CH 16.1

The wheels scratched the floor and came to a sudden stop. The place they arrived at was the front door of the Paradiso store.

“Hold on and wait.”

“Where are you going?”

He got out of the car without saying a word. Yaba looked at him bewildered as he walked away.

Cha Yiseok got off the elevator and walked down the hallway. It was a leisurely pace, unlike that of a combative stance. He fiddled with the lighter with his hand stuck into the side of his pants. Tracing the cold silhouette with his fingers, he soothed the blood running wild in his veins. He saw the entrance to the boss’s office. Two underlings at the door bowed at him with their backs at right angles. Cha Yiseok grabbed the doorknob. The man with the cut on his cheek gently pressed the door.

“He’s in a meeting now. Please wait.”

“If I’m coming, he will put it off. That’s how it should be.”

He immediately opened the door to the boss’s office. The eyes of the five figures sitting at the table turned to him. His gaze collided with the boss who was at the head of the table. Cha Yiseok slowly walked towards the boss. The sound of footsteps absorbed by the carpet was akin to the stillness just before the hunting of the jungle beast. Kang Giha woke up with a look closer to displeasure than surprise at the intrusion of an uninvited guest.

“What brought you here all of a sudden…”

Cha Yiseok pulled out his hand from his pocket, held it outward. However, when Kang Giha was about to shake his hand…

Slam—!

The back of Cha Yiseok’s hand struck the opponent’s cheek like the trail of an arrow. His head swung so much that his body staggered. The thugs bounced back and got up with a grim expression.

“Don’t do anything useless.”

Giha firmly ordered. Imsoo wrinkled his brows and stepped back. Giha turned his head back into place and wrinkled his eyebrows.

“What are you doing?”

“There was a scene on Yaba’s face that I had never seen before. I guess you’re the only one who would do that. Am I wrong?”

Cha Yiseok’s words raised Giha’s ears.

“Looking at his face is against the rules. I’m sure you know it well, why did you do that?”

“I’ll pay a fine in return. Why did you hit him?”

“Because he did something that deserved it…”

Slam—!!

Again, Giha’s head spun. Cha Yiseok straightened his back and raised his hand again.

Slam—! Slam—!

A whip-like hand slashed both cheeks one after another. The handprinted red skin gradually turned purple. Giha’s legs were pushed back, and his eyes were boiling with vitality. As if to wear those challenging eyes, Cha Yiseok tore his skin and struck persistently as if he was going to see the red muscles under it.. His subordinates clenched their fists and were ready to attack whenever an order was given. Before he knew it, dark red blood flowed from Giha’s lips. Cha Yiseok, who had stopped hitting, spoke one beat later.

“Still, you can’t do that.”

The tone was like soothing a child, but his eyes were boiling lava without an ignition flash point. Giha chewed his molars.

“This is the kid I take care of. I trained him with my own hands, you are presumptuously interfering.”

Yiseok swept back his hair.

“I must have made it clear that the stake included the price of the cat. Do I have to pierce your ears for them to be able to work?”

Cha Yiseok grabbed Giha’s neck with his hands. When Giha fell on the desk, he held his neck with his elbow and pressed it down. He pulled out a fountain pen that was standing on the desk and shoved a sharp nib into the boss’s eardrum.

“If you don’t want to get your eardrum pierced, don’t move.”

“Keu… !”

A metal pen with a sharp tip pierced the eardrum. Giha grinded his teeth in the pain of his hair standing up. As his men rushed in, Cha Yiseok plunged the fountain pen deeper. The men froze in an immobile position.

Cha Yiseok leaned his back and made eye contact with the man beneath him. Blood dripped from a fountain pen stuck in his ear, wetting the scorpion’s tail on Giha’s neck. The smell of blood and sweat made his aggressive instincts boil over. Cha Yiseok watched the blood flow with glazed eyes.

“If you touch the cat’s face one more time, then you will really be in trouble.”

Cha Yiseok’s pupils glistened like reptile scales. He twitched the corners of his white eyes. The sound of two breaths that were tied together tightly mingled, and the smell of fishy insanity pierced his nostrils. Cha Yiseok relentlessly shoved the fountain pen in.

“Come on, you have to answer.”

