Chapter 80: Chapter 80

The Country Life Diary of a Gangster's Secretary - c80

This chapter is paid for by Nemuru!

“Ah, those crazy bastards, I’m telling you. The nerve of those pathetic fools to try to mess with anyone.”

“Hey, watch your mouth in front of the boss, okay? You little punk.”

“I’m pissed off, that’s why! Those bastards dared to do that to our boss.”

Today, Seongjin walked down the humid corridor, ignoring the chatter behind him while dressed in a stylish Hawaiian shirt.

He was rubbing his shoulders as if his body was stiff. The bulky subordinates following him also looked a bit tired.

“Ah, this was the outfit  Hyeseong said looked the best on me. Damn, it’s all ruined.”

Seongjin clicked his tongue as he looked down at his clothes. They were covered in someone’s blood.

“Boss,  Hyeseong has never once said your clothes looked good.”

“He said it before. That this outfit was nice.”

The subordinates’ clothes were in a similar state. The white dress shirts were stained red.

“That’s… he only said it seems like the best out of the clothes you have because you kept asking his opinion…”

“What? That’s not true. You wanna die, punk?”

Seongjin suddenly raised his hand towards Baek-do. He instinctively flinched. Seongjin grumbled that he would ask  Hyeseong again when he comes later and went inside the office.

“What? Why are you so late?”

“Says the guy who came in late after drinking.”

Inside, a disheveled-looking Ihyeok was slowly getting up from the couch.

“The job.”

“Yes, Boss! We finished it successfully. Man, those neighborhood bastards were so persistent, we broke out in a cold sweat. They’ll probably all leave within this week. The shops that held out till the end all closed too. We should be able to proceed with the demolition work as planned without any issues.”

“Okay. Good work.”

Ihyeok took out a cigarette from inside his jacket and put it in his mouth. Baek-do quickly ran over to light it for him.

Taesung’s current source of funds was corporations. They were making daily profits by having their backs and taking on jobs for money. This time, it was related to a local redevelopment project. They had jumped into a kind of demolition work to cover their backs.

“So, your answer?”

“Pardon?”

Baek-do, who was lighting the cigarette, flinched slightly at the icy voice.

Ihyeok took a deep drag and tilted his head back. Baek-do, who was standing behind him, made nervous eye contact and gulped. Although his gaze seemed languid, as if still tired, the chill felt from it made it difficult to open his mouth.

“I asked why you were late. The old men were already giving me shit asking if you guys were doing your job properly.”

“Ah, that’s…”

Baek-do clenched his fists tightly. His hands were itchy from the sweat gathered there. In fact, he had forgotten. That Ihyeok was someone who could make an expression like that.

Recently, the atmosphere in this office had definitely changed a lot because of one pale-looking college student who came to visit. That’s because Ihyeok would do a complete 180 whenever  Hyeseong was around. Even Baek-do, who initially didn’t like him, acknowledged  Hyeseong for this reason.

But lately,  Hyeseong had stopped coming to the office. The reason was nothing special – it was exam period.

Apparently, he declared that this time he would practically live at the library, pulling all-nighters to study, so the Taesung office had been filled with cigarette smoke recently.

“Hey, Kwon Ihyeok. Did we finish our job on time?”

It was Seongjin who stepped in while Baek-do was tensely unable to speak. Baek-do looked at Seongjin, who saved him from Ihyeok’s murderous glare, as if he was his savior.

“Then why are you only coming now? What’s with that attitude? Don’t tell me you got beaten by some old neighborhood men.”

“That’s not it. Hah, this is embarrassing to say… We got ambushed on the way back after finishing the job.”

Seongjin scratched his head as if annoyed. Blood was still oozing from the wound on his head. Ihyeok, who saw Seongjin’s palm, slightly sat up from his leaning position.

“And what bullshit is that?”

“Have you heard of the Yushin gang?”

“Yushin gang?”

“They’re pretty notorious down in the countryside, but it seems they came up to Seoul this time. I don’t know what kind of bastards they are. Baek-do roughly looked into it and said they’re completely crazy. Rumor has it they’re into everything from organ trafficking to drugs and contract killings. If someone tells them to get rid of a person, they move without hesitation.”

They’re complete bloodthirsty psychos, Seongjin made a gesture of circling his finger next to his temple. Even gangsters had their own types. There were those whose goal was to perform all sorts of illegal activities under the guise of business, earning money and expanding their organization, and then there were those who were purely focused on violence.

Just like Seongjin said, bastards who live only for blood-splattered scenes and try to make money from it.

“But why are those bastards messing with us?”

“Obviously they’re trying to establish the pecking order. Who has a tight grip here right now? It’s Seo-hyun and us. But they can’t easily touch Seo-hyun since he has a lot of political connections to big shots.”

“And we’re an easy target?”

Ihyeok laughed, snuffing out his cigarette in the ashtray.

“Seongjin, so is that why you came back all battered?”

“Hey! It only ended up like this because it’s me. How are you supposed to dodge some bastard suddenly swinging a weapon behind you when you don’t even know what he looks like?”

Seongjin raised his voice as if it was unfair. His head was already pounding like hell, so it was very annoying to hear that from someone who had just been comfortably napping in the office.

Seongjin stomped around, upset and saying he would tell  Hyeseong everything later when he comes.

Ihyeok got up from his seat after blankly staring at his cell phone for a while.

