AGENT 36

Yongnae clutched his throbbing head and slowly sat up like a literal zombie.

“…Uh.”

At the sight unfolding before his eyes, he blinked blankly, wondering if this was perhaps a dream.

Inside the small, shabby, unfamiliar room with three single beds, clothes were strewn about here and there along with vomit, as if someone had been practicing falling techniques on the already cramped floor.

However, those clothes looked somewhat familiar. First, those jeans. They were the dark blue jeans that Yongmi had worn five years ago, then Yongri, and finally inherited by Yongnae. And that beige cardigan. His mother had bought it for 59,900 won two years ago as part of a three-piece set in black, gray, and beige from a home shopping channel.

Then, where was the shirt he was wearing inside? Yongnae clutched his aching head and let his eyes roll around.

“The shirt is on you, teacher.”

At Pilgu’s words, Yongnae looked down at his own body. However, a blanket was tightly wrapped around him as if someone had intentionally bundled him up. The moment Yongnae pulled the blanket back due to the stuffiness,

“The shirt shouldn’t be the problem right now…”

Simultaneously with Changsik’s words, Yongnae’s body quickly froze.

“…”

“Teacher…”

The underwear he was wearing before departure, the underwear he had even washed once inside the boat to wear. The seamless Sim-x underwear he had bought at the market for 19,900 won for two pairs,

“Just what… were you doing yesterday before you came back…?”

Was gone.

And at the same time, a stinging sensation—zzt. A certain part of his lower body made its presence known, informing him of the pain.

“…”

Why does it hurt there? In twenty-seven years, he had never even felt pain in the front, so why is… that place throbbing and stinging? Could it be that this pain is related to his missing underwear?

To think he came back wearing his pants but the underwear inside had vanished. This was something gone terribly, terribly wrong. Just what on earth happened yesterday?

“How… did I get here?”

Since he remembered nothing, he had to trace his steps back from this point. It wasn’t likely he would have found this unfamiliar place on his own feet.

“You don’t remember anything?”

Changsik asked, then answered his own question, saying that if he did remember, he would have opened the window and jumped out the moment he woke up. Hearing Changsik’s murmur, Yongnae felt a chill run down his neck.

Just what kind of thing had he done that would warrant jumping out?

“Yesterday you disappeared like that with that blonde guy. Hyung-nim, the kids, and I searched the whole club, but we couldn’t find you, so we waited in front. But two hours later, you came out completely wasted on booze.”

“…Wasted on booze?”

“Yeah. But like a literal crazy person, just screaming… you came out without even zipping your pants, with the front all wide open.”

“…Pardon?”

“We snatched you up immediately and brought you here, but as soon as we arrived, teacher, you started stripping because you were hot and then vomited… and then you suddenly collapsed.”

That he came out screaming with his pants unzipped and no underwear, then stripped because he was hot, vomited, and slept? That is a lie.

“It’s a good thing this is Hong Kong. If it were Korea, teacher, your chances of marriage would be over.”

No, it absolutely had to be a lie.

“…”

Yongnae covered his face with both hands and let out a silent scream. Watching him, the Black Horse Gang members turned their eyes away, thinking that even if they were embarrassed, he must be even more embarrassed.

Still, there was some success yesterday, if you could call it that.

“But, looking at him yesterday, it seemed like he did a little bit of drugs.”

“The teacher? Not just drunk?”

“Yes. His behavior was like someone on drugs.”

“Now that I think about it, it seems that way? Didn’t that blonde guy give him drugs? Teacher, didn’t you get treated to something?”

Treated to something, my foot; I only got treated to hard liquor that tasted like crap…

‘…The taste is, a bit.’

‘Hmm? Why the taste?’

‘It’s strange…’

‘It’s okay. It’s the good stuff.’

He had taken it. He had accepted and drunk the water the man gave him.

That mysteriously sweet taste.

He must have spiked it then. That was E8.

5:00 PM, a time that would be deep in dreamland for people who enjoy Hong Kong’s nights. Yongnae was wearing a set of plain black sweats purchased from the market, peering only through the slightly opened passenger window of a borrowed van, staring fixedly at the back door of Club W.

“You aren’t a detection dog; can you really smell it?”

“Let’s wait.”

“Could it be the drugs haven’t worn off yet?”

Behind Yongnae, the Black Horse Gang members were watching his every move with faces full of suspicion.

They wouldn’t believe it until they saw it with their own eyes anyway, and Yongnae, who was too embarrassed to look at their faces because of yesterday’s disgraceful behavior, pretended not to hear them and only looked at the back door.

“Ah, but you know that celebrity from yesterday.”

“That damn handsome guy?”

“Yes. He was truly so handsome that I looked up all the Hong Kong male celebrities, but only Leslie Cheung and Andy Lau came up.”

“Is he not famous yet? Still, that guy will definitely make it big. His beauty was seriously killer.”

Guards had been standing in the entrance hallway yesterday, so it seemed a celebrity really had come to the club. But if he’s handsome, just how handsome could he be? Even a celebrity would ultimately become an ordinary person if they stood in front of the man. This was something he could guarantee one hundred percent.

‘Mmm…’

‘You’re so bad at kissing.’

‘It’s my first… time…’

‘Hmm—?’

Gulp. The sound of Yongnae swallowing his saliva echoed loudly inside the car. Fortunately, however, Changsik and Pilgu were still talking about that celebrity’s handsomeness in the back, so the sound of Yongnae’s swallowing was buried.

Memory came in flickers through churning scenes, but the kiss he shared with the man yesterday was so ecstatic that his legs trembled even while he was sitting down. The squelching sensation of a real kiss was still vivid. And while his usual dreams didn’t show specifically how they did erotic things even if they happened, yesterday was different.

‘What are you staring at so much.’

‘Because it’s not disgusting.’

‘…Take a smell.’

And the fact that he put his nose to the man’s groin and deeply inhaled that scent of flesh,

‘It’s like ice cream.’

The feeling of putting it in his mouth and sucking on it like eating ice cream was also entirely vivid.

‘Vanilla soft-serve ice cream… with apple sherbet at the bottom…’

‘…’

‘It tastes like that.’

‘…Hah.’

It was a dream, but unlike the usual ones, it had a very realistic vividness, which was why Yongnae had to buy a large size for the sweatshirt top at the market. It was because he had to hide his lower half, which kept trying to assert its presence.

Is this why people do drugs? Due to the realistic hallucinations that felt so real, he even had thoughts he shouldn’t have. Is this the fear of drugs?

Ah—it itches.

Yesterday’s dream felt itchy, and that unmentionable place where he had applied the abrasion ointment—which he bought by making all sorts of hand and foot gestures at the pharmacy behind the organization members’ backs—was also itchy.

No, why on earth does it hurt there?

“A car is coming in.”

While Yongnae was trying to think about why a part that shouldn’t hurt was hurting, the youngest, Howon, who was sitting in the driver’s seat, announced that a car was entering and told everyone to be on guard.

Vroom—

A red sports car entered from the entrance of the alley in the distance.