“I’m home.”
“Oh, you’re back?”
From the kitchen came the busy sound of vegetables being chopped.
In the living room, Dad, who had been sitting on the sofa watching the news,
greeted me briefly, saying I’d come home early today.
I went into my room, hung my bag on the chair, andcame back out to the living room
and sat down next to Dad.
Letting out a tired sigh, Dad
pointed at the TV showing the news with a tilt of his chin and said,
“That company’s been showing up a lot these days.
Looks like the building they’re putting up this time is pretty big too.”
Half-listening to Dad,
I made a nasal response.
“Hansung Group, which is leading Korea’s construction industry,
has launched yet another large-scale investment.”
At the reporter’s sharp voice,
I looked up at the TV
and saw an interview scene with the Hansung Group chairman.
That face looked vaguely familiar,
so I furrowed my brow and leaned in.
“Where have I seen that person before..? ”
“Hey, kid, these days when people talk construction, they say Hansung Group is number one.
It’s a big company, so of course the face looks familiar.”
“Is that so?”
I took my phone out of my pocket and sat back on the sofa.
“Honey~ go out and buy some tofu.”
“You should’ve told me earlier; I already changed clothes.”
Unable to refuse Mom’s request, I ended up heading outside.
While shuffling toward the supermarket in a loose T-shirt and dragging my slippers,
I saw a shiny Carnival far off in the distance.
The driver’s door opened, and a man in a suit got out.
The man went around and opened the rear door, and
inside the back seat of the Carnival, I could see a man with a familiar silhouette.
It was Hwang Hyunjin.
I couldn’t believe it, so I rubbed my dry eyes hard with both hands, and
then looked closely at the Carnival again.
“Ah... seriously, what a pain.”
Hwang Hyunjin muttered to himself as he got out of the car.
When the man in the suit said something quietly to Hwang Hyunjin,
he wiped his dry face over and over, looking troubled.
The building the man and Hwang Hyunjin went into
was so tall I had to crane my neck just to see the top.
“That’ll be 4,000 won.”
I carried the tofu in a black plastic bag and headed home.
The relationship between the man in the suit I’d seen earlier and Hwang Hyunjin
suddenly made me curious.
I wondered if maybethat man
was Hwang Hyunjin’s bodyguard,
but I swallowed the thought with a quiet mutter that there was no way, andshook my head lightly.
