HPK 36

Taejung took one step into the room. He rolled his wrists and shoulders, looking the man over as if he were sizing him up. He was playful, as if he were in front of a punching machine at an arcade, not a person.

“Let go!”

The man shouted, twisting his body wildly. His face, flushed red, looked like it was about to burst at any moment.

“Is the atmosphere here bad? Fucking hell, it’s always like this every quarter.”

“What, you bastard! What are you, ugh!”

It was the moment the man began to scream again.

Thwack! A gruesome sound rang out, as if a punching bag had finally burst open. In an instant, the area below the man’s philtrum was covered in blood. Dark red blood trickled down, making his reddened face look like nothing in comparison.

“Geoh, heu…”

A strange sound escaped, a breath that failed to make it past his constricted throat.

“Ah, fuck. Blood.”

Taejung, seeing the blood splattered on the back of his hand, swore fiercely. He shook his hand repeatedly, as if he had gotten some filthy trash on it.

“Keuheuk…”

Bloody saliva dribbled between the man’s lips, as if the flesh inside his mouth had been completely torn apart. The speed at which his cheekbones and cheeks were swelling was unnervingly fast.

“You got blood on me. You son of a bitch.”

Thwack, thwack, the sound of something being crushed rang out in succession. He grabbed the man’s collar with his left hand to hold his face in place and swung his fist relentlessly. Saliva and blood splattered everywhere.

“Keck, heu…”

Even though the man’s left eyelid was so swollen that his eyeball was no longer visible, Taejung did not stop hitting him. The muscles revealed beneath his sleeves swelled with excitement, resembling the roots of an old tree.

The punching only stopped after the man’s head slumped limply downward. Taejung shook his hands and took a step back. He swept the inside of his cheek with his tongue and spat on the floor. Spit.

“Jungoh. Let’s be a little more selective with our customers from now on.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“You know guys like this don’t make any money.”

“Yes, yes. That’s right.”

Taejung wiped the remaining blood from the back of his hand on Kim Jungoh’s shirt. In an instant, the white shirt was stained with blood.

Even though his clothes were getting dirty, Kim Jungoh couldn’t say a word. He was already completely drained just from holding the man’s arms to keep him from falling over as Taejung beat him.

The spattering drops of blood had also left traces on the faces of Kim Jungoh and Ahn Youngil. But for fear of possibly upsetting Taejung, they absolutely did not raise a hand to wipe it off.

“Call a taxi and…”

Taejung, who had been pouring leftover liquor on the back of his hand to wash off the blood, stopped talking. Wooseung, who was hugging his calves with his face buried in his knees, had entered his line of sight.

“What’s he doing?”

Taejung pointed at Wooseung, laughing as if he found it absurd. Kim Jungoh could not dare to laugh along and just smiled awkwardly, following his lead.

Taejung walked over to him and crouched down. When he waved his left hand, signaling for them to leave, Kim Jungoh dragged the man out of the room as if he had been waiting for the signal. He didn’t forget to close the door carefully behind him. As the commotion subsided, silence settled in its place.

Taejung dangled his arms, which were resting on his knees, and observed Wooseung. The man flinched from time to time, as if he knew he was there, but he stubbornly kept his head down.

“Hey.”

Flinch. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. A laugh escaped at the innocent, childlike reaction, but he held it back.

“Give me the watch.”

“…Ah.”

Only then did Wooseung snap his head up. Seeing the face that had been hiding in its shell, Taejung could no longer hold back his laughter.

“Haha!”

The corners of his eyes, which drooped down like a gentle countryside puppy’s, were deathly pale. His face was generally devoid of color, but his bottom lip was as red as blood from how much he had been biting and chewing on it. It was a face that anyone could see was completely terrified.

“Did I, by any chance, hit you?”

Taejung teased him playfully as he looked at the man who had shriveled up like a deflated balloon. Wooseung rolled his lips inward and avoided his gaze. After beating a person like a dog, he now wore a perfectly clean expression as if nothing had happened. If it weren’t for the blood splattered on his Adam’s apple, he might have thought he had been hallucinating from the alcohol.

But that sound…

‘Geoh, heu…’

Today was the first time he had learned that human skin made such a sound when it burst. On top of that, there was that grotesque sound of breathing mixed with saliva, which had been blocked by the throat and couldn’t be properly exhaled.

