Chapter 15

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 15
Chapter Title: A Dog of a Day
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Hearing the scream, Taeseo and the restaurant owner turned their heads toward the convenience store.

In front of the store, An Yuna’s hair was being yanked by a haggard-looking man.

Just as Taeseo was about to intervene, the owner of Seongwoo Baekban rushed past him toward the store.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, that goddamn bastard!”

The owner of Seongwoo Baekban grabbed the clothes of the man pulling Yuna’s hair.

“What’s your problem now? Why are you causing a scene again!”

Even as the restaurant owner struggled to pull the man off An Yuna, he kept a tight grip on her hair, shaking his hand back and forth.

“Hey, you! You’ll be damned if you keep tormenting a girl with no one to depend on! You should act like a human being, a human being! What the hell do you think you’re doing, drunk day in and day out!”

“This bitch is trying to steal the money my mother made from this building! She should be grateful we raised her this much after her mother birthed her from whoring around! Ungrateful bitch who doesn’t even know the meaning of gratitude!”

“Get your facts straight! Gratitude? What gratitude! You can’t even act like a proper person yourself, who are you to talk about raising anyone!”

The louder the restaurant owner’s voice grew, the tighter the man’s grip on Yuna’s hair became.

“What’s the passcode to the bank account! Who do you think you are, changing it without permission! Give me the passcode now!”

“The bank loan has to be paid! We need that money to pay the loan so we don’t fall behind!”

An Yuna, despite having her hair pulled, spoke her mind without a hint of fear. Her attitude only enraged the man further, and a stream of curses poured from his mouth.

“This damn bitch sweet-talked a clueless old woman into putting up a building. And now she’s using it to suffocate us! This damn bitch!”

Caught between An Yuna and the man, the owner of Seongwoo Baekban tried desperately to separate them.

“My god, this wretch is going to kill the girl. He’s going to kill her! Yunho, you son of a bitch. Why aren’t you stopping your father! Are you just going to let him kill Yuna!”

An Yunho, who was watching the counter, merely looked on as if An Yuna deserved it, making no move to step in.

“I said give me the money now!”

“No!”

Unable to watch any longer, Taeseo started running toward them. Just then, the middle-aged man holding An Yuna’s hair grabbed a soju bottle from under a parasol table.

Before the horrified restaurant owner could stop him, the soju bottle whistled through the air and struck An Yuna’s head.

“!”

With a dull thud, An Yuna’s body staggered. As she stumbled, she raised a hand to the spot where she’d been hit. Blood began to seep from where she touched, trickling down her face.

The crimson blood flowed silently, staining An Yuna’s pale skin red. The owner of Seongwoo Baekban, who witnessed it all, shrieked.

“Oh my god, what do we do? Oh my god!”

Taeseo rushed over and supported Yuna by the shoulder. He quickly caught her as her legs gave out and helped her to her feet.

“Where’s the nearest emergency room?”

“There’s Seongshim Hospital in the town center. You can go there.”

At the restaurant owner’s words, Taeseo helped Yuna toward his car. The man who had hit her stared blankly at them for a moment before turning and walking into the convenience store.

* * *

Once in the driver’s seat, Taeseo took a pack of wet wipes from the glove box and passed it to the back. The owner of Seongwoo Baekban hurriedly pulled out a wipe and pressed it to Yuna’s forehead.

Taeseo watched them in the rearview mirror as he drove.

The white wipe was instantly soaked in red. The blood saturated one entire pack of wipes and was already staining the new ones she pulled out.

The car, once filled with a woody scent, was now tainted with the smell of blood. It was the first time he realized how strong the scent of human blood could be.

“The main road will take too long. Don’t go that way, turn right onto the farm road up ahead.”

Sitting in the back, the restaurant owner gave Taeseo directions to the hospital while pressing the wipes to Yuna’s head to stop the bleeding.

The GPS was pointing toward Seongshim Hospital, but the route the restaurant owner was giving him was different.

Taeseo followed her directions. The path she indicated seemed to be a shortcut known only to locals, as they reached the hospital, which the GPS had estimated would take 25 minutes, in just 15.

As they entered the emergency room, a white-haired doctor on duty rushed over. The rural hospital’s ER was practically empty, so she could receive treatment immediately.

The doctor stitched Yuna’s skin without any anesthetic. The gash where her scalp began was long and required several stitches.

Just as when she was hit and started bleeding, An Yuna didn’t let out a single groan. Watching her, Taeseo’s palms grew slick with sweat.

