73. At the End of Life

“He’s not dead, is he, Grandpa?”

Seyoung kicked away the shattered pieces of the vase with her foot, nudging Soohyun.

Seyoung, who had stealthily followed Wooshik into the office, ruthlessly struck the back of Soohyun’s head according to Wooshik’s signal.

Soohyun, who reeked of alcohol even from a distance, was so drunk that he didn’t even notice Seyoung right behind him.

The celadon vase that struck the back of Soohyun’s head was quite cherished by Chairman Park. Seyoung grinned briefly, thinking how satisfying it would be for Chairman Park to know that her precious celadon was used to knock out her grandson.

“Even if he’s not dead, we should clean up properly. It seems Soohyun found out everything...”

“What did he find out?”

“There’s that. Let’s drag him out first. Before he wakes up.”

Wooshik urged Seyoung, and they strained to pull Soohyun. However, it was impossible for an old man and a young woman to move Soohyun’s large frame far.

In the end, they didn’t get far and just dumped Soohyun haphazardly in a corner of the office.

Seyoung briefly glanced at the back of Soohyun’s head. Whether his head had been cut when he was hit by the vase, dried blood and hair were stuck together on the back of his head.

“Seyoung-ah. First, let’s take what’s in the safe and move quickly. Before Soohyun wakes up. That’ll be faster.”

Wooshik hurriedly went into the safe first. He was anxious.

It would be troublesome if Soohyun woke up. There were two of them, Wooshik and Seyoung, but even if they joined forces, they couldn’t handle Soohyun if he was determined to fight. Their one attack had worked because he was off guard; there wouldn’t be a second chance.

He shone his phone light and carefully examined the inside of the safe.

As Soohyun had said, it wasn’t completely empty, but it wasn’t the treasure trove full of gold bars he had expected, perhaps because it had been cleared out once.

“Park Yoon-hwa, you woman...!”

But his trembling was brief. Wooshik just swept everything in the safe into his bag haphazardly. There was still quite a bit of money to be made, including gold bars and dollars.

“Grandpa, but what do we do now?”

When Seyoung gestured with her chin towards the fallen Soohyun, Wooshik said without hesitation,

“Seyoung-ah, you go to the kitchen and bring the oil can.”

“Why?”

“Why else? We have to set this place on fire. That’s the best way to erase our traces.”

“What if we get caught as arsonists?”

“Get caught? We’re going to smuggle ourselves out of the country. Seyoung just needs to do as Grandpa says.”

“Seyoung sets the fire?”

“Why, are you scared?”

Wooshik asked Seyoung as he threw the bag he had packed heavily out of the safe. Seyoung caught the bag Wooshik threw out, pushed it aside, and asked Wooshik,

“Grandpa, Daeho Oppa said I’m not your real granddaughter. Is that true?”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“Aunt Jae-eun said so. She said I’m a child with no connections who was picked up from an orphanage.”

“What nonsense are you spouting in this situation? Just move this quickly.”

Wooshik, who had zipped up the remaining half-filled bag, threw even that out of the safe, dismissing Seyoung’s question.

“Is it true?”

However, Seyoung asked again, ignoring Wooshik’s words.

“What’s so important about that? How much I’ve cherished you.”

Sensing that Seyoung’s question was unusual, Wooshik smiled slyly and turned around. At that moment, Seyoung suddenly grabbed the safe door handle and slammed the door shut.

Bang.

“Seyoung-ah! Seyoung-ah! Open the door! What are you doing!”

Wooshik shouted from inside the safe door. However, no matter how much he yelled from inside the thick iron door, only a faint sound leaked out.

“Grandpa. I’m going to try to get away from you now. I’m tired of getting hit, and I’m annoyed with doing everything you tell me to.”

Seyoung whispered towards Wooshik through the safe door. She didn’t care whether her words reached Wooshik through the thick iron door or not.

“So you shouldn’t have slapped me so much.”

Somehow, they didn’t resemble each other at all. Even if Daeho hadn’t said it, Seyoung herself had wanted to find out the truth someday.

No, even if he was her real grandfather, there was no familial affection at all. All she remembered about Im Wooshik was him beating her like a dog on a hot summer day. In any case, Daeho’s words were just an excuse to justify her betrayal.

Seyoung, who had been plotting to get away from Im Wooshik whenever she had a chance, clapped her hands together with a very lighthearted expression.

“...Ah, I feel a bit relieved now. Freedom.”

And with an expression as if nothing had happened, she picked up the two bags Wooshik had thrown out of the safe and left the office.

________________________________________

Cough.

It felt like his throat was full of sand, a suffocating feeling. Soohyun coughed loudly and opened his eyes.

The first thing he felt when he regained consciousness was the acrid smell of smoke filling the air. The back of his head throbbed, and he barely supported himself on the floor with both hands, but he couldn’t lift his body.

After struggling for a while, he lifted his dizzy head and sat up, and immediately something flowed down his forehead. He raised his hand and wiped away what had flowed down to his eyelids, and the palm of his hand smelled of a metallic, fishy blood.

