YHP 41

This was truly an unexpected situation.

Upon spotting Hyun-wook heading into the garden with Joo-young, Jeong-in immediately took out his phone and texted Ho-jin.

「Don’t say anything from now on and go back to the car. You can go in first today.」

Please check it, please. He glanced at the message window with trembling hands. Fortunately, a notification appeared soon after, indicating that the message had been read. In the meantime, Hyun-wook and Joo-young had already crossed the garden and were right in front of him.

“What, when did you get here?”

“A little while ago.”

It seemed like he had received a reply, but there was no time to check it. He shoved the phone into his pocket.

“Hyung, didn’t you say you had a shoot today? Uncle, why didn’t you go to the company?”

Even though he had been Chairman for quite some time, Joo-young still occasionally called him “Director.” Of course, Hyun-wook didn’t seem to mind it much.

“No particular reason.”

Feeling a sharp gaze sweeping across the garden, Jeong-in hid his sweaty hands behind his back.

Once at the torn sack of dirt, once at the stakes rolling haphazardly on the ground. And finally, once at the chicken breast, charred black and still hanging on the fence, Hyun-wook turned his gaze back to Jeong-in.

“…….”

Did he find out?

“Jeong-in is working so hard all by himself.”

It was just a look of doting affection.

“…Yes.”

He nodded for now, but to be honest, he felt uneasy.

He was a person who always saw several moves ahead of his opponent but held back his words until the decisive moment arrived. Jeong-in coldly assessed the situation. There was too much circumstantial evidence right in front of him. How much had he guessed? He probably realized that someone was helping him with this.

But there was no other evidence, so there would be no grounds for questioning. He was just grateful for the high-voltage line that was on unexpectedly. If it had been off, Yoo Ho-jin would have come over after the stakes, and then he would have been caught on the spot without any room for excuses.

“I bought a lot of food, so let’s go inside first. It must have been hard moving all this.”

Only Joo-young, who had no idea what was going on, was cheerful. Jeong-in glanced at the fence and followed them into the mansion.

Reaching the kitchen along the hallway, he saw snacks piled up neatly on the table. Joo-young placed a glass of honey milk tea in front of Jeong-in.

“I’m glad you’re here. Otherwise, I would have had to eat all this by myself again today.”

“Why did you buy so much?”

“I’ve been starving since last night. How could I not go crazy?”

Sipping the warm milk tea, Jeong-in picked up one of the macarons Joo-young had bought.

“Hyung, have some too.”

When he offered it to Joo-young first, he shook his head.

“No, thanks. That’s an hour on the treadmill, I’ll just watch you eat.”

“…You bought it for Hyung to eat, didn’t you?”

“That was the plan originally, but I changed my mind while talking just now. You eat it for me.”

He sat on a stool and began to stare intently at Jeong-in. It wasn’t an entirely new experience, so Jeong-in accepted the gaze familiarly and took a bite of the macaron.

When he was working on a project, Joo-young always maintained an inhuman level of diet control. It seemed to be quite stressful, so sometimes he would call Jeong-in out late at night and make him eat things like sushi or handmade burgers while watching him. It was because he felt like he couldn’t survive without seeing someone else eat.

“Are you eating like a baby bird?”

“…Sorry. I’ll eat a lot.”

He took another big bite. Only then did Joo-young remove his displeased expression.

In any case, as expected of Joo-young’s choice, the crispy texture that crumbled in his mouth was very satisfying. Just as the tense nerves were about to melt away,

[Athlete Yoo Ho-jin, passing the 100-meter mark.]

[He’s pushing forward very quickly from the start. It’s a bit different from his usual style. It seems he’s mindful of Kraleński.]

The name coming from the living room made his throat tighten.

“Ugh…”

“Why, did you choke?”

Joo-young, who had quickly approached, patted Jeong-in’s back. Jeong-in barely swallowed what he was eating, clutched the macaron tightly, and rushed to the living room. Hyun-wook was sitting on the sofa with his chin propped up, watching TV.

“Uncle.”

“Hmm?”

He asked softly, but he didn’t take his eyes off the screen.

[300 meters, currently Athlete Yoo Ho-jin’s personal best. We hope he’ll do his best for the remaining 50 meters.]

[Everyone is cheering for you. Athlete Yoo Ho-jin of South Korea.]

Ho-jin on the screen was cutting through the water at an incredible speed. He was quite far ahead of most of the athletes, but there wasn’t much difference between him and the athlete chasing right behind him.

Each time he vigorously raised his arms, countless water droplets shattered and broke, opening the way. In the way he advanced steadily through the foam, one could feel a cleanly refined determination. Completely free from all thoughts, silently focused only on clearing the path prepared before him.

Just watching him made him breathless and his heart race. Even though he knew the result of the race, Jeong-in unknowingly began to cheer for him. Please do your best, just a little more. Then, as if by magic, Ho-jin’s speed increased dramatically.

