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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Chaos
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After sending Ho-chul off, I put Ga-ram in the passenger seat.
Unlike the mad dash on the highway, the car pulled out of the hospital smoothly.
The time was now 2 AM.
A time when even the 24-hour hospital, with its faint lights, seemed to be dozing off.
“Where do you live?”
I realized we didn’t know each other’s addresses.
“…….”
There was no reply, so I glanced to my side.
She was staring at me intently, like a cat.
“Ga-ram?”
“I… I don’t want to go home…”
“But you need to rest.”
“You’ll leave if I go home.”
I could see where this conversation was headed.
I let out a small sigh.
Well, this was my mess. What could I do?
“I have to. I need to rest, too. The drive from Donghae was tough on my body.”
“I’m… I’m sorry. Because of me…”
Ga-ram fidgeted with her hands and lowered her head.
I waited for the left-turn signal on the empty street.
“It was my decision to come.”
Was she reading my mood?
She told me her address.
I punched the address into the navigation and drove according to the directions.
The light turned green.
I pressed the accelerator and gently turned the wheel.
A motorcycle shot past, narrowly missing the car.
I slammed on the brakes, rolled down the window, and hurled a string of curses at the distant motorcycle.
“But, what made you come looking for me?”
Ga-ram asked as we started moving again.
“You sent a lot of calls and texts. I had a weird feeling.”
I spent about five minutes explaining how I knew to send someone to the hospital for her.
She nodded slightly.
“Actually, I got a DM from that person, Hana.”
“A DM…?”
So she had approached her first.
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“Well…”
“She said I hit on every girl, threw money at them, things like that, right?”
“……”
Her silence was filled with meaning.
The time had come to reveal my own shame and explain how this incident had happened.
I swallowed a few times.
My personality—charging headfirst into things I thought were unfair—had hurt many people, and I had been hurt in return.
But I didn’t think this personality was wrong.
At the very least, because of this stubborn nature, I was able to avoid being a coward.
Imposing the same values on myself that I imposed on others.
That was the way I, Kang In-ho, had lived my life.
Right now, I could probably talk her down, send her home, and extinguish this difficult dependency.
But the moment I said these words, the moment I explained to her what I was going to do next.
My relationship with Ga-ram would be irreversible.
She would become more dependent on me, and I would suffer from her obsession.
I knew. I knew it well.
Still, I had no intention of avoiding it.
‘Responsibility.’
I didn’t know what it meant to others, but to me, it was important.
There were no exceptions.
“Hana was someone I seriously considered marrying.”
“…….”
“Thinking back now, I don’t know why. I guess it was for superficial reasons, like her being sexy.”
I began to tell Ga-ram a mix of my understanding of the previous owner and reasons I had fabricated.
“I had money, but I was getting old. No friends, lonely. So I started watching internet streams.”
“So… you were lonely”
“I was treated like an old man everywhere else, but online, if I spent a little money, pretty girls would call me oppa. I liked that.”
“100,000 won and they’d say they loved me. 200,000 won and they’d dance. 1 million for a personal messenger, 2 million for a date, 5 million for a night…”
“After a while, I got confused. I started thinking things like, ‘A guy like me can probably live with girls like that,’ and ‘I have money, after all.'”
“……”
“I guess that’s how I was drawn to Hana. I threw money at her, bought her a car, helped with her business. Heh, pathetic, isn’t it?”
“N-no…”
“Then one day, I snapped out of it. The house was littered with empty liquor bottles, snack wrappers, delivery food… my body was disgustingly fat, and my health was on the verge of collapse.”
The car stopped at a red light.
I glanced to my right.
“That’s why I decided to start working out. And as it happened, there was a gym in one of my buildings.”
“So that’s what happened…”
“I started enjoying exercise, losing a bit of weight, gaining a bit of muscle… It felt like a game. Though I probably would have quit halfway if it wasn’t for you, Ga-ram-ssi.”
I gave her a slight smile.
“And I got to know you well while working out. That’s why I wanted to take care of you more. You were working so hard at such a young age. It was presumptuous of me, but I wanted to repay you in some way.”
And I had the financial means to do so.
I added.
“So I ended up teaching you the method I was most familiar with. And in that process… Hana found out that we were connected and caused this whole incident.”
“I’m sorry, Ga-ram. Because of me…”
The light turned green.
Unable to look at her directly, I used driving as an excuse to face forward.
The car moved on, the scenery of the road constantly changing.
The silence in the car also continued.
“It’s okay. You didn’t do it on purpose…”
Very quietly, she comforted me.
“First, I’ll take full responsibility for this incident. I’ll repair the trashed gym. You should also take a week off.”
According to Ho-chul, the gym was a complete mess. It was in no condition to operate.
I thought this might be a good chance to remodel it.
Replace the broken glass and update the aging equipment.
I had already told Ho-chul to look into relevant contractors.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I said I’d take responsibility, so I won’t take no for an answer. You always said it yourself, that the equipment was old, Ga-ram.”
“And…”
“And, regarding Hana, I’ll tie up the loose ends so you don’t have to worry about her anymore. Take a break from streaming for a while, too.”
“…How? Are you going to meet that bitch? Don’t do it.”
At the mention of Hana, Ga-ram’s tone sharpened.
“I won’t meet her. There’s a way to pay her back without meeting her.”
“Pay her back?”
She tilted her head, not seeming to understand.
By now, the car had arrived near her home.
A shabby villa complex. I leaned forward, looking for the building number.
“The more comfortable people get, the more they let their guard down.”
I said, driving slowly through the alley.
“So, they say things carelessly. Without calculating whether those words will become a problem or not.”
I reached her building.
I parked the car by a wall for a moment and escorted her to her home.
Ga-ram seemed reluctant to show me her shabby house, but I paid no mind.
“Boss… So what are you going to do…?”
After walking her to her front door, Ga-ram asked as I was about to turn back to the stairs.
I took out my phone and waved it at her.
“A lot of people forget their phones have a recording function.”
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