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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 34
Chapter Title: A Visit Home
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Se-heon visited his family home the day before his business trip. His family lived high up, a considerable climb from Namsan and Itaewon. It was a place he had rarely visited since turning twenty.

“Anchor Yoon, you’re here?”

As he parked in the garage and walked up the stairs, a woman with her hair elegantly pinned up—too young to be called middle-aged, yet clearly older than Se-heon—opened the door from the garage and greeted him.

Se-heon spoke, his expression blank.

“Director Kim, it’s been a while.”

“Yes. Still as handsome as ever, Anchor Yoon.”

The woman called Director Kim smiled warmly. He called her Director Kim because she managed a large art museum, but she was, in fact, his stepmother.

“You didn’t have to come down yourself.”

“You were injured in Yeouido recently. I was worried, so I came down to see for myself that you were okay.”

It was ironic. A stepmother who treated him with far more warmth than his own father. A sigh escaped him.

Director Kim, walking ahead, heard his sigh with uncanny sharpness and chided him.

“Don’t sigh like that, it’s bad luck. You get so gloomy whenever you come here, you handsome, successful man. I know seeing me is such a pain, but you could at least try to hide it.”

“You know it’s not because of you, Director.”

“Then should I say it’s because the Assemblyman is a pain?”

Director Kim gave him a sidelong glance, a pout on her lips.

“Come by more often. The Assemblyman does miss you, you know.”

“I doubt that. It’s better for the two of you to have your time alone.”

Exchanging meaningless pleasantries, they climbed the stairs to a spacious garden. Se-heon looked around it, as if for the first time. The garden, bathed in the light of the setting sun, was covered entirely in lawn.

When Se-heon was growing up in this house, it had been filled with beautiful flowers and foliage. Now, there was no trace of them.

Then again, the house was the same. Se-heon glanced up at it. The house, completely demolished and rebuilt some twenty years ago, had been designed by the most famous architect of the time, and not a single part of it looked dated even now.

The living room, with its floor-to-ceiling glass walls, was visible from the outside, filled with stylish furniture. It was clearly Director Kim's taste.

Se-heon didn't particularly dislike Director Kim, but he couldn't help the chill that crept into his heart whenever he saw that living room.

His father, seated at the dining table, got straight to the point.

“Have you met Deputy Chief Park recently?”

“Deputy Chief Park?”

“I’m talking about Deputy Chief Park Young-hee.”

Just like someone who assumes everyone knows who he’s talking about, Assemblyman Yoon was always like this. He would just drop a name, never specifying who or from where.

If asked, ‘Who’s that?’, he would click his tongue and scold, ‘What good are you if you don’t even know that?’

He could say what he wanted. Who cared?

He wanted to say he didn't know, but unfortunately, Se-heon recognized the name. She was a deputy chief at the Hunter Main Office.

“I’ve never met her.”

“Hm.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No. It’s fine if you don’t know her.”

Was this why he’d been summoned? As Se-heon raised an eyebrow to ask, Director Kim quickly pushed a plate of grilled sirloin in front of him.

Having spent ten years between this father and son, Director Kim had only grown more skilled at preventing fights between the two men.

“I heard you were caught in that Gate in Yeouido recently.”

“I’m fine.”

“I heard you were hurt.”

In truth, his back still ached. But he had no desire to show weakness in front of his father. Instead, Se-heon scoffed.

“Hearing that from you is a novel experience, considering you didn’t even know your own son had developed mutism.”

“You insolent brat.”

Director Kim frowned. She must have been a little annoyed with Se-heon for deliberately picking a fight right after she’d smoothed things over.

Assemblyman Yoon snorted as if he found the situation ridiculous.

“Enough. About that blind date. Assemblyman Shim’s daughter.”

“I’m not going.”

Se-heon cut him off sharply.

Since last year, Assemblyman Yoon had been relentlessly pushing him to go on a blind date. He kept shoving some woman, the daughter of a two-term assemblyman, in his face, but Se-heon had no desire or interest in meeting her.

But then, Assemblyman Yoon gave an unexpected reply.

“Fine, don’t go.”

“……Pardon?”

Se-heon couldn’t believe his ears. Assemblyman Yoon smirked maliciously.

“I said, don’t go. Why? You don’t like that? Then go, for all I care.”

“No, I won’t.”

He felt uneasy. After nagging him so persistently about the blind date, he was suddenly telling him not to go? But Se-heon soon dismissed the thought.

That world was full of people who fluttered from one side to the other like bats. He must have had a falling out with that Assemblyman Shim fellow. Whose daughter would he push on me next?

Assemblyman Yoon stared at the frowning Se-heon for a moment before speaking again.

“Since you refuse even when I go out of my way to set you up, what can I do? Go ahead and date or marry whoever you want.”

“……”

“Just don’t drag some strange thing into this family.”

A strange thing… The way he spoke was appalling.

Assemblyman Yoon clicked his tongue and poked at the japchae with his chopsticks.

“Meet a woman who’s modest, from a good family, or at the very least, useful in some way. Not some little tramp you picked up off the street. Kids these days are so promiscuous, the moment they see a man with some standing, they try to pick him clean to the bone…”

It was infuriating. Was that how you treated my mother, because she wasn't a 'useful' woman to you? Se-heon fought back the urge to retort. If he started shouting now, it wouldn't end well.

“Getting tangled up with some nobody in a dungeon, tsk. There are levels to public service, you know.”

A nobody. Se-heon finally understood what Assemblyman Yoon was trying to say. He was talking about how Kang Ha-ra had saved him in the Yeouido dungeon.

