A Cold Death and a Warm Meal
A dump truck was rushing toward Yoon Gi-hwan, but there was nothing he could do. He could only wrap his arms around his head and curl into a ball, bracing for the impact.
He grimaced, waiting for the collision, but the impact never came. Instead, only the sharp, agonizing screech of brakes echoed through the air.
He looked up to see what had happened, but the headlights were too bright, blinding him. Then, a voice spoke from behind the glare.
"It would've fit the narrative perfectly if I'd just crushed you with the truck. What a shame."
A familiar voice. It was Seo Dae-hun.
"It was you. You son of a bitch."
Once Yoon Gi-hwan confirmed it was Seo Dae-hun, his arrogance flared back up. He was confident he could handle someone like Dae-hun. Besides, he had a weapon.
Yoon Gi-hwan reached into his waistband, pulled out his gun, and aimed it at Dae-hun.
"Fuck, I should've never let you run wild in Gunsan. Die now. Go say hello to your father."
Click. Click-click-click.
Yoon Gi-hwan pulled the trigger repeatedly, but only the dry click of an empty chamber answered.
Confused, he turned the gun upside down to inspect the magazine well.
"Look at that. You can always tell who hasn't served in the military. Who the hell looks down the barrel to see why a gun won't fire? Dumbass."
"What?"
"There's no magazine in there. I came to give it back to you."
"What did you say?"
Before he could finish, Dae-hun lunged.
Yoon Gi-hwan tried to block, but he was already in his fifties. After spending so much time in the freezing sea, he was no match for Dae-hun.
The gun was snatched away in an instant, and Yoon Gi-hwan was slammed onto the asphalt, groaning in pain.
"Ah... Ah..."
Dae-hun squatted down beside the groaning man.
"Do you know why I didn't crush you with the truck? Why I actually slammed on the brakes to keep you alive?"
"..."
"If I ran you over, your pain would be too brief. I felt bad about that. So I changed my mind at the last second."
"What the fuck..."
"The weather is beautiful today. Perfect for a swim."
"What crazy bullshit are you talking about? It's late autumn. And it's the middle of the night!"
"Just enjoy a night swim. It's nice. When else will you get an opportunity like this?"
"I'm going to freeze to death, you crazy bastard! What swim?!"
"I'm making you swim so you freeze to death."
"What?"
"You're going to die of hypothermia now. Shivering and shaking in the water."
"You think I'll actually get in? Not a chance."
"Don't worry. I'll throw you in myself."
"You psycho..."
Yoon Gi-hwan threw another punch at Dae-hun, but it was utterly weak—so weak it wouldn't even hurt.
Dae-hun stood still and took the blow.
"Are you done now? No more regrets?"
"Get lost, you son of a bitch."
"Alright. Shall we go die now?"
Dae-hun dragged Yoon Gi-hwan to the edge of the seawall and tossed him straight into the sea.
Splash.
The late autumn sea was brutally cold.
"Aaaaargh!" Yoon Gi-hwan screamed.
"You've been feeling sleepy and dazed for a while, right? That's the early stage of hypothermia. Your face is pale."
"Cut the bullshit!"
Yoon Gi-hwan kept trying to climb back onto the land, but Dae-hun blocked him. As long as Dae-hun stood there, climbing up was impossible.
Yoon Gi-hwan wanted to swim somewhere else, but he couldn't swim.
Even when he tried to move slightly to the side to climb up, Dae-hun followed him along the edge.
He could have tried swimming all the way back to Gunsan to escape Dae-hun, but the nearest point of Gunsan was over ten kilometers away.
Swimming ten kilometers across the open sea? Even for a skilled swimmer, that was an impossible feat. Especially in the pitch-black night.
"Fuck! Why are you doing this to me?! Huh?! Even when you were running wild in Gunsan, I let it slide because of our old ties! I let you make a living! Why are you doing this?! You ungrateful piece of shit!"
"Hahaha! Ungrateful? Aren't you the ungrateful one? My father took in a punk who did nothing but shake down people on the streets and made a man out of him, only for you to betray him. Why did you do it? Why did you do that to my father? It's not like he ever mistreated you."
"Bwahaha! Why? Why do you think? For the money, of course! If Brother Mun-sik had just a little more business sense, he wouldn't have died like that."
"Right. My father died because he lacked business sense. And you're dying because you have too much of it. Fuck, life is tough. You die if you don't have it, and you die if you do."
