HPK 91

Golf, entertaining clients, being a guide.

This was all Wooseung knew about the errand. Pot-bellied old men, erectile dysfunction, 24 hours. In addition to the things Chanil had listed with disgust. He had shuddered, saying there was a reason he had moved here from Jongno.

It was probably not an easy job. That must be why he was receiving that much money from Taejung.

‘Hyung, what kind of person President is…’

‘I don’t think you know yet.’

At that moment, for some reason, the words Hyojun had said with a worried face came to mind.

His heart stirred as if a violent wave had crashed over it. Wooseung woke up the dead screen and went to his contacts. His thumb wandered over the name ‘Park Hyojun’.

He was debating whether to call or send a text when his phone suddenly buzzed, bzzzt. He was so startled that he almost dropped it.

[What are you doing]

The text that appeared on the screen was from Taejung.

Taejung often, no, frequently, sent texts out of the blue. The content was always similar. What are you doing, wake up, are you sleeping, and so on. They were not difficult questions to answer, but he always hesitated, wondering if they were in a position to be doing this.

However, if there was no reply, Taejung would immediately call to make sure Wooseung was awake. He did not allow even a moment of hesitation. So, when Wooseung saw a text, he tried to reply as quickly as possible.

To think a text would come from Taejung just when he was thinking about him. His thumb slowly pressed the screen.

[Just sitting haha]

As soon as he sent it, the phone vibrated as if it had been waiting.

[lol]

[lol]

It was not a funny answer at all, but all he got back was a string of ‘ㅋㅋㅋ’. Wooseung scratched the tip of his eyebrow and sent, ‘Why?’ Since sending just that felt a bit awkward, he added an emoticon.

[Wanna come over if you’re bored?]

Today was Friday. A day Taejung was highly likely to go to the club. From what he had roughly overheard of his conversation with Junseok earlier, it seemed he was going to the establishment on Dosan-daero.

[Ah it’s okay!haha I’m tired..TT]

He wanted to avoid going to establishments with hostesses as much as possible. He had been worried Taejung might insist he come, but thankfully, he just said, ‘Is that so?’ and let it go. However, it seemed he had no intention of ending the text conversation, as the trivial chat continued.

Since it did not seem like it would end easily, Wooseung folded his legs up onto the sofa and placed his phone on his lap. He should have been used to it by now, but texting with someone who was not a friend or family always gave him a strange feeling.

[But you’re using formal speech again lol]

His thumb, which had been firmly pressing the keyboard, stopped. Wooseung licked his lower lip once before typing a message again.

[haha..]

Taejung had told him to speak informally, but Wooseung still used a clumsy half-formal speech. He would call Taejung with phrases like, ‘Um,’ or ‘Hey, you know,’ and when talking to him, he would trail off with, ‘Ah, I see.’ Every time he did that, Taejung would laugh out loud as if he found it incredibly amusing.

His mood swings were ridiculously severe, he was childish, petty… The feelings he first had when he met Taejung, the horror and fear, had been diluted quite a bit. It was frustrating and suffocating when he acted so arrogant and unreasonable, but at least he was not as scary as he was at first.

‘I don’t like you.’

‘Why the fuck would I like you.’

If you are going to say that, at least hide your blushing face…

What Wooseung had received from him was not just a card that allowed cash withdrawals from anywhere and could be swiped as he pleased. What had come into his hands was a weakness. It was a feeling Taejung himself was unaware of, and a card that could turn the tables at a decisive moment.

‘Hyung, what kind of person President is…’

‘I don’t think you know yet.’

And so, Wooseung tried his best to ignore the words that reappeared in his mind like a warning light.

It seemed that Oh Seungmin had cut off contact with his family from the moment he stopped showing up for work at ‘Kirin’. After dropping out of high school, he was treated almost like a disowned child at home, so his family did not even look for him until he was discovered as a corpse in a motel bathroom.

However, the story Chanil heard from the player who attended the funeral did not end there. There was a more shocking inside story.

