Daettal-bang Eden
I stopped in front of the elevator and pulled out my phone to call Eden.
A moment later, the same man's voice from earlier came through.
"Don't hang up. Get in the elevator."
"Huh? Okay..."
I hit the call button. The doors slid open and I stepped inside fast.
"Which floor?"
"Hold on."
The doors closed. A brief silence settled in.
Then something strange caught my eye.
Glancing at the floor panel, I saw the button for the third floor had been ripped clean out, bare wires dangling from the hole.
The elevator started moving.
I hadn't pressed a single button.
It passed the second floor and stopped at the third. When the doors opened, an enormous man stood at the entrance with his hands clasped behind his back.
Without a word he gestured for me to follow, then turned and walked ahead, still holding that pose.
Fucking asshole. Got a dick jammed in his mouth or what? Zero fucking manners.
I followed him in and the space opened up wide.
Straight across from the elevator was what looked like a hallway, a door with a digital lock standing wide open. Probably the rooms where they drained the clients.
I turned my head to the right. A massive table sat surrounded by sofas that could easily seat eight, and tucked in the far corner behind them was a counter.
I didn't get a good look, but a young guy with glasses who looked younger than me was standing there with his hands behind his back, staring hard at a monitor while some little shit in the counter chair clicked away at a mouse with his mouth clamped shut.
The little shit in the chair seemed to outrank the guy with the glasses.
I followed the huge man around the left corner past the elevator entrance and came to two small rooms that looked like waiting rooms. Pushing open a cowboy-style swinging door — the kind with the top and bottom cut out that you'd only see in Westerns — I stepped inside. In the far corner, a filthy CRT television covered in stains sat on a small table, with two-seater sofas flanking either side.
The huge man walked over to a sofa, dropped into it, and quietly lit a cigarette.
"Sssssssss~~~~ ha~~~~~, Sit down. Don't just stand there."
Hearing his voice as he blew out smoke and told me to take the opposite sofa, I nearly jumped.
It was the same voice from the park bench — the same voice from the phone call before I got in the elevator.
But fucking hell. When did we get close enough for him to talk down to me?
He'd used polite speech on the phone, but the second we met face to face he was spitting out informal speech like it was nothing. It suddenly pissed me off something fierce, but I was the one who needed this job, so I swallowed it and sat down across from him.
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-eight this year, sir."
"You know what kind of place this is?"
"Yeah, roughly..."
"It's a daettal-bang. A handjob parlor... Sssssssss~~~~ ha~~~~~"
I fucking know, you asshole. Got a dick jammed in your ear instead of your mouth, you piece of shit.
"Ever been to another place?"
"Yes. Went a few times with a hyung I know."
"You said you can start right away?"
"Yes."
"Pay's 1.2 million a month, plus ten thousand a day as a daily allowance when you clock out. One day off a week."
"Yes."
"We run from eight at night to four in the morning. Sometimes we wrap early. Sometimes the calls come in late and we run long."
"Yes."
"Alright. Let's get to work."
"Yes."
Having said his piece, the man took two quick drags, flicked the cigarette carelessly into the ashtray, and stood up. He gestured for me to follow and walked out ahead.
Even for a red-light operation, getting hired in under a minute left me dazed. But the die was already cast. All that was left was to grind it out.
I'd gotten fired from the massage parlor after just one month with no customers. But Eden was a top-tier daettal-bang in the area — one of the Big Four. If I could tough it out, even a middle-school dropout meathead like me wouldn't have to worry about putting food in my mouth.
And seducing the girls and fucking them on the side would just be a bonus.
Carrying that sense of anticipation, I followed the huge man out.
He retraced our steps, passed the elevator entrance, went past the massive table, and stopped in front of the counter.
"Hyungnim, he's starting work today."
The little shit in the counter chair — still staring at the monitor, still clicking the mouse — lifted his head and looked at me.
"Oh yeah? Damn, you're fucking tall. How tall are you?"
"Huh? Uh... 190."
"Hmm... Broad shoulders, tall, got some bulk on you... Alright. Do well."
"Yes, hyungnim."
The word slipped out before I knew it. It had to. The enormous man who'd just interviewed me was standing at attention and using honorifics, calling the little shit in the counter chair hyungnim.
This guy was probably the boss.
The man in the counter chair looked incredibly scrawny. He wore a long checkered shirt that swallowed his upper body. Even sitting down he looked short — overall, you could tell he was a tiny little shit.
But the sinister, oppressive aura radiating from that scrawny frame was sending danger signals straight to my brain. This was no ordinary punk.
Scanning his face, he looked like the kind of plain, featureless washbasin face you'd pass on any street — nothing distinctive about him. But as I casually studied his jawline, I spotted several scars that looked like they'd been cut.
One... two... three... four... Quite a few scars under his chin, like he'd taken knife wounds to the face, and one scar ran long from his jaw down his neck.
The moment I followed that scar around to the back of his neck, I understood why my instincts had flagged this bastard as dangerous.
A tattoo was faintly visible on the back of his neck.
Judging by the knife scars on his jaw and throat, he was clearly more than some street thug. Running the numbers in my overclocked brain, I reached a conclusion: this bastard was a gangster.
That explained why the enormous man who'd interviewed me had stood ramrod straight and used honorifics.
