My Bloody Valentine - 43

“What happened to Jae-gu?”

Yujung asked as she pulled up a plastic chair and sat down, facing Han and Wushin who were already there. Han shook his head slightly as if he didn’t know, and Wushin began to speak.

“The husband of one of the customers showed up.”

On the underground second floor where male employees greeted customers, it was mainly women customers who came. The man who came here was one of the three. He could be an employee of the store, a homosexual, or the husband of a customer.

Jae-gu encountered the husband of a customer who visited the store and received a direct punch. Unfortunately, the husband was said to have a past as an amateur boxer in his younger days.

“Where did you hear all this?”

When Yujung asked while listening to the story, Wushin shrugged as if it was nothing special.

“The senior waiters told me. They seem to know everything.”

Within just ten days of starting work, Wushin made many friends. There was no one who disliked him, as he approached with a charming smile and greeted people warmly.

Yujung squinted her eyes and looked at Wushin.

“In any case, you… seem to have some hidden corner.”

“What about me?”

“Anyway, what about Jae-gu… With his face swollen like that, he probably won’t be able to work for a while.”

“Yeah.”

It seemed that Jae-gu wouldn’t be seen for a while. Without Jae-gu, who always filled the gaps in conversations and made them lively, the conversations among the three felt awkward and less enjoyable.

Thinking something funny, Yujung chuckled.

“I didn’t know I’d miss that bastard.”

“It looked like a compound fracture at first glance. He won’t be seen for at least a month.”

But contrary to everyone’s expectations, Jae-gu revealed himself just one day later.

Jae-gu, who had just got out of a taxi and approached the three sitting under the parasol, was unrecognizable at first. A person wearing sunglasses and covering his face with a mask got out of the taxi and approached them waving his hand.

“Hi.”

They could confirm it was Jae-gu from his familiar voice. When he took off his mask, Yujung, Wushin, and Han all sharply drew in their breaths.

His entire face was swollen, and his eyes were dark with bruises. The most serious was his nose. It was wrapped in bandages, with adhesive tape stuck on top of it.

“Jae-gu, what happened to you? Is your nose broken? Why did you come here like this?”

With a worried question from Han, Jae-gu quietly shook his head.

“I’m okay. Everyone was probably surprised, right?”

It turned out that the female customer Jae-gu was entertaining had a fixed partner she met outside as well. Unfortunately, that partner was absent that day, so Jae-gu filled in for him and ended up getting unfairly hit. Jae-gu suffered a nasal fracture requiring three weeks of treatment.

“Since I had to get my nose fixed anyway, I decided to upgrade a bit. Even though I’m wearing bandages, can’t you see it? Here, a perfectly straight nose.”

Even in pain, Jae-gu was still Jae-gu. Han even felt a sense of admiration for Jae-gu’s ability to stay positive in such a situation.

“I came here to pack up and quit.”

“What?”

The person who punched Jae-gu turned out to be the representative of an entertainment agency. As a compensation for keeping silent, he not only reconstructed Jae-gu’s nose without any conditions but also promised to help Jae-gu achieve his long-time dream of debuting on television as an idol trainee under his company. There was no denying the saying that life is full of surprises.

After finishing the story, Jae-gu suddenly became serious, turned his body to face Yujung, and looked at her.

“Yujung-a.”

“Where did that come from?”

“Let’s just call it quits for today. It’s the last time, you know.”

“…”

Despite the somewhat eerie appearance of Jae-gu’s bruised face covered in bandages, his gaze was more serious than ever.

“Yujung, if you ask me to stay, I will. Do you want to live with me while we pay off debts together?”

“Just go.”

“You’re firm. Think about it. If we work together, we can quickly pay off your debts, right? And we can become a couple YouTuber once we’re out there. My persuasive skills and your face? Since we’ve already got a gold button in the bag, we can do cute couple vlogs together…”

“I said just go.”

Wushin, who was listening to their conversation, exclaimed in admiration.

“Wow… Jae-gu, were you serious?”

“Did you think otherwise?”

“Did you also know, Yujung, that Jae-gu likes you?”

“Everyone in this store probably knows.”

Han chuckled softly, remembering the conversation with the female staff who criticized Jae-gu for coming to the women’s waiting room when they first met. Jae-gu spoke as he stared into space like a disoriented old man.

“You know, there are three things you can’t hide in this world: sneezes, love, and erections.”

“Isn’t the last one poverty?”

“If you wear rental clothes, you can hide it roughly.”

It sounded quite reasonable. Jae-gu went to the convenience store, got some sticky notes, wrote down his phone number, and then divided them between Han and Yujung since they didn’t have phones.

“I’m sorry for forming a group and then leaving first.”

“Goodbye, No Jae-gu. Be careful not to get into any accidents.”

With his mask and sunglasses back on, Jae-gu, who was more faithful to my feelings than anyone else, suddenly left.

Even Wushin left, leaving only Han and Yujung under the parasol.

“So, is Jae-gu going to become an idol? I wish I could get his autograph…”

Yujung chuckled at Han’s words.

“There’s no way. It’d be faster for me to pay off his debts.”

