Hazardous Concentration Chapter 8

Eunhoo shook his head from side to side and massaged his stiff, aching nape. Crouching for over an hour to trim the chives for ganghoe (parboiled chive rolls) made him feel like he was going to die. But this wasn’t the end of it. Once he finished the chives, he had to trim an entire basket of taro and ginger as well.

Taking a break to stretch his body, Eunhoo put the ginger in the freezer. Ginger is difficult to peel normally, but if you freeze it solid, take it out, and soak it in water for about five minutes, you can peel it right off by hand. It was a method his father had taught him when he was young. Since the work just needed to be finished within the day, he had more leeway with peeling the ginger than he thought.

“Didn’t I ask where the lard is?”

Just then, a booming voice echoed from deep inside the kitchen.

“Someone go to the warehouse and bring a new tub of lard!”

“Joo Eunhoo, Eunhoo!”

Eunhoo, who had sat back down to trim the chives, stood up immediately.

“…Yes, I’m going!”

And, pressing down on his throbbing waist, he started running toward the warehouse.

[Songlim] was strictly reservation-only. They accepted exactly 20 teams a day for lunch and dinner, and in cases where ingredient procurement was difficult, they sometimes took less than half that.

The business hours were from 11:30 AM to 9:00 PM, and the staff usually arrived and left an hour earlier than that. The kitchen, however, had to arrive at least three hours early to prepare the food. But Eunhoo came in even earlier than that to clean the kitchen. Nobody asked him to, but he came in before everyone else to sweep and mop the floors.

“Eunhoo, go eat.”

No sooner had he put the dishes into the dishwasher and started it than lunchtime began.

“Ugh!”

As he straightened his waist, it wasn’t just his imagination; there was a loud crack sound.

Eunhoo headed to the staff cafeteria late. As expected of a restaurant, the staff meals were quite good. After finishing a bowl of soup boiled thick with butterbur and perilla seeds, Eunhoo headed to the break area behind the kitchen, just like the other staff. He saw the staff members who had finished their meals early.

He picked up a glass of sparkling water with ice and stepped onto the wooden deck shaded by a canopy. The best spots were already packed with people. He had no choice but to sit down in a slightly uncomfortable spot. Looking ahead, there was a rose hedge.

Clink.

As Eunhoo sipped the cold sparkling water, he heard the servers chatting. Since he was sitting back-to-back with them not far away, he couldn’t help but overhear their conversation even if he didn’t want to.

“Three weeks left now, summer vacation. Have you decided where you’re going?”

“Who knows. If I could, I’d just want to turn on the air conditioner at home and rest indefinitely.”

“What did your girlfriend say?”

“She wants to go to Southeast Asia or Jeju Island, but where would I get the money for that?”

“True, since it’s peak season, flight tickets are insanely expensive, too.”

For Eunhoo, summer vacation or whatever, he planned to work at the logistics warehouse throughout the entire vacation unless something changed. He had been taking a break from the designated driver service since that day. Instead, he went out for early morning deliveries.

The traces left mottled all over his body were now almost invisible unless one looked closely. So, sometimes, that night felt like a dream.

What was that person—what was Yeo Taejun doing now?

Since reuniting with him, Yeo Taejun came to mind every chance he got. His hot breath, his laughter-filled voice, and his large frame.

It was just as he was thinking about that night. Ding, a text notification sounded. Without much thought, Eunhoo took his phone out of his pocket to check the message. Eunhoo’s phone was cheap and clunky, the kind one might have used 20 years ago. After his family went bankrupt, the first thing Eunhoo did was change his phone model and his service plan. There were several messages that had come in over the past few hours.

「Mr. Joo Eunhoo, this is HW Capital. Please do not forget the repayment date in three days, and please deposit the interest into the usual account.」

Seeing the text, Eunhoo furrowed his brows and deleted it immediately. It was creepy, even though he wasn’t going to skip out on the debt.

‘You remember, right? It’s August. Not much time left. For the day our pretty one gets sold off.’

