The Second Round Wants to Monopolize: Episode 1
Uhyeok had, quite literally, been called the King of the Night.
Having taken over a shop where he’d started as a waiter, he seized control of the Gangnam area within ten years.
And now, there wasn’t a single place in South Korea his hands didn’t reach—from gambling dens to every establishment that required alcohol.
He was the biggest shadow in South Korea in name and reality, a man who raked in astronomical sums of money.
“*Cough.*”
But now.
He lay collapsed in an underground backroom reeking of stale cigarettes.
Buried in his stomach were two sashimi knives.
“……What the hell is this for?”
If it had been his enemies, he wouldn’t have felt so aggrieved.
They were his little brothers who’d followed him since childhood.
Those very bastards had slashed at him, their own faces spattered with his blood.
“It’s all because you’ve gone soft, Hyung-nim. Why’d you have to show a sudden opening? A tempting one, at that.”
“We can’t just clean up your messes forever, can we?”
Jin Duho and Jin Yangho’s eyes gleamed like snakes.
“……Damn it. If I die, that bastard Jo Gwangyeol…… do you think he’ll stay still?”
“You don’t need to worry about that. We’ve already agreed to split things up nicely.”
*Krrchk—*
The twins twisted the knives they gripped with brutal force.
His entrails tore on the blades, and blood gushed from the corners of his mouth.
“*Kuhluk*. You stupid…… bastards. That Jo Gwangyeol…… is a hyena. He’ll never share with you.”
“Kehe. Jo Gwangyeol said you’d say that, Hyung-nim.”
“Just go quietly.”
The knives that had dug deep into his stomach pulled out and plunged back in.
One, two, six.
By the time he counted to ten…… all feeling in his body vanished.
The world seemed to slow steadily, and his vision blurred white.
*Snap—*
With the sound of something breaking, the world instead grew brighter.
When he raised his head, he saw the bloodshot pupils of the twins.
Spittle that had flown from their open mouths was frozen in midair.
As if someone had pressed pause on the video that was the world.
‘……Am I going crazy from the pain?’
“You aren’t going crazy.”
A woman in a black dress sat upon the table where no one had been.
Her flawless white skin caught the eye.
It didn’t suit the blood splattered all around.
“It’s simply the moment your entrails are being cut out and you’re dying from excessive blood loss.”
*Clink—*
Despite the horrific words, she leisurely dropped ice into a glass and poured whiskey.
She took a sip and frowned.
“Disgustingly bad.”
“……Royal Salute 50 Year Old. There are only exactly 255 bottles in the entire world.”
She shrugged and set the glass down with a sharp clack.
“So you came all the way here because you believed your little brothers when they said they’d treat you to expensive liquor?”
“……”
“Moreover, it was the first shop you ever took charge of, so you must have let your guard down, too.”
“……Yeah. I suppose so.”
The woman’s words were true.
Before he could even have a drink, what he faced were glinting cold sashimi knives.
That was vexing, but what he couldn’t understand more was the current situation.
“Am I…… dead?”
“You are.”
“You’re a grim reaper?”
“Ooh. Quick on the uptake.”
She stroked Uhyeok’s face as if praising him.
An icy chill transmitted from her fingers.
Perched on the table, she crossed one leg and looked down at Uhyeok.
“Shall we stop the small talk and get down to business?”
Her pupils shone golden as she looked him over.
“At age seven, you lost your parents in a traffic accident and survived alone. You lived in an orphanage and got a job right at eighteen.”
“‘Getting a job,’ if you can call being a waiter a job.”
“Later, you worked as a host. You made quite a few people cry, didn’t you?”
Back then, Uhyeok was obsessed with money and success.
He cut back on sleep to build up regulars, and he didn’t hesitate to take down rivals when necessary.
The buildings and wealth he accumulated were all built on someone’s blood and tears.
“Well, well. That’s why the gates of hell are wide open. The demons of hell are clamoring to drop you in right this instant.”
“I have no regrets. If I hadn’t done so, I’d have been trampled beneath their feet.”
A world of eat or be eaten.
He may not have held guns or knives, but his life was the wilderness.
Only by becoming a predator instead of prey had he risen to his current position.
“And in the end, the result is a knife in the gut from the little brothers you trusted?”
“……”
The woman waved her hand, and her pupils returned to normal.
Uhyeok sensed something odd in the woman’s attitude as she looked down at him with her arms crossed.
If she meant to judge his sins, she need only send him to hell.
The fact that she was rambling on with such pointless words meant—
“That’s right. I have business with you. No, to be precise, you could call it an opportunity or…… a deal?”
“I suppose you’re not giving me the tired old line about repenting even now?”
“Repentance is something you do before you die. From now on, I’m going to tell you something very important, so listen well. Even for you, burdened with countless sins, there is one single light.”
Uhyeok tilted his head.
“Lee Huiyeon.”
At the name the woman uttered, Uhyeok’s pupils shook.
The only woman he had ever loved in his younger days.
But he had abandoned her for money and success.
