away from when Se-kyung tried to take out his card and instead muttered through his missing teeth, pressing the buttons on the old TV set.

“I only accept cash.”

Caught off guard by the implication of tax evasion, Se-kyung apologized and withdrew cash from her wallet, pushing it through the counter. After receiving the money and verifying the amount, the old man retrieved keys hanging on the wall. Thinking he had succeeded, Kim Deuk-pal hummed a cheerful tune inwardly, but the old man curled his fingers and took back the key.

“Show me your ID.”

It’s ruined. Kim Deuk-pal touched his forehead.

“Oh, hurry up.”

The old man, who was about to quickly let the guest in and finish watching the drama, urged Se-kyung to do so when he didn’t take out his ID card.

Se-kyung was setting priorities. Once the top priority was set to not let the fake Song Yi-heon sleep on the streets, he mentally checked the cash in his wallet. Thankfully, he had withdrawn plenty of cash before coming to Gangneung in case his card stopped working.

Choi Se-kyung, who runs a department store and comes from a family of merchants, understood early on how cash could be used in various ways. Cash, easily erasing usage traces, was often employed for purposes beyond its economic value. For instance, it played a role in facilitating agreements, among other things.

Se-kyung thickly withdrew cash from his wallet, folded it in half, and pushed it through the counter. Her smile, which looked friendly, was a bonus.

“Sir.”

At first glance, it was a considerable amount of money. The old man’s temper stopped as he swallowed his saliva out of greed.

“I’ve come without my ID.”

Choi Se-kyung was also distinctive in his approach to spending money. He didn’t just measure prices based on objective market value. The standard was to evaluate hidden values or importance in setting prices. For the sake of Song Yi-heon’s safety, he did not mind paying the same amount as a hotel suite for a shabby guesthouse room.

“Recently, there have been frequent crackdowns.”

Contrary to what he said, the old man had a foolish look in his eyes. He leaned his head toward the window and sniffed, as if he could smell money.

“Then take care of your younger sibling.”

Choi Se-kyung knew that the old man wasn’t just sniffing out the scent of money on the counter, but rather trying to detect the aroma of money from him. Thinking it might be easier to communicate unexpectedly, he took out a few bills and placed them on top of the bundle of money. The old man alternated between looking at Se-kyung’s wallet and the cash, expressing an unexpected concern.

“…Wouldn’t your younger sibling be more at ease if I let both of you in?”

The old man meant that he would let Choi Se-kyung in, so he asked him to add more money. Initially, when Choi Se-kyung carelessly opened his wallet and tried to estimate how much cash was left, the old man attempted to take the wallet and check how much money was left. However, Kim Deuk-pal closed Se-kyung’s wallet and sent him away.

Unlike Choi Se-kyung, Kim Deuk-pal couldn’t justify paying such a large amount for this old inn room, which was not even worth accounting for. It would have been right to pay a certain amount of money to trick the old man with poor eyesight into staying in the inn, but the old man was too greedy. Even if he looked down on people, he wanted to charge an outrageous amount for an old and dirty room. Furthermore, Choi Se-kyung, this fool, tried to give him everything he wanted, which made Kim Deuk-pal angry.

Kim Deuk-pal bent down at the counter and opened his eyes wide. Then, he uttered the name of the organization to the old man who was scratching his sole and daydreaming.

“Chilseong faction.”

The scratching stopped abruptly.

This rundown inn was where Kim Deuk-pal’s organization hid members when they needed to lay low. Kim Deuk-pal himself had hidden here multiple times in his youth, and he had once ordered his subordinates to stay hidden here, even providing cash envelopes. So he knew exactly how much Choi Se-kyung was being taken advantage of.

“He’s from over there. You know the situation, so I won’t say much.”

The old man who had stopped scratched the soles of his feet again.

“You’re telling me that now.”

The old man criticized him as if it was Kim Deuk-pal’s fault that he was trying to take advantage of Choi Se-kyung. The old man knew that he had the guts to run a guesthouse in collaboration with gangsters even before Kim Deuk-pal came in, but as he got older, he became more impudent and asked about the organization’s safety.

“Has the rain stopped?”

