Monday, 06 August 2007

• *Chapter Seventeen* A Woman I Don't Know Part III

  
  

  
  

  
  

  < Part 3 >

  
  

  
  

  Han Kyul ate dinner with his grandmother at her favorite potato noodle restaurant and followed her to her favorite traditional tea house to drink persimmon leaf tea. His grandmother, who'd sipped her tea quietly while listening to traditional instrumental music, suddenly opened her small handbag. From there, she pulled out an old, worn picture.

  
  

  Han Kyul looked at the woman who smiled at him and then looked back at his grandmother.

  
  

  “Why are you doing this? This is different from the contract agreement.”

  
  

  “I'm not telling you to go on an arranged date. I don't know how to begin.”

  
  

  After pausing for a moment, she continued in a low, calm voice,

  
  

  “This is your mother who gave birth to you.”

  
  

  “What?”

  
  

  Han Kyul furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the picture. His eyes gradually widened and he felt his heart drop. All the blood in his veins seemed to grow cold.

  
  

  “It wasn't long after your father entered Dong Yi Construction. There was an accident at the Ma San Construction site. He was there for a month to take care of the situation, and apparently that's where he met her. They say she was a singer at a nightclub. About two months after he returned, he suddenly began drinking a lot and he wouldn't smile. He even made mistakes at work, so I investigated the matter, and it turns out that the girl was pregnant with you.”

  
  

  Han Kyul grew rigid with shock.

  
  

  “G-grandma...”

  
  

  “You're probably pretty shocked. But I couldn't think of any other way. I'm sorry, Han Kyul. Your mother didn't give birth to you. But you know how good she was and is to you, right? You can't feel lonely or sad, hmm?”

  
  

  “G-grandma... then... I.... I'm.... Th-then I'm my father's son?”

  
  

  “Of course. Do you think your father didn't make sure you were before he brought you? You're most definitely part of our bloodline.”

  
  

  A cold sweat broke out in his back. His head started to spin. His blood, that had been frozen, began to jump in his veins, heating his body. It felt like it was going to start spurting out of the back of his head. It wasn't because he was happy or glad. It was because he felt anger and regret at himself, who'd never even bothered to find out the whole truth, and who'd lost himself in his own conclusions.

  
  

  “Han Kyul....”

  
  

  “W-where is this woman...”

  
  

  “I sent her to America. I prepared a position for her in a place where there were a lot of Korean people. But not even a month before she arrived, we heard that she died in an accident while touring a mountain.”

  
  

  “S-she left her son here... without a word....”

  
  

  “You, whose hot temper resemble your father's the most, should know better than anyone. It seems he told her that he'd give her enough money to spend in a lifetime so she'd take you with her. I stopped him in this. You're part of our bloodline, how could we leave you with a woman who used to be a nightclub singer.... I didn't want to leave you with your birth mother. It was my greed. So I convinced him to let you stay with us. She was twenty-four at the time.”

  
  

  “Then what's the orphanage about? Wasn't I brought home from the orphanage?”

  
  

  “You....”

  
  

  “I found out about that by coincidence.”

  
  

  “I didn't even know..... I should've told you earlier....” his grandmother let out a long sigh. He offered her water, and drained a cup clean himself.

  
  

  “When did you find out? You must've thought a lot of things.”

  
  

  “.....”

  
  

  “We couldn't just bring you home because of your mother.”

  
  

  “So you brought me through the guise of adoption?”

  
  

  “It was the only way. But it was no use anyway. Your mother's quick on the uptake and she figured it out soon enough. Not six months had gone by when I had to tell her everything. It seems she'd been prepared for it, because she didn't seem too surprised. It was hard on her for a month or two. And then she changed her mind. Even if I thanked her a hundred, no, a thousand times, it wouldn't be enough.”

  
  

  “What about Father?”

  
  

  “He was outraged, but what could he do? He was the sinner. He had no choice in the matter.”

  
  

  Han Kyul stared at the picture again. Now that he looked at it, it did look like a promotional picture that a nightclub would use. She wore thick makeup and had wavy hair. His mother now was a magnificent, fun and cool person. That fact that she'd taken a son her husband had borne out of wedlock as her own showed this more than sufficiently. But this woman... he didn't know.

  
  

  “Do you want to see her? She's your blood, after all...”

  
  

  “No. I don't feel anything. I don't want to see her or anything. She's a woman I don't know anyway.”

  
  

  “Do you resent me? For taking you away from your birth mother....”

  
  

  Han Kyul lifted his head and looked at his grandmother. Remorse filled her benevolent face. His heart ached at her reddened eyes. Tears came to Han Kyul's eyes. He shook his head and said in a choked voice,

  
  

  “N-no....... no, Grandma.”

