March Novel (Completed) - Chapter 25

“Huh? Oh, when did you get here?”

The boss stammered for once. He seemed embarrassed to have barged into an empty office.

“Director Gi, just hear me out. March Boy, that one, he…”

“Shall we go out for a cigarette? You seem very angry.”

There are times when perception is slower than sight.

Even though you’re clearly watching, you can’t quite grasp who the person in front of you is, or what’s happening. You don’t realize tears are streaming down your face, you don’t realize you’re quite hurt, and you don’t realize that the pain isn’t in your body but in your heart. You stay like that for a long time, then, a beat later, the blurry afterimage sharpens, sounds all around burst open like blooming flowers, and only then does raw sobbing break like a dam.

“Hmph… I’m leaving now for Director Gi’s sake! Director Gi, don’t indulge March Boy, but teach her well, okay? You’ve been too lenient, and now she’s trying to climb all over your head!”

“Yes, I will.”

Gi Taejeong, who had appeared out of nowhere, skillfully appeased the boss. Sehwa just cried blankly. Amidst it all, his swollen cheek ached, so he subtly bowed his head. To prevent tears from touching his swollen skin. He found his own instinct, resorting to familiar tricks because he hated pain, amusing.

“Coincidentally, there was something I wanted to tell you.”

There was a tapping sound from below. He glanced up, and a clean shoe tip tapped the sofa leg as if calling him. A luxurious shoe with a classic design that felt almost blunt. The owner of the shoe was, of course, Gi Taejeong. Sehwa barely blinked his tear-soaked eyelashes. Was it Gi Taejeong’s turn now? What would this man say to reopen his wounds? Didn’t he feel sorry for him? Or was he just annoyed by how pathetic he looked? Whatever it was, he wished he would just leave him alone…

But Gi Taejeong was more persistent than anyone Sehwa knew. He stood there rooted to the spot until Sehwa raised his head and fully revealed his battered face.

Eventually, Sehwa surrendered first. He pressed his tears away with the sleeve of his gown and lifted his head, as if to say, ‘Look if you want to.’ Gi Taejeong would stand there stubbornly until he got his way, and the exhausted boss would start throwing a fit again. If that bastard boss yelled again, he felt like he would really lose his mind and snap. He decided to give in to his wishes before he caused any trouble. He had already been naked and crying and clinging, so what was there to be ashamed of?

“……”

However, the man who had persistently demanded to see his face surprisingly said nothing. He merely glanced briefly at the disheveled Sehwa and then turned away. As he did,

‘That must hurt.’

He mouthed the words silently.

‘Keep taking your medicine.’

…That was all.

The sound of two sets of footsteps and the boss’s grumbling curses gradually faded… Sehwa crumpled the ledger in his hand and collapsed onto the sofa. Hearing the consolation to just take his medicine, he felt as if the last fragment of his heart, which he had barely held onto, had completely shattered.

Sehwa, who had been breathing raggedly like a fighting dog, picked up several pieces of gauze from a box. He layered a few pieces and bit down on them, gnawing and chewing as if it were the boss himself.

Everything was f*cked up. He wanted to kill them all. He hated the boss who had used petty tricks to upset him, and he hated Gi Taejeong who had suddenly appeared. He hated everything. It was awful, all of it…

“…Haa.”

Sehwa, chewing on his lost resentment, sighed deeply and tried to regain his composure. In the end, it was his own problem. Hadn’t he experienced unfairness more than once or twice? Hadn’t he been slapped more than once or twice? Resenting it would only hurt him. It was better to think about how to make money during this time. Don’t cry. Crying only makes you hungry. What did that cake taste like again…?

Sehwa removed the gauze, which was damp with blood and saliva, and refolded it to find a clean side. He shoved the cloth back into the spot where the most blood had come out and stared blankly at the ceiling. He blinked rapidly, swallowing the tears that kept trying to escape. Why cry for someone else’s benefit? Why cry?

