Passion Novel - Volume 3 - Chapter 81

Anger surged. His heart ached terribly. The headache pulsed wildly in his head.

It would have been better if he had been given a heads-up. Then, even if his uncle had killed someone, Jeong Taeui wouldn’t have been this angry. His heart wouldn’t have ached like this. No matter how his uncle had used his hands, or how much he had dirtied them, it would have been fine. If his uncle had just asked for help, Jeong Taeui would have done it.

But he didn’t do that.

Jeong Taeui, furious and shouting, suddenly fell silent. It was because his throat was choked with surging resentment. Once he closed his mouth like that, no more words came out.

His uncle also said nothing. He couldn’t tell what kind of face he was making on the other end of the line. Jeong Taeui just clutched the receiver, swallowing ragged breaths.

Then, Ilay, who had been watching with his arms crossed, gently took the receiver from Jeong Taeui’s hand. Jeong Taeui’s hand, which had briefly tried not to let go of the receiver, soon lost its strength.

“Hello. Hmm, it’s me. …Uh, a little. Well, come talk about it later. …Hmm. Things are going your way over there. Yeah. Hmm.”

Ilay, who had taken the receiver on Jeong Taeui’s behalf, said only a few brief words and then hung up. Then he turned to Jeong Taeui and said casually,

“Calm down. …No, are you calm now?”

“You calm down quickly, after all,” Ilay added, but Jeong Taeui couldn’t possibly smile. The fiery lump filling him was too hot to bear.

“You.”

“…”

“You knew, didn’t you? From when you came to my room yesterday, no, even before that.”

Ilay didn’t answer Jeong Taeui’s words. But his face, which seemed to be smiling and not smiling at the same time, was an affirmation.

“While you were with me yesterday, were you thinking, ‘In a few more hours, this guy will be acting like a puppet. What time tomorrow should I go to the instructor’s office?’ Ha. And when you were touching me, were you thinking, ‘If I go all the way, this guy won’t be able to move properly, and that’ll mess things up, so I should hold back a little?'”

“Taei. You’re too agitated right now. Calm down.”

Despite Jeong Taeui’s words, Ilay spoke calmly, showing no anger or displeasure. His composed face only fueled Jeong Taeui’s resentment further.

“Calm down. …Would you calm down, you son of a bitch!”

Jeong Taeui picked up the beer can he had left nearby and threw it. The heavy, beer-filled can flew fiercely towards Ilay, who was only a few steps away, but Ilay tilted his head slightly and dodged it. His expression hardened slightly, as if displeased. Jeong Taeui knew this was an outburst of anger. Ilay was not the root cause of this. So this resentment wasn’t entirely Ilay’s fault. But he had clearly come to Jeong Taeui, knowing everything. He had simply watched Jeong Taeui being foolishly manipulated, content to satisfy his own desires. Jeong Taeui hadn’t expected anything from him. There was no special friendship, no loyalty that would prompt him to comfort Jeong Taeui.

But he couldn’t help the anger that surged within him.

“Taei, go back. If I’m with someone who can’t tell right from wrong and doesn’t know who they’re attacking, I’ll want to wring their neck.”

Ilay said coldly. And he grabbed Jeong Taeui, whose face was pale with rage, and dragged him out of his room. Looking at Jeong Taeui, who had been pushed into the hallway, he said, “Then,” as if nothing had happened, and closed the door.

Click, Jeong Taeui stood there blankly, staring at the firmly closed door in front of him.

***

His head throbbed. His head had ached even before he woke up. He couldn’t sleep deeply, groaning with a headache even in his half-sleep, waking and dozing off.

When he finally woke up with an unrefreshed head, it was still dark. Looking at the clock, which showed not yet 6 AM, Jeong Taeui sighed and scratched his head.

“Damn it…”

His head still felt heavy and his eyelids were heavy, but he didn’t think he’d fall back asleep. Jeong Taeui slumped on the bed, closed his eyes, and dozed off for a moment, but then, unable to truly sleep, he opened his eyes. The moment he opened his eyes, a fierce, throbbing headache assaulted him, and Jeong Taeui clutched his head, burying his face in the blanket.

