Absolute Asshole
“Punch in the number.”
“Yes, hyungnim.”
When Dongpal hyungnim barked the order, Jeonghun glanced at the reservation memo, hammered the keyboard, and hit Enter.
The memo that popped up on the monitor looked ordinary enough—a guest who’d registered recently and already visited Eden three times.
“What room?”
“Room 3, hyungnim.”
The second Big Boss heard that, he shot out of his seat and vanished down the hallway.
“You fucking piece of shit! You dog-fucking—”
The door slammed hard enough to rattle the walls, and Big Boss’s string of curses rolled all the way back to the counter before cutting off mid-roar.
Whatever the guest or Big Boss was throwing down didn’t matter to me. What did matter was Dambi—she’d almost gotten force-fucked, and I was worried about her.
I flipped open my phone and fired off a message.
I would’ve preferred to walk straight into the girls’ waiting room, but the counter atmosphere had turned pure poison. Even Dongpal hyungnim—normally a poker face—had his fists clenched so tight the knuckles were white, staring down the hallway like he was ready to murder the bastard on sight.
I stared a hole through the phone, waiting, but the little “1” never disappeared. I sent another message out of pure impatience. Dambi kept ghosting me. I was about to close the phone when the “1” finally vanished—yet the reply I wanted never came.
I’d already been pissed, but seeing her like this made the urge to beat that forced-entry motherfucker to death surge hard. The whole place had gone to shit because of that asshole, and that was only half of it. The way Dambi had dressed for work today—tight, sexy, deliberate—I’d been sure she came ready to get fucked. All night I’d been running simulations in my head on exactly how I was going to take her. That fantasy was the only thing that kept me grinding through the chaos.
On top of that, we had a group dinner planned after closing.
“Get the fuck out! Get out here, you piece of shit!”
The door exploded open again and Big Boss’s curses flooded the entire shop once more. Sounded like he’d already given the guy a proper beating inside the room.
A second later Big Boss appeared at the counter, dragging a suit-wearing bastard by the neck. He jabbed the elevator button himself, shoved the guest inside, and slammed the doors shut.
The motherfucker who’d tried to force his way into Dambi’s pussy wandered around the first floor for a while, smoked a cigarette, then disappeared. That piece of shit would never set foot in Eden again.
“How many more reservations?”
“Seven at two-thirty… seven at three… three at three-thirty, hyungnim.”
Big Boss came back to the counter and asked. Jeonghun checked the memo and answered.
“Cancel three-thirty and close up.”
“Yes, hyungnim.”
Big Boss dropped into the counter chair, lit a cigarette in silence. Jeonghun picked up the shop phone and delivered the thunderbolt news to the three-thirty group that they were getting cut. It was clearly a decision made out of consideration for Dambi after the absolute asshole incident. Three rooms meant ninety thousand won gone just like that—and on a Friday night, with the remaining slots almost guaranteed to fill, he was basically throwing two hundred ten thousand into the air. That was the kind of call only a real boss could make. At the same time I wondered what would’ve happened if Jeonghun and I had been the ones facing that situation alone. We probably would’ve lost it, beaten the bastard to death, buried him in the mountains, and ended up as a one-line item on the nine o’clock news—“Handjob parlor murder case”—and that would’ve been the end of our lives.
The two-thirty guests started rolling in one after another. We stuffed them into empty rooms, then I picked up the landline that connected to the girls’ waiting room and hit zero.
“Dambi-ssi, room 5. Hyojin-ssi, room 2.”
No answer. The line just went dead.
What the fuck, who was that?
Right now the waiting room only had Dambi—who’d already come out early after the asshole incident—and Hyojin, who’d just finished sucking dick. Even a rude, rice-with-attitude bitch like Hyojin would at least answer before slamming the phone down. She’d never just hang up without a word. A bad feeling crawled up my spine.
Was it Dambi…?
I didn’t even have time to process it. More guests kept flooding in and I was buried until closing time. Big Boss and Dongpal hyungnim both stayed until the end tonight—unusual for them.
“Finish up and come down.”
“Yes, hyungnim.”
Jeonghun handed Big Boss the night’s take. The bitches still hadn’t crawled out of the waiting room.
