A Scorching Day Chapter 1

Step Step—the sound of footsteps treading the corridor aligned into a straight line. A little over ten hostesses, adorned as flamboyantly as flower petals, crossed the dim hallway. Upon reaching the door, the manager at the front gave a whisper-like instruction.

“Treat them well. If any complaints come in, it’s all on your heads.”

Then the manager’s sharp gaze, wearing a microphone, flashed in the darkness. Ttok ttok, after a cautious knock, he opened the door with a courteous gesture.

The cigarette smoke that had already filled the room thickly rushed toward them all at once, stinging their eyelids and noses. Gawon forced back a cough and entered the room with his head bowed.

The men who had been lounging loosely let out sharp whistles in time with the hostesses’ entrance. “Have a good time, then!” said the managing manager, bending his back at a right angle as he left the room.

“Good evening. We will serve you with all our care.”

The women lined up and bowed all at once. Gawon, among them, silently kept his head down and waited to be chosen by the men. The wig cascading down his shoulders was cumbersome.

He had heard there was one guest who wanted a male hostess, not a female one. That was why Gawon was mixed in among the female hostesses who had to endure contemptuous glances and awkward atmospheres just by being there.

The eyes of the suited men scanned the lineup. Gazes like those choosing goods according to taste. Then, from the mouths of the men with cigarettes dangling, familiar jeers and lewd remarks poured out.

“Whoa, pretty! Those tits are killer. You, come right here later.”

“I’ll take that one. Look at that ass. Totally my style.”

“Huh? But where’s the dick, hyung-nim?”

“This one, maybe? Hey, you, you’ve got a dick, right?”

The man who seemed highest in rank among them grabbed Gawon’s arm—Gawon, who wore a wig and a slip dress. When Gawon answered with a small ne, the men laughed out loud.

“Completely convincing, hyung-nim. I had no idea he was a dick.”

“Hey, baby. Come here.”

The man snatched Gawon’s slender wrist and forcibly pulled him onto his knee. Gawon bit his lip tightly but sat on the man’s thigh. The man grabbed his small, pale face and turned it this way and that, chuckling.

“Fuck, the figure’s insane. But why haven’t I seen him before? I’ve never seen one like this.”

“Don’t the girls here change all the time? Probably a new one.”

“But, hyung-nim, is it okay for us to make our choices like this before the team leader gets here?”

One of them asked the high-ranking man cautiously. The man with Gawon on his lap waved his hand generously as if it were no big deal.

“Hey, hey. It’s fine. The team leader doesn’t play with the girls anyway. I’ll take responsibility, so just have fun, you bastards. Ah, fuck, stop being so nervous!”

The hesitation was brief. The men gleefully chose their hostesses from the lineup. Soon, lively dance music began to play from the machine.

One chosen hostess went out, stripped down, and danced, and the men laughed loudly. Everyone had a woman by their side or on their knee, drinking and smoking. One man poured a drink into the glass of the man groping Gawon’s thigh and gave a playful wink.

“But, hyung-nim! No matter how pretty that dick-bastard is, he’s still a dick, right? Why play with something like that?”

“Ha… this one still doesn’t get it. Hey, can you live on just rice and side dishes? This kind of thing is a delicacy, a special treat.”

With a nasty voice, a hand suddenly dug into his crotch. He almost screamed. Gawon, wearing only a thin slip without even underwear, could only helplessly endure the rough hand that mercilessly grabbed his genitals.

“If you take a pretty one and fuck its hole, you’ll see that what you’re groping now is nothing. It bites down on your dick so tight, the taste is different. Heh heh.”

“Aw, hyung-nim. Still… while you’re pumping, if that thing flops around in front of your eyes, wouldn’t it kill your appetite?”

“You bastard, you don’t know this taste. Hey, pretty. This won’t do. Get up on this table.”

The man, who had stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, gestured lewdly with his chin toward Gawon.

“Watch closely, you bastards. See how appetizing our pretty’s hole is. Just because he’s a man doesn’t mean it’s dirty, right? The ones who roll around in places like this have pretty holes too.”

A gaze full of wretchedness hesitantly turned toward the table. But it was only for a moment. Taking off clothes in a room was as natural as breathing, and today was no exception.

Gawon slowly climbed onto the long table. Obvious jeers and mocking cheers swirled dizzyingly in his ears. After kneeling, he raised his hips, lay face down, and pulled the slip up to his chest so his hole was clearly visible. His almost naked body lay pitifully on the table.

“What the fuck? You bring out something like this? Hey, where and how have you been rolling around to make your body look like this shit?”

The man grumbled, complaining about the bruises and contusions on Gawon’s body, but that was all. The men’s attention soon shifted elsewhere.

“Whoa, fuck. Look at that pretty hole, even for a dick-bastard.”

“Pink, what the fuck? Pink, shit.”

“Look at that ass. Looks like it’d be great to pound.”

Raw obscenities poured out.

Gawon rested his forehead on the table, held his breath, and closed his eyes. He just… decided not to think anything. He had to. What lay on this table under the men’s glistening gazes was just a hole. A cheap hole that anyone could easily look at, mock, touch, and, if they felt like it, shove their cock into immediately.

