Just as I'd Hoped
The next morning.
The parking lot in front of the studio building.
Something black sat there, radiating a presence that felt almost alien to the space. Heavy yet sleek curves. A radiator grille that caught the morning sun and gleamed with liquid brilliance. And mounted above it, a three-pointed star.
A Mercedes-Benz S-Class.
The symbol of a successful man. The car people called a chairman's ride.
"Well? You like it?"
My hyung stood beside me, twirling the key fob between his fingers.
I stared at the car, dazed, then opened my mouth as if I still couldn't believe it.
"Hyung… did you actually lease this?"
"Yeah. Signed the contract yesterday and brought it straight over. Under the company name."
"Even so, isn't an S-Class a bit much? The Sirius settlement money isn't coming in for a while yet. Operating costs are already tight…"
Sure, yesterday's daily sales had cleared a hundred million won—but that was just a number on a screen. Actual cash hitting the account still depended on the settlement cycle. We needed money to run the company right now, and webtoon production costs kept piling up. Pulling a luxury sedan out of thin air like this felt reckless—unlike him.
But hyung just smiled easily and clapped me on the shoulder.
"Relax. I didn't buy this with money from your novels."
"Then what?"
"Ad Like."
The answer caught me off guard.
"Thanks to the CPR you performed in twenty minutes, Ad Like's sales are going completely insane right now. Every contract that got cut off is coming back, and new clients who heard the rumors are lining up at the door."
"Ah…"
"I went over the books with Manager Kim yesterday. This month's projected net profit alone covers the entire corporate operating budget with room to spare. The lease on this car? Honestly, it's not even a tenth of Ad Like's revenue."
He pressed the heavy key fob into my hand.
"Minjun. Cold hard truth—the most important asset our company has right now is you."
His eyes turned serious.
"You need to be comfortable for the writing to flow. You need to be treated properly for our company's standing to rise. You want to roll up to meetings in some beat-up compact? That's not how this works."
"I mean, yeah, but…"
"And this is fair compensation. The work you did saving Ad Like—if you put a price on that, it's worth several of these cars. So stop feeling guilty and drive it."
Something warm tightened in my chest.
It wasn't just about being given an expensive car. It was the way he recognized me—the way he valued me higher than anyone else ever had.
Ding.
"…Fifty million?"
I stared at the screen, doubting my own eyes. The sender was our own company—Muse.
"What's this about?"
"Service fee," hyung said, as if it were nothing.
"Compensation for the planning and design work you handled for Ad Like. I worked it out with the tax accountant so it lands in the lowest tax bracket. Don't worry about it—just use it."
"Hyung…"
"You're heading home for the first time in ages. You really going to show up empty-handed? Our company's star author is pulling in tens of millions a day. Go make a little noise about it."
He opened the rear door to show me. The shopping bags I'd bought at the department store yesterday were neatly arranged inside—the designer handbags every woman supposedly wanted at least one of, and the luxury watch every man supposedly wanted to wear once he'd made it.
"Go. Go make your parents proud. Drive safe."
He waved me off.
I settled into the driver's seat. The supreme leather cocooned my body with a soft, enveloping touch. A pleasant tension ran through the hands gripping the wheel.
I pressed the start button.
The engine's smooth hum resonated with my heartbeat.
"Let's go."
I pressed the accelerator. The car slipped out of the parking lot like water.
Absolute silence—not a whisper of noise. And yet, the moment I put weight on the pedal, a terrifying surge of power.
So this was what success felt like from the driver's seat.
Seoul's familiar forest of buildings fell away behind me, and the highway signs pointing toward home began to appear.
The road I used to travel feeling like livestock being led to slaughter. The road I'd wanted to avoid because of the questions—Have you saved any money? When are you getting married? Can you even buy a house in Seoul?
But today…
Today, that road felt lighter and more exciting than it ever had before.
A quiet satellite city on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province.
A neighborhood café basking in the drowsy afternoon sun. Being a weekday midday, most of the customers were local ajummas.
"Aigoo, why is the weather so hot these days?"
Kim Yeong-ja—Kang Minjun's mother—took a sip of her iced americano and let out a sigh. Today was her day off from the mart. A rare chance to meet up with her neighborhood friends.
