Even If It’s Not Love

Maybe she was sick but was enduring it because she didn’t have the money to go to a hospital.
No matter how good health insurance is, the poor people who lack a thousand won in their pockets are just like that.

Woo-hyun got out of the car and closed the door.
Then, as he was about to take a step forward, the woman who was looking at the floor like a person with a broken neck raised her head and stared at the sky.

It was then that he saw the side of the woman’s face.
The face of a young person overlapped over the face that was so pale that it was pitiful to look at.

Woo-hyun couldn’t take a single step and stood still.
When he received the report from Jun-kyung, he checked the name.

Kim Yoo-hwa.

He thought it was a different person with the same name.
The Yoo-hwa he knew had no family except for her mother.

Above all, when he received a picture from Jun-kyung, showing only the side face of the woman standing at a distance, the atmosphere was so different that he thought it was surely a different person.
However, the woman he knew was standing there, with an appearance that he had never imagined.

The woman who was staring at the gray sky staggered and turned around.
It took her a long time to even walk a short distance.

The woman closed the door with an awful squeaking noise.
Even after the woman disappeared, Woo-hyun could not move from his spot.

Then, a cool wind blew.

The air smelled like an old town.

***

“Must you really do that?”

Jun-kyung objected to Woo-hyun’s decision to directly keep watch near the woman’s house while waiting for Kim Yi-woon’s arrival.
Seeing that Jun-kyung, who rarely opposes his decisions, raised his voice, he seemed to have made up his mind.

“I will put people around the house.
As soon as we find Kim Yi-woon, we will have you catch him.
There are plenty of people to make him kneel down in front of hyung-nim…”

“Aren’t there a lot of people running around these days? I know there’s a lot of work.”

Woo-hyun cut his words and asked dryly.
Due to the explosive growth of the business, most of the available manpower was working outside.
Jun-kyung flinched for a moment, then answered stubbornly.

“But I can’t let hyung-nim stay in that shabby place.
Even if 100 people go out, it is more important for you to stay here.
 Also, it’s true that the last place where Kim Yi-woon appeared was there, but there is no guarantee that he will appear again, hyung-nim.
Also, you heard about that woman.
She…!”

“Jun-kyung.”

When Woo-hyun called his name in a low voice, Jun-kyung was startled.
It was rare for Woo-hyun to address him without his surname.
Most of the time, when he called him like that, it meant that Woo-hyun was angry.