He couldn’t understand why he found this man so annoying……  

Jeong Taeui maintained a charming smile on his face as he looked at the man sitting in front of him and thought. The man named Alain, from the very first time he met Taeui until now, had never taken off that bright smile on his face. At this moment, he was still smiling radiantly as if wearing a Hahoe mask.  

“Do you like Rick?”

After a moment of silent smiling, Alain suddenly asked, startling Taeui for a moment. The way he abruptly threw out such a direct bombshell really made it impossible for others to anticipate. You couldn’t let your guard down……  

“Well, he’s okay.”

“Is Rick good?”  

“……Well, he’s okay.”

Taeui didn’t dare to ask exactly what he was good at. There were many things that came to mind, but in the end, he only gave a vague answer.  

“The night before last, I couldn’t sleep, so I was walking back and forth in the courtyard. It wasn’t intentional, but I just happened to pass by your room, and I heard noises inside.”  

‘The night before last, what happened the night before last……?’ – Taeui tried to recall in his mind and then unconsciously frowned. “Ugh.” There was only one thing that came to mind.  

“I didn’t expect Rick to be so gentle with his partner in bed. Truly, from start to finish, he was very considerate. Now it seems loose enough, oh, still a bit tight, need to loosen it a bit more, do you like it here? Do you prefer fingers or tongue? I’ll do whatever you want. Does it hurt? I’ll make sure it doesn’t hurt soon, just bear with it a little, okay? Do you like this? You enjoy doing it this way, right?”

“Wait a minute, how much did you hear?”  

Taeui hurriedly interrupted Alain. Impossible, all the windows were clearly closed, so how could he have heard? Did he have a radar in his ears or something? And to even remember every detail so clearly like this!!!  

“Wow…… Rick, huh…… Rick, who used to only care about satisfying himself without considering his partner…… Truly left a strong impression on me. Honestly, it’s quite astonishing.”  

Although he tried to maintain a calm expression, Taeui’s flushed face betrayed him. Alain nodded knowingly while looking at Taeui’s face, red as a ripe apple, with amusement. Taeui bitterly clicked his tongue, then grabbed a can of beer from the fridge. There was coffee on the table that Rita had made, but in this mood, beer suited better than coffee.  

“What do you want to say then?”  

“No, I just think he’s truly happy. Rick, that is,”  

Alain said with a shrug. After that, he fell silent for a moment, but his face still held that characteristic faint smile of his, as if lost in thought, his eyes staring intently at Taeui.  

‘I still find this man really unpleasant…… I truly can’t understand him……’ – Taeui quietly thought to himself, his gaze directed out the window, where the golden twilight was shining on the rooftops under a sky tilting toward darkness. He said nothing, merely drinking his beer in silence. When the beer can was half-empty, Alain suddenly muttered as if talking to himself.  

“I used to think Rick would live a life like hell.”  

Taeui froze and turned to look at Alain. He was still smiling, but his voice carried neither joy nor regret. Taeui looked at him for a moment, then turned his gaze back to the window, letting out a faint smile.  

“Really, how could that be? A man who can do anything, so rich that money is like trash to him, and with such a terrible personality. For him, it’s heaven, even if everything around him is hell.”  

“Is that really so? The world he lives in is always filled with the stench of blood, screams, and suffering, and even if he doesn’t care, it’s undeniable that he’s living in the middle of a battlefield.”  

Alain squinted, his lips still holding a smile, and Taeui quietly looked at him.  

“Ah, he’s paying for his sins by living right in the middle of hell, alive but as good as dead, wandering around killing people…… That’s what I used to think.”

“……”

“I never expected him to escape that spider web and live like a human. This world is truly unfair.”

Taeui quietly looked at Alain, who was still smiling brightly. Then, he took a sip of beer before muttered.  

“You really hate Ilay.”

“Hahaha, is there anyone in this world who likes Rick? But I don’t have any grudge against Rick either. To me, everyone in the world is the same, from the Dalai Lama* to Jack the Ripper.”

Alain spread his arms wide and said he liked sweets, then replaced coffee with a can of cola and drank it with a happy expression.

“I was born in India. And I spent my childhood in northern India. My father was a big businessman. I grew up in a wealthy family, under the love of my parents, and lacked nothing.”

‘So what ups and downs did he go through in life to end up like this? I’ll have to ask him about it later.’ – Such thoughts popped into Taeui’s mind, and as if reading Taeui’s thoughts, Alain smiled cheerfully and said: “Even so, it seems that humans are born with something inherent in them that cannot be changed. Even I don’t know why I became like this. But thinking about it carefully, wasn’t Rick also raised in a very decent family?”

