By Zephyria 
“Why are you so surprised?”
The man slowly leaned his upper body forward. He knelt down in front of Eun-myeong. A silver necklace draped around his neck cast a shimmering glint. The white light pierced Eun-myeong’s eyes painfully.
“Weren’t we playing hide-and-seek?”
The man’s eyes, dark as a valley, landed on Eun-myeong’s hand.
“You have bad habits with your hands.”
Eun-myeong’s hand trembled violently, clutching the cell phone tightly. As if finding it amusing, the man flicked the phone with the back of his hand.
“This isn’t yours anyway.”
The end of Eun-myeong’s voice shook. He trembled as if seized by a sudden chill. Hiding in the wardrobe had been a terrible mistake. There was no longer any exit to escape through. If the man were to lock the wardrobe door right now, he might simply suffocate from a lack of air.
Moreover… the fact that dying like that might actually be a blessing made his breath even more labored.
“Yours?”
The man’s voice creaked upward at the end. At the sound, which felt like fingernails scratching a chalkboard, Eun-myeong curled his toes tightly.
“Why.”
Eun-myeong released his lip, which he had been biting hard with his front teeth.
“Why do you have Noona’s cell phone?”
This man had acted as if he couldn’t find Noona. Just a moment ago, he had gone out after receiving a tip that she had been spotted.
“There was a trash can at the bus terminal.”
He leaned in closer. As he pushed his upper body forward, bracing himself against the wardrobe with his elbow, Eun-myeong pressed his hips further against the wall.
“Even with all those fucking rats scurrying around, I searched every inch and found this one phone.”
Despite it being just the two of them, he whispered as if sharing a secret.
“But you… thinking I was your Noona, you were so excited.”
A high-pitched ringing pierced Eun-myeong’s ears. It felt as if a part of his brain was being consumed.
‘That person seems like a terrifying gangster. Really, really scary. He swears a lot, has tattoos on his hands, and the people he brings along look like gangsters too.’
He had been inwardly relieved, thinking Noona had picked up the phone. He had clung to that small presence, desperate to say just one more word.
But looking back, Eun-myeong had never once heard Noona’s voice. He had simply assumed she was in a situation where she couldn’t speak.
This man had been the one listening. He remembered the hot, hollow laughter coming from the other end. A short, airy scoff. He had been mocking him.
“Hmm? You played along quite fucking entertainingly.”
The man reached upward. He slid his hand inside his jacket and pulled out a notebook. He flipped through the pages with his middle finger. After entries for snow crab, horsehair crab, red crab, and order quantities, a series of unknown addresses followed. They spanned across the entire country.
“Do you know where this is?”
The man’s finger stopped at a certain point. A rough finger with prominent knuckles pointed to something.
“Look closely.”
It was an address in Gyeryong Bay, but it was a place Eun-myeong had never seen before. When he lifted his moist eyes to look up at the man, the man whispered three words.
“Director Hwang Bok-gil.”
If it was Director Hwang, Eun-myeong’s eyes clouded with anxiety. He was the director of the orphanage where he and Noona had stayed.
“Why the fuck is an aphrodisiac crawling its way into that director bastard’s house?”
The man tilted his chin up, claiming he couldn’t understand it.
“What kind of pervert is this bastard? I’m too fucking normal to understand this.”
Eun-myeong picked at a hangnail. He glanced at the man. While working at the sashimi restaurant, he had encountered countless strange perverts who hit on him, but hearing this man say it felt incredibly odd.
“Lee Eun-joo bought several bus tickets at the terminal. To Daejeon, Busan, Seoul, Daegu, Mokpo, Incheon, and even Icheon… But not a single person saw her actually board any of them?”
He quirked an eyebrow.
“It was so strange that I searched around the orphanage, and they say they saw a grown woman going in and out of there.”
Eun-myeong’s limbs went limp. It felt as if the inside of his ribs were tightening. His heart thundered, as if it might leap out of his chest.
“It’s only a matter of time before she’s caught, right?”
“If she’s caught.”
He started to speak, feeling somewhat dazed.
“…What will happen?”
He had been too afraid to ask, not knowing what answer would come. The reason he was finally asking the man now was that he felt the end was truly approaching.
“Why don’t you tell me what you think will happen.”
The man’s palm crawled inside the robe. It slid recklessly up the inside of Eun-myeong’s thigh and gripped a handful of tender flesh.
“What do you think will happen?”
“…….”
The dead body of the sashimi restaurant owner flashed before his eyes. Perhaps the owner had received her comeuppance. The sashimi restaurant owner had been a loan shark. She lent money to owners wanting to buy nearby buildings or land and sucked them dry with exorbitant interest rates. If they didn’t pay, she would seize even a single spoon from their home to fill her own belly.