“Repair guy’s coming tomorrow for the hallway CCTV. Keep an eye on it.”
“Yes, hyungnim.”
Dongpal hyungnim mentioned the cameras to Jeonghun. Come to think of it, we had feeds from the parking lot outside, the first-floor lobby, inside the elevator, the counter, the corners of the guest-room hallway, the locked shutter next to room 8, even some random floor entrance—plenty of screens. But there was no camera covering the front of the guest-room doors head-on. The missing one had always felt weird. We’d just relied on the sound of the girls’ heels to guess when they went in or came out. Looking at the monitors now, the four screens on the far left were completely dead. Those had to be the hallway front cameras they were fixing. I’d never really felt the inconvenience before, so why suddenly fix them now—right after Dambi got hit with that absolute asshole? I was curious as hell. Thanks to that blind spot I’d been able to grab Dambi’s ass and feel her up in the hallway whenever she came to work.
Big Boss and Dongpal hyungnim went down first in the elevator to get the cars for the girls. Then the hostesses who’d spent the night happily sucking dick started crawling out one by one.
“Thank you for your hard work.”
“Yes~ Thank you, Manager~ You too, oppa~”
No matter how fucked the shop atmosphere got, Pureum was always bright and cheerful. They came out one after another, took their money, and headed down. Dambi still hadn’t appeared.
Nabi walked up to the counter with a stiff face. Something was off. She was usually cold, but she’d at least answer if you spoke to her. Jeonghun handed her the money, looked her straight in the eye, and said “good work”—and she completely ignored him, took the cash, and rode the elevator down without a word.
Did that bitch take something…?
Jeonghun’s reaction was even weirder. He’d just been ignored after saying good work, yet instead of getting mad he was bowing his head and fretting like he was terrified of her.
What the fuck is going on?
There was clearly something I didn’t know.
All the other bitches cleared out. Dambi finally came to the counter last. Her face didn’t look as bad as I’d expected. I’d crossed paths with her once in the hallway after the incident, but I’d been too busy to say anything.
“Good work today, Dambi-ssi. We’re fixing the CCTV tomorrow.”
“…”
She took the money from Jeonghun, turned without a word, and rode the elevator down. Our eyes met for a second. She didn’t say a single thing.
“What happened?”
“Yes, hyungnim…”
I waited for whatever was about to come out of Jeonghun’s mouth, but the bastard just heaved a sigh that could’ve cracked the floor and trailed off. I couldn’t push any further.
When I got downstairs the bitches were each smoking a cigarette, talking shit. Big Boss’s car, Dongpal hyungnim’s car, and Nabi’s car pulled into the parking lot and honked. Do-yeon climbed into the front seat of Dongpal hyungnim’s Santa Fe; Jeonghun and I took the back. The rest of the pussies rode with Big Boss and Nabi like always. I’d always wanted to try Big Boss’s BMW 750Li, but that wasn’t happening anytime soon.
Dongpal hyungnim’s car pulled out. The atmosphere was pure shit—nobody said a word.
“Manager… please look after the girls a little more carefully.”
Do-yeon, who’d kept her mouth zipped shut the entire ten minutes and hadn’t even spoken to Dongpal hyungnim, suddenly shattered the silence. Four people had sat in that car for ten minutes without a single word.
“Huh?”
I had no idea what she was talking about and shot back on reflex. I looked after the shop’s girls more than anyone—especially Dambi, following Big Boss’s advice to take “special” care of her.
“You didn’t tell him?”
“Yes, hyungnim?”
Dongpal hyungnim unzipped his mouth.
This bastard knew something too.
“Dambi stuck her hand out the door and knocked, trying to get out of the room. You didn’t know?”
“First I’m hearing of it, hyungnim.”
“That motherfucker was wrestling her so she couldn’t leave. She stuck her hand out and knocked for help.”
The sky felt like it was caving in.
“Nobody came, so she couldn’t even grab her clothes. She forced him off and just walked out bare… you fucking hear me?”
