Kill Your X Chapter 53

Even though I had wanted to know so badly, my chest felt stuffy hearing about how Seo Seunghan grew up as a gangster.

“Can you believe it? A kid who still had milk on his breath took on all the jobs that other gang members avoided. And he never once complained that it was hard. He’s a tough bastard, this one.”

I had expected that he wouldn’t have lived a normal life, but the reality was worse. Living with him, I sometimes felt that there were flaws in his personality, and just by hearing a part of his past, I could somewhat understand the reasons. In many ways, it’s an environment where a person can’t grow up normally.

“CEO.”

I carefully wrapped my hand around his hand, which was lying on the blanket.

“Yes?”

“He dedicated his body to the organization for so long, why does Seo Seunghan have to be treated like this? Because he has no family?”

CEO Kang paused, which was unlike him, before opening his mouth.

“That’s right, and there’s another reason.”

“What is it?”

“Young master, I heard you gave Seunghan a lot of grief for lying about his name? He’s a guy who won’t allow a single scratch on his body when he fights one-on-one, but that day his cheek was bright red. You must have a much heavier hand than you look.”

I was inwardly flustered. How did CEO Kang know what happened at Jerome? Given Seo Seunghan’s personality, he wouldn’t have gone around blabbering about his business.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“It’s been less than ten years since the name Seo Seunghan was officially written on documents. Can you guess what that means?”

I frowned without realizing it. No way, did he lie about his age as well as his name? To say it’s been less than ten years, with that face, how can he be ten…

“He barely registered his family register when he turned twenty. And I was the one who stubbornly argued with the higher-ups to take him. I asked them how long they were going to make the kid carry around a fake license.”

“Wait a minute. If he registered his family register at twenty, then what about before that?”

“Well, in the system of the Republic of Korea, he was a non-existent person. Even though he was born as a baby and lived wriggling around just like everyone else. A person who grew up normally like the young master wouldn’t understand, but that’s what has kept Seunghan alive until now. Is there a better condition to use someone as you please?”

An orphan with no relatives, and a child whose family register was not registered for some reason. The way the organization took in and used the young Seo Seunghan was chilling. The image of him looking around the hospital unfamiliar when he followed me before came to mind, and a corner of my heart grew cold.

“In this day and age, how can something like that happen?”

“From what I’ve heard, the kid’s biological mother was a shaman, and the reason she didn’t register his family register until he was quite grown up is quite ridiculous. She thought the kid would die soon?”

With that, CEO Kang took out a cigarette from the inner pocket of his suit jacket and put it in his mouth. When I said something, he lit the wick, saying that Seo Seunghan was more used to this kind of environment than fresh air. The acrid smoke settled on the white blanket. It was even more unnerving because it felt like incense being burned in front of a dead person.

“More than anything else, we’re indoors right now. Put out the cigarette quickly.”

“Is it because I’m talking to you nicely? Our young master has no qualms about talking to a gangster? Your life has been so smooth so far, hasn’t it?”

I flinched at the murderous intent revealed when he glared at me. Our first meeting was favorable, and when we met again, he was full of mischief, so I let my guard down without realizing it. The large tattoos on both wrists and his unique delinquent attitude were the very image of the gangsters my father had hated all his life.

When I didn’t interfere, CEO Kang smoked his cigarette at ease. I mulled over the words I had heard from him alone.

The shaman mother did not take proper care of the child she had given birth to with her own body. It was from the judgment that he would die soon anyway. When various situations were added, the words felt like it wasn’t just because the child’s health was poor.

“Hmm~ hmmhmm~.”

Not only did he chain-smoke, but CEO Kang also hummed a tune carefree. He had known right away, but he acted in an exaggerated manner as if he had noticed my gaze much later.

Thinking about it again, it was a bit strange. When CEO Kang arrived at the house, Seo Seunghan was a seriously ill patient. Seeing him in a state where it wouldn’t be strange if he stopped breathing soon, he was beyond calm and composed. It could be that he had seen a lot of rough things while being in the organization for a long time, but…

“Why are you staring at me so intently? Our puppy will get jealous if he knows.”

I had never told CEO Kang about the miraculous scene I had witnessed myself. If one of my guesses is correct.

