THM Ch 1

A midwinter morning begins late.

In the midst of a pitch-black world that felt as though it would last forever, there was a human carving through the dawn—Joo Nando, the second son of Joo Nanchul, the head of the corporate-style organization Junan Enterprises.

From outside the car door opened by his right-hand man, Kang Sanggoo, Joo Nando’s long legs wrapped in a black suit popped out. The feet stepping onto the ground were likewise wearing black dress shoes. His hair, however, was in a disheveled state flowing long over his shoulders, looking as if he had just been swinging a blade moments ago.

Getting out of the car like a person who had tossed and turned all night, Nando’s face looked particularly sallow today. He walked toward the main gate of the mansion built on a vast piece of land. The ironclad gate, which was always locked at this time, was thrown wide open, aware of his visit. Inside the yard, the servant Ham Yonghoo was seen standing like a shadow. As their eyes met, Ham Yonghoo bowed at the waist.

After exchanging a mutual nod with Ham Yonghoo—whose bond with him spanned a whopping 20 years—Nando stood right up against the iron bars that were as thick as his own forearm. A metallic fishy smell, even more revolting than blood, seemed to waft in on the wind.

“Cigarette.”

He accepted the cigarette Kang Sanggoo lit and handed to him, sticking it in his mouth. After taking a deep puff, he held the cigarette between his lips alone and began tidying up his untied long hair with both hands, neatly gathering it. Having lived with long hair for nearly 10 years, it was naturally second nature, but the touch of his hands—pulling it up high and finishing it off by wrapping it into a topknot with the hair tie looped around his left hand—was skillful whenever seen. Thanks to Joo Nanchul using various mental illness records as an excuse to neatly get him exempt from military service, he had maintained this appearance ever since he was around twenty years old.

Above the desolate concrete floor where not even a single dried fallen leaf lay, the cigarette held in his hand fell. The matte shoes, devoid of any reflected light, mercilessly trampled the stub.

“Call the boys to the office in advance. So there’s no waiting.”

A sentence was formed in a husky voice from the mouth out of which all the smoke had escaped. Behind the towering, tall figure who had finished preparing to enter, Kang Sanggoo bowed his head, saying, “Yes, hyung-nim.” It was a monotonous movement, like that of an honest, simple-minded servant.

Crossing the main gate, his stride walking across the grass crisply frozen in the cold air was somehow strange. Even though he was clearly walking of his own free will, his footsteps resembled a beast tied to a leash and being dragged along.

He glanced at the window on the far right of the first floor—the only one lit in this early dawn. It was his father Joo Nanchul’s study. The light flowing softly from there seemed to sway precariously in time with his steps. Standing in front of the main entrance, which, like the main gate, was open, he ended up letting out a low, mirthless laugh.

Nando, admit it now. The light has never swayed even once; it is only your body acting precariously.

If there was something he could never get used to no matter how many times he experienced it, it would be the pain physically plunging into this body. Before the excrement of violence that pierced through the skin and mixed together muscle and bone all at once, today as well he would shrink back, groan, and shed blood.

In the dark living room, his mother Ok Myeongshin was standing like a ghost. Halting his steps, he bowed deeply at the waist and offered a polite greeting, treating her like an infinitely high elder. One second, two seconds, three seconds. After counting the numbers in his mind, he straightened his waist and saw the figure of his mother who had turned her back.

“…”

He looked across at his mother’s faint, whitish back as she distanced herself. Being ignored by his mother was something he had long grown accustomed to, so it was nothing to him. Rather than being called in and beaten like a dog, his honest feeling was that he would prefer to be ignored like that a hundred or a thousand times over.

Joo Nanchul was sitting at his desk, smoking his first cigarette. Having married Ok Myeongshin at the young age of twenty-four while still a soldier and having children early, Joo Nanchul was now only fifty-seven. His ink-black hair, unmixed with a single strand of white, glistened like a beast’s black eyeballs beneath the low-chroma light. And what of the taut corners of his eyes and mouth, where not a single wrinkle formed even when he smiled? If there was a power keeping Joo Nanchul from aging, it would be Joo Nanchul’s own stubborn conviction that must have sprouted from the moment he was conceived. Today, that was cast over his entire face to a cruel degree.

