Chapter 59
I’m translating the chapter directly into published-style English and preserving the HTML requirements, including the scene break styling for the divider.CHAPTER_TITLE: Chapter 59
La-la-la-♪
Hmm-hmm-hm-hmm-hmm-hmm♬
A tune slipped out of my mouth before I even noticed.
And for good reason.
“Ah, yeah. A new car really is better.”
My prized Palisade had finally been delivered.
Maybe because they’d only peeled back the plastic on the steering wheel so it wouldn’t slip, the slightest movement made the cabin rustle with a faint plastic crackle, and even that made me feel good.
“The sound system’s this good too.”
The beat-up car I’d driven before took forever just to connect over Bluetooth.
The navigation was old-fashioned, and even after updates it still sent me in bizarre directions.
Compared with the navigation on my phone, it always pointed me toward roads that took far longer than they should have. This one came with a proper built-in system from the start, and the performance was solid.
“I’m satisfied from start to finish.”
Especially since I’d compared all sorts of cars while driving on the side and bought this one after analyzing them, I’d optimized the options too, so nothing felt missing.
Whiiirrrr-.
It was still cold outside, but for some reason I didn’t want to raise the window I’d rolled down.
Near the office especially, I even rested one arm on the door and looked out with a leisurely air.
The body’s an SUV, so the ride height is better too. Feels like I can see farther.
Everything was satisfying.
If there was one thing missing, it was this.
I only drove it out today because it was the first delivery, but...
I’d felt it all the way here.
I shouldn’t bring a car during rush hour.
With the traffic jam, I was getting stopped three or four times at a single light, and after experiencing people cutting in like maniacs, I started thinking a packed subway might actually be better.
As expected, for people in Seoul, a car was for weekends or hauling cargo.
Right as I was passing the last light before entering the company in a leisurely mood, I noticed something.
“Hm?”
A familiar face was visible beyond the window.
“Park Daeri!”
“Huh, Kang Seo-jun?!”
Park Daeri spotted me and rushed over with a delighted expression.
“What, you already brought the new car out?”
“Yeah. Want a ride?”
“Yeah, yeah!”
Apparently he didn’t even want to walk the three minutes to the office, because he hurriedly hopped into the passenger seat.
“Wow, you haven’t even peeled off the plastic yet? That’s insane.”
He ran his fingers over the wrapping with eyes full of envy.
“It was delivered yesterday, so the paint’s probably still drying.”
“Damn, no wonder the car feels warm.”
Park Daeri fastened his seat belt and looked over his shoulder.
“Wow, this thing is really spacious. You could load an absurd amount of stuff in here.”
“It is. I tested camping gear at the workshop yesterday, and even after loading everything there was still plenty of room left.”
“Yeah, this thing’s supposed to be the best for hauling cargo. Nice purchase. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
While we exchanged those few words, we entered the company parking lot in no time.
“Wow, parking this thing is going to be tough.”
“That’s what I thought too, but it isn’t.”
If it had been my old car, parking had always been a pain in the neck, with me checking the side mirror, turning the wheel, and pulling way out of the space because I was afraid of clipping a pillar.
Click.
As long as I roughly lined up the car with the parking lines, I could get out and push it backward with the remote.
“...That’s a good parking system.”
“Pretty excellent, right?”
“I’m jealous. Really jealous.”
Park Daeri looked at me with genuine admiration from the seat beside me.
I appreciated the praise, but it was a little embarrassing too.
“Isn’t it weird for a guy driving a Benz to be jealous of a domestic car?”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Come to think of it, why are you walking to work?”
“Because I came by bus.”
“What about the car you bought last time?”
It was still vivid in my mind, how thrilled he’d been when he bought that Benz at the height of his coin profits.
“Man, that was ages ago.”
He wore a distant expression, as if recalling a painful memory.
“I sold everything back when the coins crashed. I couldn’t even handle the gas money.”
“Oh, really? Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. I bought it by pushing myself too hard in the first place.”
Park Daeri waved it off with a chuckle.
“Still, I picked up a used K5 for weekends. Since I’ve been grinding side jobs lately, I needed at least one little flex to keep me breathing.”
“Yeah. If you only keep earning, life gets rough.”
I knew that feeling too; when work started to feel brutal, I’d get myself through it by looking at the videos and photos I’d taken during my trip to the United States.
Work-life balance really was important for human beings.
“But you’re still doing modeling work, huh?”
“It pays so well I can’t quit. I think I’m even getting a reputation for being pretty good at it.”
“Anything you work hard at turns out well. Let’s keep at it.”
“Yeah. Time to go mine some won today, huh?!”
Park Daeri swiped his employee badge with energy and headed through the gate.
***
It had been a pleasant morning commute, but the mood changed not long after.
Even after nine in the morning, even after ten, an empty desk still caught my eye.
