He scattered the flower cards with an indifferent sweep of his hand. Then, as though he had lost interest altogether, he put a fresh cigarette between his lips and rose.
Hyungnam stared blankly at the cards strewn across the floor before scrambling to her feet after him.
“How is that even possible?”
“How is what possible?”
“Ten junk cards make one point, so how did you get ten thousand...?”
Still unable to recover from her crushing defeat, Hyungnam continued her pointless calculations, folding down her short fingers one by one. Eunhyung merely watched her flustered efforts with his dark, impassive eyes.
“Manager Choi, you actually know the order of all the cards, don't you? You're just trying to make fun of me.”
So he'd gone to all that trouble just to be spiteful toward her? Even using tricks? How childish.
A short, incredulous laugh escaped around the cigarette between his lips. Yet the laugh broke off awkwardly, as though something about her accusation had struck an uncomfortable nerve.
Choi Eunhyung pressed a finger against her round forehead and shoved her away irritably.
“Who the hell are you calling a professional cardsharp?”
“But still...”
“Want to know?”
Hyungnam nodded vigorously, her expression utterly serious.
Eunhyung gazed down at her for a moment before prompting her with that familiar demand.
“Brother.”
That damned brother business. Was he possessed by the ghost of someone who'd died without ever hearing himself called brother?
When Hyungnam wrinkled her nose, he flicked his lighter and brought the flame toward his cigarette, looking as though he had no intention of indulging her any further.
Once that cigarette was lit, Choi Eunhyung would disappear into the study, and there was no telling when he'd come out again.
Growing desperate, Hyungnam caught the wrist holding his lighter and pulled it down. Her cool palm settled against the thick bone of his wrist.
Choi Eunhyung, who had tilted his head to light the cigarette, went completely still.
“B-Brother.”
“...”
“Brother Eunhyung.”
Her voice wavered terribly, and she swallowed with difficulty.
Why should one stupid form of address feel so humiliating?
Hyungnam squeezed her eyes shut.
The corners of Choi Eunhyung's mouth curved in satisfaction.
“That's right, Hyungnam.”
“...”
“When a gangster bastard tells you to call him brother, of course you ought to do it.”
He had thrown her own words back at her, laced with mockery.
The humiliation deepened, but Hyungnam refused to show it. She merely gave a small nod.
He finally lit his cigarette and drew deeply on it. Deliberately blowing the smoke into Hyungnam's face, he began to explain.
“When you've got nothing worth playing, even if your life depends on it, throw away your best card.”
“What?”
“If the next card matches, great. If it doesn't, too bad.”
Choi Eunhyung answered as though it were the simplest thing in the world.
Fine. She understood the logic. She knew the rules, knew that a turn couldn't pass until she put down a card of her own, no matter what.
But could she ever have the nerve to discard the full-moon bright card the way Choi Eunhyung had?
During the game, the moment that brilliant full moon had fallen from his hand, Hyungnam's heart had nearly stopped. She had been holding all three birds herself.
He had been lucky enough to pick it up again, but if the next card hadn't matched, wouldn't he have lost his bright card and ruined his bird set in the process?
Hyungnam raised her worried, downward-slanting eyebrows.
“What if somebody else takes it?”
“They didn't, did they?”
Choi Eunhyung answered immediately.
Then he abruptly stepped closer, positioning himself alongside Hyungnam. A wave of lukewarm body heat swept over her from behind, and a heavy arm dropped across her narrow shoulders.
His large hand closed around the soft flesh of her upper arm.
Suddenly trapped against his body and inside his hot grip, Hyungnam straightened her back rigidly.
“If you just keep holding on to it, you'll never take anything, Hyungnam. You've got to show your cards.”
“...”
“Whether somebody else gets it or I do, the first thing you do is pull down your panties.”
Isn't that right?
He murmured the words slowly, rubbing the soft flesh of her arm with deliberate leisure.
As though he were showing her what real spitefulness looked like.
Hyungnam's breathing gradually grew shallower.
The unfamiliar scent of his body and cologne, drifting from the slightly open collar of his black shirt, seemed almost suffocating. Every time his low voice vibrated through the air, the fine hairs all over her body stood on end.
“When somebody else has laid something out, you wait, no matter how badly you want to take it.”
“...”
“Until the one who put it down starts squirming in their seat.”
The hand stroking her upper arm gradually traveled over her shoulder and farther inward, until his fingers began brushing the upper swell of her breast.
Hyungnam flinched at the intrusion into such a sensitive area.
The man's fingertips shamelessly caressed the maid's chest.
“Because I'm the one holding the cards.”
He spoke almost on a sigh, brushing his upper lip against the reddened rim of her ear.
The hand that had been lingering near her armpit crept inside the stretched neckline of her T-shirt, then slipped smoothly beneath her bra.
“If you let somebody see what you're thinking at the gambling table...”
“...”
“You'll lose even with a winning hand.”