“That country is a place where the wealthy can live no less than royalty, but just stepping out of our palace-like home and walking a few minutes, you’d see crowded slums. Just a few minutes apart. Just crossing a road. Yet, despite the stark contrast in life on either side of the road, they accept it and live with that mindset. As if nothing happened. In the grand cycle of reincarnation.”

Alain gulped down the can of cola with a cheerful expression, as if he were singing. Taeui silently watched that ever-smiling face.

“Since I was a child, I found it interesting and enjoyable to watch small animals in pain and writhing in agony. But even so, I still believe in karma and retribution. And for that reason, even when torturing and killing animals, I always thought: I won’t be able to die peacefully. One day, I will surely have to pay for my sins……”

“Even now, I happily harm others, but that thought has never changed.” – Alain said with a smile, then suddenly turned his gaze out the window. Outside, Ilay was strolling in the yard with Mark and Alexei, chatting about something as they walked.

“Then later, I met Rick, and at that moment I realized. My very life is the punishment, and the place I’m living in is already hell on earth.”

Alain’s gaze stopped at Ilay. And as if sensing that look, Ilay turned his head in this direction. He looked at Alain and Jeong Taeui in turn, then briefly smiled. Alain’s eyes slowly moved over Ilay’s relaxed lips.

“I’m living happily, but all around me are corpses, suffering people, and agonizing screams. Even if I don’t care, that doesn’t mean this place isn’t hell.”

Alain directed a mocking gaze toward Taeui.

“Everyone in the Private Task Force is like that, but among them, Rick is the most peculiar. Why, you ask? Because he has no trace of human emotion. I, for one, feel a sense of joy when I see others in pain. But not him. He doesn’t do it for fun, nor because it’s interesting. It’s simply…… his nature. So I thought to myself: This guy is truly at the very bottom of hell!”

Taeui quietly observed Alain’s mask-like face as he spread his arms as if lamenting, then soothed his throat with a sip of beer. Afterward, he turned to look at Ilay outside and calmly asked.

“So, do you think Ilay has escaped from that abyss now?”

Alain smiled brightly for a moment and then nodded. “Yes, unfortunately.”

“I’ve always found that strange. He’s someone who can’t live like a human being, so how is it even possible for him to do so?”

Alain muttered as if talking to himself, and indeed, it seemed like he was speaking only to himself. He sank into thought for a moment before suddenly lifting his head.

“Tay, what do you think? A person who has committed countless crimes, causing so many people in this world to still suffer because of him, yet he himself lives like an ordinary human being. Don’t you find that incredibly unfair?”

“There will come a time to pay the price.”

Taeui looked out the window and replied calmly. He shifted his attention back to Alain, who had clamped his mouth shut as if struck by something, then took another sip of beer and continued speaking in a composed manner.

“One way or another, the time will come to pay the price. It might not be in the way you think, I think, or anyone else thinks, but he will have to pay for what he’s done, won’t he?”

“Even he knows that.” – Taeui said, nodding toward the window. By then, the beer can was empty, and Taeui stood up to grab a new one from the fridge.

“Alain. There are times when I do something even though I know I’ll regret it later. From small things like staying out all night partying even though I know I have to march the next morning, to bigger things like deciding to end a relationship even though I know I’ll look back on it with longing. I’m fully aware that what I’m doing now will make me regret it later, but I still accept it and go through with it.”

Alain turned his head and tilted his brightly smiling face. His eyes squinted as if he were genuinely amused.

“Deciding to stay with Rick is the same, isn’t it?”

“No, that’s a bit different. I won’t regret that.”

Taeui shook his head slightly.  

“But whether I regret it or not is another matter. I’ve already prepared myself for the things that will happen when I’m with him. Like how life won’t go smoothly, how I might not know what will happen to me tomorrow, or how I might have to endure unfair suffering, all sorts of things.”

That was so obvious that it wasn’t anything special or strange at all.

“It’s the same for Ilay. He also knows that one day, somehow, he’ll have to pay the price for what he’s done.”

Taeui took a sip of beer and looked out the window. The sun had disappeared behind the mountains, and the men strolling in the yard had started heading back home as the evening light faded and the air turned chilly.

Alain stared intently at Taeui. As if not wanting to miss a single expression, Alain observed every detail of Jeong Taeui’s face, then suddenly tilted his head slightly with a smile still lingering on his lips.

“Oh my, Tay, you’re colder than I thought. Are you saying that even if Rick has to pay the price, you wouldn’t care?”

