March Novel (Completed) - Chapter 26

“Agreement? What agreement?”

“Th-that…”

Lee Sehwa seemed to think Gi Taejeong was cruel for hurting him and then immediately offering a cure. Hurting, healing, and hurting again. Of course, that was the standard interrogation method, but he had never even put Lee Sehwa through the weakest routine. Yet, the young one was so timid that he would tremble just seeing him, even when he only stopped at ‘healing.’

“Aack! Brigadier General!”

Son Byunggyu screamed as Gi Taejeong pressed hard on his kneeling thigh.

Indeed… he was being very lenient with Lee Sehwa. He liked his face and body… and above all, it was more fun to make him cry in other ways than by hitting him. What truly drained a person was this kind of thing: making injuries constantly regenerate even while being beaten to the point where joints twisted and bones broke.

The pain felt the same, but when he looked at the injured area, it was perfectly fine. There were clearly drops of blood on his wiped hand, but when he felt it, the wound was nowhere to be found. The cognitive dissonance arising from that slowly scattered not only a person’s body but also their mind.

“What did I tell you to do well?”

“To act as if you were completely fooled by a young swindler, matching the atmosphere, aaah!”

“Right. That’s all I asked of you, President Son.”

When Gi Taejeong took his foot off, Son Byunggyu burst into tears and flopped onto the floor. Of course, he had no intention of letting him off the hook. Gi Taejeong snatched the iron pipe from the subordinate behind him.

“I told you I’d give you the land inside the city you so desperately wanted, if you just played that role well until the end.”

Each syllable he uttered broke off as he repeatedly slammed the iron pipe onto Son Byunggyu’s swollen hand. This time, Son Byunggyu couldn’t even scream, only frothed at the mouth. He hadn’t expected great loyalty from someone he had bribed with money. But he intended to properly teach him this time that acting arbitrarily during contract fulfillment would be very troublesome.

“Feed him.”

One of the subordinates standing behind him shoved the medicine into the unconscious Son Byunggyu’s mouth and covered his nose and mouth. After confirming that his Adam’s apple bobbed, the subordinate slapped Son Byunggyu’s cheek a few times. Son Byunggyu twitched like he was having a seizure a few times, then sobbed and collapsed back onto the floor.

“You seemed to handle it well when I suddenly called about paying off Lee Sehwa’s debt. So why are you doing something I didn’t tell you to do now? Who told you to hit Lee Sehwa? Huh?”

At first, he moved cautiously. It didn’t take long to apprehend and interrogate the people outside the city walls that Lieutenant Kim frequently contacted, and to figure out the routes of the pawns he was using. From the beginning, it was clear and easy. As Lieutenant Park had tediously said, the only issue was the accuracy and legitimacy of the evidence.

When he decided to reach out to Lee Sehwa, the key figure, to finally conclude the matter, he disguised himself as a low-level gangster operating underground. He spread rumors that there were rich but slightly foolish guys around and hooked Son Byunggyu. The suspicious man finally moved his heavy body when he heard he could be introduced to military personnel.

When he summoned him near the checkpoint to verify his identity and put him in a port, Son Byunggyu trembled with emotion. The man had always harbored grand ambitions. He was desperate to build connections with the upper class, including soldiers. It seemed his pride was hurt by having to go through Lee Sehwa to communicate with Lieutenant Kim. In the midst of that, the military man he so desired, a Brigadier General no less, proposed a secret plan to him, causing him to puff out his chest and pledge an unasked-for loyalty.

He didn’t know why he thought that, but Son Byunggyu firmly believed that Gi Taejeong would punish both Lieutenant Kim and Lee Sehwa. The man hated Lee Sehwa. When asked why, he said he was just annoying. To Gi Taejeong, it was nothing more than Son Byunggyu expressing his inferiority complex towards Lee Sehwa, who seemed weaker than others.

If Lee Sehwa had lived more docilely, giving up on himself, would Son Byunggyu have hated him less? Well, Gi Taejeong didn’t think so. If he had, he would have been even more abusive and treated him more carelessly, calling him naive and foolish. Son Byunggyu was just that kind of bastard. Disgusting. That word fit him perfectly.

Anyway, since he was a pawn not bad for using and discarding, Gi Taejeong presented Son Byunggyu with a proposal. To only move according to the scenario he wrote. The script was simply to tell people that he had started a business with a small gang; that was all. But this f*cking bastard couldn’t even do that one thing properly. He was beating Lee Sehwa without Gi Taejeong’s command. And he was doing it by bringing up a debt that Gi Taejeong had already paid off.

“B-Brigadier General. Please, just listen to me first…”

“Speak.”

Gi Taejeong arrogantly gestured with his chin, and Son Byunggyu awkwardly knelt down. He let out a pig-like squeal, “Ughhh,” seeing his body perfectly healed again.

