Passion Novel - Volume 3 - Chapter 59
In the end, Jeong Taeui left the room first, abandoning the two, who had hit it off and begun a lengthy discussion. After all, the Colt, which was going to Moro, had already been paid for during the order stage months ago, so there was no reason for Jeong Taeui to stay. Jeong Taeui stopped in front of the hotel’s main entrance, silently gazing at his feet, lost in thought until the doorman approached with a puzzled expression. Then, he looked up at the buildings across the street that cast shadows over him. Amidst the tightly packed skyscrapers, two seemingly identical buildings stood side by side.
He didn’t walk towards that building for any specific reason. It was just something very minor that bothered him. So minor that he couldn’t even guess what it was.
In truth, he had good instincts. As his uncle had once told him, he himself believed he had quite good instincts in certain areas. Of course, not in all areas. When he saw that nameplate, Jeong Taeui’s gaze was fixed on it.
T&R Inc.
Since there were many nameplates with company names Jeong Taeui didn’t know, it was possible another military supplier was among them, but at least the name of the military supplier Jeong Taeui knew was that one. Indeed, anyone with even a casual connection to the industry, not just Jeong Taeui, would know the name. They primarily dealt with anti-material weapons rather than anti-personnel weapons, and though not large in scale, they were a very substantial company. Jeong Taeui had heard of them when he studied weaponology at the military academy. Not only had he heard of them, but weapons produced by that company were widely distributed.
T&R Inc. Nominally a joint-stock company, named after its co-founders, it was effectively run as a family business.
Tarten & Riegrow Inc.
A name buried in his memory suddenly surfaced as he quietly stared at the nameplate. “Riegrow isn’t a non-existent name, but it’s not that common either…”
He stepped out of the building and sat on one of the few rest benches beside the simple yet neatly arranged flower bed right next to the door. Thinking about it, it was funny that someone who had been a military officer hadn’t known this until now. Moreover, the man himself had said he helped with the family business of arms brokering—though it wasn’t just brokering.
“But you know, everyone around me called it T&R, T&R; not a single person ever used the formal name, Tarten & Riegrow Inc.”
Jeong Taeui muttered to himself in a disheartened voice, idly patting his chest pocket even though he knew there would be no cigarettes there. Damn it. So this was the true identity of the diamond fingers. He had thought that when the man lightly mentioned helping his brother, who had taken over the family business, with arms dealing, it was just selling weapons to small armed groups or dabbling in dangerous personal dealings. But if it was that company, then it was definitely the diamond fingers. Even businesses that generate tens or hundreds of billions in annual profits often remain unknown to those with no particular interest in economics. However, if a company is known by the general public, it usually means they earn enormous amounts of money, beyond what their minds can even imagine. T&R Inc. was a place whose name even individual soldiers in other countries would have heard at least once in their related field.
“Anyway, a tiger on a cliff… While it’s true that name is like an evil spirit to me, I haven’t really clashed with that family, so there’s no need to shudder that much.”
“Moro, that guy…” Jeong Taeui muttered, fumbling in his other pocket, then paused. He wondered if it was such a widely known fact that Ilay was a son of that family. It was certainly an uncommon surname, but from his uncle’s subtle hints, it didn’t seem like something to openly talk about.
“Because Moro was involved with our company before he joined UNHRDO. Where else would that weapon fanatic have thought of working? —Here. Your preference was Dunhill, right?”
Over Jeong Taeui’s shoulder, as he persistently fumbled for a cigarette that he knew wouldn’t be in his inner pocket, a single white cigarette suddenly appeared.
…Yes. Moro, you were right. It’s not the name that’s the problem; if it’s anywhere this guy might be lurking, it’s definitely a tiger’s maw. Now I understand the true meaning of your scolding me for playing around in this area even on a rare holiday to Hong Kong. Jeong Taeui grimly took the cigarette without turning around and put it in his mouth. Soon after, a lighter also appeared over his shoulder, offering a light.
“Why is your face such a mess? It hasn’t even been a day since I last saw you, and your face has changed so much.”
“Well, ever since we got a new, highly praised instructor, it’s become an everyday occurrence.”
“Ah, I see.”
A deflating sound came from over his shoulder, as if something was amusing. Jeong Taeui grimaced bitterly and glanced behind him. The man who had kindly offered him a cigarette to his liking was wearing a suit, a sight Jeong Taeui had never seen before. Dressed in a dark gray suit that draped beautifully over his body, as if pulled from a men’s fashion magazine, he looked like a rising executive at a successful company.
Ah. Right, he was the diamond fingers. Come to think of it, wasn’t he the son of a chaebol family?
“? Why?”
Perhaps perplexed by Jeong Taeui’s steady gaze, Ilay tilted his head slightly and asked. Jeong Taeui scanned him a little more openly.
“No, it’s my first time seeing you in a suit. You look just like an office worker when you’re dressed like that.”
“Haha, well, that’s because I am an office worker.”
Ilay chuckled indifferently and shrugged. Jeong Taeui coughed a couple of times, having inhaled cigarette smoke wrongly, and stared up at him, who showed no sign of joking. Ilay, lighting a cigarette himself, looked at him with a “what’s wrong” expression.