‘I won’t be a thug.’

A faint auditory hallucination sounded in his ear. It was the voice he least wanted to hear at this moment.

Gawon’s hunched back trembled. The timing was cruelly ironic. It was incomparably more painful than the hands roughly touching his ass and feeling his cleft—to recall the owner of that low voice wrapping around his ear.

‘I’ll make a definite promise to you.’

A straight voice affirming. Your eyes filled with tenderness raining down like a meteor shower.

That person had been born into this world—into this insidious, meticulous underworld—from the start. Yet even when Gawon recoiled at thugs and acted out, he wasn’t hurt; instead, he deeply empathized. He apologized on behalf of all of them to the wounded Gawon.

He loved Gawon more than anyone else in the world, and so he was Gawon’s one and only. The one who gently entwined their fingers and held him when he was pushed to the edge of a world that felt like a cliff, weeping sorrowfully. The one who kissed his wounded eyelids and cheeks over and over, comforting him.

You, who were so kind and precious, now…

‘Gawon-ah.’

Ki Joon, you bastard.

‘My wish is you.’

…Where are you?

Where on earth are you, that you’re so vivid before my eyes but I can’t touch you? Why did you make such a promise, pushing me into endless waiting? Why did you love me, make me love you, and keep me from ending this painful, shabby life?

“But still, hyung-nim, I don’t really feel like fucking him.”

At the thick voice of another man, Gawon snapped back to his senses. He hurriedly blinked away his tear-blurred vision. Looking at his subordinate who spoke with disgust, the man who had first chosen Gawon clicked his tongue.

“Ah, you bastards. Do I really have to show you by example, huh? Right in front of your eyes?”

The high-ranking man puffed himself up. At his vulgar hip-thrusting gesture, loud cheers erupted.

“Show us, hyung-nim! Make it really hot!”

“Make him cry and piss himself, please!”

“Hey, hey. Just wait. I’ll make him tremble in fear at the sight of my cock.”

Chuckling, the man unbuckled his belt. The sound of jjik, the zipper coming down, was not drowned out by the noisy clamor and rang clearly in Gawon’s ears.

He squeezed his eyes shut. But only for a moment; soon, the tension in his closed eyelids melted away.

So what if it hurts? So what if it tears? Everyone who comes here treats his body like disposable trash. If he leaves it alone, it heals eventually. Then someone else will rummage through it, tear it apart, and it will recover again… It’s just a meaningless, tiresome repetition.

Then, suddenly, the door burst open.

“You’re here, team leader!”

The men’s booming shouts rang out. The accompaniment that filled the room stopped abruptly. As if they hadn’t just been playing around in disarray, the men straightened their attire in unison and bowed toward the doorway.

As Gawon hurriedly tried to get up, he heard the sound of neat leather shoes behind him. The sound of someone walking in and plopping down heavily on the sofa.

The high-ranking man who had been behind Gawon until a moment ago quickly pulled out a lighter and approached him. The man who had acted like a king in this room, freely playing with Gawon, had instantly transformed into a loyal dog wagging its tail at the feet of the man called team leader.

Gawon staggered but got down from the table, hastening to straighten his appearance. He wanted to get up quickly, but perhaps because he’d barely eaten lately, his vision spun. He had been turning away from the men, unable to face them.

“What’s that?”

A low voice asked. The tone clearly carried disgust. He must be pointing at Gawon’s half-naked body.

And the moment he heard that voice, Gawon’s hands stopped.

“…”

No way.

I must have misheard.

…Your voice shouldn’t be heard here.

Even as he thought that, his entire body refused to move. Gawon’s face, frozen in all motion, looked like a corpse with its eyes open. On his stone-hard face, only his lips trembled convulsively.

“Hey, you fucking bastard. What are you doing? The hyung-nim asked you a question. Won’t you turn around and greet him?”

The thug standing beside him muttered lowly at Gawon and glared. Gawon knew it too. As a hostess working here, he knew what he was supposed to do.

He shouldn’t be standing so arrogantly. He should immediately turn around, bow his back, and offer a greeting. He should state the name he used here and flash a coquettish eye-smile, saying he’d take good care of them. If the guest wanted, he should bury his head between his legs, or get on the table like he just did—do as he was told.

But he couldn’t. His head and body refused. The small sliver of heart that had survived in his chest, and the sole memory he had cherished and kept hidden like a treasure—the one thing he could affirm was his everything—prevented it.

“…What’s he doing. That one.”

Because the owner of that voice, now coldly directed at him, was—

‘I like you. Yoon Gawon.’

The person he hadn’t forgotten for even a single moment over the past five years. That’s why, even though he hadn’t heard that voice in all that time, he recognized it instantly. No—he couldn’t not recognize it.

“Huk, …eup.”

In that moment, his frozen heart shattered into pieces. The pain that had been worn down through countless sufferings and then frozen over rose up all at once.

Despite the men’s urging and the slaps and threats approaching him, Gawon couldn’t turn around. Hot tears burst from his eyes, which had been preserved like glass, streaming down.

We, who first met at the end of the world,

when we met again, it was still at the end of the world.