Chapter 146
Yoo Siwoon said he first saw Eunseong’s mother in a wedding photo. If he was referring to the photo Eunseong saw last night, it meant he already knew that the man standing next to his mother wasn’t his cousin Seo Jeong-gi.
Eunseong wanted to ask Yoo Siwoon who that unfamiliar man next to his mother was. But he felt like he had deceived Yoo Siwoon by uncovering something he wasn’t supposed to know, so he couldn’t easily bring himself to ask.
After dinner, Yoo Siwoon received a call and went out. Perhaps because he’d heard about someone watching, Director Nam lowered the blinds throughout the house even more thoroughly than Eunseong had, completely blocking any view into the house.
“Director Nam, I have a question.”
“What is it?”
Director Nam, who was adjusting the blinds with a sharp expression while being vigilant about the outside, casually asked in response to Eunseong’s call.
“…How long have you been working with my uncle?”
Director Nam turned around, wondering why he was suddenly asking such a question, and after counting slowly to himself as if recalling after a long time, he answered.
“With the CEO… I got to know him while working with his father, so I’ve known him for a little over ten years, since he was in college, and I’ve been working with him for about five or six years. Why do you ask?”
“Then you didn’t know him from when I was born?”
“When you were born, I was still a student in school. I’m not that old.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Haa.”
If he had only worked with him for that period, it meant Director Nam didn’t know anything about Eunseong’s parents either.
Eunseong was desperate to know who the unfamiliar groom in his mother’s wedding photo was. He knew the fastest way to find out would be to just ask Yoo Siwoon, pretending he had happened to find his mother’s photo in a box while exploring the study. But the box was hidden so deeply that admitting he had searched through everything would be like confessing, and moreover, the contents of the box included unusual management records about him from birth, so he couldn’t ask carelessly.
So Mom married twice?
Was Dad her second marriage?
What’s going on?
Did Ahjussi see Mom’s wedding photos and know everything but not tell me?
And is that plant called Jeokdan really real?
Then what about the contents of those text messages? Are they true?
What on earth is happening?
“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“I found out an incredibly big secret.”
“…What are you talking about?”
Director Nam, who had been indifferently trying to continue his work, stopped all movement and turned around at the strange remark. He looked intently at Eunseong and asked seriously.
“It’s a secret I can’t talk about. It’s something from a really, really long time ago. Your uncle probably doesn’t know about it either. Maybe your uncle’s father, my late grandfather, knew, but I’m not sure.”
“What is it? Tell me. I’ll find out for you.”
Director Nam walked over to the sofa where Eunseong was sitting and sat opposite him. Eunseong, who had been fiddling with the remote control to watch TV, flinched at his swift approach.
“I think I just said it’s a secret.”
“What kind of secret? Saying it’s a secret only makes me more curious about what secret you’re hiding.”
“I thought Ahjussi told the staff not to invade my privacy…”
“Am I just an ordinary employee? Am I the same as those people?”
Director Nam was referring to the crow-like men providing security outside, hidden by the blinds. Remembering how he had made eye contact with one of them in the darkness while he had bare legs without pants, Eunseong shuddered with an “ugh.”
“Absolutely not, Director Nam.”
“You don’t like those people either, right?”
“Yes, very much. I really hate them. They make me uncomfortable and stare at me… they keep mumbling strange things to me.”
“What did they mumble? What did they say?”
“I don’t know. Some weird things, you know. Like when you go to church or temple, they recite some kind of mantra. ‘Our Father who art in heaven’ and so on—they were mumbling things like that.”
Eunseong grimaced, saying they were so different from the previous staff, unpleasant, and didn’t seem normal.
“Haa… they really are unpleasant people.”
Director Nam sympathetically shook his head at Eunseong’s disgust. Eunseong also shook his head in agreement.
“Anyway, tell me what secret you found out.”
“No. I said it’s a secret.”
“…I don’t understand why the CEO likes you.”
