Winter Season Chapter 8

“Aren’t you curious?”

“…I don’t think I have any need to know.”

“Wow…. Taeshik. President Kim must have trained the kids properly.”

Seunghyeok threw his head back against the sofa and giggled while looking up at Taeshik. Yihyeon looked at him for a moment before tearing his eyes away and fixing his gaze back on the table.

“…”

With those words, the conversation cut off again. To begin with, they were not in a relationship where they could sit warmly and ask after each other, and even if they had been close, this was not the place for it.

To exchange friendly greetings while groans and moans mixed with cries of pleasure kept drifting in from beyond the glass window?

Even amidst the messy entanglement of people thrusting and being thrust into, the sight of them swapping tongues with others was vividly visible. A fishy smell seemed to float through the air.

Yihyeon wanted to escape this disgusting space quickly. Not a single person seemed sane. Including Gu Seunghyeok, who was sitting beside him.

He lifted his wrist to check his watch. Seven-thirty in the morning. Yihyeon, who could find absolutely no reason to stay here any longer, clenched his fist once tightly and stood up from his seat.

“If there is no special business, I will go.”

“Sit.”

His attitude shifted in an instant, as if the giggling and talking until now had all been an act. At the voice that had sunk to a blood-chilling level unlike a moment ago, Yihyeon also sharpened his gaze and glared at Seunghyeok.

“Why are you being so cold? It’s disappointing.”

“…”

“I’m saying I’m doing this because I’m glad to see you after so long.”

The force pressing down on his shoulder from behind felt even stronger than before. Frowning, Yihyeon twisted his body and escaped from Taeshik’s hand. Then, without hesitation, he stood up and turned around.

“That person and that person.”

“…”

“I heard they are the ones the newspapers called a scoop not long ago?”

His steps stopped as if caught by the slow voice. The movement of his eyes was an unconscious reaction. Beyond the glass wall Seunghyeok was looking at, there was a group of men and women rolling on a sofa, wrapped in scraps of fabric that could no longer be called clothes.

“They supposedly came to rely on each other while preparing for a musical? Haha, what bullshit…”

“…”

“Those two met here.”

The man with a flushed face who was muddily swapping tongues with someone was a face Yihyeon also knew. He was an actor who had been in a dating rumor with a member of a girl group that was currently the most popular.

However, the person the man was rubbing lips with was not his romantic partner, but another woman with short hair. That idol, who had used long straight hair as her trademark, was hanging from the neck of another man right next to them, swaying.

Ethics, morality, the law. The fact that there were people who remained unaffected no matter which of those you brought against them was something Yihyeon had naturally realized as he encountered all sorts of things from the time he turned twenty.

There was violence above people. Above violence, there was the law, and above that, there was money. And above those, there were the people who sat upon everything.

The thought that the current Gu Seunghyeok was one of them was not a hunch, but a conviction.

Turning his head, Yihyeon looked at Seunghyeok while biting his lower lip. He couldn’t understand the reason for calling him all the way to a forbidden place to show him this kind of sight. Seunghyeok met Yihyeon’s eyes, clicked his tongue playfully, and then tilted his head askew.

“Why do you look at a person with those kinds of eyes. It’s hurtful.”

“…”

“Those people needed a space to play away from people’s eyes, and I had drugs, alcohol, and a suitable place.”

Shrugging his shoulders, Seunghyeok continued.

“It’s a kind of business. Giving what is to be given and receiving what is to be received.”

Yihyeon did not want to know about that kind of business. He had never once been curious about how dirtily the celebrities or the figures from political and financial circles who occasionally appeared at the club played, or how they evaded the net of the law to step out before people with innocent faces.

There was only one thing Yihyeon wanted to know right now. When he could leave this room. Whether he could escape the various noises sticking stickily to his ears and the air thick with cigarette smoke, and hide his body from that gaze that was as persistent as if it were digging into him.

