KEG 82

“Kang Taesan.”

When I called his name, the glazed look in Kang Taesan’s eyes cleared slightly.

In the past, Kang Taesan had stabbed me. The reason was simple.

“You bald bastard.”

It was because I’d called him “bald.”

To be precise, “bald-headed.” And then.

“You hairless octopus headed fuck. Even your armpits can’t grow hair, you smooth skinned freak.”

When I pointed out his alopecia, the bastard lost his mind and growled as if he were about to pounce on me.

“Hey, you son of a bitch! You’re not even old enough for the blood on your head to dry, and you’re making fun of an adult?!”

“You’ve got no hair, and you’ve got no character either. ”

“Fuck!!”

He must have been interrogated without restraints, because the bald bastard grabbed ​unauthorized copy​a folding chair and charged at me.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, just look at him picking a fight with a middle schooler. No matter how much the world turned upside down, even if a bastard like that became a white-collar worker, his thuggish roots couldn’t be hidden.

“Hey, you bastard, get out here!”

I quickly crawled under the desk. He couldn’t swing that cumbersome weapon in such a tight space.

Kang Taesan threw the chair down. Then, he clutched a pen in his hand and followed me under the desk. True to his reputation as a knife-wielder, he grabbed a weapon first.

Thud!

“Ow!”

I kicked Kang Taesan in the face.

In a confined space like under a desk, movement is restricted, making it hard to attack with a weapon. At best, you can only stab.

“I’ll cripple one of your legs.”

He grabbed my leg. But just as he was about to stab my leg with the pen, Kang Taesan’s elbow slammed into the desk top. His range of motion was limited.

I lunged at Kang Taesan, who was momentarily frozen in place by the pain in his elbow. I closed in and rammed my head into his jaw, causing him to stagger and fall backward.

“Taesan, when are you going to cripple me?”

“You…! Damn it! You insolent little bastard…!”

Smack!

I hit him once.

“You’re the one with no manners.”

“Hey, there are cops outside right now…!”

Smack!

“So what? I’m asking for the third time. Where’s Lee Sangwoo?”

“I don’t know! I told you I don’t know!!”

I pressed the pen Kang Taesan had dropped against his throat.

Just because I’ve been beating you up with my fists, you think I’m a nice guy?

As I thrust the pen against his throat hard enough to pierce his carotid artery, Kang Taesan’s body stiffened. Then his pupils dilated.

“…Ha Seongho?”

Did he finally get a proper look at me?  Looks like we could finally have a real conversation now.

“Whoa~ fuck! Ha Seongho, you bastard, you’re actually still alive?”

“Yeah, that’s right. It’s a real shame.”

“I did hear you came looking for me…”

Thud!

The tip of the pen dug into his flesh.

“Mr. CEO, we don’t have time. We’ll settle this later.”

Cold sweat beaded on Kang Taesan’s neck. Yet his expression remained calm.

My opponent was also a thug who’d survived countless brushes with death.

“I don’t know why you’re wearing a school uniform and acting like an idiot, but I got used by Lee Sangwoo too.”

“Used…?”

“Yeah, Lee Sangwoo had everything set up to make a clean getaway a long time ago. The investigation that started today was because of a whistleblower too.”

Now the story finally made sense.

This case began with a bullied kid who suddenly vanished.

It all started with Lee Sangwoo’s behind-the-scenes maneuvering to cut his losses and run. He’d set up a decoy and planned to make an internal report so he could slip away unscathed, and I’d walked right into the middle of it.

“So, you really don’t know where he is?”

“If I did, I would’ve taken that fucking son of a bitch down a long time ago.”

As I looked down at Kang Taesan, who was baring his gold teeth, a sudden question crossed my mind.

“Do you want to find Lee Sangwoo?”

Kang Taesan glared at me. His face glowed with rage.

“Yeah, that one guy ruined the whole Big Mountain business. Fuck, even if I die, I’m gonna tear that bastard to pieces.”

Taesan would likely be torn to shreds by the National Tax Service and the Financial Supervisory Service. His vain dream of transforming his business to ride the tide of the times had evaporated into thin air.

There were few cases where a scumbag went down in such a straightforward, honest way, and that rare case was unfolding right before my eyes.

“I’ll find Lee Sangwoo for you.”

Kang Taesan’s eyes widened, then he sneered.

“Yeah… I suppose you could find him. You’re a tenacious bastard.”

Kang Taesan, who remembered me from the past, placed his hopes in me with a voice tinged with excitement. He also quickly caught on to what I was about to propose and laid it out immediately.

“Bring him to me, and I’ll give you 1 billion won.”

“Does he have to come back with all four limbs intact?”

“Bring him back alive, and it’s 2.5 billion.”

He raised the amount in an instant.

I looked down at the straightforward, bald bastard and said,

“Deal.”

***

As I climbed into the driver’s seat, put on my glasses, and started the engine, Baek Yejun spoke up.

