Chapter 26
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Episode 26. Wicked Deed
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“Fuck, I said I'd find the wages and put them back on Monday!”
Meanwhile, the two elderly people both got off the bus. An Yunho pushed Ahn Yuna with all his might, but Ahn Yuna clung to his clothes and stubbornly resisted.
“Give it back!”
“You fucking bitch!”
“Give it back! Give me the money!”
The bus door closed, leaving the elderly people behind. An Yunho's eyes seemed to shoot fire as he watched the departing bus.
He raised his hand high and slapped Ahn Yuna's cheek. With a slap, Yuna's face turned, but the hand gripping An Yunho's clothes didn't loosen.
“Give me the money.”
“You wanna die?One of the elderly people who had gotten off the bus stopped as he walked towards the convenience store, seeing the chilling intensity between the two.
“I came to buy batteries…”
The clothes finally slipped from Yuna’s hand.
“I’ll pay for it.”
Yuna went into the convenience store with the elderly person.
The situation ended anticlimactically. Taeseo shifted his gaze from Ahn Yuna to An Yunho.
An Yunho, who had been cursing at the departing bus, straightened his disheveled clothes and began to trudge along the road.
Taeseo immediately got into his car. The inside of the Porsche parked on the asphalt was like a furnace. Taeseo, sitting on the scorching seat, cursed and started the engine.
He rolled down both car windows, turned the air conditioning to maximum, and merged onto the main road. An Yunho, walking ahead, came into view.
Taeseo slowly drove the car until he was next to An Yunho. He stopped the car right beside him, turned on the hazard lights, and spoke to An Yunho through the passenger window.
“Wanna ride?”
An Yunho, who had been walking in the scorching sun, looked at Taeseo inside the car with a face that had turned bright red.
“Where are you going?”
“What business is it of yours where I’m going?”
“Trying to be all date-like?”
“Ah, fuck. Do you have to talk like that?”
“I’m going into town. Get in if you want.”
An Yunho, who had been glaring at Taeseo as if he wanted to kill him, soon got into the passenger seat with a look of resignation. Taeseo turned off the hazard lights and pressed the accelerator. The car slowly picked up speed.
“Where did you leave your motorcycle to walk all this way?”
“I only ride it around the neighborhood. There’s nowhere to leave it if I take it out.”
Having gotten a ride, An Yunho became a little more polite than usual.
“So you were going to walk all the way into town in this heat?”
“If I walk about 2km, I can catch another bus.”
Taeseo softened at Yunho’s slightly more polite tone.
“Kid, you should’ve just taken the money without saying anything. Why make a fuss and fight?”
Taeseo was offering what he thought was advice. If he had just taken the money and kept quiet, he would have been able to catch the bus without issue.
He wouldn't have missed the bus arguing with Ahn Yuna, and Ahn Yuna wouldn't have been slapped.
He meant that one should avoid conflicts that don't need to happen, but as soon as Ahn Yuna's name was mentioned, An Yunho, still clearly angry, started huffing noticeably.
“Ahn Yuna, that fucking bitch, is tougher than she looks. If she catches you taking money, she deducts double the amount from your wages. And she pays peanuts.”
“Then why are you working under Ahn Yuna? You could go out and be independent. Oh, are you still a student? Vacation?”
“I graduated from vocational college.”
“Ahn Yuna couldn’t even go to college, but you seem to have at least gone to college?”
“Am I the same as her, who has no parents?”
“Why doesn’t she have parents? If she lives at your house, isn’t she your sister?”
He pretended not to know why Yuna had no parents, even though he did. He knew that if he seemed to take Yuna's side, she would surely find another excuse to pick on him.
“She’s just living at our house.”
“From what I see, you’re the one living off Ahn Yuna.”
“Don’t talk such dogshit. Once I get a decent job, I’ll earn my keep and move out. Who wants to live in a dump like this? I’m here because if I’m not, there’s no one to watch the convenience store.”
“Grow up a little.”
Hearing Taeseo’s words, An Yunho sharply turned his head and muttered a low curse.
“Ha, fuck.”
“Take it to heart. I’m saying this because I’m older.”
“I don’t think I need advice from a car-poor person living in a studio apartment and driving a Porsche. You’re also struggling to pay off your installments, so don’t act like a teacher.”
Taeseo chuckled. Before coming down to Seongwoo-eup, he felt like taking a newspaper with his picture in it and holding it up to An Yunho’s face.
Even though the picture was obscured by his hand, he wanted to say, "It's obviously me, right? Do you think the second son of Namkyung Group would be struggling to pay off installments on a mere Porsche?" But he decided to save the satisfaction of drinking a refreshing soda for after the land sale negotiations.
“Please drop me off at the bus stop up ahead.”
As Taeseo stopped the car, An Yunho sprang out like a coiled spring. Before closing the door, he gave Taeseo the middle finger.
“If your bus is gone, call me.”
At Taeseo’s words, An Yunho’s face contorted pleasingly, and the car door slammed shut with a bang.
Taeseo laughed off An Yunho’s behavior and started driving again.
