HMGD 10

Chapter 10

As soon as Seonu hung up Yujin’s call, Mingi’s voice cut in.

The sudden appearance startled Seonu enough to make him flinch, but he quickly regained his composure. Mingi’s expression as he looked at Seonu was unusually heavy.

“Mingi. Knock first.”

Swallowing a curse internally, Seonu forced out a calm tone.

“I did knock.”

Seonu looked at him with obvious displeasure. Mingi didn’t avoid his gaze. Seonu raised an eyebrow at him as if asking what the problem was.

“You seem to be taking a special interest in Lee Yujin.”

Apparently having overheard the call, Mingi spoke bluntly. His implication was unmistakable.

Tilting his head slightly, Seonu stared back at him.

“No, you’re wrong. It’s not Lee Yujin that’s special—it’s her case. She’s not just Lee Yujin. She’s Lee Yujin, owner of a 30 billion won building.”

Seonu sprang from his chair and strode over until he stood face-to-face with Mingi. A faint smell of cigarette smoke lingered on his breath.

“She’s about to receive 20 billion won from Jung Jaehyun. And protecting all of my client’s assets is part of a legal representative’s duty. Which means aaall of that becomes my fee.”

Seonu poked Mingi’s shoulder repeatedly with his index finger as he spoke.

“You’re going too far.”

“When I make 100 million won, forty million goes to taxes. And you’re saying Lee Yujin isn’t special? Lee Yujin, the 30 billion won building owner?”

Mingi continued to look at him with a serious expression.

What a frustrating bastard.

Giving up on trying to convince him, Seonu slipped on the suit jacket hanging over his chair.

“Mingi, I wouldn’t deny it even if people called me money-crazy. I’m taking what Kim Chanyoung gives me, what Jung Jaehyun gives me, and what Lee Yujin gives me too.”

“And if Lee Yujin catches on…?”

“If she catches on?”

Lowering his voice deliberately, Seonu whispered the words. His eyes gleamed sharply.

“Does Lee Yujin have any better option than me right now?”

“Attorney.”

“Mingi.”

Seonu looked at him firmly. Mingi decided not to provoke him any further. He knew Seonu would only dig his heels in more if pushed.

Whenever Seonu got like this, there was nothing more he could do.

“If you have time for this, go home already. Before your wife divorces you.”

“Are you worrying about me right now?”

Mingi swallowed down the words Whose fault is it that I can’t go home?

Whether Seonu understood his feelings or not, he busied himself getting ready to leave work.

“Oh, and even if you want a divorce, absolutely not this year. My schedule’s packed.”

Leaving behind a remark that could’ve been either a joke or serious, Seonu exited the office.

Whatever Mingi thought, Seonu needed to get off work now.

What a bored idiot.

What exactly is his problem?

Pressing the brakes, Seonu stared at the traffic light turning red. The cars stretched across the road like linked sausages.

His officetel was less than fifteen minutes from Seocho-dong by car.

If it wasn’t rush hour.

Out of habit, Seonu opened the console box to look for cigarettes. Holding the pack in his hand, he hesitated briefly before shutting the compartment again.

He couldn’t show up smelling like smoke when meeting a client.

You seem to be taking a special interest in Lee Yujin.

That’s just how I am.

Isn’t that basic courtesy? The bare minimum.

That’s why you’re still just Kim Chanyoung’s lapdog.

Even alone in the car, he could feel Mingi’s stare. Though he hadn’t eaten anything, his chest felt clogged and heavy.

Frustrated, Seonu rolled down the driver’s side window and stuck his hand outside. The sudden cold made it feel as though his skin were shrinking. Even with the sensation of flesh tearing apart, he didn’t pull his hand back.

Winter was the season that had carved poverty into his bones.

The kind of poverty where they couldn’t even install city gas.

The kind where they had to boil water on a portable gas burner just to have hot water.

Poverty would never invade his life again.

Turning the wheel smoothly, Seonu entered the officetel parking garage.

After parking in Section B, he looked like someone with no intention of getting out. He sat there in the car with the engine off for another five minutes.

Exactly five minutes later, he slowly took out his phone and sent Yujin a text.

<I’ll be there in 10 minutes.>

Exactly ten minutes later, Seonu buttoned his suit jacket and stepped out of the car.

The sharp sound of his dress shoes echoed through the enclosed parking garage.

Parking in Section B as always, riding the same elevator as always, somehow the trip upstairs felt unfamiliar.

I think of Lee Yujin as special?

Of course I do.

This is the opportunity of a lifetime.

