Chapter 100
- A Weak-Hearted Old Man
2023.08.08.
After going to meet the loan shark, Heejin, who had sent Mal-hee ahead, returned home the next day unconscious and was immediately taken to the hospital and hospitalized.
While there was a commotion, the family was hush-hush about the nature of her mother's illness, which left her son, Hyung-woo, puzzled. Moreover, whenever he visited his mother, his parents would only argue.
Frustrated, Hyung-woo asked his father on the way to the hospital.
"Dad, what's wrong with Mom?"
"Her stomach hurts."
"Why does her stomach hurt? Does Mom have cancer?"
"People have Beans and Red Beans, but Mom doesn't have Beans, that's why."
"Why doesn't she have Beans?"
"......"
Heejin's husband, Lee Doo-kyung, let out a deep groan instead of answering.
Heejin signed the already prepared documents and underwent surgery 'legally'. In exchange for sacrificing her body, she received an exemption from the interest. The loan shark urged her to repay only the principal within six months, as if bestowing a great favor. The principal alone was 600 million. With no way to make money other than by paying off the principal, her husband, Lee Doo-kyung, was at a loss. Perhaps he would be next. And if he couldn't repay the money even then, perhaps even his son would be in danger.
Eventually, Lee Doo-kyung, taking advantage of the moment when Hyung-woo fell asleep on the cot, blurted out the words that had been circling in his mouth for days.
"Heejin, let's get divorced."
"What?"
Heejin, her face flushed, sat up at her husband's shocking proposal. Her body was still uncomfortable to move.
"Are you even human?"
"......"
"Instead of thinking about overcoming this together when things are tough, what? Divorce? Are you trying to slip out of this crisis all by yourself?"
"I'm not alone! Think about our Hyung-woo!"
As if waiting for it, Lee Doo-kyung exploded at the short rebuke.
"Who created this crisis in the first place? Who told you to go out and earn money? You recklessly took out a loan and used it to trade coins! And now you're going to drag me and Hyung-woo into the gutter with you? Are you even human?"
They had been living as mere co-parents, but after this incident, he had completely lost affection for her. Once he said the words, his mind became even more firm. He even begrudged the hospital bills going to Yang Heejin.
"I'll raise Hyung-woo, and I'll send the divorce papers tomorrow, so be aware. If you don't want to get divorced, then sue me."
Lee Doo-kyung picked up the sleeping Hyung-woo and got up from his seat.
"Y-You! Honey! Honey! Aaaah! Ugh!"
Heejin reached out to call her husband, then clutched her stomach. But Lee Doo-kyung didn't look back and left the hospital room. The sound of Heejin's screaming in despair echoed behind him.
\
Tuesday morning.
Hee-wook received a call from his brother-in-law, Lee Doo-kyung.
[Brother-in-law, I can't do this anymore. I'm going to divorce Hyung-woo's mother.]
"You can't do that, brother-in-law."
[How can I live like this? How can our Hyung-woo have a proper school life when his mother is in that state? What if rumors spread?]
Hee-wook tried to dissuade his brother-in-law as a brother-in-law should, but honestly, Hee-wook couldn't defend his sister either. He thought his brother-in-law was amazing for having endured this long. If his wife had done something like that, Hee-wook would have handed her the divorce papers as soon as he heard she had taken out a loan.
[Anyway, just know that. I'm sorry for this difficult time in many ways. But I want to protect our Hyung-woo.]
After the bitter call, Hee-wook hung up and leaned back in his chair, massaging his head. He was already having a headache from personal matters, and now his sister was causing trouble too. He understood his brother-in-law's position since she had been through a rough time with the loan shark, but the situation wasn't good. He wished she would at least endure it for a while.
Hee-wook himself wanted to escape from this gutter-like life. His father had passed away, his mother was bedridden, and on top of that, there was a crisis in his livelihood.
If Kim Tae-joon and Han So-eun broke up someday and Kim Tae-joon went crazy, he might see a light, but what if Kim Tae-joon didn't budge? Then Hee-wook's chance to rise would disappear as well.
As he was wondering what else he could do here, his phone rang. It was a call from the CEO of Yulkyu Law Firm.
- Attorney Yang. The disciplinary committee at the Bar Association is scheduled to meet this week. Can you attend?
It was being processed sooner than he had expected.
Unless it was a terrible crime like murder, the Bar Association rarely suspends a lawyer's license before sentencing for a lawyer's personal misconduct. But the fact that they were holding a disciplinary committee this quickly meant that there was someone powerful who wanted his punishment.
In other words, Kim Tae-joon had used his influence ruthlessly.
'Has the button finally been pressed?'
Had Kim Tae-joon and Han So-eun really broken up as he had so desperately wished?
With a pounding heart, Hee-wook called the K Electronic Service central headquarters.
[Thank you for calling. This is K Electronic Service.]
After the automated response system ran, a consultant answered the phone.
"Yes, thank you for your hard work. I received consultation from a technician about cell phone management in the past, but I can't remember what the technician told me. Could you connect me to cell phone specialist Han So-eun?"
[Han So-eun has resigned. Would you like me to connect you to someone else?]
Hee-wook's face lit up as he confirmed the fact.
"Really? Wow! She must have resigned very recently? Oh, that's too bad. Thank you for your help!"
