Swallow Hunting - Chapter 3.1
He managed to get a single day of paid leave.
As expected, the boss did not grant it easily. Over the phone, Hae-jun put on a dying voice and even threw in some fake coughing, but the boss snapped that he was trying to slack off and threatened to beat the dust out of him if he did not come in right away.
In the past, that would have been enough to make him back down immediately. But between the mental shock of having messed with a gangster’s woman and the physical injuries covering the soles of his feet, he desperately wanted just one full day of rest. Hae-jun did not give in.
“If I show up looking like this, am I even going to get chosen? All I’ll do is damage the shop’s image. No, if the noona comes and starts talking about how this place treats people like shit and spreads rumors, how am I supposed to pay back that marking?”
He argued back firmly and managed to persuade the boss. He was not particularly smart, but when a man was trying to survive, his tongue got slick and his IQ seemed to shoot up. He got cursed out thoroughly, but in the end, he achieved his goal.
Terrified that burly men might be waiting for him at the lodging, Hae-jun did not step a single foot outside Yohan’s place. Yohan, who acted like he did not care whether Hae-jun lived or died, slipped out in the morning, activated a used phone, and tossed it to him.
“Don’t bitch about being bored. I’m working, so no calls.”
“Thank you, hyung. I will never forget this kindness, hyung.”
He bowed deeply as if he were about to smash his forehead into the floor and accepted the phone. It was an old model, but it had enough space to install at least one game.
“Figure out your meals yourself.”
“Yes.”
“And think about what you’re going to do from here on.”
“Yeees……”
Hae-jun’s mood sank instantly. Even though the dark cloud hanging over his head was obvious, Yohan only clicked his tongue and left the house.
Yohan worked two jobs, delivery during the day and hosting at night. Once, Hae-jun had asked why he was so obsessed with money. Yohan replied that even if owning a home in this city was impossible, if he ever wanted to buy a house in the provinces someday, he needed to burn his youth now and save up a lump sum. He really was a sharp guy.
Compared to him.
“……”
Hae-jun pulled the blanket over his head and curled up. Maybe his brain cells had all died off from being beaten so often by his father since childhood. His head had never worked very fast. At school, it was quicker to count his rank from the bottom, and all the math symbols looked like a foreign language. He could manage addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, but fractions and decimals were already pushing it.
Worried that there might be something wrong with his intelligence, he had even gotten tested once. Thankfully, it came back normal. He was just worse than most people at studying and calculations.
No manual skills, bad at studying, not even as clear-headed as Yohan. All he had was a clean, straight, pretty pink dick with no hair on it, the bedroom techniques he had learned with his body, and the way to act cute for women. And now he had gone and touched a gangster’s mistress, so he could not even work anymore.
How was he supposed to make a living from now on?
Would thinking about it even bring an answer? Hae-jun lay staring at the ceiling and picked up his phone. There was no TV, so the only thing he could do was mess with the phone Yohan had given him. He downloaded a game and waited for it to install when suddenly, the low voice he had heard yesterday brushed against his ears.
‘They really live cheaply.’
“Eek.”
Hae-jun jolted upright in shock. If he were a cat, he might have leapt straight up toward the ceiling. His hair stood on end to that extent. Goosebumps rose along his arms, and even the fine white hairs stood up like reeds.
Just remembering the voice did this to him. Even horror movies were not this scary. Hae-jun rubbed his arms hard and pulled the blanket over his head. The window was tightly shut, and no cold wind was leaking in from anywhere, but it felt as if the room temperature had dropped by about ten degrees.
“It’s fine. It’s fine.”
He could quit the shop, write a pledge to pay back the marking, leave this city entirely, and live somewhere else under a different name. If he did that, even a gangster would not be able to chase him down.
Hae-jun trembled as he tried to calm himself. Even if the sky fell, there was always a way to survive. He had been beaten to the brink of death by his father and loan sharks and dumped in back alleys before, and he was still alive, was he not.
“I won’t die. It’s fine.”
This time would be the same. At least, Hae-jun wanted to believe that.
***
Has a day ever passed this quickly? In the blink of an eye, night fell, Yohan came home complaining that he had not been chosen, and then morning arrived. His body, used to a reversed day and night cycle, did not wake until the afternoon. Stretching languidly, he saw that Yohan was already gone.
“I don’t want to work.”
He muttered blankly. When he checked his phone, it was almost time to go in. There was no way that a tyrant of a boss would generously give him two days off. Hae-jun burrowed back into the blanket, then lifted his messy head again. Avoiding it would not solve anything. He had to learn to face things head-on.
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