PAHO 68

As soon as they passed through a tunnel, a commercial district with its lights off came into view. Hyeonrae-dong, created for the protection of tourists in Nakdo, where the public security was a mess due to vagrant gangs and violent organizations, was a special district thoroughly tailored to tourists. As such, most places were mainly active late at night and did not operate during the day.

The car, which had been driving quietly, stopped in front of a building deep inside with a sign that read Nakwon Shopping Center. Na Taebeom, who got out of the car on his own before Gwon Jongdae could even open the door for him, lightly rolled his shoulders to loosen his stiff body.

“It’ll take a while. If it looks like I won’t be out by six in the afternoon, Jongdae, you come in and knock on the door once.”

“Yes, sir.”

Gwon Jongdae nodded as if he was used to the simple instruction. Na Taebeom glanced at Nam Gyeonhwa, who was standing on the opposite side examining the building, then chuckled and approached him.

“But don’t you two get too friendly while I’m gone.”

He lightly tapped his left chest twice and whispered languidly in his ear.

“This, keep it safe. So I can eat it later if I get hungry.”

Frowning slightly, Nam Gyeonhwa silently and gently pushed him away as he leaned into his embrace. Na Taebeom, who stepped back obediently while chuckling, walked toward Nakwon Shopping Center, humming. Gwon Jongdae, who had been standing with an anxious face until Na Taebeom went inside with a guide who had come out to meet him and disappeared from sight, finally let out a sigh.

“You’ve been through a lot since dawn, Mr. Gyeonhwa.”

His face as he said so was full of genuine sympathy and, at the same time, embarrassment. He cleared his throat briefly and continued.

“Well, you must be tired from the training, so let’s have lunch and rest for a bit. The Director won’t be able to come out in the middle of it anyway.”

“What does he do in here that he can’t come out in the middle of it? It looks like an ordinary shopping center on the outside.”

As he said that, Nam Gyeonhwa pointed to the sign. The sign, which had faint traces of the word ‘instruments’ between Nakwon and Shopping Center, seemed to have little to do with Na Taebeom no matter how one looked at it. Gwon Jongdae scratched his head.

“Uhm, it has various uses, but it’s mainly a building the Director uses to entertain his VIPs. You know about the autumn tournament being held this time, don’t you, Mr. Gyeonhwa?”

“I’ve heard a lot about it. That it’s one of the biggest events here.”

The autumn tournament, also known by the acronym SFC, or the Autumn Cup, was so important that from Wiyeonggwan to the special security team, and even the entertainment districts surrounding Nakdo, everyone was preparing with only the hosting of that tournament in mind.

“Before the autumn tournament, the Director and a few public officials from the city council hold a reception to foster goodwill with investors. This might seem like no big deal because it’s a tournament held in the criminal underworld, but there are things that are possible precisely because it’s in the underworld. When people think of Nakdo, they usually only think of the large casinos that are homages to those in Macau or the Philippines, or Japanese-style pachinko, but in reality, that side of things is just a drop in the bucket compared to the money that flows through Wiyeonggwan. Here, they bet money on people.”

“Is Director Na Taebeom also included among those on whom money is bet?”

“Of course, he’s the core of the betting pool.”

“The core, of the betting pool?”

“It’s probably because most of that betting money is put up by people who want to beat the Director just once.”

Nam Gyeonhwa silently swallowed his breath at his rather proud-looking face. The scene from the match he had seen on television briefly flashed through his mind. The word ‘brutal’ was not enough to capture the horror of the bloody spectacle. It sounded horrifying that Na Taebeom existed as a factor that fueled the betting pool in such a playground. Gwon Jongdae waved his hands at Nam Gyeonhwa’s rather serious-looking face.

“Ah, but it’s not like the Director participates every time. It might have been different in the early days of Wiyeonggwan’s founding, but now that the foundation is somewhat established, the Director has also set restrictions to prepare for the unexpected. He’s set to intervene only when the final winner forgoes the prize money and instead issues a challenge. But you know, there’s no one crazy enough about fighting to readily give up prize money worth over billions, and the sponsors who put up the participants don’t enjoy variables in the face of clear profits. Most of them just come to be entertained, enjoy free booze and drugs to their heart’s content, and watch some crazy dogfight. While they’re at it, they also launder coins brought in from shell companies or tax havens into dollars or Korean won. That’s what this place was systematically built for.”

“To summarize, isn’t it just a money-wasting spectacle?”

“Well, that’s right. A money-wasting spectacle.”

Gwon Jongdae, who had a bitter taste in his mouth at the accurate point, naturally took out his phone to check it when the bell rang in his pocket. Just as he was wondering about his displeased expression, he ended the call and smiled sheepishly.

“Ah, what should I do, I had something to take care of around here, and I just remembered it now. I’m sorry, but, I think we’ll have to eat lunch separately, is that okay?”

“Yes, that’s fine. Please don’t worry about it and take care of your business.”

“Then let’s meet here in three hours. Ah, I’ll give you this before I go.”

What Gwon Jongdae handed him after rummaging through the glove box in the car was a spare car key.

“If you’re tired, you can take a nap in the car. We have to wait until the Director comes anyway.”

The phone rang again. Gwon Jongdae couldn’t even close the car door properly and hurriedly left the place. Nam Gyeonhwa closed the door for him and checked if it was properly locked. The digital clock visible through the car window was approaching noon.

Unlike the last time he came, the restaurant district of Hyeonrae-dong was noticeably quiet, except for a few foreigners. He crossed over to the street with a sign that said ‘No Vehicle Entry,’ discovered a restroom sign in a corner of an alley, and went inside. The restroom, which seemed to have been roughly made for the convenience of store customers, was unisex, with a single urinal and a toilet stall separated by a clumsy partition.

