Winter Season Chapter 70

Managing Director Im, who was trembling so violently he was on the verge of a convulsion, let out a beast-like groan, not even realizing he had pissed himself.

“How is it? Do you think you understand a bit better this time?”

“Uhu, hack, huaak….”

“I don’t want to talk for long.”

Seunghyeok, having checked the magazine and reinserted it, cocked the gun with a click. At that sound, Managing Director Im, whose face was drenched with tears, panted as he opened his mouth.

“I, I ha—have it. It’s there, the ledger. Heuu, the… the ledger where I organized the tasks the Chairman ordered me to do….”

At Seunghyeok’s chin gesture, Taeshik, who had been standing right behind him, headed toward Managing Director Im. He then began to rummage through various parts of the blood-soaked suit.

“I don’t have it on me right now… If, if you let me go, I will find it and bring it to you.”

Seunghyeok stared at the puddle of urine gathered beneath Managing Director Im’s chair before aiming the muzzle again with an expressionless face. Soon after, a small bang rang out, and a piece of flesh from Managing Director Im’s left calf exploded along with blood.

“Uaa, aaaack…!”

“Managing Director. Do I sound like I’m trying to make a deal with you right now?”

“Ahup, huck, I… I left a laptop at a pawnshop in front of the Jeongseon Casino. Everything is inside it, ahup….”

Taeshik, while resting his hand on Managing Director Im’s shoulder where a bullet was lodged, pulled out a cell phone from the inner pocket of Managing Director Im’s jacket. Roughly wiping his blood-stained hands, he searched through the contact list, found the pawnshop’s contact information, and thrust it in front of Managing Director Im.

“Uu, hu, heuu….”

Managing Director Im, who had been screaming in pain for a long time, now looked absent-minded as if he had lost his sanity. When Taeshik slapped Managing Director Im’s cheeks a couple of times with a tap tap, Managing Director Im nodded while trembling uncontrollably.

“You’re working hard. Is there a laptop left here under the name of Lim Tae-jin? Ah, there is. Yes, yes. Understood.”

Taeshik, having hung up the phone, nodded toward Seunghyeok. Seunghyeok stood up from his seat without a word.

“I… I told you, so please, just spare my life….”

Bang.

The light of life vanished from Managing Director Im’s eyes, who had been pleading desperately, in a single instant. Seunghyeok, having fired the last remaining bullet into Managing Director Im’s chest, tossed the gun to Taeshik and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Take care of the cleanup.”

“Yes.”

As Seunghyeok left the container and headed toward the car without hesitation, a gang member quickly followed behind him. Moving ahead of Seunghyeok, the member opened the back door of the sedan and then quickly circled to the front to take his place in the driver’s seat.

“I will take you home.”

Seunghyeok leaned his head against the backrest and closed his eyes without a word.

When Seunghyeok arrived home and opened the front door, the lights throughout the house turned on softly. Staring without any warmth at the interior, which felt empty because not much furniture had been brought in, Seunghyeok took off his jacket, tossed it carelessly onto the dining table, and headed straight for the kitchen.

He took out a whiskey bottle, poured it into a glass, and then took a small bag containing white powder from the cupboard, emptying it directly into the whiskey glass. Watching the white powder dissolve while leaving behind a haze, he lifted the glass and downed it just like that.

He was someone so worn down that he didn’t feel guilt just because he had killed a person, but it was true that his mood was not very pleasant.

Moreover, not only had he dreamed of Kwon Yihyeon since dawn, but his mood was absolutely shitty because he had heard useless information he had zero interest in—that the guy was working at a gay bar.

Tossing away the watch he was wearing and unbuttoning a couple of shirt buttons, Seunghyeok went straight to the living room and lay down on the sofa.

The eyes where life was fading, the flesh popping like a water balloon, and the nauseatingly fishy smell of blood. Just as he was falling into the thought that he was sick of this work, a hot heat began to spread ticklishly up from his toes. Strength drained languidly from his entire body, and the thoughts in his head fragmented and repeatedly reassembled themselves at will.

Entrusting his body to the surging effect of the drug, the moment he closed his eyes, what was vividly drawn was the dream from early this morning where Kwon Yihyeon had appeared. Recalling the eyelashes clumped together from being wet with tears, the semen flowing thickly down his cheek, and those black eyes looking up at him, his lower abdomen naturally grew stiff.