"Let's not do this. You've done enough. Pull me out. You should take over Geumho-pa now. I always knew you'd return to us. That's why I was just holding onto it for you until then. It's yours to inherit now."
"Hahaha! A guy who 'held onto it' stabbed me in the back? If I inherited Geumho-pa twice, I'd end up in pieces."
"No! It's a misunderstanding! Just pull me out!"
"Let's try to get along from now on."
"I... I'm s-so c-cold..."
His speech was slurring. It was one of the symptoms of hypothermia. A moderate stage. It would only get worse from here.
The freezing sea rapidly drained his body heat.
Dae-hun stood in the cold wind, watching Yoon Gi-hwan slowly die of hypothermia.
How much time had passed?
Yoon Gi-hwan's pupils dilated, and his face turned stark white.
"Br-Brother Mun-sik... Hello... Good to s-see you after so long..."
He was hallucinating. Was he mistaking Dae-hun for Seo Mun-sik?
His movements grew weaker and weaker. He stopped even trying to climb up.
He lost consciousness.
No breath. No movement.
Dae-hun kicked the lifeless, still body of Yoon Gi-hwan with all his might.
Unable to resist, Yoon Gi-hwan's body drifted away.
Slowly, bit by bit, he drifted further from the seawall, floating out into the West Sea.
Geumho-pa, once the absolute authority in Gunsan, crumbled overnight.
Was it because they had held the throne for too long without any challengers? Or was it because Yoon Gi-hwan's influence had been too absolute?
Left without a captain, Geumho-pa rapidly fractured from within, and an internal power struggle erupted.
Because Yoon Gi-hwan had held all the power in his hands, his disappearance brought out hyenas from every corner, all fighting to claim the vacant throne.
An era of warring states unfolded in an instant.
At first, they hesitated, fearing Yoon Gi-hwan might return. But when days passed with no word from him, they quietly drew their blades.
Deluded by the fantasy that they could take over the organization, minor factions with barely any muscle joined the fray to seize the crown.
A bloody, brutal civil war raged within the syndicate.
As a result, no one could claim the throne; they only bled each other dry.
Just as everyone was exhausted from the endless fighting, Daehun-pa made their move.
It was a textbook house-cleaning.
Without being able to mount any proper resistance, Geumho-pa was completely absorbed by Daehun-pa.
The Gunsan Nightclub. It was the club managed by Jo Dong-jin.
Jo Dong-jin had also joined the war and suffered severe losses.
He had hoped to quietly claim two karaoke bars during the chaos, but he wasn't the only one eyeing them.
Pests swarmed from all directions, and in the end, he couldn't even secure a single bar. He barely escaped with his life, and several of his men were severely injured.
He had barely managed to retreat to his nightclub when Seo Dae-hun marched in, demanding the club.
To Jo Dong-jin, this was an incredibly heavy burden.
To be honest, he didn't know the extent of Dae-hun's fighting skills, and his own physical condition was far from optimal.
It was a fight he wanted to avoid.
"You came all the way here? Can't you just pretend you didn't see this place and walk on by?"
"I was going to, but the stench of trash coming from this place was too strong to ignore."
"You still talk like a piece of shit. Should I have beaten you harder back then?"
"I think I took plenty of beatings back then. You only stopped because you got tired of swinging."
"Did I? My memory is a bit hazy since it was so long ago."
"Let me ask you one thing. Why did you beat me so badly back then?"
"Are you fucking stupid, or just slow? You really didn't know? Yoon Gi-hwan ordered it. He paid us a few ten-thousand won bills and told us to make sure you couldn't even lift your head. I didn't have any personal grudge against you."
"I see. Now I know. I guess I really was a bit stupid."
"So, what are you going to do now? Do I just hand over the keys to this place?"
"Well, that's a given. But I'd also like to collect some interest on the beatings I took for that money."
"Isn't handing over the operating rights of this nightclub enough interest?"
"Come on now. I'm taking it from you anyway, so why are you acting like you're doing me a favor? Fuck, you almost made me bow in gratitude."
"What?"
"What do you mean 'what,' you dumbass? You're not giving me the operating rights; I'm taking them. So don't put that on the scale. Put something else on it."
Jo Dong-jin scoffed, pulled out his wallet, and tossed it onto the table.
"I've always spent money like water, so I don't have much. Take this if you want."
"Hahaha. Do I look like a beggar to you? Picking up scraps like this? Man, if I knew you were this funny, I would've tried to be friends with you sooner. What a shame."
"So what the fuck do you want?"
"An arm and a leg."
