Just in case, he tightly clutched his phone in his hand and closed his eyes. Tomorrow too, he’d have to wake up at the crack of dawn to go shopping and prepare to open the shop.
Even if he fell asleep without hearing Ganghyuk return, so he could wake up without being late. His thoughts stretched out long, and at some point, darkness descended.
Ring ring ring. Ring ring.
At the vibration ringing in his hand and the noisy alarm sound, Ian blinked his drowsy eyes. The surroundings were still pitch black.
His breath momentarily caught in the dim space. Though it had been quite a while since he’d escaped from that place without a single window, the fear he’d felt back then rose up again and he groped around.
The phone he’d been clutching in his hand until he fell asleep was nowhere to be seen. His fingertips were rapidly growing cold.
“Where did it go…”
Having just woken up, the end of his hoarse voice trembled finely. Since it didn’t seem to be on the sofa, he stretched his arm downward. His fingertips touched a hard object.
He turned on the screen of the phone he’d found with difficulty. As the screen brightened, the darkness receded a little. Ian, who’d sat up, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. In that brief moment, he’d broken out in a cold sweat.
Relying on the phone’s light, he turned on the living room light. As the surroundings brightened, the pounding of his heart subsided a little.
But the inside of the house was too quiet. With a hopeful heart, he checked in front of the front door. Only white sneakers were placed there forlornly.
Nevertheless, he headed toward Ganghyuk’s room. No signs flowed out from the half-open door crack.
When he opened the door, an empty bed was visible. He checked the phone’s message box and call history, but there was no contact from Ganghyuk.
Surely nothing happened to him.
Taehyun Construction was a respectable company, but its roots were a gangster organization. And just looking at Sucheol, he gave off the unique atmosphere of someone who’d immersed themselves in the underworld.
No matter how expensive-looking the suit he wore, it couldn’t completely hide the essence of his core.
Even just looking at the people who came to the shop yesterday to apologize—it was like that. Tattoos and scars informed that they were doing rough work. Ganghyuk had easily subdued such people.
Though there was no physical evidence, with high probability, Ganghyuk or Sucheol had messed up those people’s faces.
His heartbeat, which had subsided, began racing again, worried that perhaps he’d suffered retaliation for that incident.
But to make a call, it was too early in the morning. Unable to help it, Ian started his daily routine with worry about Ganghyuk tucked in a corner of his heart.
While going to the market to buy food ingredients, while opening the shop and boiling soup, he kept thinking of Ganghyuk.
He thought about contacting him around 9 o’clock, but suddenly customers rushed in enough to fill the shop completely, so he was swamped.
“Oh my, my back…”
When he could finally catch his breath, the time was already 3 PM. After serving all the lunch customers, the sink was piled full of dishes to wash.
Having moved without a moment to sit, his back throbbed. His arms and legs hung limply, and though he wanted to lie down and rest for even thirty minutes, there was a mountain of work to do.
He took out the phone from his apron pocket and checked the message box. He’d sent Ganghyuk a message about an hour ago. Asking if he was very busy.
When a reply came, he was going to subtly bring up why he didn’t come home yesterday. He wanted to ask if something had happened, but since he might find it annoying, he’d used his head to ask in a roundabout way. But there was still no answer.
He stuck out his lips in a pout, then got up from his seat at the tinkling bell sound. Two grandfathers were entering while chatting softly. They were similar in age to his late grandfather, and Ian’s eyes reddened a little.
“Welcome.”
He greeted them with a deliberately bright voice. Even while managing his daily life well, whenever he thought of his grandfather like this, his heart felt heavy.
Thanks to that, he could push back thoughts of Ganghyuk a bit. Doing the dishes, making additional fresh kimchi that had run out, checking the amount of remaining soup.
Wondering how on earth Grandfather had managed to do all this work alone, then working frantically while scrunching his nose bridge with longing and apologetic feelings.
Finally, after flipping over the sign hanging in front of the shop, he had no energy to even walk, so he took out a chair and sat down. Leaning his upper body against the table as if collapsing, he took out his phone.
Perhaps because the saved numbers were limited, there were no contacts at all. Ian, who’d been chewing his lips, gathered his courage and called Ganghyuk.
Only the basic ringtone was heard, and the voice he wanted to hear was completely silent. He waited until the guidance voice came out, then ended the call with a dejected face.
He was worried about what had happened, and felt hurt that Ganghyuk, who’d told him to contact him anytime, wasn’t answering.
If he’d known this would happen, he should have gotten Sucheol or Jaehyun’s numbers too. Surely he wouldn’t not come home today too without any contact. Ian dragged his drooping body up and cleaned up the shop.
While closing the POS, he also organized the day’s sales. The soup restaurant was doing better business than expected. Perhaps because he faithfully made food according to the recipe Grandfather had written down in his notebook, there were many reviews that the soup taste was still the same.
Just as Grandfather had done in life, there was reward for his efforts to buy the best ingredients possible at the market rather than leaving a margin.
After checking the card and cash payment records and verifying that the cash in the drawer matched the POS records, a round moon had risen.
The thought that if he continued doing business diligently like this every day, he could gradually repay the debt he owed Ganghyuk made his heavy heart lighten a bit, then sink down weakly.
He closed the shop and looked around. Even the jet-black sedan that had been standing nearby until yesterday was nowhere to be seen. He suddenly felt a little scared.
In a position where he’d even signed a contract, Ganghyuk wouldn’t abandon him and disappear, but since he couldn’t be contacted and the person who’d been watching over him wasn’t visible either, a fearful feeling arose with a thud.
Should he try calling once more?
Ian agonized with Ganghyuk’s number displayed on his phone screen. Since there would already be a missed call, he hesitated, not knowing if it was okay to call again.
He’d received permission to contact him even if nothing was wrong, but because he liked Ganghyuk, even small actions made him act cautiously, like tapping on a stone bridge before crossing.
After continuing to worry, he weakly moved his steps toward home. As he tried to enter the empty house, a sigh burst out with each step up the stairs.
When he opened the door and entered, cold air greeted Ian.
‘My baby, why do you have no energy?’
As if he could hear Grandfather’s voice from somewhere, Ian rubbed his tired eyes roughly with the back of his hand. Even after washing up and opening the refrigerator door, he just blinked for a long time.
Today the shop work had been so busy that he hadn’t properly eaten a meal in between. Normally he should be extremely hungry, but even looking at the ingredients inside the refrigerator, no food he wanted to eat came to mind.
He was just tired. In his lethargic mood, he just took out milk. He was too tired to even pour it into a cup. Sitting on the sofa, he gulped down the 1,000mL milk.
A cold sensation went down his esophagus. Once he actually drank the milk, the desire to chew food arose, so he took out a bag of bread too and munched on it.
Like someone possessed by a glutton, he finished off the large container of milk and the bread that had been more than half remaining. His stomach was full, but his heart felt empty.
Out of habit, he pressed the phone screen. At the cruelly quiet screen, he rolled his trembling lips inward and bit them.
Just yesterday, his mood had been quite good. At the thought that Ganghyuk had stepped up for him, his heart had pounded rapidly.
But in one day, like riding a rollercoaster, his mood had descended endlessly. Though he needed to go back up, he was depressed as if broken.
