Chapter 46

We set off early in the morning and returned to Seoul.

The team members must have been exhausted because they slept throughout the entire journey.

After dropping each of those hardworking people off at home, I climbed onto the rooftop of the Halbaekase building.

Pssht. Click!

I opened a can of beer, poured it down my throat, and began pacing around the rooftop.

There were two factories on either side of the Halbaekase building.

Each building had a floor area of forty pyeong. Together with the Halbaekase building, they would make exactly one hundred pyeong.

A nice, easy number to remember.

Those buildings had almost become something I could only dream of owning.

But things were different now.

For the past month, their owners had been calling me.

As time passed, they seemed increasingly convinced that their properties were losing value.

They had probably heard the rumors that Daeyeong Precision, Seongjin Logistics, and even the Halbaekase building had been sold for ridiculously low prices.

Their buildings had been sitting empty for years.

They couldn't find tenants, nobody came to look at the properties, and redevelopment kept getting delayed indefinitely.

Then the building sandwiched between their properties suddenly began undergoing renovations.

Naturally, they must have grown anxious.

After all, the land would be far less useful unless all three properties were combined.

But I knew something they didn't.

Today was the cheapest any piece of land in Mullae-dong would ever be.

Deputy General Manager Geum Seokcheol had already signed purchase contracts for seventy percent of the target properties inside Creative Village.

Once he secured the remaining properties, Seongun's project would be announced to the world.

That was why I had contacted both property owners as soon as I returned to Mullae-dong.

As expected, they sounded desperate.

Without having to put in much effort, I managed to sign the contracts at the same price per pyeong that I had paid for the Halbaekase building.

I had no immediate plans to construct new buildings or renovate them like Halbaekase.

They were properties I could simply leave untouched and use as storage.

Just owning them alongside Halbaekase would increase the value of the land.

But now, things had changed.

Standing on the rooftop, I could clearly picture a future that wasn't far away.

And it was all thanks to the bombshell dropped by the elderly owner of the noodle restaurant in Tongyeong.

One day earlier.

The grandmother's shocking announcement had completely thrown us off.

We had all worked toward the same goal, losing sleep as we searched for a solution.

And now she was telling us that she would close her restaurant in a month?

After an emergency meeting, we decided to persuade her.

If business improved, there would be no reason for her to close.

That was the conclusion we all reached.

So we decided to stay one more night before leaving.

Part of the reason was that we needed to convince the grandmother.

But there was another reason.

In less than a day, Senior Staff Choi Iseul's social media post had produced an unbelievable result.

Tourists visiting nearby attractions began flocking to the restaurant with curious expressions.

Jongil stayed in the kitchen with the grandmother, while Oh Ilman bought more pressed pork from the market and took charge of serving customers.

Choi Iseul welcomed customers at the counter.

Tables that had been completely empty the previous day were now packed.

Some customers even took their noodles outside and ate them in the alley.

It was unbelievable.

That was what we thought as we watched the customers.

And the customers' reactions after tasting the noodles were just as extraordinary.

Eight in the evening.

Only after every last portion of broth in the freezer had been used did we finally have a chance to catch our breath.

"Team Leader! This is incredible! Absolutely incredible!"

Senior Staff Choi was practically jumping up and down at the counter.

"How much did we sell?"

"Two hundred and forty bowls of noodles and thirty-five plates of pressed pork! We couldn't sell much alcohol because we only had what was already in the refrigerator. Even so, today's sales exceeded 1.3 million won!"

Customers had only started pouring in as evening approached.

Such a result was possible because the broth had been prepared in advance and noodle dishes could be served quickly, allowing for a high table turnover.

The pressed pork didn't require much preparation either.

"Goodness. This is the first time I've ever had to close because I ran out of ingredients."

The grandmother looked noticeably more exhausted than before.

She stared at the sales ledger and shook her head in disbelief.

Her wrinkled hands were trembling slightly.

I couldn't tell whether it was from happiness or because boiling noodles all day had left her exhausted.

"Thank you. Thanks to you youngsters, I've gotten to see something like this at the very end."

At the very end.

Those words struck me with unusual force.

I stopped collecting the empty bowls and sat down in front of her.

"Grandma, are you still planning to close the restaurant after all this?"

"...I have to. I'm getting too old for this. If you hadn't helped me today, I would've had to turn all those customers away."

The grandmother pulled her hands out from beneath her apron.

Her bent fingers were swollen, yet they were still covered in wrinkles.

They were the hands of someone who had spent her entire life moving between hot and cold water.