“Still… I hope things work out for him.”

“Yeah.”

As if envying Jae-gu, who left first, the two of them gazed silently at the sky for a long time. The morning sun was gently coloring the cloudless blue sky.

—

“So, the talk about setting up a coffee factory was real. We acquired a 1,000-square-meter factory and bought machines second-hand.”

After returning from a meeting at Chairman Bae’s house, Taesin was receiving a report from Junho. It was about Oh Seong-jin’s movements.

“It seems like they’re in contact with the Meridian Hotel as well. One of the upper ranks of Oh Seong-jin seems to be involved.”

“Involved in what?”

“He went to the bar in the basement of that hotel as a customer and got into a fight, stabbing a lady there. Whether he did it on purpose or not, she was someone the hotel owner valued. The culprit used Chinese characters, and since he’s an illegal immigrant, the police have eased off a bit.”

“He’s about to cause trouble again.”

“What should we do?”

“Increase the number of guards at the store.”

If Taesin didn’t give a positive answer from his side, they might soon come over here too.

Taesin closed his eyes tiredly and leaned back in his chair. He hadn’t slept properly for days, as Chairman Bae had been busy asking him to organize things. When he asked why Chairman Bae hadn’t removed Oh Seong-jin yet, Chairman Bae replied like this:

“The more dangerous a person is, the closer you should keep them. Never show them your back. That guy, Oh, is the type to stab you in the back the moment he gets a chance.”

After Junho finished his report and left, Taesin opened his swollen eyes and checked the date on his phone screen.

It had been almost ten days since he hadn’t contacted Han.

Once the thought came to his mind, he couldn’t hold back from seeing her. Before he knew it, he was walking out of the room and heading towards the elevator.

Han’s room was still unlocked. Even if it were locked, there was nowhere in this building that Taesin couldn’t enter.

Taesin slowly looked around the room. It was a small room, but the floor and furniture were sparkling clean as if they had been meticulously scrubbed. On the neatly arranged bed, there was even a white doll placed next to the pillow.

Taesin held the doll, which was difficult to distinguish whether it was a rabbit or a dog, in his hand and looked down at it. A wry smile escaped his lips as he thought, “He seems to like things like me.”

Placing the doll back in its place, at the corner of his eye, Taesin noticed a canvas hanging on one side of the room. He approached it and picked up the canvas.

The smile that had been hanging on his face until then vanished instantly as he recognized the face of the protagonist in the painting.

His emotions, tinged with the gaze of Yujung, who seemed to be looking at him with indifference towards such sensitive subjects, could be easily noticed. Then, could he have been looking at her with emotions similar to Han’s?

Taesin gazed intensely at the painting, which was being filled with sweet colors like cotton candy, as if he wanted to burn it down.

Suddenly, the door creaked open, and Han, standing outside, discovered Taesin standing in the middle of the room. Just having a man standing there made the room feel crowded.

Han’s gaze, blinking in surprise at the intrusion of a stranger, soon landed on the painting in Taesin’s hand.

“…!”

With a puzzled expression, Han quickly approached and snatched the painting from Taesin’s hand. Then, like a squirrel hiding winter food, he hid it in the crevice between the bed and the wall.

For Han, Jang Taesin was a spoiler, and everything in his hands seemed to be destroyed.

“Why did you, why did you barge into someone else’s room so recklessly?”

“Someone else’s room?”

“….”

A brief standoff ensued between the two. Tension filled the air between them, like standing on thin ice that could break at any moment.

With his lips tightly sealed, Taesin took a step closer to Han. His black eyes were so dark and deep that it was impossible to know what he was thinking. Han hesitated and stepped back.

Taesin’s gaze turned towards the painting hidden by Han. Drawing a picture of someone. It was something he couldn’t do unless the other person was special.

A woman who loves Han. And Han, who faces that woman with love? Could that be possible?

You belong to me.

With a sense of unease he couldn’t understand, Taesin raised his eyes to Han and asked, “Do you think there’s something of yours here? Starting from your body.”

Han glared at Taesin with a fierce gaze. Despite the fact that being treated like an object was no longer surprising, he couldn’t help but feel angry. Their eyes clashed like swords on the brink of breaking.

As Taesin, who had been silently staring at Han for a while, raised his hand, Han thought, could he be trying to hit me again?

As Han closed his eyes tightly, Taesin’s rough fingertips touched his lips. When Han slowly opened his eyes, his gaze turned towards Taesin like a magnet.

Taesin met Han’s gaze head-on, firmly pressing his lower lip and gently pulling it down, sometimes even pushing his index and middle fingers into the slightly open mouth. He explored Han’s wet, soft tongue and mucous membranes slowly and deliberately.

Han wanted to ask what this was about, but before he could, Taesin’s hand, which had slipped out of his mouth, firmly grasped Han’s small cheek. Then, he lowered his head and pressed his lips against Han’s. No, it would be more appropriate to say he devoured him.

“…!”

Han blinked his large, wide eyes, frozen white. His hot lips pressed tightly against each other, and a fierce tongue thrust between the parted lips.