SLC 70

Kim Jinkyung immediately realized what Secretary Kang was referring to. During the time they had gone without contact, Mok Seongha had visibly lost a lot of weight.

“I was really furious.”

The speed of the paring knife peeling the apple increased. Kim Jinkyung looked at the locked door and seriously calculated in his head how fast he would need to run to save his life.

“How did you raise something this small into this state? He barely eats, so even that black, glossy fur turned rough and dull.”

Secretary Kang glared at Kim Jinkyung.

“If you had been living well after making young master like that, I would’ve made you miserable by any means necessary.”

Secretary Kang placed the peeled apple on top of the knife and handed it to Kim Jinkyung as he continued speaking.

“It’s fortunate that you also look miserable right now.”

It was a good thing he had refused all food and stayed in bed crying. It was really good. Thank goodness the first digit of his weight changed because he did nothing but cry.

Kim Jinkyung, who was frozen in fear, felt relieved at his own pitiful state. Secretary Kang pushed the knife forward again and urged, “Eat.”

“Thank…you.”

Kim Jinkyung accepted the apple on the knife with his trembling hands. He then took small bites, very small bites, and carefully watched Secretary Kang’s expression.

“Have you chosen a burial site?”

Kim Jinkyung choked, and asked, “What?” Did he hear wrong? He was pretty sure Secretary Kang said burial site.

“A burial site. The place where you’ll be buried.”

“…I’ll be buried?”

Is this finally it?

Kim Jinkyung barely managed to ask while holding the apple he had already bitten into.

“You said you’d be buried later. Together.”

Secretary Kang said while chewing the remaining half of the apple, peel and all.

“La-later, when exactly…?”

“Well. When the young master dies?”

Ah, that’s a relief. He meant burial by association.

…Is it a relief?

“Ah, of course, even if the day comes when our young master’s fur loses its shine, you’re still scheduled to be buried. If you don’t have a preferred burial site, I’ll take care of burying you properly in a sunny spot. I’ll plant an apple tree on top too.”

Secretary Kang smiled and crunched the apple on the knife. Only then did Kim Jinkyung understand what Secretary Kang’s words to him really meant.

If you make our small, precious young master cry, I’ll bury you alive.

Kim Jinkyung swallowed dryly and quickly lowered his head.

“And since everything about modern people gets recorded, you’ll get caught someday. Unless you go live in the mountains, cutting trees, catching fish and building a shack.”

So he was kindly giving a hint that if I planned to run, I should go in the mountains and live in a shack…?

“You understand, right?”

“Yes.”

Kim Jinkyung hurriedly nodded. At that moment, the door burst open and Mok Seongha entered the room.

“Why is the door locked? What are you two doing?”

“We were having a conversation.”

“What conversation?”

“About apples.”

Secretary Kang summarized his long string of threats into a single short line.

“Really?”

Mok Seongha asked again while looking at Kim Jinkyung.

“…Yes.”

Well, it was a conversation about apples. It was about burying him alive according to the young master’s will and planting an apple tree on top if the young master died.

“Why apples all of a sudden?”

“Here, have one.”

Secretary Kang spoke while offering the apples he had peeled and arranged on a plate himself.

“I won’t eat.”

“Teacher Kim peeled them. He did it for you, young master.”

“What? …Ah, okay.”

Kim Jinkyung quickly nodded under Secretary Kang’s threatening glare.

“Please eat.”

When Kim Jinkyung urged him, Mok Seongha picked up an apple and put it into his mouth without hesitation. Secretary Kang silently watched the scene.

“You eat too.”

Mok Seongha held out the apple plate toward Kim Jinkyung.

“Ah, I am already eating. This one.”

Kim Jinkyung showed the apple piece he was holding. Mok Seongha noticed it and laughed.

“What is that? Is that even a bite? Why is your mouth so small. Open it. Let me see how wide it opens.”

Mok Seongha grabbed Kim Jinkyung’s chin and teased him. He quickly turned his head. He met a pair of eyes staring at him.

“Please stop.”

“Why?”

“…Apple juice will get on you.”

Mok Seongha looked down at his own hand with apple juice on it. He took a sniff of his hand, then lowered his head and nuzzled Kim Jinkyung’s neck.

“So what. It smells similar.”

His nose brushed Kim Jinkyung’s neck. His face turned bright red, like a fully ripened apple.

