HPK 11

“Ugh!”

“Hey, I told you to swallow.”

The hand was large and firm, enough to cover his nose and lips at once. The skin pressed against the calloused palm screamed in stinging pain, but what was more urgent was his blocked breath.

“Ugh, heuk!”

Wooseung desperately grabbed the thick wrist, but Taejung did not let go of his covered mouth.

“I’m telling you, Choi Hoonyeong is throwing a fit, you know?”

“Ugh! Ugh!”

“What was that? You’re sorry?”

“Ugh, ah!”

“Then swallow.”

Taejung’s gaze shifted to the milky white liquid that had pooled roundly on the floor. He pressed it with the toe of his sneaker and smeared it sideways, leaving a long, dirty mark.

“Hoonyeong-ah. This isn’t my fault. He’s the one who spit it out.”

Hoonyeong showed no reaction, even as he watched Wooseung hiccup and his whole body tremble. He simply lowered the window, as if the cloudy and humid air was unpleasant. As the driver’s side window rolled down, the refreshing night air rushed inside.

The April night was still cool.

*

“Is something a little different?”

Hoonyeong asked as he watched Taejung fasten the buckle of his jeans in the rearview mirror.

“Hmm?”

Taejung stopped humming and looked at Hoonyeong, who had asked an uncharacteristically unusual question.

“You weren’t very interested in the entertainers before.”

“Ah.”

Hoonyeong, deciding that the car had been aired out enough, raised the window. With the damp and stuffy air gone, only the faint scent of Taejung’s cologne lingered inside the car.

“It’s fun.”

Taejung’s answer was simple.

“Is that so.”

“No, fucking hell, you should have seen it. That thing, ah, just thinking about it is making me hard again.”

Taejung laughed crudely, fumbling with the area between his legs.

Hoonyeong recalled Wooseung, who until just a moment ago was in the back seat, the nape of his neck grabbed, making sounds like he was about to stop breathing. He was remarkably different from Taejung, not just in his aura but in his physique as well. He was the type of person who looked so slender that if Taejung were to so much as slap him across the cheek, his neck would snap right off.

“He just looked like a baby.”

His face did, he added, his voice devoid of any inflection.

“A baby? Don’t be fucking ridiculous.”

Taejung spat out a vulgar curse as if he had heard the most absurd thing. If he was calling the vacant-looking face baby-like, that was understandable, but if Hoonyeong had seen the wet, soft, red flesh inside that wide-open mouth, he wouldn’t be saying such things either. That was an organ made less for eating food and more for sucking dick.

“Hoonyeong-ah. I think buying it isn’t so bad after all.”

Taejung checked his reflection in his phone, turning his head this way and that. He smoothed down his messy hair with his hands.

“We’re on a tight schedule, so let’s head in now.”

“Right, right.”

His response was light and quick, as if he was in an exceptionally good mood. Hoonyeong got out of the car first and walked around the hood to the back seat. When he opened the door, Taejung got out and stretched. A cracking sound came from his bones every time he tilted his head left and right.

“Kevin returns on the 4th, and he said the lab will be up and running right from the 5th, so the supply should be sufficient.”

Hoonyeong reported in an indifferent tone as he walked ahead. As always, Taejung barely pretended to listen.

“The Kim Hyungho situation was also wrapped up nicely.”

As Taejung yawned, a single empty, crumpled cigarette pack came into his view.

‘I was just throwing away some trash.’

The way he had hurriedly thrown the trash under the U-shaped bollard, as if he was afraid of being scolded…

It was funny.

“Hoonyeong-ah. Should we not give him the money?”

A mischievous smile spread across his handsome face. Hoonyeong, who was rapidly swiping through the screen of his tablet with his left thumb, asked back, “Mr. Yoon Wooseung?”

“You just said buying it isn’t so bad, but now you’re going to take it for free?”

“It’s no fun if you give it to him too easily.”

It didn’t look all that easy though. The image of Wooseung, gasping and choking, not knowing what to do, flashed through Hoonyeong’s mind. However, at Taejung’s words to head inside, the afterimage did not linger long and was quickly erased.

They entered through the open door, and only silence descended upon the parking lot. A cool breeze blew over the crumpled cigarette pack.

As soon as he entered the waiting room, Hyojun, whose eyes met his, shot up from his seat.

“Hyung. What happened to your face?”

At the loud reaction, the other entertainers’ gazes followed and landed on Wooseung. Everyone reacted differently, but they all widened their eyes in surprise, which was quite similar. It was a busy time of day so there were not many people, but he couldn’t help feeling embarrassed and subtly turned his head away.

“Did you cry?”

“…No.”

“Then?”

The swollen eyelids, the flushed cheeks and nose that were still red with heat—no matter how you looked at it, it was the face of someone who had just had a good cry. Hyojun’s eyes busily scanned the small face.

“Are you going to look for a room today with your face like this?”

“I have to…”

As he spoke, he sniffled, and Hyojun said, “Aigoo,” repeatedly raising and lowering his hand.

“Hyung, you really look like a kid when you cry.”

Chanil, who had been lying sprawled out on the sofa playing a game, added nonchalantly. His weightless gaze swept over Wooseung’s swollen eye area.

