Red Dot - 132

Chapter 132

‘N-no, that can’t be. No matter what, how could he know about my mom?’

Trying to calm his racing heart, Gyeong-oh swallowed his rough breaths.

‘Mom is all the way in Heojong City, far from Inhan City…!’

—Heojong City, Yewon-dong…

Nam Ki-hyuk’s voice interrupted Gyeong-oh’s thoughts, reciting a familiar address. As the address continued, Gyeong-oh’s face twisted in shock. His legs gave out, and he collapsed onto the hard floor.

The address Nam Ki-hyuk just mentioned was the exact location of the fruit and vegetable store his mom ran in Heojong City.

—Should I say her home address too?

Nam Ki-hyuk’s voice, filled with amusement as if he could see Gyeong-oh’s reaction, sent chills down his spine.

—I even prepared a gift for you, so you can believe me better. See it for yourself, then decide whether to follow my words or not.

The cold, eerie whisper slithered into his ears like a ghost’s murmur.

Gyeong-oh was already terrified of what this “gift” could be. He had no idea where, how, or what had been prepared, and worst of all, he had no way to ask. Frustration and an overwhelming fear sank into him.

But the recording was merciless. It didn’t explain what the “gift” was.

It only gave a single, one-sided order.

—If you want to save your mom, be ready by midnight…

Listening to the few remaining seconds of the recording, Gyeong-oh felt his soul slipping away. His face turned deathly pale, and he staggered. Even so, he never let go of the tiny recorder pressed against his ear.

His mom’s life was at stake. Even though he wanted to stop listening, even though he wanted to ignore it, he couldn’t.

Just as the voice filled with sinister laughter was about to end…

Nam Ki-hyuk left behind a cliché but obvious warning.

—If you plan to follow my orders, don’t tell anyone about this. Especially not Kang Jun-seong.

Nam Ki-hyuk’s cold, sneering voice suddenly softened.

—That guy is really heartless. If he finds out you’ve sided with me, he’ll throw you away without hesitation.

Despite the words, Nam Ki-hyuk spoke as if reminiscing about an old memory, then let out a chuckle.

—So keep your expression in check. Don’t let anyone notice.

Without realizing it, Gyeong-oh ran a hand down his stiff face.

—Unless you want to see your mom’s head hanging by the roadside.

With those horrifying words, the recording cut off.

Gyeong-oh sat frozen, gripping the small recorder tightly with his trembling hands. He couldn’t stand up for a long time.

He thought of his mother.

She nagged a lot, but she loved her only son dearly. No matter what happened, family was always her top priority. She was so simple-minded that instead of taking care of herself, she worried about her son, living alone, and made it her habit to fill his fridge every week.

How could any child ignore a mother like that?

He couldn’t even bring himself to cry aloud. He just swallowed his sobs, then rubbed his tear-streaked eyes harshly with his sleeve.

‘No. Not yet… It’s too soon to jump to conclusions.’

Gyeong-oh took deep breaths to stop his tears, forcing his mind and heart to settle.

‘Jun-seong said that even the Jun-seong in the video, and his younger brother, were fake. That guy is cunning. Maybe… maybe this is just another lie.’

The fact that Nam Ki-hyuk knew his mother’s store address gnawed at him, but he wasn’t foolish enough to bite the bait right away.

However, that didn’t mean he could immediately tell Jun-seong and the others about this either.

Nam Ki-hyuk was definitely not someone to be trusted. But Gyeong-oh wasn’t bold enough to completely dismiss even the smallest chance.

Some time later…

Gyeong-oh realized that Nam Ki-hyuk had been telling the truth.

“One of the hostages in the photo was probably your mom.”

Han-seo spoke calmly as Gyeong-oh, head hung low, weakly recounted everything.

“…Yeah.”

The bloodstained picture of Yu-seul’s brother.

Behind the man being trampled in the photo, among the people who were tied up, Jun-seong managed to spot Kim Tae-joo.

He figured that was why Nam Ki-hyuk had left the picture with Yu-seul and let her live.

And he wasn’t wrong.

If there was one thing crazy Nam Ki-hyuk enjoyed, it was provoking Kang Jun-seong in twisted ways like this.

However, there was something else hidden in the photo that Jun-seong hadn’t anticipated.

The terrified face of a “mother” with her life at risk—

That alone was enough to make her “son” move.

Gyeong-oh sat down on the bed as if collapsing, rubbing his eyes as he asked,

“How… did you know…?”

“At that moment, your eyes changed when you looked at Kang Jun-seong.”

To add to that, when everyone else was glaring at the photo in fury over Nam Ki-hyuk, only Hwang Gyeong-oh’s eyes had been shaking as he looked at Jun-seong.

Gyeong-oh widened his teary eyes and looked up at Han-seo, then let out a hollow laugh.

“You really… only care about Jun-seong, huh?”

Until the hospital collapsed, Gyeong-oh had thought he had acted well enough.

