No. I Can't (3)
Once the café had been more or less put back in order, the four of them sat facing one another around a single table under an awkward, heavy silence—Sihyun, Yuri, Seonye, and Suhyeon, who still looked completely dazed.
Sihyun was the first to break the quiet. He looked at Yuri with a complicated expression and opened his mouth.
“Boss. Did you… by any chance make a move on Lee Suhyeon’s father’s company?”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
Yuri answered shortly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Sihyun’s brow furrowed.
“How far did you go… for her to lose it like this?”
“Nothing much. Just gave them a little tap.”
Yuri replied indifferently. Seonye, listening from the side, let out a short laugh and chimed in.
“That ‘little tap’ has them on the verge of bankruptcy, I’m guessing?”
“Min Seonye, shut it. She touched me—she should’ve been ready for at least this much.”
Yuri snapped irritably. At their words Suhyeon went even paler and trembled in a small, tight ball. Sihyun let out a deep sigh.
“Still… this feels a bit excessive…”
“Excessive?”
Yuri cut him off, flaring up. Her voice was thick with anger.
“Hey! Have you already forgotten what that bitch and her mother did to us?”
“You, and me too! They tried to bury us twice! Using those gangster bastards!”
At their heated reaction Suhyeon flinched and hung her head. She spoke in a tiny, murmuring voice.
“I-I didn’t… I really didn’t mean for it to… That day I should’ve just told Mom everything… I’m truly sorry…”
Yuri snorted at Suhyeon’s words.
“Didn’t mean it? What do you think would’ve happened if I hadn’t been next to him? You know damn well what those gangster bastards would’ve done to him.”
“Th-that’s…”
Suhyeon couldn’t refute her; she only chewed her lips hard. If Yuri hadn’t been at Sihyun’s side that day, something truly terrible might have befallen him. Yuri drove the point home without stopping.
“And another thing! Do you know what that bed-wetting little shit said? He even dragged this guy’s mother into it as a threat!”
“Baek Taesu… threatened Sihyun’s mother…?”
Suhyeon went deathly white at the revelation she was hearing for the first time. Only then did the full weight of what she had done seem to crash over her; her eyes swam with deep regret. Seonye clicked her tongue in pure disdain from the side.
“Unbelievable… They even tried to go after Sihyun’s mother?”
“No, I…”
At Seonye’s sharp words Suhyeon shrank even smaller. Mention of Seojin made Sihyun’s face tighten as well. After a stretch of silence he slowly spoke.
“…Lee Suhyeon.”
At the sudden call Suhyeon flinched and lifted her head. Sihyun looked at her with eyes full of a complicated mix of pity and resignation.
“Back in middle school… that day. Do you know why I told you to go back?”
“….”
Suhyeon had never really thought about the reason. She had simply resented him and hated him, convinced he had betrayed her. To that version of her, Sihyun continued calmly.
“Just like that driver said—I realized I was nothing but a burden to you.”
“…!”
Suhyeon was too shocked to form words. Sihyun kept going.
“If a guy like me kept hanging around you, you’d keep worrying about me and never be able to do what you needed to… and I was sure you’d keep fighting with your mother and your relationship would fall apart. I didn’t want that.”
Hearing his true feelings, Suhyeon stared at him in a daze and murmured,
“…That’s what it was?”
“Th-that can’t be… Mom definitely told me. She said you took the envelope the driver gave you…”
Suhyeon recalled what Heejin had told her back then and looked hollow. After Sihyun had rejected her that day, she had come home and heard it from Heejin: that he had gladly taken money on the condition he never associate with her again. Do you really want to keep hanging around a beggar like that? From that day on she had hated him with a sense of betrayal, resenting him without end…
“…There’s no way I would’ve taken money like that.”
“Ah… ah…”
Suhyeon could no longer hold her emotions in check; she collapsed. Tears streamed endlessly down her cheeks.
“…I’m sorry, Sihyun. I’m really… so sorry… I didn’t know any of that and I still…”
Suhyeon apologized in a trembling voice. Completely ignorant, she had simply resented him and tried to drag his life into the abyss. In high school she had used Taesu and his crew to completely destroy the future of a taekwondo national-team prospect who had been on track for a scholarship. Even that hadn’t been enough; when they reunited after so long she had mocked him as a “beggar bastard,” insulted him, then tried to crush him again with Taesu’s group—and out of sheer pride she had never told Heejin the truth, nearly getting him killed for real.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
Suhyeon sobbed the apology over and over. Sihyun opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. After a moment he spoke once more, slowly.
“…It’s fine. It’s all in the past.”
Misunderstandings and wounds had piled up between them until the distance had grown vast; they had spent truly hard years far apart. Spilled water could never be gathered again.
“From now on let’s just… pretend we don’t know each other. That’ll be better for both of us…”
Sihyun drew a firm line.
“That way we can at least keep the good memories we did have.”
Having said that, he turned his head toward Yuri.
“Boss, I have a favor to ask.”
“No.”
Yuri rejected him flat-out, having already anticipated the request.