“Ugh...”

He groaned, trying to gather his dizzy senses, but everything in his blurry vision wavered. His neck was heavy, but everything around him was hazy and hot. His clothes were soaked with sweat that had poured down his entire body.

Thinking he might have been hit in the wrong place, Soohyun shook his head, and then realized that the scene he was seeing was actually wavering due to flames.

Looking around, Soohyun quickly grabbed one of the decorative vases, soaked his clothes with the water inside, and covered his mouth.

The office door was a wooden sliding door. The white paper was already blackened, and red light danced beyond it. Soohyun kicked the door hard with his foot, smashing it open.

The wooden sliding door was more decorative than functional, so it broke easily. But the problem was what came next.

The sprinkler on the ceiling wasn’t working properly. It was clear that someone had deliberately started the fire.

Normally, the guards thoroughly checked 24 hours a day, so the possibility of fire was close to zero. On a day like this, unless someone deliberately started a fire, the fire safety facilities were so well-equipped that a large fire shouldn’t have been possible.

Having roughly grasped the situation, Soohyun first tried to get out of the office and find a way to escape. The flames were rising uncontrollably, and the smoke was getting thicker. If he delayed any longer, he would probably lose consciousness before he could even walk a few steps.

Hah. Hah.

Soohyun took one step out of the broken sliding door, but he had no choice but to go back inside the office because something fell from the ceiling with a cracking sound. The narrow hallway was like a pit of fire.

It felt like smoke was filling his lungs. Breathing became difficult faster than he had expected.

His throat felt choked, and Soohyun slumped down.

The outside of the room was already full of flames, enough to make him voluntarily give up the will to escape. Soohyun first pulled the emergency fire door shut, blocking the entrance to the office. Then he took out his phone from his pocket.

However, perhaps due to the heat, the signal wasn’t strong. While the signal flickered, he called 119, but it didn’t connect.

Soohyun stared blankly at his recent call list. The three syllables of Yoon Haerin’s name on the list caught his eye. Knowing it wouldn’t go through, Soohyun pressed the number and made a call.

The sound of the flames crackling and engulfing everything around him crashed against the office door. His breath caught in his throat as the fire drew closer.

Before Wooshik had entered the office, Soohyun had already emptied a bottle of whiskey.

Having been hit on the back of the head while his body was saturated with alcohol and then inhaling smoke, his body sank heavily like waterlogged cotton.

Soohyun cast a listless gaze at the blackened screen of his phone. The phone, which hadn’t been able to catch a signal, had finally run out of battery and turned off.

If he struggled to live, he could try to run out of this room right now and throw himself into those flames.

In fact, he had expected Wooshik to do something tonight if he had ulterior motives. However, he hadn’t persistently pursued that plan because Soohyun had been living like a zombie, listless for days after being rejected by Haerin.

Soohyun, who had been holed up in the office drinking instead of eating, instinctively rose towards Wooshik, but that was it.

Was he going to die like this?

But when he thought he might really die, he actually felt a sense of liberation. Soohyun knew he had no will to live.

Heh, he laughed.

Was this retribution? No. Perhaps it was just things happening as he had wished.

He had thought that once he achieved revenge, his life would also be extinguished, following the family who had gone before him. Perhaps this was that opportunity.

The only thing he regretted was that the last image of Haerin’s face remained so heartbreaking. He was sad that the last time he had seen her wasn’t her smiling face. Still, he had seen her face once, so perhaps that was enough.

Soohyun lifted his empty eyes and looked at the flames engulfing him.

‘Would we have become a couple even if we weren’t Yoon Haerin and Jung Soohyun?’

He remembered the question Haerin had asked a long time ago.

Haerin’s thin hair fluttering in the wind, her pupils turning golden in the sunset light, her smiling lips curling up beautifully.

Why hadn’t he been more honest with her that day? Why hadn’t he said that he would have loved her no matter who she was?

As he felt it was the last moment of his life, his mind was filled only with thoughts of Haerin.

If there was a next life, he bitterly vowed and smiled weakly that he would try not to act like he knew her no matter where he encountered her, so as not to be a burden.

I’ll just watch you from afar.

Haerin-ah. Wherever you are, I think I’ll definitely recognize you. Wherever you are, I feel like I’ll be able to find you. Because I will definitely remember you.

Ah.

I hope your life without me is happier and more beautiful than it is now.

Soohyun suddenly thought of Haerin’s child, who might resemble him.

Even if that child resembled him, the child growing up in a world without Chairman Park and himself, receiving Haerin’s abundant love, would surely live a different life from his own.

And Soohyun had no doubt that that life would be filled with complete and abundant love.

I’m sorry, Haerin-ah.

Perhaps because he had inhaled a lot of smoke, his eyelids grew heavy. At the same time as his throat became increasingly hoarse, his consciousness began to fade.

The crackling sound and the sound of everything burning around him grew closer.

Soohyun closed his eyes without hesitation in his fading consciousness.