HPK 24

“If you say it is noisy, I will turn it off.”

Taejung kicked the back of the driver’s seat with his foot. Startled by the kick that was urging him to answer, Junseok looked at the rearview mirror. Perhaps it was because the two eyes peeking out from above the phone were reflecting the lights from outside, but they looked unusually glossy. Junseok shifted his gaze back to the front. The smile hanging on the corners of his lips looked very awkward.

“It is alright, sir. It is fine.”

His words had not even finished.

“You heard him, right? Junseok says it is fine.”

Taejung not only brought the phone closer to his face but also turned up the volume. It was as if Junseok’s answer had not mattered in the slightest from the beginning.

“Yes, I understand.”

From the start, Hoonyeong had not thought that Taejung would obediently lower the volume or turn off the video. Hoonyeong replied indifferently and turned his attention away.

Taejung hummed a tune as he moved the bar at the very bottom of the video to the right. Wooseung, who had been sitting on the sofa, was grabbed by the Pig and dragged to the front of the karaoke machine. With every staggering step, the influence of alcohol was clearly evident.

While one of the hosts grabbed the microphone and belted out a ballad with a voice like a pig being slaughtered, the two of them danced something that might have been the blues or something else. Wooseung was in a state where he could not even walk properly, so he was just being held by the Pig and swayed back and forth. Because he was small and thin, at a glance, he looked like a clump of several fabrics.

Pfft, a laugh escaped Taejung’s lips. The sight of him hanging in the man’s arms, limp like a wet cloth, was quite funny. It reeked of that cheap attitude.

At that moment, a hand slipping under the hem of the knit sweater came into Taejung’s view. Because the color of the knit was so flashy, the hem being lifted was very noticeable.

The hand, after casually stroking his side, soon moved to his waist. It swept down along where the spine would be, then patted him lightly. The movement of the hand revealed under the knit was blatant.

Taejung moved the bar back again. By the time the video was almost over, Wooseung was taking off his knit sweater. It was the very image of him revealing his tits for the 120,000 won he had mentioned.

Being touched, being swayed back and forth, and in the end, being stripped.

“Hey, Hoonyeong.”

Taejung, who had been staring blankly at the phone, suddenly spoke. The video ended with Wooseung leaving the room with staggering steps.

“Have you ever slept with a man?”

Hoonyeong put down his tablet and turned his shoulders. Facing his expressionless face, Taejung added.

“Before you started dating your current girlfriend.”

“I only dated women before Yeonhee, too.”

“Not just dated, but slept with?”

Hoonyeong’s answer was quick and concise.

“Yes.”

Taejung, who was quietly thinking, played the CCTV footage from another room. Soon, the car was filled with the groans of a man. In the scene where two men, with only their pants off, were having sex, the sounds of moaning and flesh slapping against flesh were added.

Hoonyeong knew instantly from the sound alone what kind of video Taejung was playing. No matter how strictly he warned them not to have sex with customers in the rooms, it was only effective for that moment. Once they got drunk, and the customer slipped them a few bills, the hosts’ pants came off all too easily.

“I told them not to have sex in the rooms, but they just do not listen.”

Taejung, who had been grinning, moved his body toward the driver’s seat and stretched his arm forward. Then he shook his phone as if to say, look at this.

“Hoonyeong. Look closely. See if this bastard’s dick gets hard.”

There was no reason for it to be hot, but beads of sweat had already formed on Junseok’s forehead. The hands gripping the steering wheel were in the same condition.

“Oh, fuck, it is hard!”

“No, sir!”

When Taejung pretended to be surprised, pointing his finger toward his crotch, Junseok reflexively denied it. At the utterly ridiculous reaction, Taejung burst out laughing. Hoonyeong let out an open sigh.

“Hoonyeong. Did Moonsu fool around with men too?”

Taejung asked as he casually tossed his phone onto the seat next to him.

“I am not sure.”

“Change the reservation for the guys next week to Girin.”

Taejung would occasionally call his close younger brothers or subordinates and let them party at the club. But it had never been Girin. Most of the time, it was another establishment in Gangnam, a place that, unlike Girin, only had female hostesses.

“Manager Han said he prepared a lot, saying there are new girls.”

“So what.”

Taejung leaned back against the backrest with a thud and swept his hair back. His fine hair swayed like a wave. Following that, the sound of his humming echoed.

While changing the reservation as instructed, Hoonyeong did not ask for Taejung’s intentions. He just hoped that nothing troublesome that would require cleaning up would happen.

“Ah, this is going to be fucking fun.”

Taejung’s lips curved into a gentle arc, his thoughts unknown. What hung at the end of that smile was, ironically, pure interest.

