GBH 84

Se-kyung’s eyes, apologizing, contorted as if he was about to cry.

“I’m sorry for liking you.”

As Song Yi-heon tried to twist away, Se-kyung held him in his arms. Unable to face his fear directly, he spoke rapidly into Yi-heon’s ear, their cheeks pressed together.

“I always thought my father was excessive. I knew I was strange, but I didn’t think I needed to be monitored. But my father was right. Like you said, I’m crazy, I’m mentally ill.”

“…You bastard. Shut up.”

“I thought it was fortunate that you died.”

Yi-heon’s resistance stopped. Instead, his muscles tensed, becoming rigid.

“If you hadn’t died, you would have gone with those people. Since you don’t like me, and I can’t keep you, I thought it was better that you died.”

“……”

“It’s not normal to think like this.”

Se-kyung’s fingertips trembled, unable to control their strength, tense with fear of being condemned by Yi-heon.

As Se-kyung’s fear transmitted, Yi-heon’s boiling blood cooled. He became objectively aware of himself venting his anger on Choi Se-kyung. All his anger dissipated at the pathetic sight. Where anger had passed, only a sense of powerlessness remained.

The moment when his eyes met Song Yi-heon’s as he fell in the center of the headlight beam came back to life. Like then, when he couldn’t muster strength in his body from losing so much blood, he leaned his forehead on Se-kyung’s shoulder and mumbled.

“It was too… too sudden a death.”

Se-kyung hugged his back. Their bodies, pressed together without a gap, warmed his cooling body temperature as if he were dying again.

“I didn’t want to die. At least not so meaninglessly……”

He’s human too. He had an attachment to life. He had resented the Song Yi-heon who fell from the pedestrian bridge, but Yi-heon’s life had been too tragic and pitiful to hate. He had intended to live cleverly rather than wearing himself down stuck in an unchanging reality, but his buried resentment couldn’t be dealt with cleverly.

“I should have at least said goodbye……”

Confused by the body that changed simultaneously with death, he couldn’t even say a final goodbye to his subordinates.

Yi-heon’s back heaved. He tried to hold back, knowing he shouldn’t show tears in front of this young man, but Choi Se-kyung was the only one who could understand and empathize with the truth, with the resentment he felt.

Choi Se-kyung, whom he had only considered someone to protect because he was young, wasn’t young at all. He didn’t need protection. His broad shoulders and chest were enough to hide Song Yi-heon. He poured out tears that hadn’t come for years, as if hiding them in Se-kyung’s embrace.

Plop, plop, the raindrops that had been falling one by one increased. The rain that had been falling in single streams now fell heavily. The sound of crying seemed to be buried, blending with the fierce sound of rain hitting the asphalt.

Lying on the bed, Song Yi-heon faced an unfamiliar ceiling with bleary, half-awake eyes. Despite his habit of waking up automatically at 5 AM, the morning sunlight outside the half-drawn curtains was bright and clear.

The scent of wet earth drifted in through the window left open for ventilation after running the air conditioner all night. The lush greenery in the garden, stirred by the heavy rain at dawn, emitted a strong grassy smell.

Last night, he hadn’t gone home. He wanted to distance himself from anything related to the original Song Yi-heon. It was ironic that he ended up at Choi Se-kyung’s house.

The sounds of daily life outside seemed to urge him to get up, but Song Yi-heon, lying straight, felt his limbs heavy like water-logged cotton.

While searching for his subordinates, his desperation had been a driving force, making him unaware of his fatigue. But now, having achieved his goal yet feeling empty with nothing resolved, all the accumulated fatigue hit him twofold. His whole body, beaten by Dong-soo, ached. His eyes, swollen from crying on Se-kyung’s shoulder, stung. Naturally, as last night’s events came to mind, Yi-heon clutched at the sheets.

“Have I gone senile, making such a disgraceful scene without even drinking……”

Still, he didn’t feel the self-loathing he would have felt before. The fact that he thought it was understandable because it was Choi Se-kyung, not just anyone else, made him realize anew how much closer he had grown to Se-kyung.

As he scanned the room as if seeing the owner anew, the first thing he noticed was the first aid kit they had used last night. He had refused Se-kyung’s suggestion to go to the emergency room, instead taking out medicine from the first aid kit to treat himself, and even plastering Se-kyung’s back with patches before they both passed out.

Besides the first aid kit, there was a desk neatly organized with a laptop and workbooks, and a massive bookshelf occupying one wall. But what stood out most in this ordinary high school student’s room was…

“Soundproof walls in a family home?”

It was unusual to have soundproof walls installed in a family home. He knew Se-kyung was sensitive to noise, but he hadn’t thought it would be to the extent of installing soundproof walls at home. Perhaps Se-kyung was much more sensitive than he realized.

The only other peculiarity was a box hidden on top of the bookshelf, concealed by stacked books. Upon discovering it, Yi-heon’s eyes sparkled.

Does Choi Se-kyung watch porn too? Yi-heon knew that kids these days watched porn on their phones. But in Kim Deukpal’s younger days, something hidden so thoroughly was almost certainly adult videos.

Curious about what kind of porn would make that prim face blush, the lethargy that had dominated his body disappeared as he fidgeted. Not realizing that his curiosity about tastes he would have ignored before was a sign that their relationship was entering a new phase, Yi-heon climbed onto a desk chair he had pulled over.

Good things should be shared. Intending to just take a quick peek before Se-kyung returned, he took out the box, but contrary to his expectations, it was full of document envelopes. If it weren’t for Yi-heon’s photo sticking out between the documents, he would have put the box back, deeming it uninteresting.

When he saw the photo of short-haired Yi-heon folded in half, the value of the box changed. With his lewd interest gone, Yi-heon upended the box on the desk. Inside were background check materials that Se-kyung had pilfered from Choi Myung-hyun’s study, containing personal information about people related to Song Yi-heon.

