Chapter 6

His eyelids felt as heavy as cast iron. Mu-yeong blinked slowly, parting his lips to suck in air, only for a bolt of agony to shoot through his skull.

Groaning, he took in his surroundings. Heavy gray shadows filled the damp, chilly basement, illuminated only by a naked bulb hanging overhead. A foul stench of wet concrete and stagnant bilge water hung thick in the air.

Mu-yeong was kneeling on the freezing floor, his arms still cinched tight behind him with plastic zip-ties. Directly across from him, sitting on an overturned wooden crate, sat the Section Chief.

The man’s black shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, revealing the coiled scales of the snake tattoo tapering down toward his collarbone. He was rolling Mu-yeong’s white wireless earbud across the knuckles of his right hand.

“Awake?” the Section Chief asked, his voice smooth and devoid of warmth.

Mu-yeong swallowed the copper-tasting saliva pooling in his mouth. “Who… who are you?”

“You tail my brother for weeks, bug his van, and you don’t even know who I am?” the man scoffed, tilting his head.

The confirmation hit Mu-yeong like ice water. It really was Choi Sijin’s older brother.

“I wasn’t tailing anyone,” Mu-yeong lied through his teeth, trying to keep his voice steady. “I’m just an errand boy. I was sleeping in my car.”

The Section Chief tossed the earbud onto the floor between them. It bounced with a hollow plastic clatter.

“An errand boy with a bug receiver tuned to the exact frequency of the transmitter planted under Sijin’s passenger seat?” the man drawled.

Mu-yeong’s throat constricted. He had been completely made.

The Section Chief leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, his broad shoulders casting a massive shadow across the cement floor.

The Section Chief narrowed his eyes in a predatory squint. “Who ordered the hit?”

“…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mu-yeong mumbled, keeping his eyes downcast.

The instant the words left his lips, an open palm whipped across Mu-yeong’s cheek. The blow landed with a heavy, sickening thud rather than a slap, violently snapping his neck to the side. His inner cheek tore against his teeth, filling his mouth with hot, salty blood.

His brain rattled inside his skull as dizziness washed over him. Swallowing the blood, Mu-yeong fought to regain focus. Seeing him steady himself, the Section Chief gave an approving flick of his thumb against the earbud, as if flashing an OK sign.

“Dahaenem Errand Center,” the man stated evenly.

“…”

“Specializes in collecting dirt on unfaithful spouses,” the mobster continued smoothly. “Never been caught, no one recognizes your face, and barely anyone even recalls your name. Quite the operative—talent like that belongs in the National Intelligence Service, don’t you think?”

The earbud spun across the man’s palm with a faint hum. His dry, impassive gaze traced Mu-yeong from scalp to toes with surgical precision.

“So why did the great Seo Mu-yeong-ssi latch onto our Sijin? Sijin’s personal phone number and home address are basically public domain among his sasaeng fans anyway. You wouldn’t waste your talents on something so trivial, would you?”

“…” Mu-yeong clamped his jaw shut in stubborn silence.

“What, did someone hire you to steal Sijin’s cum?” the Section Chief inquired with genuine boredom, the vulgarity hanging casually in the stale air. “Or were you trying to squeeze the softest, most vulnerable kid in the family to dig up leverage against our company? I’m too dim-witted to imagine anything beyond that, so do me a favor and tell me which one it is.”

Mu-yeong’s heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. How was he supposed to answer?

By ‘our company,’ the man obviously meant Yeongchwi Moneylending, the syndicate front where Choi Hak-gyun served as Chairman. Though barely cloaked in legal paperwork, the employees were thugs through and through.

Yet confessing the truth would yield the exact same ending: the concrete currently pressing against his knees would soon be poured over his head. The Section Chief traced the smooth plastic of the earbud with his thumb, waiting.

“Seo Mu-yeong-ssi, I’m asking you a question,” the man reminded him gently.

“Well…”

“What do you think?” the Section Chief pressed with a dry, chilling smile. “Would another hit jog your memory? I’d like to dispose of Seo Mu-yeong-ssi quickly and clock out for the night.”

The man glanced down at his gold wristwatch. Mu-yeong’s thoughts raced frantically. What possible motive could explain relentlessly stalking Choi Sijin without having anything to do with Yeongchwi Moneylending?

Claiming someone hired him to steal the idol’s underwear? But whose name could he give? He would bet his entire life savings that any made-up client would be exposed within an hour, landing him in a shallow grave on a mountain.

