Chapter 14
Episode 14. It's Because of You
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“Contact my family and have them send my computer.”
Hyunwoo asked at Taeseo's words.
“The computer?”
“Yeah. It’s hard to work on my phone.”
“You’re not planning to play games, are you?”
“If you don’t want to get fired, don’t argue.”
“Ah, yes. Understood.”
Seeing Hyunwoo take out his phone from his suit jacket's inner pocket, Taeseo turned around. His steps towards the building were light.
While the fact that Grandmother Kim Kkot-nim's granddaughter was Ahn Yuna was surprising, it wouldn't change how business was handled.
It was just a little amusing that he was renting space in Grandmother Kim Kkot-nim's building.
\ \ \
Taeseo, standing by the window, smoking and exhaling puffs of smoke, saw Ahn Yuna walking from the end of the road in the distance.
Her posture, with her shoulders slouched, made her look quite tired.
Ahn Yuna, who walked up to the convenience store building, looked up at the second-floor window. Taeseo and Yuna's eyes met.
Ahn Yuna, watching Taeseo exhale smoke, opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it.
After smoking a few more puffs, Taeseo opened the window for ventilation and turned on the air conditioner.
A moment later, there was a knock on the door of the studio apartment. When Taeseo opened the door, Ahn Yuna was standing there.
“Are you going to forcibly acquire the land?”
Taeseo looked down at Ahn Yuna as if she were stating the obvious.
“Don’t do it.”
Ahn Yuna's expression was quite resolute as she told him not to forcibly acquire the land.
“Do you think I want to do this?”
Taeseo's words were sincere. He didn't mean he wanted to forcibly acquire it, but rather, did he want to be sent to this rural area for such trivial work.
“I suppose… you’re in a position where you have to, working for a company.”
It seemed Ahn Yuna understood his words in the former sense, not the latter.
Working for a company. Taeseo, who was about to retort, fell silent.
He could have boasted about who he was, but Ahn Yuna was the direct descendant of the person he was negotiating with.
If word got back to Grandmother that the second son of the Namkyung family had come down to negotiate, she might become arrogant and demand an even higher price for the land. Therefore, it was better for Ahn Yuna to think of him as just an employee of Namgyeong Development.
“Why aren't you at work? It's a weekday.”
“Grandmother told me to stay and listen to the land discussion because the golf course company was coming to talk about it. So I took a day off.”
Seeing that An Yunho, who was older than Ahn Yuna, was passed over and she was asked to listen to the land discussion, he could understand their family situation.
She was the only one in that household who was functioning properly.
“It seems like you're just getting hit by your grandmother instead of listening to the land discussion.”
As he said this with a sneer, Ahn Yuna's brow furrowed.
“It’s all because of you that I got hit.”
“Me?”
“She yelled at me, saying I was being too friendly with an outsider because you arrived in your car.”
Ah, Taeseo sighed as if he understood. That must be why she was shouting about him being worn out and about to die.
“There don’t seem to be many buses, so what’s wrong with sharing a ride?”
It seemed ridiculous to make such a fuss about sharing a car in a country that didn't produce a drop of oil.
Just as he was about to mock her for being scolded over such a trivial matter, a loud voice was heard from below the second-floor stairs.
“Ahn Yuna! Ahn Yuna! You bitch, aren’t you coming down!”
It was An Yunho's voice. He seemed to have gotten a day off due to the land issue, but Ahn Yuna's face turned pale at An Yunho's shouting.
“Then please rest.”
Bowing her head, Ahn Yuna quickly ran down the stairs. Her earlier resolve to prevent the forced acquisition of the land had vanished.
A moment later, the sound of a motorcycle was heard through the open window. It seemed An Yunho was taking Yuna to the convenience store and then going out.
Taeseo immediately went into the bathroom and took a shower. It seemed salt that Grandmother Ahn Yuna had thrown had gotten into his hair, as he could feel clumps of salt on his scalp.
He took a shower with warm water to wash off the salt that had gotten into his scalp and changed into comfortable sweatpants.
He went downstairs to grab a convenience store bento box for lunch and saw the counter through the glass door. Ahn Yuna was studying alone, with a book open.
Taeseo thought that success through studying was predetermined. Most people studied until high school, but after graduating college, only a few made a living from their studies. The rest learned completely different jobs to survive and lived by doing them.
Knowing this, Taeseo saw Ahn Yuna's studying as the most useless thing in the world.
Would Ahn Yuna, who worked in a factory and ran a convenience store, ever use what she studied? Taeseo pushed open the convenience store door. The bell jingled. At the same time, Ahn Yuna looked up.
“Welcome.”
“Uh.”
Seeing Taeseo, Ahn Yuna lowered her head again and looked at her workbook. It seemed she was resuming her studies after confirming it was a customer.
As he walked past the counter, Taeseo noticed a red scratch on Ahn Yuna's pale face, like a diagonal line. It looked like a scratch from the broom Grandmother had wielded. As he headed towards the freezer where the bento boxes were displayed, Taeseo clicked his tongue.
