Blood Night (1)
With a soft glide of the limousine, the door opened, and Sihyun stepped out wearing an utterly exhausted expression.
Yoona’s sticky, satisfied voice trailed after him from inside.
“See you next time~ Puppy♡”
Thud.
The door slammed shut, and the limousine vanished from Sihyun’s sight in an instant.
“Haa…”
Sihyun let out a long, deep sigh.
The price Yoona had demanded was simpler than he had feared, yet the process itself had been thoroughly creepy.
“N-no! Don’t touch me!”
“My, my~ Our little puppy, you weren’t imagining something dirty just now, were you? Heehee, look how red your face is♡”
“…!”
“Heehee, don’t be scared~ Puppy. That wouldn’t be so bad either, but I’m a little busy right now. So I’ve got a very simple favor to ask. You can manage this much, right?”
“…What is it?”
Click—!
And just like that, Sihyun ended up taking a selfie with Yoona and exchanging phone numbers.
When he briefly handed her his phone—
(Though “handed” was generous; she had practically snatched it.)
—she had fiddled with something beyond simply saving her contact, which left him vaguely uneasy…
Still, he was grateful it had ended there.
This is a cheap price to pay, all things considered…
Forcing himself to take comfort in the fact that he had obtained useful information without paying some horrific price, Sihyun shoved the creepy memory aside.
More time had passed than he realized.
It was already past three in the afternoon.
I’m screwed…
Sihyun hurried toward the office.
The moment he stepped inside, a freezing chill greeted him.
Sssss…
Yuri sat in the CEO’s chair with her arms crossed, staring him down with ice-blue eyes.
“…Why are you so late?”
Her tone was low, yet it carried unmistakable anger and suspicion.
“I clearly told you not to go around snickering and fooling around.”
“I-I didn’t!”
Sihyun denied it at once and tried to sound casual.
“I, uh, just ran late grabbing lunch.”
Even he knew how pathetic the excuse was, so his voice couldn’t help but tremble.
“…Hey.”
Just as Yuri opened her mouth with a murderous look in her eyes—
Bang—!
The office door flew open and a savior appeared.
“Boss—! Stop with that investigation… I mean, stop with whatever that work is and please process the piled-up approvals already—!”
Harin stormed in carrying a mountain of documents, plopped them on Yuri’s desk with a pitiful face, and wailed.
As always, her expression was pure exhaustion and irritation.
“You can play with Sihyun later! Just do this first—!”
Yuri’s brow furrowed hard.
“Haa… Oh Harin. You truly clueless bitch.”
She clicked her tongue, tore her gaze away from Sihyun, and reluctantly looked down at the papers Harin had shoved at her.
Sihyun let out a silent sigh of relief and offered silent thanks.
Whew—! Thank you, Harin noona!
The moment his first paycheck arrived, he decided, he was buying her a proper meal.
Before long it was quitting time.
Sihyun waited quietly beside Yuri, who continued wrestling with documents until the very end.
Still, when she actually works, she does it properly…
The mountain of papers that had covered the desk was already nearly gone.
He had briefly suspected she was just rushing through them, but—
“Couldn’t you just do it this fast normally?”
“Hmph. Doing it then or doing it now is the same.”
“I’m the one suffering here—!”
“Yeah, well, you’re not my part-timer.”
“Aaaargh—!”
—even while Harin screamed, she never once complained that the work was done wrong, so Yuri was clearly handling everything carefully after all.
“Hey. Let’s clock out.”
Leaving the still-wailing Harin behind, Yuri stood up.
“…Yes.”
Sihyun cast one last sympathetic glance at Harin, then followed Yuri out.
“Hey. You still not gonna tell me why you were really late?”
“I told you, I just ran late because I ate lunch.”
“Haa! And you expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“This little—?”
“Ack!”
Bickering and squabbling exactly like usual, they eventually arrived in front of Yuri’s officetel building.
Yuri stopped and turned to face him.
“Hey. Wanna grab dinner before you go?”
It was less an invitation than a declaration.
Yet Sihyun, as always—
“No.”
—rejected her flatly and without hesitation.
“Hah! Look at this guy playing hard to get.”
Yuri snorted as if she had expected exactly that and shook her head.
