‘An Unexpected Encounter’

[Daelim Capital]

Crash!

On the third floor of the yellow brick building, a window messily covered in sheet film shattered, allowing the light from a streetlight to leak into the dark office.

Namsu, the owner of the office who had already been brought to his knees, opened his mouth wide and looked up at the man passing in front of him.

“W-What are you doing, Beomgyo…!”

“I’ll ask you straight to the point.”

Seo Beomgyo, taking the top seat on the sofa with his back to the broken window, spoke slowly.

“Who is it? The b*stard running around spreading the scent of drugs to our boys.”

While Namsu instinctively straightened his spine and fidgeted anxiously, Beomgyo pulled a blue pack of cigarettes from his inner jacket pocket.

Roughly crushing the pack as he bit down on the last remaining cigarette between his teeth, he slowly raised his gaze toward the table directly in front of him.

His eyes fixated quietly on a ceramic vase that looked utterly out of place in the nearly collapsing office. Staring at a blue flower inside it that had already withered entirely with its head bent, a slurred murmur slipped through Beomgyo’s teeth.

“I heard the drug is called ‘Oasis’?”

It was a new type of narcotic that had recently caused quite a stir all over Busan.

They said it was referred to by the slang term ‘Oasis’—another name for floral foam—because the drugs were distributed hidden inside the floral foam used to absorb water and keep live flowers fresh.

Whoever it was had fearlessly dipped their feet right into someone else’s territory, yet they guarded themselves so thoroughly that absolutely nothing was known about the source or the exact distribution route, except for the signature blue cornflower.

Finally realizing that Beomgyo had personally come looking, Namsu jumped in place and hurriedly waved his hands.

“Hey, hey~ How would a small-timer playing for pocket change in the market market know anything about that?”

Beomgyo, who was carelessly tilting the cigarette between his teeth, blocked the wind leaking through the broken window with his hand and lit it.

Subsequently leaning his back deep into the sofa without a word, he exhaled a puff of gray smoke.

With just that simple movement, he instantly overwhelmed the cramped space.

Biting the filter once more, he flicked a single eyebrow as if this were the last chance, prompting Namsu to instinctively pull his knees tight together.

“I-I really don’t know, Beomgyo. It’s been ages since I quit drugs. You know it too, right? After I met our Haejeong…”

As the godf*cking talk about Haejeong began, Beomgyo knit his brows faintly and turned his gaze out the broken window.

He had already heard the love story about his wife, who was nine years younger, so many times he was sick of it.

Filtering out his words with little interest or amusement, he looked past the first-floor cafe in front of the building toward the beach across the street, when his eyes suddenly narrowed.

It was because a woman standing precariously before the crashing waves caught his eye.

Outside, it was a dark night, and the woman was wearing a black coat that fell to her calves.

Because of the distance to the beach, he couldn’t even see her face properly, yet he couldn’t understand why his gaze was held by her.

Was it because the hem of her coat fluttering wildly in the harsh sea breeze looked as if it might fly away at any moment? Or else, because her standing fearlessly before the exceptionally high waves looked dangerous?

Whichever it was, just around the time he thought she looked like a child left near water, Jeon Namsu’s tedious repertoire came to an end.

“Anyway, even if you threaten me like this, what I don’t know, I don’t know! I don’t know, so what the f*ck do you want me to do!”

At Namsu’s words, delivered as he gritted his teeth and denied everything, Beomgyo let out a dry, bitter laugh and turned his gaze back.

“Do you really think I spent expensive gas money and brought all these boys along just to scare you, President Jeon?”

Taking a deep, final drag of his cigarette, Beomgyo pulled his leaning back off the leather sofa with a creak, and his henchman, Jonghak, who had been standing silently with his hands behind his back, abruptly snatched the back of Namsu’s neck.

“What! Let go of me!”

Namsu immediately flailed his scrawny legs and struggled, but it was useless. Dragged along by Jonghak’s brutal strength, he was ultimately thrown down pitifully right in front of Beomgyo’s black shoe caps.

During the brief moment Beomgyo flicked the shortened cigarette butt into the mouth of the vase, Namsu urgently shouted as if he had changed his mind.

“I-I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything, so… Ugh!”

However, Beomgyo grabbed the vase on the table first and ruthlessly bashed Namsu’s head with it.

Though the vase shattered in a single blow, not a single drop of water splashed.

The deep green floral foam, which was bone-dry without retaining any moisture, crumbled along with the glass, and the blue pills hidden inside scattered in all directions along with the broken shards instead of water.