Finding it difficult to watch, Taeseo turned and stepped out of the emergency room.

Taeseo waited for An Yuna’s treatment to finish, then went to the reception desk and paid the hospital bill. The staff on duty told him that all the nearby pharmacies were closed and gave him the medication from the hospital’s dispensary.

With the medicine in hand, he walked back toward the ER and saw the owner of Seongwoo Baekban and Yuna sitting side-by-side on a long bench.

He was about to approach them when the restaurant owner’s voice made him stop in his tracks.

“Why was your older uncle causing a scene again?”

“I think Older Brother Yunho told him the second-floor studio was rented out.”

“So he came to demand the rent for himself? To spend it on booze?”

“Yes…”

“That rotten bastard. He already drank away all the land he had, and now he wants to take that money to drink too. He should’ve drowned in a liquor vat a long time ago for this kind of trouble to stop. He should have drowned in liquor or fallen into a ditch drunk…”

“Please don’t say things like that.”

“Have you no pride? You got beaten until you bled, and you still don’t like hearing your uncle get bad-mouthed? My, what a fool.”

Yuna, about to say something, noticed Taeseo approaching and closed her mouth. The owner of Seongwoo Baekban, who had been cursing, also fell silent.

As Taeseo stepped in front of them, An Yuna stood up and bowed her head.

“Thank you.”

“I’ve paid the bill. Here’s the medicine.”

“Ah, yes. I’ll wire you the money for the bill.”

“Sure.”

With that dry exchange, Taeseo walked past them toward the hospital entrance. The two women followed behind him.

The car ride back to the village was even more silent than the trip to the hospital.

An Yuna kept her lips sealed as if they were glued shut, and the owner of Seongwoo Baekban, having already figured out the whole story, didn’t try to make conversation either.

Soon, the Seongwoo Baekban restaurant came into view in the distance.

It seemed she was serious about not leaving the restaurant to her husband, even for a short outing, as the lights were off during what should have been the dinner rush.

When Taeseo stopped the car in front of the restaurant, the owner got out, insisting that he come by for a meal next time.

Having figured out that her personality was to pester someone until she got the answer she wanted, Taeseo made an empty promise that he would and started driving again.

The car entered the single-lane road leading from Seongwoo Baekban to the convenience store. An Yuna remained completely silent.

The silence between them became uncomfortable, and Taeseo asked her a question.

“You got hit because of me again this time, didn’t you?”

“Because of you?”

“Yeah. He hit you because he wanted the rent for the second floor.”

“Ah, yes.”

“What do you mean, ‘Ah, yes’? Like an idiot.”

At his words, An Yuna let out a small laugh. The sound was out of place, and Taeseo glanced at the rearview mirror.

A desolate smile lingered on An Yuna’s face. No, it wasn’t so much a smile as a weak expression of resignation or acceptance. It wasn’t a look a twenty-year-old should have in a situation like this.

On impulse, Taeseo turned the car onto a farm road that branched off from the main path. At the same moment, An Yuna’s lips moved.

“I don’t know why everything in the world is so unfair.”

Taeseo didn’t ask what was so unfair.

He didn’t need to. He already knew what she meant.

They say you have to be born on the right side of the tracks, and Kwon Taeseo, having grabbed the right umbilical cord from birth, enjoyed far more rights than others.

He mostly used those rights to avoid doing things he disliked rather than to do things he wanted, but he was well aware that his situation and An Yuna’s—who had to do everything with her own two hands regardless of her preferences—were as different as heaven and earth.

Even as he drove along the farm road that followed the stream, Yuna didn’t ask why he wasn’t heading to the convenience store. Taeseo, too, drove on without a destination, adding no unnecessary words.

After about two kilometers, the stream widened into a river. There wasn’t a single house in sight. He stopped the car in a place where there was nothing but the stream cutting through a wide plain and green rice paddies stretching out on either side.

The moon settled on the black stream. The water that held the moon flowed silently, peacefully. Occasionally, a large fish living in the stream would cut through the water, disturbing the moon’s reflection.

The only things moving were the fish rising to the surface and the green reeds rustling against each other.

With the windows closed, it felt completely cut off from the outside world, but cracking them open revealed a different world entirely. The chirping of insects flew in, loud and clear.

“What’s so unfair?”

He asked the question he should have asked earlier, much later.

He asked even though he thought it was only natural for her to say it was unfair, having been beaten until her head bled just to protect a measly 600,000 won. He knew the answer, but he asked anyway.

But an unexpected answer came from Yuna’s lips.