I grabbed the bastard by the hair as he sucked in a breath. The face glaring up at me through clenched teeth was rough as hell. I spat my cigarette onto the ground and studied him. Who the fuck was this son of a bitch? Which bastard had sent this little minnow after me? Thinking that, I tightened my grip on his hair and slammed him into the wall. The sound of his nose bridge caving in and his cheekbone shattering rang out cheerfully. After flinging the bastard, his face ruined with blood, onto the ground, I bent my knees, crouched down, and met his eyes.
“Who sent you?”
“…….”
“You’re not talking? Loyal. Nice.”
I smiled wide, grabbed his face in both hands, and drove my knee up into it. The crunching sensation of his face being crushed felt damn good. I brought my elbow down on his wobbling head, and the bastard spat blood from his mouth. How long was this son of a bitch going to hold out? I grabbed his face again and was about to slam my knee into the side of his head when the bastard seized up.
“Park Yuhyeon! Park, Park Yuhyeon… that prosecutor bastard sent me!”
“Huh? My brother did? Did he tell you to kill me?”
“N-no… he only told me to watch you…….”
“He only told you to watch me? Then what about the rest?”
When I said it mockingly, the bastard flapped the rest of his mouth.
“The division director at TJ Group told me to… make you half-crippled…….”
“I knew it’d be that bastard. Our Yuhyeon is too fainthearted to do this kind of thing.”
“T-then it’s over now, right…?”
“Look, mister. I hate that kind of thing.”
The bastard looked dazed. I lightly patted the man’s cheek and went on.
“You know how in movies, the hero spares the bad guy, then gets stabbed hard in the back later?”
“What…? Why the hell are you saying that now……?”
“You’re a bad gangster bastard. And I’m an innocent citizen.”
“What kind of bullshit is that…….”
“I’m saying I like things clean.”
I grabbed the trembling man by the hair and smashed his head into the ground. I kept smashing it down, again and again, until his head must have split open, because blood started pouring out. Watching that, I searched the bastard’s pants pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. He owed me for the one I’d thrown away because of him. I lit one with my lighter and took a deep drag. Then I looked down at the fallen man and kicked him in the abdomen. He must have still been alive, because he let out a choking groan.
The neat-looking gangster stuck his face into the alley.
“Did you kill him?”
“Not yet.”
“What should we do?”
“Call my younger uncle and tell him to come here.”
I said it as I let the cigarette fall from my mouth. For now, keep this son of a bitch alive. Even without saying anything more, the gangster understood me perfectly, slung the fallen bastard over his shoulder, and disappeared. The sound of the car moving away left its trace behind.
Under the cold winter night, I waited while repeatedly flicking my lighter on and off. Yoon Jiwoo, Kang Yejun, trainees, producers. Ha Jaeyoung, the TJ division director, Park Yuhyeon, and my dear father. A horn sounded close by. My younger uncle had arrived. As always, the time spent waiting in silence was bound to be short.
The light from the lamp turned on above the car was blurry. Sitting in the back seat, I leaned on that light and flipped through the documents. The closer I got to the end, the slower my hands moved. My younger uncle, sitting beside me, lowered the car window. Cold winter wind flowed in. The contents of the documents he had handed over after a single day were that brief, and as brief as they were, they were disgusting. I turned the final page and rubbed my tired eyes.
“Is this it?”
“The trainee files and the finer details should take about five days. This is just a taste.”
“Are we allowed to dig into this? It feels like a land mine. Like someone’s deliberately shoving it in front of us and asking us to uncover it.”
“If it’s a land mine, are you going to stop?”
I answered with a faint smile.
“No.”
Lowering my eyes, I continued. Once you start something, you have to see it through. No matter what it turns out to be. My younger uncle put a cigarette in his mouth and flicked his lighter. The sound of it igniting rang out loudly. He took a drag and exhaled before speaking. That gangster bastard Ha Jaeyoung didn’t even need much investigating. He was a famous son of a bitch. My younger uncle rested the arm holding his cigarette on the window and spoke in a calm voice.
“That bastard has three fathers. He’s like Lu Bu.”
His voice was low.
“His biological father was trash. His mother ran away from the man’s violence, and the bastard couldn’t take it anymore, so he killed his father, right? According to him, he did it in a fit of rage, but who knows.”
My younger uncle chuckled.
“They went to collect debt from that alcoholic gambling bastard and found Ha Jaeyoung there. The little bastard was so vicious. That’s when he caught the eye of an organization executive and got adopted.”
The winter night wind swallowed the sharp cigarette smoke. My younger uncle smoked while telling the story in pieces. Outwardly, Ha Jaeyoung had apparently gotten along well with his adoptive father and remained loyal to him. His adoptive father had also treasured him like his own son.
After pausing for a moment, my younger uncle made his tone oily. A bastard who killed his biological father wasn’t going to go anywhere else. Ash fell from the end of the cigarette dangling from my younger uncle’s fingers outside the car window. His still voice dropped. He killed his adoptive father too.
“Then he formed a new organization with the Boss he’d followed like a father.”
“And that Boss?”
“Obviously, he killed him. In the end, he ate that entire organization by himself. That bastard planned it from the start. From the moment he went under his adoptive father, maybe even from the moment his biological father was drowning in gambling debt.”
I slowly blinked.
“But nobody knew. They just thought he was a little rough, an uneducated gangster bastard. That was all. That son of a bitch is not ordinary.”
