Passion Novel - Volume 2 - Chapter 34

Come to think of it, that guy who had rushed into the dining hall with a .50 caliber revolver on the first day of the joint training, threatening to kill Ilay first thing in the morning, must be locked up somewhere on this floor too…… It would be quite a sight if that guy and Ilay were locked up in the same room.

“There were a lot of empty rooms. Does everyone who comes in here get a single room?”

“Why waste electricity doing something like that? We put the guys who don’t seem like they’ll cause trouble together.”

Electricity? All you’re doing is turning on one or two of those tiny light bulbs on the ceiling, the words rose to his throat, but he didn’t voice them.

Guys who don’t seem like they’ll cause trouble, huh? Then that bastard Ilay must be headed for a single room. Who would he be spending the next ten days with?

The instructor stopped walking as if they had reached the room where Jeong Taeui would be placed. It was the room in the deepest corner. Whether it was just his feeling or not, it looked narrower and darker than the other rooms.

Jeong Taeui figured it didn’t matter. Even if it were a little brighter, it would only be the brightness of one small light bulb. Since he couldn’t read a book anyway and didn’t have anything particular to do, he wouldn’t need a light. Even if it was a bit narrow, it didn’t look so cramped that it would be suffocating for two or three people to be confined in.

“Alright, get in. You troublemakers. Cool your heads in here and come out. Don’t cause any trouble.”

The instructor, who must have spent a pretty penny making this look old too, creaked open a classic, rusty iron door and, after positioning Jeong Taeui in front of it, kicked him in the butt. Jeong Taeui, whose wrists were still bound by handcuffs, had nothing proper to grab onto for support and ended up falling flat on his face.

“Ugh…….”

Jeong Taeui, whose elbows had scraped across the floor, grimaced. Fortunately, the stone floor was smoothly polished, so his skin wasn’t torn, but he would definitely have bruises.

In the process of falling, his handcuffed fists, unable to move freely, banged against the shin of someone sitting leaning against the wall. It was too dark to see clearly, but the person seemed to be in some pain and silently rubbed their shin.

“Oh, sorry…….”

Jeong Taeui apologized to the person while rubbing his elbows against his waist since he couldn’t use his hands. Just then, he heard a clanging sound of metal hitting metal from behind.

“Here’s the handcuff key. Unlock yourself. Meals will be served modestly three times a day, every meal. If you need anything, there’s an internal phone on the wall, so contact us. But if you contact us for anything unnecessary, you’ll be punished.”

The instructor spoke sternly and turned around. The sound of his footsteps echoing softly faded away.

Seriously, old man, if you’re going to explain, at least explain properly…… Jeong Taeui muttered, then gave up and felt around on the floor. He felt in the direction where he thought he had heard the key fall, but he couldn’t find it. It seemed this damn key had bounced somewhere else after hitting the floor.

“Damn it, where did it go…….”

Thinking, Surely I won’t have to stay like this, unable to unlock these handcuffs, Jeong Taeui began to grope the floor over a wider area. However, even after feeling around for a long time, the key didn’t come into his grasp at all.

He couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but by the time he figured at least half an hour had gone by, Jeong Taeui, who had been feeling around every corner of the floor for a long time, finally sighed and sat down heavily.

He had no idea which corner it had rolled into. Moreover, it was so dark that even with his relatively good eyesight, the faint glimmer he could barely make out was of little help.

Jeong Taeui sighed and briefly stopped looking for the key, glancing around.

The room was dark. Looking up at the ceiling, there was indeed only one small yellow light, no bigger than a Christmas light – maybe two or three times bigger at most. The light was so dim, as if it would go out any second, that only the area directly beneath it was somewhat visible; the corners were shrouded in deep darkness, almost completely unseen.

Inside the room, there was only the man whose shin Jeong Taeui had unintentionally kicked earlier. Leaning against the dark inner wall where no light reached, he couldn’t see him well, but he seemed to be looking this way silently. A shelf or something above his head cast a dark shadow, and only his knees and the area around his shins were faintly visible.

Jeong Taeui sighed and leaned against the wall on the other side. Giving his unseen companion a look, he offered a greeting of sorts.

“Looks like we’ll be spending some time together. ……Which instructor’s team are you with?”

There were plenty of topics he could bring up. When did you come in, how long will you be here, how did you end up here, and so on.

He didn’t particularly want to make friends while locked up in prison, but they would be spending ten days together, and it would be uncomfortable if they remained awkward and silent. Judging by how the man had just watched him sweat and struggle to find the key for so long without offering any help, he didn’t seem like a very sociable person, but still, it would be nice if he was at least someone he could talk to comfortably, so time would pass quickly and pleasantly.

He spoke with a sliver of hope, but the man didn’t reply for a while. Jeong Taeui tilted his head.

