INFB Ch 9

Jaegyu didn’t forget the condolence money either. The white envelope was thick. It was a volume that the loan sharks would have snatched away in a heartbeat had they been awake. Seobin raised his head to look up at Jaegyu as he received it absentmindedly.

“…”

“…”

Jaegyu was silently staring at Seobin without saying a single word. He seemed to be waiting for Seobin’s words. It also felt as if he were trying to check whether he remembered him or not. At that silent urging, Seobin opened his dry lips as if pushed by something.

“It’s been a long time, …hyung.”

At that call, Jaegyu squeezed his eyes shut and opened them. It was a strange expression, but he looked just like a baptized believer. After looking around to check the whereabouts of the loan sharks, Seobin hastily shoved the envelope into his pocket. And he gave a short nod to Jaegyu.

“Thank you for coming.”

“Yeah, it’s been a long time.”

There was a time lag in the conversation. As Seobin tilted his head sideways at the crossed sentences, Jaegyu himself showed no particular reaction. After looking down at Seobin for a while, he turned his body and headed toward the entrance.

He did not express condolences for his father’s death, nor did he say words to comfort Seobin. Nor was he staying for a meal. Anyone looking would think he hadn’t come to offer condolences, but had come to see Seobin.

Jaegyu put on his shoes and again stared at Seobin for a moment. Seobin, who came out to see him off, awkwardly received that gaze with his hands gathered below his lower abdomen.

Then. Jaegyu abruptly held something out.

It was a business card.

Seobin received it with both hands.

Mae Capital

Representative Gil Jae Gyu

Below his name written in bold, things like a main representative phone number and address were written. Usually, a business card should have an email or cell phone number, so the absence of those was unique. As Seobin looked at it intently, Jaegyu let out a short exclamation, “Ah.” Then he suddenly snatched back the business card held in Seobin’s hand.

Looking around, he picked up a sign pen whose cap was off at the place for writing the guestbook. And after scribbling something on the business card, he handed it back to Seobin.

A phone number starting with 010 was written across the business card. By estimation, he wondered if it was Jaegyu’s number.

As Seobin looked down at the number where the ‘0’ had smudged quickly, Jaegyu made an out-of-the-blue remark.

“If you need money, call me.”

“…”

It was something he was hearing for the first time. Nor was it something to say at a funeral home. The loan sharks were clamoring for money, but usually at a funeral home, shouldn’t conversations like ‘call me if you have a hard time’ take place?

Seobin raised his head and looked at Jaegyu.

“…”

At Seobin’s amber pupils sparkling even under the dim light, Jaegyu clenched his fists tight and uncurled them. Then he slowly raised the corners of his mouth. Like a person who had found something precious. Or like a person holding it in his hand.

Seobin’s mouth gasped open slightly.

A smiling Jaegyu.

Though they hadn’t been together for long, he had hardly ever seen a smiling face from him. Furthermore, he could be certain he had never seen such a gentle smile even once. Since he was a person of so few words that his voice was faint in memory.

Seobin squeezed the business card tightly. Looking at Jaegyu smiling handsomely at him, he couldn’t distinguish whether he was an angel or a demon.

While Seobin stood blankly, Jaegyu slowly left the funeral hall. Then, when he had crossed about half the corridor. Letting out a short exclamation, “Ah,” he turned back to look at Seobin and said,

“By the way, you don’t cry either.”

At those words, Seobin’s pupils plummeted to somewhere in the distant past.

‘If you need money, call me.’

Was that statement a curse or a prophecy? Seobin came to need money in an urgent timeframe.

It was because of the funeral costs and his mother’s hospital bills. However, in Seobin’s possession, a twenty-one-year-old university student who used to live on allowance, there was no way there could be money.

Of course, he didn’t think of Jaegyu from the start. Naturally, he went to the bank first.

