By Zephyria 
―Of course you should be that obedient and soft-spoken with a customer.
Eun-myeong’s crimson lips trembled. This was, in essence, a voice that shook the very walls of a cave. A shiver raced down his spine, and every peripheral nerve stood on end. The fine hairs on his body bristled, and the frenulum under his tongue felt an unbearable itch.
―I taught you well, didn’t I?
To think a voice could be so destructive to him…
“Boss.”
He felt as if his mind were crumbling. In his tension, Eun-myeong rubbed his other hand vigorously against his apron. A damp smudge remained.
Countless questions surged in his mind. Whether he had slept well last night, whether he had eaten properly without skipping meals, whether he was feeling unwell anywhere…
But Eun-myeong had to stifle every question. He could not let his emotions overflow any further.
“…Did you see the moon?”
And so, he asked something vague.
To Eun-myeong, the moonlight represented that night. The night the man had rescued him from being trapped on the boat. It may have been a fleeting, pale moonlight, but at the very least, it had shone brightly upon his world alone.
“A very thin crescent moon was out.”
And he wanted to ask. If the man also occasionally thought of the sea from that night. If he had ever missed him, even for a brief moment.
―Baby.
A humid voice reached him.
―I’m not exactly a man with that much free time, am I?
No matter how hard he knocked, the answer he wanted never returned. Perhaps it was because the man’s chest was covered in thick muscle; his defenses were nothing short of an iron wall.
Yet, just hearing his voice made Eun-myeong’s heart throb violently, like a frog’s vocal sac.
―I just called to check if you’re tastily paying off the debt you owe me.
“Yes… I will work hard.”
Muttering faintly, Eun-myeong cast his gaze downward. A few more words were exchanged, but every single one was utterly cold.
Eventually, Eun-myeong slowly pulled the cell phone away from his ear. The piece of junk, though the call had ended, was still hot. It felt as if the device’s temperature were as hot as the man’s, making him feel lightheaded.
“…….”
Suddenly, he felt a gaze from beside him. Turning his head, he immediately locked eyes with a pair of dark pupils.
“Ah, it’s just that the place is packed inside.”
The customer was still smiling awkwardly in front of Eun-myeong. He muttered like an excuse while pointing his thumb toward the restroom door.
“It must have been an important call.”
“…Just because.”
Was it that obvious? Did he look that desperate? He felt incredibly embarrassed, as if his shaking self had been exposed.
“Ah, I put the spicy fish stew on the stove.”
Eun-myeong blurted this out as if talking to himself and quickly scurried away. He could feel the gaze staring intently at his back.
On the way to the hospital where his Noona was, the wind blew exceptionally cold.
Eun-myeong sat with his Noona in the first-floor hospital cafeteria over bowls of hot soup. After several days of not even meeting his eyes, she had suddenly spoken to him today.
‘Eun-myeong, hospital food is terrible. I want something salty.’
Stopping mid-sip of his dried radish greens soup, Eun-myeong glanced at his Noona. Her face still looked gaunt, but perhaps she had regained some strength, as she was devouring the food like a starving person.
“This broth is killer.”
She looked much more lively than when she was out of it, but there was something off about her eyes… a certain madness swirled within them.
Gulp, gulp. She emptied a cup of cold water in one go. With a loud “Kaah!”, she roughly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Is it edible?”
“Yeah, it’s salty, and the salt is good. Why aren’t you eating? Why are you just sitting there?”
Smiling awkwardly, Eun-myeong stirred the broth with his spoon before cautiously starting a conversation.
“Noona, the Boss…”
Chomp! Stabbing a thick piece of cubed radish with her chopsticks, Noona glared at Eun-myeong with wide eyes.
“That bastard, what?”
“The Boss told me to go to Seoul with him.”
He couldn’t describe how much guilt he felt every time he saw his Noona’s thin back as she lay turned away. Regardless of the conclusion, he felt she needed to know this fact, so he brought it up.
“I figured.”
But as if she had expected it, Noona let out a loud sigh.
“That man suddenly gave me a promotion.”
Eun-myeong’s eyes widened at the sudden revelation. At any other time, he would have hugged her in joy, but she was currently hospitalized. She hadn’t been able to go to work for days because she was sick, and then there was that accident.
It was a truly bizarre situation.
“What on earth does that mean?”
“He’s pretending to promote me to Team leader, but he says he’s sending me to the China branch.”
“The China branch?”
Eun-myeong’s narrow jaw dropped. An overseas assignment this sudden. He didn’t even need to ask whose idea it was to know the answer immediately.
“A colleague contacted me and asked what the hell is between me and the CEO.”
Eun-myeong’s rounded shoulders slumped.
“How can people say things like that…”
“That creepy, psychopathic bastard.”
Crunch, crunch. Noona chewed the cubed radish violently, as if it were the man himself.
“He’s doing this to tear me away from you forever.”
Eun-myeong couldn’t bring himself to say more. Because the man was more than capable of doing exactly that.
“If only my fucking legs weren’t so crippled…”
Even in her sleep, the thought of that bastard makes me jump up. I really want to tear him to pieces, Noona muttered, chewing through curses like a spell.
“By any chance, did you receive a ring?”
At the question asked with narrowed eyes, Eun-myeong flinched. He quickly shook his head.
