Episode 2
Tap.
Harang closed the window without another word.
“What, what is he saying……?”
Thump, thump, thump.
She fanned herself with her hand and glared at the closed window. It was best not to associate with lunatics.
But.
“……”
Her legs remained rooted to the spot, not moving an inch.
A pointless curiosity had popped its head up from within her heart.
A primal, immoral desire to see the man just one more time.
Harang reached out and carefully opened the window.
“Ah……”
A sigh escaped her lips as the stiffness drained from her shoulders.
The man was gone.
Only the faint smoke rising from the half-smoked cigarette butt danced and shimmered as it dissipated.
After passing a convenience store and the local cram school, Harang’s small apartment came into view as she turned the corner.
It was quite a distance from the station and wasn’t a new building, but it was the precious nest for Harang’s family.
Though ‘family’ consisted solely of her one and only blood relative—her older brother.
Swinging the bag containing the triangle kimbap and sandwich she’d have for dinner, Harang continued her call with Ha-jun, who was in Thailand.
-“There are plenty of good companies that don’t conduct English interviews, you know.”
“Most large corporations with high salaries and good reputations do have English interviews.”
Ha-jun was a member of the national ice hockey team.
He was currently in a training camp and was scheduled to come home next week.
-“As I’ve told you repeatedly, you need to act your age.”
“Travel like everyone else, date, and have fun, you mean?”
She had heard this nagging so often it felt like a mantra.
-“Yes. Your brother is earning all the money and will support you, so why are you in such a hurry to get a job early? If there’s anything you want to do, just say the word. I’ll back you up completely.”
Fifteen years ago, after losing their parents in a traffic accident, Ha-jun, who had become the head of the household overnight, did everything for his seven-years-younger sister.
Knowing the hardships he had endured, she wanted to join a good company quickly and share his burden.
She was proficient enough in grammar and reading to easily score over 900 on the TOEIC, but speaking was her particular weakness.
She listened to English news and lectures daily and never missed her academy classes or study groups.
Yet, whenever she opened her mouth, the foreign language would tangle on her tongue.
The persistent lack of progress was frustrating.
“I have to at least try everything I can.”
-“If there’s anything I can do to help, just say it anytime.”
“You’re already doing more than enough.”
-“……”
Ha-jun fell silent at Harang’s reply.
She thought she could hear a faint sniffle from the other end of the line.
-“I want to eat the kimchi stew you make soon. No matter how good the team diet is, it can’t compare to home cooking.”
Ha-jun changed the subject, and Harang answered with a smile.
“I’ll make a big pot for you, so don’t get hurt and train well.”
-“Okay. Don’t forget what I always say: be careful on the road, watch out for cars, and be wary of men.”
The end of the affectionate siblings’ call was, as always, filled with words of concern for each other’s well-being.
“Is it going to rain?”
The humid air clinging to his skin from the moment he set foot on Korean soil was profoundly unpleasant.
If it was going to rain, it should just come down properly.
The stifling air only gnawed away at Inhyeok’s already somber mood.
‘Inhyeok. Father’s wish to pass the company to you, not me… it seems I’ll be the one to make it happen for him.’
When he had renounced his position as heir to Taegang Group and left Korea ten years ago, he was certain he wouldn’t set foot in his homeland again unless it was for his father’s funeral.
‘I have stage 4 stomach cancer. A year at most.’
That is, if it weren’t for his older brother’s sudden terminal diagnosis. He had returned immediately to see his brother and was now on his way back.
‘Inhyeok, if you still feel sorry about what happened back then…’
‘You didn’t call me here to take your place because you’re dying, did you? Unless you’ve lost your mind.’
The chairman of Taegang Group, Inhyeok’s father, was a notorious womanizer.
He had reached out to a young twenty-five-year-old woman working as a curator at an art gallery he happened to visit, got her pregnant, and brought her home.
That woman was Inhyeok’s mother.
Inhyeok’s father favored him, the son of his second wife, over his firstborn son.
Because Inhyeok was a born prodigy, a genius, a brilliant scholar.
