Choi Eunhyung squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his brow roughly. Then he took two long strides toward her, his footsteps so light that the wooden floor didn't make so much as a creak.
“You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?”
“What?”
“Fuck, there you go asking again. Hey.”
His confrontational voice dropped even lower with the curse. Eunhyung slowly bent at the waist until his eyes were level with Hyungnam's. His eyes narrowed as though he were about to discipline someone for insolence.
“Do you know exactly what you're doing, or do you genuinely have no idea?”
“…”
“You really need to learn to watch that mouth of yours.”
The warning came out of nowhere, sounding more like a threat. Before Hyungnam could even feel bewildered, she felt wronged.
What the hell did I do?
As she stood frozen, her lips twitching, that familiar finger flicked her forehead without hurting her.
“And quit pretending you're a virgin.”
“When did I ever…!”
Resentment gradually filled Hyungnam's gray eyes. She was looking up at Eunhyung now, apparently having forgotten even her fear.
It certainly wasn't because a few games of flower cards had made her comfortable around him. Choi Eunhyung had crossed a line. Like the gangster he was, he had barged across her boundaries without warning and was now criticizing and scolding her for things she hadn't even done.
“Fuck, your innocent little face really had me fooled.”
All Shim Hyungnam had done was offer to iron his trousers, like any proper maid.
And now Choi Eunhyung was mocking her as though he needed someone to take his anger out on.
What the hell had I supposedly fooled him about?
She wanted to demand an explanation, but Choi Eunhyung was acting chairman in Chairman Park's absence. Whatever abuse he hurled at her, she would have to treat him the same way she treated the old man.
Then again, just as every lucky card seemed to find its way into Choi Eunhyung's hand, every ordinary injustice seemed destined to fall upon Hyungnam.
Once a person had experienced even the petty indignities of life that others passed through without noticing, she learned that what deserved protecting wasn't some noble sense of dignity. It was the body that would suffer terribly from missing even a single meal.
There was no need to provoke Choi Eunhyung's temper for the fleeting satisfaction of talking back.
Hyungnam quickly abandoned the idea of resisting.
“Yes. I'm sorry.”
She lowered her head perfunctorily, hiding her expression. Considering that Choi Eunhyung had groped her breasts last time without even paying her afterward, making him a worse bastard than Park Shineok, the sensible thing was to get rid of him quickly with a halfhearted apology.
Perhaps the thought had somehow shown on her face.
Eunhyung's expression abruptly turned cold.
Stubbornly pressing his lips together, he took another step toward Hyungnam. She retreated exactly one step, as though daring him to come as close as he pleased.
“Look at this little bitch.”
“…”
“One minute you're glaring at me like you want to kill me, and the next it's ‘I'm sorry’?”
He'd looked like he wanted someone to take his anger out on, so she'd obliged him. Now he was throwing a fit because she was being obedient.
Was it really appropriate for a man everyone called boss to be this temperamental with a twenty-year-old?
How fucking pathetic.
The instant that thought crossed her mind—
“Oh, you're laughing.”
He had even caught the faintest trace of mockery in her exhalation.
The bastard's practically psychic.
Hyungnam gently bit her lower lip, her face stiffening. Before her, Choi Eunhyung's chest rose and fell in slow, deep breaths.
He caught me laughing at him, so now he's going to get angry. How does a gangster get angry? Will he hit me? Kick me? Or maybe…
Even Park Shineok has never hit me.
The thought suddenly crept into her mind like a protective shield.
Hyungnam went back over Choi Eunhyung's words.
He said the old man likes free sex. But he gives me money. He's never raised a hand against me for no reason, either. I've always hated my round face and chubby cheeks, but apparently even those are exactly his type.
So doesn't that mean Choi Eunhyung has no right to treat me however he pleases?
Hyungnam's lips parted as though she were about to unleash everything she had been holding back. Instead, she pressed them firmly together and shook her head in a small, shuddering motion.
When she finally spoke, her voice trembled with bitter self-mockery.
“I wasn't… laughing.”
“…”
“And you must be busy, so you don't have to teach me flower cards anymore.”
Eunhyung looked dumbfounded, like an elementary school student who had just been told, I'm not playing with you anymore.
Hyungnam politely clasped her hands together and bowed her head deeply.
“I'll go buy your cigarettes.”
She wanted to get out of Choi Eunhyung's sight. She didn't want to share a room with that unpredictable man. She wanted to get as far away as possible from those pitch-black eyes that watched her so obsessively they wouldn't overlook a single bean sprout, and from those enormous hands that made her imagine him suddenly pushing up her bra whenever he pleased.
The moment she turned toward her room to fetch her jacket, a hand caught her wrist through her sleeve.
Hyungnam stopped as though frozen.
His hot hand was large enough to swallow more than half her forearm.
“You need money for the errand.”
Choi Eunhyung's tone had softened considerably as he gently drew her arm toward him.
How miserable, letting myself be led around like this as though I have no choice.
Still, refusing to look at his face was the last scrap of pride she had left.
“Keep the change.”
He gently enclosed Hyungnam's hand in his own and opened it without the slightest effort. Her tightly clenched fist came apart all too easily.
Choi Eunhyung placed a ten-thousand-won note on her small palm, then closed her fingers around it again. Afterward, he patted her little fist as though soothing a puppy.
