Chapter 35 – “Disgustingly Sweet”
Rumble—a loud noise drew everyone in front of the supermarket to look toward the sound. A cart loaded with construction tools and debris came rattling noisily out of the hospital entrance.
Workers covered in dust stepped out one after another, brushing themselves off. Just then, a van pulled up in front of the hospital.
“Specialized Cleaning for Medical Facilities”
Sani read the lettering on the side of the van, clearly pronouncing each syllable.
“Wow, our little King Sejong is a Hangul master.”
Gubaekmo patted Sani’s head fondly as new workers stepped out of the van. The last person to exit the hospital wasn’t a worker—he was a man in his thirties, of average height, dressed in a clean, casual suit.
Unlike the construction workers, not a speck of dust clung to him. He had a round face and a gentle demeanor…
“Doctor!”
Muru called out. The clean-cut man, in the middle of handing a receipt to a worker, turned toward the supermarket.
“Oh? Ms. Muru!”
It was Han Ji-hoon.
Ju Muru’s psychiatrist.
His face lit up with pleasant surprise. Muru ran over to him.
“What brings you to Junsan?”
“Ah… This is your hometown, right, Ms. Muru?”
Han Ji-hoon gestured toward the hospital building with a slightly sheepish expression.
“A good opportunity came up…”
“You’re opening a clinic here?”
“That’s how it turned out.”
“Just a moment,” he said, and walked over to the cleaning crew unloading their tools from the van.
“Please clean thoroughly, and get rid of that new-building smell too.” After a few simple instructions, he returned to Muru.
“Got the building for a good price. I didn’t know you were in Junsan.”
“Haha, well, I ended up here somehow.”
Han Ji-hoon and Ju Muru chatted like long-lost friends. Or maybe more than friends—
“Disgustingly sweet.”
Gubaekmo muttered quietly, her whole posture practically radiating joy. A few steps away, Tarim stood in front of the supermarket, cradling a soda, unable to tear his eyes off the two of them.
“Hyung, is this how you spell ‘dis-gus-ting-ly’?”
Sani showed the word he had written in his diary to Gubaekmo.
“No, no. It’s deo-reop-ge (‘더럽게’).”
She kindly corrected his spelling.
“What does ‘disgustingly sweet’ mean?”
“It’s something you say when someone you like is being overly sweet with someone else and it annoys you. Not ‘gae’ but ‘ge.’”
As if the situation wasn’t annoying enough, Gubaekmo and the child were banging on emotional cymbals.
“Must be someone she knows from before.”
Tarim muttered gruffly.
“Nope. They’re oozing trust and familiarity.”
“Trust, sure. But he looks kind of old.”
“Nah, I bet there’s not much of an age gap.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“I’m on Sani’s side.”
Gubaekmo poked Sani’s cheek as he wrote, “The new word I learned today at the Bibari Supermarket is ‘disgustingly sweet…’”
Then she pulled out her smartphone, opened the camera app, and gestured to Tarim.
“Tarim, come look at this. I’m not used to these fancy phones.”
Tarim leaned over, but all he saw on the screen was the couple framed in the camera lens. Before he could say anything, Gubaekmo said in ventriloquism:
“Pretend to help with the phone. Smile. Smile while you do it.”
Caught off guard, Tarim did as instructed, smiling and poking the screen like he was helping.
“This is called an app. You can use it for bank transfers…”
“Oh please, as if I don’t know that!”
“Ugh, whatever.”
Somehow, she had disabled the shutter sound so she could take dozens of pictures without making a peep.
“Wow, this new tech is amazing!”
While Tarim’s finger stabbed the air, Gubaekmo went full solo drumline, stealthily snapping endless zoom-ins of the man talking to Muru.
Only when she had several crystal-clear shots of Han Ji-hoon’s face did she stop. She went into the photo gallery, zoomed in even more, and tilted her head in confusion.
“…He looks like someone.”
“Who?”
Closing the phone screen, Gubaekmo wore a dreamy expression.
“Someone I’m… interested in?”
“Hyung.”
“Hmm?”