"What? You crazy bastard, watch your mouth."
"I'll let you choose which side, though."
"You think I'll just take this lying down? I'm Jo Dong-jin. The mad dog of Gunsan."
"A mad dog needs a good beating. Pain is the only medicine. If you don't choose, I'll choose for you."
"You motherfucker!"
Jo Dong-jin lunged, throwing a punch.
It was a raw, unrefined punch—one with no technique, relying solely on raw physical strength. A stagnant punch that had never improved.
Dae-hun lightly dodged the fist, threw a left jab, and then opened his hand at the last second to slap him across the face.
Slap! Slap!
Being slapped instead of punched infuriated Jo Dong-jin, but he had no way to block it. The slaps came from bizarre angles, completely unpredictable.
At first, he was just humiliated by the slaps, but as they kept landing, the damage began to accumulate.
To be slapped, of all things... His mouth was cut inside, and his cheeks burned.
Jo Dong-jin could barely land a blow.
Thinking about it, distance was the issue. He couldn't give the agile Dae-hun any space. Because of the distance, Dae-hun's superior speed was picking him apart.
He had to close the gap.
Jo Dong-jin lunged into Dae-hun's chest.
Dae-hun smirked as he watched Jo Dong-jin rush in.
He drew a knife from behind his back.
Huh?
Jo Dong-jin tried to stop, but his momentum carried him too far forward.
The cold bite of the blade slid deep under Jo Dong-jin's right armpit.
"Aaaaargh!!!"
"You'd better start practicing how to use chopsticks with your left hand if you want to feed yourself."
"Aaaaargh!"
"And to use a crutch properly with your left hand, it makes sense to take the left leg, right?"
"Let go of me!!! Let go!!! You son of a bitch!"
Ignoring Jo Dong-jin's screams, Dae-hun swept his leg, slamming him onto the floor.
Dae-hun pinned the fallen Jo Dong-jin down and grabbed his left leg.
"It was fun when you were beating the shit out of me, wasn't it? Consider this payback for everything you did. Enjoy it, you bastard."
Dae-hun sliced clean through Jo Dong-jin's Achilles tendon.
"Aaaaargh!"
Jo Dong-jin's agonizing screams echoed through the club, but no one stepped forward. No, no one could step forward.
Not only were they already battered from their previous battles, but Dae-hun's men were also blocking them from interfering.
Dae-hun stood up. He looked at Jo Dong-jin's men, who were merely watching the scene unfold.
"Anyone who wants to fight, step up. Loyalty, duty, revenge—whatever your reason, I don't care. I'll take you on. But if you don't want to fight and want to serve under me... kneel."
Every single one of Jo Dong-jin's men in the room fell to their knees.
"Do you feel relieved?"
By the Gunsan sea, where the sound of crashing waves filled the air, I clinked my soju glass against Dae-hun's.
It had been a month since Geumho-pa was arrested. It was an incredibly short amount of time, but Daehun-pa had seized control of the entire Gunsan region in the blink of an eye.
They had absorbed Geumho-pa and integrated them into Daehun-pa.
There would undoubtedly be minor and major issues cropping up in the future, but those were problems for Dae-hun to solve.
My role was done. I had arranged the drug deal, snatched the drugs, and delivered them back by boat.
The rest was up to Dae-hun.
Dae-hun had achieved his revenge and expanded his organization, but his expression wasn't particularly bright.
His mind must be a tangled mess.
The same went for me.
The moment I killed Derrick Meyer was still vivid in my mind, but it wasn't a pleasant memory.
If only the seniors could come back to life... but what was the point of killing someone like Derrick Meyer? Still, I couldn't just let him go.
That was the nature of revenge.
Dae-hun was probably feeling the exact same way.
"I don't feel relieved at all. I don't know what it is. Everything went exactly as planned, but I feel empty inside. It's like I ate a full meal, but I still feel starving."
"That's because you only eat chicken breast, you idiot."
Dae-hun chuckled.
"Pfft. Is that so?"
"Yeah. You need some salt, some seasoning, some sauce to make it feel like a real meal."
"Is that why my stomach feels so empty? Because I didn't eat stuff like that?"
"Probably."
"Then should we have a real meal tonight?"
"Sounds good."
We feasted on the lavish spread of food before us.
The entire Daehun-pa syndicate held a celebratory dinner.
I didn't know if the food we ate tonight would truly fill the void in Dae-hun's heart.
But at the very least, it would give him the strength to take another step forward.
It would change his mood for tonight, and that was more than enough.