“Park Daeri. Have you heard anything about Kim Bu-jang?”
“No idea. He didn’t have any outside appointments today.”
Kim Bu-jang hadn’t come in to work.
He was the kind of person who always left a message, even if he had to rush off on a business trip.
It wasn’t until lunch was over that Kim Bu-jang finally arrived at the office.
“Ah, sorry. I had to take care of something in a hurry. Nothing happened while I was gone, right?”
“Yes. Nothing special happened. By the way, what was the matter?”
“Well, my boy got into a fight at school, so I had to go over there.”
“Oh no... Is Tae-ung okay?”
“He’s fine. From what I heard, some delinquent kids were bullying a friend he’s close with. He couldn’t stand it and got into a scrap.”
“Wow. Tae-ung’s really a good friend. Most kids couldn’t do that.”
“He’s my son, but I raised him well.”
“But wouldn’t that cause problems in his record these days?”
“The kids who fought were troublemakers, and Tae-ung’s always been diligent, so I don’t think it’ll count against him in that respect. Thank God for that.”
“That’s a relief.”
“And above all...”
Kim Bu-jang grinned as he added,
“He won.”
“...Pardon?”
“I said he won. Our Tae-ung won.”
“...”
For a moment, silence fell.
And then, right after that,
“Hahaha- Then that’s fine!”
“Good for him.”
“It was worth having him learn judo for a few years. He took that kid down with one throw, gave him a double nosebleed, and absolutely wrecked him.”
“You didn’t scold him, did you?”
“Scold him? Of course not. I praised him, bought him a bowl of soondae-gukbap, let him leave early to go to the hospital, and gave him fifty thousand won. He’s probably at a PC bang having a blast right now.”
“For a middle schooler, that’s the best reward.”
***
Maybe it was because of Kim Bu-jang’s story.
Until quitting time, the office buzzed with stories about school days and fights.
“We were practically like Pokemon. I went to boys’ middle school and boys’ high school, you know? Right after class assignments, if your eyes met someone’s, you’d fight just to test each other’s strength. So the loser got eraser crumbs thrown at him for a year, and the winner threw the eraser crumbs.”
“Our school was no joke either. People smashed heads with flowerpots and got hauled off in ambulances. One guy even jumped out a second-floor window on the day they served stir-fried pork, just so he could run to lunch faster.”
“Park Daeri, you weren’t born in the nineties?”
“I was. We were the last generation of romance.”
Hm-hm!
Gwak Cha-jang shrugged his shoulders and spoke up.
“When I was in high school, I once fought fourteen guys at once.”
“You were on the fourteen side, right, Chief?”
“...How did you know?”
He scratched the back of his head, looking awkward.
“But I lost.”
“How?”
“That one guy knew boxing. So once he dropped one of us, the rest of us scattered like a bunch of disorganized fools.”
“Then Chief, you also...”
“I’m really confident in my running.”
“...”
Everyone had plenty of entertaining stories from school.
I really just studied quietly...
I’d been one of those quiet students you always found one or two of in every class.
I’d borrow manga and novels from the rental shop, read them, and let my imagination run wild, then nod off during class.
As for rebellion, the most I ever did was get caught secretly reading comics during class.
Other than that, once exam season was over, all there really was to look forward to was the PC bang or karaoke.
“Since we’re on the subject, should we all play a round of StarCraft?”
“Oh, that’s great!”
As everyone got fired up and started devising a 4-on-4 Hunter strategy.
I quietly slipped away and headed home from work.
Screeech-.
Just as I parked the car and was about to go home.
Should I go for a walk?
Maybe because I’d spent all day hearing about fights at the office, I suddenly felt like I ought to build up at least a basic level of stamina.
I changed into training clothes in the car and immediately set off down the street.
Should I try jogging a little?
People kept saying running was the trend these days, so I gave it a shot.
“Huff- Haaah- Huuuf-”
My breathing got ragged almost instantly.
I haven’t exercised in way too long...
Especially now, because after work I was holed up in the workshop until the moment I went to bed, which meant I’d been moving even less.
A man ought to know how to work out...
These days there were already so many ugly stories in the news.
People got beaten up for saying one thing to a bunch of high school boys smoking on the street.
Good citizens were having their noses broken while trying to stop drunken foreign tourists from causing a scene, and sometimes it felt like the world was running backward.
And now I’m going to keep traveling overseas, too?
When I went to New York last time, my interpretation skills let me make small talk, and I ended up having more fun than I’d expected.
But unlike Korea, where public safety was pretty good, if I went abroad expecting nothing but peace, I might get a nasty surprise.
Even in New York, whenever some huge Black guy tried talking to me, I’d get scared before he’d even finished the first sentence.
Right. If I want to protect my body, I need to start by training it myself.
Maybe that thought was why.
