VDN Ch 142

Sensing the threatening atmosphere, the man tried to close the door immediately, but it was blocked by a large foot that came through the crack in the door. Slowly raising his gaze, he saw a handsome, pretty face that looked like it belonged to someone on TV. The smooth, moist-looking lips parted and a sinister voice flowed out. 

“An empty house?” 

“Y-Yes, if you don’t believe me, go check with the real estate agency across the street.” 

As soon as Seo-oh’s foot slipped out of the doorway, the man slammed the front door shut. Seo-oh’s eyes flickered as he stared at the firmly closed door. An empty house? No. That couldn’t be true. He clenched his fist tightly and then took out his phone. 

“Hello, is this Good House Real Estate? I’d like to look at an apartment.” 

Before long, a real estate agent with a bright smile stepped out of the elevator. 

“You’re here to see the apartment, right? Have you been waiting long?” 

Seo-oh stepped aside without replying, as if urging the agent to open the door quickly. The agent approached him and continued speaking. 

“This place has been on the market for quite some time and hasn’t sold yet. You’re really lucky.” 

“…It’s been on the market for a while?”  

“Yes. It’s been about a month or two.” 

Shock filled over Seo-oh’s dark eyes. It’s already been two months since Hyung left the apartment. During the time they spent together, he hadn’t said a word about it. 

The real estate agent placed his hand on the keypad to enter. It was, of course, a password Seo-oh didn’t know. As the door opened by a stranger’s hands, Seo-oh followed the agent inside. The living room looked similar to how it had been before, but upon closer inspection, many things that should have been there were missing. The large furniture remained, but like any empty house, small items had all been removed, leaving a thin layer of dust. 

As Seo-oh stood at the shoe rack, staring blankly into the apartment, the real estate agent turned to him. 

“Come on in. It’s a place to live alone in. It’s close to the station too.” 

“What about the previous resident?” 

“Excuse me?”

“I’m asking where the person who lived here moved to.”

“Ah… I don’t know about that.”

The real estate agent answered with a suspicious look at the unexpected question. Seo-oh ignored that gaze and walked through every room, searching. There were no traces of Nam-woon anywhere. Everything was neatly arranged, as if no one had ever lived there.

Seo-oh mumbled in a daze,

“…This doesn’t make sense.”

Hyung cleaned out the apartment without saying a word to him. All this time, he had pretended he still had the apartment. It was probably to ensure that he wouldn’t know where Nam-woon had moved to. Why didn’t he want to let me know about his new place? Was it because he needed a place to be alone? Or was he planning to leave Se-han and him from the beginning?

…Was it because you didn’t want to see me?

Seo-oh leaned back against the wall, his face twisted in anguish. When did Hyung decide to leave us? He couldn’t figure out where and how things had gone wrong. To suppress the negative emotions bubbling up from deep inside, he bit hard on his teeth.

“What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?”

The real estate agent looked at Seo-oh, fidgeting nervously. However, not a single word from the agent reached him.

Seo-oh despaired again as he looked at the room that held memories of Nam-woon but was now empty and uninhabited.

He didn’t know what state of mind he had been in when he left the apartment. Seo-oh walked down the street aimlessly, yet he couldn’t stop thinking about Nam-woon. For a moment, he even thought about visiting Chairman Seok.

Of course, he didn’t put that thought into action. There was no way Nam-woon would have asked Chairman Seok for help. He has always feared and detested Chairman Seok. Rather than getting Chairman Seok’s help to leave Seo-oh’s house, he would rather sleep on the streets.

So where should I go to find Hyung?

He had no idea where Nam-woon had gone. As if he had been waiting for this very day, Hyung had disappeared in an instant.

With a blank expression, Seo-oh stood at the traffic light, carefully looking at the faces of the people around him. Then he spotted a familiar flyer.

[Umpyeong Errand Center]

A familiar sign was printed in black on a yellow background.

“…….”

Seo-oh thought. If I can’t find him, I’ll hire someone to find him. It didn’t matter how much it would cost. As long as Nam-woon was by his side.

He roughly tore off the flyer and walked away with a determined expression.

***

“Oh, that bastard, he’s living with two families!”

“Look at him acting like the head of the household, tsk tsk.”

The Umpyeong employees were watching a melodrama as usual and mixing their jajangmyeon^[1]. The owner of Umpyeong sucked on the chopsticks he had used to mix the jajangmyeon and frowned.

“Hey, this is the wrong order.”

“What do you mean? It’s jajangmyeon.”

“This is just plain jajangmyeon! I specifically told you to order ganjjajang^[2]!”

“Ah, just eat it!”

While they were bickering over a trivial matter, the office door suddenly opened wide.

“Welcome… Huh?”

The Umpyeong’s boss, who was getting up from his seat, narrowed his eyes. He picked up a pair of chopsticks stained with black bean sauce and pointed at the man.

“Kwon Seo-oh? What are you doing here? Did you come alone?”

As he spoke, he glanced around behind Seo-oh, it was very clear he was looking for Nam-woon. Seo-oh didn’t answer and looked around the office. He had hoped to find Hyung here, but it seemed he hadn’t come here either. But it didn’t matter. He hadn’t come here expecting that in the first place.