“……”

He seriously flipped through the documents. While he knew about the chairman, Song Yi-heon’s biological father, his wife, and three children from the news, he had no way of knowing the detailed inside story or family matters. But Choi Myung-hyun’s background check documents contained detailed information.

So absorbed in the documents, he didn’t even hear the door open.

“You’re up?”

The tray Se-kyung brought had a glass of water and an ice pack. His voice, cheerful until he saw Yi-heon’s back, faltered immediately upon noticing the box Yi-heon had upended on the desk.

“Ah, that-“

But Yi-heon cut off Se-kyung’s words.

“Can I take these to read?”

As he asked while waving the documents, he didn’t seem upset. He seemed to have forgotten to ask about the source of the documents in his concentration, and upon seeing Se-kyung’s face, he tossed the documents back onto the desk.

While Se-kyung’s face was unscathed as the Chilseong faction subordinates hadn’t touched it, his lips were swollen and covered with thick scabs from being bitten mercilessly. It was too serious to even feel embarrassed about how the injury occurred. Remembering that he had also bitten Se-kyung’s tongue, Yi-heon demanded sternly:

“Stick out your tongue.”

“It’s fine.”

“Quickly.”

Though he had boldly explored Yi-heon’s mouth even while being bitten yesterday, Se-kyung hesitated, seemingly embarrassed in the bright daylight, before slightly sticking out his tongue. He barely showed the tip of his red tongue, hiding the bitten area. Yi-heon tilted his head and said sarcastically:

“Are you joking?”

As he moved to pull out Se-kyung’s tongue with his hand, Se-kyung hurriedly stuck his tongue out fully. Fortunately, it seemed he hadn’t bitten too hard, as Se-kyung’s tongue only showed red marks from the bite, naturally healing.

Yi-heon clicked his tongue and flicked Se-kyung’s lower lip, causing Se-kyung to frown and cover his mouth with his palm.

“Um, Yi-heon.”

Yi-heon had returned to the desk and was scanning the documents.

“You can refuse, but just listen first.”

His tone suggested he wanted Yi-heon to refuse.

“What is it?”

“Well…”

Why are you hesitating? As Yi-heon urged him to speak quickly, looking over his shoulder, Se-kyung scratched his cheek.

“My father wants us to have a meal together.”

* * *

Chaebol. It was the word that neatly described Choi Se-kyung’s house. While Song Yi-heon’s house wasn’t shabby either, if Yi-heon’s house felt like an annex gallery, Se-kyung’s house was an imposing main house. Yi-heon, who had been leisurely looking around the house while following Se-kyung downstairs, felt his back stiffen upon seeing Choi Myung-hyun seated in the dining room.

Se-kyung’s mother had gone to work even on the weekend, but Myung-hyun, seemingly on a day off, was reading a paper newspaper in comfortable indoor clothes.

Although he was visiting as Choi Se-kyung’s friend, the experience of facing Myung-hyun at the mortuary made Yi-heon’s back straighten with tension. Entering the dining room, Yi-heon bent his waist neatly.

“Hello, sir.”

Tense, he nearly blurted out a gangster-style greeting of “Annyeonghasipnikka,” but managed to correct himself at the last moment. Choi Myung-hyun, who had folded his paper newspaper, seemed surprised by the polite greeting that reached his ears first, but remained composed. However, upon seeing Yi-heon’s face, he immediately grabbed his phone from the table and stood up.

“Let’s go to the hospital first.”

The areas where Kim Dong-soo had hit him last night had swollen over time. The condition of his cheek with the patch and his bloodshot eyes looked serious.

“No! I’m fine!”

With his experience of getting beaten during his gangster days, Yi-heon had become an amateur doctor, estimating how many weeks of treatment this level of injury would require. It wasn’t a wound that needed a hospital visit, just some medicine applied at home would do, and he didn’t want to make a fuss about taking good care of Song Yi-heon’s body before returning it.

“I know from getting hurt a lot. I don’t need to go to the hospital. I’m perfectly fine.”

“You’ve been hurt a lot?”

Realizing his words to dissuade Myung-hyun could be easily misunderstood, Yi-heon broke into a cold sweat trying to explain. Unable to take the strongly refusing Yi-heon to the hospital, Myung-hyun took out his wallet from his back pocket and handed over a business card. It was given as a parent of a child, before being a prosecutor.

“If you ever need help, contact me.”

“…Yes.”

While there would be no occasion to call a prosecutor for gangster business, Yi-heon accepted the card so as not to embarrass the offering hand.

The late breakfast was Korean cuisine. A table was set with not only freshly made side dishes, but also roasted side dishes mixed with sesame oil to stimulate the appetite. As he gulped down the milky soup boiled with plenty of marsh clams, his stomach felt refreshed even though he hadn’t drunk any alcohol. When Yi-heon quickly emptied his soup bowl, Se-kyung, sitting next to him, swapped it with his own.

“Have more.”

It was a clean soup that would suit Se-kyung’s taste, but it was a new, untouched bowl. Yi-heon was about to ask why Se-kyung wasn’t eating, but upon seeing the scab on Se-kyung’s lips, he swallowed the awkward question. Having bitten his tongue too, Se-kyung probably couldn’t eat anything hot for a while.

“Uh… yeah, thanks.”

Yi-heon’s fierce spooning became timid, realizing he had turned Choi Myung-hyun’s carefully raised son completely gay.

Myung-hyun must have a lot to say about Se-kyung’s lips too. However, he was holding back in front of Song Yi-heon, Se-kyung’s friend, and also because he didn’t know that Yi-heon was the very person who had bitten Se-kyung’s lips.