“No way. When that happens, I’ll be by his side too, so nine times out of ten, I’ll suffer as well. But that’s something I’ve prepared myself for, so there’s no choice but to accept it.”

Taeui took the last sip from his second can of beer, then regretfully licked his lips. He frowned slightly and turned to look at Alain.

“So, in the end, what exactly are you trying to say? Or are you jealous that Ilay is living comfortably?”

“Hahaha, no, not at all, it’s just one of the things I’ve always been curious about. That’s why I asked.”

Alain laughed loudly and waved his hand in denial, then returned to his cheerful demeanor and began drinking his cola with gusto.

“Besides, what’s there to be jealous of? Rick actually feels like he’s living in hell being with you.”

“……Hey, hold on, isn’t it the other way around? If there’s a hell, I’m the one who feels like that, why would it be him……”

Taeui suddenly felt unfair, so he unconsciously crushed the empty beer can in his hand and shouted. Alain laughed loudly and tilted his chin outward.

“Rick said so, Rick.”

“So if you want to argue, argue with him directly.” – After listening to Alain’s words, which made Taeui furious, he glanced out the window, but the men who had been in the yard earlier had already gone inside, so their figures were no longer visible. “Oh wow, truly like a thief crying ‘stop thief’, how could he say he’s in hell?” Muttering nonstop, while his hand continued to crush the beer can, Taeui was met with Alain’s amused gaze, who then slowly spoke.

“How does it feel to step out of hell? He said this: ‘I feel like I’m in hell right now.’”

“I feel like I’m in hell right now.”

He had said that and then smirked. At that time, in contrast to the current situation, Alain and Rick were sitting inside the house – in the living room – while Taeui was outside in the yard helping Peter fix the flower bed. Alain had noticed Rick’s gaze silently and intently following Taeui.

“Every word he says, every action he takes, each one seems to strike a nerve in me and leave a fleeting mark. Do you know that feelings can be this vivid, Alain?”

“Yeah, I do. Every time I cut into human flesh, I feel it.”

Alain sought the exhilaration of being alive through the deaths of others. He experienced his emotions and senses that way. But it wasn’t the same for him. For him, even acts as demonic as those brought no sensation at all.

However.

It was truly unexpected – in an unimaginable way – that he could experience that vivid sensation.

Alain found it so strange and incomprehensible that it was unbearable.

“So what? Do you like it?”

Alain smiled and asked, Rick just shrugged lightly.

“I like it. To the point where I think my mind has become abnormal. And sometimes it’s painful. Painful to the extent that it almost feels like pleasure. If I had known it would be this painful, perhaps from the very first time I met Taei, before everything turned out like this, I should have gotten rid of her.”

“Hell must be like this, this strange vivid feeling.” – Rick kept clenching and unclenching his fists, as if testing his own feelings, while mumbling to himself. Alain looked at him with a truly unfamiliar expression.

“Hmm, is that so? When do you plan to escape from that hell?”

When Alain asked, Rick looked at him, then at Taeui, who was sweating profusely in the freezing cold while compacting the ground, and then turned back to Alain. A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

“Absolutely never going out.”

That smile was so clear, it was like his calm voice——.

“……That’s why I thought this guy had crossed the river of no return……”

Alain mumbled to himself with a wide grin, then slowly turned his gaze toward Taeui. His eyes narrowed as if he was genuinely amused.

“Turns out, you care about Rick quite a bit, don’t you?”

Alain’s deep voice echoed as if he were talking to himself, carrying a hint of excitement. Taeui glanced at him and instinctively thought, ‘Huh?’ Alain continued to smile with his usual unreadable expression.

But for some reason, in that fleeting moment, the tone of his voice sounded genuinely happy, prompting Taeui to stare at him. However, no matter how long he stared, Alain’s smiling face remained unchanged, as if it had been cast from a mold. Finally, Taeui turned away and thought: ‘Whatever, so what.’

“It’s not that surprising…………”

Taeui mumbled awkwardly while scratching his head, then suddenly clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“Forget it. I’m not in a good mood. Even though I was prepared, I don’t want to think about the day I’ll have to pay the price. ――So, when exactly is this ‘Damn it, that’s why I can’t help but love this guy’ moment of yours going to show up?”

Taeui raised both hands as if to say: ‘Let’s stop here’, and asked while tossing an empty can into the trash. Suddenly, Alain burst into laughter. It was truly a laugh full of delight.

“We’ve been talking about that this whole time, Tay.”  

*************************

*Dalai Lama: is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and is traditionally regarded as the reincarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. The title “Dalai Lama” translates to “Ocean of Wisdom”, and the position is both spiritual and cultural, historically tied to Tibet.