He had wondered why someone who loved money so much would run a sashimi restaurant, but to think she was selling drugs using crab shells…
Why did Noona have to get caught up in such things? What sin had he and Noona committed to be this miserable?
Eun-myeong’s lips trembled. His insides felt like they were being kneaded like flour dough. His chest felt so stifled he wanted to beat it with his fists. Would that relieve this suffocating feeling even a little…?
“Then what do you think will happen to you?”
Eun-myeong slowly shifted his gaze. His damp field of vision was completely filled by the menacingly large man.
He had never once thought about his own fate. Perhaps it didn’t matter what happened to someone like him. His life had rolled along haphazardly until now, and it would continue to roll that way in the future.
A life with no expectations or anticipation. As long as the Noona who protected him when he was young was safe, he didn’t care what happened to him.
As Eun-myeong remained unable to speak, the man muttered.
“You’ll fall into my hands.”
Eun-myeong stopped breathing.
“Since the sashimi restaurant owner caused losses to Mister’s business, I swept up all her assets for myself. Including all the debts.”
Tuk, tuk. The hand picking at the hangnail became rougher. He was picking at it obsessively, and eventually, a stinging sensation sliced across the skin. Looking down, blood was flowing.
“Then wouldn’t Baby also become Mister’s thing? That’s how the math works.”
The man frowned sharply. Then, he suddenly snatched Eun-myeong’s hand. With a metallic click, the man unfastened the hook of his belt. The brown leather belt split in two, and the man pulled a jackknife from inside the hook.
‘…A knife.’
The moment he saw the sharp blade held in the man’s hand, his heart seemed to sink.
“Please let go.”
He tried to shake his hand away, asking to be released, but it was useless. The man pressed the sharp tip of the knife against Eun-myeong’s fingernail. Then, he began to carve away the pale pink nail. He was terrified the knife might dig into his flesh, but the man precisely cut only the white part.
The eyes staring at his fingernail were incredibly fierce. He acted with an obsessive and persistent focus, as if he wouldn’t leave even 1mm behind. It was so strange that it was frightening, as if he were a madman. He had known the man was strange and scary, but he looked so sinister that Eun-myeong felt his heart withering.
“Boss, it’s Park Woong.”
A knock sounded at the door. The man muttered.
“Come in.”
Soon after, Bear entered the room. Eun-myeong thought the man would stop this bizarre act since someone else had entered, but the man continued his work without hesitation. Once he finished with the hand, he grabbed Eun-myeong’s ankle.
“I’ve brought some photos you need to see.”
The man rested Eun-myeong’s leg across his own firm thigh. Eun-myeong wondered if he was going to touch his toenails too, and he was. He gripped each toe one by one and began to carve away the toenails.
…Why was he cutting someone else’s fingernails and toenails like this? The man had said and done many incomprehensible things, but this moment felt stranger and more erotic than anything he had seen so far.
“Bring it.”
Bear approached and showed the photo to the man. Eun-myeong felt as if his heart were being clipped away by the nail clippers. He glanced at the photo. The colors were faded, but the silhouette was recognizable. A woman wearing a cap pulled low was standing in front of the ticket office.
“They say a woman under the name Kim Hyo-jin bought two tickets departing for Cheongdo tomorrow.”
If it was Kim Hyo-jin, it was the Noona he worked with at the sashimi restaurant. Eun-myeong quickly looked away from the photo. He felt as if he had seen something he shouldn’t have. His palms became damp with sweat.
“That’s strange.”
The man glanced at the photo. Eun-myeong thought he wanted to find Noona so badly that he had locked him up here, but he seemed to have little interest now.
Instead, the man stared intently at Eun-myeong’s fingernail. He didn’t even blink. He looked at the shape he had created several times. Finally, he gripped the thumb’s fingerprint and pulled it down, observing the red gap visible inside.
“It’s red here.”
He wore an expression as if he were looking at something delicious and even licked his lips with his tongue. He swallowed hard. His gaze was glistening as if soaked in oil. He looked more gluttonous than when someone holds and eats LA galbi. Why on earth was he salivating like that while looking under his fingernail?
“But it is strange, fuck.”
The man eventually pushed Eun-myeong’s thumb into his mouth. Then, he slid his tongue into the gap under the nail and sucked on it. He did it several times, as if eating something sweet like a sugar candy. He really did it several times. Until Eun-myeong’s thumb became shriveled.
“The Kim Hyo-jin who works at your shop….”
Gulp, Eun-myeong struggled to breathe through his constricted throat. He was so afraid of what words would come next that he wanted to cover his ears.
“Didn’t she have short hair?”
And in the next moment, the man stabbed the photo with the jackknife he held in his grip.
“Then who could this be?”