He picked up a bento box with five side dishes and two cans of beer. As he was about to go to the counter, Taeseo noticed the aisle where first-aid supplies were displayed.
Taeseo picked up antiseptic wipes and ointment from the shelf. When he presented the bento box, beer, and medicine at the counter, Ahn Yuna scanned the barcodes.
“Are you hurt somewhere?”
She seemed unaware of her own disheveled state from being hit by her grandmother.
“You said it was because of me.”
“What?”
As Ahn Yuna paid with the card Taeseo had given her, her eyes widened.
“This is for you.”
Taeseo left the antiseptic wipes and ointment on the counter, picked up only the bento box and beer, and headed upstairs.
\ \ \
Grandmother Ahn Yuna had been going to the township office for days.
Just as she had done in front of Taeseo and Hyunwoo, she would grab the public officials and complain, threatening to cut them open and kill them, asking why they were trying to force her to sell land she wasn't selling.
On the days Grandmother Ahn Yuna visited, the township office officials would inevitably visit the Namgyeong Development site and tell her to resolve the civil complaint first, stating that township office work was being paralyzed and that they should proceed after resolving the conflict with the complainant.
The Seongwoo-eup golf course was planned to be developed as a comprehensive resort and operated jointly with the local government. With the construction of Korea's first public golf course approaching, the constant noise made the township office understandably difficult.
A golf course is a national sports facility!
However, the public golf course development was merely a facade. Since private sector development was not progressing smoothly, it was decided to proceed under the name of public development, a scene of collusion between politics and business.
In that sense, Grandmother Ahn Yuna was right.
What kind of national sports facility is this, where idle people wander around with sticks, stealing other people's land!
Grandmother Ahn Yuna repeated the words she had said to Taeseo like a broken record at the township office.
The old woman had a temper, but her judgment was accurate.
After contracting with the local government and operating it as a national sports facility for several years, the operating rights were to be transferred to Namkyung Resort, under Namkyung Group, as soon as the contract ended.
Unfortunately, thanks to Grandmother Ahn Yuna's accurate judgment, Taeseo had to spend several days at the site office appeasing public officials.
In many ways, Grandmother Ahn Yuna had an exceptional ability to bother people.
She was the type who couldn't be persuaded by ordinary money. The type who confused the roles of superior and subordinate. Taeseo found people like Grandmother Ahn Yuna to be the most tiresome.
Thanks to her, he had diligently performed the customary commute for several days. When he returned home after work, he parked his car in front of the convenience store, and a middle-aged woman rushed towards him with a look of delight.
No one in this town would have greeted Taeseo with such a happy face. While wondering why, the middle-aged woman arrived in front of Taeseo.
“Young man.”
Hearing that address, he immediately recalled who the woman was. She was the owner of a humble restaurant called Seongwoo Baekban.
The woman who ran up to Taeseo pulled out a white envelope from her embrace and offered it to him.
“What is this?”
“Money.”
When she said money, and he didn't take it, she insisted on placing the money envelope into Taeseo's hand.
“After you left, I was shocked by the kimchi. I don't know which bastard came into my restaurant and did such a thing to the kimchi… No, my husband, who put that kimchi back into the side dish container, is just as much to blame.”
The middle-aged woman explained the circumstances of the food recycling and said tearfully that such a thing would not happen again.
“Anyway, after you left, I threw out all the side dishes in the container and I'm not letting my husband manage the restaurant anymore. Even if I have to go out for a short while, I lock the door. I’m truly sorry.”
He figured he wouldn't be going back to that restaurant for a meal anyway. He was about to say, "I understand, you can go," when the restaurant owner added.
“I heard from Yuna that you rented a room here. I made a few side dishes and brought them. I didn't know when you'd be back, so I put them in an icebox by the door. Please take them.”
He could accept the apology, but he hadn't expected her to bring side dishes.
“No, thank you.”
He refused to accept the side dishes, but the woman refused his refusal.
“What do you mean, no. I heard there aren't many decent restaurants in this town and you were starving. This time, I really made them all fresh.”
While the Seongwoo Baekban owner was speaking, a bus arrived and stopped in front of the convenience store. It wasn't a bus stop, but the bus seemed to drop people off in front of this convenience store by the roadside.
“I only used vegetables I grew myself, so they're clean. I'm not the kind of person who would do business without conscience, so please eat them when you have meals at home.”
The person who got off the bus was Ahn Yuna. Ahn Yuna bowed her head towards Taeseo and the Seongwoo Baekban owner standing in front of the convenience store.
“Anyway, please come for a meal next time.”
The restaurant owner received Yuna's greeting and earnestly implored Taeseo.
“I won’t charge you for the meal, so please come. That way, I’ll feel like I’ve repaid my debt.”
It seemed the conversation wouldn't end unless he agreed, so he gave a vague answer and was about to send her away when a scream, "Ack!", was heard from the direction of the convenience store.
