And Yeom Chaewoo still had a chance to achieve her dream.
Jaeha’s father had become a small urn placed in a spot with a nice view at a memorial park with a sprawling garden, but her mother was still alive.
And apartments—they were still building so many of them.
“Ah, my mom made really good cucumber kimchi.”
As if she’d finally realized the reality of celery, Yeom Chaewoo pushed the celery basket aside and placed a basket of cucumbers labeled “3 for 1,000 won” in its spot.
“You used to love cucumber kimchi so much whenever you came to my house.”
“Only when eating it with jjajang ramyeon.”
“Right. Anyway, you were so picky, you were annoyingly selective about kimchi. You ate different kimchi with each ramyeon.”
“What do you mean? White ramyeon with kkakdugi, red ramyeon with cabbage kimchi—that was about it.”
“That’s what I’m saying—why did you pick and choose? I should chop your head into kkakdugi.”
“You have nothing to say, so you’re spouting nonsense.”
When she was at a loss for words, Yeom Chaewoo became violent. It had been that way since childhood. Jaeha had to get up from his seat to avoid the cucumber dangling menacingly right in front of his nose. After all, the sight of a long, firm object swinging back and forth in front of his face didn’t feel very pleasant.
Fortunately, a regular customer approached at just the right time, dragging a shopping basket. Yeom Chaewoo tucked the cucumber into her apron and moved the Fuji apples she’d been polishing to a shine all morning to a position within the customer’s line of sight.
“Hey there, President Hyun. You look like you have nothing to do, so how about helping out?”
Jaeha pretended not to hear Yeom Chaewoo’s request for help and turned on his phone screen. He ignored Jo Seyoung’s message asking if he could lend her more money for now. Ju Seonghwan’s chat showed 12 unread messages. The content was written very politely and obsequiously, asking if it would be okay to introduce someone. Since he’d shoved money up Ju Seonghwan’s back hole to use him as a magpie building a bridge anyway, okay.
The bastards who borrowed money sure had a lot to say. When the person Jaeha was actually waiting for hadn’t said anything.
Fiddling with the e-cigarette in his pocket, Jaeha thought. Looking at how Taesung’s eyes rolled back, it was clear he didn’t know Han Yongwoo was among the ‘customers.’ Han Yongwoo was someone who could be Taesung’s weak point. After all, he was the guy who provided the fundamental reason why Taesung grew up to be such an idiot.
Han Yongwoo and Jang Hyeokjin were like shit and diarrhea, but well, depending on the person, some might think solid shit is cleaner and better than diarrhea running everywhere.
“President Yeom?”
Jaeha stood side by side next to the regular customer who was carefully selecting cabbage and called out to Yeom Chaewoo. She frowned as if the unusual title coming from Jaeha’s mouth was highly suspicious. Still, today he hadn’t called her to do something she’d need to worry about.
“What kind of fruit would be best to buy for someone who had something unpleasant happen yesterday?”
“Ah, so President Hyun is picking out a reconciliation gift.”
“No, they’re not angry because of me, so it’s not a reconciliation gift.”
“My goodness, something unpleasant happened but it’s not because of President Hyun? How is such an impossible thing…”
Jaeha quietly raised his middle finger. Not to be outdone, Yeom Chaewoo raised both her middle fingers conspicuously.
“When something unpleasant happens, it’s definitely avocado.”
“Talking nonsense again.”
“Do you know how good avocados are for cardiovascular health? If you chug down an avocado smoothie, your blood pressure that was about to rise will drop right down.”
The customer selecting cabbage heard this and grabbed an avocado instead of what Jaeha wanted. Jaeha and Yeom Chaewoo exchanged glances and shrugged their shoulders. They didn’t really intend to scam anyone, but it sure looked suspicious.
“Just pack some Shine Muscat for me.”
“You’re going to get high blood sugar doing that. You need to manage sugar from when you’re young. If you lightly blanch this broccoli and eat a handful before meals, you can completely control your blood sugar.”
This time too, after promoting broccoli like a shopping show host while sneakily watching the customer, Yeom Chaewoo selected the firmest bunch of Shine Muscat to deal with the expensive dead stock and filled a plastic bag with it.
The customer ended up picking up the broccoli basket too.
Unfortunately, the celery still didn’t sell in the end.
“Why does that crazy bastard always hit people whenever he calls them! Hyung-nim, let’s just take this opportunity to throw down and fight one-on-one. Honestly, can’t you take down that middle-aged bastard?”