Why…

“…H-huh… ugh…”

Ah, f*ck… His heart, which he had tried to calm, burst open again. Usually, even when he cried, he would stop easily, but strangely, he couldn’t control it now. Was it a problem that he had consoled himself by saying he experienced these things all the time? Sehwa bit down on the gauze and cried like an animal. Swallowing the blood and saliva that gurgled down his throat, he clenched his empty hands until they felt like they would break.

Indeed. Why did these things happen to him, not just once or twice, but every time?

Priests often frequented the House, and monks and shamans also visited. They exchanged offerings and alms for hanafuda cards or drugs, and offered Sehwa advice. There’s a reason your current life is difficult, it’s all karma from a past life, if you reflect and live well now, you’ll go to heaven when you die, or be reborn into a good life…

At one time, Sehwa had also found comfort in such words. He believed that the fair salvation that could be bought with money would also come to him. He had even paid money for ancestral rites on Baekjung Day when told to offer them to his ancestors, and he had given offerings on Christmas and Buddha’s Birthday. Every time he felt like he was walking barefoot through a thorny path, he thought of the heaven and paradise he would someday reach. He also imagined the boss and others who had made his life difficult falling into hellfire.

But as time passed and he thought about it carefully, resentment welled up. He didn’t even wish for heaven or reincarnation; couldn’t he just suffer a little less now? Couldn’t he just live and die normally, and be reborn normally again? He didn’t even wish for a place like heaven.

Customers said that if he prayed diligently, he would eventually receive an answer. But the heart of a shabby lamb living outside the city walls seemed to be of little use to God. Increasingly exhausted, Sehwa stopped believing in anything he couldn’t grasp. Religion, or conviction. Or the hearts of others…

How old was he when he stopped all the offerings and alms? Was it 13? Sehwa tried to stop crying by thinking useless thoughts. Meanwhile, he neatly stacked the scattered syringes. It was a habit. Each syringe was deducted 50,000 won. It would be a big problem if they broke, as he’d have to pay for them. Well, syringes weren’t the problem right now. The damned boss had thrown the ledger here, rendering some of the drugs unusable. What should he do about this? It wasn’t going to a customer anyway, so maybe Gi Taejeong would pretend not to notice.

“…Pretend to notice, my ass.”

Sehwa muttered, chastising himself for his idle thoughts. His voice was hoarse and wretched.

“Will he add it to my debt…?”

Even though he seemed to be giving him various things, he was ultimately a man who always got what he wanted. No, not just got, but always managed to make a profit. Take sex, for example. He said he wouldn’t insert it, but in the end, he thrust in excessively and ejaculated. The food and cake he provided were delicious, but he was also the one who didn’t give him proper clothes and didn’t let him go outside for over two weeks.

Sehwa gathered the scattered powder as if building a sandcastle. The invisible white piles, like the essence of crime, sparkled under the fluorescent light. As he gathered the drugs, which fluttered away no matter how much he collected, Sehwa unconsciously smiled. It was a beautiful but utterly useless smile. Just like the scene before his eyes. As it always was.

“B-Brigadier General! Please listen to me first… Aack!”

“You don’t like it even when I feed you expensive stuff?”

Gi Taejeong pried open President Son’s upper and lower jaws as if to separate them, then emptied the medicine he had into his mouth. H3. It was a higher-grade item than the medicine he had consistently given Lee Sehwa, a therapeutic drug that immediately worked on external and internal injuries, usable only by certain ranks and above within the military.

“Ugh, B-Brigadier General…”

“Oh? You need to pronounce it correctly. Not Lieutenant General, but Brigadier General. How sensitive high-ranking officials are about my rank.”

Fear was etched in the eyes of Son Byunggyu, the House owner, who was now a mess. As soon as the pill went down his esophagus, his torn lips and bruised face slowly returned to normal. Internal injuries would take a little longer, but he would recover quickly.

“President Son.”

“Yes, yes…!”

“Why did you do something I didn’t tell you to do? We were doing well all this time.”

“I clearly thought it was a matter that had been agreed upon…”

The man sobbed and clung to Gi Taejeong’s trousers.