Do-Yung crouched down in front of the fainted man and softly brushed a strand of hair away from the bruised face. His face hadn't changed. He trailed a bloodied forefinger down his temple to his mouth where he rubbed the dark red liquid over the slightly parted lips. A shiver ran down his back at the softness under his digit.
The gangster leaned his head on his palm, still squatting next to the unconscious body and smirked. The sight sent shivers down his men's spines and the numerous giants all tensed and gripped their weapons tighter in fear even though they knew it wouldn't be of much use if their boss decided to get rid of them.
Finally. He had finally caught him.
—
Na-Kyum groaned in pain and struggled to sit up. His head felt heavy but not like when he was hungover and his face stung. He tried to open his eyes and found himself unable to fully lift his right eyelid.
« Hngh, » he grunted and raised a tentative hand to his face. It hurt.
It took a minute to gather his thoughts and remember what had happened. It hurt a lot.
Hee-Na had called. It had been a very long time since he last heard from anyone from the orphanage. Na-Kyum had long understood after watching so many leave before him, that orphans often preferred to put this miserable life behind and forget all about it once they were out. Hee-Na had been the only one to keep in contact with him though she had left long before he did. Which was why it had hurt so much when she stopped. One day she wrote to tell him she was getting married. She wrote about her new family-in-law, how nice they were to her despite her embarrassing background, how great her husband was. He read over the pages again and again but there was no mention of invitation. No date, no place. It had been the last letter.
It was funny how the second she greeted him over the phone, he immediately recognized her despite all the time that had passed. It was almost pitiful how happy he had been to hear her. She hadn't forgotten him. So of course when she begged him to come help her, he ran. She lived three hours away by car and he broke into his savings to pay for the travel, desperate to get there on time. It turned out her husband wasn't so great. He wasn't even good. Indeed, he was so bad that he had put them in debt to pay for his unsavory consumption. And now, Hee-Na was hiding in a public bathroom after being hunted down by her husband's creditors.
No police, she had begged. They would kill her.
—
The woman shivered and did her best to hold her phone tightly in her unsteady grip. She was kneeling amongst innumerable pieces of glass, her eyes stuck on that one broken frame lying on the floor in front of her. Her husband, that man she had grown to hate and resent, the source of all her misfortunes, bled out next to her. He was alive, barely, but still breathing and she found herself imagining picking up one of the largest shard and fixing the mistake. She cursed the day she had married him.
« I'll be there as soon as possible, » Na-Kyum promised in her ear. The voice she had long forgotten filled with worry. How long had it been since she last heard from him ? Seven years ? Eight ? Honestly it had been easy to forget him, to turn the page on her life as an orphan, to erase all its traces and melt in the embrace of a real family. And yet not one of them had ever sounded so genuinely worried for her. « I'll call the police, don't move an- »
« NO ! » She shouted in panic and shot her head up to look at the men crowding the small living room. One of them stood right next to her and tapped the floor with a bloodied baseball bat. « Please, no police… Please… »
It took three hours. Three interminable hours. Every single person standing in the room frightened her to death, they were dangerous, cruel people whom had just barged in, beaten her husband to pulp in front of her eyes and torn her house down. And yet, no one scared her more than the one sitting on the couch, legs crossed, eyes spread on the back and staring down at her without batting an eyelash. He was tall, very tall, had had to bend down to enter and his shoulders were wide. His black tuxedo shirt and pleated pants showed off a muscular body. He was also incredibly attractive. Hee-Na had never, ever seen someone as handsome in her life. But the empty look on his face as he had knocked her husband's head again and again on the floor... The twisted sight of the blood staining his perfect features, made any admiration drowned by fear.
She didn't dare look at him. Around the second hour though, she forgot herself, lulled by the kind voice, the only sound resonating in the otherwise dead silent house. He had dimples she thought before being hit by a terror unlike anything else. Hee-Na hated herself in that moment, but she was too selfish to go back. She didn't know what Na-Kyum had done to this man, how the sweet kid she remembered had even crossed path with this world, but mostly she was just full of gratitude that the predatory smile on his face wasn't aimed at her.