He had no choice but to summon every ounce of acting skill he had.

The moment he spotted his mother in the photo, he had forced himself to wipe the expression off his face. When tears threatened to spill, he bit the inside of his mouth to hold them back.

Even after returning to his hospital room, he buried his face in his pillow and cried in silence, making sure no sound escaped.

But in that one fleeting moment—

He had instinctively let slip a glance filled with guilt and sorrow.

The emotions in his eyes, the ones he unknowingly sent toward Jun-seong, were completely different from the others.

Now that he thought about it…

Do Han-seo wasn’t just watching Kang Jun-seong.

He was paying close attention to how others looked at him too.

At this rate, even someone as cold as Jun-seong might be wary of Han-seo.

Gyeong-oh, with a devastated expression, lowered his head and confessed what he had done.

“I found my mom in the picture… so I had no choice but to do what that guy said. I… I pressed the button in the supply room drawer at exactly midnight, just like he told me to… to send the signal….”

“That button must have actually been the trigger for the bomb on the rooftop.”

Chang-min, with a serious expression, interrupted. At his words, Gyeong-oh covered his face with both hands and trembled.

“I-I really didn’t know it was a bomb… I just thought it was to send a signal….”

“It was a signal. In a place with almost no light, an explosion like that would be an obvious signal even from far away.”

Chang-min clicked his tongue at Nam Ki-hyuk’s sly wordplay. It made him think that the real purpose might not have been just to send a signal.

“The first bomb was structured like the others, but it was the only one without a timer panel. In other words, it wasn’t a time bomb, but an instant-detonation bomb. The button Gyeong-oh pressed must have been the trigger.”

“An instant-detonation bomb… But the others…?”

“Yes, all the other bombs had a ten-minute countdown.”

Chang-min found it strange that the rooftop bombs had all activated at the same time.

If they had simply been linked remotely to the first instant-detonation bomb, he might have thought it was just a synchronized detonation.

But what made him suspicious was that the ten-minute countdown hadn’t started right after the first explosion.

“The bombs didn’t activate immediately after the explosion. It was a few minutes later. Until then, the timer panels weren’t even lit.”

“Huh…? Then… were the time bombs set to activate a few minutes later?”

Gyeong-oh, forgetting to wipe the tears streaming down his face, looked up at Chang-min.

The answer came from Han-seo.

“No, they activated ‘after’ Kang Jun-seong checked the bombs.”

It was just like Han-seo to base everything around Jun-seong. But his explanation was convincing.

“The people hiding at a distance where they could see faces waited until Kang Jun-seong checked the site. Then, they remotely activated the bombs. They must have expected Jun-seong to go up himself to inspect the origin of the first explosion.”

“Why would they do that…?”

Han-seo glared toward the window with displeasure. There was nothing but darkness outside, but thinking of whoever was out there made him feel uneasy.

“Because they didn’t want Kang Jun-seong to die.”

If there hadn’t been an explosion on the rooftop, Jun-seong wouldn’t have had a reason to go up there that late at night. If they had activated the bombs remotely under those conditions, he would have been buried under the collapsing building without a chance to escape.

The rooftop explosion was a signal for those outside, telling them, “As soon as the target inspects the bombs, activate them.”

Supporting this theory, the bombs displayed a ten-minute countdown, as if to allow some time for escape.

Ten minutes seemed like an extremely short window, but Jun-seong was confident that it was enough time to escape the hospital—and he actually did it. Barely, but he made it.

Nam Ki-hyuk always seemed to enjoy watching Jun-seong struggle, constantly putting him through both physical and mental torment.

What disgusted Han-seo the most was that Ki-hyuk’s way of thinking felt uncomfortably similar to the raw cruelty lurking in a corner of his own mind.

‘Disgusting.’

If anyone was going to push Kang Jun-seong to the edge, it would be him alone.

Maybe in his dreams, it had played out differently. But in ‘reality,’ he would never allow it.

Not now, not ever.

“Hwang Gyeong-oh.”

Han-seo looked down at Hwang Gyeong-oh with razor-sharp eyes, his gaze so intense that Gyeong-oh swallowed hard.

“If Kang Jun-seong finds out about this, he will cut you off. Because of you, the entire group was put in danger.”

Given how Jun-seong had turned his back on unfamiliar survivors to protect his group’s safety, this was a likely outcome.

“B-but I…”

Gyeong-oh, his lips trembling, quickly slid down from his seat, knelt on the floor, and pressed his forehead to the ground.

“I-I’m sorry! I really didn’t know it was a bomb! I-I just… I just wanted to save my mom…!”

“So, in exchange for keeping quiet, there’s something I want you to do ‘for the group.’”

“Huh…?”

Gyeong-oh, tears streaming down his face, lifted his head. Han-seo bent one knee and sat in front of him, their eyes meeting.

Han-seo’s piercing gaze looked as if it would swallow Gyeong-oh whole.

“Without Kang Jun-seong knowing.”