However, the bank teller said with a pitiful expression that he did not meet the loan conditions. Things like income amount and credit score this and that, family relationship this and that, which were no different from an alien language to a twenty-one-year-old who had just come out into the world. Every single one was a word he had not learned at school.

While Seobin foolishly lingered like that. His father’s friends, that is to say, company people in the name of friends, plucked away company shares under unintelligible pretexts and laws. When one person plucked them, another person came and plucked them again. Just like pulling a Jenga block when it became their turn.

His mother’s financial situation was no different. The wealth stacked up like a mountain was fragmented in an instant and flowed into several people’s pockets. Seobin was thoroughly excluded from that distribution of wealth.

In the end, only debt remained for Seobin.

Although there was a good system called renunciation of inheritance, unfortunately, because his mother was not in a deceased state, that process was complex and took a long time. Matters were twisted and tangled, so he even had to get a lawyer, but that money was not a small amount either.

The loan sharks who visited frequently shouted that his father had borrowed money, but it was impossible to even know whether he had truly borrowed it or not.

Amid numbers swelling like a snowball every single day, there was nothing Seobin could do.

A couple of months passed, and Seobin quietly turned twenty-two. At the same time, he reached a certain limit. The limit that he couldn’t break through this situation alone.

Rummaging through his tiny studio apartment, he found Jaegyu’s business card. Although the phone number was smudged so that 8 and 3 could not be distinguished, fortunately, he succeeded in calling Jaegyu in one try.

…He would rather have had bad luck.

He received an address from Jaegyu. It wasn’t a special address. It was a building in Yeouido that came up when searching ‘Mae Capital’ on a map app. The building sparkled as if built not long ago, and its floor count was quite high.

Seobin conveyed at the information desk located in the lobby that he had come to meet Jaegyu, and after calling somewhere to verify, the staff soon let Seobin in. Along with the instruction to go up to the top floor.

Jaegyu’s president’s office arrived at like that was spacious, pleasant, and sparkling. Deep inside the space was Jaegyu’s desk where a nameplate reading [President Gil Jae Gyu] was placed, and a tall lamp was standing nearby. Behind it, there was also a traditional Korean goblin painting drawn in a folk art style. Glaring eyes, sharp teeth, short horns, and a blunt yet thin beard instantly captured the gaze.

The furniture was generally black, and here and there were porcelain or Buddhist-related ornaments, giving it a heavy yet elegant atmosphere.

However, a few husky men were guarding the front door, and a thick smell of cigarettes wafted in, which was slightly different from a regular president’s office.

Seeing Jaegyu after a long time, he was in a dress shirt. However, as if he were about to head out somewhere, he was just putting on a suit jacket. Pulling and straightening the edges of his jacket, he approached with a gentle smile. And before proper greetings could be exchanged, he asked,

“How much do you need?”

His curved eye corners were full of enjoyment.

The contract was not long. It was just one page. At the bank, just getting a loan consultation gave a whole stack of documents, but what the man who appeared to be Jaegyu’s subordinate held out was merely one page.

There, Party A and Party B were written, and surprisingly, Seobin’s name was written in Party A’s position. In Party B, Mae Capital’s trade name and information were already printed.

Because the table was low, Seobin had to write the contract with his waist bent deeply. His hand writing his name, resident registration number, phone number, and address was extremely neat. The handwriting written by that hand was also very neat and proper.

“…”

Jaegyu, sitting on the head seat sofa, was staring with crossed legs at Seobin’s personal information being written clearly.

Before long, the ballpoint pen stopped in front of the [Loan Amount] column. The round pen tip scribbled unknown numbers in the air. As Seobin hesitated, Jaegyu flicked his chin and urged him.

“Write it.”

“Does any amount not matter?”

“Yeah.”

“…”

It was a strange thing to say. How could that not matter? If I write 100 million here, will you give me 100 million? What if you can’t get it back? I’m just a greenhorn who turned twenty-two.

Seobin pondered for a moment, then pressed down and wrote the numbers firmly.

3,000,000