Chapter 63. A Half-Runner
Chapter 63. A Half-Runner
9:30 a.m.
“Ughyagyagyagyagya.”
Chanhyeok threw both arms up and stretched.
He couldn’t get used to this overnight shift no matter what.
Around 6 a.m., he got so insanely tired he didn’t have the energy to move even a finger, but near quitting time like this, his strength came back again.
He should go home and sleep hard, but once he got off work, it felt like such a waste to sleep.
If he slept and woke up, the exact same day would start all over again, and he hated that.
When people heard it was 24 hours on and 24 hours off, they said it sounded great—like he only worked fifteen days a month—but they were talking without knowing anything.
If he could at least doze properly while sitting in the chair all night, it would be a bit better, but with guests constantly calling—bring a towel, something doesn’t work, why is it so hot, why is it so cold—he couldn’t even sleep ten minutes properly.
What made it worse was cleaning rooms at dawn.
No matter how sloppy you did it, cleaning a room was hard.
Rooms from guests who checked out early in the morning were often so dirty they were hard to clean. Throwing up was basic, and rooms where bottles or glasses were broken, or where they ate food and drank and trashed the place, took at least thirty minutes no matter how fast he was.
With the counter phone ringing all the time, running back and forth and cleaning even one room left him drained.
At first, Chanhyeok tried to do things by the book—cleaning each room as it opened up and selling it right away—but before long he realized it was impossible.
His stamina just couldn’t hold.
So he worked his way no matter what anyone said.
If they wanted to fire him, then fire him.
But after those intimidating long-term guests moved in, the Owner and the Manager, who didn’t stop by the business much anymore, didn’t really say anything about Chanhyeok’s work attitude.
The Isu Gang dominated all of Seoul and the entire capital region.
For a while, Gong Seokmo, a mid-boss of the Isu Gang, came to Chanhyeok’s house every morning to make him go to work.
At the motel, Seokmo hyungnim had polite manners, but when it was just the two of them, he turned scary, so Chanhyeok couldn’t even imagine being late or absent.
Now they didn’t monitor his attendance every day like before, but after learning what kind of organization the Isu Gang was, Chanhyeok couldn’t even dream of quitting.
Even so, Chanhyeok didn’t think his current routine was that bad.
If anything, his past self who tried to quit such a good job looked foolish.
The long-term guests at the motel were beauties with looks better than celebrities.
What’s more, the trio of room maids were also unbelievably beautiful.
Chanhyeok was certain it would be hard to find beauties more beautiful than them anywhere.
Just looking at them made him happy, but he talked with them every day, and sometimes even ate at the same table with them.
Even without doing anything with them, it was a happy day after day for Chanhyeok.
Still, he had a worry.
He had no idea which one of them he should focus on.
He became close with Bella, who stayed first as a long-term guest, without any awkwardness, but with Bella he felt a kind of wall.
A concrete wall that was close, but that he couldn’t get past.
Chaerin, who was the most outstanding in beauty, was worse.
Chaerin seemed to have no interest in him at all. She looked so indifferent she wouldn’t even notice if he vanished one day.
So Chanhyeok eliminated those two from his list of potential girlfriends.
Among the long-term guests, Lauren was the most friendly and easygoing.
Not long ago, the two of them even had chicken and beer together.
At first, he had some hope it might be a date angle, but Chanhyeok, who had been rejected by women countless times, judged that day wasn’t a green light.
But so what.
With Bella or Chaerin, there wasn’t even room to dig in, but with Lauren, there seemed to be room.
The trio of room maids—his superiors.
Unlike the long-term guests, they were coworkers, which bothered him a little, but their beauty didn’t lose to the long-term guests at all.
Compared to Bella and Chaerin, it was a bit less, but by objective standards, they were beautiful enough to make your eyes spin.
Whenever they had a moment, even with nothing to do, they came to the counter and loafed around.
They seemed interested in him.
All three room maids had charm that was neck-and-neck, so Chanhyeok agonized over which one he should give his heart to.
A few days ago, something truly huge happened.
A CIA agent came looking for him.