The swollen eyelids and lips, the sticky saliva mixed with blood that dripped down, the neck hanging limply down like a broken string.

Until Taejung arrived, the man had reigned like a king in the room. He had forced them to drink, kept touching their bodies here and there, and if his mood soured, he would raise his hand with a string of vulgar curses. That same man…

“Please give me the watch.”

Taejung waved his hand playfully. With a trembling hand, Wooseung handed over the watch he had been hiding in his arms. He thought that it would be great if he would take the watch and just get out of here.

Taejung looked down at the arm stretched out towards him. The sleeve of the knit sweater had ridden up, revealing the wrist. The wrist, where three blue veins were clearly visible, looked like it would break with just a little bit of force.

At the end of it, Wooseung hesitantly made eye contact when Taejung only looked at the watch he was holding so awkwardly and didn’t take it. His face, unable to hide his emotions, was so innocent.

“Should I give that to you?”

His fingers curled inward like a sensitive plant.

“Huh?”

As the silence lengthened, Taejung pressed for an answer.

“…I know you won’t.”

This was a person who made him suck his penis and who always cut the price in half, blathering on about depreciation. There was no way he would just hand over such an expensive watch. He was probably just teasing him to see his reaction. By now, Wooseung had gotten a decent sense of Taejung.

“Have you lived your whole life being deceived? I’m telling you I’ll really give it to you.”

“…”

“Ah, really, really.”

Taejung emphasized the word ‘really’ in an endlessly light tone. Normally, he would have immediately recognized that this too was just teasing, but his mind, drunk and consumed by fear, was incapable of rational thought.

Even in the midst of his fear, perhaps because of the alcohol, the courage he thought had dried up kept seeping out from somewhere, little by little. Don’t say it, a last shred of reason screamed, but he foolishly asked anyway, unaware.

“…Really?”

At the low, yet faintly hopeful question, Taejung’s face contorted strangely. It was a peculiar expression, not quite crying and not quite laughing. Or perhaps it was like the expression one shows when pitying someone.

“No?”

Of course. Wooseung fiercely blamed himself for holding on to such a foolish hope. At the same time, he truly hated Taejung for continuing to play these kinds of pranks.

A moment later, his palm felt light. Taejung had taken the watch. The empty palm felt hollow.

He was about to put the watch on his left wrist but stopped and stared intently at Wooseung. He then held the watch out in front of him and dangled it.

“Should I give it to you?”

“…”

“For real this time.”

The watch swayed from side to side in front of his eyes like the needle of a metronome.

“Hey, I’m serious. You’ll be at a huge loss if you don’t take it.”

He barely managed to stop his eyes from trying to follow it, to the left, and to the right.

Wooseung compulsively licked his bottom lip. He couldn’t get a sense at all whether it was a prank or if he was being sincere.

“…”

After a few seconds, Wooseung slowly reached out his hand. The watch, which seemed to be on the verge of touching his fingertips, was suddenly far away, swinging near Taejung’s shoulder. Taejung had pulled his hand back.

At that moment, Wooseung’s lips pressed together tightly, and a dimple formed on his chin like the skin of a walnut.

“Hey, are you crying?”

Wooseung pressed his palms firmly against both of his eyes. He wiped his damp palms on his pants and then pressed them against his eyes again, repeating the motion.

“…”

Taejung silently gazed at the utterly unremarkable sight. For some reason, his mouth felt unusually dry. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the eyelashes, soaked and weighed down, and the area around his eyes, reddened from being rubbed so hard.

Taejung quickly realized that his state was different from usual. Even the dull throb of his heart was gradually speeding up.

“How much do you think this is worth, for you to just try and take it? You’re so fucking greedy.”

“…”

“If I give you this, what will you do for me.”

He asked in a raspy voice, propping his chin on the hand that held the watch.

“…I have nothing to give.”

Wooseung whimpered, shaking his head that he had nothing to give. At that moment, a feeling of impatience bordering on anxiety arose.

“Want to go for a second round?”

“…”

“With me.”

The patience to corner him and wait for the desired answer had already been burned to ashes.

Taejung slowly opened his palm. The watch lay on top of it. A watch that Wooseung could never buy even if he earned money his entire life.