THM Ch 15

“…”

The woman who had said, ‘Director, bye,’ moved further away, saying, “Director, bye!” It felt as if even the small amount of vitality he had remaining was being drained from him. Still, since he was his maternal uncle, Nando bowed his waist behind them as they moved away. Beneath his feet, a pitch-black hole of unknown depth was dug out. If he made even the slightest wrong step, he would fall and die instantly.

Relying on Sanggoo, he barely returned to the office. In a helpless state where he felt neither anger, resentment, nor resignation, Sanggoo used his whole body to seat him in the chair. Helplessness. That was grabbing his ankles and pulling his body down to the floor that was nothing but an abyss.

In the end, he couldn’t make the call. He couldn’t call him over and tear his clothes off. He succeeded up to the point of clutching the phone, but without being able to make the call, he was only looking up at the ceiling that was gradually lowering. The loud incoming calls from his father and uncle were far from enough to wake his mind and body.

Stuck inside a narrow coffin like that for what felt like an eternity, he suddenly, abruptly, noticed the presence of Sanggoo standing beside him at some point. The expression on Sanggoo’s face looking down at him then… was the face of his childhood self, thoroughly frightened and thinking he had finally died.

Night returned once again. The lights of featureless, trivial, low-rise buildings shone drearily through the window. His limbs, faintly revealed in the light, felt as if they would melt away without leaving even a shape.

He called Sanggoo closer. Making the approaching Sanggoo kneel between his legs, he looked down at his face. The guy’s forehead, clearly marked with a knife scar, glistened as it received the red light of the cross. Reaching out with his thumb, he caressed that spot.

“…Nanbaek remembered all of this. It happened when he was so young that I thought he had naturally forgotten about it.”

Caressing the mark that his father had carved as a brand, he quietly muttered. At every single word of his, the look in Sanggoo’s eyes wavered.

“Nanbaek… did, you say?”

Of course it would waver. Just as much as Nando, Sanggoo had also cherished Nanbaek.

“He said at first he heard you wailing, so he ran to Father’s study, where he saw you and me. Father had a knife in his hand, and blood was pouring from your face. He said at that moment, a thought came to him. That person hurt Sanggoo hyung. Not Father, but that person.”

“…Nanbaek did.”

“Nanbaek did.”

“…”

Not long after the day Nansung threw himself off the cliff behind the house, Father picked up a knife on the grounds that Sanggoo had failed to protect Nansung. Right in front of Nando’s eyes, he made Sanggoo kneel and grabbed Sanggoo’s jaw with the hand not holding the knife. Then, bringing the tip of the blade to one side of his forehead, he sliced it deeply, deeply.

‘A bastard who can’t even protect his own master has no right to walk around showing his face.’

Normally—that is, if Nansung had not died—Sanggoo was a guy who should have been by Nansung’s side, not Nando’s.

Sanggoo was an orphan brought in by Father for Nansung. The primary reason was to use him as a shield in case of emergency. The second reason was to change Nansung’s weak nature. Father attached Sanggoo to Nansung and made him do high-intensity exercise every single day. If Nansung couldn’t endure it and collapsed, he whipped Sanggoo to force Nansung back up.

‘If you keep lying down like that, Sanggoo dies.’

As soon as he woke up in the morning, Nansung had to spar with Sanggoo on an empty stomach, and he could only go to school if he forcibly beat Sanggoo down and knocked him out. It was the same during afternoon training hours. Sanggoo tried to collapse tactfully, but his father, Joo Nancheol, was a monster who could even read people’s minds. Nando, Nansung, and Sanggoo. The three of them agreed to ‘pretend,’ but before they could even attempt it, they got caught red-handed and had to face Father’s rage. After being beaten so hard that dust flew from their bodies, the three of them never again plotted such foolish schemes.

On the other hand, Nando was different from Nansung. No matter how hard it was, he never cried, and he tried to finish whatever Father assigned on time. Of course, Nando’s actual heart was crying inside, wanting to wail out loud because it was so hard. Even so, the reason he endured it was because he was terrified of the violence that immediately followed tears. He even thoroughly ignored his mother’s words telling him to pretend to lose once in a while for his hyung’s sake, using that as an excuse.