“Hey, you really look like an apple. Hahaha.”

Secretary Kang’s expression turned blank as he watched the scene.

After going through all kinds of situations, he trusted his instincts.

When Mok Seongha said he would hire Kim Jinkyung, Secretary Kang was a bit skeptical.

A gay bastard who loudly insists that he likes men?

‘If you take that out, there’s nothing bothersome about him.’

Mok Seongha answered while having the contract written. That was true. If you removed the part about ‘liking men a lot,’ Kim Jinkyung was a perfectly tailored private tutor for Mok Seongha.

His voice was calm and comfortable, his academic background was good, he had tutoring experience, and his personality was gentle. He broke down easily if you scared him just a little, which was perfect. Secretary Kang hated guys who put on pointless bravado or only raised their voices.

When he saw Kim Jinkyung trembling with fear and following him around, he thought that at least he would never harm the young master. But it didn’t even take a few days for that thought to change.

‘Aaaah!’

When Secretary Kang rushed out after hearing the scream from the garden, the young master, who had fallen into the water and turned into a black panther, had his front paws planted on Kim Jinkyung’s body.

Ah. Fuck.

While Secretary Kang was worrying about how to handle the confidentiality problem, the young master, still in panther form, bit the hem of Kim Jinkyung’s clothes and dragged him over in front of him.

The long tail repeatedly patted Kim Jinkyung.

Wash him.

Secretary Kang had reached the stage where he could understand the demand just by looking into his eyes, so he nodded. He tossed Kim Jinkyung into the bathroom, turned on the shower to force him to regain his senses, then told him to wash and come out.

‘E-excuse me. I think I just saw something. You should report this to the police. Just now…’

Secretary Kang turned the shower spray toward Kim Jinkyung’s face. The latter sputtered, ‘Ack, pff,’ while wiping the water away with his hands.

‘Wash. We’ll talk later.’

Secretary Kang left him in the bathroom. He already knew Kim Jinkyung couldn’t report anything anywhere since his phone had been taken long ago.

Where was he supposed to find the next tutor now?

Mok Seongha’s criteria for choosing a tutor weren’t exactly strict, but an ordinary person couldn’t understand them.

First. Someone who smells clean.

Because lessons took place at close range, Mok Seongha wouldn’t keep anyone near him if their smell bothered him, no matter who they were. Plenty of professors who had been invited with great difficulty got kicked out the moment he smelled them.

Second. Someone whose voice doesn’t bother him.

This was also entirely based on his own standards. He hated overly high voices and low voices, hated voices that echoed, hated nasal tones, and hated unclear pronunciation even more. When someone asked him to just set a decibel range if that was the case, Mok Seongha answered that anything between 10 and 120 was fine. Secretary Kang had wanted to tear his hair out somewhere between the sound of leaves brushing together and an ambulance siren.

If someone passed those standards, a third condition got added. Someone whose facial features don’t hurt the eyes.

‘What does a face that hurts the eyes even look like?’

‘Look in a mirror.’

‘……’

Secretary Kang engraved the words ‘polite’ and ‘good looking’ into his mind as the real conditions.

Of course, tutoring ability was a mandatory requirement. A college student who had been introduced through several connections happened to pass all of those conditions.

Mok Seongha’s tutoring interviews usually didn’t even last 10 seconds. Rejected from afar just from the smell. Rejected because of the way they walked. Rejected the moment he saw their faces.

Nobody appreciated how much backbreaking work went into setting up a meeting that didn’t even last 10 seconds. But Secretary Kang told himself it was for the young master and worked hard to find tutors. Just as he was starting to enjoy the relief of being freed from that brutal labor, the thought that he had to do it all over again made his head ache.

But then..

‘Send a flower basket to his family home, and make sure to get delivery photos.’

That was the first thing Mok Seongha said to him after finishing his shower and drying his fur. Secretary Kang knew exactly what sending a flower basket and keeping delivery photos meant.

Take some nice blackmail photos.

Why? Why exactly? Wasn’t he a disposable card? Don’t tell me he planned to pick him back up and reuse him?

Secretary Kang’s blank face filled with countless question marks. Mok Seongha seemed to notice and continued.

‘I don’t want the hassle of finding another tutor. I don’t have time either.’

That was a reason Secretary Kang could accept. He had started tutoring in the first place to persuade Chairman Choi.

