Midday Guest Chapter 50

Oh Taesik checked Yiwon’s condition by turning him around in circles. He muttered that there didn’t seem to be any place that had been hit. Then, he glanced at the back of Cha Seokjoo’s head.

“Little Boss, you, go home quietly now.”

“…Is it okay to do that?”

“Go. Because today is a day where the Director’s mood is terrifyingly bad.”

“…Why?”

Oh Taesik clicked his tongue through his teeth and spat out a bucket of curses toward the guy with the cotton cloth over his head.

“That damn bastard lived under the Director for ten years, and then as soon as his belly got warm and full, he went and betrayed him. He was acting all sweet by his side, calling him ‘Director, Director,’ but while the Director was focused on things here, he completely cleaned out the head office and—”

“Sik.”

Ma Haeyoung, who was standing nearby, quietly stopped him. Oh Taesik cleared his throat with a fake cough, saying, “Ah, right,” and then muttered to himself like a monologue.

“Even on the day that guy was taking his high school equivalency exam, the Director personally drove him to the testing center. Rotten bastard.”

“……”

“Ha, honestly, just when you’re about to forget, guys like that pop up and make a person’s heart feel troubled. What’s the use of being good at studying? You’ve got to become a human being first.”

Yiwon just stood there quietly listening to the sound of Oh Taesik’s deep, earth-shaking sighs.

☼

I woke up at dawn and lay on the wooden veranda. Even the mobile games I played whenever I had time didn’t catch my eye. Yiwon blinked blankly and looked out at the yard.

Yesterday, Cha Seokjoo did not come back. He was a person who stayed irregularly anyway… but it felt strange. I kept thinking that the incident in his office was the cause.

Thanks to Oh Taesik mentioning it in passing, I knew why Cha Seokjoo had acted as if he were interrogating and forcing me that day, but that couldn’t serve as a justification for the behavior Cha Seokjoo had shown toward Yiwon.

I knew he was a person whose life and methods were different from mine, and that made him a difficult partner. It was even more so because we were people who had lived in completely different worlds.

Time flowed slowly. It felt even more that way because I was stuck on the same thoughts. I felt like it was going to be a long day.

Feeling stifled, I opened the gate of Haeundang and stepped out. It was still early, but I intended to change my mood by taking a morning walk.

After going down the Haeundang hill, I walked aimlessly along the road. When I regained my senses, I was on the road leading to Cha Seokjoo’s office.

Why did I come here again?

It was just as Yiwon looked up with a bitter smile.

“…What on earth is that.”

The Blue Cloud Construction placard that Yiwon had hung up was shredded and fluttering in the wind in a tattered state.

Who could have done such a thing?

Yiwon looked up from beneath the telephone pole. The twine hanging the placard was still firmly tied to the pole, but both edges of the placard had been the concentrated target.

There were marks of it being scratched several times with something sharp and keen. It seemed to have been damaged intentionally. The range I confirmed with my eyes overlapped with the range of an adult male reaching out his arm wide.

I scanned the surroundings.

A few trash bags were tied and placed beneath the telephone pole, and pieces of the placard had fallen nearby. Yiwon picked up a piece from the ground.

Standing right there, I tilted my head back.

The placard fluttering in the wind and the scraps of cloth shredded into pieces.

I turned my body and looked toward the direction of Cha Seokjoo’s office. The lights were off, and no employees were in sight.

I inwardly hoped at least some employee would be there, but I actually knew. Those employees spent more time on external activities than they did in the office.

Should I send a message saying something happened to the placard? Only after that thought did I remember that I hadn’t saved Cha Seokjoo’s phone number separately.

At first, we weren’t close enough to contact each other, and then we became the kind of people who saw each other at very close range. That was how it happened.

First, I should go back to Haeundang.

But I had something to do before that.

Yiwon took out his phone and turned on the camera. I had the thought that I should leave photo evidence and deliver it to Cha Seokjoo.

Finding the phone number wasn’t a difficult task. The Haeundang guest registry was designed to collect guest information, and I still had the business card I received from Cha Seokjoo.

Click. The sound of a photo being taken rang out.

It also seemed necessary to take a close-up of just the torn parts of the placard. It was just as I approached the telephone pole and adjusted the angle of the phone camera.

A truck approached from a distance. Yiwon, who had been taking photos down on the road, stepped up onto the sidewalk. The truck, which had been passing slowly, stopped nearby.