“…Please.”
But Sihyun refused to back down; he met her eyes directly.
“Ha! Have you forgotten what that bitch did? You’re going to forgive her for this? What the hell is wrong with you—”
Yuri shouted as if she couldn’t believe it.
“…I’m not that much of an idiot. I never forgave her.”
“Then—!”
“But I don’t want her destroyed this completely either. So I’m asking you.”
Sihyun still wouldn’t yield; he looked straight into Yuri’s eyes. Those faintly golden, glittering pupils pleaded with her with desperate intensity. For a moment Yuri was at a loss for words.
Is he doing this because of that damned first love of his?!
Yuri seethed inwardly. But contrary to her thoughts,
“I want to cut it off completely this time. That’s why.”
Sihyun was asking because he wanted to cleanly sever the past connection—no, the twisted fate that had become a curse.
“…Haaah!”
Yuri let out a long, helpless sigh.
“Fine. Whatever. I really can’t live like this. Ugh…”
Suhyeon spoke in a trembling voice.
“…Thank you.”
Yuri scowled and coldly shot back,
“Don’t thank me. Thank him.”
At those words Suhyeon looked at Sihyun again.
“…Thank you, Sihyun. And I’m really sorry.”
A brief silence fell. Then, as if summoning the last of her courage, Suhyeon asked in an even more shaking voice,
“So… Sihyun… please, can’t we at least go back to being friends…?”
At that, Yuri and Seonye both twisted their faces in identical disbelief and started to open their mouths—only for Sihyun to speak first.
“…No. I can’t.”
His voice was very quiet, yet it sounded more absolute than any words he had spoken.
“…!”
Suhyeon’s face crumpled completely under despair.
“….”
She could say nothing more. Slowly she rose from her seat, then stumbled on weak legs to the café door, opened it, and vanished outside.
After Suhyeon left, silence settled over them. A moment later Seonye was the first to speak.
“Hey, Han Yuri. Don’t tell me you actually believed those thugs came after you guys because of a bug like her?”
She fixed Yuri with an accusing stare. Yuri snorted and answered,
“Hmph. You think my head’s full of flowers like yours?”
“What did you just say, you little—?! You looking for a fight?”
“You’re the one who should mind your own business.”
Yuri and Seonye started growling at each other as if nothing at all had just happened. Sihyun sighed and tried to intervene.
“Both of you, please just—”
He moved to mediate the way he always did, but Seonye cut him off with a shout.
“Sihyun! Quit being her bodyguard right this second!”
“What?”
Sihyun looked incredulous; Yuri’s face twisted into something ugly.
“Hey, Min Seonye. Know your place and stop climbing over me. Keep this up and I’ll make sure you can’t even keep him as a café part-timer.”
Yuri glared at Seonye with murderous eyes.
“You’re the one who needs to think carefully, Han Yuri! It’s because of you that Sihyun almost got into serious trouble!”
“….”
Seonye’s accusation left Yuri momentarily speechless. Seizing the opening, Seonye pressed even harder.
“Those gangster bastards even brought up Sihyun’s mother!”
“That wasn’t a gangster, it was a pathetic little—”
“That pathetic little shit is still a gangster!”
Seonye shot back, aghast. At that moment Sihyun stepped between them again.
“I don’t think anything like that will happen.”
“No matter how rough they are, I don’t get the feeling they’d go that far.”
Sihyun was genuinely worried about Seojin, yet when he recalled Dongchul and the Daeho Clan members’ attitude that day… even if they were gangsters, they had seemed like people who at least kept a certain line. To that, Seonye let out a hollow laugh of pure disbelief.
“Sihyun… I get that you’re a guy and you’re talking like there’s some kind of bro-code between men, but you can’t just trust people like that so easily.”
“Yeah. Exactly. You can’t trust bastards like that so easily.”
Yuri nodded along with Seonye’s words.
“And for your mother—it’ll be a bit of a hassle, but let’s move her surgery to a different hospital. I’ll take care of finding one.”
“Ah, thank you.”
Sihyun nodded in relief, and Seonye reluctantly agreed.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
Then she immediately added,
“But Han Yuri—make Sihyun quit being your bodyguard.”
“…Hey.”
Yuri glared at Seonye with irritation. Seonye paid no attention and continued.
“Do you think I’m saying this just because I want Sihyun all to myself?”
“…Then what?”
Yuri asked back as if it were ridiculous.
“You seriously don’t know? It’s obvious your family is desperate to drag you down by any means necessary!”
“….”
Yuri had nothing to say. Seonye wasn’t wrong in the slightest. Even though Yuri had clearly stated she had no interest in management, the checks against her inside the family never stopped. Knowing Yuri’s situation perfectly well, Seonye turned her red eyes on Sihyun and cried out with desperate urgency,
“Sihyun! Something really bad is going to happen if this keeps up! You have to quit right now!”
Faced with that look of genuine worry for him, Sihyun found himself momentarily at a loss for words. By the time he came back to himself, he realized he was already standing right in the middle of a dangerous family power struggle.