“Ow, ow… Aspirin, aspirin,”

Last night, after being kicked out of Ilay’s room, Jeong Taeui immediately went to the medic instructor’s room and pounded on the door. The instructor, who had finished his duties hours ago and was leisurely soaking in the bathtub, came out wrapped in only a towel, still wet, and immediately cursed as he opened the door. He was yelling like a madman about who would come knocking in the middle of the night and bother someone taking a bath, but then he saw Jeong Taeui standing at the door and fell silent. Grumbling something under his breath, he obediently put on his clothes, went to the infirmary, and threw half a sheet of painkillers to Jeong Taeui as he wished. Jeong Taeui belatedly thought that his appearance must have been quite terrible, considering that the fussy instructor hadn’t openly lost his temper.

Indeed, it must have been. His face was deathly pale, completely drained of color, and his lips were bloodless. It wouldn’t have been strange if he looked like someone who would collapse at the slightest touch.

‘You know aspirin is the worst for your stomach lining, right? Make sure to take it after eating.’

Jeong Taeui vaguely replied to the gruffly spoken words as he was handed the medicine, then returned to his room and immediately chewed and swallowed double the prescribed dose. His head hurt so much that two pills didn’t seem like enough. He took the medicine and immediately buried himself in the blankets to sleep, but his head still hurt too much to fall asleep.

It was at least an hour later that the medicine finally started to take a slight effect, and his consciousness blurred a little. But the pain didn’t completely disappear, so he spent the night muttering, ‘My head hurts, my head hurts…’ even in his sleep, and woke up with the headache still lingering.

“I think I left the leftover aspirin from yesterday somewhere…”

Jeong Taeui’s stomach was aching, but the headache was more urgent, so he searched for the painkiller sheet he had placed on the bedside table. He found the sheet behind the cup, but there were no pills inside. Jeong Taeui blinked, then vaguely recalled swallowing the rest of the pills in his sleep last night, groaning that his headache wouldn’t go away.

Damn it, Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue and got up. His head ached so much that his brow furrowed involuntarily. It was a bit rude to go find the instructor again at this hour, not even 6 AM, but his head felt like it was spinning from the ceaseless headache since last night.

He felt like asking for the entire bottle of painkillers and chewing them all right there.

Sighing, he roughly put on some clothes and staggered out of the room. Given the time, the hallway, which would normally have a few people passing by, was deserted. Occasionally, he heard the sound of a door opening and closing far away. Among the diligent ones, there were some who sweated in the training room every morning. Ilay was one of them. He had once said that if he didn’t sweat cleanly, his body would feel stiff all day.

“…”

Jeong Taeui frowned. He had thought of a name he didn’t want to think about. What was worse, as soon as he recognized “I don’t want to think about it,” other unpleasant names came flooding into his mind, along with the reason.

Damn it. If I just threw a bomb into this damn UNHRDO headquarters, I’d feel a lot better. If I threw a few more lumps at the branch offices, it would be absolutely refreshing. Come to think of it, I’m going to leave this damn organization soon anyway, so should I really commit an act of terror and leave? If I had the ability, I’d just break the whole thing and leave.

Jeong Taeui, for the first time, envied his brother’s genius, pressing his throbbing temples. A staff member, who seemed to be returning from the training room, covered in sweat and looking refreshed, got off the elevator and flinched when he saw Jeong Taeui. After the staff member exited, Jeong Taeui got on the elevator and saw his reflection in the mirror inside, understanding why.

Good heavens, he looked like a freshly dead corpse. Even though it was early morning, still dark, encountering such a face would indeed be frightening. Jeong Taeui smiled bitterly. As he smiled, he said, “Ow, ow,” again and clutched his head.

“Medicine, I need medicine,” he mumbled like a drug addict, and reached the instructor’s room in a single breath. At first, Jeong Taeui knocked quietly. There was no answer. Thinking he might be deeply asleep, he rang the doorbell. Still no answer.

Jeong Taeui frowned slightly and pressed the doorbell repeatedly while simultaneously knocking on the door. By then, the delicate and irritable instructor should have come out screaming, but there was still no response.

“What… Does he need something from Luther? At this hour, he’ll be in the training room. Go there.”