“Can you please go back to a normal face? That was scary.”
Though he kept it vague, just in case the subject of the photos overheard, Gubaekmo understood perfectly and sent him the photos anyway.
Meanwhile, Muru, who had been laughing and chatting cheerfully, said, “See you tomorrow at the opening!” and bowed politely. Tarim felt a small sense of relief—it didn’t seem like a relationship where they’d wave at each other when parting.
Tarim picked up the soda that had rolled under the bench and loaded it into the jeep. Muru, oblivious to his feelings, cheerfully hopped into the passenger seat.
“That was my psychiatrist back when I lived in Seoul. He’s opening a clinic tomorrow. He asked if I could help hand out rice cakes in the neighborhood.”
“Ah, I see.”
Tarim tried to respond with a smile, but it didn’t quite come out right.
“Why? Did something happen?”
“N-no?”
“You look upset.”
“No, not at all.”
The moment Muru fastened her seatbelt, Tarim started the engine. Psychiatrist or pediatrician, he just wanted Ju Muru to get as far away from that guy as possible. Just as his foot hit the gas pedal—
“Oh, right!! Muru!!”
Gubaekmo shouted from outside the car.
Muru rolled down the window with wide eyes. Gubaekmo grinned and asked:
“Do you like spicy braised monkfish?”
Tarim stomped on the gas pedal. Only Muru looked puzzled.
* * *
“What a coincidence. I was thinking of going back to Seoul for an appointment, but this works out! The clinic’s within walking distance from the Hwaran House… Oh, wait. I’m not staying in Junsan forever. What’ll I do once I go back to Seoul?”
As they climbed the hill toward Hwaran House, Muru chirped cheerfully. She had the unintentional power to kill people with her innocence, apparently.
Tarim forced a laugh.
That line—“I’m not staying in Junsan forever”—buzzed in his ears like a haunting echo, making him miss the speed bump completely.
While Tarim parked the car in front of the house, Muru inserted the key into the front door.
She turned it and pulled—
“Huh?”
It was locked. Tarim hurried across the garden.
“What’s wrong?”
“The door’s locked. I just unlocked it, but…”
“Ugh, must be Lee Gyeom leaving without locking it again.”
Grumbling, Tarim unlocked the door again—but what awaited them was strange.
Immediately to the right of the entrance was a doorless shoe rack, usually packed with shoes top to bottom. But one entire section was empty, and several shoes had fallen to the floor.
Tarim rushed inside, kicking off his sneakers.
Something was off…
A crease formed on his brow.
The coffee table was overturned, lying on its side, and blankets were strewn all over the living room.
“What the…?”
Muru, having tidied up the shoe rack, gasped. It looked like Oh Yi-gyeom had slept here alone last night, but why were the table and shoe rack in such disarray?
Then Tarim noticed something and bent down near the carpet beneath the sofa.
It was an old Turkish rug with an intricate pattern, hard to notice anything unusual—but Tarim vacuumed it daily. He could tell.
Blood.
Small droplets forming a pattern consistent with a vertical fall.
“What is it?”
“There’s blood.”
Gasp.
Muru’s heart sank.
“Yi-gyeom… This is Yi-gyeom’s blood? He slept here last night, didn’t he?”
Tarim immediately tried calling Yi-gyeom. Twice. No answer.
Then he tried Kwon Ho-sik. No answer either.
A chill settled between them.
“Do… do we call the police again?”
What was going on?
They had just helped someone report to the police, and now another incident at Hwaran House?
“Wait here, Muru.”
Tarim dashed up the wooden stairs to the second floor.
Not knowing what to do, Muru followed. She found him standing in front of one of the three rooms, pulling a keyholder from his pocket.
Everyone at Hwaran House had two old-fashioned keys—one for the front door, one for their room. Tarim, the landlord, held more.
His own room had a digital lock, so he didn’t need a key. But he carried one for the front door, one for the garden shed, one for the back door that led into the kitchen, one for the cabinet storing expensive camera lenses…
And—
“…The master key is gone.”
The master key that could open every room in the house—
had disappeared from the keyholder.
