Doo-doo-doo— Doo-doo-doo— Ire opened his eyes to the faint sound, tossed and turned, and sat up. He looked to his side and saw Kim Ha-yoon sleeping like the dead. Kim Ha-yoon had been tossing and turning until dawn, as if the bed was uncomfortable, and Ire had barely slept because of it.
He stretched his stiff neck from side to side and absentmindedly looked out the window, where he saw a rat scurrying back and forth in the corner. Without realizing it, he gestured. Come here. Good boy. Come here. But the rat couldn’t understand him.
He got up, drove the rat into a corner, and grabbed its tail. The rat was quite large, about the size of two adult men’s fists put together. To exaggerate a little more, it was almost as big as a cat. What did it steal to get so big?
He stared at it, puzzled, but the rat thrashed wildly. Kim Ha-yoon stirred and sat up, disturbed by the squeaking. His face was full of fatigue. Ire belatedly remembered that Kim Ha-yoon had said he had a hard time in the morning because of low blood pressure.
“I’m sorry… Was I too loud?”
Ire was about to throw the rat outside when Kim Ha-yoon frowned.
“What is that? A dog?”
Was his eyesight that bad?
Ire stretched out his arm and held the rat out in front of him.
“It’s a rat.”
Kim Ha-yoon grimaced.
“Do you think I asked because I didn’t know?”
Seeing the man, who was always so relaxed and smiling, looking so disgusted gave Ire a strange sense of pleasure. If he wasn’t his superior, he would have liked to throw the rat at him as a joke to see his reaction. But if he did that, he might be killed by the man.
“Could you please get rid of it?”
Ire smiled, opened the window, and threw the rat out. The rat landed in the first-floor garden, struggled for a moment, then jumped up and tried to run away, but someone snatched it up. It was a man in shabby clothes, who grinned as he put the rat in a sack. He looked skinny, so it seemed he wasn’t going to raise it, but to eat it.
Kim Ha-yoon, who had come to stand next to him, witnessed the scene and whispered softly.
“Oh dear, someone’s stealing your snack.”
Kim Ha-yoon was being sarcastic, but Ire laughed and retorted that he should have shared it with Captain. Perhaps he imagined sharing it together, because his neat brow furrowed again. Ire thought that he might be a man with a better imagination than he looked.
Then he belatedly realized that Kim Ha-yoon’s chest was too close to his back. As he consciously tried to move to the side, Kim Ha-yoon reached out his left arm and leaned on the window. It was as if he was trapped in his arms, and before he could complain, Kim Ha-yoon’s face was on his shoulder.
“Nice. The view.”
The feeling of his chest against his back and his breath on his ear made goosebumps rise on the back of his neck. If he turned around here, their faces would meet head-on. To avoid the embarrassing situation, Ire subtly pushed him away with his shoulder.
“I’m going to wash up. We have to leave…”
Kim Ha-yoon readily removed his arm, and Ire hurried into the bathroom. He looked at his face in the cracked and faded mirror, and the tips of his ears were red. He cursed inwardly, washed his face with cold water, and scrubbed his ears. When he came out, Kim Ha-yoon was sitting on the bed, looking at him.
“Captain. Breakfast—”
Ire stopped speaking and turned sharply toward the entrance. The door, which had been closed a moment ago, was wide open, and two men with large knives and their faces half-covered with masks were standing there. He knew that they were not the innkeeper, at least.
“If you hand over everything you have, we’ll spare your lives.”
The men rattled off lines that villains often said. They weren’t surprised that Ire had jumped out of the bathroom, so they must have known that there were two of them from the start. Had they been watching them since last night? In the tense standoff, Kim Ha-yoon snorted.
“Don’t they usually attack while you’re sleeping? What a bunch of lazy thieves?”
“Shut up! If you keep running your mouth, I’ll chop you up into pieces with this!”
“Hey, you there! You hand over everything you’ve got too.” The knife of the man with his hair tied back was pointed at Ire. Ire slowly wrapped the towel in his hand around his fist. How did they get all the way up here? Judging by how clean the knives were, there was a high probability that they had colluded with the innkeeper. It was a good thing they hadn’t poisoned the food last night.
“Hey.”
Ire drew the men’s attention to himself. Kim Ha-yoon didn’t have any energy in the morning because of his low blood pressure or whatever, and it would be a pain in the ass if he died because he messed with them. Actually, he didn’t care if he died (it might even be better because he could get away).
“I’m going to count to three. I don’t want things to get loud, so get out of here quietly.”
