My Bloody Valentine - 98

“Were you… counting that?”

“Even if it wasn’t that, it’s done now.”

If it could have been easily ended with a phrase like “it’s done now”, why had he been so anxious to hold me in his hands? Why had he risked danger to come rescue me, like a precious treasure that someone had plundered?

The sensation of the hot hands that had gently caressed my entire body and gripped me tightly the night before still seemed to linger on my skin.

The name he had continually whispered in my ear, as if to make me aware of who I was. The deep eyes that had been unable to hide their love. Han had even thought that he could now carefully reveal their past story.

What had all that been? Had he taken me to a high place just to cause an even more painful fall?

“There are no records of your debt, and Tasenda has also distanced itself, so you no longer need to worry about the Yojeong issue.”

“That’s not it!”

Han shouted, as if venting his resentment. He seemed both angry and sad. All kinds of indescribable emotions were swirling around him. He felt an unbearable sense of betrayal.

What level of significance did I have to you? I’ve started to picture you in my future, but you’re simply erasing me from your future? Was I such an easily discardable person to you?

“If it’s not that.”

“…What are we?”

But Taeshin’s voice was as dry and devoid of emotion as a desert.

“We were just a temporary fling, weren’t we.”

There had been a time when I had said that myself. When he had told me to smile, or when he had bought me a watch. But that was before I knew about his painful past.

“B-but…”

“What’s so unfair about it? We both enjoyed it. You loved it when I fucked you and you came all over the place, didn’t you?”

“…!”

With a soft “Oh my” the woman standing next to them opened her lips wide, her thick purple-polished nails covering her mouth, but the sparkle in her eyes only grew deeper.

Why had Taeshin thought I would naturally cling to him?

I hadn’t imagined the situation would unfold this way. Han felt suffocated, wanting to pound his fist against his chest, but there was nothing he could do.

Trembling his tightly clenched fist, Han barely opened his mouth.

“So… you don’t see me as anything now?”

“Yeah.”

“How… no, why?”

“I’m tired of it.”

The lifelessness of the words made Han’s eyes tremble.

“Oh, did you think I might actually be serious?”

Taeshin asked with a bitter smile, as if Han couldn’t have possibly thought that. Han’s parted lips trembled with despair.

As Taeshin turned to leave, he seemed to remember something and lightly ran his eyes over Han’s uniformed figure.

“You’re going to work at Tasenda again, I hear.”

“…”

“It’s not a bad place for pay, so try your best.”

Taeshin brushed past the dazed Han. Urging the watching woman, he placed his palm on her waist and applied gentle pressure.

The sight looked like a gentleman escorting his lover. It was a remarkably unfamiliar sight of the man who had always seemed like a tyrant to me.

Why was he showing that side to someone else, when I had expected him to show it to me?

“Ah… Huu… Hic…”

Han’s sigh of despair soon turned into sobs. He stood there, unable to even cover his face, letting the thick tears fall.

The sound of his crying, which would have reached Taeshin, went unnoticed as Taeshin did not look back. Suddenly, the voice of Taeshin’s childhood echoed in Han’s ear.

“Who did that?”

Taeshin would always ask that whenever I cried, and then get revenge on the children who had wronged me, doubling or tripling the punishment.

“Hic…”

Taeshin, look here. I’m crying, aren’t I? You should ask who did this and scold them.

But the twisted part of myself whispers quietly.

He doesn’t even remember you.

“Huuu…”

Han’s sobs grew more sorrowful.

Click, clack. The sharp heels of the woman walking away paused for a moment to glance back at the man crying like a abandoned child. Feeling uncomfortable leaving him there, she turned to look at Taeshin.

But the sight that greeted her was even more shocking. Taeshin’s face was contorted as if he were about to tear someone apart. His clenched jaw had the muscles bulging, and the veins on his temple looked ready to burst.

His face was marred by anguish and torment, as if enduring extreme pain. Sensing the danger, the woman prudently kept her mouth shut.

Han stood there, tears streaming down his face, until Taeshin’s figure disappeared. This unfamiliar situation of Taeshin ignoring him was unbearably painful and sorrowful.

Only now did Han realize that Taeshin had never once looked away from him. Whenever Han looked at Taeshin, Taeshin had always been gazing directly at him. Even when Han’s eyes were elsewhere, Taeshin had always kept him in his sight. Only now did he realize this.