Kim Deuk-pal frowned. He wasn’t asking about the weather that had been sunny all day. Rain was a slang term for problems in the organization. Kim Deuk-pal was dead and he was living in Song Yi-heon’s stead for a while, so he deliberately avoided getting involved in the organization’s affairs and didn’t even watch the news.

It’s better for the dead to exist only in memories than to bother the living for no reason.

Despite thinking and enduring that way, when it rained on the organization, the directly recruited subordinates began to loom. Although he thought they would adapt well even while grieving Kim Deuk-pal’s death at the funeral, he wondered if something unexpected had happened. He felt conflicted, wanting to know if something serious had occurred while simultaneously feeling frustrated about what he could do as Song Yi-heon’s body even if he found out.

“Looking at how they’re using a young kid whose blood hasn’t even dried behind their ears, it seems it’s still raining.”

Amused by Song Yi-heon’s youthful face contorting like a demon’s, the old man chuckled and handed over the room key. When it wasn’t taken, he pushed the key out of the window and tried to close it.

Thuk, Kim Deuk-pal wedged his thin fingers into the closing gap of the window, forcing it open. He spread his five fingers like claws and swept up the wad of cash from inside the window. The room fee had been paid before the ID check was requested, but the old man had sneakily taken even the money that Choi Se-kyung had stacked up like a fool.

A fierce, tiger-like light circled Song Yi-heon’s youthful eyes. It was a formidable aura that seemed to shine blue inside, but he was still just a kid. The old man snickered from inside the window, which was barely big enough for one arm.

“Have you forgotten what happens when you betray an organization member?”

“That guy ain’t an organization member.”

As soon as the old man snickered, pointing at Choi Se-kyung, the arm resting on the window extended. And like a hawk snatching its prey, it grabbed and pulled the old man’s collar. The old man, who had been arrogant in his own fortress inside the window, struggled as he was dragged through the narrow opening by his collar.

Song Yi-heon, now face-to-face with the old man through the narrow window, gripped so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

It was the nature of this business that you have to suspect betrayal at any time, even when the organization invests considerable money. Especially with this old man, who was too risky to be respected. If there was greater profit elsewhere, he would betray immediately and find a way out, arguing it wasn’t a breach of contract. Whether a thug or a scammer, they were all the same, but Kim Deuk-pal, at least, wasn’t as treacherous as this old man.

He pulled the old man close and his eyes flashed menacingly.

“You haven’t forgotten your role, have you? If you want to keep your remaining teeth, be careful. Whether it’s your mouth, your hands, or anything else.”

The old man grumpily twitched his lower jaw, which protruded more than his upper gums due to missing most of his teeth. He had underestimated Song Yi-heon, thinking he was a rich young master, but his eyes and actions showed he was no ordinary person. Song Yi-heon warned him again.

“Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t try to screw me over by reporting my arrival to the organization. The boss knows. If you want to take your one remaining ball to the afterlife, you’d better watch yourself.”

Even if it was a lie that the boss knew, the latter part was true. As the old man angrily twitched his mouth, Song Yi-heon grinned and roughly pushed him back by the collar. The small room had a bed just one step behind the window. After confirming that the old man had fallen onto the bed, Song Yi-heon slammed the window shut. The old glass rattled from the impact, and dust fell. As the two figures disappeared down the hallway on the other side of the opaque glass, the old man cursed while rubbing his grabbed collar.

“Damn it. That bastard Kim Deuk-pal, telling everything to a green kid like he’s the only one who knows.”

His curses were directed more at Kim Deuk-pal for revealing his physical defect than at having his collar grabbed. Damn bastard, son of a bitch, fucking idiot who took on all the dirty work alone and finally got a position but doesn’t even show his face, the ungrateful bastard. The old man, who hadn’t yet heard the news of Kim Deuk-pal’s death, cursed the bear-like, rough Kim Deuk-pal and then got angry by himself.

A gangster who’ll die early because of his unnecessary loyalty. Resenting the man who cared deeply for his people but never contacted him, the old man picked up the phone and then put it down. He regretted not swindling him more. Remembering how he had been thoroughly ripped off Kim Deuk-pal in his younger days, the old man took out his anger on the innocent TV, complaining that this piece of junk TV had broken down.