Song Hyunsoo kept silently emptying his glass.
After moving to a private room behind heavy curtains, it was just him and Yoon Jooho, truly alone, but still, no words came out.
He kept pouring drinks because he felt he could never say it sober. Strangely, he didn’t feel the slightest bit drunk. If anything, his mind grew clearer and clearer.
Every memory, every feeling, every expression on Choi Hongseo’s face while alive, every single horrific comment—he remembered it all.
Song Hyunsoo took another swallow of alcohol.
On the round sofa, which curved and joined in a circle, Song Hyunsoo and Yoon Jooho sat with enough distance between them that two more people could have fit.
Yoon Jooho, who had been waiting while slowly smoking, rubbed his brow above his outer eyebrow with the hand holding his cigarette and let out a long sigh.
Tilting his head crookedly, he looked at Song Hyunsoo.
“Are you going to keep your mouth shut like that?”
Right. He really had waited a long time. For Yoon Jooho, this was practically miraculous patience.
Resting his arms on the table, Song Hyunsoo gripped his on-the-rocks glass with both hands and stared at the alcohol inside, swallowing dryly.
“Last time, you asked me something, didn’t you, sunbae?”
“……”
“You asked what I was so worried about.”
Yoon Jooho squinted one eye, as if he didn’t quite remember due to the vague explanation, so Song Hyunsoo added more detail.
“The day I came back from the theater troupe, when I was pissed off.”
“The day I told you to sue the malicious commenters or whatever?”
“That’s right.”
“So what about it.”
“I think… I said those things because of my friend.”
He was afraid that, just as he’d lost Choi Hongseo, he might lose Yoon Jooho too.
Even if it didn’t go to such an extreme, he feared that Yoon Jooho might be damaged beyond repair, never able to recover.
Back then, that’s what Song Hyunsoo was worried about.
“Friend?”
“Choi Hongseo, who died in the X-gun Scandal…”
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken of that incident and that name in front of someone else.
Song Hyunsoo’s voice trembled violently, thick with suppressed emotion.
“He was my friend.”
“Not just a colleague from the same agency?”
Song Hyunsoo shook his head.
“We were each other’s only friend.”
Draining what little was left in his glass, Song Hyunsoo immediately grabbed the bottle in front of him.
He filled his on-the-rocks glass to the brim and, in one go, downed half of it again.
Yoon Jooho reached out and pulled down Hyunsoo’s wrist.
“Are you trying to drink yourself to death?”
“I can hold my liquor. This much won’t kill me.”
Song Hyunsoo, eyes bloodshot, wiped his mouth roughly with the back of his hand.
“Alcohol Poisoning. Haven’t you heard of it?”
Pushing the bottle far out of Hyunsoo’s reach, Yoon Jooho dropped a few ice cubes from the ice bucket into Hyunsoo’s glass. Song Hyunsoo just stared at Yoon Jooho’s face.
He thought he wasn’t drunk, but the world started spinning.
Thoughts tangled in his mind, and the Yoon Jooho in front of him multiplied and shrank like a kaleidoscope illusion.
If there were several Yoon Jooho’s, maybe one of them could end up with me.
That ridiculous thought made Hyunsoo let out a weak, bitter laugh, which only grew darker.
Lowering his head, Hyunsoo licked his lips and stared again into his glass.
“If you hear this… you might end up despising me, sunbae.”
“I don’t really like you that much even now, you know?”
His lips smiled at the joke, but his face looked like he was about to cry.
“You might tell me to quit the Script Practice Part-time Job too, or maybe… you won’t want to work with me anymore.”
“Were you pretending to be Yoon Gyeolho and leaving malicious comments about me behind my back or something?”
At times like this, that offhanded, half-hearted joking side of his was helpful.
Song Hyunsoo, wearing an awkward smile— whether it was a bitter laugh or self-mockery, he couldn’t tell— muttered, lowering his head until his chin nearly touched his collarbone.
“I was one of the victims too.”
“A victim of what.”
Yoon Jooho’s voice was tense, as if he already knew the answer.
“The X-gun Scandal.”
Yoon Jooho’s expression twisted harshly for a moment, like someone had stabbed his thigh with an awl. But with his head down, Song Hyunsoo didn’t see it.
“If you’re a victim, why would I despise you? For what?”
“There were comments like that on my friend’s article, you know? That he brought it on himself by hanging around those kinds of places.”
“That’s just bullshit spouted by people who aren’t even human. It’s already come out how the UB president, that bastard, lured in kids.”
Song Hyunsoo shook his head forcefully.
“People don’t care about that. If you weren’t threatened with a knife, kidnapped, or locked up, they don’t even think you’re a victim. It just becomes, ‘You walked in there on your own two feet.’”