"You eaten yet?"
The tiny little shit in the counter chair looked me dead in the eye.
"Not yet, hyungnim."
"Dongpal, go feed the kid."
"Yes, hyungnim."
The tiny little shit turned his gaze and gave the order to the enormous man who'd interviewed me.
"Mackerel? Or spicy pork?"
"Spicy pork, hyungnim."
Having read the room, I sorted out the hierarchy in my head. Aside from the glasses-wearing guy who looked younger than me, it seemed wise to use honorifics with the other two. I was a civilian, plain and simple, and judging by the aura coming off them, these two were definitely gangsters. One wrong word out of my mouth and my life could end that very day.
"What about you?"
Dongpal-hyungnim looked at the glasses guy.
"I already ate, hyungnim."
Dongpal-hyungnim pulled out his phone, called somewhere, said "One spicy pork," and hung up. Probably a regular rice-and-sides place.
I'd been worrying about how to feed myself for a month with only a few thousand won in my pocket. But if they were giving me ten thousand a day as a daily allowance and buying me meals on top of that, I wouldn't have much to worry about.
"Beep~~~~~~ Beep~~~~~~~~~~ Beep~~~~~~~~~~"
An alarm blared so loud it felt like my eardrums would split.
"Ah, that fucking bitch!!"
The tiny little shit in the counter chair cursed the second the alarm went off, looking startled. He wasn't looking at his monitor — he was staring somewhere else. Following his gaze, I saw a bank of CCTV screens.
The parking lot outside. The building entrance. The first-floor elevator lobby. Inside the elevator. Some entrance on a floor I couldn't identify. The counter. The waiting room. Three cameras covering the corners of the hallway that presumably led to the working rooms. And one camera pointed at a tightly shut shutter door somewhere in the building.
On the screen showing the inside of the elevator, a woman was reaching toward the floor buttons, grabbing something and yanking on it. Probably those wires I'd seen when I got in.
"Hey. Tell that fucking bitch that even if it goes off once, we'll still send her up."
"Yes, hyungnim."
The glasses guy hurried over and pressed a round button mounted on the corner of the counter. I watched Dongpal-hyungnim hustle toward the elevator entrance.
A moment later the doors opened, and the fucking bitch who'd pissed off the tiny little shit in the counter chair made her appearance.
Dark brown dyed hair in a ponytail, a white sleeveless top that left her shoulders bare, and skinny jeans that showed off every curve of her lower body — a slender woman strutted down the hallway with a pretty decent figure.
"Just press it once. Just once."
"Yes~"
"You've got an eight o'clock reservation, so get ready right away."
"Haaaah... Okay..."
At the news that she had a reservation right away, the fucking bitch looked dejected. She answered weakly with her head down and disappeared down the hallway.
Our eyes met for a brief moment, but she didn't even bother with a greeting — just ignored me completely and walked off.
Fucking bitch looks delicious.
It was only a split second, but scanning her face, she looked pretty damn good. I'd have to strip her to know for sure about the body, but looking at how those skinny jeans fit, her lines were nice and she was slim. That level was worth fucking about a hundred times.
After Dongpal-hyungnim finished talking to her and came back, a heavy silence settled over the counter. The tiny little shit kept staring at the monitor with a rigid expression, still clicking the mouse, while Dongpal-hyungnim, the glasses guy, and I stood there with our mouths zipped shut.
Just when the silence was becoming unbearable, the tiny little shit at the counter finally stopped clicking and slowly stood up.
"Ahhhhhh, fuck. Let's go hit the sauna."
"Yes, hyungnim."
He stretched big and gave the order to Dongpal-hyungnim. Just as I'd expected, he was tiny — roughly estimating, he barely looked over 160. Watching a little shit like that get called "hyungnim" so respectfully by Dongpal-hyungnim, who was bigger than even me, made me curious about his identity. But I already had a rough sense he was a gangster, and figured I'd find out naturally over time, so I decided to just watch for a while.
Dongpal-hyungnim followed the tiny little shit who'd gotten up from the counter, and the glasses guy trailed after Dongpal-hyungnim. I had no choice but to fall in behind the glasses guy.
Fuck, this is bullshit.
Dongpal-hyungnim pressed the elevator button. The doors opened, and the little shit from the counter walked in with his hands behind his back. Dongpal-hyungnim followed him in, and the glasses guy bowed at a full ninety degrees toward the two hyungnims.
"Have a good trip, hyungnim!"
"Yeah. Train him well."
"Yes, hyungnim!"
The elevator doors closed, leaving just the glasses guy and me at the counter.
Without a word, the glasses guy hurried over, dropped himself into the exact seat the tiny little shit had occupied, and quietly lit a cigarette. Then, except for when he was dragging on it, he kept his mouth zipped shut, moving the mouse around and staring intently at the monitor.
I stood there blankly watching him. This fucking bastard was making damn sure I understood that now that the two hyungnims were gone, he was the boss of this place.
Curious about what he was staring at so hard, I quietly moved behind the chair he was sitting in. Then I turned my gaze to the monitor — and a chill ran through my entire body.
At the end of that little shit's gaze, as he kept pounding cigarettes with a solemn expression and staring at the screen, was an article titled Seven Muses' Sena: Breathtaking Rear View, complete with a sexy group photo of the girl group.