Chapter 10
The call that came in at dawn lasted for nearly 30 minutes. He said he was coming to see me, so I just laughed and dismissed it as a joke. I told him I was going to sleep and hung up abruptly, but to think Jaegyeom actually came all the way here.
“Im Ji-soo must be seriously insane. Just die. Why is she even alive?”
I slammed my head against the table littered with beer cans. I slammed it down mercilessly, without holding back. With a loud thud, the beer cans jingled.
“Ugh… You’re so noisy. What are you doing?”
Jisu answered in despair at the sound of Eunmi scolding her while half-asleep.
“I know. What am I doing? I want to die.”
The memory is so vivid that it feels like I’m going crazy. If my head was going to ache and my stomach was going to rumble like this, my memory should have just vanished. In dramas and movies, the heroines always claim they don’t remember anything, don’t they? Why is my memory perfectly fine? I slammed my head on the table once again with a loud bang. Eventually, Eunmi also sprang to her feet.
“Why! I asked why you’re doing this.”
The sight of Jisu that caught Eunmi’s eye was bizarre. With a bright red forehead, she was holding a cell phone in her hand and making a tearful face. No way…
“Im Ji-soo. You didn’t call Kim Young-baek, did you?”
“Aargh! No? Absolutely not!”
“Phew… what a relief.”
After hearing Eunmi’s words, Jisu also suddenly felt a chill.
“Right. Calling Yoon Jae-gyeom is a hundred times better than calling Kim Young-baek. It’s a huge relief.” He said, hugging Eun-mi tightly around the neck.
“Thanks, Choi Eun-mi. Seriously. Your shift in perspective and mental victory are no joke.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Let’s have hangover soup. You fully deserve to eat hangover soup today.”
The hangover soup that Jaegyeom had bought had a truly wide variety of ingredients. Dried pollack, bean sprouts, bones, and even blood sausage. Eunmi, unaware of the soup’s origin, gulped down the broth first, only to be caught off guard by Jisu’s sudden confession.
“The day I went down with Young-baek to greet Mom, our car broke down in town. He said he was hot and annoyed, so he just took a taxi straight back to Seoul by himself. A mechanic helped us out then, but I fell asleep thinking he was a classmate.”
“Ugh! Cough!”
Eunmi choked on the hangover soup and coughed for a long time.
It’s all so shocking that I don’t know where to start. What did Kim Young-baek do while taking a taxi? What did you do? With whom? Are you really Im Ji-soo?
“…that man bought this hangover soup and left it here.”
“What? That guy knows where I live in Seoul? Did he meet me yesterday while I was sleeping? What on earth are you talking about? Wait a minute!”
In the end, the morning conversation between the two women was entirely dominated by ‘Yoon Jae-gyeom’. She confessed everything, including the fact that he lived in the neighborhood above Gyechon Reservoir and had greeted her mother pretending to be her boyfriend.
Eunmi said she would find out about Yoon Jae-gyeom through her seniors and juniors who still live in Gyechon, as well as her former classmates.
“Phew. She dated a guy like Kim Young-baek—whom no one would date even if someone paid them—for six years and only held hands, so I thought, ‘Okay, maybe sex can be scary.’ But now I see, it wasn’t that Im Ji-soo was afraid of it; it was that she fucking hated doing it with Kim Young-baek.”
“No, uh… why did the story turn out that way again?”
“Otherwise, how would you explain this mysterious one-night stand?”
Jisu couldn’t answer. She found it ridiculous that she had been so convinced he wasn’t a bad person, simply because he was a classmate and a neighbor. Why had she trusted him? The sense of security he had given her from their first meeting, or the attraction she felt toward him… she was filled with nothing but emotions that could not be explained by rational thought.
As she cleared away the hangover soup bowls and beer cans together, Eunmi asked solemnly.
“Hey. It’s not like we’re minors or anything, and since it’s your private life, I don’t really have anything more to say… but I’m still worried, so I’m going to ask just two things. Answer carefully. Did you make sure you used contraception?”
“……huh.”
And, is he handsome?
Jisu answered by nodding, her face flushed red as if it were about to explode. Eunmi also nodded with a pleased expression.
