“Cold outside, huh.”
That was when Subin spotted Ihyeon and walked over, draping an arm across his shoulders. When that warm body heat brushed the back of his neck, reality finally began to settle in. Ihyeon clenched his fist, then opened it again. A prickling sensation started in his palm and spread through his entire body.
We won’t ever run into each other again, so it shouldn’t matter…
The murmur slipped between Ihyeon’s lowered lashes, barely audible.
“What did you say?”
“…Nothing.”
Subin tilted his head, as if he didn’t quite understand, then broke into a crooked smile and gently cupped Ihyeon’s ear with his palm.
“Why did you take so long?”
Ihyeon considered grabbing Subin’s wrist and pulling it away, but instead he just shook his head in silence. Most of the exhausted staff weren’t paying attention to them anyway, and the warmth of Subin’s hand against his skin steadied him, if only a little. Ihyeon spoke again, almost under his breath.
“There was some stuff to deal with.”
The club wasn’t small by any measure, so even with only full-time staff gathered—excluding part-timers—the number was considerable. A large part of why Ihyeon could stand among these people at all was because of Subin.
Back in his early twenties, with tuition notices arriving every semester like collection letters and living expenses piling up on top of endless part-time jobs, he’d decided to enlist to escape it all. Continuing college without his parents’ support had its limits.
Despite worrying that the rigid, oppressive military wouldn’t suit him, Ihyeon adapted quickly. Not having to worry about money played a big part in that.
A year and a half passed without much thought. When he was discharged, all that landed in his hands was a few hundred at most—and an age two years older.
Trying to scrape together tuition again by working day and night like he had before enlistment made the remaining semesters feel overwhelming. He still believed he had to finish college, but the passion and stubborn drive he’d once had were gone, leaving him stuck in limbo.
That was around when Subin contacted him. They’d had a shallow, fleeting connection from a club job Ihyeon had worked briefly in his early twenties, so the call surprised him at first. But Subin made a fairly convincing offer. The place he worked at was being renovated and they were replacing the entire staff—did Ihyeon want to try working there?
He had no fond memories of customers pushing drinks on him or cigarette smoke seeping into his hair, but he didn’t have the luxury of turning down a job that paid twice minimum wage.
After being all but cut off from his family and driven by spite and compulsion in his early twenties—and even after discharge, still alone—Subin was one of the very few people Ihyeon could call a friend. That was why he kept letting the occasional discomfort and boundary-crossing behavior slide, pretending not to notice.
Ihyeon ran his tongue along the soft flesh inside his lip and lowered his gaze. Subin tapped his fingers where they rested on Ihyeon’s shoulder, keeping time with the faint background music echoing through the hall. Ihyeon glanced up at him, then lifted his wrist to check the time again.
7:10 a.m.
On a normal day, he would have just been jumping onto a bus. Just as a faint irritation started to rise at the thought of a boss who’d gathered everyone only to not show his face, multiple footsteps sounded from the top of the large staircase at the center of the hall. The staff who’d been chatting shut their mouths at once.
“What are all these people?”
A low voice spread through the space, where only the alien hum of music lingered. It was drier and more indifferent than the tone that had brushed past Ihyeon’s ear earlier.
The back of someone he’d seen in the parking lot, the face he’d met under the bright lights of the elevator hall, and the silhouette now standing against the lights, slightly shadowed—all of it belatedly merged into one.
“…Ah.”
Ihyeon bit the inside of his lip, berating himself for not connecting the dots between the new owner who was supposed to arrive soon and Seunghyeok’s presence.
It was too specific a time and place to brush off a reunion after years as a freak coincidence.
He might not be able to escape the man’s line of sight from above, but Ihyeon took a step back anyway, trying to hide himself as much as possible. Unaware of that effort, Subin pressed closer and whispered in his ear.
“Holy shit… what is that vibe?”
It was less a question than a muttered expression of awe. He didn’t need an explanation to understand what Subin meant. What Ihyeon had felt the first time he’d met Gu Seunghyeok hadn’t been much different.
Subin’s gaze—tinged with wariness and admiration—quickly swept over Seunghyeok from below. Afraid that lifting his head would make him meet those cold eyes again, Ihyeon lowered it and stepped even closer to Subin.