Urgh! Crazy bastard! Giha twisted his nose and chewed curses inwardly. All he needed was a puppet that mimicked Cocaine. The bruises should be covered with a mask right now. The crazy bastard was reacting more than necessary now. The wound on Yaba’s face was making him lose his mind and corner the culprit. It was like when Kang Giha saw the traces on Yaba’s body and his reason flew away. It was an instinctive intuition.

“Perhaps… Was it DIrector Cha?”

“What?”

“What was left on Yaba’s body…”

“Can I not?”

Executive Director Cha asked without changing a single expression on his face. Giha wanted to puncture his head with the pistol on the bookshelf. The culprit of the traces was that crazy bastard. Blood gushed upside down.

“I have said… staying out… is prohibited. You should know it well, I didn’t think I needed to say more.”

Giha clenched his fists and controlled the boiling fire. The pen nib with a hollow center bit the flesh and blood in the ear canal. Kang Giha’s voice was cut off due to the excruciating pain in the back of his neck.

“… S- So… Did you… go all the way?”

Cha Yiseok lifted his lips.

“I wanted to force myself to eat, but rape didn’t suit me.”

“I didn’t know… your tastes had changed… On the basement floor of Paradiso… I met you, just a couple days ago…”

“I don’t like that place these days either.”

“… Get a grip. Yaba is posing… as Cocaine… and he’s not really… Cocaine.”

“Who doesn’t know that?”

Cha Yiseok asked with a twisted smile. He patted Giha’s other cheek. The recoil shook his head, digging deeper into the pen tip. All the pain stood on the tip of a pen stuck in the ear, causing excruciating pain. Now, Giha’s head was conflicted between his murderous intentions towards Cha Yiseok and his own solid future.

Once people like him make up their mind, they become cruel to the end. They controlled the political and business world of a country, and cut off stumbling blocks without even a mouse or a bird knowing. It would not be enough to split his stomach and bury him, but now was the time to lower himself if he wanted to get something bigger in the future. He can take care of Cha Yiseok and Yaba after that. A fishy smile hung on the tip of Kang Giha’s lips, distorted by pain.

“This is not the time for the Executive Director and I to waste our time over such a thing, is it? We have to take a bigger leap forward.”

Hmmm, Cha Yiseok’s expressionless face moved away, and the fountain pen stuck in his ear hole went out without consideration. Cha Yiseok pulled out some tissue paper from the sofa table and wiped the blood-stained fountain pen. He put the fountain pen in place and walked to the door. The subordinates stared at Cha Yiseok’s every move as if they were chewing on it, and Imsoo ran and pulled Kang Giha up. Giha leaned against the desk, covering his ears that were dripping blood. Cha Yiseok stopped his steps and suddenly turned his head and asked.

“By the way, was Yaba’s castration done there?”

Giha only exhaled a harsh breath.

“It’s a nasty hobby.”

Cha Yiseok wrinkled his eyebrows and muttered. Giha stared at him with his sizzling eyes.

“Do you know how Cocaine got here? The real Cocaine that the Director adored so much.”

“He couldn’t have come on his own, so you must have caught him.”

“Of course, but you don’t know who is half responsible.”

Kang Giha replied. Cha Yiseok’s gaze flew to Giha.

“Then who is responsible for the other half?”

Giha grinned.

“I wonder. I would like to have a drink with the Executive Director sometime. Please call me when you have time.”

And he turned to his subordinates.

“What are you looking at? See him off.”

His men opened the door. The singers who had just arrived were walking at the end of the hallway when they came upon this scene and were confused. Amongst the crowd, Cocaine’s eyes widened. Yiseok walked to the end of the hallway.

Cocaine looked at his back as he disappeared. When he looked back, a cold hardened Hashish was staring at Cocaine. Cocaine averted his gaze and looked at the open door of the boss’s office. Hashish relaxed his expression and muttered.

“The bastard boss’s thighs and eardrums have to suffer too.”

In the office a few meters away, Kang Giha staggered and covered his blood-stained ears. Giha and his eyes met, but Cocaine walked away indifferently. Hashish grabbed his shoulder.

