Younger Man at Work (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 55

The day my mother was cremated, a misty rain fell.

“Master, it’s fine if you just cry.”

Butler Kim, who had helped Seung Joo personally carry the late’s coffin, came over and whispered softly—his own eyes red-rimmed, barely holding back his sobs.

[Cremation Furnace No. 1 / Deceased: Kang Hye Sun]

Seung Joo looked up at his mother’s name displayed on the electronic sign showing the cremation status and replied,

“I’m fine.”

Even as he spoke, the loud, theatrical wailing of his stepmother, Ji Yeon Hwa, echoed from a distance.

“Madam, how pitiful! After all this time waiting for her son, to end like this so abruptly…!”

Butler Kim probably assumed he was forcing himself not to cry because of his stepmother and half-brother. Yet in truth, Seung Joo wasn’t suppressing tears at all—he simply couldn’t cry.

No one had been notified of the death, leaving the funeral hall eerily empty. As the chief mourner, he sat alone with nothing to do but silently share drinks with Butler Kim. He’d filled his stomach with soju for three straight days, right up until this morning, yet remained completely sober and clear-headed.

Even though his long-missing mother had finally returned—only to become a handful of ashes before his eyes—his heart remained utterly calm, as numb as skin under anesthesia, unable to feel even the prick of a needle.

Since his mother had already been reduced to bare bones when found, her cremation took little time. After barely an hour, she was placed into a light, small box and nestled into the arms of her grown son.

As he climbed into the car heading to the columbarium, holding the box containing his mother, Seung Joo thought:

How desperately I’d longed to hold you again, Mother—and now I finally can.

Then why don’t I feel any joy at all?

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