Chapter 176
Chapter 176
......How the fuck did it come to this.
I stared at the country house in front of me, the thought stuck in my head.
A rural home with walls of dark, grimy cement that looked ancient. At least the roof seemed new, a vivid blue, not exactly tile but those tile-shaped panels you often see on detached houses, topping a red-brick building.
The clash between that bright color and the dingy gray of the old walls gave the place a slightly off-kilter look.
If the mountain right behind it hadn't been such a vivid green, it would've looked even stranger. The whole backdrop would've turned into a dreary gray expanse.
"Oh my, my granddaughter's here?"
An old woman who'd been doing something with the water running in the yard hurried over, calling out.
"......Grandma."
As Yang Hye-in spoke, the old woman, she looked maybe two heads shorter than Hye-in, threw herself into Hye-in's arms.
"My granddaughter's home!"
It was, well, exactly the picture of a grandmother reuniting with her granddaughter after way too long.
"And who are these children?"
Maybe it was hearing that she was Hye-in's grandmother, but the old woman, who seemed even shorter than Sara, bore a subtle resemblance to Hye-in. Though comparing a woman still in her twenties to an elder with a face full of deep wrinkles wasn't exactly a precise match.
The permed white hair, all curled tightly, didn't help the comparison either. Hye-in had such a polished city-woman air about her.
"These people are......"
"Acquaintances from work."
I jumped in before Hye-in could call me "young lady" or "employer."
Sure, every job has its dignity, but telling someone you're employed by a kid years younger than you could still leave a bad taste.
Hye-in herself didn't look particularly bothered, no, it was more like her usual blank expression, honestly, but the grandmother standing in front of us might see things differently.
And it wasn't just about the fact that Hye-in worked under me.
From the longer conversation we'd had that day, I'd learned Hye-in graduated with honors from a top Seoul university, the kind I couldn't have dreamed of in my last life.
This grandmother, Hye-in's "only family," was surely bursting with pride over her granddaughter.
If she heard that granddaughter had picked a job that didn't use her degree at all, no matter how well it paid, it wouldn't sound great.
And once more for emphasis: Sara, nominally Hye-in's employer, looked significantly younger than Hye-in.
"Is that so?"
Grandma tilted her head.
"Goodness, your friends look so young!"
Grandma laughed, glancing back and forth between me and Hye-in.
"......."
Hye-in had at least caught my drift. But maybe she couldn't bring herself to drop honorifics outright—she just kept her mouth shut for now.
"Come, come, don't just stand around outside, let's go in."
At Grandma's urging, we nodded and followed her.
......Shit. I thought it'd be awkward, but this was a whole other level. Three days, starting now; I had no clue how I was going to survive.
*
How did I end up tagging along to Yang Hye-in's grandmother's house?
The reason is simple.
Hye-in insisted she wouldn't leave my side to protect me, and I kept firing back that if I went somewhere she could take a vacation, she'd have no choice but to follow. Rinse and repeat.
The conversation started off painfully awkward, but the more we talked, the more it loosened up.
Neither of us meant for that to happen, though.
"There are two remaining staff in the mansion. If I quit now, the personnel who can fully manage the estate will be completely gone."
"The mansion won't collapse if it goes uncleaned for a few days. I'm not saying quit—just take three days off and come back."
Honestly. Back when I lived alone, if I felt lazy I'd let things slide for a week or so. Actually, I'd let it go even longer than that, especially during break when I'd go up to the family home—the abandoned-day count got truly staggering.
A mansion this size wasn't going to fall apart after three days. Big buildings always had corners that went unvacuumed for months.
"If I'm not here, the only people left in this building besides you and your friends will be the private security contractors. As long as Chairwoman Choi Na-kyung hasn't been caught, we can't trust just anyone."
"They're people we paid good money to hire. We deliberately picked the biggest firm. If something happens to me, the whole company shakes, doesn't it?"
Honestly, if you start distrusting everyone like that, you end up with nobody left to trust.
And besides, could another incident really happen in a house where plainclothes cops were staked out constantly? Wouldn't anyone be too scared to try?
Plus, some of the security personnel were women. We'd trusted the firm precisely because they could supply that kind of staffing.
And most importantly—Hye-in herself was the one who'd said that company was the best choice.
"Fine, then."
I'd been fighting not to lose the argument, refusing to back down, and eventually—
"So you're saying you'll follow me wherever I go?"
—I said it.
The result was the place I was standing in right now.
*
"Goodness, why are all you young ladies so skinny?"
Grandma kept bringing things out as she said it.
"Ah, no, Grandma, we ate on the way here. You really don't have to give us this much."
And I wasn't just being polite. We'd stopped at a rest area for a quick lunch on the drive over. Not that we'd eaten a ton.
"This isn't lunch, it's just fruit, it's fine~"
Lunch or fruit or whatever, I'm saying it won't fit in my stomach.
But I couldn't bring myself to refuse what she'd gone out of her way to offer. I speared an apple slice with my chopsticks and chewed it as slowly as humanly possible.
If I ate any more, my stomach was going to hurt for real. If snacks were this level, dinner was going to be a nightmare.
......Well, still.
It didn't feel bad. She really did feel like a "grandma."
So much so that I couldn't figure out how the blank-faced Yang Hye-in had come from this woman.
Thankfully, So-hee, Su-a, and Ha-neul were eating much better than I was. Maybe it was being teenagers, but the speed they put food away was impressive.
Or maybe they were just as awkward about this situation as I was and were eating to dodge conversation.
......Yeah, I get it. I'm in the exact same boat.
No matter how kind the person was, she was someone else's grandmother, not mine. And someone I'd just met. There's no way for it not to be awkward. Even meeting elderly relatives you don't see often is awkward—meeting the grandmother of your employee and not even a friend was so much worse.
Even the mutual honorifics we normally used felt wrong here.
And on top of that—
"So, how do you young ladies know our Hye-in?"
There it is. This was the question I'd been dreading.
Even in the car with Hye-in driving earlier I'd had no clue how to explain it. "Employer and employee" felt completely off, but if you asked if I had any better ideas, I had nothing.
"W-well......."
I glanced at Hye-in. She was staring quietly at the fruit on the tray, like she was lost in thought.
"W-well......."
"She's the daughter of my boss at work."
As I stalled, Hye-in finally sorted out her thoughts and spoke.
Saved.
......Right. That was one way to put it.
Technically she was my direct employee now, and her former employer, Chairwoman Choi Na-kyung, was currently missing, but it wasn't a total lie. It "had been" true, at least.
"She came to visit at the office and we got friendly."
"Is that so! Goodness, I thought they looked young."
Luckily, Grandma seemed to buy it right away.
"If that's the connection, I'd better treat you even better. Make yourselves at home. Think of it as your own house."
"......Okaaay......."
......Yeah, I shouldn't have pushed it.
It was less a lie and more a dodge, but...... still, not being able to tell Grandma properly what her granddaughter's actual job was—it gnawed at me.
I had bad blood with Hye-in, but her grandmother had nothing to do with any of it.
And now that we were here, it hit me with full force: this grandmother's most precious person was Yang Hye-in. The same Yang Hye-in who'd tried to hurt me.
The recognition tangled everything up inside me—the guilt of keeping all these half-truths afloat, mixed with a discomfort I had no idea what to do with.
The fact that Hye-in had come straight to her grandmother, not her parents, for whatever reason only drove it home: they might truly be each other's only family.
"......."
Ugh, this is so uncomfortable.
I just want to go home.......