"When I wake up in the morning, I can't even straighten them. I have to soak them in hot water for at least ten minutes before I can move them properly."

"..."

I was speechless.

We had calculated that the restaurant needed to sell at least one hundred bowls a day to remain financially viable.

We had considered the average spending per customer, table turnover, and sales.

Yet we hadn't thought about the hands of the person who would actually have to cook those noodles.

"Money was a problem too, but my son is coming to get me at the end of this month. He made such a fuss about me retiring that I couldn't argue with him anymore. Tsk."

The grandmother continued calmly.

"But the closer the date gets, the harder it is to sleep. Leaving the place where I've spent my whole life isn't easy. Still, what choice do I have? My son takes after me, so he's terribly stubborn. He cares about me so much, you know. Hehehe."

Something about this didn't quite add up.

Her husband's accident must have happened decades ago, which meant she had been living alone ever since.

Her business, on the other hand, had only started struggling recently.

She couldn't leave.

The story about waiting for her husband to return from the sea was only an excuse.

This was someone who simply couldn't bear to leave this place.

The grandmother's wrinkled hand brushed across an old tray.

It looked like something that had accompanied her throughout her entire life.

A caterpillar belongs among pine needles.

And the grandmother belonged here.

"You don't want to leave, do you?"

The grandmother looked around the restaurant with tired eyes.

Then she told me the truth in a cracked voice.

"The thought that all those years of waking up before dawn to make broth, slicing radishes, and boiling noodles will simply disappear..."

That was as far as she got.

She couldn't continue.

And I said nothing either.

There was no need for more words.

It was obvious that she didn't want to leave.

Her sorrowful gaze drifted toward the small room behind the kitchen, the room she had been unable to abandon for so many years.

That look told me everything.

She hadn't given up.

She was trying to convince herself that she had no choice but to give up.

"Grandma, have you told your landlord that you're moving out?"

"...Not yet. I was planning to tell him sometime this week. Why do you ask?"

"Don't tell him. Your son isn't coming for another month, right? Please hold on until then. I'll find a solution before that happens. Starting tomorrow, hire some women from the neighborhood and pay them a daily wage to help run the restaurant. It shouldn't take very long."

The grandmother's eyes wavered.

"Trust me. I'm an expert in this field. I've been doing this for ten years. You saw what happened today, didn't you? I'll find a way for you to stay here. Can you wait for me?"

She stared at me silently for a long time.

"...Why are you going this far?"

"Excuse me?"

"I'm nobody to you. Just an old woman you met for the first time yesterday."

I couldn't exactly tell her that she reminded me of something that had happened ten years ago.

I remembered standing in front of my father's barbecue restaurant after its shutters had been pulled down.

The red seizure notice attached to the shutter.

Myself in my twenties, staring at it for hours.

Back then, I hadn't understood anything.

I didn't know why the restaurant had failed or what could have been done to save it.

And just like that, the restaurant my father had devoted twenty years of his life to had disappeared.

But things were different now.

As the grandmother had said, we had only met yesterday.

Even so, I was confident that I could find a solution.

How could I give up without trying?

"Just... think of it as an occupational disease."

The grandmother chuckled.

For the first time, a genuine smile spread across her deeply wrinkled face.

"An occupational disease, you say..."

"Yes. A particularly nasty one."

"Hehehe. If that's the case, I suppose I have one of those myself."

The grandmother smiled fondly as she looked toward the pot of boiling broth.

She was right.

Even while talking about closing her restaurant, she was still preparing for tomorrow's business.

The grandmother slowly nodded.

"All right. I won't tell the landlord just yet."

"Thank you, Grandma."

"But don't push yourself too hard. If it doesn't work out, then so be it. I'll be all right."

That was what she said.

But there was a happy smile on her face.

Remembering what happened yesterday, I opened another can of beer.

There was a reason I had been able to make such a confident promise.

Her son.

The grandmother had a son.

Something about that had been bothering me.

She had raised two children by selling noodles throughout her entire life.

So why had those children allowed her situation to become this bad?

Was it simply because she was stubborn?

I didn't think so.

To resolve this problem, I first needed to understand why her son wanted to bring her to Seoul.

And the moment that thought crossed my mind, the diary app had displayed a blue entry.

There was a photograph attached.

In it stood a famous celebrity, someone I recognized immediately, alongside an unfamiliar man wearing an apron.

Between the two men stood the grandmother, smiling brightly with a ladle in her hand.

