Phase 1: That Slut Hui-gyeong (17)
“Gyeong-jun.”
Under the warm sunlight, dressed in nothing but a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, I called out to my friend from beneath the parasol.
“Yeah, Gyeong-hun.”
He answered right away. Grateful bastard. He’d been pissed at me last time, yet the second I reached out he took the call like nothing had happened.
“I did say I wanted to pour my focus somewhere else, but…”
“You did. That’s why I snagged this gig. Nothing beats work like this for making a guy forget whatever’s eating at him, even for a little while, Gyeong-hun.”
“Yeah, yeah, true enough. Still, I’d rather have something where I can just sink into my own thoughts… Hey! You can’t go over there~!”
“What good is sitting alone with your thoughts when the answers never come anyway… Hey, friend! I said don’t go over there!”
It had been over a week since that bitch Hui-gyeong ordered me onto a no-fap streak, and we were barreling straight toward two. The finish line was right in front of me—or so I kept telling myself while I gritted it out—but my eyes were pure whites and I was about two seconds from keeling over.
A healthy guy in his twenties gets so charged up after only two days without jacking off that he turns rough around the edges. So how the hell was I supposed to feel after a week and a half? Pure living hell.
Bus, subway, didn’t matter. The second a woman with a decent body or even a hint of perfume walked by, my cock-rod snapped to attention no matter what she looked like. And because the thing was already thick and heavy, I had to shove a hand into my pocket and haul it up, trying to keep the bulge under control.
If it had still been winter, who would have cared which way the head was pointing under a heavy coat? But we were sliding from spring into summer. I spent half my time hunched over, constantly checking whether anyone had noticed, nerves shot to pieces.
If my eyes so much as met a woman’s, my imagination had already stripped her from the waist down and jammed my cock all the way to her cervix, pumping seven loads inside her before I blinked. That was normal days. In front of Hui-gyeong it was a whole different level of impossible.
That bitch slept with my arm as her pillow every single night. If I came home late even once, Mom would call and ream me out until I scrambled back, washed up, and lay down. Then my little sister would curl against me, arm-pillow and all, grilling me about what she’d done that day and what I’d done, all while pressing that firm chest and those lower curves flush against my body. My dick would twitch and start dry-humping the air all by itself; staying sane was a lost cause.
I even stopped groping her tits or kissing her when we slept. She’d just call me cute and shove her chest harder against me, cooing and clinging even tighter.
After days of that torture I finally cracked, called Gyeong-jun, and begged him to find me some part-time job that would let me pour my nerves somewhere else. What he came back with was… supervising the pool at a kids’ café.
“Mister, he keeps splashing me!”
“You started it! The one who starts it is the bad one!”
“I only splashed once and you did it three times! So you’re worse!”
I literally had to focus every scrap of attention on the brats. It was a pool, so accidents were always one second away; the kids never listened for shit; and their moms clustered off to the side, watching to make sure we didn’t say a single wrong word to their precious angels. Fuck! I just wanted to quit the whole damn thing, this goddamn mess!
“Gyeong-hun, unclench your eyes.”
“Easy for you to say. You think I can?”
“Here.”
He handed me a pair of sunglasses and I put them on. Earlier one of the moms had given me grief for glaring at the kids, so I needed to hide my eyes somehow.
“By the way, Gyeong-jun, you’ve only been taking tame gigs lately?”
I kept my tone light, but I’d thought carefully before asking. He clicked his tongue, gave a bitter little smile, and answered.
“It’s not like I need quick cash the way I used to…”
“You’re not just ghosting Taeshik-hyung’s calls, right?”
“They come in. But if it was something we actually needed for, both of us would’ve been summoned ages ago.”
Underworld side-jobs had been worth the pain. Dangerous as hell, but grinding like dogs had been the seed money that let the two of us start trading stocks. We’d still pick up the odd job when cash ran short or boredom hit, but lately we’d cut it off cold. For Gyeong-jun, though—whose whole family was that world—calls kept coming from Taeshik-hyung, our old mentor and boss. Gyeong-jun seemed to be brushing them off just enough.
He could only do that because his father was a heavyweight in the underworld and Taeshik-hyung worked under the old man. No matter how much of a rising star Taeshik was, he wasn’t dumb enough to force the boss’s son into unnecessary heat. Still, back when we were active the two of us had been such a sharp pair that the organization sometimes shoved us half-forced onto jobs nobody else could handle. Those always came with Gyeong-jun’s father’s silent approval, so refusal wasn’t an option.
“Looks like he’ll call us in soon anyway.”
“Why?”
“Some little loach over in Gwanseo-dong, Gwanak-gu, has been acting up.”
“Ha… damn it.”
A sigh slipped out.
“What? Gwanseo-dong’s where I live.”
“Oh, right.”
“What kind of loach?”
“Kid who just graduated high school. Made a little money on dope and now he’s got no fear left in his eyes.”
“A punk like that doesn’t even need Taeshik-hyung. He’s just cleanup.”