‘I can’t, Mother. If we get caught doing that, hyung gets hit too.’

Every morning, Nando was the first to finish his allocated training and catch his breath. In truth, Sanggoo was the most agile, but because Sanggoo was like fingers and toes attached to Nansung’s body, Father didn’t count him as an individual. At any rate, after finishing his training first like that, he watched the two struggling, because there was Father’s order to watch the pathetic struggle of an incompetent bastard.

‘That useless piece of shit! To think I gave birth to that as a son too!’

His father, frustrated that Nansung couldn’t knock Sanggoo down cleanly, would hurl all kinds of anger and handle Sanggoo himself; those scenes still remained vividly in Nando’s memory. The moment he impulsively leapt in front of his father upon seeing the hot-tempered man treating Sanggoo like an adult, and the moment he woke up after being beaten unconscious by his father’s hands.

‘Sanggoo is going to die! He’s going to die, Father! Please, stop it already!’

The day Nansung died, Sanggoo was very sick. With a fever burning like a ball of fire, he kept collapsing right next to Nando. It was Nando who practically dragged and piggybacked that guy to lay him down on the bed. It was also Nando who threatened him, saying he would make sure not to get caught by Father and Uncles, so he should just rest today. It was in Nando’s own bedroom.

‘St-Still…’

‘I told you, if we get caught, I’ll take the beating for you. You can’t make it in that state anyway. Just close your eyes and rest.’

Leaving him lying there like that, his gaze suddenly went to Nansung’s door across the hall. When he opened the door, Nansung was sitting at his desk, earnestly writing something.

How wonderful would it have been if he had known just by looking at his back sitting in the chair that it was a suicide note? When he asked, ‘What are you doing?’, the fact that the voice answering, ‘Just a diary,’ was trembling severely was something Nando realized only at the moment he witnessed Nansung standing on the edge of the cliff, and it was a distance far too distant to reach out a hand and grab him.

On that day, if he hadn’t laid Sanggoo on the bed, would Nansung’s outcome have changed? Why hadn’t he thought to peek at his hyung’s diary sooner? Why hadn’t he immediately recalled such impure thoughts even after seeing his hyung’s back as he walked out the main gate?

It was only an hour later that Nando trespassed into Nansung’s room. On the clean desk, instead of a diary, a single envelope was placed forlornly, and by the time he opened it, it was late—far too late.

Even so, Nansung endured on the edge of that cliff for a whole hour. Nando can never forget the face that turned around and smiled. Did he say, Don’t come, stay there? Did he say, Don’t be like this, live?

No. Nando can clearly recall the words Nansung spoke back then.

‘I’m glad I waited. Watch carefully before I go, Nando-ya.’

On that day, if he hadn’t laid Sanggoo on the bed, would Nansung’s outcome have changed? And so would Nansung also be alive, and would Sanggoo’s forehead have maintained a clean state? Would he himself have been able to avoid seeing this every day?

The scar felt at his fingertips was hard. Because it was this hard, it probably didn’t fade either. Nando made up his mind. Then he would force himself not to look at it.

“Sanggoo-ya.”

Caressing the mark left by the tip of the blade, he lowered his hand to Sanggoo’s cheek. The cheek was cold. Terribly cold. If so, that would be a relief. Nanbaek is on the hot side and Sanggoo is this cold, so the two of them will surely be able to coexist. Like cold water and hot water that do not form layers even when mixed.

“When Nanbaek becomes an adult, leave and go to Nanbaek.”

“…Hyung-nim.”

“Go and protect Nanbaek.”

“…”

Protecting Nanbaek’s life from their maternal uncle, who was already keeping Nanbaek in check, would fall to no one but Sanggoo. Maternal uncle was certain to coax Mother with all kinds of filthy words to push Nanbaek out of the company, and in the company, there was no one as trustworthy to entrust things to as Sanggoo.

‘Myeongshin-a, do you think Baek-i can handle the blood? If we’re not careful, he’ll end up like Nansung. Like Nansung…’

Until Nanbaek realized it on his own and harbored venom, until he awakened and became venomous like a snake embedded with fangs, he wouldn’t be able to let go of his worry for the kid for a single moment. Caressing Sanggoo’s cheek, he drove the point home. “Go.”