The Kidnapping of Park Dahyun
A few hours after the kidnapping of Park Dahyun, inside the Burning Island club.
Seunghun, having just finished his concert, entered the office and collapsed onto the sofa with a heavy thud. “Ugh, that was brutal.”
Slumped on the sofa with his eyes closed, Seunghun took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. At that moment—
“Director. Mr. Jung Jinyong and Mr. Choi Junghoon have arrived.”
The sound of someone knocking on the office door was followed by a man’s voice. Seunghun called out to the man who had knocked.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and Jung Jinyong and Choi Junghoon entered, each carrying a bottle of liquor.
“Whoa, great work out there, Victory!” Jinyong grinned as he set the bottles down on the table. Seunghun looked at him.
“Thanks for coming, man. But hyung, I heard you suddenly did a signing event in the lobby??”
“Don’t even get me started. I spotted this insanely hot girl and told her it was for casting, then tried to take her with me. But the guy next to her kept refusing and trying to drag her away. While I was still trying to get her, some bitch recognized me and started yelling at the top of her lungs…”
“You personally tried street casting and she turned you down?”
“The girl herself didn’t seem completely against it, you know? But that guy kept blocking me. I don’t know if he was her boyfriend or her brother.”
Jinyong unscrewed the cap of the whiskey bottle on the table, poured a glass, and handed it to Seunghun.
“Didn’t you say you had a girl you’d already marked for yourself?”
“I do, but… I’m not sure when I’ll be able to grab her.”
Just then, the man who had come with Jinyong and Junghoon spoke to Seunghun.
“Actually, that girl you marked came to the director’s concert today.”
Song Taewon. Burning Island Operations Manager.
Seunghun’s eyes widened as he stared at Taewon.
“She did? She came to my concert? Then why the hell didn’t you bring her in immediately? What were you doing?!”
“I saw her too, but I hesitated to approach… That girl you marked was standing right next to the son of the Gangryonghoe boss.”
Seunghun’s face twisted into an incredulous scowl. Jinyong let out a short laugh.
“Gangryonghoe? Aren’t they just a bunch of gangsters? If we call in even one of the prosecutors we have in our pocket, they’d all get torn apart. What’s there to be scared of?”
“One prosecutor? Even if the Chief Prosecutor himself showed up, we couldn’t touch them. It’s not just their size—their connections are insane. They have lines into the police, prosecutors, National Assembly members, and even the National Intelligence Service.”
Junghoon chimed in. “Then we can just call in the organizations we’re connected to. Those guys from Taiwan… what were they called again?”
“They were the Honglyeonbang.”
“Right, Honglyeonbang. What if we bring them and the yakuza from Japan to smash them? You fight gangsters with gangsters, damn it.”
“The Gangryonghoe also has connections with overseas organizations. In terms of international ties, they actually hold an overwhelming advantage over us.”
Seunghun’s expression grew tense as he finally recognized the danger. He swallowed dryly and asked Taewon in a strained voice.
“If that girl really is the Gangryonghoe boss’s son’s girlfriend…?”
“Well… we can only pray she dies quickly and painlessly. But considering two of our operatives still haven’t reported in… I suspect they already tried to approach her and got taken out.”
The three celebrities stiffened at those words. Seunghun asked Taewon again.
“Manager Song. Can you get me a gun?”
“A gun?”
“Yeah. A gun. I need something for self-defense.”
Jinyong immediately pressed him. “Hey. What about ours??”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it. I’ll buy some for you guys too. And I’ll assign bodyguards.”
“Understood. But acquiring them will take some time.”
“Then can’t you just lend me yours for now? You got one recently, right?”
Taewon’s eyebrows twitched as he looked at Seunghun.
“……My gun?”
“Just until ours arrive. And once they do, I’ll pay you fifty million as a rental fee. So just lend it to me for a bit, yeah?”
“……Sigh…”
After a moment of reluctant silence, Taewon let out a long breath, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a second-generation Glock 17 pistol. He handed it to Seunghun.
