Chapter 17. The Identity of His Mysterious Benefactor
By the time Harok arrived, things around Yubin’s table were already getting noisy.
“Would you mind getting lost?”
“Stop playing hard to get. I can tell just by looking at you. You got dumped and came here to drink alone, didn’t you?”
“Dumped? Fuck off. Stop bothering me and get lost.”
“What? Fuck off? Damn, you really think you’re something special. I’m just asking you to have a drink with me.”
One look was enough to tell Harok the man was probably a civil service exam student studying somewhere around Sillim-dong.
Yubin kept ignoring him and refusing, until the man finally grabbed her wrist.
“Stop playing hard to get!”
What the hell is wrong with this bastard?
The moment Harok saw his junior being manhandled, sparks practically flew from his eyes.
“Yubin.”
Harok hurried over and grabbed the arm of the man holding Yubin’s wrist.
Then he twisted it hard.
“Ah, ah... That hurts...!”
The moment Yubin saw Harok, her face brightened.
“Oppa, why did you take so long? He was bullying me. Hmph.”
Oppa?
Fine. I’ll play along.
Harok normally didn’t enjoy this kind of joke.
But maybe because he’d been drinking too, he decided to follow Yubin’s lead.
“Why are you grabbing my woman’s wrist?”
“Ah, ah, I didn’t know. I thought she was alone... I’m sorry.”
Only then did Harok release the man’s arm.
The exam student shrank back and hurried to his own seat.
“You okay?”
“Hehe. Don’t we work pretty well together?”
She was clearly drunk out of her mind.
How much did she drink beforehand for Seol Yubin, the heaviest drinker on the satsumari team, to end up like this?
“What do you mean, work well together?”
“Why are you grabbing my woman’s wrist!”
Yubin lowered her voice and imitated Harok in an exaggerated manly tone.
“That was because you...”
“...Senior, I saw you in a new light.”
Her tongue was already slightly slurred as she mixed another bomb shot.
“You look like you already drank a lot at the team dinner. Why did you come all the way here? Don’t you watch the news? This place is crawling with punks like that.”
“You’re leaving, so now I have to learn how to stand on my own.”
Oh, please.
“Journalists are lone wolves by nature. You investigate alone, write alone. It’s a lonely profession.”
“But look at this drug story. Didn’t we perform better and get a much better result because we worked together?”
Harok couldn’t deny that.
Dividing up the work had definitely let them investigate more broadly and more deeply.
“Even so, you’ll have to learn how to manage on your own from now on.”
“That sounds depressing.”
“Why are you acting so weak? You’re the future police beat chief...”
Harok accidentally let another piece of future knowledge slip.
“Huh? How did you know? Becoming police beat chief is my dream. Hehe.”
Damn.
He had said too much without thinking.
Harok hurriedly covered it up.
“Most satsumari reporters dream about becoming police beat chief. I was just guessing.”
“Don’t you want to become chief?”
“Of course not. I want to get away from places like the social affairs department and live happily for once.”
Yubin stared at him.
“Why?”
“You spend all your time obsessing over reporting, articles, exclusives, things like that. Do you even know what a happy life is?”
Am I really that bad?
I have hobbies. I date too...
No.
He wanted to date.
The truth was, Harok did have a tendency to become overly absorbed in journalism.
He had decided he wanted to become a journalist when he was still in elementary school.
His maternal uncle, who had been a newspaper reporter, had influenced him greatly.
Harok had admired that uncle.
He seemed to know everything going on in the world and had a fiery personality that refused to tolerate injustice.
His mother hated it.
Harok had always done well in school, and yet he insisted on following his uncle and becoming a journalist.
When Harok refused to give up on the idea, his mother banned his uncle from visiting their house.
Then she kept pressuring Harok to attend medical school.
Harok ignored her completely.
In the end, he majored in political science.
After finishing military service, he immediately began preparing for media company entrance exams.
He became a reporter as soon as he graduated.
When he passed the Daehan Daily recruitment exam, his mother lay in bed for three days straight.
Around that time, a tumor was discovered in his uncle’s brain.
No one had been happier than his uncle when Harok finally became a journalist.
Not long afterward, his uncle underwent brain tumor surgery.
He never came back.
The drinking session seemed like it was about to end several times, only to drag on until three in the morning.
They never even got around to discussing the drug investigation.
Harok had let his guard down too much.
Yubin was such a strong drinker that he had never expected things to go this far.
He never imagined she would get so drunk that she could barely tell left from right.
Strangely, the more drunk Yubin became, the more sober Harok felt.
“Hey, Seol Yubin. Get a grip.”
“What, you bastard? Who the hell are you telling to get a grip? Huh? ...Hic.”
Conversation had become impossible.
“Hey, Seol Yubin. Where did you leave your car? We need to call a designated driver.”
“You, bastard... Hic. Don’t live like that! Running away by yourself like that, huh?”
“Yes, yes. Just tell me your home address.”
Even after arguing with her for more than ten minutes, Harok couldn’t figure out where she had parked.
In the end, he barely managed to get her address and got into a taxi with her.
There was no way he could send a completely drunk woman alone in a taxi at this hour.
That, too, was an occupational habit from years in the social affairs department.
“The address... Wait. We need to go toward UN Village in Hannam-dong...”
Harok gave the driver the address Yubin had told him.
It was the very neighborhood where major chaebol owners were known to live.
...Is she a chaebol daughter?
Even if she wasn’t, her family was clearly somewhere close to that level.
Harok had vaguely suspected she came from money, but no wonder the way she spent it always felt different.
“Yubin, is this the place?”
“Yeah, you idiot. Hic. Ptooey!”
She was displaying every possible kind of drunken behavior.
Harok repeatedly bowed to the taxi driver in apology before finally dragging her out.
Harok sat in the middle of the living room sofa with his head lowered like a criminal.
He had entered the house staggering with Yubin’s arm around his shoulders because she could barely walk.
Seeing their daughter in that state, Yubin’s parents were horrified and immediately demanded an explanation from Harok.
“I can’t believe this. How could you let a young woman drink until she ended up like that?”
The woman scolding him was Yubin’s mother, Lee Siyoung.
She held Harok responsible for allowing her daughter to become so drunk.
“Honey, what did this gentleman do wrong? In any case, thank you for bringing our daughter home safely.”
Yubin’s father, at least, approached the situation more rationally.
“...You said you’re a senior reporter from the same department as Yubin?”
“Yes. I apologize for the late introduction. I’m Baek Harok. I work with Yubin on the crime reporting team.”
The moment he heard the name Baek Harok, a brief flash of surprise appeared on Yubin’s father’s face.
“Yes, nice to meet you. I’m Yubin’s father, Seol Chunggyeong.”
Harok had been struggling to fight off the returning drunkenness.
