By Zephyria 
So, it was a thin silence, as if it were about to tear. A silence so fragile that a single wrong gesture might cause it to shatter with a crash…
A precarious and shallow silence.
“Eun-myeong.”
Eun-myeong’s eyes wavered, losing their center. His Noona gripped his wrist tightly, telling him to snap out of it. Her voice broke, choked with emotion. Her short hair fluttered, and her pale eyelashes trembled.
“Come with me.”
She persuaded Eun-myeong relentlessly, telling him that she had some money saved up, that he had his own blankets so there would be nothing to feel uncomfortable about, and that she could simply take on more work.
Eun-myeong looked into his Noona’s eyes. It felt as if she were desperately pleading. Please, don’t sell your heart off for cheap, too. That was what her eyes said as her small hand pulled him along.
Perhaps that was why Eun-myeong allowed himself to be led weakly toward the door of the CEO’s office.
For once, President Kang let him go without a fight. Crack, he snapped his neck from side to side. It was a threatening sound that made the back of Eun-myeong’s neck tingle, but that was all.
Normally, he would have snatched him by the scruff of the neck.
“Noona…”
Noona limped as she strode out of the office. Thump, the heavy door closed, and the secretary stood up from the front desk and gave a polite bow, saying, “Goodbye.”
Noona’s hand was shaking violently. With every limping step, she put so much force into it that one foot sank deeply into the floor. After being dragged along for a while, Noona stopped in front of the elevator. Incensed, she slammed her fist against the elevator button. Bang!
“That damn son of a bitch!”
Then, with a ding, the arrival chime sounded. Just as Noona was about to pull Eun-myeong into the elevator,
“Wait a moment.”
Eun-myeong dug his heels in and stopped in his tracks. A thought flashed through his mind that if he followed his Noona now, he might truly never be able to return. He carefully slid his hand out of her grip. He looked down at the hand she had lost.
“Why…”
Her voice came out shrill. Noona ruffled her hair messily, as if she couldn’t believe it. Her short hair clumped together like a nest.
“Why on earth? Since when was that crazy man…?”
Eun-myeong couldn’t find the words to answer. It felt as if something was tightly lodged in his chest, piling up suffocatingly. He thought that someday he would have to pour everything out. Because every time he had to lie to his Noona, the guilt felt like it was crushing his heart.
But even so, it shouldn’t have been this way.
Eun-myeong carefully traced back through his memories, climbing up those rope-like recollections. At the end of the memories he climbed one by one lay the meat boat he had visited that night. …A night as dark as pitch, seawater sloshing as if he were inside a whale’s belly, the cramped space.
“Jjangja… me…”
At the sudden mention of the name, Eun-joo frowned.
“What about that bastard? What did he do to you?”
Noona stepped closer, urging Eun-myeong to tell her quickly. Eun-myeong anxiously chewed on his lower lip. After countless hesitations, he opened his mouth.
“That bastard locked me in the fish hold of the boat. At that time, the Boss…”
Back then, he really thought he was going to die without even being able to let out a scream… Eun-myeong squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them. A streak of light seemed to flash across his whitening vision.
“I thought no one would come to save me, but the Boss saved me.”
Under any other circumstances, Eun-myeong would have followed his Noona without hesitation.
However.
The man’s hand flashed behind his eyelids. His tanned skin had turned bright red, like boiled beef, because Eun-myeong had knocked over a teacup.
To make matters worse, there was a knife scar on the back of his hand, and a finger that had been severed and reattached could not bend properly, trembling like an aspen leaf.
His heart hardened with a cold ache. The man was someone who always endured great injuries to his body in silence. He wouldn’t apply medicine, nor would he visit a hospital. What if, after he left, the man remained alone in the hotel room in pain?
Others would hear this and call it a ridiculous worry—why worry about such a thug—but Eun-myeong simply couldn’t bring himself to walk away. He couldn’t leave like this right now.
“I’ll go. I’ll go to you, Noona, but…”
He took a deep breath.
“But not right this second…”
Eun-myeong tried to continue, but Eun-joo didn’t listen and kept trying to persuade him.
“Eun-myeong, you just don’t realize it. That man is playing with you—”
“I know.”
Eun-myeong repeated that he knew well enough. He had already disparaged himself and blamed himself many times, calling it an absurd thing to do, a truly foolish heart to harbor. Eun-myeong cast his gaze to the floor. He didn’t have the confidence to look her in the eye.
“You really gave your heart to that bastard.”
