Vol. 1 - Ch. 26

Sensing that Ju Cheol-rim was feeling uncomfortable, I asked for his understanding, saying, ‘Uncle, one moment’, with the intention of shutting him up before he said anything.The next thing I did was to rush to the counter.

‘Let’s see, where did I put it?’

After wandering around for a while, I opened the shelf inside the counter and took out a small pouch. I had put a few coins inside in advance in case something like this happened.

I returned to Ju Cheol-rim and politely handed him the cloth bag.

“Here. It is nothing much. Just a token of my sincerity.”

“Hehe, you didn’t have to.”

So it seems like I am paying tribute to him.

“I said business has been good for a few days, but there are many places to stay, so I couldn’t add as much as before; still, it won't be to the point where Uncle gets upset and leaves.”

“Eun-ri…”

Ju Cheol-rim pretended to be touched.

‘Uncle…’

It isn’t that I was fooled by his mediocre acting, but I roughly guessed it.

For reference, the amount of money that will get food means that he wouldn’t feel embarrassed about it, either to bet on gambling or hand it to a lady in the bar.

Why was I handing a gambler my hard-earned money? The solution is easy to understand.

‘I don’t know what else to do.’

If I didn’t hand over the money myself, this guy, my uncle, is a person who could secretly search the cash register and take out all the money I had.

Furthermore, it was clear that he would demand twice as much money as I had budgeted.

Actually, I remember being fooled by Ju Cheol-rim and Wang Dae-geon’s tactics several times when I was unaware about how things work.

One day, they even took all the money to pay the bar’s bills, so I had to borrow a lot from the employees and ended up in debt.

I felt better if I handed him a respectable sum of money beforehand rather than going through such a panic again.

“Right. The in-house ledger cannot be damaged with a few pennies. Well.”

“Haha, don’t worry.”

The smile never left Ju Cheol-rim’s face, as he must have liked my remarks.

“As expected, Eun-ri, you have a knack for understanding a man’s heart. I am sure you will be loved by your father, even after you get married. Right, Gyu-ho…”

As soon as the name Gyu-ho came out, my lips tightened.

This guy takes the money, eats it, and then tries to drink from it. He was truly a shameless human.

“Ah, come to think of it!”

Ju Cheol-rim stopped what he was saying and looked at me when I hurriedly said something to change the topic.

I kept talking, pretending to glance toward the guesthouse's entrance.

“Uncle, have you seen Mr. Wang? He said he was going to the physician this morning, but I haven’t heard from him yet.”

“Who? Dae-geon?”

I gave a nod. At the mention of Wang Dae-geon, Ju Cheol-rim had this bitter expression.

“Now what? Does he still have a headache?”

“Well, that… I don’t know because he left before I could ask anything. So?”

Ju Cheol-rim clicked his tongue at my words.

“Pathetic bastard. A guy who is as big as a mountain cannot even do anything right.”

He began to speak of remarks about Wang Dae-geon.

“He seems to be shaking because he hit his head while drinking. Ah, who brought a guy like him all the way to the Jangyang village… I must have been insane to do it.”

I expressed my opinion cautiously, knowing every detail of what happened at night, the situation that Wang Dae-geon himself wasn’t aware of.

Ju Cheol-rim, however, casually pushed the pouch inside the breast sleeve without even pretending to listen.

“Well, Eun-ri, you are still too naïve for your age.”

Ju Cheol-rim laughed as if he were laughing.

“I find it unbelievable that you watched Dae-geon for 3 years and still don’t understand. What kind of physician would work for him? At least he didn’t want to work today, so he used that excuse. I bet he is drinking hard at the bar right now.”

After saying that, Ju Cheol-rim stood up.

I moved aside because it appeared like he was ready to leave. A few steps later, he put his hands around both of my shoulders.

I almost got scared and shook off the gentle touch around me, but I just smiled and shook the shoulders a little.

“Eun-ri, you are going through a lot of trouble because of Dae-geon. Did you have a hard time working alone this morning?”

“No.”

I didn’t work alone; I worked with Ja-hyun.

No, my question is: why is this person pretending to care about me now?

“Still, I understand. When my uncle stayed in Hangzhou, he owed a lot to that lowly guy. As you know, despite his stupidity and laziness, Dae-geon is the kindest person alive.”

“…”

I was so shocked that I was speechless.

What? Kinder?

‘Was he talking about Wang Dae-geon?’

I had doubts for a moment, but after thinking about Wang Dae-geon laughing in front of Ju Cheol-rim saying ‘hyung’, I could understand.

‘Right, well, he must be a good and kind younger brother to him.’

On the other hand, what kind of person Wang Dae-geon was to his niece Eun-ri would be of no interest for Ju Cheol-rim.

“Yes, well…”

I wasn’t expecting it anyway.

I knew that Ju Cheol-rim wouldn’t listen no matter what I said about Wang Dae-geon, so I just nodded a couple times.

If I continue with the lukewarm manner, we will just talk about it even though it wasn’t fun. It was with that mindset.

As part of the plan, I looked off into the distance as if I wasn’t interested in this conversation at all.

A familiar face caught my eyes over Ju Cheol-rim’s shoulder.

‘Why is he there?’