“You, you know, don’t you?”

The moment I said it, my suspicion turned into conviction. There was no basis, but my instincts told me so.

“Seo Seunghan’s true identity.”

One eyebrow rose slightly, and CEO Kang let out a small exclamation of ‘oh.’ For some reason, he even looked a little excited.

A belated regret poked its head out, wondering if I had gone too far.

“Has our young master ever heard the tale of the gatekeeper dog of hell?”

CEO Kang asked with a serious tone. It was such an outlandish topic that my gaze briefly lingered in the air.

“By gatekeeper dog, do you mean Cerberus? The dog that guards Hades’s hell in Greek and Roman mythology.”

“He’s the most famous one in modern times. But if you look into it, every culture has at least one tale of a hell gatekeeper dog. It’s common in both the East and the West.”

I listened intently to CEO Kang’s words with a confused heart.

“If you look it up, the descriptions of their appearance are also very diverse. Some say the dog has two heads, and some say it has three. Some say it has one eye, four eyes, or that its large tail is studded with thousands of sharp thorns. In the first place, it’s just called that because its appearance resembles a modern dog, but it’s ambiguous whether the being can even be defined as a ‘dog’.”

I shouldn’t have prejudices based on appearance alone, but it was surprising to hear such words from a man who seemed a million miles away from books.

“Some scholars argue that we should refrain from taking the ancient people’s descriptions of the dog’s appearance literally. For example, Cerberus is known to have three heads, right?”

“That’s right.”

“But it’s not that he physically has three heads, but that the dog actually has three lives. The fact that you have to kill the guardian of hell a total of three times to completely kill it was distorted. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I tried to put together the words I had heard from CEO Kang as best as I could.

Hell, gatekeeper dog, three lives.

Above all, the fact that he had been calling Seo Seunghan ‘puppy’ all along.

If nothing else, if Seo Seunghan is a being with multiple lives, unlike ordinary humans, then the scene I saw earlier can also be explained.

But how can such a thing exist in this world?

“So, is Seo Seunghan really a dog? And one that came from hell?”

I asked with my eyes fixed on his still unconscious face. I eat people too. A joke that Seo Seunghan had once made flashed through my mind at that moment. As the words fit together, I felt a faint chill as if the surrounding air temperature had dropped sharply.

“How would I know?”

“What did you say?”

After talking so seriously, CEO Kang cut me off. When I glared at him in disbelief, CEO Kang waved his thick arms and protested.

“It’s just that. Again, I was just giving an example. I’m very interested in such tales and folk beliefs. It’s creepy at a glance, but if you dig deep, it has a romantic side to it. Originally, in this chaotic world, there’s no law that says there are only beings that humans can perfectly understand, right?”

He added that he also believes in Haechi and Artemis. He even has many talismans at home to ward off evil spirits, and he recently went to a Buddhist expo and received a free gift.

I almost fell for it, but the topic was plausible, but the more he talked, the more he seemed like a person who indiscriminately picked up pseudo-religions. At this point, the nickname ‘puppy’ might have been just a slightly softened version of ‘son of a bitch’.

“Haah, really…”

“Young master. Don’t look at me with such wide eyes. I’m a man of humanities, a man of humanities. Although my family went bankrupt and I ended up in the loan shark business, I have culture, you know? Don’t be cocky just because you’ve learned a lot, and take the words of an adult to heart.”

“What do you mean take it to heart? You said you didn’t know.”

“I mean, try to use your imagination. You’re a librarian, aren’t you? You spend more than half of the week surrounded by books, why is your thinking so rigid?”

Since his own arguments weren’t working, the conversation gradually turned into a personal attack on me. No matter how much I tried to use that imagination of his, it wouldn’t work at once. Who would have thought that I would encounter a non-human being in my entire life?

“In the end, you don’t know either, do you?”

“It’s certain that he’s not ordinary. He’s been able to see ghosts since he was a child. It might be because his mother was a shaman, but anyway.”

He relayed information I wasn’t even curious about, saying that quite a few people who work as gangsters receive divine possessions. It was along with a self-deprecating remark that it was probably because they were so close to bladed weapons.