They said they detected signs that a terrorist who entered the country was staying long-term at this motel, and they wanted reports on even minor incidents that happened here.
They also said they would pay him 10 million won a month as operating funds, and each time he reported, they would pay an additional allowance based on the information’s value.
He sometimes got confirmation calls from immigration or airports asking whether a foreigner with a certain name was staying at a hotel, but he never imagined an international intelligence agency would request cooperation while offering a huge sum.
Rather than shock, Chanhyeok felt joy at the CIA’s offer, and he cooperated actively.
And he immediately bought a used red sports car on installment.
Money, women, and a red sports car.
In a man’s life, if you took those three out, what mattered?
It was a huge relief he hadn’t quit the motel that day.
When Seokmo hyungnim suddenly barged in, beat him up, and forced him to go to work, it was basically a nightmare, but looking back, he was truly a benefactor in his life.
But who on earth was the terrorist? Chanhyeok thought about it, but nothing stood out.
The long-term guests were four: Choi Cheolmin, Chaerin, Lauren, and Bella.
Cheolmin and Chaerin were Korean, so they didn’t seem like terrorists, and the foreigners, Lauren or Bella, were the most likely. But Lauren, the American installation artist he talked with over chicken and beer a few days ago, really did seem like an artist.
Then the most likely suspect was Bella.
Thinking that, Chanhyeok observed Bella closely and submitted a report.
And the information fee that came back was only 50,000 won.
Compared to the 3 million won they paid when he sent what he talked about on his “date” with Lauren, it was a ridiculously small amount.
While he was thinking about that, the door of Room 303 opened roughly, and on the CCTV monitor he saw a man with a loan-shark bag slipped over one hand coming out.
The tattooed man, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, spat phlegm into the hallway while waiting for the elevator. Then he pulled out a cigarette and lighter and lit up.
In the past, Chanhyeok would have been nervous, worried those kinds of guests might pick a fight, but these days he wasn’t scared at all.
He was someone who served the boss and mid-bosses of Korea’s strongest organization as hyungnim.
He wasn’t a gangster, but he was about a half-gangster.
He could handle punks like that at Chanhyeok’s level.
“Hey! Mr. Employee. Take a look at this.”
As Chanhyeok was gearing up to give him a word, the smoking man from Room 302, who got off the elevator, held up the cola can in his hand and spoke.
At that rough tone, Chanhyeok’s bravado from a moment ago vanished. He pretended to be startled and asked politely. For a simple punk, the guy had presence.
“Sir, what seems to be the problem?”
“What problem and whatnot. What are you gonna do about this? The cola exploded in the fridge. It burst while I was sleeping—do you know how startled I was?”
When Chanhyeok looked, the cola can had frozen and burst.
In cheap motels, some fridges were weak and some, even set to cooling, ran like freezing. It looked like the cola in the fridge froze too hard and burst.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
When Chanhyeok bowed and tried to take the cola, the man glared and shouted.
“Look at this damn son of a bitch. Sorry? Is ‘sorry’ everything? You took all the money, the service is a mess, and you think one ‘sorry’ ends it? Who’s compensating me for being startled? Who’s the owner? Hey! Bring the owner out!”
At this point it was clearly a deliberate provocation.
At first he shrank a little from the man’s attitude, but anger surged up, and Chanhyeok said a word.
“Sir, this is a non-smoking area. First, please put out your cigarette—”
Smack.
Before Chanhyeok could finish, the smoking man’s hand whipped across Chanhyeok’s face.
It hit so hard that sparks flashed in Chanhyeok’s eyes.
“Non-smoking? Fuck off with that. Don’t say bullshit—bring the owner.”
The man gathered phlegm and spat onto the floor with a hocked sound.
“What are you doing, you?”
At that moment, Seokmo hyungnim came into the motel lobby, saw the scene, and spoke.
“Hyungnim!”
Chanhyeok, teary-eyed, quickly got up and stood behind Seokmo.
“Where’d this punk come from?”
“Huh? You a gangster?”
Seeing Seokmo, who looked ominous, the smoking man faltered.
