Return To The Building Owner [EN]: Chapter 630

A week passed, then ten days, but there was no further contact from Lee Sang-ho. His fraud case seemed to have ended with his disappearance. Or so I thought.

But for him, ten million won [approximately $7,500 USD] was too much to simply abandon.

He finally reappeared about two weeks after the incident.

It was almost midnight.

*Clang!*

The store door opened, and someone entered. It was Lee Sang-ho.

I couldn’t help but be surprised the moment I saw him. He looked drastically different from how he had looked two weeks prior.

He looked like a homeless person.

“사장님! (Sajangnim!)” [사장님 (Sajangnim) is a Korean term of address, roughly equivalent to “Boss” or “Sir/Madam” depending on the context.]

Lee Sang-ho approached Hyun-sung and immediately knelt down.

“I was wrong. I was temporarily blinded by money and played a trick on you.”

“A trick?”

Hyun-sung pretended not to know and asked. Lee Sang-ho nodded and began to explain what had happened from the beginning.

“Actually, I didn’t intend to do that, but I saw you running a free sharing shop…….”

The reason he decided to commit fraud was because of the free sharing shop Hyun-sung ran.

He assumed that someone who could do something like that for the general public must be financially well-off.

Moreover, he knew that Hyun-sung couldn’t stand seeing people in need, so he even had two non-existent sons and a wife created through photo manipulation at a photo studio. He made them disabled to evoke even more sympathy.

His explanation continued, but Hyun-sung had already anticipated most of it, so he interrupted him.

“Stop now.”

“I have no excuse. I have nothing to say even if I had ten mouths.”

“So, what do you want now?”

“That’s…….”

He still had some conscience left, so he couldn’t bring himself to ask for the money back.

Hyun-sung handed him the money envelope he had received from him in the first place. Since it was problematic money from the start, he had kept it, intending to return it someday.

Lee Sang-ho’s eyes wavered as he received the money envelope, and tears began to flow from his eyes.

I could imagine how much he had suffered because of that money.

But that didn’t make his tears look any more genuine.

“Stop now.”

To Hyun-sung, even those tears seemed fake. Knowing that even the tears he shed when talking about his disabled children were fake, he didn’t want to see his tears anymore.

He just thought everything was fake.

“Stop now and take that money back. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. How can a person sell a family that doesn’t even exist? There are things that one should never do in this world.”

“사장님 (Sajangnim)…….”

“Don’t call me that anymore. I’m angry at myself for having felt sorry for you even for a moment because I was deceived by your lies. Take that money and get out of this store right now. And never appear before me again.”

“…….”

Lee Sang-ho couldn’t say anything more, got up from his seat, took the money envelope, and disappeared. Or so I thought he would disappear right away.

Lee Sang-ho, who was about to leave, approached Hyun-sung again.

“You may not believe it, but I will never do anything like this again.”

“…….”

Hyun-sung didn’t say anything. He wasn’t naive enough to give any meaning to those words.

He received another call from him two days later. He said he had gotten a job in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant. He was going to work at the Chinese restaurant and learn the skills from now on.

That’s how Lee Sang-ho’s fraud case came to an end.

***

Finally, April 1st.

Hyun-sung looked at the calendar on the wall and smiled without realizing it. It was because he would be able to see her, whom he had missed so much, in just four days.

Wife, Yoon Ji-soo!

The day he first met her in his previous life was Arbor Day, April 5th.

The day she first came to the video store, that day was now four days away.

“Hehe!”

Hyun-sung couldn’t help but feel nervous.

Of course, she wouldn’t know Hyun-sung himself.

Reuniting with his wife?

What would it feel like?

After thinking for a while, Hyun-sung called his employee, Kim Min-ki.

“Min-ki, I’m going out for a bit, so watch the store.”

“Yes, 사장님 (Sajangnim). See you later.”

Hyun-sung, who came outside, headed to a villa alley about 10 minutes away from the video store.

[Mijin Villa]

It was the villa where his wife lived in her previous life. Of course, she wouldn’t have moved in yet.

“Just a moment.”

A moving company employee approached Hyun-sung and said. It seemed that the person who lived there before was moving out today.

A ladder truck arrived, and a 5-ton truck was entering the narrow villa alley.

“It looks like someone is moving out today.”

Hyun-sung stepped aside and asked. The moving company employee glanced at Hyun-sung and said briefly.

“Yes.”

He seemed a little uncomfortable being spoken to in the middle of his busy work. But Hyun-sung asked again.

“Do you know when the new person will be moving in…….”

Hyun-sung stopped talking mid-sentence. He knew that no one would listen to him anyway. The moving company employee had already disappeared far away.

Hyun-sung then realized that he was interfering with their work because of his own desires.

Hyun-sung stepped back and watched the moving process for about 10 minutes before turning around.

He headed to a real estate agency 20 minutes away.

20 minutes later.

Hyun-sung arrived at the real estate agency and went straight inside.

“Oh? Mr. Kim! Welcome!”

As Hyun-sung entered, Yoo Young-cheol, the owner of the real estate agency, greeted him happily. Perhaps because they were from the same hometown, he always seemed particularly welcoming whenever he saw him.

“Please take this first.”

Hyun-sung handed over the 박카스 (Bacchus) box he had brought. [박카스 (Bacchus) is a popular Korean energy drink.]