“I’m not playing anything. And I have to go see my mom anyway, remember?”
Sihyun muttered the excuse under his breath.
At that—
“Ah, right.”
Yuri nodded and added,
“Give my regards to your mother.”
“…Yes.”
With that short exchange, Sihyun gave a polite bow and turned away.
Yuri watched his back for a moment, then stepped inside the officetel.
But Sihyun’s feet did not head toward the hospital.
“DDD Street, please.”
He flagged down a taxi and gave the name of an unfamiliar entertainment district.
Daeho Clan…
Yoona’s words rose in his mind.
“Puppy, no matter how much those gangster bastards have lost their fear, going after a chaebol—especially something like Cheonryong—is basically suicide.”
He already knew that.
The first time one of Dongchul’s underlings had realized Yuri’s identity, they had immediately bowed and apologized.
“So what made those guys confident enough to touch not only you but Han Yuri as well? You get what I’m saying, right?”
They had a reliable backer. A powerful shadow behind them.
In other words, the odds were extremely high that someone from Yuri’s Cheonryong Group—the Han family—was connected to them.
That was why Yoona had given him the address of one of the clubs they managed.
Looks like I’ll have to face that old man again…
Sihyun thought of Dongchul.
They had clashed twice already, but interruptions had always prevented a true conclusion.
This time he needed a proper fight—not just a contest of strength, but a way to uncover the truth behind everything.
While those thoughts ran through his head, the taxi arrived at the destination and Sihyun stepped out.
After walking a short distance, he spotted the club entrance Yoona had described.
It was flashy, yet an oddly dank, sinister atmosphere clung to the place.
Whether from tension or something else, his heart was pounding faster than usual.
Sihyun straightened his clothes and, without hesitation, stepped alone into the club.
As Sihyun entered the club he wondered whether he should immediately attack the Daeho Clan members without a word, or try for a short conversation first and extract information.
He never got the chance to decide.
Because—
Boom—! Crash—!
“Gyaaah—!”
Clang—! Clatter—!
“Die! Die!”
—the club interior was filled not with music but with desperate screams and the sharp clash of metal.
The scene unfolding before his eyes was pure hell.
Under the flashing disco ball, shattered bottles and broken furniture littered the floor while dozens of men were locked in a savage free-for-all.
“You motherfuckers! Attacking us from behind like cowards…!”
“Drop dead, you son of a bitch!”
“Aaaargh—!”
Men in black suits mixed with another group wearing different insignia and clothes, trying to murder one another.
“S-spare me…!”
Thwuck—!
“Kehek…!”
Several bodies already lay on the floor bleeding out, and the air reeked of blood mixed sickeningly with alcohol.
“W-what the hell is this…”
Faced with the unexpected chaos, Sihyun could only freeze at the entrance.
Then a familiar, dialect-laced roar reached his ears, and his eyes naturally turned toward the sound.
“What the—! These damn idiot bastards for real!”
It was Dongchul.
Surrounded by several men, he was still holding his own with his trademark toughness and raw power.
Yet sweat and blood covered his face, and his breathing was ragged. Anyone could see he was locked in a hard fight.
At that moment Dongchul’s eyes met Sihyun’s. They widened in sudden shock.
“What…? What’re you doin’ here, kid? How’d you find this place?”
At Dongchul’s shout, one of the men trading fierce blows with him glanced over at Sihyun.
He had sharp eyes and a sly, snake-like face.
Looking back and forth between Dongchul and Sihyun, the man asked with a greasy smile,
“What’s this, Ma Dongchul? You know this guy?”
“Ah, I know the brat, but he ain’t got nothin’ to do with us! Leave him be!”
Dongchul waved his hands urgently, but the man only snorted.
“Heh! Saying that just makes me wanna mess with him even more.”
“Don’t you dare, damn it!”
Dongchul tried to stop him, but he was already fighting multiple opponents at once and simply couldn’t reach.
So the man shifted his target and turned fully toward Sihyun.
“Don’t know where this stray mutt crawled in from, but…”
Clear killing intent filled his eyes, and something that glinted with a sharp light was already in his hand.
“Die!!!”
The man charged straight at Sihyun.
And so a long, hellish night began.