“I’m here, Father.”

Nando closed the study door, entered, and greeted him while bowing at the waist. A spot one step away from the door. Twelve steps to the desk where his father was. It was a spot where he gained the exact same realization every time. Father hasn’t aged at all today either. Just how fucking long is he planning to live?

Into his ears, which were bowed down, came the sound of a chair dragging. Then followed footsteps. He felt the depression he had barely suppressed through an orgy two hours before coming here creeping back to life.

Promiscuous sex becoming a habit began after he saw a research result in some fitness magazine saying that regular sex lowers stress and depression. During that time, perhaps because it was chronic but not severe enough to require medication, the effect given by sex was quite good.

However, these days, when his depression had increased significantly, he was realizing that he was gradually reaching his limit. So, starting about 6 months ago, he had shifted his direction to orgies, but that too seemed unlikely to last long. No matter how much he poked and sucked here and there, his heart was empty, and even when he spilled his cum, it didn’t feel like he had ejaculated. Even when he drank alcohol, it felt like water, and the human punching bags knocked out in a single hit only aroused depression and irritation. He desperately needed a new stimulation. Something extremely stimulating that transcended orgies and human punching bags that usually ran away….

He held such thoughts inside while taking off his clothes one by one in front of his approaching father. The moment he stripped entirely down to his skin, removing even his underwear and socks, his father’s shadow, which had approached before he knew it, fell over his body. Simultaneously, a fierce fist flew into his abdomen.

“Who do you think Chairman Kim is for a piece of trash like you to flap your mouth like that there?”

The cause was a slip of the tongue he made while drunk at a reception that had reached his father’s ears. Had he said, Your daughter is truly pretty? Or had he said, Your son looks like a rich unemployed bum? No matter how much he tried to recall, it was something he didn’t even remember.

“…I am sorry. I will never… make a slip of the tongue again.”

No. Father was a man who made up things out of thin air, so it was certainly a self-staged drama to create an excuse to beat him. Since it would soon be the anniversary of his eldest brother Joo Nansung’s death, around this time his mother’s hysteria was at its peak.

“…Ugh.”

He swallowed a groan, staggering before the repeated violence. Ever since he had more occasions to show his face through things like receptions, hands no longer came up above his neck. Instead, Joo Nanchul used to have slightly longer sessions with the whip.

Pushed by Joo Nanchul’s fists landing in succession, his back struck the wall. Nando put even more strength into his abdomen and rounded his upper body slightly. If he endured for just about 5 minutes in this state, the end would roughly be in sight. Building muscle through exercise and, in addition, training his body by doing this sort of thing often with Kang Sanggoo had been a very good move. Since his ribs had already broken and fused back together countless times, becoming much harder, as long as he swallowed the pain of the present moment, it would end without much trouble. However—when his shin was kicked by a foot wearing combat boots, he shivered from the extreme pain.

“…Urrrgh.”

Just like now.

He willingly collapsed for the sake of his father, who must have put on combat boots for the first time in a long while for his sake. As he steadfastly endured the kicks flying into his thighs and back, the long-awaited silence finally arrived.

Roughly straightening his ragged breathing, Nando uncurled his hunched shoulders and looked up. Joo Nanchul was reaching out a hand. Biting the inner flesh of his lips, he swallowed the blood collected in his mouth and took hold of his father’s hand. As he used his body, pain ran rampant here and there, but he endured it firmly and stood up abruptly.

“Joo Nando.”

“Yes, huff, Father.”

Joo Nanchul suddenly grabbed his son’s facing face with both hands. Then, thrusting his fierce face right in front of Nando’s nose, he whispered.

“Then as now, everything I do is for your own good. You know that, right?”

While being held, he nodded his head.

“I know. Thank you, Father.”

The hands fell away from Nando’s face. Joo Nanchul wrapped his hand around the back of Nando’s head and made him lean against his shoulder. His rough palm, covered in calluses, lightly patted the nape of his son’s neck.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”