Kang Yejun woke me in an irritated voice.
When I opened my eyes, we were still on the road. The street lay empty under the deep winter dawn. Beneath the yellow streetlights, the snow was still coming down hard.
We weren’t even at the dorm yet, so why the fuck was he waking me?
When I looked at him crookedly, Kang Yejun gave a dry laugh.
“Are you glaring at me right now? Who do you think I’m suffering through all this shit for at dawn?”
“You came on your own. Why are you blaming me?”
“Fuck, seriously. Forget it.”
“Why did you wake me?”
Kang Yejun, who’d been getting angry, suddenly looked awkward.
“The car won’t move.”
“Did you put chains on for decoration?”
“Fuck, you think I don’t want to go?”
“Stop fucking saying fuck. Did you stuff a rag in your mouth?”
“Does this look like a situation where I wouldn’t be saying fuck?”
I smiled brightly and grabbed Kang Yejun by the collar.
“Yeah, you fucker. Keep saying fuck, you fucking son of a bitch.”
“…Okay, so let go. You’re scaring the shit out of me.”
I calmly released his collar.
Then I shoved Kang Yejun hard.
Maybe his head hit the window, because he shouted that it hurt. I ignored him and checked my phone.
In the meantime, I’d gotten quite a few missed calls.
Did this bastard Cha Seokhyeon have a disease or what? Why was he calling me like a maniac?
A quick glance showed there wasn’t even anything important.
Why aren’t you here yet?
Did something happen?
Why did you call Kang Yejun?
He was a fucking idiot too.
We were pretending to have fought, so what kind of bullshit was it to ask why I’d called Kang Yejun?
Beside me, Kang Yejun asked warily what I was doing.
I told him I was looking at an ugly photo of him, then marked Cha Seokhyeon’s number as spam and blocked it.
Suddenly Kang Yejun jumped and reached for my phone, barking like a rabid dog about when I’d taken a picture of him without permission.
“Shut up, you dog.”
At that, he huffed and puffed, but closed his mouth.
I shoved my phone into my coat pocket and said,
“Keep your self-consciousness in moderation. Why would I take a picture of you?”
“Then what was it?!”
“That weird commercial you shot recently. The one where you wore that orange skintight outfit and made an ass of yourself.”
“Fuck…….”
Kang Yejun dropped his head and trembled with his fists clenched.
It looked like that bastard couldn’t express emotion without saying “fuck.” Dumbass. That was why he shot commercials like that.
An idol wearing an orange skintight outfit from head to toe, sitting there going, “Refreshing Orange C! Give it a try!”
Come to think of it.
A commercial?
He shot a commercial?
Even if it was a shitty commercial, could a nobody like Kang Yejun actually get one?
I stared straight at Kang Yejun.
“Do you have a sponsor?”
“What?! What kind of bullshit is that now?!”
“Seeing you freak out, I guess you do. Fuck, who else did you let fuck your ass?”
“You told me not to say fuck…… Wait, no, why am I the one getting fucked?”
“Because you’re a gay bastard obsessed with dick.”
Kang Yejun looked appalled.
His face said, How the hell do you know that?
So I answered kindly.
“Why are you pretending otherwise? So did you let him fuck you?”
They said there wasn’t a dick he hadn’t touched, but how many had he actually touched?
I hadn’t even imagined he might have had a sponsor before the gangster bastard. Judging by the shitty commercial the guy had tossed his way, the sponsor was obvious too.
Either he had no real power but a deranged sex drive and was stuck backing half-assed celebrities, or Kang Yejun himself didn’t satisfy him all that much.
“So what if I did? What are you going to do about it?”
He was trying to sound confident, but his voice shrank pathetically.
“Since when? Who is it?”
“Why are you asking?”
“We’re in the same group. Why should you be the only one benefiting?”
“What…?”
“If you’re going to let him fuck your ass anyway, let me get some benefits too.”
Kang Yejun looked disgusted.
Then he buried his face in both hands and sighed.
“You trash bastard… I knew you were trash, but you’re complete fucking garbage…….”
I stared quietly at Kang Yejun.