“No.”
“I heard he bought a raw diamond in Seoul last month and had it cut separately.”
Noona held out a clenched fist in front of Eun-myeong.
“The stone is about this big.”
“I don’t think it’s for me…”
If it was last month, the man had already traveled to and from Gyeryong Bay several times. He was a man with a personality as impatient as a bulldozer. If it were for him, he would have given it long ago.
Eun-myeong’s eyes gradually cast downward. He hadn’t even seen it once with his own eyes. Whose arms was it held in?
A diamond that large wouldn’t be something one would normally treat lightly…
“Our company’s Chairman was famously devoted to his wife. He’d do anything if the Madam said a single word. If she said a bird flying in the sky was pretty, he’d catch a few and put them in a cage for her immediately.”
The Chairman was the man’s father. At the mention of the man’s family history, which he was hearing for the first time, the tips of Eun-myeong’s ears perked up like antennae.
“But he abandoned his first wife to expand his business and remarried.”
Eun-myeong’s eyes landed on the kimchi broth splattered messily across the table. The scattered red stains felt somehow like his own contaminated heart.
“And what do you think happened to that woman? They say she got hooked on drugs and committed suicide by jumping from the 23rd floor.”
Eun-myeong slowly lifted his head at the following words. Noona spoke with a sigh.
“That’s the mother who gave birth to Kang Pyeong-won.”
Eun-myeong’s white hand dropped. The head of the silver spoon he had been gripping clinked against the table.
“He threw away a wife he supposedly couldn’t live without like a worn-out shoe, so what makes you think you’d be any different?”
“…….”
“I can see your life clearly.”
Noona added. Was she saying that the future, which seemed pitch black to him, was clear to her?
Throughout it all, Eun-myeong had wanted to know the answer to his relationship with the man, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. He didn’t know how this relationship would be tied off, but he knew the shape of it would never be pretty.
“Anyway, I can’t leave the Boss until I pay off all the debt…”
Eun-myeong’s lips slowly parted. Now that he had said it, it sounded more like an excuse than a lamentation of his circumstances. His face flushed with embarrassment. Both cheeks turned reddish, like the belly of a tuna.
“I looked into loans, Noona.”
Noona placed a piece of kimchi on top of Eun-myeong’s soup. She spoke with a firm voice, refusing to back down.
“It’s secondary financial market.”
She was suggesting they cut ties with the man. Eun-myeong felt his tongue twisting like a rope. If the debt disappeared after the man went back to Seoul, what connection would he possibly have left to tie him to him?
Eun-myeong left the hospital and walked along the tree-lined street. The purple lilacs, which had been plump like abundant fruit, were now scattered haphazardly across the road. Even those still clinging to the branches were already withering.
How long had it been since they bloomed so beautifully?
‘No, whether it’s secondary finance or a loan shark! No matter which gang we borrow money from, Kang Pyeong-won is far more malicious.’
Noona’s voice clung to Eun-myeong’s back like a shadow.
‘In the end, isn’t he just swinging you around as if he raised you himself because of that debt?’
Though he couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud, he actually thought that wasn’t the problem. The biggest problem was his own heart.
Eun-myeong lifted his vacant eyes. As he looked up following the drifting rain of flowers, the moon was in the sky. Because the weather was overcast, even the moonlight was dim.
Looking at it, he suddenly thought of the man. The whistling wind scratched his skin irritably. The floating scent of lilac stirred his heart, making it throb.
Eun-myeong took out his cell phone and called the man. With every ring, his heart twisted in a complex knot.
I wonder if he’ll answer…
As the waiting time grew longer, his confidence dwindled. How could he reject his heart every single time? Sorrow filled his stomach to the brim.
Just as he was about to hang up before becoming any more miserable, the ringing stopped with a click. For a moment, Eun-myeong flinched, his shoulders hunching.
―…….
A long silence followed.
“…Boss, I have nothing.”
Eun-myeong was the first to speak.
From the other end, he heard a gulping sound. Gulp, glug, gulp, glug… Hearing the lingering sounds like an aftershock, it seemed the man was drinking alcohol.
“If I follow you to Seoul, I’ll be looking only at you, but you have no intention of loving me.”
You probably think me acting like this is pathetic and annoying…
“But when I look at you, I keep talking about love.”
He had so little that even though he wanted to give everything, there was nothing he could offer. Ironing his shirts, polishing his shoes, looking into his eyes and asking to be held… He had simply given his entire heart.
After muttering like a drunken ramble, silence fell again like a bolt of lightning.
Eventually, a wet, sucking sound was heard. It seemed he was about to give an answer. However, Eun-myeong was too afraid to hear his voice. Lacking the confidence to hear the response, he pressed his ears shut.
“I’ll hang up now.”
Cowardly, he ended the call as if escaping.
Eun-myeong stood blankly in the night street. The cold wind blew around him as if it were only natural. The street, now devoid of people, was stained black, trampled without mercy.
A filthily contaminated street. As he stared at it, a thought slowly licked through his mind.
The man would now return to Seoul. The time for Eun-myeong to make a choice was approaching.
Whether to follow the man, or… to lose him.
The scent of lilac wafted around his nose. He thought love fell abundantly like a rain of flowers, but what a joke.
His love was nothing but a biting wind.