Gyeong-jun shook his head.
“His moves are so fucked-up they’re entertaining. Hyung says he wants to watch a little longer.”
“How fucked-up?”
“He used to run with his older brother. They fought over a girl, so he sold her out. Showed the brother a video of himself doping her up and breaking her in, then dumped her in a brothel. Funny part is the brother was apparently serious about her. Now he’s half a ghost wandering around looking for the girl.”
That wasn’t just fucked-up. The kid was a ticking bomb with zero respect for hierarchy or lines. The fact they were leaving him alone meant—
“Taeshik-hyung’s having fun, huh.”
“Pretty much.”
“But what era is this that you can still sell a girl into a shop? In Korea?”
Gyeong-jun mimed pushing a syringe plunger into his own arm.
“I told you he doped her and fucked her. Game over.”
So he’d used the drugs as bait to shove her into the business. Once I understood, another sigh came out.
“We’ll get the call to clean him up soon.”
“That’s why I said get ready.”
“Dead?”
“Nyo-nyo. Alive.”
Fair enough. Murder wasn’t our specialty, and Gyeong-jun’s father had strictly forbidden it for us. Once that sadist Taeshik-hyung got his hands on the ticking bomb, the kid would be gone before the year was out. And since it was Gwanseo-dong—my neighborhood—I’d have to step up and handle it myself.
A sudden worry hit me. I’d have to warn Hui-gyeong and Mom to be careful when they went out. Especially Hui-gyeong—keep her from going anywhere alone if I could help it. Korea wasn’t the safe place it used to be. Gyeong-jun and I had helped make it that way, so the weight sat heavy on my chest.
I was just watching the kids on autopilot when Gyeong-jun nudged my side.
“Gyeong-hun, check over there.”
“When would I have time? Hey, that kid’s trying to climb the fence again!”
“I’ll watch the brats. Just take a quick look right—Dongtan-style check, check.”
That changed things. I snapped a glance to the right and, sure enough, there was a mom in nothing but a one-piece. The gray dress traced her chest, waist, and hip lines beautifully; the way her stomach curved down from that narrow waist—smooth, tight, and elegant—was especially striking.
“You looking, Gyeong-hun?”
“I’m looking, Gyeong-jun.”
“Fucking perfect, right?”
“Fucking perfect.”
“This is why you do a job like this.”
I could never agree with that. Watching kids was hard enough; doing the work just to sneak peeks at women—especially moms—didn’t feel like a smart trade. Still, even knowing she had a kid, I had to admit she was pretty. Only a woman who knew she was beautiful would show up at a kids’ café dressed like that.
But if we were talking Dongtan-style missy looks, our Hui-gyeong wore them better… and Mom wore them better still. Whiter skin, bigger chest and hips, and that clean line of stomach without a scrap of flab—Mom had Hui-gyeong beat there.
“Well, my Eun-sol’s still prettier.”
…I could never agree with that either.
Wait a second.
“‘My Eun-sol’?”
“That’s how it is now, man.”
“What the hell does ‘that’s how it is’ mean?”
“Haah, come on… What else? The woman named Han Eun-sol finally became mine. That’s what I’m saying.”
I just stared at him, mouth hanging open.
“That means… you’re not saying…?”
“Not ‘not saying.’ Definitely saying. Man Kim Gyeong-jun got it done~!”
“You got it done?!”
I yelped in shock. He slid his sunglasses down a fraction and winked at me.
“Hey, after the shift, drinks?”
Even from my closest friend, that wink was creepy as hell and a little nauseating. But I couldn’t refuse the devil’s temptation. I couldn’t even jack off, couldn’t touch Hui-gyeong—miserable as I was, hearing about my buddy’s successful conquest might ease the bitterness a little.
“Let’s go. I was a dick last time, so drinks are on me.”
Gyeong-jun nodded, satisfied.
“True friend right there, Gyeong-hun. Because it’s you, I’ll tell you everything that happened with Eun-sol—sex included, every dirty detail.”
Hey, don’t say that. My heart’s starting to pound.
“Mister, what’s sex?”
“What?”
“You said sex just now.”
A little boy who’d been splashing nearby looked up at Gyeong-jun with pure, innocent eyes. Panicked, Gyeong-jun denied it on reflex.
“I never said anything like that!”
“Yes you did! You said it~!”
“I didn’t. And that’s a bad word. Don’t say it.”
“Wow! It’s a bad word but you said it?”
“I said I didn’t!”
The kid latched on with zero mercy. Gyeong-jun knew exactly where this endless back-and-forth would end, so he tried to shut it down fast—but the boy finally darted off to his mother.
“Mom! Those misters keep saying sex-sex, what’s sex?”
“…What did you say?!”
Of course it had to be the Dongtan-style missy-look mom. The kids’ café owner was called over immediately. After a short, stubborn round of “we never said it” and “the kid misunderstood,” we barely escaped with the official conclusion that it was all a misunderstanding—and then we were kicked out.
No pay for the shift, either.
Fuck!