A solo crime. A motive that harbored no malice toward Choi Sijin, posed zero physical threat to him, yet explained why he couldn’t bear to stay away from the celebrity for a single moment.

Conditions flashed through his mind like rapid-fire camera shutters. In the center of Mu-yeong’s brain—hardwired for sheer survival rather than college exams—an escape hatch suddenly revealed itself.

“Nobody ordered me to do this,” Mu-yeong began softly.

A sudden, feverish light sparked within his previously dead, fish-like eyes. A shy, bashful smile bloomed across his lips like spring snow melting under the sun.

“The truth is… I’m actually Sijin’s fan.”

Tears welled in Mu-yeong’s eyes. He lifted the desperately impassioned cadence straight from Mr. Go Heung-gyeom, a client he had tailed two months ago who wept while professing illicit love over duck soup at Mount Cheonggye.

“Because I love him, I just want to see him all the time… I wonder if he’s eating well, I worry if he got home safely…”

Thud. Something dropped onto the floor between them: the portable recorder Mu-yeong had been listening to right before getting snatched. Mu-yeong wet his dry lips nervously.

“…And I wanted to make sure his manager wasn’t driving recklessly…”

Mu-yeong’s chin was abruptly wrenched upward. This time, it wasn’t a fist seizing his hair; the polished toe of the Section Chief’s dress shoe had wedged beneath his jaw, tilting his head back.

“Is that so? Then why don’t we test just how deeply Seo Mu-yeong-ssi truly loves our Sijin?” the tattooed man suggested.

Locking eyes with him, the Section Chief gave a lazy bounce of his foot. Before Mu-yeong could even parse the words, the rapid-fire quiz began.

“Sijin’s birthday.”

“May twenty-second,” Mu-yeong answered without missing a beat.

“Debut title track,” the man barked.

“Lift Off,” Mu-yeong fired back.

“Name every character he played in his dramas,” the interrogator ordered.

“First was Nam Seung-woon: a high school student secretly in love with the noona next door, who turned out to be the plot-twist male lead. Next was Son Joon-young: an art student agonizing over feeling untalented, but who—”

Right there, the leather shoe tapped against his chin, cutting him off. The Section Chief stared down at him with an inscrutable, calculating gaze, as though weighing whether to stomp his throat flat or let him live. Casting his eyes downward, Mu-yeong played his ultimate card.

“Um… Sijin’s hyung-nim,” Mu-yeong ventured tentatively.

“Section Chief,” the tattooed man cut in with chilly precision.

“Section Chief, my phone wallpaper is Sijin too,” Mu-yeong pleaded breathlessly. “The photo from the day his debut was confirmed.”

Behind them, the burly driver suddenly let out a weary, incredulous sigh. Ignoring him completely, Mu-yeong pressed on with desperate fervor.

“I’ve been counting the D-days ever since, and I only drink coffee from cafes Sijin models for! Oh, and starting today, I promised to write a supportive comment for him every single day!”

“You certainly put in the effort,” the Section Chief remarked dryly.

The toe of the shoe shoved his chin up once more. Mu-yeong was forced to lock eyes with the man again. Under that suffocating, predatory gaze, Mu-yeong poured every ounce of theatrical pathos into his plea.

“I truly, genuinely love Sijin. I would never do anything to harm him! I just wanted to watch over him from a distance and keep those memories for myself!”

Tears blurred Mu-yeong’s vision, making it marginally easier to maintain eye contact. Lowering his foot, the Section Chief leaned his torso forward. Those mechanical, camera-lens eyes peered into Mu-yeong’s soul.

“Seo Mu-yeong-ssi,” the Section Chief called out.

“Yes?” Mu-yeong whimpered, peering up through his lashes.

“Even if the way Sijin acts looks like cute antics to me,” the man drawled, “I’m well aware it’s pure obnoxious hysteria to everyone else.”

“…” Mu-yeong swallowed hard, offering no contradiction.

“The kid squeaks like a cheap dog toy the second you press him,” the mobster continued flatly. “If you were a stranger who knew nothing about him, that would be one thing. But loving him after seeing how he really operates? My brain can’t comprehend that kind of sanity.”

In short: the man was asking whether Mu-yeong felt betrayed by Sijin’s true colors and was preparing an exposé. For all his coddling of ‘our Sijin,’ the Section Chief surprisingly hadn’t lost his objective grip on reality.

In the heavy silence, Mu-yeong’s chest hitched as if choking back tears. Having listened to hundreds of pathetic, desperate confessions of love in his line of work, the trembling sobs came with natural perfection.