That familiar face was none other than Ja-hyun, who I had thought was in the kitchen all along.

The form of leaning crookedly against the wall with one arm crossed in a carefree manner, as if one had come across a temple.

I didn’t know since he was there. Even when he made eye contact with me, he didn’t look away.

‘He probably didn’t see everything I did here, right?’

Then it won’t work. This guy is already ignoring me, but seeing him like that makes me look down on him even more.

It was then.

“Eun-ri, where do you keep going?”

Ju Cheol-rim, who found me unable to take my eyes off his shoulder, tried to look back puzzled.

Flustered at it, I almost instinctively grabbed one of Ju Cheol-rim’s hands and pulled him hard towards me.

“Um, uncle!”

“Uh…?”

Ju Cheol-rim looked surprised at my rushed words. Without paying attention to his reaction, I held onto Ju Cheol-rim’s arms with both hands and briskly walked towards the entrance of the guesthouse.

“You probably have a lot to do, so you should go and check it out! Now, I will see you off the door.”

“Eun-ri, why are you being like this?”

“Come here quickly. I don’t have much time to see my uncle off with the preparations to do for dinner.”

After a while, I grabbed Ju Cheol-rim’s arm and started to talk loudly.

Fortunately, even though Ju Cheol-rim was confused, he was dragged obediently into my hands.

“W-what! Is something over there?”

“Eh, what is there? I just looked out the window and realized the time was running out.”

“Is that so?”

In the end, he stood in front of the door, half-willing, opening the mouth with an expression of discomfort.

“Right. As you said, I need to go now. Have a good day today, and see you tomorrow.”

“Right, bye then.”

Only then did I let go of his arm, which I was holding. As Ju Cheol-rim left the door, he looked back with a suspicious look in his eyes, but the person standing there had vanished before I knew it.

‘No, where did he go now?’

Although I was confused, I decided to put my doubts aside for a moment.

“Ugh, that bastard.”

I looked at the back of Ju Cheol-rim walking away and mumbled softly.

I felt like I wanted to sprinkle a lot of salt on the door for evil eye, but I couldn’t use my precious salt here.

It was almost dinner, so I cursed at him and returned to the kitchen again.

‘Ah, Ja-hyun.’

In front of the kitchen counter. Ja-hyun, who was thought to have vanished, was seen from behind and was about to talk about what happened earlier.

“You just went into the restaurant… eh, shh!”

A fly that hadn’t been found in the kitchen till a while back, perhaps following me, flew near my face with a loud noise.

It could enter the mouth, so I closed my mouth. And I voluntarily craned my neck back and waved my hands wildly. But it wasn’t enough for my hands to catch a fly.

‘This is why I hate summer.’

Even though I absolutely hate bugs. I couldn’t just ignore the flies that invaded my sacred kitchen.

I looked around for a fly swatter that had to be in the kitchen. And leaning against one wall, I found it- the swatter made of woven thin wood.

At that time, a fly was hovering near me. As soon as I got the swatter in hand, I took a big step and whacked it. At that moment, I felt the wind blowing from somewhere tickling my face. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the N0vᴇlFire(.)nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

Puak! Something hit the wall with a sound.

I looked at the wall in surprise. First, the long chopsticks caught my eye.

‘Uh? Chopsticks?’

Right, chopsticks.

It was with them. The chopsticks that passed my face were stuck at the solid wall of the kitchen.

Those weren’t even metal ones, but the normal wooden chopsticks that could be found around.

‘The black thing at the end.’

But there was something else more surprising.

As I stared at one side of the chopsticks stuck on the wall with wide open eyes, I was able to see a large fly with wings attached to the blunt end of the chopsticks. No, to be exact, many.

‘It wasn’t one, but two flies?’

And you are saying he caught it with one hit and two flies? I turned my head and looked at Ja-hyun.

Before I knew it, he had turned this way and was holding the remaining chopsticks in one hand. I let out a soft exclamation.

“Oh…”

“…”

Then, because I had nothing to say, I just pulled out the chopsticks from the wall without a word.

Fortunately, the chopsticks weren’t stuck too deep, but there was nothing I could do about the crack in the wall.

I ignored the dead flies falling down to the ground and held the chopsticks to Ja-hyun. Now here.

“Take this”

“…”

“From now on, these chopsticks are yours. Look, there isn’t even a single scratch on it, despite being stuck in the wall. If it is this good, it won't break even with a good use.”

“Throw it away.”

“Well, maybe it is better.”

I agreed, but it felt like a waste to throw it away, so I decided to keep it in the kitchen for the time being.

Since it was a chopstick that caught a bug and got stuck in the wall, it was a bit difficult to use it for picking up food, and since the summer wasn’t done, I wished for Ja-hyun to catch more bugs with it.

Ah, and.

“Thank you for catching the fly, but humanely let us not make any holes in the wall.”

“…”

“I don’t think you can control it. If there is a hole, it is a hassle to repair it all. You get it?”

“I will think about it.”

As usual, the answer was blunt.

Since I knew it meant something positive, I smiled brightly and tried to tap his shoulder. But as expected, I only touched empty air. Feeling embarrassed for trying to pat him, I went back to working on the food.