“What’s Ha Jaeyoung’s weakness?”
“What weakness would a bastard who kills family have?”
“If he doesn’t have one, we can make one.”
There was no such thing as a bastard without a weakness. Family, friends, lovers, money, reputation, power. If someone was human, they always had a weakness. Even people who bragged that they had no weakness lost their minds once their money dried up and someone precious to them died. Because those things were always there, they did not think of them as weaknesses, but the truth was that living itself was a human weakness.
If there was nothing else, I could just make his life his weakness. Besides, Ha Jaeyoung had killed other people so desperately in order to survive. Would his own life not be precious to him? I spoke in a bored voice. Let’s strip open every reason that unfilial bastard Ha Jaeyoung killed those people. Who knows? Maybe those bastards touched Ha Jaeyoung’s weakness. If there still isn’t one, we can make one for him. Something precious.
My younger uncle asked in a doubtful voice. How are you going to make something precious for him? I thought for a moment, then changed the subject and told him to head to the broadcasting station. My younger uncle went to the driver’s seat with a face that said he was holding back more questions. The car moved quickly over the road. The sharp winter wind through the open window scratched at my breath. Making something precious for that gangster bastard Ha Jaeyoung would be very easy.
After all, that bastard had once made a precious existence called “Kang Yejun.”
*****
I left my younger uncle below and went into the broadcasting station. Even though it was dawn, several floors were brightly lit. I’m telling you, this entertainment-industry shit was not work meant for humans. Your body gets fucked from overwork, and your mind goes rotten too. It’s not like most of them even make that much money, so why the hell do they keep doing this? Clicking my tongue out of pity, I got off the elevator. I looked around the rooms, then called the producer. Just as the ringing was about to cut off, he picked up.
“Mr. Park Yuha? Do you not know cell phone use is banned?”
“Where are you?”
“Are you outside the dorm?”
“Producers’ salaries are pretty shitty, aren’t they? Whether you’re a celebrity or a producer, if you’re not popular, you do shitty work and get shitty pay. Seriously.”
“Pack your things and leave tomorrow. If you agreed to appear on the show, you should follow the rules.”
“And yet people keep doing this work. Well, some of them do it because it suits them. But the extras that come with it are pretty nice too… You recently bought a foreign car, didn’t you, producer?”
When I drawled leisurely, I heard him swallow a breath on the other end of the line.
“…Did you run a background check on me?”
“I just want to have a talk with you, producer. Somewhere outside, nice and relaxed. Yeah?”
“I’ll come out, so where are you right now…….”
My eyes met the producer’s as he opened the door and stepped out. I smiled innocently and ended the call. Then I spoke lightly. Let’s talk outside. This place is a little awkward, isn’t it, producer?
The producer bastard followed me. He must have been anxious, because the way his teeth kept clicking was fucking annoying. I was sure that bastard had more than one or two things weighing on him. From taking money from agencies to arranging sexual entertainment with celebrities, he had done all kinds of shit. A married bastard with a daughter had certainly played hard.
We went to the smoking area outside the building. I handed the producer bastard a cigarette and bought a can of coffee from the vending machine. Maybe he was already feeling guilty, because the bastard opened his mouth first.
“I don’t know why you ran a background check on me, Mr. Park Yuha, but none of it will be any use. No matter what you threaten me with, I won’t fold. Even if it gets out that I took a little money, it won’t do much damage. No, it won’t even get out, will it?”
He was getting excited as he spoke, firing the words off quickly. With my back to the producer bastard, I opened the can and tore open the packet of medicine I had brought.
“If you investigated me, then you should know who’s behind me too, shouldn’t you? What are you planning to do? Do you think this place looks easy just because people mind their manners around you? You should have known that whoever’s behind you, Mr. Park Yuha, that power isn’t yours. The way things are going, even your sponsor will pull his hands off you immediately, so what exactly do you plan to do?”
“…That’s true. This fucking country runs on the bastards with power winning everything.”
I answered halfheartedly as I gently sprinkled the medicine into the canned coffee. Maybe the producer thought I had gotten scared, because he quickly turned triumphant. I crumpled the empty packet into my pocket and turned back to him. Then I handed him the canned coffee.
“I was being shortsighted. Please have this.”
“Do you think this changes anything? It’s already too late. You’re out, Mr. Park Yuha.”
The producer bastard snatched the canned coffee from me roughly. Look at him chugging it down. Did this bastard have no suspicion, no caution, nothing? The fucker threw the empty can into the trash, bumped my shoulder, and walked off. He had not gone more than a few steps when he staggered. I caught the collapsing producer in my arms and smiled crookedly.
Good thing I put a lot in, in case he fell asleep late like that gangster bastard last time. I dragged him to the car while pretending to support him. He had enough money to buy a foreign car, but apparently not enough time to wash, because the stink rising from the crown of his head was fucking disgusting. After throwing the bastard into the back seat, I climbed into the passenger seat. Ignoring my younger uncle, who was asking me with his eyes what the hell had happened, I took out wet wipes and cleaned my hands.
I had been too shortsighted. Ending this nicely through conversation? Fuck that. Son-of-a-bitch dogs only understand words after you beat them until they die. My real problem was that I was too nice. I had been considerate enough to show goodwill to that producer bastard for nothing, and all I got in return was filthy shit. My younger uncle started the car and asked, We’re going to the cathedral? I answered, Yeah, and threw the used wet wipe onto the face of the producer bastard sprawled across the back seat.