Hambaek Flower Restaurant - Chapter 45

Choi Yoon took the paper cup from Kim Ye Rin’s hand. He muttered.

“For someone who doesn’t drink coffee. How can you have so many cups? You won’t be able to sleep.”

“Because I feel so sorry.”

Kim Ye Rin smiled weakly.

“To Seo Jung. Because I feel so sorry.”

Before she could finish speaking, Kim Ye Rin’s face contorted. It twisted as if tears were about to pour out at any moment. However, she did not cry.

“When I got Choi Yoon’s call, I hesitated for a moment. I couldn’t come right away. I thought there might be some way without me having to come.”

Kim Ye Rin barely swallowed.

“But that’s not right, is it? Even if there were ten thousand ways, I should have come. That moment of hesitation, I feel so sorry…”

There were things I needed to say to Kim Ye Rin. There were questions I had held back, and many answers I needed to hear. I swallowed them all. I just couldn’t bring myself to speak them.

So the words that came out were plain. The kind of thing anyone could say. Unremarkable, bland comfort.

However, I never thought I would actually say it.

“But you came in the end, didn’t you?”

Kim Ye Rin fiddled with her pale fingertips, her hands resting on her knees. I wanted to hold those hands, always wet and burnt, covered in scars. It was an overwhelming urge.

My mouth felt dry. Only then did I realize I hadn’t eaten anything today.

Choi Yoon downed the rest of the coffee in one gulp. It was lukewarm. Unpleasantly sweet, it did nothing to quench my thirst.

Kim Ye Rin asked.

“Why did he quit school?”

Choi Yoon tensed, making sure not to inadvertently grab Kim Ye Rin’s hand. He squeezed the innocent paper cup tightly instead.

“I don’t know. When I called the school to get a guarantee, they said he wasn’t enrolled. That’s all I know.”

Kim Ye Rin was silent for a moment. Then she spoke, as if sighing.

“He probably quit because he couldn’t play baseball anymore.”

Choi Yoon remembered the traces of sports equipment in Han Seo Jung’s room.

“He was injured. He was very promising.”

Kim Ye Rin’s hands resting on her knees looked like aged organic matter rather than living things imbued with will.

“Was it an accident?”

“He was lynched.”

Kim Ye Rin didn’t add any explanation.

Choi Yoon felt sick to his stomach. Surely there must have been a situation and process to the bullying. Who, when, where, how. Even a pathetic excuse would do.

But Kim Ye Rin just breathed weakly, staring down at something. Her tone was nonchalant.

“It could have happened anytime. Because he’s mixed-race, I always told him to never let his guard down. But in the end, it happened.”

Suddenly Kim Ye Rin lifted her head and looked this way. Their eyes met.

For a moment, Kim Ye Rin’s eyes widened. She seemed surprised by the expression on Choi Yoon’s face. Choi Yoon couldn’t be sure what kind of face he was making. He hastily composed his expression.

Kim Ye Rin added gently, meeting Choi Yoon’s eyes.

“Seo Jung said he fell asleep in the practice room then. Since he’s tall and strong, no one could touch him when he was awake, but he became a target while sleeping.”

The explanation was concise for a life that had been ruined. As if nothing more was needed.

“In a group, maybe a monster would have it better. Mixed-race people don’t fit in anywhere.”

Those thin, weak hands resting on her knees trembled slightly.

“Seo Jung wanted to get stronger. That’s why he started sports. He said he wanted to prepare for when his father might come back someday. He wanted to become strong. That led to baseball. He received a lot of expectations. Everyone said he was good, and his grades were good too.”

A faint smile flitted across Kim Ye Rin’s face.

“Seo Jung is most beautiful when playing baseball.”

As if she didn’t know how to cry, a tear fell like a dry fruit. It dropped as a single drop, as if cutting it off, and didn’t flow after that. Only moisture silently swelled in her large eyes.

“But he got hurt again. The leg that was injured before, he hurt it again this time.”

Something fell and rolled on the corridor floor. It was several crumpled paper cups, overlapped and terribly crushed. The ones I had been holding until just now.

Only then did Choi Yoon realize that he was gently covering Kim Ye Rin’s hands with one of his own.

Kim Ye Rin didn’t push away Choi Yoon’s touch. She said quietly.

“I should have brought Seo Jung to the restaurant earlier. I should have done it even forcibly. Because Seo Jung was so reluctant.”

Choi Yoon gently readjusted his grip on Kim Ye Rin’s hands. They were cold and dry, and surprisingly soft.

“It’s my fault. There was no room because I was staying there. If I had known just a little earlier that Seo Jung was living alone, I would have brought him…”

He swallowed his words and winced slightly. Pain shot through his shoulder. He thought he had suppressed it without showing it, but Kim Ye Rin was already quietly looking up at him.

Staring intently at Choi Yoon’s shoulder with her jet-black eyes, Kim Ye Rin muttered.

“There it is. The escaped shapeshifter.”

“I misjudged.”

“It wasn’t a completely wrong judgment. The village chief said you witnessed the police letting a shapeshifter go right under their noses. As if it was staged, or they were giving a free pass.”

Thinking about that time made his stomach churn again. It was once again a confirmation of what exactly the police were staying for.

Their purpose is not to search for shapeshifters.

Choi Yoon said.

“There’s not even a single line in the news. Even though the residents reported it several times.”

Kim Ye Rin looked truly troubled. She muttered.

“I’ve thought about that too. That maybe the Center deliberately released the shapeshifter they were transporting.”

Choi Yoon agreed as well. If it was to have a pretext for the state of emergency, it wouldn’t be difficult to loosen the security of the transport vehicle. But there was something that didn’t quite add up.