  
  

  “Do you, do you see why I had to tell you this?”

  
  

  Han Kyul quickly wiped his eyes and looked at her.

  
  

  “Because of the company?”

  
  

  “I know that you have talent and ambition in management. Whether you come into the company or not is your decision. I would just like for you to get along better with your father. I know that the way your father was strict with you was different from the way he treated Han Kyu or Han Hui. He didn't forgive the smallest mistake from you. Han Kyu would pretend to be sick to skip cram school, and he wouldn't care, but you, you would be scolded to an inch of your life. I know, I know.”

  
  

  Han Kyul fell into reverie and said,

  
  

  “He'd leave Han Hui nuna alone even if she fell asleep during piano practice time. He whipped my calves for reading a science book during piano time.”

  
  

  His grandmother gave a deep sigh and looked at Han Kyul with a compassionate gaze.

  
  

  “It's his own guilty conscience. Your mother was so good to you and him, so he felt even more sorry and guilty. He was trying to make up for his own sins.... Han Kyul.”

  
  

  “Yes, Grandma.”

  
  

  “It seems there are no father-son relationships that are easy in this world.”

  
  

  Tears ran down Han Kyul's cheeks.

  
  

  “Your father and your late grandfather were the same. Your grandfather often said that you would accomplish anything you set your mind to. He never treated his son with half as much affection as he did you. Didn't your father have a hard time because he never received attention from his own father?”

  
  

  “Yes.....”

  
  

  “It seems there are such things between fathers and sons. From some moment, they began to understand each other and they got along. They would go golfing together and hiking together. Later on, they grew comfortable with each other and got along like friends. Why don't you do the same? Understand your father and....”

  
  

  Han Kyul sobbed silently. He hid his tears with his hands and said to himself,

  
  

  What are you feeling so lonely for, you idiot? You idiot....

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  After leaving his grandmother, Han Kyul drove around for a while. After about two hours, he found himself sitting by the river, watching the riverwater flow past him. A face rose up in his hollow mind and he took out his cell phone.

  
  

  [Hello! This is Coffee Prince!]

  
  

  As long as he wasn't hungry, his voice was always full of energy. Han Kyul smiled softly and said in a purposefully stiff voice,

  
  

  “Hey you, what happened to the “home of delicious coffee” part?”

  
  

  [You told me to get rid of it because it was tacky. Man, you really do whatever you want, huh?]

  
  

  “That's because I'm the owner, kid. How was business?”

  
  

  [Oh, so you do care. We were hella busy. As expected, with the ice man gone, customers just flooded in.]

  
  

  “You letting your tongue flap because we're on the phone?”

  
  

  [Aren't you coming in? Ha Rim is waiting for you.]

  
  

  Oh, that's right. He'd totally forgotten about Ha Rim's problem.

  
  

  [Hey, how can you get the kid to completely leave the house? You should've gotten them to solve the problem peacefully somehow. What's this about reporting him to the police? Tsk tsk.]

  
  

  “You're one to talk. Why'd you let the kid sleep at the store? Instead of sending him home, you let him sleep on the store floor? You need a good scolding.”

  
  

  [I g-guess that was wrong of me.]

  
  

  En Chan immediately admitted his mistake, his voice dejected. Han Kyul became dejected along with him. He needed En Chan to talk back to him belligerently so that he could feel better. He'd called En Chan so that he could become energized. It was better than being comforted.

  
  

  [I didn't think ahead. What are we doing to do about Ha Rim?]

  
  

  “Tell him to come to the Dong Yi Hotel. I'm going there myself.”

  
  

  [Oh, you're going to let him sleep there? Lucky bastard. He gets to sleep in a luxury hotel, eh? Hey, by the way, what's wrong with your voice?]

  
  

  “Now you're picking a fight about my voice?”

  
  

  [No, it's just that it sounds different than usual....]

  
  

  Pretty sharp for a little boy.

  
  

  “I might be coming down with something.”

  
  

  [That's because you keep wandering around at night. Tsk tsk. Stop going to all those useless nightclubs and go home and eat some soup. You really want to go club-hopping at that age?]

  
  

  “Hey punk, how dare you say 'wandering around' to your own sajang?! You starting to think you can step all over me, huh?”

  
  

  [I don't know what you call it, but I call leaving the store behind to play around 'wandering around.' You didn't get that? Oh, closing time. I'm hanging up now.]

  
  

  “Hey! You punk, hey!”

  
  

  Han Kyul shouted into the phone. When he saw that the call had ended, he smiled. He wanted to hear more of the kid's voice. But Han Kyul felt much better now. For some reason, he always felt a strange kind of peace when he spoke to him. He was able to show himself openly and honestly. So he felt better.

  
  

  “Cute bastard.”

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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