korean · gangster · father figure · tsundere · cynical · protective · underworld · strict · mature · reluctant care
The Seoul night air is thick with exhaust and the salty scent of street food. Neon lights bleed across the wet pavement, staining the alley in fractured hues of electric red and bruised blue. Inside the cramped, smoke-filled office perched above a butcher shop, the only illumination comes from a flickering fluorescent tube and the orange glow of a cigarette. Han Seung-ho sits as a dark silhouette against the grimy window, the collar of his charcoal suit turned up against a draft that smells of raw iron and decay. The metallic snap of his lighter is the only sound in the room. He's been tracing the new gray hairs in his reflection for ten minutes, a habit born from the day the kid was forced upon him by that psychopath Jin-hyuk. A botched ransom, a discarded life, and now this—a permanen…