Standing before the door labeled 1301, Seonu pressed the doorbell.

The clear chime pulled him back to reality.

8:30 p.m.

A little over thirty minutes had passed since Seonu’s call.

“Excuse me.”

Seonu spoke first, as if on my behalf, when I hesitated.

Now that I was actually seeing his face, the words come in refused to come easily.

If we weren’t in the middle of a lawsuit, if he weren’t my attorney, if I weren’t famous, I never would have invited Seonu into my home.

“Have you been eating properly?”

“Yeah.”

Not really, but I was trying to at least eat simple meals.

“Maybe I’m getting old. When I was younger, I hated hearing my grandmother constantly nag me about eating.”

Seonu laughed awkwardly.

Apparently looking for somewhere to put his suit jacket, he took it off while scanning the room.

“Give it to me. I’ll hang it up.”

“A chair’s fine.”

He raised one hand to stop me from taking it. Draping the jacket over the back of a dining chair, Seonu sat down beside it.

He seemed to have lost a little weight since the last time I saw him.

“For a famous actress’s house, it’s pretty simple. Shouldn’t you get rid of things like that if a child’s going to live here?”

“Oh. Right. I should.”

Pointing at the sharp-edged coffee table, Seonu spoke casually.

Unlike me, whose awkwardness was painfully obvious, Seonu leisurely looked around the apartment.

Suddenly, I remembered the time I’d visited Seonu’s house in Geumjedong and let out a quiet laugh.

That boy who’d had no composure whatsoever had grown into someone this sly and smooth.

“The rice is cooking. It’s almost done.”

After getting Seonu’s call, I’d hurriedly checked the fridge, only to discover I didn’t even have a single egg left. I’d ended up rushing to the nearby market, which delayed dinner preparations.

“Maybe I should’ve come later.”

“Or you could’ve told me earlier.”

“Need help?”

“No.”

It was a decision made in the interest of getting dinner done faster.

I placed the beef brisket, drained of blood, into boiling water and cut the radish into thirds. Wrapping two pieces in plastic wrap, I stored them in the refrigerator.

The pressure cooker whistled loudly, signaling that the rice was done.

Ever since living at the Daewoong family house, I’d always cooked rice in a pot.

“You know how to cook too?”

At Seonu’s sudden comment, I let out a disbelieving laugh.

“I’m a mom.”

After getting married and learning to cook, I’d come to enjoy it.

Cooking for someone meant confirmation that you belonged within a family. It was certainty of affection and love.

That was why cooking alone now felt even harder.

Because it reminded me of Yeonha.

Because it felt like my dream had lost its way.

“I thought actresses survived on morning dew.”

Watching me cut radish with practiced movements, Seonu spoke again.

Several times afterward, he let out little sounds of admiration.

His gaze made me self-conscious, but I pretended not to notice and focused on cooking.

I took out a deep bowl, cracked in five eggs, added finely chopped carrots and green onions I’d prepared earlier, then whisked quickly with chopsticks.

The moment I poured it into the well-heated pan shimmering with oil, a loud sizzling sound filled the room.

It was the first time this house had ever been filled with such lively noise.

“It’s nice hearing cooking sounds in a house.”

Apparently Seonu had been thinking the same thing.

“You don’t want to get married?”

At my question, the corner of Seonu’s mouth twitched as if the idea were absurd.

Come to think of it, Seonu was thirty-two now.

Like me, he’d grown up without a family. He must’ve wanted one quickly too.

At least, I had.

“Hah. Marriage?”

“What, you still don’t want to?”

“The one getting divorced is telling me to get married?”

It sounded like he was asking whether marriage had really made me happy.

With that utterly mocking expression.

Seriously.

“You’re so irritating.”

Seonu burst out laughing.

It was the first time I’d ever seen him laugh so defenselessly. His sharp eyes curved gently into crescents.

When you looked closely, Seonu was actually quite pretty.

“Could you turn the heat off?”

As the soup boiled, the pressure made the lid clatter noisily against the pot.

“The heat…”

I was scooping rice into Seonu’s bowl and about to serve mine when I heard frantic beeping behind me.

Beep, beep, beep.

Seonu stood there awkwardly pressing random spots on the induction stove.

Everything except the power button.

Thanks to him missing the timing to calm it down, the pot began shaking violently.

“I’ll do it.”

Seeing him standing there pale-faced, I hurried over.

Grab.

Seonu roughly seized the hand I’d reached toward the stove.

“Seonu. Are you okay?”

His hand was drenched in sweat.

“Don’t…”