“You do all sorts of things.”
“They say doing it like this makes the foam softer. Soyeon noona taught me.”
Ian, who proudly lifted the glass, put it to his lips and quickly tilted it. Somehow the drinking pace seemed fast, so Ganghyuk slightly furrowed his brow.
“If you act drunk, we’re going in right away.”
With a premonition that the precariously maintained balance seemed about to crumble, Ganghyuk warned in a stern voice. Ian put down the glass that was more than half empty on the dining table.
“I’m still perfectly fine.”
“Go look in a mirror.”
Not only had his face turned red, but his eyes were also gradually becoming drowsy and unfocused. Was this a characteristic of people weak to alcohol? Insisting they’re not drunk even when they are.
Ganghyuk, who chuckled at the thought that came to mind, filled his beer glass with soju. He wouldn’t get drunk from this, but he thought he should play along with the kid to some extent.
“Executive Director, do you remember when you were young?”
Ian, who had been touching the rim of the soju glass with his index finger, suddenly brought up an out-of-the-blue topic. Ganghyuk, who lowered his eyes, lifted his glass and emptied it in one go.
“Why that.”
The past was a page that had passed and become fossilized.
Memories he didn’t particularly want to turn back and reopen, that he just wished would corrode and disappear with the long passage of time.
Memories that might be brilliant to someone else were nothing but dregs of time to Ganghyuk that he wouldn’t regret even if they disappeared.
However, the time he spent together with Ian and Cheolho remained uniquely unfaded, and Cheolho’s death evoked old memories.
That memory connected all the way to this moment of sitting face to face with Ian drinking alcohol. Perhaps this time now would also remain fossilized when looking back in the distant future.
“Actually, I found a photo with you in it, Executive Director.”
Ian took out a photo he had hidden under his chair and handed it to Ganghyuk. Jet-black eyes silently looked at himself and Ian in the photo.
For a moment, an atmosphere as if time had stopped flowed. Ian couldn’t readily continue his words and examined Ganghyuk’s expression.
He himself had been really very happy seeing this photo. It felt like his connection with Ganghyuk had continued since childhood, which he couldn’t even remember.
But it might approach Ganghyuk differently. Ganghyuk’s appearance in the photo was very different from now.
At a glance, it was obvious he wasn’t receiving proper care from an adult. His hair was unkempt, and his body was excessively thin.
When cold sweat began to form on his palms wondering if he had touched on a bad memory, Ganghyuk tilted the soju bottle to fill the empty glass.
“You found it well.”
Ganghyuk drank the glass full of soju without even taking a breath. He tried to fill the glass again, but the bottle was already showing its bottom.
He stretched his arm to the side and brought a new bottle. Along with the sound of pouring, the unique alcoholic scent of soju spread throughout the kitchen.
“Your grandfather. He’s my benefactor.”
When Ian had previously asked what relationship he had with Cheolho, Ganghyuk had dodged with ‘just someone I know.’ In fact, the grace he received from Cheolho was not small enough to express as just that much.
Parents had a duty to protect and raise their child until they became a proper adult. Children couldn’t choose their parents, but parents could decide whether to have a child or not.
However, Ganghyuk’s parents were immature adults who couldn’t even properly take care of themselves. The meeting between a dabang woman and a neighborhood thug wasn’t very beautiful.
Still, if they had gotten married, had a child, and tried to live sincerely by finding respectable work they could do, their lives wouldn’t have ended so tragically.
The two people couldn’t quit what they had been doing since they were young even as they got older. The problem was that as they got older, they couldn’t earn as much money as before.
Then they should have reduced expenses and thought about doing other work, but the two chose the worst option.
One-shot principle. The two fell into the trap that everyone addicted to gambling falls into, side by side.
Unluckily, both of them had some talent for gambling. Money is lost by those who have won it.
The household gradually declined, and later they even sold the organs from inside their bodies to hover around gambling dens. Since they were crazy with thoughts about how to make gambling money to play one more round, naturally they had no interest whatsoever in their young son.
Unable to even register as a basic livelihood recipient, Ganghyuk starved every day. Occasionally when his parents came home, he even became a target for venting anger.
Being at the peak of his growth period but unable to eat properly and even being beaten, his physical condition worsened day by day. If Cheolho hadn’t given him free soup and rice every day back then, he would have starved to death either in that dark underground single room or on the street.
Back then, I didn’t have the personality to beg from anyone, so I just spent each day meaninglessly, living while thinking it would be okay if my breath stopped one day.
“Without that free soup and rice I got back then, I would have starved to death.”
Ganghyuk raised his gaze to look at Ian’s flustered face. This was the first time telling this story to anyone.
The warmth Cheolho extended was the first warmth Ganghyuk had ever received since being born into this world. It made him feel that not all adults were bad.
And the smile young Ian gave became an oasis to his heart that was dry and desolate like a desert.
Seeing the photo, he vaguely remembered that time. Cheolho occasionally captured Ian’s appearance in photos.
Young Ian was quite shy with strangers. While he smiled brightly at adults who visited the restaurant, when they actually tried to hold him, he would quickly hide behind Cheolho. Sometimes he cried a lot, getting startled even by trivial things.
But he opened his heart to Ganghyuk quickly. From one day, he approached first, quietly grasping his pinky finger with his index finger and laughing making “hehe” sounds.
He followed Ganghyuk so much that he saved even his favorite candy and strawberry milk to give to Ganghyuk. Even though all Ganghyuk did for Ian was occasionally pat his head.
On this day too, Ian sat as if Ganghyuk’s thigh was his personal chair and held on without listening even when Cheolho told him to come down.
The warmth given by the small, soft body was so warm that Ganghyuk also pretended he couldn’t resist Ian’s clinginess and accepted it.
Though he never dreamed that a photo would be taken like this.
Remembering Cheolho’s face that smiled warmly looking at him, Ganghyuk cleanly emptied the newly filled glass.
“So don’t give your heart to someone like me, and find a decent guy. So I can face your grandfather later without shame.”
No drunkenness had risen at all, but words flowed out smoothly. This was the first time speaking so directly. Sure enough.
He could see Ian’s eyes quickly reddening. Ian poured soju into his beer glass and then downed it in one shot without giving him a chance to stop him.
“What do you mean someone like you, Executive Director?”
The way he glared with his eyes was quite fierce.
“A guy who shamelessly devoured a young kid with an age gap. A guy who lives with blood on his hands. A guy with a ruined inside.”
Ganghyuk listed out harsh criticism about himself without even blinking.
“Should I tell you more?”
Ganghyuk, who let out a crooked smile, looked at Ian with deeply sunken eyes. For a moment, Ian felt as if suffocating despair was choking his throat.
“A guy who killed his parents with his own hands.”
Ian’s lips parted up and down weakly. That couldn’t be true. The Ganghyuk he had seen all this time was absolutely not that kind of person.
“You’re lying.”
“Why would I lie to you about something like this.”
Ganghyuk flicked the glass with his finger as if it was boring. The glass, pushed by the force, met the plate making a clinking sound.
“You have to think about your grandfather, Ian-ah.”
A soundless gaze bound Ian. Ian clenched both fists tightly at the emotion that surged up. The face of his grandfather, whom he still missed so much, flickered before his eyes.
That’s why Ganghyuk’s words approached even more coldly. It seemed like he was trying to push him away by any means. It seemed like he kept trying to make that day, the time when he hotly embraced him, into something that never happened.