Seunghun took the handgun, stared down at the weapon in his grip, and broke into an unpleasant smile. He muttered to himself.
“Gangryonghoe, you sons of bitches. Come if you dare… I’ll bury every last one of you.”
Jinyong let out a sigh of relief now that he knew he could carry a gun for protection. Junghoon turned to Jinyong.
“By the way, how’d the concert go in terms of the harvest?”
“We’ve secured ten so far. One more is the girl I missed earlier—I’ve got someone tailing her now.”
At Jinyong’s answer, Seunghun gave him a sly, obscene smile.
“Looks like you’ll be feasting properly for the first time in a while.”
Jinyong chuckled. “Says the guy who does it all the time. Spare me the surprise.”
Meanwhile, Jaehyuk, his friends, Dahyun, and Suyeon were happily enjoying themselves at a karaoke room.
Inside the karaoke booth, Suyeon was singing her heart out. Unfortunately, she was tone-deaf, so her singing sounded comically off-key.
Suyeon… she’s tone-deaf…
Jihun looked slightly flustered by her unexpectedly terrible singing ability.
But who cares if she’s tone-deaf? She’s cute, that’s all that matters!!
His moment of panic passed quickly.
While everyone was taking turns singing, Dahyun stood up and said to Suyeon, “Gonna hit the bathroom real quick.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
She opened the door and stepped out. Suyeon turned to Jaehyuk.
“Jaehyuk oppa. Did something happen with Dahyun?”
“Huh? Not that I know of. Why?”
“She just looked kind of down.”
Jeonghan chimed in. “Yeah. She’s been pouting like she’s got some kind of complaint.”
“Oppa, don’t tell me… you teased her again??”
“Not this time. Actually…”
He told them how Dahyun had almost been cast by Jung Jinyong at the Giant Bomb concert. The three of them reacted with shock.
“Jung Jinyong? That Jung Jinyong from the three-day weekend scandal??”
“No way… He really said he wanted to introduce her to YH??”
“Are you sure it was really Jung Jinyong??”
“Positive. But I firmly refused and dragged her out anyway.”
Suyeon and Jeonghan both looked disappointed.
“You should’ve at least heard him out before refusing. If it really was a casting offer, Dahyun must’ve been so upset. She loves dancing and singing, and she actually has some talent.”
“Yeah, even if she doesn’t realize it herself, she definitely has talent.”
Jihun added, “She was singing pretty well earlier too. That AU song—‘Sogeokdong’? She nailed it.”
“Still, I can’t help feeling uneasy. No matter how clean an entertainer’s image is, the moment they offer to cast her… a part of me just can’t relax.”
Meanwhile, Dahyun had just come out of the bathroom when three men blocked her path. One of them, with a gentle-looking face, spoke to her.
“Excuse me, we work with the singer Jung Jinyong.”
He held out a business card.
“We heard Mr. Jung Jinyong was very impressed with you earlier. Could we talk with you for a moment?”
“Uh… yes?”
“Mr. Jung felt really bad that he couldn’t speak with you properly back then. May I ask your name?”
At that moment, Jaehyuk and his friends opened the door and stepped out. Jaehyuk saw Dahyun and the men in front of her, and his face hardened into a menacing glare.
These fucking bastards… They followed us all the way here??
Without hesitation, Jaehyuk walked straight up to the man who had been speaking to Dahyun.
“Excuse me. What exactly are you doing to my sister?”
“Ah, are you her brother? Our company noticed that your sister has real talent, so—”
“Enough. My sister already said she’s not interested in the casting. So please leave.”
“Wait, when did I ever say I wasn’t—”
“You said you weren’t, remember?”
“Hmm… Then at least let us talk for a moment…”
Jaehyuk’s temper flared as he snapped at the man.