Although they still had hangovers, the two had recovered somewhat thanks to a good hangover cure and stepped out of the studio apartment building to throw away the beer cans. As they walked toward the recycling area next to the building, chatting softly about whether to go to the bathhouse or a comic book cafe together for the first time in a while, they both let out a scream at the sight of a figure.
“Aargh!”
“Jisu. It’s your brother. Why are you yelling? Why aren’t you answering my calls? You didn’t block me, did you? Huh?”
Kim Young-baek was standing waiting for Ji-soo, holding a large bouquet of flowers. He was even neatly dressed in a suit.
The atmosphere at the Pyeongchang-dong mansion where the Daeyoon Group chairman’s family lives was more uncomfortable than ever. This was because breakfast was in progress, attended by the chairman and his wife, their only son Seong-sik, and even Jae-gyeom.
The chairman and his wife led the conversation during the meal. Amidst the occasional exchanges of business, politics, and social issues, Seong-sik was busy putting all his energy into chiming in with his parents. Jae-gyeom was the only one who remained silent, simply eating his meal.
“Let’s all go to the living room for dessert. I have something special to say about Jaegyeom.”
Mrs. Jin Song-hwa, Chairman Yoon’s wife, actively participated in media and external activities related to the group as the mistress of the Daeyoon Group. She also served as the chairperson of a cultural foundation that operated galleries and performance venues. Seong-sik was the only one nervous about what was about to come out of his mother’s mouth.
“I’ve decided to transfer Jae-gyeom immediately once the establishment of Daeyoon Motors is finalized, just as Father intended. Since he will be staying in Seoul from now on, I trust that Seong-sik will look after him with great care as a brother.”
Seong-sik could not utter a single word of defiance, and his face turned red and then pale. He seemed utterly displeased that he had to share what he had and would have in the future with Jae-gyeom, but having already been scolded by his father the night before, he held back his anger.
“And Jaegyeom, make sure to throw away all your luggage before you come up. We’ll have to start wedding preparations right away once you arrive anyway.”
“yes?”
This time, Jaegyeom’s face hardened.
“Even though you are the same age as Seong-sik, your birthday is still earlier… shouldn’t you get married and settle down soon?”
As soon as the stepmother finished her elegant words, the father added his own words.
The point is that finding a spouse who benefits the company in any way is also a part of management.
Jae-gyeom eventually could not bear it any longer and stood up at the news that they would find a partner who suited their tastes and force him into marriage.
“I will come up to Seoul and learn the work if you tell me to. But please don’t interfere with my marriage. I will handle it myself.”
“Mother, Father. Look at that bastard. The way he gets up first when all the adults are seated. Ugh…… no manners, no knowledge. I guess it’s because his origins are fundamentally lacking. I’m really worried about the future of our Daeyoon Motors, I tell you.”
Seong-sik, seizing the moment, chimed in and ran his mouth, but Jae-gyeom did not back down. Looking down at Seong-sik with eyes full of utter contempt, he replied cynically.
“What do you mean I have no roots. My mother passed away, but Father here is alive and well. Half of my feeble roots are shared with you, so don’t undermine me too much. Father will feel hurt.”
“What, you bastard?”
“And you know my birthday is earlier, right? Since we were born in the same year, I won’t make you call me hyung, but think about it a little. Like whose place it was to interfere between my late mother and Father.”
Regardless of how the chairman couple’s expressions changed, Jae-gyeom, having said everything he wanted to say, could not bear it any longer and yanked off his tie.
“I’ll be going now.”
Jae-gyeom bowed and left Pyeongchang-dong just like that.
He missed Im Ji-soo.
“Jisu. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
Young-baek held out the bouquet he had brought with such care to Jisu.
All the elders in the family liked Jisu. His parents were eager to show off a daughter-in-law who graduated from Korea University. His grandfather had even said he would only let him inherit the inheritance if he married Jisu. So he had no choice but to come see Jisu. He needed to give her this bouquet quickly to appease her and take her to his mother to prove they had reconciled. But the bouquet did not reach Jisu, blocked by Eunmi standing between them.
“Mister. Please stop with the pathetic act.”
“Eun, Eunmi. It’s been a while, did you forget me? Mister? I’m Young-baek oppa.”