“Forget it. What can a guy say when all his teeth are knocked out?”

This man had been a habitual liar ever since they were in the organization together.

He wondered if anything had changed in the meantime, but seeing the story about his wife, which was half bullsh*t, it seemed he was exactly the same as always.

Now that concrete evidence had appeared, there was nothing more to hear from him.

Glancing down at Namsu, who had rolled his eyes back and collapsed, Beomgyo stood up and added in a heavily sunken voice.

“Find the ledger.”

“What are you doing! Flip everything upside down!”

The moment he left the office, the shouting of his underling echoed thunderously behind his back.

Feeling a headache for some reason, Beomgyo pressed his temples hard as he walked down the narrow stairs.

Subsequently, without looking back at Jonghak following behind, he gave a short command.

“Go buy a pack of cigarettes.”

“Yes, understood, Executive Director.”

Jonghak nodded crisply and turned his steps toward the convenience store, while Beomgyo walked out of the dark alley alone and crossed a short crosswalk.

Heading toward the black sedan parked on the roadside, he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

It was because the woman who had caught his eye from the three-story building earlier was still standing in the same spot.

Seen from a bit closer, the woman was taking photos of the sea with a digital camera.

Watching her repeatedly wipe away what could be snot or tears with her sleeve while pressing one eye tight against the camera’s viewfinder, he felt he finally understood why his eyes had been so drawn to a strange woman.

Over that young woman, the image of his younger sister, whom he had practically driven away long ago, overlapped.

The younger sister whom he couldn’t even bring himself to picture because she took photos of her surroundings so diligently but never left a single photo of herself.

Asking if she really couldn’t stay. Promising she wouldn’t cause trouble and would listen well. Crying and clinging to him saying she was scared to be alone—she was only sixteen back then.

After forcing such a child who hated and feared it so much onto a train, and living like strangers for nearly seven years…

“F*ck, I guess life is finally getting comfortable enough for me.”

Perhaps that was why she suddenly came to mind now.

He suddenly craved a cigarette, but having nothing left, Beomgyo wetted his dry lips with the tip of his tongue.

Intending to stop this pathetic sentimentality here and just turn around, his leather shoes, which had turned halfway, found their original place again.

His brow puckered faintly as he spotted a man gradually approaching the woman, who was still fully engrossed in taking photos.

Hanna removed the camera she had been holding to her eye. Her grip tightened on the device as she looked down at the photo of the night sea.

This old camera was also something that had been inside Yeji’s bag. It was an item Hanna recognized.

Because it was something Yeji used to carry around all the time when she first transferred from Busan to the middle school Hanna attended.

Did she say her dad bought it for her when she was little…?

Even though she had resented her father so much for dying after siring two children he couldn’t even take responsibility for despite being a thug, and her older brother for practically abandoning a mere sixteen-year-old child in Seoul.

Thinking that the camera she had kept safely until now might actually have been Yeji’s true feelings, Hanna’s eyes turned red for no reason.

“Ha…”

Snapping her head up, Hanna faced the blowing sea breeze. Just as she was finding a plausible excuse for the tears that were uncontrollably welling up anyway, the wrist holding the camera was suddenly grabbed tightly by someone.

“W-What is this…?”

Startled, Hanna turned her head to see a guy who looked to be around her age, staggering and smirking.

“Ah, I’ve been watching you from over there for a while, and you’re totally my style…”

Judging by his flushed complexion, his loose, half-closed eyes, and above all, the pungent scent of alcohol stinging her nose, the man seemed drunk.

Her head was already complicated enough and she didn’t want to get involved with him, so Hanna immediately twisted her captured wrist, trying to pull it out.

“I have company.”

“Company? What company? I saw you alone since early evening.”

“They’ll be here soon. I’m waiting…”

“Ah, whatever. Just come have a drink with me.”

Cutting Hanna off, the man recklessly pulled her wrist.

Just as Hanna’s light body was dragged sharply by the man’s strength, a large hand wrapped around her shoulder.

At the same time, an opposite arm extended, grabbing the forearm of the man pulling her and stopping him.

“Ah, what the fck, you bstard…!”

Turning around while spitting curses, the man lifted his head quite a ways.

Feeling a sense of intimidation from an opponent whom even a man of average height had to tilt his neck far back to look at, his words trailed off the moment he faced Seo Beomgyo’s face.

Instead of the man who had frozen completely, a single short word slipped from Beomgyo’s parted lips.

“Company.”