A Scorching Day Chapter 58

“Right now…”

A chilling despair surged into his chest like flowing water. Ki Joon clenched his trembling lips. Another loss was about to pile on top of the searing sense of loss already bleeding within him.

“What use is any of that now…?”

“…Father is gone. Yoon Gawon is gone too…”

“…If even you, Uncle, are gone… then what am I supposed to do?”

A tear fell onto his cheek. As if that were the signal, the emotions he had been forcibly suppressing came crumbling down. Ki Joon wept silently. He gritted his teeth and stifled his sobs.

After a long silence, Manager Hwang spoke in a softened voice.

―No one’s gone. I’m not dying, kid. I’m fine here… you don’t need to come. Just get yourself to a safe place and stay there, okay? Joon-ah.

His voice was utterly exhausted. After pressing him, Ki Joon found out that he was at the hospital. Manager Hwang said he’d only been slightly injured and his life was in no danger, but Ki Joon badgered him until he got the hospital’s name.

He headed there in an instant. His own reflection in the transparent car window looked haggard. Having run here and there, his face and clothes were completely disheveled.

Ki Joon closed his eyes and suppressed the surging anxiety and sorrow. Manager Hwang’s voice, which had echoed with a foreboding loneliness—saying he was fine so Ki Joon didn’t need to come—kept resurfacing in his ears.

As soon as he got out of the taxi, he dashed toward the hospital’s main entrance. Gasping, he ran at full speed and arrived at the emergency room, where familiar faces were immediately visible.

Some were receiving treatment, some were having bandages applied, and some were still waiting for care, their gruesome injuries fully exposed. Ki Joon stopped dead in his tracks.

“Manager Hwang just went into emergency surgery.”

One of the organization members who recognized Ki Joon spoke heavily. Ki Joon opened his lips in a daze.

“…Wh-what do you mean…”

“His ankle… was severed.”

The uncle who delivered the news bowed his head deeply. In that moment, Ki Joon’s eyes widened. His tightly clenched, trembling fist fell slack.

He heard that an organization called Gangsan had attacked near the funeral hall. No matter how ruthless people in this world were, they had implicitly observed at least a minimum of humanity. They never expected an attack during the mourning period, so Cheonghyeon had been caught completely off guard.

The only ones who suffered losses were the subordinates closest to the late Ki Cheonghyeon—the ones Ki Joon called ‘uncle.’ They had stayed by the deceased’s side until the very end and had come down from the burial site last. Was that really a coincidence? Their faces were grave, but they ultimately held their tongues.

“Don’t go home for a while, Joon-ah. …And.”

One of the uncles spoke with a dark expression.

“…For now, it’s best if you don’t go against Executive Director Ki’s… wishes. Keep your head down as much as possible.”

No matter how close Ki Joon was to becoming an adult, the fact remained that he was still a child ignorant of the world. With his sturdy backing gone, and Manager Hwang—who had handled all his problems—also lost, Ki Joon was essentially thrown onto the battlefield without any armor. Knowing this, and genuinely caring for Ki Joon, they offered him this sincere advice.

With his head bowed, Ki Joon pressed down on his trembling eyelids. The taste of blood came from his bitten lips. Having witnessed the gruesome scene with his own eyes, his heart grew cold instead. The hot tears that had flowed during his call with Manager Hwang had already dried.

“…Please contact me… when Manager Hwang comes out.”

“Joon-ah, where are you going?”

“I have someone to find. I’ll be back.”

He headed to Gawon’s house once more. Even though he knew there was nothing more he could do here, having already lost that kid, he couldn’t help but return.

In the empty, cold house, Ki Joon collapsed and sat down.

The solid ground he had stood on until now was riddled with cracks. Everywhere he stepped, the ground gave way and crumbled, forcing Ki Joon to run with all his might. Trembling with fear, he had to struggle forward, desperately trying not to lose what he held in his hands.

But no matter how far he ran, the ground kept collapsing. The terrible devastation didn’t stop. It was as if it was all waiting for the exhausted Ki Joon to finally stop, and then fall completely.

