Winter Season Chapter 1

A tree branch, unable to withstand the weight of the snow, snapped with a thud and fell. Simultaneously, a howl resembling that of a beast echoed from a distance.

“Hyung-nim, they say all the preparations are finished.”

Underneath the gaunt trees covered in pure white snow, a man standing askew while smoking a cigarette kicked the oil drum in front of him. At that, bright red sparks flared up from the wood fire that had been emitting heat with flickering orange flames.

“Hey, guys, put this out. The snow’s all going to melt.”

“Yes, sir!”

At the man’s single word, the hulking men standing behind him began to move busily. He indifferently dropped his cigarette butt, which had burned down almost to the end, onto the snowfield and walked toward the center where people were gathered. Beside the shoe prints carved where the man had stood, the dark red ember of the cigarette faded out.

The wide-open space in every direction was a world of snow. Every landscape the eye could reach was pure white. Finding it hard to believe that the field quietly covered in snow was actually a frozen solid lake, Seunghyeok raised the toe of his dress shoe and tapped the ground, clack clack. Taeshik, who was following behind, hurriedly stopped him with a aghast face.

“Ugh, Hyung-nim…! It might break if you do that!”

“Stop exaggerating. If the ice was going to break from just this, those guys wouldn’t have had to go through all that trouble.”

Seunghyeok gestured with his chin toward the men standing further ahead holding large drills and thrust both hands into his coat pockets.

It was terribly cold weather, with the chill piercing through the gaps in his collar. Seunghyeok’s pace quickened at the thought of finishing up quickly and returning to the car.

With every step, the snow beneath the soles of his shoes made a crunch as it was packed down. Hearing the approaching sound, a man who had been sitting tied to a chair lifted his head.

Was he over sixty? The mouth of the man, whose hair was streaked with gray, was completely burst, and dried blood was stuck near his torn forehead. His face was swollen as if his nose bone was broken, making it a sight one could hardly bear to look at, causing Seunghyeok to frown despite himself.

“Tsk.”

His pupils, half-unfocused and unable to hold a steady gaze, slowly traveled up in order from Seunghyeok’s black shoes to his straight-creased suit pants and the long hem of his coat.

When the fear-filled gaze passed the red floral-patterned shirt and reached the expressionless face, he trembled violently, startled as if he had seen the Grim Reaper himself.

“S-Section Chief Gu…?”

Since his arms and legs were tied to a crude wooden chair, his movements were quickly suppressed. However, due to the man’s floundering, the smell of blood began to spread through the air again. The furrow between Seunghyeok’s straight eyebrows deepened.

“Wait, just a minute…! Please listen to me. The Chairman, it seems the Chairman has misunderstood something!”

The man looked up at Seunghyeok with a desperate face, but Seunghyeok toyed with his ear with his finger as if it were a nuisance.

“Ah, really, the excuses old men make aren’t creative at all.”

The face looking down was expressionless. It was a gaze devoid of a single drop of warmth, but to President Park, who was tied up and stripped of everything, it was his only lifeline.

He struggled to even try to kneel, but it only caused more blood to flow from between his gaping wounds. At the deepening fishy smell, Seunghyeok frowned once more and pulled his head back.

“Oh boy, old man… Please stay still. Huh? I can smell the blood.”

Seunghyeok half-heartedly gathered the accumulated snow on the ground with his foot and kicked it toward the chair where the man was tied, thud thud. Over the bloodstains that had stained the pure white snowfield bright red, snow like finely shaved ice was scattered.

“You, please tell the Chairman one more time, please…? You know well too, how many years have I worked with Taeseong! It’s been thirty years since the Chairman first started his business. There’s no way I would have done such a thing just for money. Someone in the middle must have been stirring up trouble…!”

Between lips turned blue from cold and fear, sentences as desperate as his voice poured out. Seunghyeok looked down at the man with a feigned expression of pity and then flicked his finger toward a hulking man standing to the side.

“Hey, come here.”