“If you have the energy to make a fuss like that, go to the hospital and get stitched up.”

“What’s with you suddenly saying that?”

Seongjin widened his eyes and looked at Ihyeok approaching the door. This was coming from a guy who wouldn’t even be worried if you got stabbed in the gut in a fight and would just say you’re dead if you collapse.

” Hyeseong will be shocked to see your face when he comes after his exams are over. Be nice and don’t do anything that’ll surprise the kid.”

Seongjin grumbled “look who’s talking” and flipped off Ihyeok’s back as he was about to leave.

Ihyeok, who had gone out to go to the bathroom, looked down at the cell phone in his hand.  Hyeseong hadn’t replied for hours to his text asking if he was studying hard.

“Boss!”

As Ihyeok clicked his tongue in disappointment and was about to walk away, Baek-do who had followed him out called for him.

“What.”

“It’s about those Yushin gang bastards that Seongjin mentioned. Those guys are no joke. I asked around through some people I know and found out their hideout is a den of real messed up sons of bitches.”

“Then what, are we the nice guys?”

Ihyeok laughed as if it was funny.

“That’s not it, but… Before those bastards came up to Seoul, they wiped out all the decent organizations. From what I hear, the state of the kids who got caught by them… damn, it’s unbelievable.”

Wherever the Yushin gang passed through, there were only puddles of blood, to the point where there were rumors that a bloodbath blew through the local organizations for a while. When stepping on other groups to establish the hierarchy, they don’t just indiscriminately beat and assault, but use only painful methods like psychos, Baek-do added worriedly.

“We should be careful too. They’re bastards with no morals in the first place. Who knows what they’ll pull and where.”

“Okay. Thanks for the warning.”

Ihyeok pondered something for a moment, then soon nodded. It felt a bit frustrating for Baek-do who had no idea what he was thinking, but he didn’t say anything more. Although he was worried, he trusted his bosses more than anyone.

* * *

Hyeseong, how long are you going to do this…?

Hyeseong opened the note that came from the seat next to him in the quiet reading room of the library, where the air felt suffocating. Looking to the side, Dohyun, who already looked tired to death, was making an emergency rescue request to him.

Hyeseong smiled and wrote something back on the note before sending it to him.

I’m going to pull an all-nighter.

Seeing that, Dohyun’s face was colored with despair.

Although Dohyun always studied together with  Hyeseong during exam periods, this time was the hardest. The reason was because  Hyeseong was studying like crazy.

Dohyun got up from his seat first, thinking he might really die if he stayed here any longer.  Hyeseong gave him a wordless goodbye with his eyes and turned his gaze back to his books.

1 hour, 2 hours passed and before long it was close to midnight.

Hyeseong looked around. Most of the students had left the reading room and only a minority of students like  Hyeseong remained.

‘Should I take a break?’

Hyeseong stretched and took his cell phone, heading out of the reading room. Even if he said he’s taking a break, all he did was buy a drink from the vending machine.

Hyeseong familiarly walked up to the vending machine, inserted money, and pressed the button for an ion drink.

With the clattering sound, he picked up the cold drink that came out and went outside the library for a bit. Then he sat on a bench, cutting through the dark night air. In the utterly silent campus,  Hyeseong blankly looked up at the night sky and drank his beverage.

There was no grand reason why he decided to overdo it this exam period. It was simply to unconditionally get the top score and win a full scholarship.

In high school, he was often called a genius, but surviving in this prestigious university where guys who were sick of hearing that gathered was quite difficult.

At first, he easily received full scholarships, but the moment he had to come up with tuition money due to his gradually falling grades came in the blink of an eye. Of course, thanks to that, he did meet Ihyeok.

In fact, there was no problem with next semester’s tuition thanks to the money Ihyeok gave him for running errands and what he provided as wages.

However,  Hyeseong wanted to resolve it with his own strength. So this time, he was betting his life on studying.

“I miss you, Ahjussi.”@@novelbin@@

Hyeseong muttered out of habit.

I’ll make sure to brag if I get the scholarship. Just as he was thinking that and turning on his phone, a call from Ihyeok came at that moment. Startled that it happened right when he was thinking of him,  Hyeseong quickly answered the phone.

“Hello.”

–  Hyeseong.

“Yes.”

The low voice. The voice that resembled the night was so nice to hear.

– What are you doing?

“Studying, of course.”

– You should sleep at night. So you can grow taller.

A silly joke. But even that was nice.

“I’m already fully grown. Why aren’t you sleeping then, Ahjussi?”

– Well, I was going to sleep but I forgot something.

“What’s that?”

Hyeseong fiddled with the innocent soda can. He felt like a girl exchanging love letters. His heart beat faintly. His body, infiltrated by excitement, fidgeted without him realizing.

– I didn’t hear your voice. Today.

The soda can made a loud noise as it crumpled in  Hyeseong’s hand. He wanted to say something, wanted to brush it off nonchalantly, but his heart was beating so fast that he couldn’t open his mouth.

– Studying isn’t everything in life. That’s what I learned from living. Don’t overdo it and come home. Okay?

“…Okay.”

With a sweet and short “good night”, the call ended like that.  Hyeseong couldn’t leave the bench for a while.

At that moment,  Hyeseong realized. What kept sleep at bay wasn’t caffeine or rest, but that person’s voice.

It seemed there would be no problem pulling an all-nighter as planned today.

This chapter is paid for by Nemuru!