“A guy who can’t even afford to pay if the car breaks down, acting all high and mighty…”
The Village Head had said that the young people in this town were becoming idle vagrants due to lack of work, but looking at An Yunho, it didn't seem to be solely due to that reason.
What could he learn from his father, who drank all day and beat his nephew?
Seeing him slap Ahn Yuna’s cheek, An Yunho was clearly the same breed as his father.
Come to think of it, is Ahn Yuna okay? She was slapped hard enough for her head to turn; did the wound on her forehead reopen?
If An Yunho hadn't tattled to his grandmother, he would have at least acknowledged her.
What era is this, that men and women are still separated and not allowed to speak to each other?
Yet, that Jaeseop guy, who looks like a cattle thief, spoke so well to Ahn Yuna. Nothing about this household makes sense.
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Taeseo got into his car, drinking a banana milk with a straw after coming out of the bathhouse.
He needed to soak in the tub a couple of times a week to relieve fatigue, but since his studio apartment had no bathtub, he was unintentionally accumulating fatigue in his body.
After getting a scrub at a clean bathhouse, he started to feel hungry.
He considered going to the short rib restaurant he visited last time, but feeling weary and not wanting to drive far, he drove towards the village.
As the Seongwoo Baekban restaurant came into view, his stomach rumbled like Pavlov's dog.
“I guess it’s because I always eat lunch there.”
Taeseo stopped his car in front of Seongwoo Baekban and opened the old door to go inside.
The owner couple, who were busy de-heading bean sprouts, greeted Taeseo warmly.
“Oh my, you came on the weekend too?”
“You came at just the right time. We were boiling kalguksu, take a bowl with you.”
Even though he hadn’t been coming to this restaurant for long, the owner couple treated Taeseo like a regular and served him a large bowl of the kalguksu they had prepared for themselves.
As he filled his hungry stomach with kalguksu and even mixed rice into the broth, the restaurant owner couple sitting opposite him started bickering.
“You don’t lift a finger to help, yet you open your mouth to spout sweet talk.”
The argument started when the owner’s husband complained that his wife had unnecessarily planted peppers, causing them to get blight, and they had to buy peppers separately.
“And you, woman, you’re always complaining about your knees hurting, your back hurting, so why do you start work you can’t do alone? It’s more profitable to just buy them from the start!”
“They don’t taste the same if you buy them, they don’t taste the same!”
“Oh, look at you, such a great chef. Anyone would think you’re a famous person on TV.”
The owner couple raised their voices as if they were about to divorce, though they didn't grab each other by the hair. The husband, clearly angered, put down his chopsticks and went to the counter.
“Do you think I want to do farm work? No matter how good it is, it doesn’t taste as good as what you grow and eat at home, so I grow peppers and other things to try and make the restaurant better.”
The restaurant owner grumbled and then looked at Taeseo, who was sitting opposite him.
“Young man, you tell me. Is our food good or not?”
“It’s a waste of my breath to say.”
“Right?”
“Yes.”
When Taeseo sided with the restaurant owner, her husband glared at Taeseo from his seat at the counter.
Then, the owner’s wife let out a snort like a wild ox and yelled.
“How dare you glare at a regular customer like that! Ugh, that bastard. If you had ever helped with farm work, I wouldn’t say anything. I’m the one buying seeds, making seedlings, transplanting, and tilling the field, all by myself, and he knows nothing like this.”
Taeseo brought up another topic to lighten the tense atmosphere.
“Speaking of which, Ahn Yuna was working in the fields today. She seems to be working at the factory, watching the convenience store, and doing housework too.”
He said it to ease the tension, but the restaurant owner, who had been huffing like a wild ox, brightened up.
“Why? Are you interested in Yuna, young man?”
“Me?”
“Well, Yuna is kind and pretty. Her mother was also that beautiful when she was alive.”
The owner’s husband chimed in as if they hadn't been fighting at all.
“Of course. That’s why she suffered that heinous act from that scoundrel.”
The owner’s wife shot her husband a look from head to toe, as if he was saying something unnecessary. Taeseo, who wouldn't miss such an opportunity, seized it.
“Heinous act? What happened?”
Perhaps thinking it was spilled milk, the restaurant owner looked around the empty restaurant and leaned towards Taeseo.
“Don’t tell anyone about this. Since you’re renting a room at their house, you’ll eventually find out, so I’m telling you…”
Words that are told not to be told anywhere never fail to spread. Therefore, what the restaurant owner was saying must be an open secret in this town.
Taeseo nodded as if he understood, and she lowered her voice.
“Yuna’s mother gave birth to Yuna alone when she was twenty. She was so proud of her only daughter, who was smart and attending a commercial high school, but some scoundrel got her pregnant and ran away. Yuna’s mother was also ostracized for being an unmarried mother, and she committed suicide by drinking Pesticide when Yuna was about two or three years old.”
The owner’s husband, who had been listening quietly, added.
“As long as that house’s grandfather was alive, Yuna had someone to rely on. Of course, even then, she was often beaten by her uncle as a freeloader, but having someone to take your side is different from not having anyone.”