The other man had indicated the month repayment was due while folding his fingers one by one right in front of Eunhoo’s nose.

He had worked until his mouth tasted bitter, but money didn’t pile up easily. As Eunhoo bit his lip tightly, unable to say anything, the man called the “Department Head” in charge of collections grinned at him as if to show off. It had been like that since the first time they met.

The leering gaze that looked at him as if he knew something was horrific. Even if bugs were crawling over his body, it wouldn’t be as creepy as that.

“Should I run away?”

Eunhoo, who had been staring into space with dazed eyes, muttered his inner thoughts without realizing it. Then, he paused. On the day he went to pay the interest last month, the loan shark had suddenly warned Eunhoo as if to threaten him.

‘You know what happens if you run away, right?’

Since he was so exhausted from many things, it would be strange if he hadn’t had such thoughts. But that man had sensed Eunhoo’s state as if he were a ghost. He had grabbed both of Eunhoo’s cheeks tightly with one hand, leaned in close to his face, and grinned.

‘Just try having idle thoughts, just try.’

‘I-I know. I will never run away.’

Even without his mother, running away from them was impossible. It was obvious he would be caught within a day.

Clink. He heard the sound of ice melting and rolling inside the glass. Eunhoo switched the water-beaded glass to his other hand and bit his lip.

The repayment date was right in front of him, but even if he scraped everything together, he couldn’t even reach the principal. Paying off all the debt was impossible from the start. He felt resentment toward his father all over again.

Leaving all this responsibility to his mother and himself, where was he and what was he doing? Even now, years later, there was still no word from him. Because of his irresponsibly vanished father, his nose stung, so he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, but the phone vibrated again. Eunhoo’s face twisted as he opened the folder to check the text.

「You got the message, right? If you even think of running away, you’d better not. If you do, I’ll go find your mother and turn everything upside down.」

Since it was a 2G phone, he couldn’t even verify if it had been read, but he felt annoyed by the threatening text that was sent right on time, as if he knew he had checked it.

“Disgusting.”

And I’m the one who’s pathetic.

He deleted even that text and let out a heavy sigh. There was still a mountain of work to do, but his body and mind were exhausted.

Now was not the time to be distracted by other thoughts. Eunhoo looked down at his aching legs and bit his lip even harder. He had been holding on, straining himself, but he had a feeling he would soon reach his limit.

Should he just give up on everything? Such thoughts welled up every now and then. It was understandable; it was already hard enough to pay the interest, could he possibly pay off hundreds of millions of won by the repayment date?

He could only think negatively due to the hopelessness. And then, terrifying thoughts of wanting to end his life kept raising their heads.

But he shouldn’t do that, should he?

He had to get a grip, even for the sake of his mother, who had lived her whole life looking only at him.

The gutter-like reality jolted him back to his senses once again. Now was not the time to be preoccupied with Yeo Taejun.

As if cutting off the thoughts in his head, Eunhoo crunched the ice cube with his molars. His dazed mind seemed to return a little bit.

At that moment, screams were constantly ringing out from a grand mansion on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province. For several days, guards in black suits had been standing and guarding the annex building heavily.

Several times a day, bodies or people beaten to a pulp were carried out.

“Let go of this!”

The man who had just been captured screamed and struggled, but no one batted an eye. Soon, a scream that sounded like a final breath burst out from inside the annex. The man who had been screaming until just now trembled in terror.

The inside of the annex never lost the smell of raw blood.

The gorgeous lighting and expensive paintings and sculptures, fitting for the high ceilings, created an elegant gallery vibe rather than a scene of slaughter.

Thwack! As he drove the golf club head in like an uppercut, red blood splashed up. A dying scream erupted from the mouth of the man who had become the target of the strike instead of a golf ball.

Knock, knock. A knock was heard.

Soon after, a man dressed in a black suit and even a black shirt entered and bowed politely.

Yeo Taejun asked, cutting straight to the point.

“What happened.”