That middle-aged bastard is full of energy from whatever the hell he’s been eating, you bastard.
He had no choice but to swallow those words. First of all, every time he opened his mouth, the inside of his beaten cheek kept getting bitten, and his throat was so swollen that his voice wouldn’t come out properly. Manager Kim pounded his frustrated chest and pulled the car over to the side of the road. Then he jumped out without even reporting to Taesung.
Has that bastard gone crazy too? Taesung rolled down the car window. But as soon as he faced the people busily coming and going through the downtown area, he had no choice but to hastily close the window. Even though they actually had no interest in Taesung, he couldn’t look outside due to pointless shame and feelings of inferiority.
The taste of blood rose in his throat. He wanted to think of the fishy, disgusting smell as just the taste of blood. As soon as he became conscious of it, nausea surged and he pounded his chest. Taesung fumbled to find the water bottle stuck next to him and poured it straight into his mouth.
“Whew, the part-timer was so damn slow…”
In the meantime, Manager Kim returned to the driver’s seat. Then, before Taesung could say anything, he held something out to the back seat. It was a bag of ice and a boiled egg.
“Hurry up and hold the ice against it. If you leave that alone, hyung-nim’s face will get as big as mine, you know?”
Manager Kim pointed to his own broad face filling the rearview mirror and grinned. Taesung snorted incredulously and brought the bag of ice to his cheek. Still, it felt good as his burning face cooled down.
“But…”
His voice cracked as if he’d caught the flu. Taesung frowned and swallowed. Only after drinking another sip of water did his throat open up a bit.
“But what’s the egg for?”
“In case you get a bruise, you can roll it around.”
“Then you should’ve bought a raw egg, you bastard.”
“Ah, where would there be raw eggs at a convenience store? Just think of it as an egg and roll it, and you know, the Pavlov effect will make it better.”
Taesung felt like there was something wrong with Manager Kim’s ‘educated words,’ but since he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what, he let out an uncomfortable groan and closed his eyes tightly.
“Hyung-nim, where should we go?”
Wherever the heat touched, cold moisture formed and dripped down.
Once, when Taesung saw moisture pooled under an ice cup and made a fuss saying, “There must be a hole in the cup!” a teacher at the orphanage explained gently.
The water vapor floating in the air loses heat to the ice. When it loses heat, water vapor becomes water.
The water vapor that had been freely roaming through the air, upon losing its heat, became damp water destined to pool in one place.
‘How can this water fly again?’
The teacher laughed as if hearing such words for the first time.
You apply heat again. If it gains heat, it can return to water vapor.
What happens to water that can’t gain heat?
Does it get swept into the sewers and flow endlessly along the sewage pipes to the Han River?
Taesung sighed and opened his eyes.
Manager Kim was holding the steering wheel gently with his two pot-lid-like hands while watching Taesung through the rearview mirror.
“Who all is in Icheon?”
“Team Leader Lee and Manager Park.”
“Damn, he picked only the unreliable bastards.”
“Don’t be like that, hyung-nim. Manager Park has been working so hard these days. You know that person he said he met at the site before? Things must be going well somehow. So whenever there’s work in Icheon, he’s really insisting that he’ll go…”
“That’s working hard? His mind is distracted by dating, so work must be secondary.”
“It’s not like that. Yesterday he asked if he’d get a performance bonus if the Icheon work goes well, saying he needs money to get married.”
“That bastard’s trying to ruin someone’s life.”
He sighed, but on the other hand, he envied those simple-hearted guys.
At least they still have feelings of liking someone, he thought.
They have hope that they can build a proper family, he thought.
“Then let’s go home. Isn’t it almost time for you to get off work anyway?”
“Are you sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?”
“Does getting beaten get better by going to the hospital? I should slap on some pain relief patches and pass out sleeping.”
Manager Kim checked the time. It was only 3:30, and he tilted his head wondering about that, but he wasn’t the type to refuse an offer to let him off work early. As the car started moving, Taesung turned on his phone screen.
Taesung had to handle the matter of Hyun Jaeha alone.
He didn’t want to drag them in again like three years ago and make them suffer from guilt over the ‘young master.’ Before they realized that Jaeha had reappeared, as quickly as possible to avoid being manipulated further by that fucking bastard Jang Hyeokjin…
As he swiped up through his contact list, his thumb stopped on one name.
‘Captain Hwang.’
His hand, which had been hovering around the phone number for a while, soon began to move busily.
