DS 51

Since returning from his Noona’s house, Eun-myeong found himself spacing out more often. Whenever he snapped back to his senses, he would realize he had stopped weaving the cast net and was simply staring into vacancy.

‘What on earth happened to the Director?’

Did he perhaps run away…? Since he was a man who had done so many terrible things, it was possible he vanished because something was gnawing at him.

But why on earth has Jjangja still not carried out any punishment?

His thoughts felt like a tangled mess. Nothing seemed to be in its proper place; he felt as if he were floating like dust. A layer of dust seemed to settle over his chest, making him feel suffocated, but naturally, the thing that made Eun-myeong’s heart the most complicated was…

…the Boss.

Eun-myeong’s expression darkened noticeably.

A very cold atmosphere had been flowing between him and the man lately. Even while sitting at the same table to eat, or while entwining their bodies so intensely that they broke into sweats despite the freezing winter day, an inexplicable tension remained hidden around his waist like a ribcage. For Eun-myeong, these were moments where his windpipe felt tightly constricted.

Eun-myeong let out a deep sigh. He gripped the knot again, then let his hand drop limply. The thought crossed his mind: how wonderful would it be if there were a weaving technique for life that was as precise as a cast net.

“Boss, I’ll begin the procedure.”

A rhythmic tudududu sound echoed. Eun-myeong looked down at his lap gloomily. The man was lying down, using Eun-myeong’s thigh as a pillow.

Unlike Eun-myeong’s own pale skin, which looked like that of someone who had never seen the sun, the man’s skin was a deep, hot tan, like an old tree stump. Numerous needles pierced through the sturdy muscles of his flank with their sharp tips.

The skin flared bright red along the path of the needle tips. Even a single prick from a thorn could cause a scream of pain, yet the man receiving the tattoo maintained an indifferent expression.

Eun-myeong took in the Chinese characters being engraved. Being completely illiterate, he had no idea what they meant.

Purple

Clove

Fragrance

What does it mean?

Just as the final stroke of the character for ‘fragrance’ was being driven in, the man let out a low groan.

“Huu.”

A hand attempted to slide inside his thigh. A pitch-black spider born of ink gradually crawled into the gap of Eun-myeong’s thigh. Startled, Eun-myeong recoiled.

The man lifted his hand, which had been trailing across the rug due to his long arms. As he gave a slight wave of his palm, the tattoo artist stepped back. With a peeing sound, the machine turned off.

The man pulled a thick wad of bills from his wallet and pressed them against the tattoo artist’s chest.

“Good work. Take this.”

Since he handed it over nonchalantly without even checking the amount, the tattoo artist bowed repeatedly, gathered his things, and stood up.

“Thank you, Boss!”

Eun-myeong stared blankly at the tattoo artist as he hurried away.

“What, do you like that one too?”

The man shot the words out sharply. He spat out a curse, asking if his fucking eyes were on the tops of his feet.

Why did conversations always flow this way? Eun-myeong lowered his eyelashes. His drooping pupils were half-hidden.

“It’s not that.”

“Why is it always ‘not that,’ ‘I don’t want to,’ ‘I won’t do it,’ huh?”

Muttering that he had no manners, the man gripped Eun-myeong’s forearm tightly. As he was pulled toward him, Eun-myeong braced his thighs.

His thin thighs seemed to gain a momentary volume of resistance, but eventually, his knees buckled with a thud.

“Hut!”

With a sticky sound, Eun-myeong fell forward. He sank deep into the leather sofa. Eun-myeong looked down at the glossy surface.

At a glance, one might think they had pulled against each other equally, but the man had intentionally let him have a chance at first. Just to watch Eun-myeong harbor hope only to be disappointed later. Boss Kang Pyeong-won was truly malicious.

“You fucking annoyed?”

The man lounged lazily on the sofa. The muscles of his bare chest had a smooth sheen that looked threatening. His hair had grown in the meantime, passing his nape and touching his shoulders.

“Is being held by me that fucking dog-like?”

Telling him to speak up if he didn’t want to be held, the man abruptly let go of his wrist. Eun-myeong’s body swayed.

“You’re the one who asked to be held, so why the fuck are you acting out?”

At the low, mocking tone, Eun-myeong sank into a wretched sense of self-loathing. Having looked into the depths of his soul, the man dug into his tender flesh using the most effective method.

Exposing his flushed inner skin, Eun-myeong pinched the leather sofa with his hand. Rather than anger, he felt distressed. Why did a person like this… have to see him like this?