“Where are you going? I think Imsoo is calling for you…”

“Really? I didn’t realize. I will be getting ready first in the waiting room, so can you give me the reservation list?”

“What about the boss? If you leave his eardrums in that state, he’ll be pissed.”

“Leave it. That guy will be okay.”

Cocaine’s voice saying so was cold. But he didn’t even walk a few steps before being caught by thugs, and was only released after treating the boss’s ear. It was time to leave the office, alone with the boss and Cocaine.

“That guy… How are the wounds?”

Cocaine grabbed the doorknob and looked at the boss.

“If you are so worried, why did you hit him? My power doesn’t work on Yaba, so take him to the hospital later.”

The boss grabbed a cigarette and lit it. Smoke drifted from the corners of his contemplative eyes. He cleared his guilt-stained expression and leaned his body against the sofa.

“Why doesn’t your treatment work for Yaba?”

“No matter how great a cure is, there is no law that says it will work for everyone. Depending on the person, there will be a rejection reaction, or there may be other reasons.”

“I’ve always wondered. 10 years ago, when you screamed in the warehouse, why was Yaba okay? One of Imsoo’s ears was broken, and I almost became like those doctors. After that, your power has never worked on Yaba at all.”

“If I tell you why, will you release me?”

As Cocaine let out those words, the boss’s eye instantaneously sharpened. Suddenly, the boss’s ring caught his eye. A silver ring with no distinctive features is studded with blue cubic zirconia. When you open the cubic, there is a small button. It was a remote control dedicated to Cocaine. For use when Cocaine screams or runs away. Cocaine grinned.

“It’s a joke, so put that face away. Well… I’ve always wondered about that, and Yaba told me why. Because he was already dead that day, my powers didn’t work… Of course, it must have been me who killed him.”

The boss snorted as if he had nothing to say. Cocaine asked.

“By the way, I think the boss knows better than me. You must have seen all of your father’s material, didn’t you?”

“All I know is some basic data. The part that the old man focused on was whether and how long it would take to cure the mental and physical diseases that exist in the world with songs. In the midst of this, I learned that only by castration can they retain their power and even kill with their screams. You know all that, right?”

“Is that all?”

At Cocaine’s question, the boss hardened his face.

“The boss’s father passed away leaving only unfinished research data. Maybe there’s more that your father didn’t know, no, maybe he knew but didn’t record?”

“What’s that?”

The boss asked with a curious look. As Cocaine opened the door, the shadows wet his shoulders.

“How would I know? Only your father will know.”

Cocaine came out of his boss’s office that way. As he was walking down the hallway, he dropped his bag, leaning against the wall. Rather than the conversation he had with the boss the whole time, the back of Cha Yiseok took over his head. After not seeing him for a while, there was a subtle change in Cha Yiseok. He had met him twice today, but he didn’t give him a cheeky look, or dirty jokes.

“It can’t be…”

It may be because he was too busy with work or because he didn’t have time for personal affairs. Cocaine gripped his tight chest. When was the first time he met Cha Yiseok? He was a regular downstairs frequented by abnormal sexual desires and then became a regular upstairs. Most of the people who come for healing are like that. He didn’t know which room he used.

‘You have pretty skin. There’s a way to preserve this kind of skin for a long time.’

Cha Yiseok said so the day they first met. Even after that, he made Cocaine’s face hot with glazed eyes and obscene words. It was then. Even when he said something close to sexual harassment, he didn’t put a finger on Cocaine. The disparity was confusing, and the fact that his singing effect did not work also encouraged him to come. And the look and atmosphere that he couldn’t take his eyes off… Such things may have piled up and acted as an attraction.

Upon entering the waiting room, the young men were wearing stage costumes. A golden mask rolled in dust under the chair. it was Yaba’s. Yaba was not materialistic except for moisturizing creams and drugs. He didn’t know what Cha Yiseok and that guy were doing, but he started thinking that spending the night together might not be just his delusion. If that was true, if Cha Yiseok left a mark on Yaba’s body, it meant that he saw Yaba’s face. The secret under that mask…

He looked at Yaba’s mask expressionlessly. And the urge to crush the mask was something he had never even thought of. Cocaine lifted the inverted mask and placed it on the chair. His fingertips were cold.