“Are you going to drive looking like that?”

I looked down at the school uniform I was wearing. To other people, it must look like a ninth grader was driving.

Now that I’d met Kang Taesan, maybe I should send Baek Yejun away and use the potion Park Suheon gave me to get rid of this illusion. I still had uses for my student appearance though…

“I’ll drive.”

Baek Yejun offered without hesitation. Without even realizing it, I turned my head toward him.

“Did you have a license?”

“Yeah.”

That sneaky bastard. So he had a license all along and was just hitching rides in my car?

Driving is so exhausting.

Come to think of it, he never actually said he didn’t have a license. I should’ve asked him sooner instead of just assuming, damn it.

“I’ll drive for the rest of the day, so give me a kiss.”

“Ugh…”

He’s such a pain to deal with. Asking for a kiss every single step of the way? At this rate, he’ll be jumping at me for a kiss just for breathing.

Ah, he’s already doing that.

How did my life end up like this?

“Is there anything else? Besides rubbing lips.”

“Hmm…”

Maybe I should just pay for a ride-hailing service and hire someone. That would probably be cheaper and more convenient.

“Hug me.”

I was turning on my phone to search for a ride when Baek Yejun spoke.

I looked at Baek Yejun with a skeptical expression. He’d already hugged me as much as he wanted, was that really going to be enough?

“You’ve never hugged me before.”

He said something so obvious, yet with such a wistful tone. If anyone saw this, they’d think I was the bad guy.

But I was the victim here.

“How long do I need to hug you?”

“How long can you hug me?”

I checked the time. I had two hours to spare before my next appointment.

Should I just say it, or pretend I’m short on time?

“Aren’t you tired?”

I looked at my watch again at Baek Yejun’s question.

Somewhere between 1:00 and 2:00 PM.

I’d already eaten lunch, and I had some time to kill. If I’d been working on the ward, this would have been the time I’d take a nap with the little teacher.

“You always took a nap at this time, even on your days off.”

Blink.

When I realized it, my eyes felt dry and gritty. The heater in the car suddenly felt uncomfortable. My drowsiness was growing stronger than the annoyance of having my routine figured out.

“Come here.”

Baek Yejun opened his arms.

I hesitated for a moment, then took off my glasses and placed them in the console box. I climbed over the gearshift toward Baek Yejun, who was sitting in the passenger seat.

The cramped car swayed slightly.

“Can I take them off?”

His pale hands grabbed my thick coat and school uniform jacket. Without really objecting, I let him take them off. Wearing only a cardigan and a dress shirt, I pulled Baek Yejun into my arms.

Creak.

Baek Yejun must have reclined the seat, because the angle adjusted, allowing me to lean back more comfortably.

“Wake me up in a bit.”

“What time?”

I picked up my phone, quickly set an alarm, and handed it to Baek Yejun.

“Wake me up when the alarm goes off.”

“Got it.”

Blink, blink.

Habits are a scary thing. I was sleepy even though I was stuck with this annoying jerk.

“Why did you tint the windows so dark?”

Baek Yejun asked as he looked at my phone, which he’d just taken from me.

“It’s too bright.”

Click.

I heard the camera shutter sound from the phone, maybe he was taking a selfie.

“Do you like it dark?”

“No.”

“Do you hate it when it’s bright?”

“No.”

“Well, you say no to everything,” Baek Yejun said as he rested his chin on my head. I curled up and squirmed to avoid it, but it didn’t work. We were too close for me to escape.

Since when did my sense of personal space get ruined?

“I like it just right.”

A brightness that’s neither too bright nor too dark.

A lukewarm temperature, neither cold nor hot.

An open space, neither cramped nor vast.

The things I wanted were always somewhere in between.

“That’s the hardest kind.”

Thump, thump.

Baek Yejun’s heartbeat sounded steady.

Neither too loud nor too quiet. It was a sound that was just right, and yet, somehow ambiguous.

***

Even as the world turned upside down, South Korea’s fervor for education showed no signs of cooling. If anything, it seemed to burn even brighter as the unstable world persisted.

The sidewalks along the cram school district were filled with cars parked by parents waiting for their children. From inside their cars, stolen content the parents watched the school entrances with dry, watchful eyes, their expressions resembling those of undercover detectives.

“Seongho!”

Kwon Hyunseok recognized me as I got out of the car. He ran over with a delighted expression. It was that guy I’d met at the closing ceremony, the “attendance slave.”

“Are you still an attendance slave today?”

“Yeah, I’ve been attending classes on someone else’s behalf since January.”

Lee Sangwoo had vanished without a trace.

If that were the case, he should have erased all traces of himself, yet he was still making sure to attend class without fail.

As if he were planning to return someday and pick up where he left off.

“Have you seen Lee Sangwoo while you’ve been attending class?”

“I haven’t seen him in person, but there were a few days when he said attendance wasn’t necessary.”

Just as I thought, he does show up himself sometimes.