Even though it was always the same street I’d walked before, sports academies I’d never really noticed started standing out to me.
Brazilian jiu-jitsu, MMA, kickboxing, Krav Maga, judo... There are more than I thought.
But maybe because I was different from the younger generation.
What drew me more than the trendy workouts was something else.
Boxing.
There wasn’t much that could beat boxing when it came to real-world use, was there?
More important than that, though was this.
After watching Rocky yesterday on a hundred-inch screen at the workshop...
I was so drawn in that my feet were already heading that way.
“Hello. I came to ask about joining.”
“Oh, welcome.”
The gym owner, who looked to be in his mid-forties, greeted me with a warm, good-natured smile.
Of course, below the face he was built thick with muscle, though there was a bit of flesh on him too.
But what stood out most of all was this.
Cauliflower ears.
That alone made him look trustworthy.
“You’re a salaryman, right? Are you looking to learn as a hobby?”
“Yes. I don’t have any experience, though. Would that be okay?”
“Of course. These days we get a lot of younger people coming in to lose weight through diet boxing.”
“Do you have an adult class too?”
“Yes. During the day we focus on students, and in the evenings it’s mostly office workers. Of the people here right now, everyone except the kids preparing for competitions is in the adult class.”
“Oh...”
Looking around casually, I could see about three male office workers and one woman around my age.
And from the equipment, it didn’t seem bad at all.
All right. Better to do it when the feeling’s there.
“I’ll sign up.”
“We’re running a promotion for three months or more, so it’s almost half price...”
That was definitely tempting, but...
“I’ll do one month.”
Three months was enough to make me feel short of breath just hearing it.
Someone like me, with a desk job, needed to approach this lightly. If it felt like a burden, I wouldn’t want to come.
***
“First, we need to build up your stamina.”
Since I was here, I went straight into the first day’s basic instruction.
“If you haven’t been working out separately, why don’t you start with jump rope?”
“Yes.”
I had wanted to hit the heavy bag, but apparently that was too early.
As I jumped rope by myself, my breathing gradually grew more strained.
Then, at that moment.
Sparring...?
Two men in headgear climbed into the ring.
One was the adult office worker I’d seen earlier, and the other was the high school kid who’d said he was preparing for a competition.
“That kid’s pretty good. He even took silver in the national athletics meet in light heavyweight not long ago.”
“Oh...”
So this was a gym that had better people than I’d expected.
“Who’s the guy beside him?”
“That one’s been training for about two years now.”
“That means he’s basically a pro.”
The owner stepped up as referee.
“Ready, fight!”
For a moment, I stopped jumping rope and watched the sparring.
Hm...
To me, the punches looked pretty slow.
I think I could react to that.
But the office worker who’d trained for two years was getting hammered without mercy.
As expected, he didn’t even last through the first round.
“Stop, that’s enough!”
The owner ended the match with a TKO.
“Whew, that’s rough.”
The office worker climbed down from the ring with a laugh.
Clearly, the hobby class and the fighter class were on different levels.
Is it really that one-sided?
Curiosity crept up on me.
“Hey, sir. Could I maybe try a quick test too?”
“Sparring? That could get dangerous. You might get hurt if you do it now.”
“No, I just want to test the speed once.”
“...You sure that’s okay?”
“Yes. I’m just curious.”
“If you insist... In-su, could you come over here?”
“Yes!”
I put on the headgear and stood at a distance.
“Don’t hit hard, just speed.”
“Yes.”
The kid threw a punch.
I can see it.
A fist coming in from the left.
I reacted immediately and pulled my head back, but...
Thwack-.
“Ow...”
The punch smacked against the headgear.
“Are you okay? I didn’t put any power into it, just tapped you lightly...”
“Ah, yes, yes. Since I’ve got this on, it doesn’t really hurt.”
“That’s a relief.”
It felt strange.
I can see it, though?
The problem was...
My body can’t keep up...
I wondered if this was the limit of being in my thirties.
“Still, you seem to have some talent. Usually beginners don’t even react; they just squeeze their eyes shut. Mr. Seo-jun, you kept looking straight at it until the end.”
“Really...?”
“Yes. And you did react too. A beginner absolutely can’t do that. I’m honestly amazed.”
Come to think of it, my body had reacted, but I’d sensed that I hadn’t moved because I wasn’t trained.
I wasn’t naturally the sporty type.
Wait.
Could this be thanks to the dynamic vision and reflexes that had increased as a side benefit from my driving talent?
If I can use that talent more broadly...
My interest flared up at once.
“If I train, can I dodge it?”
“Honestly, it’s hard for people who aren’t born with it, but if you have talent like yours... yes. It’s possible.”
My motivation burst to life.
If it had seemed completely impossible, I might have given up, but the fact that it felt within reach only made me want it more.
Boxing. If I learn it properly, this might be good.
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