❖ ❖ ❖

After Cho Kyung-chul’s disappearance, the new team leader was a man named Yoon Bae-hyeok, a former host just like most team leaders, and one of the longest serving employees at Tasenda.

Having worked there for so long, he was well-versed in the internal and external affairs of the business, and knew which customers the staff disliked dealing with.

He had become adept at smoothly handling even the most troublesome customers, but there were still some he couldn’t stand.

“4744? Just came in, did they?”

Bae-hyeok was on the phone, his face clearly showing his distaste, as a waiter nearby approached him discreetly and asked,

“Is this 4744 Yongseong Construction’s director’s office? Are you coming here today?”

“Yes.”

“Ah… Who are we sending in this time?”

They whispered to each other in voices barely audible.

“Since the Jjin-dae won’t be taken away, ask if any of the staff wants to go in first.”

“Will there be anyone like that?”

“Try asking the one who’s desperate for money first.”

“Okay.”

“Damn it. What kind of trick are they up to by coming here again…”

The director of Yongseong Construction was known for his perverted tendencies. He was a regular at both the basement 1st floor where the female employees were and the basement 2nd floor where the male employees were.

Bisexuality wasn’t uncommon in this field, but his sadistic tendencies were rare.

“Are they going to do it again today?”

“Probably. Trying some perverted stunt again.”

Whenever he came, he shared a room with one of the employees, and the manager, Bae-hyeok, had also been in the same room as him before.

Bae-hyeok, who was heterosexual and quite muscular, was stripped naked that day and beaten multiple times with the director’s belt. And he ended the entertainment with the worst outcome of being penetrated by a fellow man.

If it hadn’t been for the bundle of checks the director was waving in front of him, he might have smashed the director’s head with a liquor bottle and stormed out.

“If you want to play with men, go to a gay bar. Why come here?”

“That’s what I said. When I told him I’d introduce him to a good gay bar, you know what he said? He refused. He said he likes fucking heterosexuals better. It satisfies his urge to conquer.”

“Damn it, those perverted bastards…”

Bae-hyeok, rolling his eyes as if he didn’t want to think about it, spotted Han sitting in the corner, hugging a tray. Suddenly, he remembered the instructions he had received from Jun-ho.

Ah, right. There he is.

Bae-hyeok snapped his fingers towards Han and said,

“You, there. A customer is coming in, so you guide him. Room 3.”

Just then, the entrance opened, and the tall, imposing middle-aged man, the director of Yongseong Construction, strode in confidently.

Bae-hyeok gestured, and Han jumped up to guide the director deeper inside. The waiter watched the retreating figures with a worried expression and asked Bae-hyeok,

“Excuse me… Manager, do you know? Who is that?”

“Who?”

“The one who just went in with the director.”

“Ah, him. I know he used to be the lover of the president, Jang.”

“So?”

Bae-hyeok continued,

“But it seems the sweet is all dried up, so he’s sent him back down again.”

“I see…”

“And apparently, he did something to earn the president’s dislike, so he’s being toyed with.”

At that moment, Han was just coming back out to the lobby. He couldn’t properly understand the name of the liquor the director had ordered, so he had to go back in to check the order.

As he was heading back to the hall, he heard Bae-hyeok and the unnamed waiter’s conversation.

“Really? Jang and him were together for at least half a year. But there’s such a thing as ‘discarded lover,’ isn’t there? Sending him to the customer’s room, isn’t that just asking for trouble with the president?”

“Hmm… You’re probably right. I’ll call to confirm.”

It was clearly about my story with Taeshin. Han paused and listened for a moment. He could hear Bae-hyeok making a call.

“Yes, I just wanted to ask something. It’s about that boy, Han. Can I put him in the director’s room? Uh-huh. It’s probably… a difficult room. Okay, I’ll do that then.”

After hanging up, the waiter next to him asked,

“What did he say?”

“It doesn’t matter how it turns out. Just do as he says.”

In that moment, Han’s head drooped. It felt as if his heart had dropped to the floor.

‘It doesn’t matter how it turns out. Just do as he says.’

He could hear the sound of something shattering inside him.

Han gathered the order form on the console and stepped forward with heavy feet. He stood in front of the room where the customer was waiting.

The person waiting for him beyond this door must be an extremely troublesome customer. A foreboding feeling crept up that something unpleasant might happen if he entered.

But Han also felt like, at this point, it didn’t really matter what happened.