‘Until 300 thousand won became 150 million won.’

Just a few months ago, he had seen a news article about an illegal private loan organization that had been caught by the police in droves for charging high-interest rates of over 5,000% annually. It had stuck in his memory because he had felt it was not someone else’s problem.

Oh Seungmin, who had even bought a luxury foreign car by running errands, had borrowed money from an illegal loan shark. Unable to handle the murderously ballooning interest, he even filmed a video of himself naked, promising to pay back the money, and that video was sent to his family as well as all his acquaintances.

‘I’ll pay you back, hyung-nim!’

Oh Seungmin, kneeling naked and saying he would pay back the money—after seeing the video, his family apparently gave up on the idea of finding him even more. They figured he must have borrowed money from a strange place and was on the run, so they were actually not curious about his whereabouts, a family member had said, wiping his gaunt face. Even considering they were at their child’s funeral, the atmosphere was unspeakably heavy.

Chanil whispered that he had probably hanged himself, adding a groan of, “Ugh,” at the end. He said, what other way was there to die in a bathroom.

[010—7XXX—XXXX]

Wooseung stared blankly at the number on the screen, lost in thought. It was the number of the player who had gone to the club with Kim Hyungho, which he had gotten separately after asking Chanil.

‘Hey, just give up. It’ll be easier on you to just consider it money you can’t get back. I lost a fuckton of money to that bastard too. All because of that fucking table he reserved.’

When Wooseung asked about Kim Hyungho’s whereabouts, the player had shaken his head, telling him to give up. He had said that he also was not in contact with Kim Hyungho, but just in case, Wooseung wanted to ask again. To ask if he was still out of touch.

Chanil seemed relieved after hearing the story from the player who went to the funeral. It appeared he had concluded that Oh Seungmin’s death was unrelated to Taejung’s errand. After all, his situation had been bad enough that suicide would not have been strange…

For some reason, Wooseung could not feel at ease. He knew well that this was him being meddlesome. That it was the other side of his father, who always pushed the bad role onto his mom while wearing the mask of a good person. That he was just feigning goodness for his own peace of mind, abandoning what he truly needed to protect.

His grandmother liked that Wooseung was just like his dad, but his mom…

‘Anyway, he acts just like his father.’

Wooseung squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them. His eyes stung and ached as if a cold wind had brushed past them. After rubbing them a few times with his palm, he picked up his phone again. His thumb was heading towards the call button when the phone was suddenly snatched from his hand.

“Uh…!”

Taejung, standing at a slant, looked at Wooseung’s phone as if it were the most natural thing in the world. His eyes moved slowly from left to right.

“Who’s this?”

He asked, lowering the phone slightly. Wooseung swallowed hard. He felt strangely guilty, even though he had not done anything wrong.

“……Just.”

“Just?”

“An obituary text came in… so I was wondering what happened.”

Wooseung deliberately brought up the words ‘obituary text’. He wanted to gauge Taejung’s reaction. However, Taejung merely raised an eyebrow slightly, showing no particular response.

“Someone croaked?”

Instead, he asked back nonchalantly. Who died.

“Someone named Oh Seungmin. He’s a player… Don’t you know him?”

“Oh Seungmin, Oh Seungmin. Hmm…”

“……”

“Don’t know him.”

Taejung shrugged. It did not seem like he was pretending not to know; it really looked like he had no idea who Oh Seungmin was.

As Chanil had predicted, was his death really unrelated to the errand? Was it true that he had committed suicide, unable to bear the uncontrollably ballooning interest?

Wooseung, lost in thought, stared blankly at Taejung’s eyes.

Just then, a ringing tone sounded, trrr, and then was cut off. A moment later, a voice said, “Hello?” Taejung had unexpectedly called the number Wooseung had on his screen. It happened in the instant he had been spaced out.

“What are you—!”

Taejung skillfully dodged the outstretched hand by just twisting his shoulder.