By Zephyria 
A high-end izakaya bathed in a gloomy, yellowish light. To one side, an elegant pond flowed with a gentle trickle.
Orange goldfish swam in small clusters, flaunting their iridescent beauty as they flicked their long tails.
Splash. A ripple disturbed the surface of the water.
“Please, have a drink, Chairman.”
The man picked up a liquor bottle. A stream of liquid poured from the gourd, which was decorated with a tasteful ink-and-wash painting.
“Right. It would have been better if you’d just been this obedient from the start.”
Chairman Kang pressed his lips to the glass.
Despite being a man who loved his alcohol, he hesitated for a moment instead of drinking immediately. Instead, he glanced sideways at the man, suspecting that the drink might be poisoned.
“I agree, Chairman.”
Even at that behavior, the man maintained a picture-perfect smile on his lips. Then, gulp, gulp, he drank the liquid first.
Only then did Chairman Kang relax and drink. Gulp, gulp, the liquid flowed down his thick throat.
“This tastes excellent.”
“Khhh,” Chairman Kang exhaled, shaking the glass over his head. Then, he set the glass down on the table with a loud clack!
“It is carp wine, said to be good for stamina.”
“Ho ho.”
He let out a hearty laugh, stroking his alcohol-soaked beard. Despite having already entered his seventies, his frame was imposing.
In his prime, he had gone by the pseudonym Tae-baek. Flames flickered in eyes often compared to those of a tiger, and his thick beard still glistened with an oily sheen.
“Even now, my stamina boils over in my sleep, hahahaha. Should I bring in a new young wife?”
Hahaha. The man barely managed to suppress the urge to gag rising in his throat. Instead, he burst into a dramatic laugh.
“I would be more than happy if you had a youngest child, like a little one. Chang-hui was always so lacking in charm.”
“Ahaha, a child at seventy?”
As Chairman Kang boomed, the man played along with a soft chuckle, bringing the old man’s mood to a peak.
“You lot… that temper of yours will eventually eat you alive, tsk. Isn’t it wonderful to be so gentle and smiling while playing the role of a son, isn’t it?”
The man brought the glass to his lips and swallowed, gulp, gulp. After a few drinks like this, several empty bottles were now rolling around them.
Chairman Kang’s face was flushed red. He was completely intoxicated, both by the mood and the alcohol.
“Being young is fun for now, but that doesn’t last long. Just look at the mother who birthed you.”
The breath leaking from him was unimaginably disgusting. Even smog from a deserted factory chimney couldn’t be this polluted. Moreover, his speech was becoming increasingly sluggish.
“Hmm? She was young and quite pretty, that bitch. She listened well and was obedient. But she had no education and a poor background, so, tsk.”
The man looked down at his hand as he slowly picked up a piece of sashimi. He noted the watch on his wrist.
Hmm, about ten minutes had passed.
“How could I possibly put her in the position of the primary wife, put her there…”
His tongue seemed to be paralyzing, and his words began to slur. His pupils were excessively dilated, to the point where the man’s face was reflected in them.
As for the face reflected there… was he smiling?
“Just because she didn’t get some love, did she lose her mind before she died? Hanging herself and embarrassing me in the neighborhood, me? That mere girl… But why is it so hot in here?”
Complaining of the heat, he fumbled with his hand and pulled down his tie.
“Khm, is the alcohol… hitting me? They said it was good for stamina…”
Chairman Kang’s massive frame swayed. His eyes blinked slowly, opening and then closing again.
By the pond, a goldfish was rubbing its body against something that looked like a rock. No, it was too white to be a rock.
Wait, looking again, it looked like a human eyeball.
“That whitish thing reflecting in the pond, right now…”
Staggering, he approached the rippling pond that flowed to one side.
“…Is that a person?”
With those final words, thump, his body plunged into the pond. Splash! Water sprayed in all directions. He struggled wildly, splashing and swimming to get out. Even though he was soaking wet like a drowned rat, he crawled along the bottom, unable to tell where he was.
How filthy. The man clicked his tongue.
“Then yes, it is a person.”
Looking down, the face had bubbles clustered around the mouth, clinging to the white beard that had been grown like a brush.
A suspicious human. Even while sharing a drink with the child who shared his blood, Kang Pyeong-won wouldn’t take a single sip unless the other person drank first.
So, the man had rigged the glass. He had sprinkled a poison, sweet as sugar, on the rim where the lips touch.