All the while, Seunghyeok was looking straight down at Ihyeon.
Among the many people filling the hall, they were the only two standing that close together, which made them stand out all the more.
“We gathered them in case you had any specific instructions. They’re all full-time staff who’ve been here over a year.”
The image of a kid who used to sit quietly in an oversized school uniform shirt, reading books, now working here—not some small club in Hongdae or Itaewon, but this place—for over a year was laughable. And true to his unchanged personality, even with everyone’s eyes turned this way, he alone stared stubbornly at the floor.
An unpleasant sensation started in Seunghyeok’s gut and spread through his body. Seeing him exactly the same as nine years ago made his insides twist.
“…Ha.”
When Seunghyeok let out a cold laugh, the men behind him stiffened.
“Manager Gu… is there some kind of problem—”
“Mr. Kim.”
“Yes, go ahead.”
At the heavy voice that seemed to press down on him, Mr. Kim hunched his shoulders.
“If you want to keep sticking around here any longer, just quietly do what you’re told.”
“Ah…”
“I told you to get the stuff we sell downstairs ready. Did I say I wanted to look at the faces of kids hauling booze and hustling customers?”
Already tense and reading the room, Mr. Kim sucked in a sharp breath when an arm draped over his shoulders like a weight.
“Chairman Gu might like this kind of thing, but it makes my skin crawl.”
Leaning in as if with an old acquaintance, Seunghyeok slung an arm around him and rolled his stiff neck once.
“What, want me to put them on display for you? Recite a little review or something?”
“I—I’m sorry—”
“I don’t need apologies. Clear them out. All of them.”
The joking, sneering tone turned vicious in an instant. Mr. Kim bowed again and again, his face gone pale. Watching him hurry away, Seunghyeok pressed his throbbing temple with his fingertips.
Judging by how fast he ran, he’d learned at least that much about reading the room after rolling around under Chairman Gu. If he’d hesitated even a little, the place he’d be lying down tonight wouldn’t have been his own bed, but the dirt of some remote hillside.
Seunghyeok cracked his neck with a dull series of pops and called out to Taesik behind him.
“Taesik. If there’s any extra of what you scattered downstairs, bring some.”
Seunghyeok didn’t like getting high on drugs, but today was an exception. Taesik, however, scratched his eyebrow, looking troubled.
“You didn’t say anything specific, so we laid it out cheap for clearance… I’ll have the guys bring up something clean right away.”
Seunghyeok frowned and bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, swallowing the irritation that surged up. Then he closed his eyes and let out a short breath.
“Forget it.”
“Yes…”
Careful not to let any stray sparks hit him, Taesik took a quick step back. He pressed the button for the private elevator to B3 and glanced sideways at Seunghyeok’s face. Seunghyeok rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheek and slowly opened his eyes.
His gaze was vicious.
Taesik had a bad feeling that if someone caught his attention the wrong way, they might end up calling in the cleanup crew first thing in the morning. It had been a while since he’d seen Seunghyeok this sharp-edged, and his mouth went dry.
Taesik quickly ran through the list of people down below in his head. There better not be any idiots who don’t know their place… Contrary to his tangled thoughts, a clear mechanical chime rang through the air.
“Boss, why don’t you head down first? I’ll check the attendee list and follow.”
The elevator doors opened, revealing an interior of dull black metal, but Seunghyeok didn’t move. He simply stood there, turning his face toward the area below the stage.
The staff, apparently not yet briefed by Mr. Kim, whispered among themselves and cast glances this way. Seunghyeok’s cold gaze passed over the curious faces and stopped by a pillar, in one corner of the hall.
One man with wavy hair, grinning as he kneaded someone else’s ear like clay. And one man with a blank face, staring only at the floor.
Seeing the two men still pressed close together, a sneer—bordering on disgust—spilled from between Seunghyeok’s lips.
Looks like the one next to him’s a queer bastard too.
“…Boss?”
Seunghyeok jerked his chin toward where he was looking.
“Send that one down with us.”
“Which one do you mean…? Oh, the girl with her hair tied back, standing by the speaker?”
“The one behind her.”
After a brief pause, his voice dropped, savage and low.
“The pale bastard who looks like a doll.”