There is no kindness without evil intentions.

Doha, pressing the front door’s numeric lock, paused as he saw light seeping through the gap in the door. ‘So, this is how I can confirm someone else is inside.’ The fact that Sana was there suddenly felt real.

“Oh, you’re here?”

Sana, who had rushed to the entryway as soon as he heard the door open, greeted him with a smile. Doha stood still for a moment, staring at Sana in front of him.

‘Why are you so late! Come home earlier.’

A voice he thought he’d forgotten seemed to hum in his ears. Even while grumbling, she would pull his arm, urging him to come inside quickly. She would ask if he had eaten and complain about what he had been doing without eating until then, but she would still put a stew on the gas range.

“Um…?”

Sana, seeing Doha standing silently, raised his eyes to look at his face, as if something was amiss.

“Here.”

Doha stepped inside as if nothing had happened, offering Sana the shopping bag he was holding.

“What’s this?”

Sana instinctively took the bag and opened it to see what was inside.

“Clothes? Is this… for me?”

Sana’s eyes widened. He seemed utterly surprised.

“Really? Is it really mine? Did Brother Doha buy it? Personally?”

Doha ignored him, went into the living room, and took off his jacket, but Sana, who had followed him in, asked again.

“That outfit.”

Doha, who had turned to look at Sana, closed his mouth and swallowed dryly. He had seen it this morning, but seeing it again was truly not good for his heart. The loose T-shirt revealed half of his shoulder, and he couldn’t even look at the bare legs that were completely exposed to his thighs.

“Anyway, change into these.”

He didn’t want to explain at length, so he waved his hand and turned away.

“If the size doesn’t fit, I’ll exchange them for you, so check them now.”

He wanted to get him out of that outfit as quickly as possible. He half-forcibly pushed Sana into the bedroom and even closed the door himself.

“Isn’t it too many?”

He heard Sana shout from inside the room. From T-shirts and pants to wear comfortably at home to a few outfits he packed just in case for going out, it amounted to nearly 10 pieces, tops and bottoms combined. Even so, they were bought from a mid-to-low-priced store, so it wasn’t much money.

“You don’t need to try them all on; just try on one or two and check the size.”

He answered vaguely, then sank onto the sofa and picked up the TV remote. There was no way there would be anything worth watching at this hour.

It wasn’t that he particularly wanted to watch TV, but he needed something to pass the time while Sana changed clothes.

He flipped through channels and stopped on a news channel.

[…Yeouido project, jointly invested by Dragon Holdings and Gangsan Construction, has officially begun. They announced that the demolition of old buildings will take place by the end of this year, and Dragon Holdings has revealed its policy to provide maximum relocation funds to residents to ensure they face no difficulties during their departure. Gangsan Construction also plans to supply temporary housing for residents during the construction period…]

“Dragon Holdings, huh…”

Doha mumbled lowly, then let out a hollow laugh. Dragon Holdings was a company rooted in organized crime. Although it was now established as a respectable investment firm with a changed chairman, the former chairman was a big shot whose name alone commanded respect in the underworld.

“People’s lives change in an instant. These gangster bastards are strutting around pretending to do business.”

“Gangster?”

Sana, who had appeared unnoticed, was standing beside him, watching the TV.

“Oh, it’s Dragon Holdings.”

Sana, seeing the words in the news caption, acknowledged it.

“You know them? How?”

It wasn’t just knowing the name, but he seemed to know them personally. Doha frowned, wondering why he would know Dragon Holdings, and Sana let out a short groan.

“Just… not that I know them personally, but a friend…”

Even while mentioning a friend, he seemed to think this wasn’t right, as his voice trailed off, and he clamped his mouth shut. ‘Could he possibly be related to Dragon Holdings?’ If so, it would explain why Sana’s clothes looked luxurious. There were even rumors that the money Dragon Holdings circulated in the underworld rivaled government budgets. Of course, those were just rumors.

He suddenly felt that the clothes he had bought seemed too shabby.

Had he bought cheap clothes for someone who wore a hanbok that looked like it was hand-embroidered stitch by stitch? Park Jaemin had already been nagging him today about proper expensive clothes, not clothes suited to his level, so it unnecessarily bothered him.

“If you don’t like those clothes, just take them off.”

Fortunately, the size seemed to fit well. Although he had chosen them by eye, Doha’s discernment was naturally good.

“Why?”

Sana tilted his head with an expression of incomprehension, as Doha had told him to take off the clothes he had just bought.

“If you don’t like them, I mean.”

“I like them. Thank you.”

As soon as Doha finished speaking, Sana replied with a bright smile. He felt so fleeting, caring about something so trivial when faced with such an unguarded smile, and a deep sigh escaped him.