His hot hand calmly kneaded the maid's rounded breast. His firm knuckles sank into the soft, full flesh, gripping it with apparent satisfaction. He caught her nipple between his fingers and occasionally pinched it with a twisting motion.
Frozen with shock, Hyungnam felt the world before her eyes alternately recede and rush closer.
The surrounding noises grew indistinct until a high, piercing ringing began in her ears.
Emergency. Emergency.
That was what her mind seemed to be screaming.
Her lower abdomen tightened involuntarily, and each time he pinched her nipple, the contracted muscles of her perineum twitched.
She tried desperately not to let anything show, but a single disruption in her breathing would have been enough for him to notice the change in her.
Choi Eunhyung's cruelty did not stop there.
He gently caught the rim of the maid's ear between his lips and whispered viciously.
“The most important thing is...”
“...”
“Once you realize you're the sucker, you get out.”
The hand that had been squeezing her breast suddenly pulled hard on the bra strap at her shoulder, then released it with a sharp snap.
Hyungnam blinked and straightened herself as though waking from a dream.
“You really think a gangster's brain could calculate ten thousand points?”
He lightly pushed at the end of her eyebrow, chuckled, and walked away.
He had only nudged her head, yet her entire body swayed.
When she realized he had been toying with her from the very beginning, everything spun before her eyes.
Left standing alone on the living room floor, Hyungnam began breathing harder and harder.
Her face turned scarlet, heat rising beneath her skin. Tears even pricked her eyes from sheer indignation.
The places where his body heat had lingered before disappearing felt maddeningly empty.
Her nipples, still standing stiffly erect, showed no sign of settling down either.
For a long while, Hyungnam muttered vicious curses under her breath.
Fucking bastard. Son of a bitch.
***
The fucking bastard came to see Hyungnam “occasionally,” just as Park Shineok used to.
No matter how many excuses she made—that she was busy, that she had to go to the market, or any of a hundred other things—he clung to her with infuriating persistence. Inevitably, he would sit her down for another game of flower cards, preventing her from getting any work done.
Was it really all right for an acting chairman to neglect his duties this badly? Or did Park Shineok actually have nothing to do in the first place?
Hyungnam pondered this while collecting the three-bright and full-moon bright cards in succession.
“Stop.”
The maid, lost in thought, flinched.
Following his own advice, Choi Eunhyung had patiently refrained from taking the cards he had laid down, saving them while diligently collecting junk cards until he reached a winning score first.
She had been doing exactly as he taught her, yet she had not beaten Choi Eunhyung even once.
Whenever she thought she was finally about to catch him, he would pull impossibly far ahead. And whenever she thought she had another chance, some outrageous stroke of luck would fall straight into his lap.
Choi Eunhyung tossed away the cards remaining in his hand without a trace of regret, then tilted his head from side to side as though tired.
He patted his pockets, apparently searching for cigarettes, before smacking his lips in disappointment.
“That's enough for today.”
He swept his bangs back through his fingers.
Whether he was deliberately avoiding a haircut or not, his hair had grown steadily longer until it now covered the entire back of his neck.
“Other people pay good money to learn this stuff, you know.”
She'd been wondering when he'd start reminding her how much she owed him.
He seems to have all the time in the world, so why doesn't he ever go to the barbershop?
By now, Hyungnam found everything about him objectionable. She narrowed her eyes.
“Should I... pay you for the lessons?”
At those words, his previously relaxed brow crumpled into an ugly frown.
Resting an elbow on one knee as he sat cross-legged, he fixed her with a crooked stare that seemed to pierce straight through her.
“Hyungnam.”
“Yes?”
“Your brother isn't that much of a lowlife.”
“...”
“You don't seriously think I'd shake down a poor little maid for her pocket change just because I won a few rounds of flower cards.”
His voice came back flat and incredulous.
After hesitating for a moment, Hyungnam tossed her two remaining cards onto the military blanket.
Both were double-junk cards she had been too reluctant to discard.
“I thought I was going to win this time.”
Choi Eunhyung said nothing. He merely rubbed his smooth chin with a lean hand, his expression troubled.
“Maybe we should look for another way, even now.”
“What?”
“You don't seem to have a fucking ounce of talent for flower cards...”
“...”
“Go buy me a carton of cigarettes.”
He pushed himself up with his hands on his knees.
As he turned away, deep creases were visible behind the knees of his trousers.
He had been sitting cross-legged for more than an hour. Naturally, his clothes were going to suffer for it.
Hyungnam rose after him and addressed his back with the solemnity of someone making an official announcement.
“Please take off your pants.”
“What?”
The man turned around immediately, without the slightest hesitation.
Beneath his dark eyebrows, the surprisingly gentle corners of his eyes—so unlike those of a gangster—twitched almost spasmodically.
Hyungnam had not expected such an unexpectedly intense reaction.
Watching his expression cautiously, she continued.
“The back of your trousers. They've gotten terribly wrinkled from sitting so long. I'll iron them again for you.”
“...”