Why did a person like this have to be the one to find him trapped in a dark place, pull him out, and hold him? Why did he have to be the one to comfort him?

Since then, no matter how much others slandered the man as a bad person or warned him not to associate with him, a part of his heart rebelled.

It felt as if the tiny, minuscule shred of pride he had left was being ripped out by the roots. Following the fingernails and toenails the man would clip whenever he had the chance, his pride too was being snipped away, tuk tuk, with nail clippers.

The trigger of his defense mechanism was pulled. It was Eun-myeong’s way of protecting himself.

“I’ve always been like this.”

He blurted out whatever came to mind. After saying it, his earlobes felt hot for no reason. ‘Always’? How many people had he even had in his life?

If someone looked closely, they would realize it was a lie immediately, but nevertheless.

“I’ve always liked hugging people.”

Since his life was a mass of deprivation, the more he clung to others, the emptier he felt—it just happened that the man was the one who appeared and shared his body heat at that moment. He would have looked blindly toward anyone who had appeared back then.

When he hid in the gaps of the orphanage windows to watch volunteers playing happily with children; when he cleaned the director’s office diligently, hoping for even a single pat from the Director who starved and locked him up.

Eun-myeong discovered that he hadn’t grown a bit from that small child.

He was so dried out inside due to deprivation that he was too easily soaked. If there was even a hint of moisture, he was busy opening every pore of his body to suck it in. Eun-myeong encountered the version of himself that had become small again in the face of affection.

“You like being held?”

“Yes, since a long time ago…”

He murmured as if making an excuse. Now that he was caught in this, he didn’t want the man to know that he was a special existence to him.

“When volunteers came to the orphanage, I used to go and get held by them.”

He dropped his head, fearing his lie would be discovered. Then, as if escaping the situation, he stood up from the sofa.

“Then I’ll… I’ll go to work now.”

He felt the man’s gaze following his entire body, but Eun-myeong quickly stood up and grabbed the jacket draped over the chair. Then, something dropped from his pocket.

“Uh…”

While he was saying ‘uh’, a small object grazed the sofa and fell at the man’s feet. The man’s gaze shifted there. Startled, Eun-myeong bent his upper body and quickly reached out to pick it up from the floor.

“A lighter?”

At the words that suddenly popped out of him, Eun-myeong’s pupils shook violently. To think he would present this right before the man’s eyes. It had popped out at a completely unexpected timing. Beyond panic, it felt as if the world before his eyes was burning black.

“Planning to try smoking?”

He sneered. The corners of his mouth, which always curled upward to mock Eun-myeong, were strangely distorted.

“No, I, I got it at the store and was going to throw it away.”

Eun-myeong shook his head quickly. Why on earth did the lighter fall out of his pocket at this exact timing? It was truly too cruel.

“I’m leaving.”

Mumbling vaguely, he quickly left the hotel room. Everything was the worst, so he had no choice but to escape.

The sashimi restaurant had more work than usual. This was because the big holiday, Lunar New Year, was approaching. Around this time, there were many gifts exchanged out of affection, and order volumes jumped several times higher than usual.

Eun-myeong moved his hands diligently. He carefully placed the tuna sashimi, which Aunt Jeong-hye had stylishly wrapped, into a box and placed a congratulatory card on top. The modestly written characters scratched at Eun-myeong’s eyes: I love you, parents.

Realizing it was for parents, Eun-myeong adjusted the position of the card. To make it look more stylish, to make it look more sincere.

And without realizing it, he looked down at the box with envious eyes for a moment.

They say that on holidays, everyone fries pancakes and eats rice cake soup together, but Eun-myeong lived a life separate from that. The idea of exchanging gifts between family members or friends felt like a different world.

He bit his lower lip slightly for a moment and then moved his hands diligently. Thinking that he hoped he could eat rice cake soup with his Noona on Lunar New Year, he gathered all the trash.

Eventually, Eun-myeong went behind the incinerator with trash filling both hands. Just as he threw it in one side and was about to return to the shop.

“Ugh!”

A hand shot out from the side and painfully snatched Eun-myeong. Soon, pang, Eun-myeong’s back slammed painfully against the stone wall.

“It hurts…”

Frowning deeply and rubbing his back, Eun-myeong looked up, only to fall into despair with a gasp.

“Jot-myeong, you’ve been well?”

Because the person was wearing a hood over their head and had become shockingly thin since he last saw them, he didn’t recognize them at first.

But that twisted gaze was definitely Jjangja’s.