Had Han So-eun and Kim Tae-joon finally broken up? Hee-wook borrowed the office assistant's cell phone and called So-eun.
A recorded message said the number was not in service. Han So-eun had really disappeared.
Hee-wook's butt wiggled in his seat. He was dying to know how Kim Tae-joon's face had changed after Han So-eun left.
\
Tae-joon came to see Jaepil again the next day. Everything was as Seok-hwa had said.
Having visited the chairman's office in a much calmer state than the day before, Tae-joon didn't sit on the provided sofa but quietly knelt next to it.
Jaepil could understand what Seok-hwa meant when she said that the next day would be even more shocking. Jaepil also felt like his heart was collapsing.
"In-seok, get up."
Despite the urgent order, he didn't get up, so Jaepil also squatted down in front of Tae-joon.
"Ouch, my knees!"
An octogenarian and a thirty-year-old couldn't be the same. Tae-joon caught Jaepil as he teetered and almost fell to the side.
"In-seok, sit down! Sit down!"
Stop acting and sit down. After another rebuke, Tae-joon finally sat Jaepil down first and then took his own seat.
The grandfather's long sighs were repeated several times.
"Do you like her that much? So much that you don't care about your aunt or your grandfather?"
Tae-joon couldn't answer the grandfather's reproachful question.
The truth was that he still didn't care about his aunt or grandfather. The only reason he knelt down today was to find out Han So-eun's whereabouts.
Jaepil questioned him with a pained expression.
"Isn't she a woman who loved another man so desperately?"
"I love her just as desperately."
Tae-joon also stood his ground without backing down.
He knew very well what Jaepil was pointing out. A woman who had loved her ex-boyfriend so recklessly that she had given a part of herself to his mother. He was asking if he could overcome that.
But that was because he didn't know the real Han So-eun.
"Grandfather, that was a special situation."
So Tae-joon's answer was easier than ever.
"She's that kind of person. She can't pass by someone who's hurting without hurting with them. If I were hurting, she probably would have done the same for me."
"Still, still!"
Still, the grandfather's heart was crumbling. He felt that his reckless granddaughter and the grandson who had fallen in love so recklessly were foolish and pitiful.
"Why did you do that?"
The more the grandson showed it, the more he defended the woman, the more tears of blood flowed from the grandfather's heart.
"With the daughter of the person who killed your parents, why?"
"Grandfather, it's okay, I'm okay."
Tae-joon's voice became resolute as he spoke to his grandfather.
"I'm really okay now."
"......"
"I'm really okay now."
As if rejecting the grandson who had overcome all the pain, sadness, and suffering of the past and was shining with transcendence, Jaepil raised both hands to cover his face. Jaepil, who had slowly washed his face with his dry hands, confessed.
"I haven't overcome it yet."
"......"
"I haven't overcome anything yet, Tae-joon."
His trembling voice was close to sobbing. His darkened skin looked like tear stains that had been stained over the years.
"My son, my daughter-in-law, those beautiful children are still alive like yesterday and leave my side like yesterday."
The pain of losing his children remained in place for 20 years as if it were the present. He would live in that quagmire forever. As if he were parting with his son every day.
It was also painful for Tae-joon to face his grandfather's distorted face. But to Tae-joon, who had overcome and transcended all of this, his grandfather's sadness sounded like weak whining.
"Then you have to overcome it."
"Why should I overcome it!"
"Because I'll die if she's not there."
Jaepil, who finally glared, chased after Tae-joon and smashed him on his broad back.
"You rascal! You son of a bitch!"
Thwack. Thwack.
The hand wielded by the weak old man couldn't have been more stinging. Tae-joon also raised his voice.
"Ouch! Chairman. Please hold still!"
"You can't say anything in front of your grandfather!"
*
Seok-hwa had rushed over as soon as the meeting was over because she heard that Tae-joon had come to see Jaepil again, but she was one step too late.
"Did Tae-joon already come and go?"
"He came and made a fuss."
Jaepil answered in a voice that had been completely drained of energy. It was the first time she had seen her father lying on the sofa in his life.
"He said he sent her to New York, but she didn't show up at the airport, so he came and threw a fit like yesterday."
"......But he let go a lot. At least he opened up."
"What can I do? He said he's going to die."
"......"
"What can I do with that foolish and fragile thing......"
Seok-hwa's heart ached at the end of her father's words, which had become as blurry as his eyes. The chairman, who commanded the world with his dignified charisma, was actually a weak-hearted old man who groaned at every word his grandson said.
"He was a child with a hole in his heart that was too big to hold anything. But the person who filled that hole appeared, Father."
Seok-hwa, who had moved close to Jaepil, gave a gentle, sad smile.
Now we have to let that child go. Father.
"Since you're giving up anyway, please help him find her."
"I said I'd support him in every way, but what can I do to find a child who has disappeared without a trace? I don't know more about that child than Tae-joon does."
"Still......"
"To overcome such a bad relationship, shouldn't there be this much hardship? For that child and for Tae-joon too. It'll be hard to overcome all the gazes of the world with just their feelings for each other."
Jaepil's heart had not yet taken root in one place and was wavering back and forth. But just the fact that it was wavering back and forth was a huge change.
"......He'll search diligently and give up if he can't find her. I hope that's the case."
