Handsome Trash - 11
It was obvious from the first time they met that she was beautiful, but unlike when he met Hyewon, his body didn’t respond to her and his heart didn’t move.
Only the desire to travel to Bonjuri to see Hyewon remained, and it continued to grow, even if it was only for a short time.
Just one day. No, even if he could only spare a few hours, but if he stopped by Bonjuri, he would only be able to give her a quick update.
It would be nice if she was freely able to contact him, but since that wasn’t an option, he had to go to her directly.
On Saturday, he would go to the banquet dinner. On Sunday, he would follow his schedule.
After being diagnosed with a terminal illness, Woongyu, who had given up all means and methods of prolonging his life, couldn’t bear to disrupt any schedules. It was his last courtesy to his grandson as being the person who took care of him all his life.
With the doctor’s unspoken warning that it wouldn’t be too long until he passed, Eunhyuk was obligated to do his best to make sure his grandfather had no regrets at the end of his life. He didn’t even bother to keep to his usual daily schedule.
Eunhyuk checked the time and it was approaching midnight.
If not tonight, he wouldn’t have time again for a while.
He had to go back and see Hyewon, even if it was only for a short visit. He had promised her that he would be there.
“I’ll be back before tomorrow’s banquet.”
Heading to Bonjuri, Eunhyuk called his secretary and gave a short notice.
He asked where he was going, but he didn’t tell him.
He’d be lying if he said it didn’t bother him when Secretary Cho reported that Hyewon wasn’t actually Soonok’s granddaughter.
But it didn’t really matter now.
One way or another, his heart was with Hyewon and he would just have to ask her.
It was a long drive from Seoul, about twenty kilometers to Bonjuri.
The closer he got to Hyewon, the more his heart beat as if it would break.
Instead of the feeling of excitement of meeting Hyewon, it felt like the precursor to ominousness. He wasn’t wrong, either.
A mild anxiety washed over him when he realized that he received a late-night phone call from Secretary Cho.
“The chairman is in critical condition.”
The death of his grandfather, which was said to be three months away at most, came too quickly.
When he hurried back to Seoul, Woongyu’s heart had already stopped.
*.*.*.*.*
The death of the chairman of Samwoo Group shook the company to its core.
Even though he had prepared for his death for a long time, it still felt like a huge blow.
As an employee and the next owner of Samwoo Group, Eunhyuk had to endure the distrustful glances of countless people and endure the hardships of the time.
“Is the address you gave me 1-1 Bonjuri?”
After finishing Woongyu’s funeral, he asked his old friend Dokyung to go to Bonjuri and bring Hyewon to him.
Since there were a lot of eyes on him right now, he couldn’t afford to go get her himself.
“Yes, Bonjuri. You can’t take a car, so you have to climb the mountain on foot.”
“I walked up the f*cking mountain and past the creek, and found a house, but it was empty. No one lives there, asshole.”
Eunhyuk pulled out his cigarette and put it in his mouth, then slowly stopped moving.
“Kang Hyewon. That’s the girl who lives there.”
He doesn’t know where the ominous feeling came swooping in from.
“Don’t you think I could find someone in this deserted house? I found nothing, not even a rat, let alone a human.”
Eunhyuk’s mind went blank at that moment.
He knew that Dokyung was being serious, but he found it hard to believe his words.
“That’s it. I’m leaving.”
Eunhyuk gritted his teeth and held back the urge to curse at Dokyung. He was about to insist that a human being couldn’t evaporate, especially when they were preparing for an exam.
With so much going on, he could barely keep his eyes open, much less eat a meal comfortably.
At twenty-six years of age, the hardships that had come upon the young man, who had been relying on his grandfather for support, caught him off guard, like the sudden storm when he was in Bonjuri.
The task of filling Woongyu’s shoes was overwhelming, but he was determined to meet Hyewon who was waiting for him.
It was late at night when he returned to Bonjuri, but it was desolate. Only the silver light of the moon illuminated the tiled house.
Eunhyuk’s uneasiness made it difficult to keep his steps steady.
No matter how late at night it was, it was so…
Silent.
The bewildered voice of Dokyung echoed in his mind.
“Don’t you think I could find someone in this deserted house? I found nothing, not even a rat, let alone a human.”
The sound of creaking, rotting wood pierced the air as he stepped on the floor of the unheated, unlit house.
He was hoping that he would open the closed door and find Hyewon asleep.
With a creak and the sound of rust, the door swung open.
The room was empty.
There was no sign of the woman who was supposed to be there. No sign of the little belongings she had.
Her desk, where she slept for barely two hours a night to be sure to pass the civil service exam, was clean and empty.
Only a scrap of the timetable taped to the wall fluttered in the breeze from the outside.
The only thing that hadn’t disappeared was the phone number he scribbled at the bottom of the paper.
The room that had so comfortingly embraced her in her grief over the death of her grandmother, the only family she had left in the world, felt so distant.
Everything that had happened began to seem like an illusion.
It was as if he had been having a long, long nightmare.
“F*ck. what the f*ck is this?”
Maybe he was possessed by a ghost.
He thought he was dropped into another world for a few nights and suddenly came back.
If that was the case though, his phone number shouldn’t be written on the timetable.
The woman who tightly held his c*ck, Kang Hyewon, disappeared like a mirage.
She left nothing behind, and no one knew her whereabouts.
Desolate, everything was crumbling.
Just as the sand in someone’s grasp would slowly disappear from the hands with the wind, Kang Hyewon disappeared from Cha Eunhyuk without a trace.
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