Was he asleep? Or maybe he just didn’t want to talk. Well, even Jeong Taeui himself felt like he would become sullen and gloomy if he were locked up in a dark corner like this for a long time.

Jeong Taeui scratched his neck. If the man didn’t want to talk, he had no intention of forcing him. He should just keep looking for the key. Judging by how he couldn’t find it even after feeling around like this, it probably wasn’t just lying on the floor……

Sighing, Jeong Taeui, whose body was tightly bound by the handcuffs making it difficult to move properly, continued to grope around every corner of the floor when a low voice of help reached his ears.

“The corner right next to the iron door, it’s stuck in the crack of the wall’s stone.”

Halt.

Jeong Taeui stopped his moving hand. Not just his hand, but his whole body stiffened as if frozen.

The voice from behind him came from the man who was locked up with him. It wasn’t the sullen and gloomy voice Jeong Taeui had imagined. Rather, there was even a faint hint of laughter in it.

However.

“……I think I would have preferred a sullen and gloomy voice…….”

Even though it was a voice as small as an ant crawling, that man had somehow understood him. He sighed, then said with a languid laugh,

“Is that your preferred taste? That’s quite peculiar. But I would have thought someone like you would prefer the voice of a frail and young boy.”

“Either way, it’s far from your voice, Ilay.”

Jeong Taeui muttered with a sigh. Then, he suddenly rushed to the iron bars and desperately tried to look outside, grabbing onto the bars. It probably wouldn’t work, but still, if the instructor was still nearby, he wanted to beg him with all his might to please change his room.

I don’t want to share a room with this guy. I still want to live.

However, no matter how desperately he cried out in his heart, the vanished instructor wouldn’t return, and even if he did, there was no guarantee that he would grant Jeong Taeui’s wish.

Jeong Taeui internally cursed the instructor in charge of the disciplinary facility with all sorts of vulgarities.

That crazy old man, he said he puts the guys who don’t seem like they’ll cause trouble together, but what is this? What am I supposed to do, being locked up in the same room for ten days with a guy who can beat someone to death with his bare hands, in a prison with no way to escape? If I die here, I’ll become a ghost and haunt the entire disciplinary facility.

He gripped the bars uselessly, shaking them even though they wouldn’t budge, when he heard the sound of someone moving behind him. He flinched, tightened his grip on the bars, and quietly paid attention to the movement behind him.

Ilay slowly got up and approached Jeong Taeui. The sound of bare feet lightly brushing against the floor, thump-thump, grew closer and closer. And when that sound finally came right up to his back.

“Il-“

Just as Jeong Taeui turned around, clenching his fist, Ilay bent down. He seemed to feel around the corner next to the door for a moment, then held something out to Jeong Taeui.

“Hand. Give me your hand.”

Speaking in a calm voice, Ilay didn’t show any sign of grabbing his neck and strangling him or twisting his arm, as Jeong Taeui had vaguely and ominously predicted.

Jeong Taeui lowered his gaze to what Ilay was holding. It was too dark to see clearly, but the long object, which reflected the faint light slightly and shone coldly, looked like a key. Come to think of it, he had said earlier that it was stuck in the crack of the stone wall next to the iron door.

“Ah, thanks.”

Feeling caught off guard, Jeong Taeui reached out his hand. As he obediently held out both hands together, Ilay grabbed the handcuffs, turned them towards the keyhole, and inserted the key. Click-clack, the key didn’t seem to move smoothly, probably because it was rusty.

Wait a minute. Come to think of it, it was a kind gesture, but that meant this guy had seen exactly where the key had fallen and knew all along, yet he had just watched him grope around the floor for so long without saying a word. It wasn’t exactly easy to be purely grateful, was it?

Despite his complicated feelings, as soon as the handcuffs were unlocked, Jeong Taeui reflexively thanked him again. His hands, which had been bound and immobile for several hours, were finally free, and he sighed, shaking his hands back and forth several times. Even being handcuffed for just a few hours felt this suffocating; how suffocated must the old criminals who had been imprisoned with blades have felt?

He briefly offered a silent prayer to his ancestors who were now gone.

Anyway…… Now that his hands were free and his body was unconstrained, only one problem remained. This problem seemed to be the most troublesome and dangerous, but there was no key to solve it.

“…….Are we… going to be together… for the next ten days?”

Jeong Taeui murmured slowly. He, for one, had no experience being in the disciplinary facility. On the other hand, this man had apparently been in its care before. He would at least know more about the disciplinary facility than Jeong Taeui. For instance, whether a room, once assigned, could be changed mid-term or not.

“Didn’t you just say so yourself a moment ago? ‘Looks like we’ll be spending some time together,’ you said.”

