The Debt Collector's Visit
“Hello?”
She wiped the tense expression on her face with the palm of her hand and cleared her voice to answer the phone.
“Student Dayeon?”
The person who called was someone Dayeon knew well. It was the owner auntie who lived in the same villa.
“Yes. What's the matter?”
The voice coming from the receiver was loud. Sounds of something breaking and shattering. Sensing something was wrong, Dayeon asked, and the owner auntie said with difficulty.
“You need to come home quickly.”
“Home?”
“Yeah. That's...”
Before the owner auntie's words were finished, a shout came from somewhere.
“Shut up. Jung boss. Hurry and bring the money!”
With that alone, it seemed Dayeon could guess why the owner auntie called. The debt collectors must have gone to find her father.
The hand holding the phone tightened.
Although he had been acting badly towards her recently due to business failure and alcohol addiction, he was still her biological father.
The happy times she spent with him when her mother was alive still lingered in one corner of her chest.
“...I'll be there soon.”
After saying that, Dayeon ran towards the taxi approaching from afar. Her back running through the rainy road looked very urgent.
Nearby alley, Dayeon got off and ran madly towards the apartment building where her house was. The closer she got to the house, the atmosphere felt different from usual, starting from the alley.
A luxury sedan that didn't match the old alley, and even the sound of something breaking from afar.
Some residents opened windows and looked around because the loud noise near the house was unusual.
Dayeon moved her feet hurriedly to her home, suppressing anxiety and restlessness.
Seeing Dayeon approaching, two men smoking at the entrance of the apartment building smiled with teeth showing. She walked up the stairs to the house with a frightened expression.
The noise from afar was, of course, starting from Dayeon's house.
When she went up to the floor where the house was, broken dishes and pots like household items were scattered on the floor, spilling out to the entrance.
Stepping over the broken dishes, entering the open front door, a burly man sitting on a chair pulled to the center of the living room was seen. In front of him, her father kneeling.
“Dayeon-ah.”
Jung Dusup, upon discovering Dayeon, called her name, then looked at the man in front and closed his mouth.
“Oh. The daughter of this house came.”
The man sitting on the chair twisted his upper body, then discovered Dayeon and smiled with eyes sparkling.
Dayeon, instead of answering, looked around.
The house was a mess. The TV had a shattered screen, and dirty shoe prints were all over the small sofa.
Other things were also broken and destroyed, nothing intact.
Dayeon, staring at the two with a stern face, entered the house.
“If you see an adult, you should greet them. Tch.”
To her words, no reaction from Dayeon, Yoon Tak-su, the loan shark, sent an annoyed glance.
“Why are you doing this? Why is our house like this...”
“Why like this? Because you didn't repay the money you borrowed, so we came directly.”
“Money...? What money...”
“Yeah. The money that Chairman Go lent to your dad. Do you know where it came from?”
When the name Chairman Go came from the stranger's mouth, Dayeon froze. Seeing the tense Dayeon, Tak-su lifted his lips.
“Yeah. That money. That debt has come to me.”
“...”
“Chairman Go was arrested, so you thought the debt would disappear, right? No way.”
On the day of graduation, the incident at the cafe where her father took her.
A large debt. To repay it, her father took her to Chairman Go.
Dayeon bit the flesh inside her mouth.
“...How much is it? What amount is it that you're doing this at my house?”
“Why. If I tell you, you might repay it instead of Jung boss?”
“You need to know how much first, whether to repay or not.”
“Five hundred seventy million. No, now a day has passed, so five hundred eighty million?”
The large amount flowing slowly from his mouth made Dayeon's face turn white.
The man's behavior of inflating the interest by ten million won a day later was outrageous, but it was the first time she heard that her father had borrowed such a large sum in the meantime.
“Will you be able to repay it?”
With a sly smile, lifting the corner of his mouth, he looked at Dayeon and Jung Dusup with fierce eyes.