As he was knocking on the door, the person he wanted didn’t come out. Instead, the door of the next room opened, and another instructor, with an annoyed face, poked his head out. His unpleasant face, as if he had been woken up by a beating in his sleep, clearly read ‘noisy.’

Jeong Taeui briefly debated whether to break this door or, since he was going to break a door anyway, go to the infirmary and break that door. Then, seeing the other instructor’s face, which looked like he would burst out screaming if he knocked one more time, Jeong Taeui whispered a small, “Sorry.”

The instructor, still not erasing his unpleasant expression, went back into his room without answering.

It was unexpected. He hadn’t known that the stubborn and irritable instructor was healthy and energetic enough to exercise every morning. It was wrong to judge a person by their appearance, but he had a very unhealthy impression for a medic instructor.

“Well, to handle such a murderous workload, you need considerable stamina. Perhaps he’s the healthiest person in this branch.”

Jeong Taeui tapped his temples and turned around. But as soon as he decided on a new destination, he felt nauseous again. He was in so much pain he felt like dying, and after coming all the way up to the first basement floor, he had to go down to the fifth-floor training room again. If he found the instructor there, he would have to go up to the second-floor infirmary again.

This was why people always kept a medicine box at home, even if they weren’t usually sick. Jeong Taeui decided that once this headache was gone, he would also get a medicine box and keep it in his room, and then went down to the fifth floor again.

“…Ugh… My stomach hurts.”

Seeing the elevator standing on the sixth basement floor, Jeong Taeui, who was going down the stairs because he didn’t want to wait for the elevator to come up to the first basement floor, paused briefly just before reaching the fifth basement floor. The headache alone was making him uneasy, and now his stomach hurt too. Feeling a tight squeeze, Jeong Taeui leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and grimaced. After some time passed and he felt a little better, he sighed and continued walking.

Jeong Taeui was not a weak person. He usually didn’t have stomach problems, and he would just endure a typical headache. But now, it hurt unusually much. He didn’t know if it was genuinely excruciating pain, or if stress had accumulated to the point of explosion, or if his mind was weakened, making him feel the pain more exaggeratedly.

“It’s all good… Anyway, if I just endure a little longer, it’s goodbye to this place. Surely I won’t die before then.”

Jeong Taeui gritted his teeth and mumbled. The half-year he had promised his uncle was almost up. Moreover, it might be that Jeong Taeui would be kicked out of UNHRDO for taking responsibility for this incident before that half-year even passed.

What was this feeling called?

Unpleasant and uncomfortable, but too exhausted to get angry, and even trying to calmly sort out the rights and wrongs of the situation in his own mind felt bothersome.

There was definitely a word to express this feeling, but it wouldn’t come to him. Even if he tried to recall it, solving the headache came first. The training room was visible in the distance. Jeong Taeui hypnotized himself, repeatedly telling himself that there was medicine there, and walked towards it. If by any chance the instructor wasn’t there either, then nothing else mattered. He would just go to the infirmary and break down the door.

Jeong Taeui glanced at his wristwatch. It had just passed 6 AM. If he went to the infirmary, got the medicine, and returned to his room, he felt like he could lie down for two more hours, ignoring the morning routine before regular duty. He didn’t know if he’d actually fall asleep, but he intended to lie down, even if it was just in a daze. Or perhaps he should even get sleeping pills and swallow them too. However, he might be carried away for drug abuse, but at this moment, his immediate pain was so severe that he had no room to think about the future. Jeong Taeui thought, ‘I feel somewhat resigned…’ and lightly tapped the back of his neck. His head felt hollow and shaken, as if the pain was scattering a little.

As Jeong Taeui approached within a few steps of the training room, the door opened. The translucent glass automatic sliding door opened, and a man walked out from inside, his hair wet, as if he had just finished exercising and showering.

“…”

“Ah.”

The moment he recognized the man’s face, Jeong Taeui frowned almost imperceptibly.

Ilay Riegrow. Indeed, this man exercised every morning, so it was not at all strange to encounter him here. But he didn’t want to see him now. Just seeing him made his mood heavy. His headache was already severe, and this was certainly not a welcome sight. Moreover, it had only been a few hours since he had been so upset last night.