“Well— I did say something like that—”

Next to Jeong Taeui, who was mumbling and trailing off, Ilay chuckled.

Jeong Taeui sighed and leaned against the wall. He felt gloomy again. Well, it would be stranger if he felt peaceful, being locked up in the same space with a guy who had killed four people – and if you counted the guys he had killed before that, the number would increase countless times.

“But I certainly didn’t expect you to come in here. What’s your charge? Let me see…… Was it being an eyesore?”

Ilay spoke after a moment of thought. Jeong Taeui inwardly thought sullenly, As expected of a guy who’s been in the disciplinary facility before, he sure knows how to guess things like that, but the thought of obediently nodding and admitting to being an eyesore also felt like revealing his own branch’s flaws, so he said curtly,

“Aiding and abetting. Though I have no idea whose crime I’m supposed to have aided and abetted.”

When you got down to it, the guy who had actually committed the crime was this one, but the charge of aiding and abetting he had received was for aiding and abetting the dead. This also felt somewhat unfair, but there was no way to express it. Ilay laughed.

“Ah, I see. So it was being an eyesore after all.”

“……”

Unable to say it was completely wrong, Jeong Taeui closed his mouth. Then, displaying a sliver of loyalty to the branch – though in truth he didn’t have even a fingernail’s worth – he adopted an attitude that Asian branch members would rightfully have.

“Things must run smoothly and transparently in the European branch.”

“Haha, birds of a feather flock together. Being under the same organization, it’s unlikely that only one would stand out so much.”

Ilay denied it with a laugh. This man was giving answers that were completely unlike a European branch member.

Well, this man didn’t seem like he belonged anywhere. Come to think of it, hadn’t he been floating alone even among the European branch members? Although that was probably largely due to his problematic personality that made others wary of him, at least as far as Jeong Taeui could tell, this man didn’t seem like he would have any sense of belonging or loyalty to the place he belonged to. After all, he had nonchalantly killed his own branch members too.

“I heard the most casualties in any joint training in history was six. This time, you barely missed that mark.”

“Hmm, that’s right. It was definitely five, the guys who died this time.”

Jeong Taeui stared blankly at Ilay, who spoke about it casually as if it were someone else’s business. Perhaps it was because it was dark, but his face looked particularly sinister. When he got out of here later, he would definitely have to ask his uncle if the person who killed those six in the training with the highest number of casualties was indeed one person. Somehow, he suspected that a record of five deaths caused by one person wasn’t the first time.

“If about five people die, it wouldn’t even be explainable as self-defense…… You’re quite intense.”

Did he have powerful backing, or were the judges afraid of retaliation later – it seemed more likely to be the latter – but even thinking about it again, being temporarily confined to the disciplinary facility was far too lenient a punishment.

Ilay didn’t reply, even though he must have heard Jeong Taeui’s whisper. He just smiled silently. Then, after a moment of silence, he answered.

“I’ve been rolling around here for quite a while. There are probably instructors who have been in the branch for a shorter period than me. I roughly know the structure of how the organization works too…… That’s the reason.”

Jeong Taeui frowned and tilted his head. He pondered the words that seemed to be an answer and yet weren’t, but he couldn’t quite understand them. Then he suddenly realized. This man was also the type who wouldn’t lie, but wouldn’t exactly tell the truth either, someone annoying to deal with.

I really hate smart psychopaths. You never know what they’ll do, and they even pull off things that are hard to handle. And yet, they always make sure they have an escape route for themselves.

To the grumbling Jeong Taeui, Ilay suddenly asked,

“By the way, what time do you think it is now?”

“Hmm? Ah— I was handcuffed from the morning, interrogated by the guards again before coming into the disciplinary facility, and then came straight here, so it’s probably around lunchtime.”

Jeong Taeui said, recalling the clock he had glimpsed while being led through the guards’ offices. After saying that, the memories of the morning flashed by like a panorama. He suddenly felt tired.

I’ve really been jinxed. What in the world is going on?

He had thought it several times, but nothing had been satisfactory since he came here. Something seemed to be subtly going wrong continuously. The only thing he was somewhat happy about was meeting Xinlu.

Suddenly remembering, Jeong Taeui quietly held the pager in his pocket. He fiddled with the silently sleeping pager, then took it out to look at it. There were no new messages.

“The signal doesn’t reach here.”

Ilay, who had been watching Jeong Taeui’s actions, said. Muttering, “Lunchtime, huh,” he got up and took a wooden box with a handle from a shelf hanging on the wall.

Jeong Taeui, openly showing his disappointment at the news that the signal didn’t reach, put the pager back in his pocket and watched Ilay open the box and rustle something inside in the darkness where he couldn’t even properly distinguish objects.

“Come here and help me.”