Why? Is he worried now that his son might get involved with some common, grade-9 civil servant?

Assemblyman Yoon had always wanted Se-heon to follow in his footsteps and enter politics. He paid no mind to the fact that Se-heon had run away from home at twenty, instead using his son’s achievements to feed his own vanity.

When Se-heon got into a good university, when he graduated at the top of his class, when he got a job at a broadcasting station, and when he became a main anchor.

He would boast to others that Se-heon was ‘a son who pretends not to listen to his father but obediently does as he’s told.’ All the while, he kept a hawk’s eye on Se-heon’s every move.

Someone must have told him about Se-heon visiting Kang Ha-ra's hospital room with a bouquet the size of a person.

It seemed Assemblyman Yoon was afraid that his son, resentful of all the women he paraded before him, might end up with some unsuitable woman out of spite.

It was ridiculous. His father's baseless assumptions weren't worth listening to, but Se-heon couldn't suppress the urge to dump a bucket of filth over his head.

“I visited my mother’s burial niche a few days ago.”

Director Kim flinched. Assemblyman Yoon glanced at her, then snapped in irritation.

“At the dinner table, you—”

“Is talking about my mother at the dinner table forbidden?”

“Are you doing this to your father on purpose?”

As if I’d be doing it by accident? Swallowing the words, Se-heon put down his chopsticks. He grabbed the jacket draped over his chair, stood up, and walked out.

“Hey! Yoon Se-heon!”

He paid no mind to his father shouting behind him.

“That… that… that damn brat. That reckless fool!”

Se-heon scoffed and opened the door. He barely noticed the servants peeking out.

As he crossed the garden, he heard the sound of someone hurrying after him.

“Anchor Yoon! Hey!”

It was Director Kim. She too was a pitiful person in Se-heon’s eyes, but that thought didn't quite register at the moment.

Director Kim ran out in her slippers and caught up to Se-heon.

“How can you just leave like this?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Honestly, the Assemblyman. If he was going to make such a fuss to get you here, he shouldn’t have started a fight.”

Director Kim clicked her tongue.

A moment later, a servant from the kitchen came rushing out the door. In her hands were several containers of food, all packed up.

Director Kim sighed.

“You’re going to make me sigh myself into old age. I swear, I get a new wrinkle every time. You’ll have to pay for my dermatology treatments, you hear?”

“Should I?”

“Are you crazy? I’m just kidding. That’s some kimchi and side dishes. They’re from a good place, so take them.”

“I don’t really eat at home.”

“Then take them and throw them away for all I care. I’m giving them to you because I know you’re going on a trip, so let them rot or toss them, do whatever you want.”

Director Kim could be quite shameless at times like these. She took the bags from the servant’s hands and pressed them into Se-heon’s.

Se-heon sighed.

“Where did you hear I was going on a business trip?”

“Assemblyman Yoon told me, of course. He’s still very interested in you. You’re his only son, after all. Even today, he’s only acting like this because of something he heard from someone else…”

“I never much wanted to be an only son, either.”

“Anchor Yoon, words have power, you know?”

Director Kim cracked a smile.

Knowing she had spent years visiting clinics in Gangnam, enduring all sorts of IVF treatments and hardships in her attempts to have a child, Se-heon regretted his words the moment he saw her expression. But he had no desire to voice an apology.

Director Kim gestured to the servant with her chin, then lightly tapped Se-heon’s chest.

“You’re impossible.”

“……”

“Anchor Yoon. Let me give you a little tip. If there’s a woman you like right now, just marry her. Got it?”

“All of a sudden?”

Director Kim shrugged at his question.

“The Assemblyman will act like this, and then suddenly he’ll be on my case again to arrange a blind date for you. I’m not the type to do favors for people I dislike. It seems that Deputy Chief Park or whoever put some ideas in his head, but if this keeps up, you’ll be summoned to a hotel lobby at the end of the year.”

Se-heon frowned slightly. Director Kim had all but given him a hint.

Something he heard from someone else. Deputy Chief Park.

Director Kim waited until the servant had gone back inside before continuing.

“From my experience, it’s best for a woman to live with someone she loves. It’s not like you’re going to listen to the Assemblyman anyway, so this is all just a big headache for me. You know?”

“I’m not seeing anyone.”

“Aish, then hurry up and find someone! If you grabbed any woman off the street and asked her to date you, she’d jump at the chance!”

“Go on, get out of here. You’re impossible,” Director Kim said, giving his chest a light shove before turning away, apparently unconcerned with him heading down to the garage.

Se-heon wondered what to do with the bag of food before resigning himself to carrying it to his car. He tossed the bag onto the passenger seat and rubbed his dry face.

Honestly, the trouble one greedy man could cause for so many people.

Someone you like.

Coming from Director Kim, who usually just called him exasperating and left it at that, it was a rather romantic notion.

“W-Would you perhaps consider… going out with me…?”

Suddenly, he recalled the woman who had stammered in front of him. The woman who was brave yet timid, who had spouted such strange things at him.

Se-heon let out a baffled snort. Why would Director Kim's words make him think of her?

‘If you grabbed any woman off the street and asked her to date you, she’d jump at the chance.’ That must have been it. After all, a woman he had just met had said something quite similar.

Although, for a first meeting, it had been a rather extraordinary one.

But what reason would Deputy Chief Park Young-hee of the Main Office have to tell Assemblyman Yoon about me and Ms. Kang Ha-ra? Did she just offer up some tantalizing gossip? One thought led to another.

By the time Se-heon finally drove out of the garage, the sky had turned pitch-black.