“What the fuck is that bullshit? By that logic, even victims of power-based sex crimes are to blame?”
They’d be forced into situations where they couldn’t refuse, and then, at the decisive moment, that would be used as blackmail.
― That was President Myung Dohoon’s method, and it resembled the pattern of the power-based sex crimes Yoon Jooho was talking about.
He said that Yoon Jooho might despise him if he learned the truth.
But in reality, he had more faith that Jooho wouldn’t.
So he felt relieved, and with that relief, the emotional tension suddenly drained from him. To keep from crying, Song Hyunsoo focused all his energy on glaring at his glass.
Suddenly, Yoon Jooho’s hand reached out and blocked his view.
He pressed his hand to Hyunsoo’s forehead and, applying force, pushed his head up to make him look at his face.
“So. What about you? It’s not just about your friend—there’s no way you’re okay either.”
He hadn’t known how comforting it would be to see the anger in Yoon Jooho’s eyes directed not at him, but at the perpetrators.
Comfort from others, empathy from others. He’d always thought that stuff was just a useless layer of pity.
Now, stripped of all emotional defenses in front of Yoon Jooho, he felt completely exposed.
It was an unfamiliar state for Song Hyunsoo, and before it could feel safe or warm, it was just embarrassing and awkward.
He turned his head, evading Jooho’s hot palm, and rubbed his lips as if to wipe them away.
“I’m fine. It’s not like I was exploited as much as Hongseo. I wasn’t as obedient as him, either…”
He and Choi Hongseo knew about each other’s situations. They were each other’s only comrades. But they didn’t have the luxury to share each other’s burdens.
Just the fact that there was someone else sharing this dark, heavy secret was enough; their mere existence was a comfort.
From an early age, Song Hyunsoo had to take responsibility for his grandparents, who were older and frailer than most parents his age.
He never considered it a burden. Unlike Hongseo, he’d even tried to make a lot of money using his looks.
He didn’t know then that dirty money never really piled up, but just melted away.
He thought he knew the world well enough, but he was young and foolish.
“To put it simply, I wasn’t as much of a ‘product’ as Hongseo. To those people. So I was used less.”
He laughed, forcing it out, and picked up his glass again.
But Yoon Jooho stopped him once more. The grip on his wrist made Hyunsoo turn to look at him reflexively.
Jooho’s face looked calm at first glance, but his tone was anything but. The pressure on Hyunsoo’s wrist wasn’t, either.
“You went through hell, and just because it was less than someone else, you think it’s okay? You think that’s possible?”
Song Hyunsoo had been indicted on minor charges related to the incident, but was ultimately found not guilty.
It was recognized that he had only been exploited by Myung Dohoon and hadn’t gained anything.
The fact that Myung Dohoon targeted kids who had just graduated high school— legally adults, but emotionally and socially still minors— was also taken into consideration.
Choi Hongseo, Song Hyunsoo, the other victims— all of them had only just graduated high school, or were about to graduate, when they first met Myung Dohoon.
Kids from what people call “vulnerable” families.
“But I survived, didn’t I.”
“……”
“I survived, saw Lee Seokyung die. And now, I’ve even seen Myung Dohoon die.”
This time, Yoon Jooho didn’t just hold his wrist. He pushed Hyunsoo’s shoulder, nearly shoving him into the sofa behind.
The composure he’d barely managed to keep broke, and his eyes shook violently.
“You, did you ever deal with Lee Seokyung?”
At the name Lee Seokyung, Yoon Jooho reacted sharply.
Song Hyunsoo shook his head with a bitter smile.
“No way. I’m not nearly good-looking enough to deal with Lee Seokyung.”
Lee Seokyung— a third-generation chaebol of the powerful Hanseo Group.
Myung Dohoon, who targeted victims under Lee Seokyung’s orders, intentionally lured them in and bled them dry with blackmail.
For years, Myung Dohoon committed all kinds of sex crimes under Lee Seokyung’s protection, growing his fortune. Simply put, Myung Dohoon handpicked “offerings” for Lee Seokyung.
All of this was exposed in the ‘X-gun Scandal’. Because of the ‘X-gun Scandal’, their crimes were finally revealed to the world after years.
“Lee Seokyung is a pervert beyond imagination. What’s been reported in the media isn’t even a hundredth of it. He doesn’t care about gender, doesn’t care about anything. When he’s in the mood, he likes kids like Hongseo…”
He couldn’t continue.
Shrugging off Jooho’s hand from his shoulder, Hyunsoo poured himself another drink. This time, Yoon Jooho didn’t stop him.