Gun-Ho went up to the rooftop in his office building and took a deep breath. He then went into the book café. It seems the café added more books to their bookshelves than before. There was no customer in the café when Gun-Ho entered it. He ordered a cup of coffee.
The lady, who was working at the book café as she filled up the position that Jae-Sik Moon’s wife left behind, was a friend of GH Media’s President Jeong-Sook Shin. She didn’t seem to recognize Gun-Ho who was the owner of the building and the book café. However, she kept glancing at Gun-Ho as he looked a bit different from other workers in the building— the regulars who often came up to the rooftop to smoke or have a break while having a coffee. His luxurious business suit probably looked different from others.
After having a cup of cappuccino, Gun-Ho came down back to his office on the 18th floor.
Gun-Ho sat at his desk in front of his computer monitor. He then logged into the stock trading application, intending to purchase Dyeon Korea stock at the after-hours trading market.
“Huh? Someone already raised the price by 3%. Well, I will purchase 3,000 shares then, so the increased price can be maintained.”
Gun-Ho made a purchase request at the price of the already-increased-price before leaving for the day.
When Gun-Ho arrived at home, his father-in-law was visiting Gun-Ho’s home.
“Hello, father. I didn’t know you were coming today.”
“How was your day?”
Gun-Ho’s father-in-law was holding Sang-Min, and Young-Eun was preparing dinner in the kitchen. When she heard Gun-Ho’s voice, she came out to the living room, and said with an impassive look on her face, “Since you were away from home for a couple of days, I asked my father to come over and stay with me.”
“That’s good,” Gun-Ho then turned his gaze to his baby boy and said delightedly, “Hi, Sang-Min, daddy is home.”
Gun-Ho picked up his son and kissed him on the cheek. Sang-Min fiddled with Gun-Ho’s tie in Gun-Ho’s arms, and said something that no one could understand. Young-Eun’s father laughed and said, “I guess Sang-Min is saying ‘Dad, welcome back home.’”
“Haha, maybe so.”
Young-Eun said with the same impassive look on her face, “Go and wash yourself. Dinner is almost ready.”
“Oh, okay.”
While taking a shower, Gun-Ho wondered why he couldn’t read any emotion on Young-Eun’s face; she acted weird.
“The last time when I came back home from the trip to Guizhou Province in China, she was happy to see me, but she is different today. Is she suspecting something?”
Gun-Ho smelled his clothes that he had taken off, to see if it reeked anything that could be linked to Mori Aikko. He, in fact, had hugged Mori Aikko several times in the same outfit, and she jumped into his arms several times too. It was very possible that his clothes were smeared with her make-up or perfume. Gun-Ho couldn’t find anything on his clothes, but he put them all into the washing machine anyway.
As he walked into the kitchen, he said, “It smells really good.”
Young-Eun replied, “It’s Galbi-jjim (Korean style beef short ribs dish). I cooked the beef short ribs that we had brought to my father last Thanksgiving Day.”
“Oh, that’s right. Father had brought it back to us saying he doesn’t know how to cook beef short ribs. I didn’t know we still have them.”
Gun-Ho pulled out a bottle of liquor that he purchased at the duty-free shop at the airport. It was Johnnie Walker. When he opened the bottle, his father-in-law quickly stopped him and said, “You don’t have to open the new whisky for me. It’s an expensive one. Open it when you have a guest in your home or on another special occasion.”
“Father, this is not expensive. I brought it because I want to share it with you. Please let me fill up your glass with it.”
Gun-Ho and his father-in-law exchanged several more glasses of Johnnie Walker during the dinner. Galbi-jjim with a glass of liquor tasted heavenly. It was the first Korean food that Gun-Ho had eaten in two days after constantly eating oily Chinese food.
Gun-Ho was getting drunk quicker than usual that evening, probably because his body was exhausted from the trip.
“Are you feeling okay?” Gun-Ho’s father-in-law looked worried.