“You, how on earth did you live?”

Sana only blinked, looking at Doha, unable to tell if it was a question or a rhetorical remark.

“I clearly warned you to have some caution.”

“But Brother Doha isn’t a bad person.”

What did he believe in to be so certain? He felt something twist inside him at that clear face, devoid of even a hint of doubt.

“What do you think I am?”

His words came out faster than he thought. Sana, who had been staring blankly at Doha at the sudden question, raised his voice, asking, “Club bodyguard?” A hollow laugh escaped him at the word ‘bodyguard.’ Indeed, he might have looked like that. But the very idea stemmed from excessive naiveté, which he found absurd.

“Then what about the other guys you saw that day? Do they look like bodyguards too?”

This time, Sana couldn’t answer immediately and only bit his lips. Even with his naive mind, Kim Sinhak or Lee Jungwook probably didn’t look like ordinary bodyguards.

“Those bastards and I are all gangsters. On the surface, we do business and whatnot, but at our root, we’re gangsters. That club is one of our funding sources.”

He didn’t need to explain it so explicitly. No, usually, people would figure it out to some extent even without explanation.

Sana was like such a blank slate, and his purity, unmarred by even a single dark spot, made him uncomfortable, so he wanted to lay everything bare. ‘Will you still insist on staying by my side even after this?’ It was partly that kind of mentality.

“We also beat people, stab them, bury them—we do everything.”

This was a lie. At least Doha hadn’t gotten involved in that much yet. It had only been half a year since he joined this organization, and during that time, he had only managed the club at Park Jaemin’s instruction.

‘University graduate? Unexpected.’

When he first came with Park Jaemin, Park Jaemin, who had investigated Doha, emphasized that part especially.

‘Might be useful.’

He mumbled to himself, then later placed Doha at the club. At first, he literally focused on security duties and gradually took over club financial management. The reason was that someone with a little more education would be better, wouldn’t they?

“Brother Doha… killed someone?”

Sana’s voice changed. His eyes, which held Doha, also began to waver. Although he spoke, hoping to scare him and make him run away from him, seeing Sana’s agitation, a sigh surged from within his throat.

“No, I haven’t killed anyone.”

‘Not yet. I don’t know what will happen in the future, though.’

He swallowed the unspoken words and averted his gaze from Sana. Why did facing this guy always make him feel like his insides were being churned? A lump of memories, tightly wrapped and hidden deep down, felt like it was about to spring out, so he pressed it down again with a long breath.

“Don’t trust me so much when you know nothing about me. How do you know what I might do?”

Still, he wanted to properly point out Sana’s lack of caution. The world wasn’t full of only good people. Especially someone like Sana, who was perfectly prone to being scammed by fraudsters on the street.

“You haven’t done anything. And you’re not doing anything now.”

A groan hovered in his throat at Sana’s retort.

“You even bought me clothes like this. Brother Doha, even though you don’t know what kind of person I am, you’re kind.”

At his next words, Doha was speechless. It was true. He, too, knew nothing about Sana other than that he was a shaman. And being a shaman might even be a lie.

He himself was just as careless. Especially in his current situation, keeping someone else by his side was truly not something a sane person would do.

“There’s no benevolence without ulterior motives.”

He needed a reason to keep Sana by his side. A reason that others would nod to, a reason that would convince himself.

Doha grabbed Sana’s arm and pulled him.

As a result, Sana’s body leaned forward, and he reached out an arm, bracing himself against the backrest of the sofa behind Doha. When he raised his head, Sana’s face was right above his.

What would happen if that clear face became distorted by desire? What would happen if those clean eyes, which seemed to know nothing, turned red and were stained with tears beyond his control from pleasure?

Why do people feel the urge to deface a blank canvas? Even knowing it’s a malicious impulse, why are they drawn to it as if possessed?

As he stared up at Sana, all sorts of awful thoughts ran through his mind. Sana, who was looking down at him, also seemed burdened by the prolonged silence, as his eyes shifted nervously.

“I’ll… pay for the clothes.”

After a long moment of thought, a hollow laugh escaped him at Sana’s conclusion. To think he would interpret his words as a request for payment for the clothes.

“Do you even have money to pay?”

He had said he had nowhere to go and no family. What money could he expect from such a guy?

“I have plenty of that…!”

Without letting Sana finish his sentence, he pulled the arm he was holding even harder. Even bracing against the sofa was useless; Sana’s body lost its balance and lurched forward.

Doha’s other arm wrapped around Sana’s waist. Before he knew it, Sana was sitting on Doha’s lap.

“Since you know nothing, let’s start by getting to know each other’s bodies.”