CEL 66

For several months he was so busy that he had no time to breathe.

Whether the company had a good eye for scripts or it was just luck, the drama really exploded, and as he had been the lead, love calls poured in on him as well.

Requests for appearances came flooding in from dramas, films, commercials, and variety shows without exception. He could not refuse them all, and even though he filmed only a few commercials, it was still not enough time in a day to do that alongside the drama.

When he walked on the street, people recognized him more and more. Even if he wrapped himself tightly in a mask or a cap, at least one or two people tilted their heads and asked, “Are you Han Jaeha by any chance?” After experiencing that absurd situation a few times, the first person who came to mind was the pale lawyer with the indifferent face.

Would the lawyer have seen it too? Since it was a famous drama, he must have seen it?

No, they said lawyers worked night and day without rest, so maybe he could not have seen it.

He wondered what kind of face the man would make if he knew that he had taken his closing argument word for word. Would he scowl in anger, or would he just let it pass?

As he sat in the back seat laughing idiotically, the manager who glanced at him asked.

“You look good these days.”

“Yes?”

“I said you look good. You used to walk around like a zombie, but now that you walk around smiling, you finally look like a person.”

He did not know why the manager felt proud, but with a face that looked truly glad, the manager gripped the steering wheel tightly and asked.

“Are you dating? I will keep it secret from the company somehow, so just make sure not to get caught by reporters.”

“That is not it.”

“What do you mean it is not? You keep grinning all the time, and it is exactly that side.”

“It really is not.”

Dating, what nonsense. The other person was a man. His skin was whiter than a woman’s, his lips were red, and his eyes were refined, but anyone could clearly see that he was a man.

He did have interest in him, but it was certainly not in that way. He was simply curious about the person called Seo Hamin, not lusting after him or wanting to date him.

Besides, he was a lawyer who graduated top of his class from Korea University Law School and was raising his value at ENHA. With that level, of course, he must have a girlfriend… a girlfriend….

He froze with the corners of his mouth still raised. He suddenly felt as if he had put together two words that did not belong.

…Girlfriend?

Did the lawyer… have a girlfriend?

The face that had been relaxed immediately turned rigid. As the manager looked puzzled, wondering if he had said something wrong, a cold voice sounded.

“…Hyung, the lawyer at ENHA must be very popular, right?”

“Who, you mean Lawyer Seo Hamin?”

“How do you know that?”

“What do you mean, have you forgotten who always made the reservation for your hearings?” Snorting as if he had said something ridiculous, the manager added.

“If it is Lawyer Hamin….”

“Lawyer Seo Hamin.”

“What?”

“Not Hamin, Seo Hamin.” He is acting strange today.

The manager looked at Jaeha, who kept saying silly things, with a puzzled face and replied.

“Uh, yeah. Lawyer Seo Hamin. If you mean him, then of course he is popular. He is at a marriageable age. But I heard he doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

“How do you know that?”

“One of the directors at the company set him up with his daughter, but he refused. He said he has no intention of dating or getting married.”

“Matchmaking, what nonsense? This is not a variety show.”

He muttered discontentedly with his face scrunched up, and the manager whispered with a serious face.

“If you are not in good condition, should we cancel the schedule?”

“What are you talking about suddenly?”

“Something seems strange….”

“It is not strange.”

He had no desire to answer further, so he turned his head quickly toward the window. It was fortunate that he had no intention of dating, but the fact that there were many people aiming for him displeased him.

Now that he thought of it, quite some time had already passed since he last saw Hamin. Perhaps he had already completely forgotten someone like him. When he thought of that, he suddenly felt as if someone had set fire to his hair.

Was this a bit… strange?

He felt it was dangerous to think that what he felt toward Hamin was close to something abnormal, but he shook his head and erased the thoughts.

He bit his nails as he looked at the scenery passing by the window.

Should he go see him after finishing the radio recording? But was it okay to just go? Should he make a case request?

The only illegal acts around him worth reporting were about as much as a traffic offense of gross negligence. Should he speed, he thought seriously, when his phone vibrated lightly. He lowered his gaze. It was a message from home.

It was a call.

It had been a while since the last one.

“Yes.”

–Student Jaeha, do you have time now?

“Why are you asking?”

–The chairman collapsed.

“Ah.”

For a son who heard that his parent had collapsed, his reaction seemed rather dry, and the secretary sounded slightly flustered. But Jaeha truly did not know what other reaction he was supposed to have.

He blinked slowly. He wondered if he really had to go, but as if they had read his mind, the other side added.

–The chairman is asking you to come.

“…I will go.” He didn’t want to go.

He let out a low sigh. He already felt the smell of the hospital lingering at the tip of his nose.

‎

‎

Jaeha flinched as he stepped into the hospital room. It was because the man lying all alone in the middle of the VIP ward looked unfamiliar.

Was that man… his father?

In just a few months he had grown so gaunt that his bones stuck to his skin, and Jaeha’s light brown eyes trembled a little as he looked at him. Maybe the man on the bed saw his confusion, as his powerless pupils moistened.

“My son…?”

A ragged and heavy voice flowed out through the oxygen mask. As Jaeha approached in bewilderment, Heo Juyeop and the aunt looked at him with disapproving eyes.

“…Why is he like this?”

He pushed past the two who would never answer and asked the secretary directly, and the reply came that it was pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer, was that not something that only came out in dramas? He thought his father got full medical checkups every year, so why had they not discovered it?

Not knowing what he should say, he blankly lowered his gaze. His arms were full of injection marks, as if he had already been hospitalized for days.