“What did you do wrong? Nothing. Your brother's just a piece of trash.”
He laughed softly, almost like a sigh.
For a moment, he even seemed to be in a good mood.
That made him all the more frightening.
Wasn't this the same man who'd been so furious a moment ago that he'd needed to catch his breath?
Hyungnam tried to pull her captured hand free, but the effort only drew her body closer to Eunhyung.
“About the flower cards. I wasn't actually trying to teach you.”
“…”
“The truth is, I wanted to see something.”
Holding Hyungnam captive against his body, Eunhyung slowly raised the corners of his mouth into a broad grin.
Hiss. Hiss.
She could almost hear a snake breathing somewhere nearby.
“The way you hold those flower cards looks just like the way you grabbed your brother's cock and jerked it.”
His eyes, resting peacefully beneath his neat eyebrows, curved into a gentle smile. His cheeks rounded as he grinned.
It was a smile she had never seen before. A smile that looked genuinely delighted.
Hyungnam stared in astonishment at the beautiful face of a demon.
Grabbed his cock and jerked it?
Once again, he was talking about something she had absolutely no memory of.
Her delicate cheeks trembled with shock.
I have to deny it. I have to say something, anything.
“Liar.”
She barely managed to force out the single word through her trembling voice.
Choi Eunhyung leisurely moistened his lips with his tongue, looking thoroughly entertained.
Hiss. Hiss.
That imaginary sound of a snake came again.
“Yeah, it's a lie.”
“…”
“So don't you dare believe it. Got it?”
“…”
“Now go buy my cigarettes.”
Choi Eunhyung lowered his hand and gave Hyungnam's bottom a couple of light pats.
Leaving the flower cards scattered where they were, he dropped onto the sofa. Then, seeing Hyungnam still standing motionless, he raised two fingers to his mouth as though asking what she was waiting for.
The gesture snapped her back to her senses.
Hyungnam rushed into her room and snatched up her jacket. In her confusion, she couldn't even get her arms properly into the sleeves.
She tugged irritably at a sleeve that had turned inside out, muttering to herself.
It can't be. He said it wasn't true. He said it was a lie. Damn it all. This is what I get for drinking with a gangster. See if I ever drink again. If I so much as touch another drop of alcohol, I'll change my family name to Dog.
Hyungnam studied herself in the mirror hanging on the wall and carefully composed her expression before opening her bedroom door.
Choi Eunhyung was still sitting in Park Shineok's usual place, watching television.
Hearing the faint rustle of her movements, he glanced back over his shoulder and smiled, lifting only one corner of his mouth.
Hyungnam hurriedly averted her eyes so he wouldn't catch the insolence on her face.
At that instant, the rounded tip of her nose twitched slightly.
A certain smell brushed through her memory.
Tilting her head in puzzlement, Hyungnam was slipping her feet into her eggplant-colored slippers when a silent scream suddenly tore through her throat, as though she had been struck by lightning.
“…”
That smell.
The smell that had kept drifting around her even while she was making kimchi soup.
That metallic, fishy… musty smell she'd thought was stale sake.
Hyungnam turned deathly pale.
She looked back in disbelief.
Choi Eunhyung was still lounging comfortably on the sofa, his eyes fixed on the television.
The lie was a lie.
I really did it with my own hand.
That's why semen must have splashed somewhere on my body. It wasn't wiped off properly, and the smell was still there the next day…
In the midst of it all, the fact that she knew exactly what semen smelled like made her feel even more disgusting than Choi Eunhyung himself.
Hyungnam's upper body pitched forward as she gave a small, involuntary retch.
Meanwhile, the man's instructions grew more detailed, delivered with infuriating unconcern.
“Get me Cheongja cigarettes. Bring back Sol and you'll be in trouble.”
Hyungnam turned her head and glared at him through tear-filled eyes.
Fuck. They're all the same kind of bastards.
And I'd even cursed Park Shineok for running off to Japan alone and leaving him behind.
I take it back. Every bit of pity I felt for him. I take it all back.
***
They sell cigarettes at the grocery store down the hill, too.
But Hyungnam walked as though possessed all the way to the bus stop and boarded the first bus that arrived.
She didn't even know where it was going. She simply dropped a token into the fare box before thinking. Now that she had paid, she couldn't bring herself to get off carelessly. The fare would be wasted.
Struggling to keep her balance in the violently rattling bus, Hyungnam found an empty seat and sank into it.
An elderly man in front of her had placed his fedora on his knees and was puffing steadily on a pipe.
Hyungnam stared blankly at his wrinkled hand as he tapped ash into the ashtray attached to the bus wall. Then she rested her forehead against the rattling window.
The red light of late afternoon stabbed painfully into her eyes.
Her reflection in the glass looked far too exhausted for someone who had only just turned twenty.
There was no life in her eyes, and the corners of her mouth drooped as though she had never smiled once in her entire life.
What had she done that was so exhausting? She lived in a huge house and got three meals a day. It wasn't as though she did any particularly grueling work.
Hyungnam scolded herself. Jinok, who had been thrown out of her maid's job just like her, had ended up working at a café where men paid to take the waitresses out. And Heejung, who worked at the Guro Industrial Complex, was coughing up blood every single day.
“Hey! Get off, you bastards!”
A small commotion broke out near the front of the bus.