Soon, a question like a scream landed upon his forehead. Noona’s shoulders, which had been tense, slumped. Her vacant eyes turned toward the CEO’s office. Fearing that the damn man inside might hear, she asked in a low voice.
“Do you actually love him?”
Eun-myeong’s lips trembled. A small clicking sound came from his tongue, but even he didn’t know what he had intended to answer.
Then, a thought crossed his mind.
Maybe I do.
Eun-myeong closed his lips again, and Eun-joo stood there blankly. She swayed like a small boat swept away by a storm after losing its anchor.
Soon, Noona pressed the elevator button firmly again.
“I can fix everything.”
Those final words flowed into Eun-myeong’s ears. As soon as he looked up, he met her determined eyes through the gap in the door. While he was wondering what that meant, the door slid shut.
“……”
Fix everything? What, and by what means… Eun-myeong stood frozen in place for a long time, the heavy weight of those words settling in his chest.
Eventually, he trudged back toward the CEO’s office. He saw the footprints pressed deep into the rug he had walked upon. The rug was indented in places where Noona’s low heels had stepped. Because she limped, the right side was significantly deeper.
Thinking of his Noona leaving alone, his eyes grew damp with tears.
However, Eun-myeong tightened his nose and swallowed his sobs. He stopped briefly at the front desk and spoke softly to the secretary.
“Excuse me.”
“Yes, please go ahead.”
“Could I ask for a first-aid kit? He hurt his hand…”
After making the request, Eun-myeong slowly entered the CEO’s office. The man was still lazily buried in the sofa with his massive frame, just as he had been when Eun-myeong left. He lifted a slow gaze to look at Eun-myeong. He smiled, pulling the corners of his mouth wide like a crocodile.
“Come here.”
He spoke as if calling a puppy. His gestures were utterly relaxed, like a victor who had claimed the spoils of war. As if he had known all along that Eun-myeong would return to his arms.
Eun-myeong trudged toward him, like one reluctantly admitting defeat. The white clothes draped over his slender body swayed.
“Did you go for a walk like a puppy that hasn’t fully grown yet?”
The man wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him close. As usual, he tried to sit Eun-myeong on his thigh, but Eun-myeong dug his heels in and resisted. Like a dog resisting its owner pulling the leash.
“Are you grumpy, is that it?”
The man frowned menacingly, yet he patted Eun-myeong’s backside with his large hand.
“I guess you hated that I was mean to your only Noona, the one you aren’t even blood-related to, huh?”
That characteristic mocking tone didn’t even register in his ears. Eun-myeong only looked down silently at the man’s hand resting on his waist.
“I have brought the first-aid kit you requested.”
Soon, the same secretary entered the office. She glanced toward her boss. She must have seen the man’s injured hand, but she showed no particular reaction. She simply smiled again, like a machine.
“Shall I prepare some tea and sweet desserts for you?”
The question, so out of place for the situation, was chilling. Eun-myeong’s expression stiffened at her behavior, as if this sort of thing were nothing.
“No.”
When he replied that it was fine, the secretary smiled kindly again.
“Have a wonderful time.”
Then she closed the door and left.
Click, clack. The sound of high heels, sounding unpleasantly rhythmic, faded away.
Eun-myeong popped open the first-aid kit. He had been burned several times while working at the sashimi restaurant. He took out an ointment said to be good for burn treatment. As he twisted open the cap, a strong smell of sesame oil wafted out.
He squeezed the yellow ointment onto a cotton swab and gently rubbed it onto the reddish wound. It was already swelling, looking as if a blister would form. Despite the fact that it must have been painful, the man’s expression didn’t change. Instead, Eun-myeong’s own heart felt as if it were being crushed like clay, making him feel deeply distressed.
“Why are you trying to cry like a baby again?”
As Eun-myeong kept biting his lower lip, the man gripped his chin harshly.
“Hmm?”
Their gazes locked instantly. Eun-myeong’s round eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“Boss, why did you really do that?”
How shocked his Noona must have been. She had to be drenched in all those uncomfortable truths as if hit by a wave. Even though he had returned to the man of his own will, he couldn’t help but feel resentful.
However, the response that came back was utterly cold.
“What did I do? Did I slap you across the face?”
He gripped Eun-myeong’s forearm tightly and pulled him closer.
“Or… did I say that the baby was used as a toilet?”
The lips curving into a smile held either a knife or a sweet candy.
“It’s still sloshing around in your stomach, isn’t it?”
It was a voice of absolute cruelty. Eun-myeong bit the tip of his tongue hard. Sometimes, the tongue gets cut even by the cracks in a sweet candy. Eun-myeong felt blood pouring from the weakest part of his body.