“Wasn’t it you, Father, who told me that to dispose of a person without a trace, I should throw them into the sea under the cover of dawn?”
Staring at the trickling pond, the man murmured like a poet reciting verses.
“But from what I see, that doesn’t seem like such a great method.”
He slowly gripped the gourd, and the feel of it was truly artistic. It felt as if he were gripping the nape of Eun-myeong’s neck.
“Well, isn’t that a bit too elegant and refined…?”
“You… you brat… How dare you…!”
Chairman Kang tried to reach out and grab the man by the collar, but it was useless. His limbs went limp. His tongue, twisted and long, dangled beneath his chin, and his eyes became glazed and half-closed.
The man had discovered by pure chance that his father’s lawyer had been attached to Eun-myeong. It was the prison warden who had mentioned it.
‘Mr. Lee Eun-myeong? He has no connections, and apparently, no one comes to visit him. Yet his lawyer is from the best law firm in the country. I wondered what his deal was.’
The warden had praised the man, laughing and asking if he was President Kang’s lover. At that, the man’s brows furrowed sharply. Wondering which son of a bitch it was and if he had developed an affair with Eun-myeong, he immediately ordered the list of names.
And upon confirming the name, the man could not erase his suspicion. Why on earth was his father’s lawyer clinging to Eun-myeong…?
So, an hour ago, he had summoned the lawyer to this very spot.
The lawyer, being an educated man, was quick-witted. Realizing his life was in danger, he spilled everything after a few kicks to the stomach.
‘Lee Eun-myeong was originally… supposed to be disguised as a suicide during the trans-transfer…!’
The sight of him trembling and even urinating himself was quite a spectacle.
‘It was meant to be disguised. But then the President appeared, and the plan was disrupted…’
The lawyer tried to continue, but he couldn’t move his tongue any further. This was because the man had grabbed him by the hair and shoved him into the pond. A poor goldfish, thinking it had found a cozy cave, swam toward the mouth only to get lost.
‘Tsk.’
The man slapped the limp man’s cheek repeatedly. A startled goldfish leaped out with a pop and splashed back into the pond.
Under the pretext of protecting Kangsung, Eun-myeong had almost vanished from this world like an insect. If the man had found him just a little later, Eun-myeong would have been discovered as a cold corpse. He would have died with his tongue hanging out, having released all his waste.
Of course, the man could have adored Eun-myeong even in that state, but then he wouldn’t be able to feel his voice or his gaze.
Now it was time for everything to be resolved. Since all the sins had been placed upon Chairman Kang’s neck, he was now about to fade from this world as punishment.
“Someone like you isn’t even beautiful when taxidermied. You’re just a withered old man.”
Smirk. The man smiled, intoxicated by the feeling of victory.
The man had always intended to bring about Chairman Kang’s end with his own hands. But to dare attempt to take Eun-myeong’s life… This was no different from Chairman Kang shortening his own lifespan.
Just then.
“Do you think… the whole world… will be yours?”
Chairman Kang babbled. Thick saliva dripped down his angular jaw.
“Kangsung, and you… you’re both under me, youL-ugh.”
“Bullshit.”
“That… yes, I suppose it did get on your nerves, didn’t it?”
Kh, khahaha! Even while staggering, Chairman Kang laughed like a madman.
“But, it’s… already… too late, far too late.”
The man frowned sharply. He wondered why he was listening to the ramblings of a dying man, but the name that happened to come out was Eun-myeong.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just a… mere thing like that… bringing down my Kangsung…!”
For a moment, his legs slipped, and his body swayed violently.
“Of course, I had to kill it… agh!”
CRASH! With a massive rupturing sound, Chairman Kang’s body slammed into the ground. As he fell, his head hit a rock, and the clear water began to turn into a crimson sea of fire.
This was the end of his father he had waited for so long.
The emotion that struck the man was not euphoria, but shock. At the final words left by Chairman Kang, he felt a shock that seemed to gouge out the back of his skull.
Of course, I had to kill it.
Had to kill it.
Kill… it…
He bolted outside like a wild dog. Rain poured down over his entire body.
Looking down at the storm raging through the front window, the man felt his heart thumping wildly.
Eun-myeong especially feared days like this. Why, of all times, did he have to hear such nonsense on a day like today?
It was probably nothing. It had to be nothing, yet that damned intuition, which felt like it was slicing through his occipital lobe, was raging wildly.
The man eventually drove his car into the storm, where the thunder roared like a beast.