Ilay was not the kind of man who wouldn’t notice Jeong Taeui’s displeasure, but he saw Jeong Taeui and his lips curved slightly into a smile.

“Rare sight. You’re here at this hour. Going to work out? There aren’t many people today, so you can run leisurely.”

He gestured with his chin towards the inside. Jeong Taeui looked at him silently. As if nothing had happened, as if his informing Jeong Taeui of the situation and Jeong Taeui’s extreme anger had never occurred or had been resolved long ago, he was no different from usual.

Ha. He felt like laughing.

To Ilay, everything was insignificant. No matter how Jeong Taeui felt, no matter how angry he got and how much he yelled, it was of no consequence to him.

Jeong Taeui, who had been silent for a moment, sighed. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known what kind of man Ilay was, so why should he be upset now?

“No, I’m looking for someone. Is Luther inside?”

“Luther? Why? Are you sick this morning?”

“Just a headache.”

Jeong Taeui answered gruffly and briefly. Ilay, who had stopped walking, looked down at Jeong Taeui. Then he suddenly chuckled and took a couple of steps closer. He stopped less than a step away from Jeong Taeui. Bending slightly, he brought his mouth close to Jeong Taeui’s ear and whispered gently, like a kitten.

“Taei. You pretend not to be, but you’re surprisingly sensitive, that’s your problem. You probably didn’t get a good night’s sleep yesterday and tossed and turned. Take some tension out of your shoulders. Don’t exaggerate small problems. …Ah, right. Since you’re here anyway, why don’t you just work out? Your head will feel clearer after you sweat.”

After speaking, he lightly kissed Jeong Taeui’s cheek, as if greeting a close family member with affection. Then he took a step back and smiled faintly.

“Well, fine. I think I saw Luther weight training inside. He’s probably cooling down now or in the shower room. I hope you take care of your business well, Taei.”

Ilay patted Jeong Taeui’s shoulder a couple of times and then started walking again. Jeong Taeui stood motionless, listening to his footsteps fade away as he passed by him, until the sound finally disappeared around the corner and down the hallway.

“…”

His fingernails dug into his palm. His clenched fist trembled faintly without his knowing.

For a moment, he forgot the headache. It was because his mind had turned black with heat. A lump surged up from within, choking his throat for a moment, making it difficult to breathe.

“Ha…”

Jeong Taeui slowly opened his hand. Crescent-shaped nail marks were etched into his palm.

“Honestly…”

He mumbled with a sigh. He wanted to snort, but no laughter came out.

“It’s been a long time since I felt this awful…”

Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue. Hearing his own words out loud made him feel even worse. He hadn’t expected anything grand. This was a man who would make sexual jokes even after raping someone, so he hadn’t even imagined he would apologize or show any remorse. Even if he did, upon reflection, there might not have been any reason for Jeong Taeui to accept that apology.

He thought, ‘Of course, a guy like him would act like that,’ but seeing that nonchalant face, a lump of resentment surged up.

Hey, you bastard. At least show some embarrassment, or better yet, just pass by without saying anything at all. That’s the decent thing to do.

Jeong Taeui felt his heart constrict and pounded his chest with his fist. He hit it hard enough to feel pain in his chest, and his breathing returned a little. At the same time, the headache, which had momentarily left his consciousness, fiercely returned. The moment he felt that headache, Jeong Taeui released the grip from his fist. A breath, whether a sigh or a lament, escaped his lips. The resentment that had surged to his head instantly seemed to drain away to his feet. And then, that feeling from before, the one whose name he couldn’t recall, enveloped his mind again.

What was that feeling, similar to depression, he wondered, as his headache worsened, and Jeong Taeui entered the training room. Fortunately, Luther was found at a glance. Luther, who was untying his shoelaces as if he had just finished his cool-down exercises and was about to enter the shower room, mumbled, “Uh, uh,” when he saw Jeong Taeui, whose face was pale and rigid, striding directly towards him. He seemed about to ask, “What brings you here at this hour?” but seeing Jeong Taeui, who looked almost ghostly, he stammered and closed his mouth.