Whether Kang Yejun thought I was trash or complete fucking garbage didn’t matter at all.
The important thing was that he had another sponsor.
Meaning it would be great to blow up later.
Even better if I could get introduced to that sponsor myself.
I put on a very gentle voice.
“Kang Yejun. Who is it?”
“Why are you really asking……?”
“Because I’m worried. Anyone who got you a commercial like that has to be weird.”
Kang Yejun’s gaze wavered.
That bastard was the same pushover now as he’d been back then. If I acted just a little kind, he liked it and dropped his guard.
I really hadn’t thought a guy like that would kill me.
Feeling bored, I waited for Kang Yejun’s answer.
After a short silence settled between us, Kang Yejun opened his mouth carefully. His story started haltingly, then ended in a heavy voice.
I only listened.
At the end, I asked if I could meet that guy too.
Kang Yejun nodded obediently without even asking why.
I looked ahead and said in passing,
“The snow’s letting up. Try starting the car.”
The tires crushed the melting snow and rolled forward.
As I took in the blue dawn beyond the car window, I thought,
So that rich conglomerate bastard was tangled up in my death too.
*****
When we reached the dorm, Cha Seokhyeon was standing in front of the entrance with bloodshot eyes.
Fuck, what was this, a horror movie?
I deliberately put on a shit-eating expression, hit Cha Seokhyeon hard on the shoulder, and went inside.
The intense stare from behind me grated on my nerves.
Kang Yejun must have interpreted it however he liked again, because he patted my shoulder as if he pitied me, then went into his room.
When I entered my room, Cha Seokhyeon followed me in.
Seeing him lock the door like he had something to say already made me tired.
Still, he had uses, so I had to put up with him.
I pressed down my irritation and sat on the bed, then beckoned to Cha Seokhyeon.
Like an obedient mutt, Cha Seokhyeon came right away.
Standing directly in front of me, he carefully stroked my hair.
Cha Seokhyeon had liked touching my hair for a very long time. Since long ago, from when I was a child still quietly living in that house.
I rested my face against Cha Seokhyeon’s stomach.
His solid body was warm.
My frozen body slowly began to thaw.
Cha Seokhyeon spoke in a voice so tender it almost tickled.
“Did something happen?”
“Is that what you came to say?”
“No. I was going to ask something else…… but it looked like something happened.”
I reached out and wrapped my arms around Cha Seokhyeon’s body.
“Cha Seokhyeon.”
“Yeah.”
“Cha Seokhyeon…….”
“Yeah. Yuha.”
That voice had always been like this.
The way he said Yuha had carried boundless affection and trust since we were very young.
Whenever things were especially fucked, I used to listen to Cha Seokhyeon’s voice like this.
Then it felt like I could do anything.
I released my arms from around him and looked up at Cha Seokhyeon.
Then I smiled gently and said,
“Seokhyeon, that fucking piece of shit Park Yuhyeon killed me.”
Park Yuhyeon was my half brother.
And the rich conglomerate bastard who’d gone out of his way to get Kang Yejun that shitty commercial was close friends with Park Yuhyeon.
The two of them must have conspired to drag the innocent youngest, Yoon Jiwoo, all the way down to the bottom, then make me take the fall for what he’d done.
My head was finally starting to work.
Right.
There was no reason they would have dragged me into it just to cover up Yoon Jiwoo’s crime. What kind of backing did that bastard Yoon Jiwoo have for anyone to protect him that far?
The crime Yoon Jiwoo committed in the first place had probably been a situation Park Yuhyeon and the rich bastard engineered.
Park Yuhyeon had been working behind the scenes.
To kill me.
To erase my existence completely, he’d set the board with that annoying rich bastard.
And I was such a stupid fuck that I’d only realized it now. Nausea crawled up my throat, and I wanted to choke myself.
*****
The fact that it was Park Yuhyeon, of all people, who had killed me made me lose my mind.
Because I’d never known Park Yuhyeon hated me.
Only when I was almost dead had I vaguely realized that Park Yuhyeon hated me.