Dongpal hyungnim, who almost never cursed, mixed in swears as he dropped the bombshell. Hearing it for the first time was one thing—the content coming out of his mouth froze my brain solid. That meant Dambi—who was basically my personal fucktoy—had been about to get her pussy forced open, had begged for rescue, and I’d completely missed it and ghosted her.
“…I know you didn’t do it on purpose. Just pay more attention from now on.”
“Yes, hyungnim. I’ll be more careful…”
Jeonghun, who’d also been silent, answered in a voice that barely crawled out of his throat.
So the sudden CCTV repair was because of Dambi too. If there had been a camera covering the front of the doors, we would’ve seen her sticking her hand out and knocking clear as day. Strength drained out of my whole body. Helplessness hit hard. I was only the junior manager, but after three weeks I’d started adapting, even getting confident. I was sure I could protect the pussies I planned to fuck. Yet right under my wide-open eyes—even if I hadn’t seen or heard it—my pussy had almost gotten forced open by some other dick. Worse, looking back, almost every girl, plus Jeonghun, Dongpal hyungnim, and Big Boss, had all known the full story and still left me in the dark.
This is fucking dogshit.
More than anything I was scared Dambi’s feelings toward me had soured. She was finally ready to give me her pussy, and in a crisis she’d asked for help only to get ignored by a useless bastard. What pussy would open up for a guy like that?
“…If the managers take good care of them, the girls can work with peace of mind.”
I was already feeling it bone-deep without the confirmation kill, but the bitch still had to pile on.
Jeonghun and I said nothing. About ten minutes later we arrived at the same restaurant we’d used for the last dinner. Inside it was packed even though it was only around four. When Jeonghun said twelve people, the ajumma told us to wait outside for a bit. We all spilled back out. I squatted in a quiet corner away from the group and quietly lit a cigarette. Dambi was standing a little ways off, surrounded by Nabi and Dongpal hyungnim, talking about something.
Fuck, am I about to get fired over this?
The atmosphere had frozen solid because of Jeonghun and me. From what Dongpal hyungnim said, getting fired seemed unlikely, but the anxiety wouldn’t leave. I was almost done with the cigarette when the ajumma came out and said a table was free. We were led to a floor-seating room and sat down. Big Boss took the head seat, Dongpal hyungnim and Nabi on either side. On Dongpal’s side sat Jeonghun, me, then Hyojin and Eun-ha.
Of course the most fucking annoying bitch has to sit right next to me.
On Nabi’s side, Dambi sat next to Nabi, then Do-yeon, Pureum, Kkotnim, and Mi-ho in order. After the near-catastrophe of almost getting her pussy forced open, they’d probably put her between Nabi and Do-yeon to help her recover and give her some encouragement. With seating like that, tonight’s dinner was already looking like a complete waste of time.
Side dishes, soju, and beer got set out roughly. Jeonghun stood up with a stiff face and poured everyone a glass.
“We’ve got a new family member. Take good care of her from now on.”
Big Boss’s short toast ended and everyone knocked back a shot. The “new family” was probably Pureum. I glanced at her—she already seemed pretty close with Kkotnim and looked happy.
“Hyungnim, please have a glass.”
Jeonghun poured soju into Big Boss’s empty cup. Honestly I couldn’t say we were completely blameless, but Jeonghun was taking the full heat right alongside me and suffering for it. Eight pussies sitting right there and I had to share drinks with another dick… suddenly I felt ridiculously pathetic.
“Yeah, thanks.”
I downed the drink Jeonghun poured, then filled his glass in return. Two dickheads who’d turned into complete retards sat there trading cups at lightning speed without a single word, even though eight pussies were right in front of them. The bitch next to me—Hyojin—had her head completely turned toward Eun-ha. She wouldn’t even make eye contact, let alone clink glasses. Just a pretty-faced piece of dogshit, as always.
“I’m going to smoke a cigarette, hyungnim.”
“Yeah, go get some air. Your face is red.”
I told Big Boss and stepped outside the restaurant. All I wanted was for this shitty dinner to end already. I squatted down roughly and quietly lit up.
“Could I have one too, Manager?”
A pussy’s voice came from behind me. I turned my head. Kkotnim’s assistant, Mi-ho, was staring straight at me.