“I’m with Mokpo Viper hyungnim’s—kghk—”
Before he could finish, Seokmo hyungnim threw a blazing slap.
Chanhyeok’s mouth fell open in shock at the sight of a grown man getting slapped and flying several meters. From a single slap, the smoking man’s mouth became a mess of blood, and it looked like a few teeth were gone too.
“This is Isu Gang territory, so stop acting up and get out. And pick up every bit of trash you threw on the floor!”
“Ugh… Isu Gang… I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you.”
The smoking man, who got dropped in one hit and tried to gather himself and spit venom, went pale when he heard the name Isu Gang.
Then he crawled, picking up his cigarette butt from the floor, unable to even raise his head, and hurriedly fled the motel.
“You’re earning money the hard way too.”
Seokmo stared at the fleeing smoking man, then clicked his tongue at the sniffling Chanhyeok.
“Boss isn’t out yet?”
“No, hyungnim. There’s still no sign.”
Swallowing down his sobs, Chanhyeok answered.
After hanging around gangsters, even he started to puff his shoulders up, but reality was harsh.
At least he shouldn’t be sniffing like this, but it was hard to hold back the bitter sobs that kept rising.
Just then the elevator doors opened, and Kang Chan appeared.
“Hello, Chanhyeok hyung!”
When Seokmo saw Kang Chan, the hyungnim who had been radiating the aura of a great general a moment ago bowed politely like a eunuch and couldn’t even lift his head.
Chanhyeok, who had wondered about that attitude for a while, wiped his tears, dragged Kang Chan into the office, and quietly asked,
“But seriously, why is everyone groveling like that to you? They seem even more afraid of you than Boss Cheolmin in Room 105.”
“Huh? Really? Aren’t they just people with good manners? They were like that from the start, weren’t they?”
Kang Chan tilted his head as he spoke.
To Chanhyeok, Kang Chan, whose memory was completely different from his, looked a bit lacking.
Driving the sports car with his hair whipping in the cold wind, Chanhyeok’s gloomy mood eased a little.
What happened right before he got off work was the kind of thing that happened all the time when you worked at a motel.
It was physically hard, but whenever something like that happened, he lost all affection for the job and wanted to switch careers.
Chanhyeok decided that next time something like that happened, he should sell the Isu Gang name first. And just in case, he needed a photo taken with Boss Cheolmin too.
When he got home, Chanhyeok couldn’t fall asleep.
Actually, today was an important day.
A high school friends gathering.
Chanhyeok’s hometown was Gangneung, and he once heard that the friends who settled in Seoul met up once in a while.
He was twenty-seven this year.
Chanhyeok quit school at eighteen, so a high school friends gathering was a burden.
When everyone else went to college and prepared for employment, he was stuck on the front lines of survival, scrambling to eat and live. So he never went even once.
But when he heard there was a gathering today and asked if he planned to come, Chanhyeok thought he absolutely had to go.
Just imagining himself showing up in front of friends he hadn’t seen in ten years, driving a red sports car, made his blood tingle.
After buying the car, he drove it a few times, but aside from commuting, he didn’t really have a use for it. He even thought maybe he became car-poor for this moment.
A few of the popular girls from high school were coming today too.
When they saw his sports car and showed interest, he would treat them coldly and aloofly.
Chanhyeok already had four beautiful girlfriend candidates, so he couldn’t spare attention for just anyone.
Thinking of the disappointed faces of his female classmates made his chest feel grand.
He should have slept a few hours, but maybe because he was excited, he didn’t sleep even a minute. He put on the suit he bought at an outlet, went to a salon to tidy his hair,
and practiced his daily finishing move: a smile and a wink.
Among friends in their late twenties, the best any of them could be doing was getting into a mid-sized company at most.
He was a hundred times better than them.
Armed with confidence, Chanhyeok headed out to the reunion location.
CIA monitoring room.
[Lee Chanhyeok. Went out. Location is a barbecue restaurant in Gangnam. It’s a high school friends gathering.]
“Identify everyone attending, and identify everyone who gathers on-site too.”
“Yes.”
The operators in the CIA monitoring room hurriedly began investigating and analyzing the related individuals.