"I know, right? Feels like summer already."
Hye-jeong, sitting across from her, fanned herself with her hand in agreement.
"Yeong-ja, how are you holding up at the mart? Standing all day must be rough."
"Eh… you just do it. I've gotten used to it."
Yeong-ja laughed it off good-naturedly. As if it were fine. Of course it wasn't fine. Hauling heavy stock and scanning barcodes on her feet all day left her legs so swollen by night that she could barely sleep. But she couldn't show it. It was work she had to do to get by.
"Still, at least you're healthy. My knees are killing me…"
Mi-sook chimed in from the side. And just like that, the conversation drifted naturally toward children.
"Oh right, Hye-jeong—I heard your daughter got into a major corporation?"
"Yeah. Got lucky. S Electronics."
The corner of Hye-jeong's mouth curled upward.
"Oh my, how wonderful. I hear the performance bonuses there are huge."
"Mm-hmm. She said her project did well this round, so she got a pretty big one. She wanted to rent me a massage chair and I told her no, but she went ahead and signed the contract anyway. Just plopped it right in the living room."
"Good heavens, what a filial daughter."
Mi-sook clicked her tongue with envy.
"What about your son, Mi-sook? He's at a university in Seoul, right?"
"Ugh, don't even start. Tuition, studio rent… my spine is breaking, I tell you."
Mi-sook waved her hands, but a quiet pride threaded through her voice.
"In-Seoul or not, the rent alone is eight hundred thousand won. Money just hemorrhages even if he sits still and breathes. But what can you do? The kid wants to study—you've got to support him."
"Of course. He'll take care of you later."
The conversation rolled on, one parental boast after another. So-and-so's daughter passed the civil service exam. So-and-so's son got promoted at a big company.
Yeong-ja sat between them, quietly fiddling with her straw. There was no opening to jump in. And even if there had been, she couldn't have taken it.
My son…
A dull weight settled in her chest. The guilt of not being able to send him to a university in Seoul. The regret of not getting him into a proper major corporation.
"Yeong-ja."
Hye-jeong spoke up suddenly.
"How's Minjun doing? Still at his company?"
"Huh? Oh… yeah."
"Seoul life must be hard. Is the work manageable?"
"Sure. He's doing fine. So busy I barely get to see his face."
Yeong-ja answered with an awkward smile.
In truth, her husband had told her yesterday that Minjun had quit his job. He'd said he'd explain everything in person when he came down, so she still didn't know the full story. The worry that he might have been fired—that he might be skipping meals—weighed on her like a mountain. But she'd decided to wait until her son brought it up himself. He had always been proud that way.
"Well… the economy's rough these days. I just hope his paycheck comes on time. Watching my daughter, I can tell working at a company is no joke."
"Tell me about it."
Yeong-ja smiled bitterly. She didn't even hope to brag the way the others did—my son gave me allowance, my son bought me gifts. She just wanted him to live an ordinary, uneventful life.
That was when it happened.
Buzz. Buzz.
The phone on the table vibrated.
Her son.
Yeong-ja's eyes went wide.
"Oh my, it's Minjun."
"Your son? Pick it up."
She hurriedly hit the answer button.
"Hello, son? What's going on at this hour?"
"Mom, where are you? You're not home."
The voice on the other end sounded surprisingly bright.
"Oh, Mom's off today, so I'm at a café with some friends. Why?"
"Ah, got it. I just came down, actually."
"Just now? Down here?"
She raised her voice in surprise.
"I heard you were coming, but I didn't realize it was today…?"
"Things worked out that way. I got home and nobody was there, so I called."
"Oh my goodness… what do I do? I'm with my friends."
"It's fine. I figured we could all have dinner together later as a family. I'll come pick you up at the café."
"I'm okay, really…"
"I drove down."
"You drove…?"
It was odd, but she didn't want to keep her friends waiting, so she gave him the café's name for now.
Click.
The call ended. Yeong-ja stared blankly out the window.
"What? Is Minjun coming?"
Her friends asked with curious eyes.
"Yeah… he says he'll be here soon."