After that, he had never once gone to see her or asked about her.
“The woman you abandoned prayed for you without missing a single day.”
*Clap—*
The moment the woman clapped, a familiar voice rang out.
It was as if a cassette tape were playing directly above his head.
‘……I hope Mr. Uhyeok can spend a peaceful day today, too……’
‘……Please forgive the sins Mr. Uhyeok has committed. So that he and Ganglim can get through the winter without any trouble……’
‘……Please help Mr. Uhyeok live a life without regrets.’
Huiyeon was a faded memory stored deep within his heart, a burden he could never set down for his entire life.
Without realizing it, Uhyeok clutched his heavy chest.
Along with the prayers, the name Ganglim had come up more than a few times.
‘……A new man she met?’
“U Ganglim? He’s your son.”
“What?”
“On the day you abandoned Lee Huiyeon, she was trying to tell you she was pregnant. What she received instead of a blessing was a breakup notice. Even so, she tried to understand you and gave birth to the child alone. She raised him through truly difficult times, yet she helped many people. The exact opposite of you, who built up sin through bloodshed.”
Uhyeok’s pupils trembled.
He hadn’t known she was pregnant with his child, nor that she had given birth and was raising him alone.
For the first time in his life, the emotion of regret surged up from deep within his chest.
“The opportunity given to you is heaven’s reward for her good deeds.”
“……So what is this opportunity?”
“You’ll naturally know when you wake up again.”
She grabbed the ice bucket and stepped down from the table.
Then, the world that had stopped began to move again.
His body was shaken roughly by the twins’ fierce hands.
The blades stirred inside his stomach, and his mind went white with agony.
“Krrrgh!”
“Never forget this pain. And the fact that you died once.”
The woman poured the ice bucket over him.
*Splashhh—*
The ice water sent a chill flooding through his face and entire body.
Simultaneously, Uhyeok’s consciousness slowly faded.
The world tangled and twisted chaotically.
The woman waved her fingers in farewell.
“Don’t live a life of regret this time. Try living a little kindly, will you?”
“Kuh…… If I die again…… will I meet you?”
“Who knows?”
She answered with a bright smile.
“Ah, right. That Royal Salute 50 Year Old? It’s fake.”
* * *
“Hey, punk. What are you doing?”
Someone shouted at Uhyeok.
Startled by the voice, he turned his head to find a man with spiky hair holding out a five-thousand-won bill.
He tossed the bill casually and said,
“Buy me two packs of Marlboros.”
Just moments ago, he had been talking to a grim reaper with knives stuck in his stomach.
Then, in an instant, he had suddenly arrived in a new space.
Uhyeok looked around with a blank face and found a familiar face.
‘Gangmin……’
The bastard who had tormented him terribly when he first started working at the host bar.
He would make him run cigarette errands in front of customers, tasks he wouldn’t even make the waiters do.
Only then did Uhyeok realize that this place was the private room where he’d been talking to the grim reaper moments ago.
‘……Did I come back twenty years?’
The reason he remembered the exact year was that he had first started working here in 2002.
It had only been a short while since the renovation, so it was clean without a hint of stale cigarette smell.
Not only that, but the thick makeup of the unnamed female customer sitting beside Gangmin was exactly as it had been back then.
“Hey. You drunk? Hurry up and go.”
Gangmin’s irritated voice pulled him from his thoughts.
Uhyeok nodded, picked up the five thousand won, and stood.
Now that he looked, it wasn’t even a new bill, but an old one.
The rough texture of the bill even felt welcome.
“Tch. That stupid punk.”
Gangmin’s sneer followed him, but he couldn’t hide a smile as he walked out.
‘I really came back.’
Hosts lined up in the hallway and waiters bustling about.
The raucous singing drifting from rooms opening and closing was endearing.
Uhyeok passed them and headed to the restroom.
First of all, he checked his face reflected in the mirror.
“Was I this young?”
The face of a twenty-year-old was fresh and youthful, ill-suited to the suit he wore.
Unlike himself twenty years later, he had no gut and not a single wrinkle on his skin.
Back then, he had hated looking young, so he’d drawn his eyebrows thick or tried to look older.
‘What a stupid thing to do.’
Just then, Gangmin, who had sent Uhyeok on the cigarette errand, entered the restroom.
His staggering steps showed he was quite drunk.
“What the hell. Why are you here? Where are the cigarettes?”
Uhyeok lightly ignored those words and asked Gangmin,
“What day is it today?”
“May 31st……”
Gangmin soon realized Uhyeok had spoken to him informally and twisted his face.
“Shit. Did you just speak informally to me? Has this crazy bastard lost his mind?”
He immediately tried to hit Uhyeok in the face.
But Uhyeok was not someone who would just take it.
Merely tilting his head lightly, he dodged the hand and instead struck Gangmin’s cheek.
*Smack—*
Gangmin slipped and collapsed on the floor.
It was right on top of the spit he’d just spat out.
He clutched his reddened cheek and looked up blankly.
“If you’re going to hit someone, you should be prepared to get hit back.”