♡

Wooseung ran down the stairs. As soon as he entered the annex hallway, he ran into Kim Jungoh. He, who had been talking with another manager with a serious expression, immediately scowled upon seeing Wooseung.

“Hey, you bastard!”

“Hah, hah. I am sorry.”

“Are you crazy? What time do you think it is now?”

He shook his left wrist, which wore a watch, and flew into a rage.

“You slack-jawed bastard. Hey, did I tell you there are a lot of reservations today or not.”

“I am sorry. I missed the subway…”

“Enough, just go in and get ready. The lineups are crazy backed up right now.”

He bowed his head toward the impatiently waving fingertips and turned around. He had been running all the way from the subway station, so he was out of breath, but he could not afford to dawdle here.

“Coming to work whenever he damn pleases. That bastard.”

“What is with his appearance?”

“How should I know.”

“Can you even sell that?”

The insults exchanged between Kim Jungoh and the other manager tickled his ears, but he ignored them, pretending not to hear. Even in his own opinion, his appearance was a mess.

It was not that he had overslept. His grandmother’s bedsores had gotten worse, so he had briefly gone down to his family’s home in Daejeon, but her hospitalization was delayed longer than expected, forcing him to change his train time back to Seoul.

Kim Jungoh had yelled at him over the phone, asking what he was doing not coming to work quickly, so he could not even stop by his home and came straight to the club. Because of that, his hair was a mess, and his clothes were inevitably more shabby than usual.

“Hyung, hi!”

As he entered the waiting room, Hyojun greeted him. He walked toward Hyojun through the air thick with the mixed smell of alcohol and strong perfume. As he took off his bag and hoodie and placed them on the sofa, Hyojun asked why he was late. Wooseung did not answer and instead took out a knit sweater from his locker.

“Hyung, hyung.”

No sooner had he put on his clothes and caught his breath than Hyojun called him. The smell of alcohol on his breath was strong.

“How is my hair?”

Unlike his usual style of enhancing his perm, Hyojun had slicked all his hair back with pomade. There was a slight disconnect with his youthful face, but it was not bad. It went well with his neat, light-gray shirt too.

“It looks good. Why? Did the manager tell you to change your hairstyle?”

Hyojun rubbed his sideburns with his index finger and shook his head.

“That is not it. The president came today.”

Wooseung, who had been looking at the can of pomade wax, flinched at the word ‘president’.

“He came with some gangster-like guys. Chris’s girlfriend works at Factory, oh, you know Factory, right? In Yeoksam. Anyway, she said they sometimes come as a group to party and they tip really well. Five is a given, and if you do well, you can get ten, even fifteen, just like that.”

Hyojun chattered on in an excited voice, saying they stack 50,000 won bills on a tray and hand them out one by one. The one who threw cold water on his excitement was, surprisingly, Chanil.

“You think they will give it to us? They are guys who party with women. You can tell just by looking. Phew, you idiot.”

He shook his head from side to side as he watched Hyojun carefully arranging every single strand of his hair.

“Anyway, if they came here, does that not mean they are thinking of partying with hosts?”

“I do not know about that. There are six of them there, and they have only seated one person so far. They have rejected everyone else.”

“That is because I did not go in.”

“You crazy bastard. What bullshit.”

It was unlike the Chanil who had been so bright-eyed about the president’s last visit. Chanil, noticing Wooseung’s gaze, simply lifted his head slightly to meet his eyes.

“Hyung, are you going to go in looking like that?”

“Huh?”

“Is getting yelled at by Kim Jungoh a hobby of yours, by any chance?”

“Hey, why would you say something like that?”

“I am saying it because he is being so damn slow.”

When Hyojun tapped his thigh with his fist, he kicked Hyojun’s shoulder with his foot. While the two bickered, Wooseung finished tidying his messy hair with an awkward expression.

“Hyung, you always wear only knit sweaters, do you not?”

“Ah, shirts do not look good on me…”

“Hey, I told you, your shoulders are your best feature, hyung. These sharp angles, this, this. You have to show this off.”

Hyojun tapped Wooseung’s straight-dropping shoulders with the back of his hand. He always told Wooseung to wear shirts to reveal his shoulder line, but Wooseung did not particularly favor form-fitting clothes like shirts.

He hated how his thin frame was revealed, so he preferred to wear oversized knit sweaters to hide his thinness. Judging from his experience at the main building, he also tended to get chosen more often when he wore a knit sweater.

Just as he was pressing down on the back of his hair with his palm, wondering if it was sticking up, the door opened. Four hosts who had just been in a lineup rushed in, followed by Kim Jungoh.

“Hey, hey. Move.”

He glanced back and forth between the watch on his wrist and the attendance sheet, quickly calling out the names of the hosts. Wooseung was not among them.