“Talk? What the fuck kind of talk? You lure clueless kids by saying you’ll make them celebrities, drag them to some shady place, film them having ‘body conversations,’ then threaten to leak the videos and turn them into sex slaves for the Burning Island VIPs. You even feed them philopon sometimes, don’t you?”
The man and his companions froze, their faces stiff as if their darkest secret had just been exposed. Dahyun, Jeonghan, Jihun, and everyone else nearby stared at Jaehyuk in pure shock.
What the…?? How does he know about that…?? How could a kid who looks like a high schooler possibly…??
“Hey!! Are you crazy?! What the hell are you saying in public?!”
Startled by Jaehyuk’s sudden outburst, Dahyun shouted at him. The man quickly regained his composure and said to Jaehyuk,
“Heh heh… Quite the imagination you have there…”
“Then why do you keep trying to take her somewhere? If it’s a real casting, you could just give us your contact info and ask her to reach out later. You could wait patiently. If you really came for casting and had nothing to hide, that’s what you’d do. So why? Did Jung Jinyong order you to take her right away and get to work?”
At Jaehyuk’s words, Jeonghan and Jihun sensed something was off and glared at the men standing in front of Dahyun. The man warned Jaehyuk,
“I suggest you stop with these baseless accusations…”
Suddenly, Jaehyuk drove a hard right hook straight into the man’s jaw. The man clutched his chin and staggered back, then shouted to his crew,
“Fuck… Grab her and call everyone in!! Hurry!!”
Another man charged at Jaehyuk. As Jaehyuk dodged, Jeonghan spun clockwise and slammed a powerful side kick into the man’s abdomen, knocking him down.
“Guh…!!”
Another man opened the entrance door and waved. Five or six burly men came rushing in.
“Haa… Jaehyuk, what you just said… Is it true?”
“Would I really spout some crazy bullshit like that in front of my ten-year best friend?”
“Okay. I trust you.”
Jeonghan charged toward the men trying to drag Dahyun toward the exit, but one of them blocked his path and swung a fist. Jeonghan easily dodged, then drove his left fist deep into the man’s liver.
At that moment, one of the men shouted, “There’s one more inside!! Get her!!!”
Shit!! Suyeon’s still in there!!
Realizing Suyeon was still in the room, Jeonghan looked that way. Two men had already slipped past Jaehyuk and Jeonghan and were running toward the karaoke booth.
But the man in front took a direct overhand hook from Jihun’s right fist straight to the face. Jihun followed through with a downward punch, slamming the man’s head into the floor with brutal force. He passed out instantly.
Jihun raised his right arm to block a left kick aimed at his lowered head. When the attacker followed up with a right punch, Jihun swiftly dodged, grabbed the man’s right wrist with his left hand, and executed a perfect shoulder throw, slamming him into the ground and knocking him out cold.
Jihun looked down at the two unconscious men and spat,
“How dare you lay a hand on her.”
In the meantime, Jeonghan seemed to feel he was lacking reach. He snatched a ballpoint pen from the counter. When a man threw a middle kick at him, Jeonghan blocked it with his left arm, then swung his right arm and stabbed the pen straight into the exposed right cheek of his opponent.
He yanked the pen free and immediately drove his right elbow into the man’s stunned face, knocking him down. Two more men rushed him, but Jeonghan dodged or blocked their attacks with lightning speed. He stabbed the pen into their ribs, heads, arms, and the backs of their hands to disrupt their balance, then finished them off with elbows and kicks. In the blink of an eye, he had knocked them all down.
Though he lacked the raw power of Jaehyuk or Jihun, Jeonghan’s agile movements and clever use of the improvised weapon made him look like a panther in combat.
On the other hand, Jaehyuk unleashed a barrage of techniques he had mastered in his previous life and this one—kickboxing, Kali Arnis, hapkido, Jeet Kune Do, and more—disabling his opponents at blinding speed.
Having neutralized the men in mere moments, Jaehyuk caught his breath for only a second before sprinting straight toward the exit to rescue Dahyun.