"Now? At this hour? Isn't he supposed to be at work?"
Hye-jeong looked puzzled.
"Well…"
A strange aftertaste lingered at the end of the word. The curiosity disguised as concern—Did he get fired?
She'd barely finished explaining that she didn't really know herself when it happened.
A massive black sedan glided onto the road in front of the café. The bodywork flashed in the sunlight—clearly no ordinary car.
"Oh my, what is that car? Is that a Benz?"
"That's an expensive one. An S-Class. Does anyone in this neighborhood drive something like that?"
Her friends murmured among themselves. The café sat right at the edge of the neighborhood, and they knew the local scene well enough to be genuinely curious.
The door opened, and a man stepped out. A rather familiar face. He peered into the café, then broke into a wide smile and waved.
Yeong-ja's eyes went round.
"…Minjun?"
She couldn't trust her own eyes. The man who had just climbed out of that car was her son? It didn't make sense. Her son had never even owned a car.
Ding-a-ling.
The café door opened and Minjun walked in. Every gaze in the room locked onto him.
"Mom!"
He strode over and pulled Yeong-ja into a hug.
"Minjun… what's with the car…"
Still dazed, she squeezed her son's arm as if to confirm he was real.
"I came to visit. I missed you."
"Aigoo, you should have called ahead."
Yeong-ja put on a show of being flustered, but a smile she couldn't hide spread across her lips.
That was when Hye-jeong and Mi-sook approached with peculiar expressions.
"Oh my, is this Yeong-ja's son? Goodness, I barely recognized him."
"Hello. I'm Kang Minjun."
He bowed politely.
"It's been a while."
"It has, hasn't it. But… what about work at this hour? And that car you pulled up in looks awfully nice."
Hye-jeong's question was sharp. It was clearly the one she'd been most eager to ask. A young man, middle of a weekday, rolling up in an expensive car.
Yeong-ja's expression stiffened slightly. She looked nervous, fretting that the words "I got fired" might come out of his mouth.
Minjun smiled easily.
"Ah—I quit my job recently."
"You quit?"
The ajummas' eyes flicked between each other. Yeong-ja gripped Minjun's arm tightly—a signal that there was no need for a detailed explanation.
But Minjun wasn't the least bit cowed.
"I wanted to try a new challenge."
"A new challenge…?"
"Yes. I became a writer. A web novel author."
"A web novel?"
A brief silence fell. The ajummas looked at one another.
"Ah… that thing? Like those internet novels?"
"The stuff kids these days read a lot? Or is that webtoons?"
The reaction was mixed. To the older generation, "web novel author" was still an unfamiliar profession—and more than anything, an unstable one.
"Well… something like that. I do webtoons too, and I write novels."
"Is that so…?"
Hye-jeong's expression shifted into something peculiar. Half pity, half a quiet sense of superiority. The composure of a mother whose daughter worked at a major corporation.
"So… does that actually make money?"
A direct hit.
"I mean, chasing your dreams is fine and all, but… your mother's worked so hard all this time. Don't you think a stable job would be better?"
Meddling dressed up as concern. A barb with real bone in it.
Yeong-ja's face flushed red.
"Hey now, what kind of thing is that to say? My son will figure things out just fine on his own."
She hurriedly stepped in front of Minjun—because she hated seeing her son dismissed. Because her pride was stung.
But Minjun gently wrapped an arm around his mother's shoulders. Then he turned to face the ajummas.
In the past, a question like this would have made him flinch. He would have flushed with inferiority, or mumbled some vague non-answer. He wouldn't have come home at all, just to avoid questions like this.
But things were different now.
The corner of Minjun's mouth curved into a soft smile. There wasn't a single flicker of hesitation in his eyes. Overflowing confidence seemed to wrap around him like a second skin.
"Of course."
"I make more than enough to spoil my mother rotten."
He offered no further explanation. Just that quiet smile—the calm before a storm.
"…So the money's decent, then?"
"I'd say I have a bit more breathing room than your average corporate salaryman."
With that answer, he watched the corners of their mouths twitch upward into awkward little smiles—as if they were about to dig for the truth.
It was exactly what he'd hoped for.