After glancing at Ilay, who made the request quite confidently considering the content of his words, Jeong Taeui got up. He groped his way along the dark wall to his side. On the way, he stubbed his toe on a protruding rock on the floor and had to sit down for a moment, suppressing a groan.

“Can’t this damn prison be made a little brighter? At this rate, my eyes will degenerate before I even get out. Damn it.”

As he cursed, clutching his toes, Ilay said with a laugh,

“You’ll see better once you get used to it. It even feels like your eyes are evolving. Just wait a little longer.”

“If they evolve any more, I’ll go blind the moment I step out onto the ground.”

Jeong Taeui grumbled as he approached him. He sat down next to him and looked into the box, which he couldn’t see well because his eyes hadn’t fully adjusted yet. He could make out a few plastic containers reflecting the dim light of the faint bulb.

“A medicine box?”

He picked up a plastic container, shook it, and murmured. Next to him, Ilay took out another bundle and unrolled it, stretching it out. It looked like a bandage. It seemed like it was indeed a medicine box.

“Why a medicine box all of a sudden? I didn’t hit my foot that hard.”

Jeong Taeui said this as he accepted the bandage Ilay handed him. Ah, right, he murmured. Come to think of it, this man was injured.

When the cluster exploded, the only place he had taken shrapnel while dodging was his right shoulder. He recalled how blood from the people around him had soaked his entire body and dried, yet a stream of blood had continuously flowed down from his right shoulder.

“You get hurt too.”

Jeong Taeui said with a curious tone. Ilay, who was taking out a medicine bottle from the medicine box, paused for a moment and stared intently at Jeong Taeui. He somehow felt like Ilay was making a very strange face, but it was a shame he couldn’t see it in the dark. Or perhaps it was a face he was better off not seeing.

“What do you think of me?”

“Well…… I think based on what I’ve seen and experienced.”

“Ah, based on what you’ve seen and experienced. But I don’t recall ever treating you savagely.”

So he was aware of his reputation for treating others savagely. Jeong Taeui had thought he might not even know or might pretend not to, but perhaps there was a sliver of conscience in him.

Images of his savage behavior flashed through Jeong Taeui’s mind like a revolving lantern. He had even been at the scene of Ilay killing someone twice. But thinking about it again, it was also true that Ilay had never been harsh with Jeong Taeui himself.

After pondering for a moment, Jeong Taeui murmured casually,

“The day before yesterday, when I rushed to the martial arts room, you asked me if I had come looking for you for the same reason as them.”

Ilay was silent for a moment. After a slight pause, he replied, “Ah, that’s right.” Jeong Taeui asked again in the same casual tone,

“If I had said yes back then, I would have fully experienced your savage side, wouldn’t I?”

Not only experienced it, but I probably wouldn’t even be here talking like this now, he added to himself, and Ilay laughed.

“Don’t you think it’s foolish to speculate about things that didn’t happen in the past?”

“It might not be of practical help, but it allows you to look at the current situation from a different perspective.”

“Oh dear, Taei. Do you dislike me?”

At Ilay’s words mixed with laughter, Jeong Taeui frowned, closed his mouth, and looked at him.

That kind of tone was closer to Ilay than Riegrow. Thinking this, Jeong Taeui shook his head. Either way, they were both the same man. Not separate individuals he could divide.

“Hmm. That’s a difficult question to answer. But considering what you’ve shown me so far, wouldn’t you say it’s much easier to dislike you than to like you?”

“Hmm. That’s also a difficult question to answer.”

Ilay said with a wry smile. The bandage was wrapped around his exposed shoulder where he had pulled down his clothes. His movements as he unwrapped the bandage were skillful. He had done it many times alone.

As he peeled off the bandage stuck to the wound, a gruesome, red and bumpy scar was revealed. The reddish raw flesh, illuminated by the dim light, looked even more horrific. In this case, the poor visibility stimulated the imagination, leading to worse results.

Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue. Ilay, who had shaken the medicine bottle he had taken out, opened the lid and poured the contents onto the wound. The sharp smell of antiseptic filled the air. Even though he couldn’t see well, Ilay seemed to know exactly which medicine was where, taking out and lining up several medicine bottles without hesitation.

“Tsk……. If it was shrapnel, it would fester. Putting him in prison just like that while injured, the branch is too much. It’s not like this underground prison is a place for wounds to heal.”

“Hmm? There are quite a few guys who would be happy if my wound festered and my body deteriorated. They might have even hoped for it. ……But if I were to point out where you’re wrong again, this place is very different from what you think.”

Ilay said as if amused. Jeong Taeui slightly raised his eyebrows and looked around again. Dim, almost useless light, cold stone walls and floor. Damp air. Looking again, it was exactly the image of an underground prison.