The man, who had his hands folded politely in a way that didn’t suit his physique, quickly took a step forward. Seunghyeok clicked his tongue, tsk tsk, and then without hesitation swung his hand toward the back of the head of the hulking man who had his eyes cast down. A thwack echoed across the frozen lakeshore.

“You bastards, thirty years ago you guys were just born and practicing your first steps while holding your mother’s hand. Don’t you know respect for your elders, respect for your elders? Why are you treating an old man who’s going to die soon anyway so roughly?”

“I-I’m sorry!”

“Untie him quickly.”

The hulking man, who had staggered from the hit but quickly steadied himself, rushed toward President Park who was tied to the chair. He stiffened at the sharp jackknife that came out of the man’s pocket, but the well-honed blade only cut the cable ties bound to the man’s wrists and ankles before disappearing back into its sheath.

“Taeshik, you go bring the gift for President Park.”

“Yes, Hyung-nim.”

Taeshik nodded sharply and walked quickly toward the edge of the lake where they had been standing earlier. Seunghyeok tilted his head to the side and lit a cigarette, taking a deep drag.

“Ugh, hngh….”

Though his limbs were free, President Park only looked up vacantly at the sight of the man standing before him, his cheeks hollowing deeply and then returning to place. This was because he couldn’t distinguish whether the phrase “an old man who’s going to die soon” was a figure of speech or something he was actually about to experience.

However, encountering those bored-looking eyes through the rising cigarette smoke, he had no choice but to belatedly kneel on the snowy ground. Seeing the man clutching his pant legs with his forehead pressed against his polished shoes, Seunghyeok narrowed his eyes.

“S-Section Chief…! Please, just save me this once. I will go to the Chairman and tell him everything. Sob… It seems the kids underneath me made a mistake while working. I really didn’t know—”

“Shh.”

Whether he didn’t realize that the ice-cold water coming up from beneath the lake was soaking his pant legs, the middle-aged man was simply desperate to claim his innocence. If there was a problem, it was that even those words were inconsistent.

Seunghyeok, who seemed to be listening to the man’s pleas while also ignoring them, looked up at the exceptionally blue sky today and exhaled cigarette smoke. Then, noticing a small hole in the ice less than a meter wide that had been drilled ahead of him, he let out a short sigh.

“I told you to drill it neatly, you bastards.”

How many times had they done this, yet their skill at making holes in the ice didn’t improve at all. He had personally bought and given them a machine after seeing how easily fishermen used them, yet the stupid bastards always tried to settle things with brute force.

“S-Section Chief Gu… no, Master Seunghyeok…! I am someone who has watched you since you first entered the Gu family…! I watched you grow up right by the Chairman’s side…!”

At that moment, the ridiculous title and the quite pathetic sentence caught Seunghyeok’s interest. After rolling his stiff neck once and bowing his head, he met President Park’s eyes, which were turned upward and stained red even in the whites as the capillaries had all burst.

The sight, which was closer to a piece of meat than a human being, made him frown automatically. Raising one eyebrow, Seunghyeok detached his caught leg without much effort and then pushed the man near his shoulder with his foot.

Because he was trembling with terror, President Park did not notice that Seunghyeok’s expression had turned subtle. He fumbled with his hands against the snow-covered ground and opened his mouth haltingly.

“Can’t you at least help me…. I am truly, truly being wronged.”

His eyes, full of despair, were now aimed at the empty air. He had only now realized that seeking mercy in front of a face as cold and statue-like as this was a futile task.

Seunghyeok let out a small grunt as he crouched down in front of President Park.

“President, then why did you go around doing things that would get you misunderstood?”

“Seun- Seunghyeok…”

Seunghyeok made a tsk sound with his tongue and flicked his cigarette ash right in front of the man’s eyes. Beyond the scattering ash, the terrified pupils trembled and fixed upon Seunghyeok’s face.

“I don’t want to do this either, but Chairman Gu always makes me do only these kinds of jobs.”

“Kugh, hugh…”