Sarhyuk's Younger Brother

"Then shall we introduce you to my second client around now? You share a common purpose, and he seems rather interested in all of you as well."

"Hmph. Can that bastard do anything about this Se-gun character?"

The mages were hardly surprised — they had already guessed as much. If anything startled them, it was Sa Jun's sheer nerve. Few people announced that they were running a double contract with such brazen confidence. Still, the mages were in no position to be choosy. They needed every scrap of help they could find.

"Well, yes."

Sa Jun said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. To speak so calmly after watching Han Se-gun bury an entire pack of vampires — what the hell was this guy? The President of the United States?

"Just who is he, then?"

When the mages asked, Sa Jun answered as if he had been waiting for the question.

"Giovanni Vantero."

"Huh?"

Every face turned on him at once. Sa Jun scratched his cheek under their stares.

"Come on, you all already had an idea. Why pretend to be shocked?"

"Giovanni Vantero… that man is…"

"Filthy rich, isn't he?"

"Huh?"

Something felt off about the angle of their concern. Sa Jun looked at the mages, who glared back at him with pure resentment.

"Working under a guy like that, you'd be raking it in. And yet you still charged us separately."

"Wait, hang on—"

"…You bastard."

They weren't children, yet they kept recycling the one insult they had learned as if it were a seasonal specialty. Sa Jun broke out in a cold sweat and reluctantly pulled bills from his wallet.

"Fine, fine. Then I'll cover everything you've drunk so far."

It hardly seemed like the real issue — but the mages handed him the check without hesitation.

"Still, Giovanni Vantero is Tetra Anax. Has he actually entered the country?"

"Why would a Tetra Anax man want to join hands with us?"

Strictly speaking, Giovanni Vantero — Tetra Anax's hitman — had no particular reason to ally with mages. A vampire's inability to move in daylight was a genuine weakness, but wasn't that exactly why he was using a broker like Sa Jun as his proxy?

Even so, it was hard to call the offer a trap. He had no reason to partner with mages — and equally little reason to bother setting a trap for them.

"Whatever. Meeting him doesn't cost us anything. We'll sit down and talk. That work?"

"Yes, excellent. I like the straightforward approach."

Sa Jun was delighted the moment the mages agreed to negotiate.

Se-gun dragged the vampires' corpses down into the basement. Bodies Seo Rin had already hauled in were piled high enough to overflow the space.

"Ugh. Looks like Cambodia."

Seo Rin frowned at the stacked corpses, stomach clearly turning. The fact that he hadn't thrown up yet was impressive enough.

"You've been?"

Se-gun asked as he jammed blood-draw needles into the bodies. Seo Rin waved a hand.

"No, only pictures. You think I'd actually go?"

"But maybe you really did. You said you don't remember your childhood."

Se-gun sifted through radios, phones, and notebooks taken off the vampires, hunting for any scrap of useful information. The phones were all burners, and the notebooks were soaked and ruined by rain — finding anything worthwhile was nearly impossible. Watching him work, Seo Rin finally asked the question that had been bothering him.

"Ah — right. Why are you drawing their blood?"

"Because it makes good medicine."

"Don't tell me it's a virility tonic? Korean men will eat anything if someone claims it's good for stamina."

Seo Rin muttered. Se-gun's careful separation of the rain-soaked papers stopped cold.

"…You need a beating. Now that those bastards are all dead, I can thrash you without any guilt."

"Ah — I heated the bathwater. The tub's going to overflow."

As if the thought had only just occurred to him, Seo Rin changed the subject and headed up the stairs. Se-gun stared at his retreating back, half exasperated, and let out a long sigh. No matter how hard he hit him or how much he threatened, that kid was going to live exactly like this for the rest of his life.

In a certain sense, maybe that counted as real strength. Se-gun shook his head and left the basement behind.

Se-gun climbed into the bathtub with a beer can clamped in his teeth. Drinking in a hot bath was the sort of thing that could stop a heart, but he ignored the risk, drained the can in long gulps, and squeezed. The aluminum crumpled flat as if it had been fed into a trash compactor.

"Hnn. Tired as hell."

He felt his eyes starting to close and sank deeper into the water. He hadn't even finished everything that needed doing today, and already he was exhausted — fighting vampires really did burn through stamina. Then Seo Rin knocked from outside the door.

"Phone for you."

"Bring it."

"Uugh. Twice in one day, defiled. This irreversible sense of corruption…"

Seo Rin grumbled as he walked in holding the phone. Se-gun stared at him in pure disbelief.

"…What are you, a three-wavelength lamp stand? Gotta radiate equally in every direction?"

"Oh — this camera works as a digital camera too, right?"

"Yeah."

"…"

Click.

The flash on the phone's camera went off the instant the word left Se-gun's mouth. Still sitting in the tub, Se-gun slowly reached for the bath towel hanging beside him and covered his lower half.

"Ah, hang on, this is… Hahaha. Should I post it to the Han Se-gun fan club?"

"…We're starting with a beating."

Se-gun's left straight shot out like lightning and dropped Seo Rin. He immediately snatched the phone with his right hand and wiped the photo from memory.

"This damn kid…"

He kicked the unconscious Seo Rin out of the bathroom, sat back down in the tub, and checked the caller ID. The number on the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠screen was one Se-gun knew well — Kim Seong-hui's.

"What is it?"

When Se-gun answered, her voice came through the line.

"What?"

"Ahh. What about him?"

Se-gun shifted, leaning back against the tub without much interest. Whatever the man was, he had already given Se-gun the information he needed. At that point Se-gun had stopped caring about the broker. Trying to break him the way he once had Silvester or Sarhyuk would only breed resentment.

Besides, with Kenneth Yang's armory already under his control, Se-gun didn't particularly need anything right now. So why was Kim Seong-hui suddenly so focused on this broker?