Secretary Kang immediately sent the blackmail flowers and prepared a contract for confidentiality.

That was how the first incident passed. But Kim Jinkyung, whom Secretary Kang had thought would be quiet and harmless, caused a surprising number of small accidents. Every time it happened, Secretary Kang mentally prepared himself, thinking this time he’ll get fired. The day Kim Jinkyung showed up wearing sauna clothes because of a fire, Secretary Kang thought ‘Today is the day he gets fired.’

Mok Seongha hated clothes worn by many people in common, like sauna outfits or gym clothes. He said that no matter how much you washed them, the mixed smell of multiple people would make his nose rot.

But even that day, Mok Seongha acted like it wasn’t a big deal. He even continued to overlook Kim Jinkyung’s minor accidents afterward.

Was Kim Jinkyung really that good at teaching? Secretary Kang brought snacks during lessons and observed the classes. Kim Jinkyung was diligent and meticulous, but he wasn’t on the level of those star tutors who charged millions per hour in the past.

…Was it really because he smelled clean, his voice wasn’t bothersome, and his face was easy on the eyes?

Secretary Kang glanced toward Kim Jinkyung during a lesson. At that moment, his eyes met Mok Seongha’s. His gaze, holding a pencil, turned strangely cold.

‘What are you doing? Why aren’t you leaving?”

‘Yes. Please call me if you need anything.’

Secretary Kang closed the door and left. Maybe the lesson interruption annoyed him. Who did he take after to have such good focus? Secretary Kang tried the suppress his growing anxiety with denial.

But the incomprehensible things didn’t end there.

‘You’re saying you’ll hold the lesson outside? Are you out of your mind?’

Kim Jinkyung suddenly declared that he would take the young master outside and conduct the lesson there.

‘These days, a lot of people do lessons at cafes or study cafes.’

‘You’re taking the young master outside? Are you out of your mind?’

‘…We won’t go out on rainy days. I’ll definitely check the weather forecast.’

‘You’re saying you’ll take him outside? Are you seriously not in your right mind right now?’

More than anything else, what mattered was whether the person standing in front of him was sane. If he wasn’t, Secretary Kang needed to fire him immediately.

So that was why.

Kim Jinkyung answered in a tiny voice, completely terrified.

‘…He can’t stay inside the house forever.’

Ah. Don’t tell me this bastard is talking about going outside because of that neglect or abuse nonsense he brought up back then?

Secretary Kang’s expression turned cold.

I seriously can’t understand this guy. He’s shaking like this because he’s scared, yet he still thinks about doing something this reckless.

But what made even less sense was the young master’s reaction. Secretary Kang expected him to refuse and say he wouldn’t go out, but he agreed.

Why?

Why would he go that far?

Secretary Kang pushed aside the countless questions, and then something even more insane happened.

‘I’m dating Teacher. So I won’t marry a woman.’

A few days later, Mok Seongha walked into the hospital room holding Kim Jinkyung’s hand and dropped a bomb in front of Chairman Choi.

Secretary Kang thought it was a trick to avoid going on blind dates. It did succeed in provoking Chairman Choi’s fury, and they got kicked out of the hospital room.

‘I understand that you don’t want to go on blind dates, but I can’t go along with deceiving Chairman Choi like this.’

Mok Seongha didn’t even blink and insisted that they were dating.

They’re dating? At least say something that makes sense.

‘If there were anything strange going on between the two of you, there’s no way I wouldn’t know. If I couldn’t notice that, I should gouge someone’s eyes out. Of course, not mine. I’d gouge out the teacher’s eyes.’

‘H-hic, why my eyes?’

Secretary Kang watched Kim Jinkyung cover his eyes in fear. With guts like that, who would he even date?

That was when it happened.

He heard a snort of laughter. Secretary Kang turned his head with a blank expression. Did the young master just laugh.

The sight made him doubt whether it was true or not, then vanished without a trace. It didn’t matter if Kim Jinkyung was gay and had slept with many men, the other party was the young master.

There was no way anything could happen between them.

‘I hoped the young master would make good choices, and that hasn’t changed even now. I sincerely hope both of you make good choices going forward.’

After that, the two of them went out holding hands, calling it dating. In reality, it was tutoring disguised as dates. Tutoring by the Han River. Tutoring in parks. Tutoring in cafes.

