Return To The Building Owner [EN]: Chapter 99

Shin Myung-soon laughed first, and after a moment, Hyun-sung and Lee Jung-woo joined in.

Hyun-sung and Lee Jung-woo left the snack bar.

Lee Jung-woo asked first.

“Where are we going?”

“School.”

“School?”
“The school’s parallel bars. Let’s start upper body workouts from today.”

Lee Jung-woo nodded and asked again.

“If I do a lot of pull-ups, will my arm strength increase a bit?”

“Of course. And the parallel bars have more exercises than you think. You’ve seen people do parallel bars in gymnastics, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen it a few times.”

“We’ll just do a few things from there. Then the upper body workout is done.”

“If I do all that, will I get abs?”

Pfft.

Hyun-sung suddenly burst out laughing.

“Hey, what are you going to do with abs?”

“It looks cool.”

“Want me to make them for you?”

“Can you really make them?”

Hyun-sung nodded and said.

“Can you do everything I tell you to do?”

“How long will it take?”

“Generously, two months.”

“Deal!”

He’s changed a lot.

Every time I see Lee Jung-woo, I feel like he’s a completely different person compared to my past life.

The two arrived in front of the parallel bars.

Hyun-sung looked at Lee Jung-woo and said.

“Let’s warm up first.”

The two began to warm up lightly.

Lee Jung-woo, in particular, has hardly done any upper body workouts until now. If he does it wrong in this state, he can strain his shoulders right away, so he warmed up focusing on his shoulders.

After warming up to some extent, Lee Jung-woo spoke first.

“Should we start slowly? Can I start with pull-ups right away?”

“No, let’s start by just hanging. Don’t overdo it from the beginning. Here, like this…….”

The two started exercising side by side, each holding onto a parallel bar.

How much time had passed?

Huff huff.

“Hey, it’s hard, I can’t do it anymore.”

Lee Jung-woo shouted, trembling.

“It’s only eight. You have to do ten, no matter what. Just two more.”

“Aja aja aja… [Aja is a Korean expression of encouragement, similar to ‘fighting’ or ‘go for it’] a…nine.”

“Okay, now the last one, just one more!”

Lee Jung-woo said it was hard after doing five pull-ups. Still, he showed some grit in not giving up until the end.

Well, Lee Jung-woo managed to do that difficult climb when he first started exercising on the mountain behind the school. He was a guy known for his grit.

Ha!

Lee Jung-woo, gasping for his last breath, began to pull his chin up again.

But that was it.

The chin, which had risen halfway, could no longer rise and stopped in the middle.

Anyone who has tried it knows, but in the case of pull-ups, you can’t go up any further than that. It’s because you’ve already exhausted all your strength.

Hyun-sung, judging that there was nothing more he could do, looked at Lee Jung-woo, who was trembling, and said.

“Jung-woo, that’s enough. Come down.”

“…….”

Lee Jung-woo hung on the parallel bars without saying anything. He seemed to be gathering his last strength.

Step.

Hyun-sung moved his feet and walked towards Lee Jung-woo.

Lee Jung-woo was hanging on the parallel bars with his eyes closed and all his strength drained. He seemed to be gathering his last strength.

Hyun-sung’s head slowly moved from side to side.

No matter how he thought about it, it would be difficult to climb up again in that state. Hyun-sung thought that it would be impossible unless some very special motivation was given.

That’s when it happened.

Flash.

Lee Jung-woo opened his eyes.

He seemed to be using his last strength. There was only one thing Hyun-sung could do in that situation.

“Aja!”

Hyun-sung clenched both fists.

Lee Jung-woo nodded as if he knew, and began to pull his chin up with all his might.

“Eura-cha-cha!” [Another Korean expression of encouragement, often used when lifting something heavy]

As expected, Lee Jung-woo’s chin stopped in the middle.

This wouldn’t work.

Hyun-sung looked at Lee Jung-woo and said urgently.

“Hey, who’s the most annoying bastard right now?”

“What?”

Lee Jung-woo answered reluctantly.

Hyun-sung asked again.

“There must be the most hateful bastard at this moment, who is that bastard?”

“That, that landlord bastard.”

Lee Jung-woo recalled the situation a little while ago.

To be honest, he really wanted to kill him just thinking about it. He’s a bastard who’s trying to take over the entire place that my mom worked so hard to establish for 10 years.

I really wanted to hit him with a chair as he did a while ago.

Hyun-sung asked back.

“Landlord?”

“Yeah, that bastard.”

“Okay. Then let’s just think about that bastard. Okay, shove that bastard into your head. And step on him, and climb up now stepping on that bastard! Let’s go!”

Hyun-sung shouted with all his might.

Then Lee Jung-woo started moving slowly again. He was pulling his chin up with such effort that he couldn’t bear to watch with his eyes open.