“Uh, Taei… Good morning… doesn’t seem right. You looked like that last night too, why is your face such a mess… Uh, uh? Hey! Wait! I haven’t showered yet!!”

Jeong Taeui, glancing at Luther’s complexion as he greeted him and asked about his well-being, grabbed Luther’s nape and pulled him close. He pulled Luther, who came along like a doll, close to his nose and said in a low voice, like someone about to die.

“Give me the medicine.”

He was cursed out by Luther. As he was dragged to the infirmary, unable to change out of his sweaty workout clothes, Luther poured out a torrent of harsh curses that barely avoided crossing the line into obscenities. It was the same while searching for medicine inside the infirmary, and it was the same even after he received the medicine, chewed and swallowed it, and Jeong Taeui turned to go back to his room.

The fortunate thing was that his head was throbbing so much that most of the curses went in one ear and out the other.

He didn’t know how he managed to get back to his room. When he came to his senses, Jeong Taeui was sprawled on his bed. Since his head hurt, his vision also throbbed. The phone came into view in the corner of his blurred, flickering vision. It was still unplugged from when he had pulled the cord before falling asleep last night, now just a piece of scrap metal.

Had anyone called him while the phone line was unplugged? If someone had called, it would most likely have been his uncle. No, perhaps even if the phone had been plugged in, it might not have rung even once. That seemed more likely.

His uncle was not someone who would make excuses to assert his righteousness about something that had already happened. He would rather choose to remain a bad person without explanation. If he had done the right thing and been misunderstood—though it didn’t seem likely that someone of his uncle’s caliber would make a mistake that would lead to misunderstanding—if he had done something wrong, he was the kind of person who would calmly admit it when questioned later, without trying to explain or cover it up. And then he would ask with a brazen face, ‘So, what are you going to do?’

—So, what are you going to do, Jaeui?

Suddenly, his uncle’s voice from long ago faintly came to mind. A younger voice than now.

He couldn’t remember exactly when it was. It seemed like a summer vacation during elementary school. At that time, Jeong Taeui was busy playing with his neighborhood friends, going to summer camps and such, so he didn’t know the exact circumstances. When he returned home after a two-night, three-day camp organized by the school’s youth corps, his father and uncle were fighting. No, saying they were fighting might be an overstatement. His father was unilaterally angry, and his uncle was silently enduring that anger. And next to them, his brother sat with an expressionless face.

Jeong Taeui’s father was usually a quiet person. He rarely showed strong emotions or exploded. He deeply cherished his much younger brother, and when his proud brother, who had joined some incredibly famous and excellent international organization abroad—it was UNHRDO—occasionally returned home on vacation, he always took warm care of him.

So, Jeong Taeui had never seen his father get so angry at his uncle until that day.

Jeong Taeui stopped taking off his shoes at the entrance and stood there blankly, looking back and forth between his father and uncle. His father, after pouring out his anger, paused for a moment. And a brief silence fell. Then his uncle, without apologizing to his father, without saying he was wrong, quietly opened his mouth. “So, what are you going to do, Jaeui?” he said.

His father’s face was momentarily dumbfounded. And he looked at his brother with an expression mixed with anger, pain, and sadness, then finally shook his head and went into his room.

Perhaps because his father’s rare anger was so striking, he couldn’t remember what his brother had answered then. He also hadn’t heard what had made his father so angry.

But what Jeong Taeui belatedly realized with a child’s intuition was that his uncle had exploited his brother’s exceptional talent. Thinking about it now, it seemed that his uncle had probably created the opportunity for his brother to develop weapons then.

“…”

Jeong Taeui sighed and closed his eyes. The medicine seemed to be taking effect, as the headache dulled ever so slightly. His uncle never apologized to his father to the very end. Perhaps he had apologized without Jeong Taeui knowing, but he felt with certainty that he hadn’t.

However, for some reason, another image overlapped with that of his uncle, who had remained silent without apologizing to the very end. At his father’s funeral several years ago, his uncle sat in a corner of the wake hall, motionless. He would gaze at the floor lost in thought for a long time, then occasionally, as if remembering, he would gaze at his father’s portrait. Until the hearse left, his uncle remained seated like that.