“I know, but I just love him anyway,” Mu-yeong whimpered. “I don’t know why I’m like this either… I want to stop loving him, but I just keep falling for him more and more…”

His voice quivered with sorrowful moisture, mixing gasps and sniffling in careful proportions so as not to sound too grating to the ear. The Section Chief let out a shallow sigh.

“You love Sijin that much. Enough to do anything, without hesitation.”

The sheer disdain in the man’s voice was music to Mu-yeong’s ears. Nodding vigorously with his eyes cast down, he waited as the Section Chief delivered his follow-up statement.

“And you want our Sijin to be happy,” the Section Chief asserted.

“Yes, of cour—” Mu-yeong started to chirp.

Wait. Was this right? A sudden, icy chill seized Mu-yeong as he snapped his head up. The Section Chief looked down upon him with plain, venomous annoyance.

“The thing Sijin despises most in this world is perverts like you drawing breath,” the man sneered coldly.

As the blood drained entirely from Mu-yeong’s face, the Section Chief murmured, a razor-thin smirk touching his lips, “Still, since you claim to do anything for his happiness, even if I bury Seo Mu-yeong-ssi in concrete right now, you’d consider it a good death, wouldn’t you?”

Plop. The wireless earbud slipped from the Section Chief’s fingers. The polished sole of his dress shoe hovered over the plastic bud, ready to crush it like a human skull.

“No!” Mu-yeong hurriedly denied. “From now on, I’ll tell you every single thing that comes to mind. I just had no idea your interest in me had grown this deep, Section Chief.”

Seo Mu-yeong screamed at the top of his lungs. He lunged forward on his knees, practically scrambling across the floor toward the man.

“Excuse me, Section Chief, wait! Just one second!”

Looking up into those terrifying black eyes, Mu-yeong summoned the absolute sweetest eye-smile he could muster. Even if the only open path led straight off a cliff, a way to survive always existed.

“What if Sijin never knows I even exist?” Mu-yeong pleaded, pouring earnest sincerity into his voice. “Then Sijin won’t have any reason to be upset, and Section Chief won’t have to dirty your hands! Besides, wouldn’t it be useful to keep me alive to put me to work?”

His shoe tapping rhythmically atop the earbud, the Section Chief drawled impassively, “I have no wife, nor do I keep a lover. I don’t foresee having any use for Seo Mu-yeong-ssi.”

Mu-yeong countered in a flattering rush, “Even if you did, you’d never need my services! Who on earth would ever cheat on someone as stunningly handsome as Section Chief?”

A sharp puff of air escaped the Section Chief’s nose—the very first glimpse of an amused reaction since they had crossed paths.

Granted, it was a blatant sneer of disbelief, yet Mu-yeong refused to cower. As a rule, any man possessing even a fraction of good looks was intimately aware of the fact, and pointing it out never failed to soften their temper.

Sure enough, the mobster didn’t appear particularly displeased. Having successfully navigated the small-talk phase into the product pitch, Mu-yeong offered a bright, sociable grin.

“Section Chief, is there anyone you’d like tailed?”

“Not really,” the man replied dryly.

Mu-yeong leaned forward across the cold concrete, asking eagerly, “Anything you need delivered discreetly?”

“Nope,” the Section Chief grunted.

Mu-yeong tilted his head with guarded curiosity. “Then… something you’ve been wanting to get your hands on?”

The Section Chief rolled the earbud under his shoe. Skrrr. The sound of plastic grinding against raw concrete rasped through the basement.

“And if there is, what then?” the man asked, arching a dark brow.

His smile widening, Mu-yeong promised eagerly, “I’ll fetch it for you. This was it.”

In many ways, he was much like prime pollock: eaten fresh as raw fish, but equally prized dried, frozen, or seasoned. Just because he specialized in infidelity investigations didn’t mean he lacked other skills. “I’ve never failed an assignment, not even once,” he boasted proudly.

Scanning Mu-yeong with quiet appraisal, the Section Chief pulled a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket. The suited driver standing behind Mu-yeong immediately stepped forward and respectfully offered a lighter.

Mu-yeong deliberately averted his gaze from the snapping blue flame. Taking a deep drag, the Section Chief jerked his chin toward the subordinate.

“Wait outside,” the boss ordered.

The driver hesitated for a brief second before bowing and exiting the chamber. Exhaling a thick ribbon of smoke, the Section Chief stared intently down at Mu-yeong. A faint, crooked smirk touched his lips.