He tossed a flyer he had been holding onto the desk. The eyes of Umpyeong’s employees fixed on the flyer that had fluttered down onto the desk. Seo-oh demanded something from Umpyeong’s boss, who was making a skeptical expression.

“Find someone for me.”

“Who? Your dad? We told you, we don’t know where your dad is hiding. He’s completely disappeared.”

“Seok Nam-woon.”

An unexpected name popped out. Umpyeong’s employees stared at Seo-oh with their mouths agape.

“Please find Seok Nam-woon.”

After hearing Seo-oh’s simple explanation, Umpyeong’s boss grabbed his forehead. Now, I’m stuck in this love-struck couple’s fight and taking their requests. Umpyeong’s boss tried to persuade Kwon Seo-oh, holding back his spirit that was about to fade away.

“How long has Seok Nam-woon been missing that you’re asking us to find him? Just wait a bit. I’m not saying we won’t take the request, but I think he’ll come back on his own soon. Why bother finding someone who will return on their own? And you don’t have any money, do you?”

“It doesn’t matter how much it costs. I’ll pay for it later.”

“What? Pay later? Are we crazy? Do we think the money to find someone will just come out of the ground?”

“I can earn it quickly. So, please find him.”

Umpyeong’s boss shook his head as he looked at Seo-oh, who kept repeating the same thing. Then he suddenly examined the face in front of him. His tired face from wandering around all day, the dark eyes that were deeply sunken. And the words he had just said.

It was a common reaction of those who had lost someone precious.

This is strange. Isn’t it just a simple fight? Seok Nam-woon seemed to be sincere to Kwon Seo-oh, though…

Umpyeong’s boss, who had been thinking for a moment, clicked his tongue inwardly. You can know the depth of the water, but you can’t know the depth of a person’s heart. Whatever happened, it’s clear that Seok Nam-woon coldly dumped Kwon Seo-oh by ghosting him.

Well, that’s right. There’s no way that piece of trash would change.

Umpyeong’s boss suddenly felt a sense of empathy and sympathy for Kwon Seo-oh. Maybe it was because he had been wronged by Seok Nam-woon before. He was a poor guy who had lost his father and was raising his younger brother alone. Seok Nam-woon is definitely the devil’s son.

While he was feeling sorry for Kwon Seo-oh and burning with anger toward Seok Nam-woon, something suddenly crossed his mind.

“Hey, wait a minute.”

Umpyeong’s boss bent down and crawled under the desk. He opened a small safe on the floor and he took something out with a rusting sound. He handed a black plastic bag to Seo-oh.

“Take it. It’s yours.”

“…….”

The plastic bag was rectangular, as if it contained something. Seo-oh’s eyes widened as he took the bag and opened it. Inside, there were bundles of 50,000-won bills. When he raised his head and looked at the boss of Umpyeong, he coughed awkwardly and said,

“I found this money by chance when I was looking for your father. I think he must have hidden it somewhere for you and your younger sibling. I meant to give it to you earlier, but…somehow I ended up giving it to you now…”

Dad saved up money? When I met him at the club before, his father had asked if he had borrowed money from Nam-woon and apologized for not leaving much money behind. So when did he… 

Seo-oh stared at his hand in silence. The plastic bag was filled with money. He felt a sense of foreboding as if he had seen it somewhere. Something was trying to resurface in his memory, but it remained hazy. As he stood there in silence, one of Umpyeong’s employees spoke nervously.

“We weren’t trying to keep it for ourselves, you know? We were just holding onto it so we could give it to you later… Anyway, we worked hard to find it.”

As soon as Seo-oh heard the employee’s words, his hazy memory became clear. It was the 2 million won that Kim Haeng-won had tried to run away with when Seo-oh and Nam-woon had accidentally met him before.

“That’s my money!”

Kim Haeng-won had shouted, and Nam-woon had replied, 

“No, that’s my money, you bastard.”

My money. Nam-woon had definitely said it was his money. Seo-oh’s grip on the plastic bag tightened.

Could it be that Nam-woon had left this money with Umpyeong’s boss for him?

As memories flooded back, Seo-oh stared blankly at the crumpled plastic bag. Back then, Nam-woon had tried his best to help him financially. But Seo-oh had rejected all his help, not wanting to be pitied.

In fact, he had not always been kind to Nam-woon. He had said many hurtful things to him for no reason. He had justified his behavior by saying that he was not good at expressing himself and that his personality was not affectionate. But despite all that, Nam-woon had always been kind and gentle to him.

Even when he did something last night without his consent because of his greed, Hyung hugged him without saying a word and even gave him a kiss. Seo-oh’s eyes filled with tears in an instant.

Hyung likes money, but I’m a person who doesn’t have any…

The large hand holding the plastic bag began to shake. The faces of the Umpyeong employees turned pale as they looked at the man who had his head down.

“Hey, are you… crying?”

Drop. Drop.

Seo-oh’s large teardrops fell one by one onto the black plastic bag.