Seunghyeok roughly undid his pant belt with one hand and gripped his hardened penis from beneath his briefs. With his thumb, he rubbed the pre-ejaculatory fluid that had begun to leak slightly from the tip of the glans.

As he exhaled languidly and shook the erect shaft up and down, it felt as if pleasure was mixing with the drug’s effect and gouging through his head.

Thinking of Yihyeon’s face, ruined with tears and messy semen as seen in the dream, his lower abdomen throbbed.

Seunghyeok tightened his grip on his penis, recalling things like the pink hole hidden between white, soft buttocks, a face flushed all the way to the tips of the ears, and thin fingers gripping the sheets.

The sigh he exhaled languidly grew hot, and his molars were clenched with a grind. It felt as if the sound of his palms hitting was audible from everywhere, and his vision flickered dizzily.

“Eut…!”

The moment the piled-up pleasure reached its limit and erupted like an explosion, ejaculation fluid sprayed from the tip of the penis, which had turned dark red with heat.

His vision grew distant, and a dizzying sensation, as if falling from a high place, enveloped his entire body. In the center of his tilted-back neck, his Adam’s apple moved significantly. What followed immediately after was pitch-black darkness.

How much time had passed? When he opened his eyes after closing them as if he had fainted, it was dark outside the window. Seunghyeok slowly raised his arm and held his throbbing forehead.

There was no dizziness or phenomenon of light flickering before his eyes like there was immediately after taking the drug, but his mind was blurry and languid as if he had just woken up from a long sleep. It was a feeling similar to being drunk. Slowly pushing himself up, Seunghyeok wiped away the semen on his pant leg with a tissue and stood up slowly.

With staggering steps, the place Seunghyeok reached was the dining table where his jacket was lying. Searching through the inner pocket, Seunghyeok found his cell phone and, after a few clumsy attempts, succeeded in connecting a call with Taeshik.

— Hello….

“The kid who drove the car earlier this afternoon…. Send him to my house right now.”

Without even waiting for an answer, Seunghyeok hung up abruptly, placed the phone on the table as if throwing it, and buried his body into the sofa. Repeating the cycle of nodding off and waking up, he sat up at the buzz of the doorbell.

Brushing back his drooping bangs and grabbing his jacket and car keys, Seunghyeok went to the entrance and swung the door open. Standing there was a man with a rough appearance and a long scar next to his eye.

Before the man, who was stiff with tension, could even open his mouth to say something, Seunghyeok threw the car keys and headed for the elevator. The man peeked nervously at Seunghyeok, who was leaning his head against the elevator wall with his eyes closed.

“Where shall I take you….”

The gang member, sitting in the driver’s seat after taking Seunghyeok in, quickly racked his brain to see if he had done something wrong. As Seunghyeok’s silence stretched on, his mouth began to dry up. Fearful and breaking out in a cold sweat, the man checked Seunghyeok’s appearance through the rearview mirror. He was closing his eyes in a posture similar to what he had seen in the afternoon.

Just as the gang member was about to look back, wondering if he was sleeping, Seunghyeok’s low, locked voice echoed inside the car.

“Didn’t you say you knew where Kwon Yihyeon works.”

“Huh? Who?”

“…….”

“Ah, ah, yes. I saw him in Yeongchang-dong.”

“Go there.”

“Yes, understood.”

Though he started the car without a word, the gang member’s head was in a whirl. It was because, rather than the shocking realization that Seunghyeok had heard everything they said in the afternoon, the worry about whether he should remind Seunghyeok that the place they were going was a gay bar was greater.

With the thought of maybe dropping a hint, he glanced at Seunghyeok in the rearview mirror once more, but Seunghyeok had been in a state with his head tilted back and his eyes closed since the moment he got into the car.

To hell with it.

No matter how things turned out, he was in a position where he just needed to do what he was told. Instead of opening his mouth, the man bit his tongue hard and stepped smoothly on the accelerator.

The black sedan sped through the empty streets.

“Then, please get home safely.”

Following the cheerful voice, the group of customers who had remained at the table until the end stood up. As soon as they stepped out the door, Haewon let out a long yawn.

“Ah…. I’m tired to death.”