The man in the lead chuckled at Ire’s threat.
“Trying to act tough. What can you do anyway—”
Bang— Before he could finish speaking, the sound of a gunshot rang out, hitting his ears, and the back of the knife-wielding man’s head exploded. Thud, the man fell backward, and Ire looked at Kim Ha-yoon in surprise. He was sitting on the bed, pointing his gun at the entrance.
“Damn it, it’s so loud. It’s giving me a headache.”
The man behind him turned pale and backed away before running away. There must be a gang of them. If they had managed to win over the innkeeper, they couldn’t be petty thieves. Ire ran out and chased after the man.
He ran down the stairs, and he heard the sound of several people running up from below. He looked down over the railing and saw at least ten people. A curse came out of his mouth involuntarily. He quickly turned back, locked the door, and knocked down the wardrobe to block the entrance.
“Couldn’t catch him?”
“There’s a gang.”
“How many?”
“A lot.”
Then, thud, the door shook. Ire rummaged through Kim Ha-yoon’s pockets.
“Don’t do that. Even if I’m not interested in men, it’s not okay to touch me like that.”
“Please shut up! Do you want to joke around in this situation?”
“Want to feel around further down there?”
Ha, should he just let him die? As he was wondering, he found something small, about the size of a coin, in his shirt pocket. He knew it. Soon, an ax blade poked through the crack in the door, and curses and shouts could be heard.
Ire hurriedly pushed Kim Ha-yoon to the window and set up the bed in front of him like a shield. The door was torn to shreds with each swing of the ax, and eventually holes were punched through it. Through the holes, bloodshot eyes filled with desire appeared.
“You bastards! You’re going to die today!”
Ire attached a small bomb to the door and jumped inside the bed. The warning sound of beep, beep, and the sound of the door being smashed alternated until the door burst open. The men rushed in. You little rats! Just as the shout was heard, a huge explosion shook the building.
Bee— Along with the ringing in his ears, dust and pieces of flesh poured down on his head. Ire coughed and barely managed to suppress his nausea when he saw someone’s eyeball rolling around. Even in the midst of all this, Kim Ha-yoon was smiling with white powder all over his head.
“Let’s go.”
He roughly brushed off his head and grabbed his arm. The scene before him was truly gruesome. Limbs were rolling around without bodies, and there were things that were unidentifiable because their heads had exploded. With each step, something sticky stuck to his shoes and then fell off. There were those who were groaning as they lay collapsed in the hallway, but now was not the time to fight them.
Ire picked up a knife and took the lead. He had been told over and over to protect Kim Ha-yoon no matter what in case of emergency, but he didn’t know that his body would react like this.
He came down the stairs, but the innkeeper was nowhere to be seen. Instead, people had gathered at the entrance after hearing the commotion. There were definitely some remnants left. Ire quickly found a motorcycle, pulled it out, and put Kim Ha-yoon on the back. He obediently did as he was told, then hugged his waist and buried his face in his back.
“I feel secure. I think I’ve fallen for you.”
For a moment, he thought about abandoning him, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He started the engine, quickly got out onto the street, and sped up as much as possible toward the exit. Ire, who was driving away in a cloud of dust, stopped halfway when he could no longer see anyone and jumped off the motorcycle.
What he had barely been holding back came rushing in like a storm. He went to a place far away and even vomited, but only watery stomach acid came out. The fishy smell of blood was constantly rising from the tip of his nose, and the torn pieces of flesh were as vivid as if they were right in front of him.
Kim Ha-yoon brought the water that had been in the back of the motorcycle and handed it to him. “Drink.” The hand that received it was trembling, and even though he rinsed his mouth with water, the smell didn’t go away. Kim Ha-yoon stared blankly at him as he washed his entire face with water, then took out a cigarette and lit it. The wind blew, and the smoke scattered into the air and flew to the other side.
Ire was sitting on the ground, staring blankly at the smoke, when Kim Ha-yoon came over and held out the cigarette he was holding.
“Want to smoke?”
He hesitated, then put it in his mouth, but he coughed as soon as he took a puff.
Kim Ha-yoon frowned and threw away the cigarette, then stroked his head instead.
“Good job.”
He looked up at him at the unexpected praise. He was standing with his back to the sun, so he couldn’t see what kind of expression he had, but his voice was as sweet as could be. He struggled to get up, and Kim Ha-yoon patted the dirt off his butt. He recoiled from the touch, and Kim Ha-yoon smiled mischievously and put his arm around his shoulder. “Let’s go.”