Seunghyeok brought his lips directly to the mouth of the whiskey bottle this time. His gaze remained fixed on Yihyeon like a beast of prey eyeing its catch. He looked at Yihyeon, who was turning away with a hardened face and lips pressed tight, and let out a thin laugh. Then, he cast his eyes upward and scanned the empty air.

“Ah, fuck…. You’re making it too blatantly obvious that you don’t want to associate with me.”

“…”

“I’m saying I’ll give a friend I met after a long time a good opportunity.”

There was no answer from Yihyeon, but Seunghyeok whistled shortly and continued.

“See that kid perched on the edge of the pool over there? The one sucking off that blonde bastard.”

“…”

“She is the second daughter of the Yeongwon Group, you know? She’s probably two or three years younger than you. If you catch one like that and coax her well, wouldn’t getting one or two officetels in the middle of downtown Seoul be nothing?”

Seunghyeok curved his eyes in a way that didn’t suit him.

“Why are you hauling liquor here? Of all people, Kwon Yihyeon.”

“…”

“Ah, is it not just liquor you’re hauling?”

Rather than getting angry at the overtly mocking tone, his mind instead sank into a cold calm. Yihyeon just closed his eyes without responding. Letting the red lighting that pierced through his eyelashes flow by, he gauged the time to see how many hours he could sleep before his part-time job.

“If you don’t think it’ll work because you’re a gay bastard, how about the one next to her?”

Which was the better one among the motels near the club? The thought of retracing the surroundings in his head came to a dead stop. Gay bastard. His lips went dry anew at the word tossed out indifferently.

As he slowly lifted his eyelids, the sight of Gu Seunghyeok looking beyond the glass wall while exhaling cigarette smoke entered his field of vision. He was leaning his legs on the table in a more relaxed posture than before, wagging his shoe-clad feet. Noticing Yihyeon’s gaze directed toward him, he pointed toward the window with his chin.

“I think they said the kid in front of the girl is the youngest son of some minister.”

“…”

“Ah…. But Yihyeon. Even so, I can’t do that side because my stomach is weak.”

“…”

“Why don’t you try it with a woman this time?”

Seunghyeok twisted his head to look at Yihyeon and then straightened his body while laughing. Then, with a cigarette between his lips, he spoke with a leaking pronunciation.

“When we hold a party on this side, it’s normal for the bastards who want to come to pay money, you know? But if the head count doesn’t match, we sometimes poke money at them and bring them in.”

Pulled out by the hand rummaging through the inner jacket pocket was a black leather wallet. Seunghyeok pulled out several white checks from the banknote compartment while raising one eyebrow.

“About… this much?”

“…”

“To keep their mouths shut, you have to hand over a bit more than what they get at the establishment.”

What fluttered down from Seunghyeok’s hand onto the table were three checks that read “Exactly One Million Won.” At the light gesture as if throwing a napkin, Yihyeon laughed for the first time since entering this place. Though it would be closer to say he let out the sound of leaking breath rather than saying he laughed.

“Why. Is it not enough?”

“…”

“Ah…. You’re acting expensive.”

Seunghyeok, who dropped the ends of his eyebrows playfully at Yihyeon’s reaction, let out a mocking scoff and took out two additional checks. Then, placing them on top of the checks already lying there, he put the whiskey glass Yihyeon hadn’t even touched on top like a paperweight.

“I’m giving you an experience with a woman, and I’m handing you money.”

“…”

“I’m treating a person who stabbed me in the back like that this kindly.”

Seunghyeok tilted his head askew and let out a chuckle.

“Where in the world is there a friend like this. Right?”

He wondered why there were so many people wanting to give him money today. Subin, who told him to quit his part-time job because he would give him pocket money, was one, and this person, who was a high school classmate met after several years, was another.

Thinking about how much leisure they all must have to be able to say such things as if giving alms made a self-deprecating laugh come out.

Yihyeon took his eyes off the table and lifted his wrist to check the time. The sharp, thin needle was pointing to a time an hour past his clock-out time.

The five one-million-won checks sitting quietly under the glass entered his view. The reason he could turn away without lingering regret, despite it being several months’ worth of salary, must have been because he knew how dirty that money was.