“Since when did UNHRDO become a company that requires suits? I don’t own one.”
“If you need a suit, should I buy you one?”
“That’s not what I mean… but if you’re offering, I won’t refuse.”
Even as he said that, Jeong Taeui puffed on his cigarette without showing any sign of getting off the bench. Ilay sat next to him.
“Did Moro tell you that you could find me here? Hong Kong isn’t small enough for this to be a coincidence.”
“It’s clearly a coincidence that I was here just as you came down.”
Jeong Taeui muttered, looking regretfully at his cigarette, which was instantly more than halfway gone. Office worker. An office worker. What insane company would hire this man? Even if it’s a family-run business, do they really think it’s a good idea to have someone like him in the company?
“So you said you came to Hong Kong every weekend, but it wasn’t just ‘helping out with your brother’s work a little when you have time,’ was it?”
“Not at all. I only come on weekends when I happen to have time. This work isn’t that easy. My family is a bit suspicious, so I’m just monitoring whether the branch manager is doing their job properly. It would be hard for my brother to keep flying over from Europe to check on things, wouldn’t it?”
“Haa… So, a branch office was established in Hong Kong, and coincidentally, the younger brother was transferred to Hong Kong.”
What ‘office worker’… Jeong Taeui looked up at the darkening sky, thinking, ‘Is this perhaps a situation where it’s okay for a commoner to feel a bit offended?’ The buildings stood dark against the reddish-purple sky, obstructing his view. Ilay, also looking in the same direction, muttered vaguely.
“Your conjunction was a bit off. It’s more accurate to say the branch office was established because I came to Hong Kong, rather than I came to Hong Kong and a branch office was established.”
Jeong Taeui glanced at Ilay. He held out his hand to the man who was calmly exhaling cigarette smoke with an unruffled face, and Ilay promptly handed him a new cigarette.
“You should just give me the whole pack, you stingy scion of a chaebol.”
“I can’t just hand out harmful substances like that.”
There probably wasn’t another mouth where those words would sound so ill-fitting. Jeong Taeui glared at that hateful mouth for a moment.
“You’re glaring at me with such scary eyes; it’s frightening. What are you thinking that makes you stare as if you’re going to devour someone?”
Jeong Taeui exhaled like a sigh, looking at the mouth that so effortlessly spewed incongruous words. “I was just thinking some insignificant thoughts. Like why, after hearing that people don’t travel directly between the European and Asian branches, a notoriously hated individual suddenly appeared as an instructor. Or the collusion between arms dealers and organizations… just some useless thoughts.”
“Haha, what good would it do to think about things that bring no benefit? Give it up, it’ll be easier on your mind and body.”
Are you saying if my mind and body aren’t at ease, you’ll make them that way? Jeong Taeui thought to himself, grimacing. Indeed, as he said, there’s no benefit in even pretending to notice these kinds of things. Besides, what does it matter? In a world overflowing with dozens of “gate” scandals, this wouldn’t even make the news for a minute. Jeong Taeui puffed vigorously on his second cigarette, briefly lamenting, “At this rate, I’ll turn into a heavy smoker before half a year is out.”
Moro, that son of a bitch. If you were going to talk, you should have spoken clearly, not in ambiguous terms. Then I wouldn’t have even turned my head in this direction.
That’s when it happened. He was staring blankly at the sky, which was darkening into indigo, when he suddenly felt a cool hand on his chin. Jeong Taeui flinched, his shoulders subtly hunching, then turned his head slightly. Ilay was holding Jeong Taeui’s chin with his fingertips, tilted his head, and examining him.
Following the gaze that slowly traced from his chin to his mouth, cheek, nose, eyes, and forehead, the hand holding his chin gently swept up his face. The touch on his torn lip carried a bit of force, stinging painfully as it brushed against the dried blood. When he instinctively winced, Ilay seemed to realize and lessened the pressure.
“Tsk, tsk… A face with nothing worth seeing, and now it’s like this. Can it even be used? When was this? It was fine when I left yesterday afternoon, so last night? This morning? It doesn’t seem like it was in the last few hours. Let’s see… Did it happen around morning?”
“You figure it out perfectly fine on your own, so why ask? …Ow. It hurts. Don’t press.”
Jeong Taeui pulled Ilay’s hand away. The hand, which had briefly lingered on his face with a bit of force, soon obediently withdrew. Ilay smiled subtly, looked at Jeong Taeui, then tilted his head.
“Why don’t you pick one day and completely crush one of those guys who pick fights? If you do it properly, I can’t say they’ll never bother you again, but they won’t lightly prod you anymore.”
Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue. This was the man’s kindness. He was giving good advice. The right advice from his perspective. Certainly, if he were to pick one of those who lightly picked fights and “crush” them, as he had likely done in the past, the number of fights would decrease by more than half. Perhaps even to less than 10%. But those rare fights would all be life-threatening. This man’s example proved it.
