HYDP C16

Chapter 16

He finally paused, then resumed walking slowly, but every so often he had to stop again. At some point, the image surfaced of the moment Sanhong had smiled briefly.

That languid smile and eyes trembling as if nectar would spill—just that alone made Cheonguk stagger.

If, with that face, Sanhong had formed even the slightest cool smile, Cheonguk would have thrown himself in, even if that place were hell.

That day, Cheonguk vowed that even if Sanhong were a blaze, even hellfire, he would hurl himself in to the end.

Meanwhile, lately, Sanhong felt unusually depleted. Over nothing at all, chills would creep over him alone. Even now, sitting still by himself, a shiver ran through him. In every way, it was stress. As his body grew more fatigued, what he finally chose was a sleeping pill.

He already suffered from insomnia. Before he collapsed like a component that suddenly ran out of fuel, he decided to manage it by taking medication.

He hung a “Closed” sign on the pawnshop door and drew the curtains so no one could see inside.

It felt as if someone not designed into his life had suddenly appeared and rummaged everything.

With the severe fatigue and an uninvited guest on top of it, his stress was no small thing. He went into the small room at one side of the pawnshop and immediately unfolded the neatly folded bedding. Then he dropped his body onto it with a thud.

As sleep steadily overtook him, he closed his eyes.

The next day, when he arrived at the bureau, Cheonguk walked into the lobby with a thoroughly refreshed face. Having left his tracker and ID behind, he still wore a slack smile through the identity check without any intention of wiping it away.

Thanks to that, the employees in the lobby were all uniformly terrified, asking what on earth was with him. They’d never seen him so loose-screwed, so confusion was inevitable.

All the way to the supervision unit, his thoughts were entirely of Sanhong. What might he be doing now, whether he might be thinking of him, whether he might be crying because he missed him—layered fantasies jostled and flipped his mind.

“Good morning.”

“…Sorry?”

“……”

Throwing open the unit door, he came in with a greeting. Staff in the middle of work stared at him, aghast.

“Damn. Good morning, huh. Am I the only one having a good morning?”

“Ah… good morning, sir.”

“Good morning, my ass—do you even know what time it is?”

With a face that looked to shoulder every grievance in the world, chin propped in his hand, Min Su-ho glared at him. He was Cheonguk’s secretary.

“Where did you go, leaving even your tracker behind?”

“Personal errand.”

“What ‘personal errand’ does the boss have?”

When he dodged the question, Su-ho looked even more suspicious. But he ignored him to the end.

“Hey. Do something for me.”

“What is it?”

Grumbling, Su-ho still popped up and came over. Because he insisted on writing it on paper, Su-ho shot him an even dirtier look.

“Why write this down?”

“You talk too damn much. Just go do it.”

“…Unbelievable.”

Unable to refuse, he took the slip and hurried out. A few minutes later, he returned with a fat stack of printed pages.

Taking the documents, Cheonguk read for a long while. With only silence stretching, Su-ho had to forcibly stifle a creeping yawn.

“…Shit. It’s real.”

“What is?”

“……”

Wondering what had spaced him out like that, Su-ho craned closer.

They were documents with Sanhong’s personal information. The finger pointed squarely to the line with his age.

“What about it. Something wrong?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s not thirty-three? Then how old is he?”

“Twenty.”

“……”

“Don’t tell me he’s underage?”

“…Good grief.”

“No, that can’t be… If he’s underage, that makes me absolute trash.”

He wanted to chew him out for the nonsense, but seeing the unexpectedly serious face, he kept his mouth shut. He still couldn’t hold back his curiosity.

“Did you… go see him?”

“Yeah.”

“Alone?”

He shot back:

“Who else would I go with.”

There was plenty to say, but since it was the boss, he chose silence—it felt better for his sanity.

Just then, the unit door slammed open. Deputy Director Baek Cheon-jung came in, hands on his hips.

“You bastard went missing… what the hell are you doing?”

“I went to work.”

“What?”

After a beat, Cheon-jung got to the point.

“You went to see Sanhong, didn’t you? How is he?”

“Why are you dropping the surname.”

“Didn’t he try to kill you?”

“You close with him?”

“……”

As the two lobbed only their own lines, Su-ho, disgusted, simply sat and returned to his tasks. Lifting his head to the team frozen by the awkward air, he said:

“Don’t mind that side. Let’s finish what we were doing.”

He could feel it in his bones.

It had been a mistake for him to go alone to see Sanhong in the first place. He’d fallen far deeper than expected—beyond imagination. And that ominous hunch would soon become reality and bring a larger disaster.

In this wretched neighborhood, the only entertainment he could enjoy was watching gamblers’ fights. Since he’d quit drinking and smoking long ago, when stressed he’d often sit at one side of the gambling hall.

A man approached and harassed him. He calmed him with effort, and after a quiet negotiation, it ended with him relieving the man’s needs for the first and last time.

“Instead, I’ll help you drain it. It’s been a long time, doing it alone, right?”

“Mm… Hurry…”

The man nodded eagerly that that was fine. Then he undid his belt and zipper, yanked his pants down to his knees in one go. You could see the strain clenching his thick thighs. Soon he felt eyes on them from around them: contempt, curiosity, suppressed desire, all mixed.

He calmly knelt between the man’s legs. The guy kept spitting nothing but “Hurry, come on,” while blatantly stroking his stiffening center.

The air grew sticky with the rough breath and moans of a man drunk on pleasure.

He tugged down the man’s underwear. His sagging member came into view. After a brief pause, he wrapped the withered-branch-like shaft in his hand. Then he jacked it roughly without finesse.

Surrendering his shaft to that hand, the man let himself feel and began to let out low moans. Those buried in gambling turned their gazes, one by one, to the scene.

In those stares were contempt, yes, but envy too. Plenty just toyed with their own crotches and smacked their lips.

“Hah… hff…”

He stared up at the man groaning to his touch. A guess, but—the guy was a virgin.

“Fuck…”

The little curse, muttered under his breath, he took as cute. It did him no harm; he simply guided him to climax quickly.

He pinched the rim of the tip with a fingernail—pre-cum surged.

“Feels good when I touch here, right?”

“Haa… huff…”

As the orgasm rose, the man grabbed his hair and pulled him closer, shoving him deeper between his legs. Trapped in that crotch, he breathed the sour scent and lightly scraped the veined shaft with his nails.

“Kh—!”

At once, the bastard ejaculated, his lower belly rippling as he spilled semen in gouts. His iron thighs trembled; the tremor carried straight to his face.

When he finished, he slipped out from between the legs. Wiping the semen from his hand with tissue, he smiled brightly.

“You held out a while, at least. Not premature.”

“O-of course! Th—the pills, they work!”

“Yeah, sure. You were thirty seconds faster than Mr. Park.”

“S-shut up! I still held it—!”

Gamblers boasted of how long they lasted, jumping in to add to the banter. He had no wish to join. The fishy stink still on his hand made him click his tongue.

“I’m going to wash my hands.”

“Yeah. Th-thanks, today.”

“If you’re grateful, stop stalking me.”

In a sincere voice, the man thanked him. Seen like that, he didn’t seem entirely bad, but in others’ eyes, he was only trash.

He threaded through the crowd toward a seldom-used restroom. At the door, seeing two men tangling together, he quickly turned his head away.

“Hey. What’re you looking at.”

“Didn’t look. Go on—enjoy yourselves.”

“…Son of a bitch.”

A young couple, not long moved to the neighborhood.

The one on top was a gangster; the one panting underneath, as he dimly recalled, was an unknown actor.

With a blank face, he murmured, “Sorry,” and stepped into the restroom.