“I didn’t cry…”

Wooseung muttered, wiping under his nose with the back of his hand. Chanil frowned as if in disbelief and asked, “Then what happened?”

“…I got hit.”

“What?”

“As soon as I got here, I went to Room 7 and…”

Chanil shot up from his lying position.

“The president came today?”

Other than exchanging a word or two when he was talking to Hyojun, this was the first time Chanil had spoken to Wooseung first. His eyes shone with a strange sparkle.

“Did the president come?”

“…”

“Ah, shit, be quiet. Hold on.”

Annoyed by the sound coming from the phone pressed under his palm, he turned off the game with an irritated gesture. A familiar game was displayed on the screen he glanced at. It was ‘Ladder Game’ from an illegal gambling site that was popular among the entertainers these days.

“I didn’t see Chief Choi. There wasn’t a lineup either.”

Hyojun tilted his head as if puzzled. Even so, he gestured for Wooseung to sit next to him. Wooseung rubbed his face roughly with the back of his hand and sat on the sofa.

“Did Chief Choi directly tell you to go into the room, hyung?”

Chanil, who had flipped his phone over and placed it on the table, asked again.

“That’s not it…”

Wooseung awkwardly trailed off.

“Then?”

“…”

“Ah, what is it?”

It was true that he had received a call from Chief Choi telling him to come to work, but he was debating whether it was okay to say it just like that. He did not know how the other entertainers would take it, and seeing Chanil’s reaction, he could not rule out the possibility that it could become a source of trouble. But lying about it also felt very wrong.

“On my way to work, I, um, ran into Chief Choi, and he told me to just sit in Room 7 for a bit before leaving, so… I went in, and I think the president was in a bad mood.”

“Huh. So he sent you in to get hit. That’s fucking mean.”

Hyojun, who was listening from the side, scowled deeply.

“He beats the entertainers all the damn time. I don’t know why he does that.”

“But he hands out checks left and right when he’s in a good mood.”

“I’ve never gotten one of those checks, so I wouldn’t know.”

Hyojun shrugged and turned his body toward Wooseung. His gaze fell on the corner of his mouth, where a small scab had formed as a cut healed.

“Ugh. That must hurt, hyung.”

“Ah, I washed it with cold water, so it’s calmed down a bit.”

A drop of water fell from his wet hair and trickled down his neck. He raised his hand and wiped it away casually.

“Anyway, the president came to the club today, right?”

“Huh? Ah, yeah.”

Chanil muttered “Alright,” under his breath and picked up his phone again. It seemed he had gotten the answer he wanted and no longer had any interest in the conversation. Seeing this, Hyojun asked.

“Why have you been looking for the president so much since earlier?”

Chanil lowered his phone slightly and met Hyojun’s eyes.

“You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Hyungho went to Thailand yesterday.”

“Thailand?”

When Hyojun asked, “What about it?” with a puzzled expression, Chanil sighed as if frustrated.

“Hey. Where would that bastard Hyungho get the money to go to Thailand? And to play fucking golf, no less.”

“He plays golf too?”

“No, you idiot. That’s not the point.”

Wooseung fidgeted with the hands resting on his knees and glanced at Chanil. At the name ‘Hyungho’, his ears perked up without him realizing.

“A bastard who didn’t even have ten thousand won and was borrowing money from us, what? Suddenly a golf trip? And right after getting picked by the president? It’s pretty obvious.”

“Ah.”

Only then did Hyojun nod his head as if he understood.

“That’s right. Hyungho did go into the president’s room.”

“He went in at least three times, you bastard.”

Three times.

Did that mean Hyungho had gone through something like that in the room three times?

Wooseung flinched involuntarily. It was because that day reflexively came to mind. The damp and sticky air, and even the man’s moans mixed in with the game’s sound effects.

“The president must have given him a lot, huh?”

At Hyojun’s words, Chanil said, “That’s not it,” as if he was suffocating. He had even sat up straight from his leaning position against the sofa backrest.

“You haven’t seen his story?”

“Ah, I haven’t been on Instagram much lately.”

“Look, look.”

Chanil brought his phone, launched the app, and presented it to Hyojun. He clicked his tongue as if to say, let’s see if you can still say he just gave him a lot of money after seeing this.

Even though he was tapping the right side of the screen quickly with his index finger, the photos just kept coming. A photo of him backstroking in a hotel pool wearing swim trunks that barely covered his private parts, a photo of him sitting comfortably in a golf course buggy, and even a photo in a club with five bottles of champagne lined up, a woman on each arm. It was clearly the life of someone enjoying a luxurious trip.

“That bastard Hyungho, he’s borrowed over 20 million won from the entertainers. Where would a guy like that get the money to do all this shit? If he gets caught, he’s dead meat that day. Doesn’t that mean he has someone to rely on?”

Chanil leaned in, looked around, and then spoke in a small, whispering voice. Hyojun and Wooseung leaned in as well. The three of them looked like they were plotting something together. Only after Chanil got angry, asking what they were doing looking so damn suspicious, did the other two straighten their backs again.

“Anyway, I heard something…”

What he said next was unexpected.