Ki Joon sat with his knees drawn up and buried his face in them. The people he had wished would stay by his side forever were leaving, disappearing, and crumbling away, one by one.

His father. Manager Hwang. And, and, the beloved boy he would have given everything to protect…

He shuddered at his own young and powerless incompetence. He was forced to feel it to the bone. That even finding a single person required power. All he could do right now was go to the establishment where that kid’s mother worked and beg the madam, or kneel at the police station.

He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t command a single person. Even if he had money, it wasn’t enough to search the entire country for someone. Above all, finding someone who had been dragged into a dark, murky swamp was a task only possible for those who operated within that same swamp.

And right now, there was only one person around him who possessed that desperately needed power.

“Haa…”

Even the awareness of this reality was painful. It was the man who had tried to kill him, and had even killed his father. As if that weren’t enough, he had also harmed the subordinates who had stood by his father.

Casting aside the humiliation and hatred he felt toward him with his own hands required a pain akin to cutting out living flesh. But now, Ki Joon was tearing away the vivid hatred that raged within him, with his own hands.

Ki Woohyun hadn’t used the simple tactic of casting him out or killing him. Even if Ki Joon knew nothing about how the company operated, he knew better than anyone that most of Cheonghyeon’s directors had respected and followed his father.

‘Come work under me right away and learn the ropes.’

He intended to use Ki Joon. If he took in the boy who had lost his father and taught him the organization’s work one by one, Ki Joon could be molded into a fine successor worthy of the next leadership.

He knew he was being thoroughly played in the palm of Ki Woohyun’s hand. But the hatred toward the man he wanted to tear apart and kill on the spot ultimately knelt before the desperate urgency of finding his beloved boy.

‘I like you, Joon-ah. I love you.’

If only he could see that clear, pretty face again.

‘I want to live now, Joon-ah.’

If only he could see again that bittersweet and beautiful sight of that kid cultivating a will to live while looking at him, then he felt he could do anything.

‘I want to come to the beach with you every year like this, eat raw fish, drink coffee, watch the sunset, and in the summer, swim too… Now I want to live that way.’

We’re supposed to live like that now. You’ve been through so much too. Even if it hurts so much it feels like you’re breaking sometimes, if we can just hold each other warmly, all of that will feel like nothing.

So, I must find you…

After burying his face in his knees for a long time, Ki Joon pulled out his phone. With a thud, his arm gave way involuntarily and he dropped it. But he gritted his teeth and picked up the phone as it rolled across the cold floor.

He found and dialed a number he had never once contacted of his own will. In Ki Joon’s previously hollow eyes, a different kind of resolve now resided. The resignation and venomous determination allowed Ki Joon to shake off all hesitation.

―What is it?

A loathsome voice asked with interest. Ki Joon lowered his head numbly.

“…Please help me.”

―Just the day before yesterday, you were looking at me like I was the scum of the earth. Why would a scumbag’s help be needed in just a few days?

A low chuckle escaped. It was clearly mockery, but Ki Joon had no time to feel anger or humiliation.

He desperately needed that man’s power right now. To be precise, he needed the power of Cheonghyeon that he had usurped.

It was Gawon who had believed in Ki Joon’s promise never to become a thug. But it was thugs—the very kind that kid hated and feared—who had taken Gawon.

It was a bitter and absurd irony, but in order to find Yoon Gawon, he had to jump into the abyss that kid so despised. He had no choice but to put on the very appearance the kid hated most.

But with Yoon Gawon’s very life in question, none of that mattered at all. Even if Yoon Gawon resented him later for not keeping his promise, it didn’t matter. When it came to that kid’s safety, everything else was secondary.

Because I have to find you.

Because I have to protect you, who has become my very wish, for the rest of my life.

―Fine. My dear nephew is asking, so of course I should oblige. So, what is it you want?

Ki Joon, who had been staring darkly downward, slowly lifted his head.

“…There’s someone I need to find right now.”