His body was a twenty-year-old greenhorn, but his soul was a veteran who had been through hell and high water for twenty years.
He wouldn’t have survived if he were the kind to take a mere slap.
A belated shout erupted from Gangmin.
“You, you……! You wanna die?!”
“Then do you wanna die?”
When he countered nonchalantly, Gangmin couldn’t say a word.
Terrified by Uhyeok’s icy gaze, he shrank like a mouse before a snake.
“Tch. Let’s call the slap even with this?”
Uhyeok said, tossing the five-thousand-won bill he was holding.
And he immediately walked out of the shop.
There was something he needed to check first.
Beneath gaudy neon signs, a song drifted among women with thick lipstick and drunken people.
[……Yang suhanmu geobugiwa durumi, samcheongapja dongbaksa, chichikapo, sarisarisenta—]
A cheerful rhythm and a somewhat slow voice.
It was Yang Dong-geun’s “Alleyway.”
‘Right. It was the most popular song around this time.’
Its popularity had peaked before the 2002 World Cup cheering songs took over the streets in earnest.
Uhyeok wandered around every corner of Gangnam for a long while, comparing it to his memories.
It was because he wondered if the memories flashing by like a lantern show meant he was going crazy.
Uhyeok stopped in front of a tteokbokki street stall.
‘This old stall spot. It was definitely an incredible gold mine, wasn’t it?’
Buried under the World Cup fervor, but even in 2002, Gangnam real estate had stirred greatly.
Empty lots lined with street stalls were going for nearly ten million won per pyeong, and no one wanted to buy them.
But shortly after, a thirty-story building was erected on this site.
Afterward, the price per pyeong rose over a hundredfold on land value alone, and even just the monthly rent more than covered the land price.
‘That is, if I’m right about this too.’
Such information had been neatly stored away in the mind of Uhyeok, who had been called the King of the Night.
And indeed, his steps soon led to one particular place.
[Gangnam Daeseong Academy]
A banner reading ‘110 Admissions to Korea University’ fluttered vigorously at the building entrance.
Uhyeok stopped across the crosswalk and watched the place.
It seemed class had just ended, as students poured out.
Among the scattering children, he saw the face he’d been searching for.
‘Lee Huiyeon……’
She, too, was exactly as she had looked at twenty, young like him.
Uhyeok couldn’t take his eyes off her.
‘So it was true that she couldn’t even watch the World Cup and just studied at the academy.’
She stood before the crosswalk, looking around the street, and her eyes met Uhyeok’s.
When he didn’t avoid her eyes, she tilted her head.
She was clearly trying to remember if he was a familiar face.
Soon the light turned green, and they walked toward each other.
When they were close enough for their voices to reach, Uhyeok stopped in front of her.
“If you gave me this life, I’ll try living it differently.”
“……Huh?”
Her eyes widened like a rabbit’s, startled.
Uhyeok simply walked past without any response.
He felt Huiyeon’s gaze on his back but didn’t look back.
‘This isn’t just empty words.’
It was a vow to himself and for the child he would have with Huiyeon, who wasn’t even born yet.
A life without regrets.
If that was what Huiyeon had prayed for, he intended to live that way from now on.
* * *
Uhyeok forced his memories to the surface and headed home.
“Damn it. I moved around too damn much.”
After leaving the orphanage, Uhyeok had hopped around like a grasshopper whenever a cheap listing came up to save money.
He barely managed to check the address on the key and found the place: a semi-basement room, as expected.
He took out the key, opened the door, and a musty smell surged in.
‘How did I ever live in a place like this?’
Aside from being near Gangnam Station, light hardly came in properly, and it was full of mold.
He turned on the light and opened the window first.
Instead of the moldy air leaving, the stench of the alleyway wafted in.
“Just my luck.”
He sighed and looked around the room.
Cockroaches scuttled across the yellowed ocher floor and stained wallpaper.
Aside from a refrigerator making noises as if it would break down any minute and dirty bedding, there was hardly any other furniture.
Uhyeok immediately opened the freezer and rummaged through it.
“It has to be here.”
Uhyeok tore away the frost and pulled out a tightly rolled-up towel.
Inside the frozen stiff towel was a bankbook.
It contained the 5 million won self-reliance settlement grant he’d received upon leaving the orphanage, along with part-time wages he’d saved up bit by bit.
[9,282,000]
At the end of the day, it wasn’t even ten million won, but together with the 2 million won security deposit for this place, it was his entire fortune.
“I ended up losing most of this to card gambling, lured in by Gangmin while working at the bar.”
Thinking back on that, the slap he’d delivered earlier felt insufficient.
“Should I have gone a few more slaps before walking out?”
After that, Uhyeok had spent an incredibly miserable stretch of days.
He’d taken out private loans to pay the monthly rent and worked through the nights, ruining his health.
“But this time will be different.”
Not only would he avoid gambling, but he had a sure opportunity to make money.
“The 2002 World Cup.”
To Uhyeok, who knew all the results, Toto was no different from a lottery where you knew the numbers.