“Father, tomorrow is Saturday, and I don’t have to go to work, so it’s okay. You will stay here with us tonight, right, father? Please drink as much as you want.”
“Hmm, I’m doing it.”
“Father, I’m afraid that I have to excuse myself for the rest of the evening. I guess I’d better go to bed now. I came straight from the airport, and I guess I’m feeling too tired to stay up.”
“Please do so. You do look exhausted,” Gun-Ho’s father-in-law then turned to Young-Eun and said, “Young-Eun, why don’t you prepare the bed for him?”
“It’s okay, father. I will set the bed myself.”
As soon as he went into his room, Gun-Ho collapsed on the bed and fell asleep right away.
When Gun-Ho woke up, it was 7 o’clock in the morning.
“It’s 7 am already. Chan-Ho Eom will soon arrive to pick me up to go to work. I’d better get up now to get ready. Oh, let me think…, it’s Saturday, isn’t it? That’s right. I don’t have to go to work today. Well, I will get back to bed, and sleep more.”
Gun-Ho fell asleep again. He dreamed about Mori Aikko. In his dream, Mori Aikko was packing her luggage. She then headed to the airport saying that she would go to Otaru City by herself. She was crying hard.
“Aikko!” Gun-Ho uttered Mori Aikko’s name and woke up startled at his own sound.
“Shoot. I’m home now. Thank God that Young-Eun and I are using separate rooms. She would have heard me blurting another woman’s name if she was here with me.”
Gun-Ho got up, walked out of the room, and sat on the sofa in the living room for a while before walking into the kitchen to drink some water; he felt thirsty. He wanted to have cool and fresh barley tea that he knew was always available in the refrigerator.
“You got up?” Young-Eun was in the kitchen cooking something.
“What are you cooking?”
“You need to have a hangover soup for breakfast, don’t you? You drank a lot last night. I’m preparing a hangover soup with bean sprouts and beetroot.”
“A hangover soup with bean sprouts and beetroot?”
“Yeah. Your mother told me that’s your second favorite dish. The first one is your mother’s Doenjang-jjigae (a Korean soybean paste stew), isn’t it?”
“You need to add Manila clam to the soup to make it perfect.”
“I did. Thanks for the tip. I will set the table.”
“I will ask father to join us for breakfast.”
“He left already.”
“Really? When?”
“He left yesterday. Since you came back home, he said he would go to his home.”
Gun-Ho went into the master bedroom. Sang-Min was sleeping while gently breathing. Sleeping Sang-Min looked like an angel. Gun-Ho walked toward him closely intending to give him a kiss when Young-Eun stopped him.
“Leave him alone. He just fell asleep. You will wake him up by touching him. Let’s have breakfast.”
Gun-Ho sat at the dining table.
“This soup smells really good.”
Gun-Ho scooped the soup with his spoon and tasted it. It was a soup with bean sprouts and beetroot, with a touch of soybean paste.
He said as he was nodding his head, “It tastes refreshing.”
“You put all of your clothes including your underwear into the washer, huh?”
“Yeah. Well, let me see, I guess I forgot to put my socks in there.”
“Why am I smelling strong cosmetics from the clothes that you wore during the trip in the washer?”
“Cosmetics? I have no idea. Oh, maybe it was that woman.”
“What woman?!”
“I tried to take a taxi at Nanjing Road in China. When I couldn’t find any taxies available, I had to take the subway instead, which was packed with passengers that day. And a lady, who was wearing really heavy makeup, was closely standing next to me, and she bumped into me several times. I think it was intentional because I was the most good-looking man in the subway that day.
Young-Eun giggled.
“I trust you, oppa.”
“It is totally up to you whether you trust me or not, but I don’t like Chinese women; that I can tell for sure. I love Korean women, and you are the one that I love the most among them.”
Young-Eun giggled again.
“You want some more soup?”
“Nah, I had enough. It was really good. I love the food that you cook for me.”