So, he was going to die.

Jaeha moved his lips pointlessly, opening and closing them again and again, when a dry hand trembling faintly grabbed his finger. It was such a feeble strength that it seemed as if it would drop with only the smallest movement.

As he gazed at it with emotions even he could not name, his father gave a glance toward the lawyer standing beside the secretary.

“The chairman called young master Jaeha here to announce the inheritance in advance.”

So he really was going to die.

In the midst of his confusion, the lawyer’s dry voice filled the ward. Unlike his own turmoil, Heo Juyeop and the aunt jumped and shouted at every word the lawyer spoke.

“You mean you are actually giving the securities to that kid? And also the land in Paju and Yangpyeong? Did he write that while he was in a weakened state of mind? Is it really valid?”

“The will was written before he was diagnosed.”

The aunt, who had even worn bright red lipstick and a pearl necklace on her way to the hospital, stomped her feet as if it was absurd.

Jaeha gave repeated hollow laughs at the ridiculousness. Even to him, who did not know much, it was obvious that the intention was to leave only the minimum inheritance required by law, yet the woman who did not want to split even that and discarded the dignity she valued so much seemed ridiculous.

“I don’t need to receive that.”

“If you renounce the inheritance, the assets will be returned to society.”

“Then do that.”

“What are you saying? Why would that be returned to society?”

While the aunt grabbed her nape, Heo Juyeop walked over and seized Jaeha by the collar. The father, who until then had been watching the commotion in silence, finally squeezed his eyes shut.

“You, damn it, from the time you were young you never knew your place.”

“…..”

“Just looking at you was so damn disgusting I could not stand it. Do you understand?”

“Is that my fault?”

At his flat question, Heo Juyeop finally punched him in the face. At the sudden violence, the eyes of the onlookers widened like lanterns.

“Stop! Stop it now!”

The machine that tracked the heartbeat sounded an alarm. Jaeha glanced at the father who panted in shock as he tried to stop them, and he laughed.

Reality truly surpassed dramas. There was no need for a separate set.

“Hey, do you know this?”

“What?”

“Your mother. She slept with Yang Seungho.”

When Jaeha saw the eyes of the man desperate to wound him somehow, he laughed crookedly.

Did Heo Juyeop really believe that this would hurt him? If he really thought so, Jaeha wanted to give applause to the brilliance of his brain. As he affirmed with silence, a strange light flickered in the man’s eyes.

“So you already knew that? Then do you not know this too? That your parents made a bet over it.”

“…What?”

“If your mother had not given in, you would not have lived in such misery. What you just heard, in fact, was all what they said back then.”

“……”

“If your mother had not slept with that bastard, you would already have inherited long ago.”

Jaeha lowered his gaze. His father’s face twisted in pain as he stubbornly kept his eyes closed, gasping for breath, but he didn’t deny it.

So, what Heo Juyeop said was true.

“Do you think there was a single thing in your life untouched by my mother’s hand? The university you entered, the graduate school, the agency. All of it was planned by her.”

They said to make a blade, one must temper steel many times at high heat. Jaeha suddenly thought he was like a lump of metal thrown into a furnace.

“Yet you never doubted once, you just went along every time? Did you ever have a life of your own?”

He felt like residue that failed to become a blade, slipping to the ground and left useless.

Heo Juyeop came close. So close that others could not hear, he whispered into his ear.

“If I were you, I would have been dead long ago.”

Why did these people hate him so much? He had done nothing wrong, so why were they so desperate to torment him forever?

What Heo Juyeop expected was that he would resent his mother, but he felt no such emotion. From the beginning he had never expected anything from her, so thinking he would be disappointed seemed instead like a foolish idea.

He was only weary of everything.

He recalled days of childhood when he struggled inside a cage to be happy somehow, and the days when he eventually resigned himself and submitted. His life held not a single thing that could be called a memory.

A sigh mixed with sorrow leaked through his lips.

There were times when what Heo Juyeop said was right.

As the man said, he truly had no life of his own. He only did as he was told and stopped when he was told to stop.

Perhaps that was why he had no attachment to life.

As he gathered up his quickly cooled emotions, he brushed off his collar. By then, blood vessels had burst in Heo Juyeop’s eyes, and with a twisted smile he still tried to scratch at him until the end.

“If you are going to live like that anyway, then why do you not follow your mother, right?”

When would the malice of these people end?

Perhaps, it would not end until the day he vanished from the world.

He did not remember well with what state of mind he came back. He only knew that he was so exhausted that his feet dragged, and his whole body felt as heavy as if sandbags had been tied to it.

As soon as he entered the house, on the table most visible, a white business card gleamed. It was the business Lawyer Seo Hamin’s card,which he had begged and begged from the manager.

He swept his eyes over the familiar print with a blank face. He had toyed with it so much with his fingertips that the good paper already rippled.

“…It was good that I didn’t go.”

He felt that if he had gone to see him and then experienced such things, he would not have been able to remain as calm as he was now.

Even though he was not wearing a necktie, his breath tightened. For the first time in a long while, many voices whispered this and that at his ear. The noise made it impossible to do anything.

He opened the door of the room that he had not entered for half a year. He approached the easel and canvas board that had remained as they were when he had closed it. The seat he sat in after such a long time did not feel unfamiliar or awkward at all. It only felt as if he had finally found his place again.

The hand that held the pencil trembled.

The noise receded.

For a very brief moment, he closed his eyes and opened them again.

On the floor, many drawings he could not remember were scattered.