“The risk is too high.”

Kim Ye Rin blinked. Choi Yoon spoke again.

“If they release a shapeshifter, they might gain a pretext for the state of emergency, but they’d have to risk another danger.”

Kim Ye Rin seemed to have no idea what Choi Yoon was talking about. Her reaction rather confused Choi Yoon.

“There are precedents. The violent crimes they commit.”

Her pretty face turned cold in an instant. That face was similar to when they clashed over the same topic at the protest headquarters. Choi Yoon thought Kim Ye Rin might lash out.

However, Kim Ye Rin only slowly exhaled. Her quiet question was close to resignation.

“What was the shapeshifter you saw like?”

The overwhelming size with sparse, disheveled feathers on patchy wings. The huge claws that grabbed Choi Yoon’s shoulder when cornered, but Choi Yoon clearly read the momentary hesitation.

Before he could even recall that yellow, venom-filled, miserable gaze, Kim Ye Rin added another question.

“How do I look to you?”

Choi Yoon looked deep into Kim Ye Rin’s eyes. He tried to read her innermost thoughts.

Whether she thought he still didn’t know anything and was boldly testing him, or if she had given up completely after failing to escape.

But it seemed like Kim Ye Rin was the one seeing through him, not the other way around. She whispered lowly, as if peering into him.

“Do you think I would kill someone?”

Choi Yoon couldn’t answer.

Across the corridor, beyond the lobby where countless people were busily coming and going, a familiar figure stood still, staring intently at them.

Casually dressed in a hoodie and jeans. Holding a tablet and phone in his unusually large hands, he stared straight at Choi Yoon while slowly removing an earphone from one ear with his other hand. His usually businesslike face was clearly bewildered, as if he had encountered an alien.

Choi Yoon stood up. He picked up the paper cup and threw it in the trash, then said to Kim Ye Rin.

“Wait here for a moment. I’ll be right back.”

He walked over briskly. Before Choi Yoon could open his mouth, Yoo Ji Ho spat out as if clicking his tongue.

“You like it?”

“What?”

“Holding hands and all.”

Choi Yoon was at a loss for words.

“I was comforting her. I held her hand without realizing.”

“Oh, without realizing.”

“Don’t joke around. Did you come here for work?”

“Of course. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

Choi Yoon took out his phone and looked at it. The screen was dark.

“It’s off. I didn’t know. How did you know I was here?”

“When your resident registration number is entered into the hospital system, Lee Kang Woo gets an alert right away. You didn’t know?”

“What?”

Choi Yoon couldn’t believe his ears.

“What did you just say…? Is that possible? What exactly did you do? No, more importantly…, are you in your right mind?”

“Well, the great CEO Lee Kang Woo, who can accomplish anything with his mighty capital, is not in his right mind to begin with.”

Choi Yoon roughly rubbed his face. He felt chills down his spine.

“Since when?”

“Since you were hospitalized for overwork two years ago. To be precise, from the day after he called me in and berated me for not reporting on time while eating company money, when he found out two days later that you had been hospitalized and discharged.”

Choi Yoon cursed under his breath. Yoo Ji Ho was nonchalant.

“Why? It’s useful sometimes. Thanks to intercepting the system data, I know right away where you are.”

Then Yoo Ji Ho clicked his tongue. He abruptly reached out and pulled Choi Yoon’s hat down firmly.

“Are you advertising that you’re Choi Yoon?”

Choi Yoon pulled his mask up to the bridge of his nose.

“Why did you come? It must not be something you could say over the phone if you came all the way here.”

“First, I came because I was worried. I wanted to see for myself when I heard you were hurt.”

At the end of his words, Yoo Ji Ho looked Choi Yoon up and down. Choi Yoon pointed to his shoulder hidden under his clothes.

“It’s a bit torn.”

“How much?”

“About seven stitches.”

“Will it scar?”

“It probably won’t be very clean.”

Hmm, Yoo Ji Ho nodded as if it wasn’t a big deal. Choi Yoon blinked.

“You’re not angry?”

Yoo Ji Ho looked rather bewildered.

“Why would I be angry?”

“Your body is damaged. You’re an actor.”

“If a scar forms, then I’ll become an actor with a scar. As long as your head is still properly attached, it’s fine.”

Even as he said this, Yoo Ji Ho didn’t take his eyes off Choi Yoon’s shoulder. That gaze was familiar.

When Choi Yoon couldn’t even finish a single roll of kimbap, or when he woke him up at dawn after falling asleep on the sofa without even taking off his clothes due to exhaustion. Yoo Ji Ho often had that look in his eyes.

Yoo Ji Ho was about to say something more but closed his mouth. Then he said cheerfully.

“Well, I’ve checked your condition. Let’s go outside for the rest.”

Yoo Ji Ho jerked his chin. They left the lobby and went down the stairs. They stopped at an empty landing.

Seeing Yoo Ji Ho carefully surveying the surroundings before speaking, Choi Yoon sensed it was an important matter.

The usual Yoo Ji Ho doesn’t restrain himself this much for most things. He has the skilled ability to convey secret points to Choi Yoon loudly without subjects or objects, even in a crowded wrap party full of other people.

“I’ll tell you first so you don’t misunderstand.”

He doesn’t often use this expression either. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve heard it.

“The reason I came to ask in person is not because I don’t trust you. I just thought maybe there wasn’t a chance to mention it to me, or you didn’t feel the need to. Because it happened before I became your manager.”

Choi Yoon had no idea what Yoo Ji Ho was trying to say.

Yoo Ji Ho took a short deep breath. He looked up.

“Have you ever received sponsorship?”