The commentators’ shouts gradually grew louder. Before long, Ho-jin’s fingertips, having widened the gap between him and the second-place athlete by the length of an arm, touched the pad without hesitation. The number 1 was etched next to Ho-jin’s name, and screams of joy erupted.

[It’s a gold medal!]

[Paris Olympics, 400-meter freestyle, Athlete Yoo Ho-jin of South Korea. He proudly wins the gold medal, setting a new world record!]

Ho-jin, who had roughly thrown off his swimming cap, screamed, “Aah!” He roared as if bursting out all the breath he had held in for four hundred meters. The gold medalist, who had finally seized the laurel wreath after a battle that could not have been easy, smiled brightly like a flower in full bloom in summer and raised his hand high.

Incomparably brilliant light poured down on the face of the person who had swum for thousands and thousands of hours and finally reached the summit. The water that had been heavily pressing down on him and confining him all along flowed weakly under his outstretched arm, as if announcing its surrender.

At that moment, the screen froze.

“…Ah.”

Only then did Jeong-in come to his senses. He met Hyun-wook’s eyes, who was looking at him with an interested gaze.

“Did Jeong-in like swimming?”

“No.”

He denied it flatly and gauged his reaction.

“But…. Why are you watching this?”

“There’s a sponsor of this athlete whose contract is expiring soon, so I’m looking into it. There’s been talk of us putting in an offer as well.”

Various documents were piled up on the table.

“Come to think of it, I heard that you and Jeong-in went to the same school. Have you ever seen him at school?”

“…….”

His conscience pricked him if he lied, and he was worried about variables if he said they knew each other.

“I guess not. That’s too bad.”

When Jeong-in didn’t answer, he seemed to have understood the silence as a denial.

“I was thinking of looking at him more closely if Jeong-in knew him, but.”

It was a subtle nuance.

“…What happens if you don’t look at him closely?”

It was Joo-young, who had approached at some point, who answered Jeong-in’s question instead.

“He won’t be able to work with big companies anymore. Anyway, it seems like he’ll retire before the end of this year, though.”

“Yes?”

“There are a lot of rumors on our side that he’s nearing the end of his career. It’s not official yet, but when I eat with reporters, a lot of stories come out. The real problem isn’t injuries, but what was it, psychogenic pain or trauma…. Anyway, it seems like the situation is not good.”

He snatched the half-eaten macaron from Jeong-in and put it in his mouth.

“There are quite a few kids who are aiming to take advantage of this opportunity, you know Yennie from the girl group Eight-O? She’s been asking around to get Yoo Ho-jin’s number these days.”

“…….”

“There are plenty of celebrities who are hitting on her, so if she meets a decent guy and raises her profile, it’s a win-win. She’ll show her face here and there for a few years with her girlfriend’s backing, and then she’ll hook a rich sucker and get married? Or she’ll meet an unbelievably young kid. Anyway, some of those athletes are sly b…”

Joo-young’s voice suddenly stopped.

“…B?”

“No, g…”

“…G?”

Joo-young, looking embarrassed, waved his hand.

“I just mean that there are occasionally promiscuous people. Of course, I’m not saying that’s true of everyone, but the kids I met…. No, I mean. The ones I met ‘accidentally’ on the street were kind of like that.”

“Oh, is that so?”

Hyun-wook, who had been silent, chuckled at those words. Joo-young stammered and quickly changed the subject.

“Well, uh…. Anyway, Jeong-in, you can’t let those kinds of kids get their hooks into you, got it?”

Jeong-in was still looking at Ho-jin, who was smiling on the screen.

“Uncle.”

He said he starts his day by keeping his promise with me, even if the sky falls.

Because he was that kind of person, because he had a face that seemed like he would never waver no matter what happened.

Because he smiled as if he had never experienced anything bad, because he didn’t show it at all.

I was being too naive. I thought that what was covering his head was just a passing rain cloud. But that’s not it. Amidst all the people in the world talking about his downfall, maybe what he had to struggle so hard for was to not fall.

“…What if I take responsibility for it?”

After the words and words surrounding the sudden tragedy pass by, there is something that one suddenly encounters in a moment of solitude.

Something that comes unexpectedly across the mirror one day, long after losing everything.

Even if you soothe your heart countless times, saying it’s okay, it’s really okay.

The fact that you can never go back to the days when even the breath rising under your chin was welcome, no matter what you do from now on.

“If something goes wrong with using that person, I’ll liquidate my shares in the business group to make up for it. Then…”

He couldn’t ignore it. He couldn’t pretend not to know any longer. He had already experienced that final moment when he had to declare to himself that everything was truly over.

“Then, will you write it?”

Because he knew so vividly, so painfully, how much that moment hurt.