The name Sarhyuk made Se-gun jolt. The villain who had hunted vampires in a lycanthrope's body to feed his own desires. His twisted business sense had earned him the mockery of being called an alchemist — yet in the end he had even gotten a Jinma into his grasp.

Unlike Se-gun, who hunted vampires out of duty, Sarhyuk had been utterly faithful to his appetites, and that path had finally led him to death at Se-gun's hands. And now he had a younger brother?

"What did you say? That bastard came from human stock? I figured he was a bear who ate mugwort and garlic and cultivated for a hundred days."

"No, just a light exchange of greetings… Nothing major."

Se-gun pressed his fingers into his forehead. Sarhyuk had a little brother, and that brother was already in Korea — truly unexpected. So was the kid after revenge? Could today's attack have been his scheme all along?

"…Looks like the road ahead is going to be entertaining. Later."

Se-gun hung up and tossed the phone into the laundry basket beside the tub.

"I wanted to lure Lilith or a Jinma, and instead I get these random pests. I'm not even a rotten tomato — why do the blowflies keep swarming?"

Se-gun draped an arm over the edge of the tub and closed his eyes.

Zen's lead singer, Cho Seong-chan, had always been a frail, delicate boy. Raised by devout Christian parents, he had sung in the church choir from childhood and dreamed of becoming a classical vocalist.

But when ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his parents' business failed and the family fortunes collapsed, vocal lessons became impossible. How could he insist on his own dream while expensive lessons threatened to sink the household?

That was when a producer from S Entertainment approached him with an offer to become the lead singer of an idol group. His family opposed it — a soft, weak boy like Seong-chan would never survive the brutal entertainment industry — but Seong-chan overrode their wishes and forced his way into Zen.

Zen needed a singer who could actually sing. Seong-chan needed a chance to chase his dream.

It was the decision of a child who knew nothing about the world. In an idol group controlled entirely by its agency, nearly all album revenue flowed back to the company, and what little remained was split among the members. Expensive classical lessons remained hopelessly out of reach.

He appeared on television almost every day. Fans showered him with gifts worth millions of won on his birthday. And still he couldn't afford a single lesson.

Seong-chan despaired. Socially he was criticized, he had no friends, strangers envied him for all the wrong reasons, and the work itself was exhausting — a siege from every direction.

In the middle of all that, he had someone he looked up to: Seo Rin.

A boy of mixed Slavic blood, Seo Rin was everything Seong-chan was not — lean, muscular, always bright and cheerful, carrying a confidence Seong-chan could never quite name. Seo Rin's home was a pit of poverty compared to Seong-chan's, yet he never lost his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠smile and was always buried in a book. Even the school delinquents who swaggered around acting tough never dared pick a fight with him.

So Seong-chan admired him, quietly. The kind of person who had never done a single thing for you, yet somehow made you want to get closer — everyone had someone like that, didn't they?

Then, a few days ago, Seo Rin suddenly left school. Rumors followed — that he had been struggling, that he had finally dropped out to earn money — and like everyone else, the school forgot him and returned to ordinary life. But Seong-chan couldn't. Because he had seen something he was never meant to see.

One dawn, after slipping out of the dorm under the excuse of school, he happened to witness Seo Rin being attacked. Seo Rin went down bleeding. Then he simply stood back up as if nothing had happened.

It was — Seong-chan only understood this later — a sniper attack. The bullet had clearly punched through Seo Rin's chest. This wasn't some cheap action movie. A human with a hole through his chest did not calmly get up and walk away. That was impossible.

And the blood loss had been enormous — yet no one ever mentioned Seo Rin's injury. Had the wound healed completely in a matter of hours? Or was the entire world in on some hidden-camera prank, staging a performance just to fool Seong-chan?

"What are you thinking about?"

The sudden question made Seong-chan jump. A pretty-faced anchor was thrusting a microphone at him. They were in the middle of a live variety show — zone out on camera and you humiliated yourself in front of the entire country.

"Nothing at all."

Seong-chan said it with the air of a man who had given up completely, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and sighed. This was clearly an empty-headed entertainment program produced under the explicit mission statement of proving that teenage idol singers had nothing between their ears — so of course that was exactly the answer they wanted.

Through the monitor he watched his own words appear as subtitles, a thick line drawn underneath for emphasis.

"Then, next question."

Still — pitting a quiz-show champion against a bunch of celebrities? Whose idea was that? A rip-off of some Japanese format? The losers had to perform ridiculous punishments, and Seong-chan genuinely could not understand why a singer was supposed to do any of this. Even the token lessons the agency provided as a formality would have been better than this.

In the end, the quiz show finished with Zen's defeat. The losers endured their humiliating penalties and finally escaped the studio.

"What the hell — we're over time. Next is a music-show interview, so get your makeup done in the van!"

The manager shoved Zen's members into the vehicle. At the station entrance, a crowd of schoolgirl fans who had already formed ranks swarmed forward. The members of Zen looked at the girls with blank, weary faces, then switched on their service smiles and waved.

For all the abuse they took online, it wasn't as if they never thought about their futures. After Oceans fell, Zen would rise… and after Zen fell, something else would replace them. Idol singers would keep being supplied, and those girls would keep screaming for whoever came next…

But for now they had to project the pure, wholesome image the fans demanded. After all this suffering, it would have been nice if the money were actually good — but it wasn't. Every time the so-called fanatics did something stupid, the group caught the blame, the future held no promise, and even the immediate pay was nothing special.

"Ah, damn it."

Once they were inside the van and finally clear of the station, Song Mu-jin — as close as Zen had to a leader — pulled out the makeup kit. In principle a professional makeup artist should have handled this, but after they hired a woman and were photographed riding with her in the van, the extreme fans had assaulted her.