It annoyed him a bit when they turned off their phones and disappeared at an amusement park, but that felt like something the young master would do.

If a report reached Chairman Choi, Mok Seongha must have calculated how suspicious he could act without crossing the line.

That was what Secretary Kang thought. No, that was what he believed.

But he started to doubt that after the two of them disappeared from the hospital. Secretary Kang scolded them the moment they showed up.

‘What were you doing that you haven’t even eaten yet?’

He felt irritated when he heard they hadn’t eaten. At that moment, Kim Jinkyung’s face turned completely pale. It wasn’t because he’d been threatened with death. It wasn’t because Secretary Kang told him honestly that he wanted to cut off all his fingers for taking the precious young master out overnight.

But he reacted like that?

…Did he actually do something?

‘What were you doing that you didn’t even check your phone once?’

Kim Jinkyung started trembling like he was about to have a seizure.

‘Th-that is… I mean…’

‘We studied.’

Cold light flashed in the young master’s eyes as he answered. After that, the two of them said they were tired and went into the room.

There was definitely something there. Something he didn’t know was definitely happening. From that day on, his suspicions only grew stronger.

Once he put on the lens of doubt, strange things happened. The young master was obsessing over his private tutor and getting angry to a degree that made no sense. Where did it all go wrong? Was it after the day they disappeared at the hospital? No, when he traced his memory back, things started even before that.

‘Hey. Doesn’t he smell like apples?’

One day, while Mok Seongha was diligently working on the homework Kim Jinkyung had given him, he asked out of nowhere.

‘Pardon? Who are you talking about?’

‘The teacher.’

‘Ah. Really?’

Secretary Kang didn’t think much of it, maybe Kim Jinkyung ate an apple for breakfast on the day he came for tutoring.

‘He smells like apples. Sometimes, when his face turns red, he even looks like a ripe apple.’

‘…Ah. Really?’

You’re telling me a grown man who even served in the military looks like an apple just because his face turns red? Is the young master in his right mind?

He wanted to ask that, but like always, he answered without expression.

‘I want to take a bite.’

‘……’

‘That wouldn’t work, right?’

Mok Seongha lifted his head and asked. He was genuinely curious.

‘It wouldn’t work. He would die.’

‘Hmm. That’s true.’

If I had said it then, and told him that something like that must never happen no matter what, would the outcome have been different?

“Please stop teasing.”

Kim Jinkyung stopped Mok Seongha, his face red.

Secretary Kang sighed as he clutched his aching head. At that moment, his eyes caught the document envelope tucked beside Mok Seongha’s arm.

“What is that, young master?”

“Ah, right. Grandpa told me to give this to you.”

Mok Seongha handed the envelope to Kim Jinkyung as if he had just remembered.

“What is this?”

“A contract and guidance on damage compensation claims.”

Kim Jinkyung quickly pulled out the thick bundle of documents and started flipping through the pages.

“…What is this?”

It was the same question as before, yet completely different.

“I told you. The contract and…”

“No, not that. …This here, the amount. Is this correct?”

Kim Jinkyung asked in a trembling voice while pointing at the compensation amount written on the document.

“Yeah. He rounded off the amounts under 100 won.”

“It looks like there are more zeros added….”

“No. One, two, three…ten zeros. That’s right.”

The paper slipped from Kim Jinkyung’s hand. Mok Seongha clicked his tongue and picked up the scattered documents, then handed them back to him.

“Are you still dizzy? Do you want to go lie down and rest a bit?”

“…….”

“Hey. Teacher.”

Mok Seongha waved his palm in front of Kim Jinkyung’s face. When there was still no reaction, Mok Seongha flicked Kim Jinkyung’s forehead with his finger.

“Does this make sense?”

Only then did Kim Jinkyung come to his senses and look at Mok Seongha as he asked.

“What part?”

“Did you see the amount? It’s over ten billion won. How does it even get that high?”

“Ah, this is an amount you and I have to pay together. We can split it in half.” Mok Seongha answered.

“It still won’t work even if we split it! I can’t pay this even if I die.”

Kim Jinkyung said with a pale face.

“Keep reading after that. The contract. You’re the ‘eul.’ I’m the ‘gap¹.’”

1. 갑 (gap) means the party in the dominant position. The one who sets the terms. The one with power and leverage. 을 (eul) means the subordinate party. The one who follows the terms. The one with less power. ↩︎