“I don’t have the guts, courage, or ability to deal with guys who charge at me in groups with bombs… Besides, they’re still colleagues, after all.”
“Colleagues.” Ilay echoed Jeong Taeui’s words. The subtle smile in his tone bordered on mockery.
“Can you say that your colleagues bear no responsibility at all for your face ending up like that?”
“Well, in a way, yes.”
“Why don’t you prune some of your relationships? It doesn’t look like you’re planning to stay there forever, so just discard them appropriately.”
Who are you talking about, you? —He wished he could say that with an innocent face; it would be amusing. But he bit back the words. His skill at self-preservation was increasing daily. However, as if he guessed what Jeong Taeui was thinking, even with his lips tightly pressed together, Ilay subtly raised an eyebrow. Self-preservation. He had to preserve himself. With only a few months left until his discharge—UNHRDO was no different from the military in Jeong Taeui’s mind—it would be a great waste to lose his life meaninglessly at this point. Jeong Taeui smiled as innocently as possible and leaned back against the bench.
However, pruning relationships—that advice, too, was correct from Ilay’s perspective and his own brand of kindness. But it was something he often felt, not just now; this man’s way of thinking differed from Jeong Taeui’s in many ways. Of course, he had come to the organization with the premise of half a year from the start, but that and pruning had a seemingly connected but actually unrelated relationship.
“Honestly… I’m not exactly good at being nice to others myself.”
Jeong Taeui scratched his head. He glanced at Ilay. He had no intention of lecturing or reprimanding him, but he grimaced for a moment before sighing.
“Where is there a relationship without a single scar?”
“Hahaha.”
To Jeong Taeui’s short remark, Ilay gave an even shorter, meaningless reply. Jeong Taeui glared at the man, who wouldn’t look out of place getting stabbed, and tugged at his scratching hair.
“My personality isn’t that great either, so for all the friends I’ve kept for a long time, there’s not a single one with whom I don’t have an angry memory. I even remember grudges from when I was six or seven. And it’s not just me; they must have angry memories of me too. The older the relationship, the more it’s like that.”
Unless one is exceptionally considerate, how could there not be one or two hurtful incidents in a long-term friendship? Scars, one, two, three, they accumulate, yet they continue to meet, and will continue to meet.
“I despise their minor flaws, but I genuinely like them. Which means… even if I currently dislike the minor aspects of those around me, I will definitely drag them along with my life for at least the next 30 years, somehow.”
Jeong Taeui muttered, thinking of friends he hadn’t seen in quite a while, one by one. Yes, unless they were like Lieutenant Kim, even if they caused some grief, after just a few years, they would return to being indifferent relationships. Ilay tapped the armrest of the bench with his fingertips, looking at Jeong Taeui with amusement. From his smiling gaze, Jeong Taeui realized that Ilay didn’t agree with his opinion at all, but since he had no intention of persuading him in the first place, it didn’t matter. He just needed Ilay to understand the underlying meaning: you and I are different. Ilay wasn’t so dense or stupid as to not grasp that much.
“Thirty years. Then after thirty years?”
“Are you stupid? What’s the need to ask?” Jeong Taeui replied sullenly. Ilay smiled faintly and asked again.
“You’ll keep leading them? Those branch guys?”
“Well… I wasn’t specifically referring to them. But who knows, it’s unpredictable.”
“Unpredictable? That contradicts what you just said.”
“I can’t help it. Most of them haven’t even properly shown aspects to hate or like yet.”
Jeong Taeui frowned. He couldn’t drag everyone he encountered and clashed with throughout his life. And the people he would drag along weren’t entirely chosen by Jeong Taeui alone. The parts that made you hate or like someone were visible only for a very brief moment. The creation of human relationships might not be all the time they had known each other, but rather a few fleeting moments.
…Though they hadn’t been able to meet for at least a few months now. He wondered what everyone was doing.
Jeong Taeui absently recalled his friends, who would be across the sea on the opposite side of the sunset. Just then, Ilay, who had been looking at Jeong Taeui with an amused expression, suddenly raised his hand and, with his large hand, covered Jeong Taeui’s face, slowly tracing it once. He meticulously outlined each of the many scars on his face.
“Haven’t you already seen enough parts of the branch guys to hate? —Look, this too.”
“Ah… Ow! I said don’t press!”
Jeong Taeui cried out as Ilay deliberately pressed his middle finger into the bruise on his temple, drawing it downwards. Ilay laughed and removed his hand. If we’re talking about your hateful traits, they’re not just sufficiently visible, they’re overflowing, to the point where sometimes, if someone handed me a knife, I’d feel like committing murder, you bastard. My life is too precious to actually say—or do—that, though.
Jeong Taeui glared at Ilay, fiercely rubbing his own face. “This isn’t so much a hateful trait as it is… a trait that makes me want to punch you hard.”
And I don’t just take the hits; I hit back too, Jeong Taeui mumbled. Then, Ilay suddenly burst out laughing. Not loudly, but a genuinely joyous, refreshing, and prolonged laugh. He kept laughing for a long time, occasionally muttering, “Yes, that’s it,” as if something was incredibly amusing.
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