Dusup behind her crawled forward on his knees and grabbed Dayeon's leg as if clinging.
“Dayeon-ah. You have the inheritance your mom left you. Can't you use that?”
“Inheritance...?”
Dayeon asked in disbelief. Dusup's pleading continued towards her.
“First, let's use that. That guy Yoon Tak-su is a much scarier human than Chairman Go. If this continues, your dad will die.”
He lowered his voice so only Dayeon could hear, and stamped his feet in urgency.
Her father still seemed confident that he had left a huge inheritance to Heeok.
“I don't have it. There's really no money like that.”
Dusup's face collapsed with Dayeon's repeated denial.
“Then... then the debt...”
Yoon Tak-su, who had been listening quietly to their conversation, placed his hands on his knees with a "tch" and stood up.
“The inheritance that boasted about having it doesn't exist.”
“...”
“...Then the answer has come.”
Dayeon and Dusup's gazes turned towards Yoon Tak-su approaching them.
“You lent money, but no money to repay. So then...”
He came close to Dayeon and grabbed her wrist tightly as if it would break.
“...The debt your dad couldn't repay, the child has to repay it too.”
Dayeon, who couldn't even scream from the shock, looked at him licking his lips.
Dayeon, held by him, couldn't escape and had to look at him bringing his face closer.
“The face is quite fair. I can sell it at a not bad price.”
Dusup, who was fidgeting, turned his gaze away. His father's cruel appearance abandoning her as he couldn't handle it made Dayeon sink into deep despair.
“Release this.”
Dayeon said with a sob, but the hand that was grabbed didn't move.
“First, let's see the product value first.”
Yoon Tak-su smiled lewdly and lowered his head towards Dayeon.
The rough breathing he exhaled "huk huk" swept past her ears and settled on her nape. Dayeon twisted her body with eyes tightly closed, but she couldn't avoid him.
When his greasy lips were about to touch her cheek.
“Take your hand off.”
A cold, low voice came from far away. With that one word, everyone's gaze in the room turned to the entrance in an instant.
A body standing tall like a giant tree, clear eyes even in the thick shadow, and a cool expression with no emotion readable in an inch.
“Si... Sunbae?”
Dayeon, who hadn't imagined meeting Siheon here, dropped her startled lips.
After Dayeon went down in the elevator, a while later, Jiwoo, left alone with Siheon, tried to reach out to Siheon as if wanting to hug him again.
“Then let's go too.”
But the hand she reached out to Siheon didn't touch, stopped in the air. It was because he twisted his body to avoid it.
With the act over, after Dayeon left, Siheon looked at Jiwoo with a cool face.
“What are you trying to do, Han Jiwoo.”
“What?”
“My opinion on marriage, I think I've already stated it sufficiently.”
Jiwoo, standing awkwardly, straightened her body. Then tilting her face sideways, she said with a firm voice.
“Well. If it's Chairman Cha's last wish, I think you'll end up getting married anyway.”
“Last wish? What does that mean?”
Seeing Siheon as if asking what that meant, Jiwoo shut her mouth in surprise. It seemed Chairman Cha hadn't said anything to Siheon.
Since the illness had progressed a lot, she thought he would have told Siheon at least.
Jiwoo bit her lip, but since the situation had come to this, there was nothing she could do.
“Anyway, you'll find out soon, right. I'll tell you straight.”
She crossed her arms firmly and continued.
“Chairman-nim is not doing well at all.”
“...What?”
“His chronic illness, his heart, has deteriorated a lot, and other organs are also not good in numbers.”
“But the attending doctor said it's improving...”
“That attending doctor, you know he's our dad, right?”
Jiwoo shot Siheon with a face full of venom.
“It's been a long time since it started. It seems Chairman-nim didn't want to tell those around him.”
“...”
“So, do what you want. Since the remaining time isn't much left.”
Siheon, shocked, was momentarily speechless. After losing his father in an accident, Chairman Cha was a person who supported and cherished Siheon more than anyone.