“Aaa…!”

It was when Lee Jung-woo was pouring out his last strength.

Thud!

It was the moment when Lee Jung-woo’s chin finally touched the parallel bars.

Thump.

Then he fell to the floor.

Whoosh.

Hyun-sung was faster than Lee Jung-woo’s falling speed. Hyun-sung caught Lee Jung-woo as he fell.

It wouldn’t matter to ordinary people, but Lee Jung-woo is different from others. If he falls, he will inevitably instinctively put one foot down first without realizing it.

Hyun-sung judged that it would still be too much, even if he had been doing lower body workouts these days.

A little while ago.

It was when Lee Jung-woo was screaming for the last time.

He felt it instinctively from his body first. He felt that his chin would soon touch the parallel bars in that situation.

His body moved almost reflexively in advance. It wasn’t something he thought about and did, but the moment he thought about it in his head, his body moved right away like a reflex.

Thud!

Hyun-sung caught Lee Jung-woo, who was falling, with both hands.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course. This is nothing.”

Lee Jung-woo was already able to show off.

“Good job. You son of a bitch. You’re still good at your tenacity.”

“What tenacity, it’s all thanks to you.”

“Okay, let’s go over there and have some cool cider.”

“Yeah, I’m glad I bought it, I didn’t know I’d sweat like this…….”

Lee Jung-woo was soaked with sweat.

“Here, drink this.”

The two sat on a bench, looking at the setting sun, each holding a bottle of cider.

“Shall we toast?”

Lee Jung-woo nodded at Hyun-sung’s words.

“Good!”

Clink!

The sight of two cider bottles blocking the sunset looked pretty good.

Hyun-sung wouldn’t just stand by and watch that.

“Jung-woo, doesn’t the picture look good?”

“Yeah, it looks really cool.”

“Lee Jung-woo! Remember this well.”

“Why?”

“It’s our future. Let’s live 멋지게 [meotjige – stylishly/coolly] like that picture.”

Lee Jung-woo looked at Hyun-sung as if he was dumbfounded by Hyun-sung’s words. Then he smiled.

“Anyway, this guy says……, okay! Let’s do that. In that sense, one more time!”

“You know style.”

Clink.

Once again, the sound of bottles clinking was heard cheerfully.

After a while.

Hyun-sung looked at Lee Jung-woo and asked.

“If you’ve eaten enough, tell me about that worry now.”

“It’s embarrassing and awkward to actually do it.”

“It’s always like that, if it’s hard, do it later, don’t overdo it.”

“No, it’s nothing, so…….”

Lee Jung-woo’s explanation began.

– It was a few days ago.

I came to the store after finishing my workout, and my mom’s eyes were swollen as if she had been crying.

So I asked.

Why is that?

Of course, at first, she said it was nothing.

I’m not stupid, so I asked again. Then, after hesitating for a while, my mom started talking.

She said she had finished organizing her thoughts.

That day was probably the day I went to work out with Soo-cheol, and you, Hyun-sung, came to our store alone. You asked my mom for help one last time that day.

Mom said she thought about it a lot.

And then she said she would, but when you left, she started crying so much.

Of course, she knew that you were doing it for her, but when she thought about leaving the store that she had worked so hard for 10 years, tears just kept coming out.

Wouldn’t she? I would too.

I was going crazy looking at that.

I can’t do anything even though I’m looking at my mom like that. But what makes me even more angry is my leg.

It’s shaking.

Sometimes when my chest hurts here, I get cramps without even knowing it.

But I can’t show my mom that, so I had no choice but to quietly leave the store. Leaving my crying mom behind.

I’m going crazy because I can’t do anything and I have to run away from my mom.

I really wanted to cut off this leg that day.

And today, the same thing happened again.

That bastard, the landlord. Do you know what I was doing in that situation when that bastard came and went? I was holding my leg again.

This crazy leg is trying to act up again.

But today, you said something to that bastard instead of me, so I laughed at first. But after that bastard left, I felt so pathetic that I couldn’t do anything for my mom even in this situation. I wondered if I was so helpless.

Hic.

Lee Jung-woo wiped away his tears after his explanation was over.

I didn’t know he was hurting that much.

Tap tap.

Hyun-sung had no choice but to replace his heart by patting Lee Jung-woo’s shoulder. At that moment, it seemed that no words would be comforting to Lee Jung-woo.

After a while.

Hyun-sung said.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Pharmacy, I’ll buy you medicine at the pharmacy. If you take this medicine, it will go away quickly.”

“There’s medicine like that?”

Lee Jung-woo looked at Hyun-sung as if he was amazed. In fact, he thought it was an inevitable chronic disease, so he didn’t think there would be any medicine.

Some days, he had cramps all night.

Then Hyun-sung got up from his seat and said.