Swamp-1

After sending Ho-cheol away, I had Garam in the passenger seat.

Unlike how I sped down the highway, the car smoothly exited the hospital.

Before we knew it, it was 2 AM.

Even the hospital, which runs 24 hours a day, was starting to doze off, emitting a faint light.

“Where do you live?”

Come to think of it, we didn’t know each other’s addresses.

“……..”

When there was no reply, I looked to my side and saw her staring at me like a cat.

“Garam?”

“I don’t… like going home…”

“But you need to rest.”

“If I go home, you’ll leave.”

I could roughly see where this conversation was heading, so I sighed softly.

Well, I brought this on myself.

“I have to go. I need to rest too. I’m a bit tired from coming all the way here from the East Sea.”

“I’m, I’m sorry. Because of me….”

Garam fidgeted with her hands and lowered her head.

I waited for the left turn signal on the empty street.

“It was my decision to come.”

Was she reading my mind? She told me her address.

I entered the address into the navigation system and drove according to the directions.

The light turned green. I stepped on the accelerator and gently turned the steering wheel.

A motorcycle sped by, narrowly missing the car.

I slammed on the brakes, opened the window, and hurled curses at the motorcycle disappearing into the distance.

“But, how did you know to come?”

As we started driving again, Garam asked.

“You sent a lot of texts and KakaoTalk messages. I had a strange feeling.”

After explaining for about five minutes ‘how I knew and was able to send her to the hospital,’ she nodded slightly.

“Actually, I got a DM from that Hana person.”

“A DM…?”

She had approached first.

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“That’s…”

“That I hit on every woman, and give them sponsorships?”

“……”

Her silence seemed to hold a lot of meaning.

The moment had come to reveal my own flaws and explain how this incident happened.

I swallowed a few times.

My personality, which couldn’t stand injustice and charged headfirst without thinking, had hurt many people, and I had been hurt as well.

But I didn’t think this personality was wrong.

At least, because of this picky personality, I was able to avoid being a coward.

Forcing the values I impose on others equally on myself.

That’s how I, Kang In-ho, have lived.

Now, I could calmly persuade her, send her home, and extinguish this difficult-to-explain dependency.

But the moment I brought up these words, and the moment I explained what I had to do afterward.

My relationship with Garam would be irreversible.

She would become more dependent on me, and I would suffer from her obsession.

I know. I know it well. But I have no intention of avoiding it.

‘Responsibility’ is important to me, no matter what it means to others.

There are no exceptions.

“Hana was someone I seriously considered marrying.”

“……..”

“Looking back now, I don’t know why I did that. Maybe it was some external reason, like she was sexy.”

I began to tell Garam about my understanding of the previous owner and the reasons I had created.

“I had money, I was getting old. I had no friends, I was lonely. So I started watching internet broadcasts.”

“You were lonely.”

“I was treated like an old man everywhere else, but on the internet, if I spent a little money, pretty girls would call me ‘Oppa.’ I liked that.”

“If I gave them 100,000 won, they would say they loved me. If I gave them 200,000 won, they would dance. 1 million won for a personal message, 2 million won for a date, 5 million won for a night…..”

“After a while, I got confused. I thought, ‘Ah, I could live with girls like that if I wanted to.’, ‘I have money, so…’ …I started to think like that.”

“……”

“That’s probably why I was drawn to Hana. So I gave her money, bought her a car, and helped her with her business. Kick, pathetic, right?”

“Ah, no…”

“Then one day, I suddenly came to my senses. The bottles of alcohol, snacks, and delivery food scattered around the house… my grotesquely overweight body and my health, which was on its last legs.”

The car stopped at a red light, and I turned my head slightly to the right.

“So I said I was going to exercise. Coincidentally, there was a gym in one of my buildings.”

“So that’s what happened….”

“I enjoyed exercising, I lost weight little by little, and my muscles grew little by little… It felt like playing a game. I probably would have quit halfway if it weren’t for Garam.”

I smiled at her.

“I also became very close to Garam while exercising. So I wanted to take care of her more. She was working hard at a young age. It was presumptuous, but I wanted to repay her.”

I also had the financial resources to repay her.

I added.

“So I had no choice but to tell you about the methods I was familiar with. In the process… Hana, who knew that Garam and I were connected, started this.”

“I’m sorry. Garam. Because of me….”

The light turned green, and I couldn’t look her straight in the eye, so I pretended to drive and looked ahead.

The car continued to drive, and the scenery of the road continued to change.

Similarly, the silence in the car continued.

“It’s okay. It’s not like you did it on purpose…”

Very quietly, she comforted me.

“First of all, I’ll take as much responsibility as possible for this incident. I’ll fix the messed-up center. Garam, take a week off.”

According to Ho-cheol, the center was a complete mess. It was impossible to run the center in this state.

I thought it would be a good idea to remodel it.

I could replace the broken glass and replace the outdated facilities.

I had already told Ho-cheol to look into related companies.

“You don’t have to.”

“I said I’d take responsibility, so I won’t accept any objections. Garam, you always said that the facilities were old.”

“And….”

“And, I’ll make sure you don’t have to worry about Hana anymore. Take a break from broadcasting for a while.”

“…How? Are you going to meet that bitch? Please don’t.”

When Hana’s name came up, Garam’s words were sharp.

“I won’t meet her. There’s a way to repay her without meeting her.”

“Repay her?”

She tilted her head, as if she didn’t understand.

Before we knew it, the car was near her house.

A shabby villa area. I stretched my head forward and checked the building number.

“The more comfortable people become, the more they let their guard down.”

I said as I slowly passed through the alley.

“So, they say things carelessly. They don’t even calculate whether what they say will be a problem or not.”

We arrived at the building where she lived.

I parked the car against the wall for a moment and escorted her to her house.

Garam seemed reluctant to show me her shabby house, but I didn’t care.

“Boss. So what are you going to do…?”

After going with her to the front door of her house, Garam asked me as I was about to return to the stairs.

I took out my phone and waved it at her.

“A lot of people forget that their phones have a recording function.”