I had no idea who the man in the apron was.

But I had a pretty good guess.

He was probably the person I was about to meet.

After all, I had brought her son's contact information back from Tongyeong.

That night, on Olympic-daero.

The man sitting in the back seat grumbled, reeking of alcohol.

"Hey, mister! You're not dragging this out just to charge me more, are you? Feels like we're going around in circles."

He was a customer who had called a designated driver but was so drunk that he thought he was riding in a taxi.

"Don't worry. I'm not charging you anything extra. This isn't a taxi, sir. It's your own car."

"Huuuh? Really? Hahaha! You're right! It's my car! My car!"

The man burst into laughter as if it were the funniest thing in the world.

Less than ten seconds later, he was snoring.

"Ha..."

This wasn't good.

Judging by his condition, it would probably take considerable effort to wake him once they reached the parking lot.

Ten thirty.

After struggling to get the barely conscious customer into the elevator and sending him upstairs, Dongsu finally left the apartment complex.

Three calls in three hours.

Forty-two thousand won.

After deducting the call center's commission, he was left with a little over thirty thousand won.

Dongsu sighed and turned on his phone to look for another job.

[5 Missed Calls]

Three were from an unfamiliar number.

The other two were from his mother.

He had used driving as an excuse not to answer.

But the real reason was the situation he had recently found himself in.

He felt that hearing his mother's voice would make him burst into tears.

He had confidently promised to bring her to Seoul at the end of this month.

He had told her to close her struggling restaurant and get some rest.

Hadn't he grown into a man capable of looking after his own mother?

But then the company where he had worked for so many years suddenly announced layoffs.

Having spent practically his entire life sitting in front of a computer, there weren't many jobs he could do.

That was how he had started working as a designated driver.

He delivered vehicles during the day and drove customers home at night.

He still hadn't told his wife.

He put on his suit and left before his family woke up, returning only after everyone had fallen asleep.

[I've got another project, so I'll probably be late again today.]

The lies kept increasing.

And the hours he slept kept decreasing.

Bzzzt.

His phone vibrated again.

His mother was calling.

If he ignored her again, she might spend the entire night worrying instead of sleeping.

"...H-Hey, Mom."

-Were you sleeping? Sorry for calling so late. I've been having strange dreams lately... Everything's all right, isn't it?

"Yeah."

He deliberately kept his answer short.

Hearing his mother's voice when he was struggling made his eyes burn.

-Dongsu.

"Yeah?"

-Don't worry about me. You said you were coming at the end of this month, right? You don't have to come all the way here. I don't have much luggage, so I can make the trip myself.

His chest tightened.

"What are you talking about? I told you I'd come and get you."

-No, it's fine. You must be busy with work.

"...A-All right. We'll talk about it when the time comes."

His voice trembled slightly.

His mother, who knew him better than anyone, immediately noticed.

-Dongsu, nothing's happened to you, has it? Your voice sounds...

He moved the phone away for a moment and steadied his breathing.

Then he deliberately answered with irritation in his voice.

"I told you I'm fine. I just woke up, that's all."

-...O-Okay. I understand, son. Go back to sleep.

The call ended.

Dongsu sat down on the sidewalk and lowered his head.

His mother had spent her entire life doing nothing but making noodles.

She boiled broth late into the night, then woke before dawn to transfer the cooled broth into the refrigerator.

Three hours of sleep a day was all she got.

And with that, she had raised two children.

Dongsu knew why she couldn't bring herself to leave the restaurant.

She claimed it was because of his father.

But that place contained her entire life.

Still, what else was he supposed to do?

Looking after his aging mother, who was growing weaker every year, was his duty as her son.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you, Mom."

Dongsu whispered and buried his face against his knees.

Bzzzt.

His phone rang again.

Thinking it might be another driving request, he checked the screen.

An unfamiliar number.

The same number he had already ignored three times.

"...Hello?"

-Is this Mr. Park Dongsu?

"Yes. Who's calling?"

An unfamiliar voice came from the other end.

-I'm Kang Jinhyeok, Team Leader of Seongun Development's Commercial District Analysis Team. I've been trying to contact you about your mother, but I haven't been able to reach you.

"...What?"

Dongsu's hand trembled.

His mother's phone call a few moments earlier suddenly seemed ominous.

-Could you spare some time tomorrow?

"W-What's this about? Did something happen to my mother?"

-No, nothing like that.

A brief silence followed.

Then came a sentence that left Dongsu completely frozen.

"Your mother doesn't have to close her restaurant."