I got framed for the crime Yoon Jiwoo had committed, and a prosecutor who was close friends with Park Yuhyeon was put in charge of my case.
My father’s family had been in the legal profession for generations, and even Park Yuhyeon, who everyone thought would never become a legal professional, became a prosecutor.
I deserved a lot of credit for that defective bastard managing to become a prosecutor, so deep down, I’d even felt proud.
Like, I really guided one person properly.
So I didn’t hate my half brother, who was five years older than me, all that much.
I’d assumed Park Yuhyeon felt the same, but apparently not.
The day before the case was to be properly launched, in other words, the day before I died at the gangster bastard’s hands, Park Yuhyeon contacted me for once.
He said he had something to talk about regarding the case, so I went to the private room at the club where the incident had happened.
I should have noticed then.
Why Park Yuhyeon wanted to meet at that place of all places.
Why a bastard who wasn’t even the prosecutor in charge was saying that kind of shit to me.
“Get on your knees and beg, even now. Then I’ll let it go.”
Sitting on an expensive sofa, Park Yuhyeon was stiff as a board.
The sight was pretty funny.
Park Yuhyeon, whom other people considered cold and levelheaded, was actually a moron.
That was why he got tense so easily around the half brother his father had brought home from outside.
I leaned back, relaxed, and picked up a crystal glass.
The liquor didn’t look particularly good.
I grinned and offered it to Park Yuhyeon.
“Brother, drink.”
Park Yuhyeon couldn’t hide his discomfort, but he still accepted the glass I gave him.
He didn’t drink it, though.
Is that actually drugged?
Thinking useless shit like that, I asked crookedly,
“What did I do wrong? Why are you telling me to kneel and beg?”
“You’re asking because you don’t know? You killed someone.”
“You know Yoon Jiwoo killed that guy.”
Park Yuhyeon knew the truth perfectly well, but he pretended not to.
“There’s already evidence. It doesn’t matter if you say it wasn’t you.”
“Do whatever you want.”
“…Beg. Say you were wrong. Say you’ll keep your head down from now on. If you beg, I can stop it at a reasonable point.”
I was genuinely confused.
I wondered if I’d done something wrong to Park Yuhyeon.
It was also strange that Park Yuhyeon, whom I’d thought I didn’t have such a bad relationship with, was acting like he hated me.
And I couldn’t figure out what right a bastard who wasn’t even the prosecutor in charge had to run his mouth about stopping things at a reasonable point.
“Brother, what did I do wrong?”
“You crazy bastard…! You really don’t know?! Fuck, the fact that you were born was wrong.”
“Oh, my. I apologize for being born.”
I brought my hands together and apologized playfully.
Maybe that pissed Park Yuhyeon off, because he hurled the crystal glass straight at the wall.
Even the way he got angry like that was so perfectly Park Yuhyeon: pathetic.
He didn’t even throw the glass at my face.
Even at his age, he still couldn’t control his emotions when he got angry.
Back then, watching him huff and puff used to be pretty amusing, but now that he was older, it wasn’t even that entertaining.
I wiped the smile from my face and said,
“If you’re going to do it, do it properly.”
“What?”
“End me. If you half-ass it, you’re the one who’s fucked.”
Then I stood.
Behind me, as I opened the door and left, I could hear Park Yuhyeon losing his shit, but I ignored him.
Honestly, I’d been pretty careless.
I’d thought the worst that would happen was I’d go to prison.
I assumed Park Yuhyeon was just bluffing, pretending he had power he didn’t actually have. Part of me also thought, What, am I really going to eat prison food?
On top of that, my maternal grandfather would never sit still and watch me go to prison, no matter what. And my mother’s family had that kind of power.
My maternal grandfather was something like the king of the underworld.
He committed all kinds of illegal acts while backing every sort of political and financial figure from the shadows.
Not just from the shadows, either.
Through the loan-sharking business he’d started after the Korean War, he now provided emergency funds even to major corporations.
In any case, it wasn’t exactly a respectable family.
It was funny from the start that my father, a man working in the legal profession, had met my mother.
To give the conclusion first, I was the child my mother had after raping my father.