Because of this, his older brother was constantly compared to his ten-years-younger sibling.
‘If only you had never been born…!’
‘Your mother is something else too. How could she even think of registering a child born from an affair into the Tae family registry?’
‘Even when I’m dead and buried, the master of Taegang Group should be our In-ho, not you, the son of a mistress!’
As her husband’s attention focused solely on the child from his affair, the first wife took out her frustrations on the young and vulnerable Inhyeok.
She eventually succumbed to her anger and grief and passed away prematurely.
Inhyeok blamed himself for her death, withering away each day from guilt, but his kind-hearted older brother insisted it wasn’t his fault.
Not long after, his father brought in a third wife and simultaneously announced Inhyeok as his successor.
Feeling utterly disillusioned, Inhyeok left for the US with his mother right then and there.
He suspected it was from that moment his brother began pushing himself relentlessly, day and night.
To gain their father’s recognition.
To prove his own worth.
The result was his position as Vice Chairman, but what awaited him was a one-year death sentence.
“What a fucking miserable world.”
He spat out a curse, grinding the cigarette under his shoe heel. As he pulled out a new one and put it in his mouth, two male students in uniforms, snickering, entered the alley and started smoking heavily.
Having often witnessed teenagers smoking in the US, Inhyeok didn’t pay them much mind.
Until he heard a voice that didn’t belong in the dirty alley—clear and pure.
“You there, put out the cigarettes.”
The delicate features densely packed on her fair skin and small face were neat and proper.
They belonged to someone who had never committed a single act of defiance in her life.
That seemed to pique his interest.
Given that he couldn’t take his eyes off her from the moment he saw her.
“Hah.”
Inhyeok lowered his gaze with a troubled expression. The front of his pants, calm until a moment ago, was now taut and swollen.
Had his tastes changed while he was away? Or was he just turned on by that little piece of flesh right now?
The fact that his lower half was standing at attention, so oblivious to the grave situation of his brother having only a year to live, was deeply unsatisfactory.
Was that why?
“I was in the middle of enjoying the show. If you have something to say, say it here.”
Intervening in the altercation between the woman and the students was an utterly impulsive act.
After chasing away the unwelcome intruders and facing the woman alone, an unbearable thirst welled up inside him.
“You find me… cute?”
The clear eyes beneath her rounded lids stirred his lust. He felt a wicked desire to make her cry, albeit in a not entirely crude way.
If she hadn’t closed the window, he might have gotten into a taxi headed for a hotel instead of the airport.
However, pointless attachments often lead to clumsy mistakes.
It was clear that returning to his hometown was making him dwell on trivial matters.
Leaving his regret behind, Inhyeok gave the driver the destination.
“To Incheon Airport, please.”
He also didn’t forget to send the items and petty cash taken from the students to their school, along with a detailed note explaining what had happened in the alley.
The模范 taxi carrying Inhyeok sped brilliantly across the brightly lit Incheon Bridge.
It was better to leave before his father found out about his entry.
After completing the departure procedures, he was in the VIP lounge.
A call came in. It was an unknown number.
He had lost his phone a few years back, so none of his contacts remained.
The caller on the carelessly answered call was an unexpected person.
-“Inhyeok, it’s Ha-jun. Are you still in the US?”
“…Lee Ha-jun?”
They had met occasionally whenever Ha-jun came to the US for training, but they had been out of touch lately.
Ha-jun said he wanted to help his younger sister, who was struggling with many worries, and that Inhyeok had just come to mind.
Back in high school, Ha-jun had only shown Inhyeok, whom he had befriended through sports, a picture of his sister.
It was a cute girl who resembled a mandu.
‘She’s going to make men cry when she grows up.’
‘Better to make them cry than cry because of them. …Wait, now that I think about it, it pisses me off? How dare anyone make my sister cry? If I catch them, I’ll make them half-crippled.’
‘You know what happens if an athlete uses violence outside, right?’
‘Then, Inhyeok, if I can’t do it, you rough up any guy who makes our Harang cry for me.’