Director Nam narrowed his eyes and looked at Eunseong with disapproval.
Eunseong went into the bathroom, turned on the faucet at the sink, looked back at the closed door though no one was there, and opened the storage cabinet. He took out the phone and duck toy he had hidden between the towels. He carefully unrolled the bundle.
He turned on the screen and checked if any messages had arrived. There was one message that had just arrived.
Though he didn’t know why Choi Jung-eon was doing this, the words and photos in his messages were not unrelated to him, and because they revealed things he didn’t know, he couldn’t help but be sensitively concerned.
If Choi Jung-eon hadn’t sent him a baby photo of himself holding a duck toy, he would never have known his mother had remarried, even in death, and he also wouldn’t have known that Yoo Siwoon had been watching him for a long time. And that his claim of having struggled to find him was a lie.
“What is this, a video this time… Shit, this is scary. What did he send now?”
Eunseong sat on the toilet lid and stared at the video in the message from the restricted number, then couldn’t resist his curiosity and played it.
“…Huh? Dad?”
It was CCTV footage. It showed Seo Jeong-gi entering a building. He was anxiously looking around, and despite the unclear quality, his gaunt appearance was pitiful enough to notice. His posture was also somewhat stooped, making Eunseong’s eyes gradually distort as he watched the screen. He looked like someone being chased.
After he entered the building, not long after, someone else appeared.
It was Yoo Siwoon.
“…Ahjussi?”
Yoo Siwoon was wearing a black suit with a black coat. He wore a black turtleneck underneath, hiding his tattoos, looking completely dark like a crow. Even through the blurry quality, his cool physique, frame, and the outline of the shadows on his face revealed he was a handsome man.
Yoo Siwoon appeared a few minutes after Seo Jeong-gi had entered the building. He looked back and checked his surroundings as Seo Jeong-gi had done. However, unlike his father, his posture wasn’t stooped, nor did he look anxious.
Eunseong, who had been sitting on the toilet, was suddenly standing up. His full attention was captured, staring intensely at the screen.
Yoo Siwoon also followed the same path Seo Jeong-gi had taken and disappeared into the building.
He had said he didn’t know where his father was. He had said he couldn’t contact his father.
Eunseong replayed the video and checked the date. Numbers were displayed in tiny print at the bottom of the CCTV screen. It was during the time when Eunseong had run away and was working part-time at a motel.
After Seo Jeong-gi’s figure disappeared into the building, the CCTV image of the same spot became slightly blurred and Yoo Siwoon appeared. The numbers at the bottom of the screen had disappeared, and the scene seemed edited, but judging by the few remaining leaves on the sparse trees in the surroundings showing no change, it was definitely the same day.
He said he couldn’t find him then…
Even after I returned home, he said he couldn’t contact him, couldn’t find him.
Did Ahjussi meet Dad?
How did Choi Jung-eon get this… how did he get this?
Eunseong was just realizing that the person who gave him the phone wasn’t Choi Jung-eon, that someone had delivered this phone through Choi Jung-eon. The person sending these messages wasn’t Choi Jung-eon either.
Not knowing what it was implying, he kept replaying the screen when another message arrived.
[If I were you, I would kill myself]
“…What?”
Eunseong’s heart sank. Soon after, a video was received as a message.
Eunseong dropped what he was holding after seeing the first scene of the video that appeared on the phone.
The phone screen that fell on the bathroom tile floor cracked into dozens of spider web-like lines with a thud.
It was CCTV footage from a different space.
The figure lying on a metal storage rack was vaguely visible, but the outline and features showed it was his father, Seo Jeong-gi. His father, clearly a dead body to anyone who saw it, was lying on a cold metal table. But there was someone in front of it.
It was Yoo Siwoon. Dressed in all black, he looked at Eunseong’s father in a vinyl bag for a moment, then zipped it closed. Then he pushed it into a freezer where corpses are stored and shut the door.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