“Th-that… I received a call through Lieutenant Park a while ago. To dig through Lee Sehwa’s contract and think of something to nitpick about… Lieutenant Park actually came to my office and helped me.”

“And?”

“Th-that… but just yesterday, Lieutenant Kim… I mean, Kim Seokcheol called and gave the same instructions as the Brigadier General!”

“The same instructions?”

“Yes, he called urgently last night and said, ‘Didn’t Lee Sehwa, cough, pay off all his debt and say he’d quit? You can’t let him go like that. Find anything in the contract to make an issue of and make him stay.’ So, cough, I thought there was something going on.”

“He told you not to let Lee Sehwa go? Lieutenant Kim did?”

“Yes, yes. He rarely contacts me directly, but he said it like that, so I thought it would help the Brigadier General if I acted quickly and just….”

Gi Taejeong stroked his chin. It was natural for Kim Seokcheol to care about Lee Sehwa’s future. He was the most important accomplice, and later, he would likely be used as a disposable tail. But it was a bit strange that he suddenly gave specific instructions, especially to saddle him with a huge debt.

“What exactly did Lieutenant Kim say?”

“Originally, customers pay through the House, and they deduct commission and settle with the drug makers. If there’s more to deduct during that process, they deduct more. But Kim Seokcheol said he disliked involving so many people and paid Lee Sehwa directly. Kim Seokcheol probably didn’t want to leave any traces.”

“Aha. So that’s why he was talking about commission earlier?”

“Th-that’s right… But I have some informal documents from Kim Seokcheol. It’s not his actual signature, but it’s still proof that he handed over this amount to Lee Sehwa… Anyway, there are such documents, so the commission isn’t really an issue.”

“But there’s a loophole to nitpick, so use that as an excuse?”

“Yes, yes. Kim Seokcheol said exactly that.”

“What help did Lieutenant Park give? Did he say the same thing?”

“Oh, no… Lieutenant Park said to make an issue of the security aspect. Since there’s no clause about adhering to security… he said Lee Sehwa couldn’t leave the House until that was resolved…”

“Hmm.”

Gi Taejeong held the iron pipe and bent his body casually. From his actions, he looked just like a neighborhood thug.

“I’m suddenly curious. So, President Son, are you planning to make Lee Sehwa spit all that money back out?”

“Huh? Oh, no, sir. If rumors spread, it’ll just demoralize the other kids… I just yelled at him a bit. Really.”

“How much was it?”

“Huh?”

“How much commission did you quote Lee Sehwa?”

Son Byunggyu’s desperately denying face suddenly brightened. He seemed to think Gi Taejeong would pay the money instead.

“It was 3.78 billion, excluding the messy bits below.”

He conveniently omitted that 3.78 billion was only the amount calculated up to this week, and that interest on interest would be added daily. Son Byunggyu was quick-witted when it came to money and knew it was profitable to strike when he could get something.

“3.78 billion, you said.”

“Yes, sir, I only intended to receive exactly that.”

When asked how much debt remained before, Lee Sehwa had said 200 million won was enough. He said that after deducting everything and adding all the daily payments, that was all he needed to pay back. And even that was an amount calculated with the expectation of leaving in a few months. But how could Lee Sehwa’s debt have inflated to that extent after only a few times of him working with Kim Seokcheol to distribute drugs?

“3.78 billion…”

Lee Sehwa was confused. He didn’t seem to know it himself, but Gi Taejeong could see it.

Lee Sehwa reacted sensitively to sex, specifically to prostitution. His defensiveness and tears when asked if he sold his body, and so on… he was very sensitive about that topic. Even though Gi Taejeong fully understood what he wanted to say and what he had endured all this time, Lee Sehwa would repeatedly defend himself, saying he wasn’t a prostitute. It was almost as if he had practiced how to answer if someone asked. It seemed as if he had been deeply engrossed in this topic for a long time. Even while saying that having sex was no big deal, his eyes would tremble terribly when he actually opened his body.

The stories Gi Taejeong heard from the House people before confronting Lee Sehwa were similar. Questions like, ‘Isn’t he a male prostitute?’ taunts like, ‘Isn’t he selling drugs by selling his body in the end?’ and sneers like, ‘How long do you think he can live without giving it up?’ It clearly showed how people around Lee Sehwa had viewed him and secretly wished to ruin him.

Lee Sehwa had struggled so hard not to live by others’ curses, but as a result, he ended up giving his body to Gi Taejeong and paying off his debt. And it happened in the form of him reluctantly agreeing after a clumsy bet or something.

While briefly outside to check places where Kim Seokcheol might have hidden the finished product, Gi Taejeong took the opportunity to observe Lee Sehwa’s movements. Perhaps because he was using a military-grade camera, even the sounds were vividly captured. Lee Sehwa was touched and delighted by the food and toys Gi Taejeong sent him. But then, he would suddenly make a lost expression, as if wondering what he was doing there. As if he couldn’t understand, or rather, couldn’t forgive himself for finding comfort there.