“I don’t know how to thank you for this every time. By the way, what brings you here at this hour today?”

“Has unit 301 at Mijin Villa been taken yet?”

That was the reason Hyun-sung came here. He figured that coming here would be faster than waiting at the video store to meet his wife even a little earlier. After all, they would come here first to sign the contract.

“Unit 301 hasn’t been taken yet, but why do you ask?”

“No, I was just wondering because I saw someone moving out a little while ago.”

“So why are you curious about that? There are more than one or two places moving out these days, you know?”

That was probably true. Since it was spring, many people were moving. So Hyun-sung didn’t have anything special to say.

Hyun-sung had no choice but to sell the video store.

“I was just curious. I thought it would be helpful for the video business if a young person came.”

“Is that all?”

“What else could there be besides that?”

“It looks like you’re lying to me…… Am I wrong?”

Hyun-sung was embarrassed.

Of course, it was a lie. What Hyun-sung was curious about right now was only about his wife. When she would come to sign the contract.

But he couldn’t say that he was waiting for his wife in this situation, so he just made up an excuse about the video store.

But the problem was how Yoo Young-cheol knew that.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Do I only know you for a day or two? And do you know that you blink your eyes without realizing it when you lie?”

“Me?”

That was something Hyun-sung didn’t even know.

“Yes, I have a keen eye for seeing people because I do this kind of work. But in your case, you tend to blink your eyes when you lie.”

“Oh, is that so? I didn’t know.”

“You usually don’t know your own habits. By the way, are you waiting for someone?”

“Oh? How did you know……?”

It was a moment of surprise at Yoo Young-cheol’s perceptiveness. He was just saying that he was lying, but he was curious about how he figured it out.

“When you look at a person’s eyes, you can roughly tell what they want.”

“So?”

“So what, I saw in your eyes a little while ago that you were eagerly waiting for someone. Am I wrong?”

“Huh…….”

Hyun-sung couldn’t help but laugh in vain.

Of course, people tend to show some signs when they talk, but he couldn’t help but be surprised that he could guess so accurately.

“Do you have some kind of divine power?”

“What? Divine power? Hey, man! I’m not a shaman…….”

“I’m just so amazed.”

“Don’t do that, what’s going on? What exactly do you want from me?”

“Actually, I had a dream. That is…….”

Hyun-sung had no choice but to sell his dream again. After Hyun-sung’s explanation, Yoo Young-cheol asked immediately.

“So you saw a young lady in your dream?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“And that young lady moved into unit 301, which is moving out today?”

“Yes.”

“And that young lady was so pretty?”

“That’s right.”

Hyun-sung forced himself to hold back the laughter that came out while answering. After that, the two people’s conversation continued with similar content before they could finish the conversation.

A little while later.

Yoo Young-cheol asked again.

“So what exactly do you want to ask me?”

“I want you to contact me as soon as the contract is over.”

“Contact you?”

“Then I’ll come running right away.”

“What are you going to do when you come running?”

“Leave that to me, I’ll take care of it from then on.”

“Hehe, oh my…….”

Yoo Young-cheol was dumbfounded. He had been working in real estate for over 20 years, but this was the first time.

Was this even possible? To come all the way here to find a woman he saw in a dream.

“By any chance, what if the person coming to sign the contract is a man instead of a woman?”

“That won’t happen.”

“No, just in case.”

“That will never happen. So please contact me unconditionally.”

Even if it was just in case, such a thing should not happen. This is impossible. If that happens, it means that his relationship with his wife will be twisted.

“Okay, I got it.”

“Not just okay, but unconditionally.”

“Things in life don’t always go as planned…….”

“사장님 (Sajangnim)!”

Hyun-sung immediately interrupted Yoo Young-cheol’s words. Then he continued.

“Why do you keep saying such unsettling things?”

“Didn’t they say that dreams are the opposite?”

“This is different from those kinds of dreams. So please don’t say that again.”

“This is just in case I’m asking…….”

Yoo Young-cheol paused for a moment before continuing.

“Is that young lady going to be your future wife?”

“You may not believe it, but it’s true.”

“What? That’s true?”

“Yes, that’s right. So you have to actively help me.”

“Hehe…….”

Yoo Young-cheol couldn’t help but laugh in vain.

Then Hyun-sung’s words followed immediately.

“I promise you a high-end suit.”

“A suit?”

“Yes, they’ll probably come to sign the contract today or within the next 2-3 days at the latest. After all, they’ll be moving on Arbor Day.”

“Arbor Day?”

“Yes, so 사장님 (Sajangnim)…….”

“Okay, I got it. It’s not like I can’t grant that much since it’s you asking, Mr. Kim, not someone else. Don’t worry about anything. But by any chance…… do you know that young lady’s name?”

It was Yoo Young-cheol’s eyes that were suspicious until the end. He never expected the name to come out of Hyun-sung’s mouth.

“Yoon Ji-soo.”

“Yoon Ji-soo?”

“Yes, that young lady’s name is Yoon Ji-soo. So please…….”

“Okay, I’ll definitely remember that name. And this is just in case I’m asking…… that suit…….”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll definitely get you a high-end one.”

“It’s not like I’m hoping for that…… hehe.”

Yoo Young-cheol stopped talking and couldn’t help but laugh in vain.

The next day.

It was just after 2 p.m.

*Ting-a-ling!*

Hyun-sung’s cell phone rang.