Whir. The window rolled down. The rough, raw engine sound of the old vehicle was creating vibrations, and at the same time, a savory smell wafted over on the wind.

That smell of sesame oil being pressed that you could smell on a day at the mill.

I slowly turned my head.

“……”

I came face-to-face with an unexpected person at the wide-open driver’s side window. It was Park Junseo with an expressionless face. He was staring at Yiwon without even offering a greeting. I was so surprised my heart skipped a beat.

“…Sunbae.”

“What are you doing here, Yiwon?”

“I was… just taking a walk.”

“At this early hour?”

“Yes, I just happened to wake up early today….”

But what was Park Junseo doing here? Just as Yiwon was about to ask in return, the man spoke first.

“Ah, Yiwon.”

“……”

“We really run into each other often, don’t we.”

Park Junseo got out of the car. He didn’t even close the car door and came to stand before Yiwon. It happened in the blink of an eye. Slide. He tilted his head and looked at Yiwon, and a sense of eeriness felt from him.

“But it would have been better if we hadn’t run into each other today.”

“……”

“It really would have been nice if that were the case.”

I usually felt that our conversation topics were misaligned, but today it was exceptionally so. Faced with Park Junseo spitting out incomprehensible things, Yiwon couldn’t gauge what kind of reaction he should show.

“……”

At a sudden passing thought, Yiwon’s gaze quietly dropped. The telephone pole located a few steps away, the placard hanging there. Yiwon standing there, and Park Junseo, who had discovered Yiwon and driven over.

Slide. I turned my head to look at Park Junseo. Park Junseo, who had been sitting in the driver’s seat, had an infinitely calm expression, but Yiwon did not. I was making an enormous effort to silence my loudly pounding heart and pretend to be calm.

No way.

No way, was he not looking at the sky back then?

Yiwon turned his head and looked at the telephone pole.

The spot where Yiwon was standing was the very spot where Park Junseo had stood with the flyers under his arm. Click-clack, click. The sound of a blade being pulled out and then retracted rang out like an auditory hallucination.

It was too perfect to be a coincidence.

Of all things, Park Junseo was there, he was doing a part-time job sticking up flyers, he had a utility knife, and he had shown a look as if he were measuring something while looking at the sky….

“So that’s the problem.”

Yiwon scanned behind Park Junseo’s back. Because he had left the car door open, the state of the seats was clearly visible. Cotton gloves, a metal ladder folded in half, twine, and trash bags were visible.

By then, we had both realized each other’s inner thoughts.

The culprit always returns to the scene.

“I really tried to be good to you.”

“…Sunbae.”

“As you know, I like you.”

Park Junseo’s feelings were in the present progressive tense.

“I wanted to be a good person, too.”

“Sunbae, I….”

“You are the problem.”

“……”

“Because you… every time, you make me strange. You make a mess of the situation. You always make me choose the worst option. It was like that then, too… because you kept coming and going in front of me.”

Park Junseo made an expression that looked as if he were about to cry or smile. He acted like he was about to laugh one moment and cry the next.

“It’s okay. We can set it right starting now.”

“…What do you mean by that, sunbae. What on earth are you…?”

“My father died, and my mother is hospitalized. Now there is no one left to block us. Only happy things are left.”

“……”

“I was going to prepare everything one by one and tell you nicely…. But that bastard suddenly cut in and ruined everything. Because of that bastard who appeared out of nowhere.”

A hand suddenly came up and grabbed the nape of Yiwon’s neck. Hooking a finger into the neck of the short-sleeved T-shirt, he pulled the clothes down.

“Sunbae…!”

“Look at this. I was right. I didn’t see it wrong.”

“Why are you being like this, really.”

“…I thought it was strange since the time you were walking around holding that suit.”

“Let go of this… I said let go!”

“I was first….”

Park Junseo stared at the red and purple marks left on Yiwon’s body with hollow eyes. He looked as if he were hurt, and also as if he were shocked. He was excessively heightened emotionally.

“…I was first. You know it, too. That I was before that guy.”

“Sunbae… calm down. First, after you calm down—”

Yiwon grabbed Park Junseo’s arms and pulled them down. At the clear gesture of rejection, Park Junseo’s eyes glinted, turning in an abnormal direction.

“Right, let’s calm down and talk things over step-by-step from now on.”

“……”

“It’s going to be a long story. Since it’s a bit much to start it here.”

“……”