Thanks to the broken fan, Nam Gyeonhwa entered the stall, which smelled of stale cigarette smoke, and lifted his T-shirt to feel the area around his chest. His erect nipples were chafed by the cotton T-shirt and were red and swollen. Nam Gyeonhwa, who had been glaring at the unsightly teeth marks left here and there, carefully placed a bandage on top of it.

“Heup…”

As his nipple was pressed by the thin sponge, he let out a small groan at the erotic sensation that momentarily brushed his spine. Na Taebeom, who had shown no signs of letting him go even after they had escaped the predicament in the shower room, had persistently sucked and kneaded both his nipples until they were swollen and about to burst.

There was a limit to one’s patience, and in the end, Nam Gyeonhwa had even prepared himself to get hit a few times and had charged him with his whole body. He had expected him to retaliate with his fists, of course, but Na Taebeom had only stroked his hit cheek and, surprisingly, had not gotten angry. It would have been a relief if he had just hit him, but it was bewildering to see him act so docile after having been so unreasonable.

He could overlook the nonsensical banter about not being breastfed as a child, but he couldn’t understand his intention in persistently sucking and licking a mere man’s chest like this. One moment he was saying he didn’t like men, and the next, had he suddenly awakened to a new preference, or was it that the top of his nipple, which was slightly grazed to the point of stinging from being bitten and sucked so much, was shamefully itchy?

The itchiness didn’t subside at all even with the bandage, so Nam Gyeonhwa rubbed the top with his finger, then roughly pulled down the hem of his rolled-up T-shirt. It was truly embarrassing to be scratching his itchy chest in a secluded restroom, as if he were a pervert.

Right across from the restroom he came out of was a small gimbap restaurant. Most of the restaurants were closed, but he was also more drawn to a simple snack that was good for a quick meal than Thai-style crab dishes or grilled meat. The moment he entered the shop, a man who was watching a baseball broadcast on his phone lifted only his head like a turtle and greeted him with a nod of his eyes. Nam Gyeonhwa, who sat at a table near the door, ordered two rolls of gimbap. Not even a few minutes after he ordered, a woman with curly hair and colorful pins in it brought the gimbap and a bowl of kimchi soup.

“There’s nothing to see at this time of day, how did you end up coming to look around? It’s better to come after seven o’clock. Didn’t your guide tell you that?”

Nam Gyeonhwa, who nodded his head at her friendly meddling, hurriedly shoved the freshly made gimbap into his mouth. He had pushed himself through training since the morning, and on top of that, he had dealt with Na Taebeom in the shower, so he was so hungry that his stomach started to hurt the moment he smelled the sesame oil. The man, who had been quietly watching Nam Gyeonhwa wolfing down the gimbap as if he were possessed, silently poured a glass of barley tea and offered it to him.

“You seem to be a stranger, but it’s not good to stay here for long. They say it’s a special tourist district, but it’s a den of trash. It’s a place where those politicians crazy about real estate have shoved everything they don’t want in front of their houses underground, so I don’t know what’s so great about it that people come to see.”

“Honey, the customer is eating.”

The woman in the kitchen hurriedly tried to calm him down at his pointed words. While the man clicked his tongue and turned up the volume on his phone, Nam Gyeonhwa silently chewed and swallowed the gimbap. After neatly finishing even the kimchi soup, Nam Gyeonhwa came forward to pay, and the woman gave him an awkward smile.

“I’m sorry. I think it’s because my husband is having a tough time these days.”

The woman, who had quickly completed the payment, handed him the card. Nam Gyeonhwa, who was looking at the floor guide written in abundance next to the entrance of the snack shop, stared at the name of the adult PC bang written on the second basement floor, and then finally spoke.

“The PC bang downstairs, is it open in the morning?”

The basement establishment, labeled as an adult PC bang, was so full of cigarette smoke that it resembled a furnace from a historical drama. The majority of the people sitting there were there to enjoy online poker or mahjong, and the remaining computers were also running games automatically.

“Are you a member?”

A woman who had just appeared, pushing aside the beaded curtain on the door, asked. She had piercings on her nose and mouth, and the piercings dangled every time she breathed.

“If it’s okay, I’d just like to do a little internet searching, is that possible?”

“Searching? What’s your phone for?”

“I don’t have a phone.”

At those words, the woman looked down at Nam Gyeonhwa with an expression as if she were looking at a strange person. He looked neat and stylish, but he didn’t have a phone. Was he an employee from a brothel trying to run away from his debts? The woman soon held out her hand and said.

“Seventy thousand won per hour. Use number thirty-five in the back. There’s no monitoring program there.”

As it happened, he only had one fifty-thousand-won bill in cash. Nam Gyeonhwa carefully held out the bill and said.

“I’ll just use it for thirty minutes.”

“What to do, oppa. We don’t offer discounts like that.”

As soon as she thought he was a pushover, the term oppa came out. It was an ambiguous situation to go home and come back for just twenty thousand won. Just then, a half-naked man came out from the back.

“What is it?”

“Honey, this guy says he needs to do some web searching, but he doesn’t have the money. We’re not that kind of place.”

Instead of the giggling woman, he, who had been staring at Nam Gyeonhwa, snatched the bill and gestured with his chin to the other side. Seeing that he had given him permission to use the computer, it seemed the woman had deliberately been giving him a hard time.

Passing by people who were clicking their mice as if they were out of their minds, Nam Gyeonhwa settled in a spot in the back and carefully placed his hands on the keyboard and mouse, which were covered in cigarette ash and dust. The computer, which was clearly outdated even to a layman’s eye, finally turned on after repeating updates for a full five minutes.