Chapter 93: The Swamp-1
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 93: The Swamp-1
After sending Ho-cheol off, I helped Garam into the passenger seat.
Unlike the frantic dash down the highway earlier, the car glided smoothly out of the hospital parking lot.
It was already 2:00 AM.
Even the hospital, a place that ran twenty-four hours a day, was beginning to doze off under its dim, flickering lights.
"Where do you live?"
Come to think of it, we didn't even know where the other lived.
"……."
When no answer came, I glanced sideways. She was staring at me intently, like a cat.
"Garam?"
"I don't... want to go home..."
"You still need to rest."
"If I go home, you'll leave."
I could see exactly where this conversation was headed, so I let out a small sigh.
Well, I was the one who started this, so what could I do?
"I have to. I need to rest, too. Driving all the way here from the East Sea took a lot out of me."
"I-I'm sorry. It's all because of me..."
Garam lowered her head, her fingers fidgeting nervously.
I waited for the left-turn signal on the empty street.
"Coming here was my decision."
Perhaps sensing my mood, she finally gave me her address.
I punched the address into the navigation and followed the prompts.
The light changed. I stepped on the accelerator and gently turned the steering wheel.
Suddenly, a motorcycle zoomed past, narrowly grazing the car.
I slammed on the brakes and rolled down the window to hurl a string of curses at the receding bike.
"But... how did you know to come?" Garam asked once we started moving again.
"You sent so many calls and KakaoTalk messages. I just had a bad feeling."
I spent about five minutes explaining how I’d figured things out and managed to get her to the hospital. She nodded slowly.
"Actually, I got a DM from that woman, Hana."
"A DM...?"
So she had approached Garam first.
"Yes."
"What did she say?"
"Well..."
"Did she say I hit on every woman I see and throw donations around like crazy?"
"……"
Her silence seemed to speak volumes.
The moment had come to expose my own flaws and explain how this whole mess started.
I swallowed hard several times.
With my personality—the type to charge head-on whenever I encounter something unfair—I’ve hurt many people, and I’ve been hurt in return.
But I don't think this temperament is wrong.
At the very least, this stubborn streak has kept me from becoming a coward.
Demanding the same values from myself that I demand from others—that is how I, Kang In-ho, have lived my life.
If I wanted to, I could probably talk her down now, send her home, and snuff out this difficult-to-explain dependency.
But the moment I spoke these words, and the moment I explained what I intended to do next...
The relationship between Garam and me would become irreversible.
She would depend on me even more, and I would suffer under the weight of her obsession.
I knew this. I knew it well. Yet, I had no intention of running away.
'Responsibility.' It might not mean much to others, but to me, it was everything.
And there were no exceptions.
"Hana was someone I was seriously considering marriage with."
"……"
"Looking back now, I don't know why. It was probably for some superficial reason, like she was sexy or something."
I began to tell Garam about my understanding of my former self and the reasons I had constructed.
"I had money, but I was getting older. I had no friends, and I was lonely. That's how I started watching internet broadcasts."
"You were lonely."
"Everywhere else, I was treated like some old geezer, but on the internet, if I spent a little money, pretty girls would call me 'Oppa.' I liked that."
"Give them 100,000 won, and they say they love you. 200,000 won, and they dance for you. 1,000,000 won gets you their personal messenger ID, 2,000,000 won gets you a date, 5,000,000 won gets you a night together..."
"After a while, I got confused. I started thinking, 'Hey, I could live with girls like that,' or 'I have the money, after all.' ...That's what I thought."
"……"
"And then I guess I got drawn to Hana. I poured money into her, bought her a car, helped her with her business. Heh, pathetic, right?"
"Oh, no..."
"Then one day, I suddenly snapped out of it. I saw the liquor bottles, snacks, and delivery food scattered all over my house... my hideously fat body and my failing health."
The car stopped at a red light, and I glanced briefly to the right.
"That's why I decided to exercise. It just so happened there was a gym in one of my buildings."
"So that's how it was..."
"I started finding joy in working out. The weight started coming off, I gained a bit of muscle... it felt like playing a game. Though if it weren't for you, Garam, I probably would have quit halfway through."
I flashed her a faint smile.
"I also became quite close to you while working out. That made me want to look out for you even more. You were so young and working so hard to make a living. It might have been overstepping, but I wanted to repay you."
And I had the wealth to do so, I added mentally.
I continued, "Because of that, I ended up teaching you the methods I was familiar with. In the process... Hana realized there was a connection between us, and she pulled this stunt."
"I'm sorry, Garam. It's all because of me..."
The light turned green. Unable to look her in the eye, I used driving as an excuse to stare straight ahead.
The car kept moving, the roadside scenery shifting constantly.
Similarly, the silence inside the car persisted.
"It's okay. It's not like you did it on purpose..."
She comforted me in a tiny voice.
"First of all, I'm going to take full responsibility for this incident. I'll have the trashed center fully repaired. You should take about a week off, too."
According to Ho-cheol, the center was a complete wreck. It wasn't in any state to stay open.
I figured I might as well use this opportunity to remodel the place.
We could put in new glass and replace the aging equipment.
I had already told Ho-cheol to look into relevant contractors.
"You don't have to do all that."
"I said I'm taking responsibility, so I'm not taking no for an answer. You always said the facilities were old anyway."
"And..."
"And, I'll settle things with Hana so you never have to worry about her again. For the time being, take a break from your broadcasts as well."
"...How? Are you going to meet that bitch? Please don't."
At the mention of Hana, Garam’s voice grew sharp.
"I'm not going to meet her. There are ways to pay her back without meeting her."
"Pay her back?"
She tilted her head, looking confused.
Before long, the car arrived near her home.
It was a neighborhood of run-down villas. I leaned forward, checking the building numbers.
"The more comfortable people get, the more they tend to let their guard down," I said as we drove slowly through the alleyways.
"That's why they get careless with their words. They don't even calculate whether what they're saying will become a problem or not."
We reached her building.
I parked the car against a wall and escorted her to her door.
Garam seemed reluctant to show me her shabby home, but I didn't pay it any mind.
"President... so, what are you going to do...?"
Garam asked as I turned toward the stairs after seeing her to her door.
I pulled out my phone and waved it at her.
"A lot of people seem to forget that phones have a recording feature."