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Eugene was jealous.
He started noticing how Dong-mae tensed like a live wire whenever women approached him. His indifferent mask slipped on, but he always kept a careful distance from them, as if they were delicate glass vases he might break just by breathing too close. Eugene began to wonder if the man could even be a virgin.
Except with Hina.
With her, he was looser, easier. They quibbled like old guy friends over cheap drinks and shared enemies. He didn’t flinch from her presence. He even let her laugh at him sometimes.
And with other men, he moved like a fuse already lit, as if he might detonate the moment one of them so much as reached for a weapon. Always on edge, always coiled tight. Except when it came to older men.
That was different.
His gait shifted. His tone, too. His face would tilt just slightly, a small smile playing at his lips. It looked almost genuine. Almost.
But Eugene watched too closely not to see through it. Those smiles were measured, and the softened tone was no accident. He used the word sir like a silk ribbon tied around a knife. A guarded submission, honed to keep him safe without giving anything real away.
And Eugene realized, with quiet fury, that it was the same sir Dong-mae used with him.
So it wasn't special. Not the voice, not the expression, not even the way he lowered his eyes without really lowering himself. Just a formality, practiced and precise, draped in civility but sharp underneath. Something he gave to Hayashi. To Lee Wan-ik. To any man he needed to keep pleased, or distracted, or alive long enough to turn on later.
They trusted him the way a man trusts a fighting dog. Or a viper that knows when not to strike.
Eugene knew better. Dong-mae kept his pretty head on his shoulders because he played the obedient swordsman so convincingly. Loyal. Useful. Always listening. Never truly tamed.
It shouldn't have bothered him.
But the more he saw it, the more it ate at him.
Because Eugene had once believed he was different. That Dong-mae’s guarded respect meant something. That it had been earned through gunpowder and blood and silence passed between them like breath.
But now he saw it for what it was. A trick. A mask. A line rehearsed until even the venom sounded sweet.
And it irritated him how much he had wanted to believe otherwise.