Closed Door

I flinched at the name I was once called in childhood. It was an affectionate name used in the family, but after visitors started joking that it sounded more like a dog’s name, grandmother got very angry, and at some point, it stopped being used altogether.

“Please don’t play with someone else’s name, pretending to be close.”

The suddenly surfacing old memory spoiled my mood. I looked at him sternly, and Sa Gongwoo raised both hands in surrender, smiling.

“Sorry. I apologize, just don’t get angry. But can I ask just one question?”

“Ask quickly and leave. I need to close the store.”

“You said this afternoon that someone from the same field came. Did a scammer really come?”

“Yes, he came. He’s now in the awakener affairs department. If you don’t want the same fate, you’d better think about how to earn money honestly.”

“Hmm.”

“Honestly, I’m not just worried about my life, but your life seems no less gloomy, so I’ll give you advice. You have so little talent for fraud that one can only sigh. Don’t try to get easy money, or you’ll end up either as a beggar or on prison food. Better think about changing your career.”

I didn’t say, “Do you think you’ll live well by causing pain to others and making them cry?” Criminals somehow managed to live well even after that. They lived comfortably and happily, spending money taken from others.

They say that the beaten one could sleep peacefully, while the beater couldn’t sleep?

No. In reality, the beater slept without problems, while the beaten one couldn’t sleep due to resentment and pain.

Therefore, it’s pointless to tell such people about the sorrow and pain of victims. If they had thought about such things from the beginning, they wouldn’t have engaged in such activities.

“But I’m really not a scammer.”

Sa Gongwoo said this with an exaggeratedly offended expression.

Although this statement was unfounded, his face looked so sincere that I almost believed it.

I thought that fraud was done not with the face, only with words, but it seems I’ll have to reconsider this opinion. With a face like this man’s, he could have quite a success in fraud using only appearance. If I hadn’t been in a state of maximum vigilance after being deceived by Lee Dongjae, I might have tried to remember a non-existent past connection with Sa Gongwoo.

“Yes, alright. Whether I believe it or not, nothing will change, so let’s consider that you’re not a scammer. I’m the owner of a seolleongtang restaurant, and you’re a customer who came to eat seolleongtang. Agreed?”

I didn’t care if he was a scammer, an unknown relative, or even a brother whose existence I didn’t know due to separation in childhood. Whoever came and whatever they said, money from my pocket would never come out again. My promise to myself never to give money to anyone again was unshakeable.

Honestly, a person who came to ask for money from a guy left alone after the death of his parents and grandmother is clearly not in their right mind.

I didn’t understand this before.

When someone came, cried, and told their sad story, I sympathized too. I considered people I knew since childhood in this area almost family, and thought we should help when they were in trouble.

If Lee Dongjae lured from ten million to a hundred million won from me, the local residents borrowed from several hundred thousand to several million won. The reasons were different, the situations were urgent.

Thinking that money wasn’t more important than people, I always solved their problems. I couldn’t reject a hand asking for help.

But these people, who were so desperate and sincere, didn’t even look back when I lost everything.

“Customer. It’s time to close the store now. You’ve eaten, the misunderstanding is resolved, if you have no more business, maybe you’ll leave nicely? I’m very tired.”

At my suggestion, close to a threat, Sa Gongwoo’s expression strangely changed, as if he had eaten a sour persimmon.

“What’s with that expression? What is it? Do you want to say something else?”

“Is that all?”

“What else? What else is needed between a store owner and a visitor? Is there anything left but to pay?”

“…”

Sa Gongwoo, with obvious disappointment on his face, took out his wallet and handed over the money.

Paying for food is normal, why does he have such a disappointed expression? Did he expect that after a few phrases we would become so close that I would tell him to leave without paying?

I snorted, thinking what a funny person he was, and grabbed the bill.

∞ ∞ ∞

After grandmother’s funeral, I pondered what to do next.

Grandmother always said:

「This is my work. I do this because I want to and love doing it. Our Roy should do what he wants himself. Just don’t do dangerous things. I’ll die from worry before my time. And don’t do bad things. Everything will eventually come back to you.」

Then I laughed, responding that grandmother told me to do what I wanted, but put so many conditions.

The seolleongtang restaurant wasn’t a family business, and I had no particular desire to inherit it. But I didn’t have anything special I wanted to do. I thought I would find some job where I would get a decent salary and be able to provide for myself calmly.

But when grandmother died, out of habit, I started preparing for work and opened the store. It wasn’t a decision to continue grandmother’s business or unwillingness to close her store. Just like that, without any thoughts, without realizing it myself. When I suddenly came to my senses, I found myself getting up early in the morning, cooking seolleongtang, preparing radish kimchi, and getting ready to open.

Maybe it was due to fear of change, or maybe because I didn’t want to acknowledge the reality without grandmother.

Even after I died and returned ten years back, I opened the doors of the seolleongtang restaurant again.

Damn seolleongtang restaurant.

Getting up at the same time every day, cooking the same seolleongtang, feeding the same people, closing the store at the same time. Life without any changes was boring and tiring, but when I returned in time, I felt relief from this constancy.

Ten years of hectic life, when everything went into oblivion. After Lee Dongjae abandoned me in less than a year, leaving me without a penny, I tried to do everything to survive. I tried various part-time jobs, eventually ending up at a monster meat processing factory, where I was engaged in butchering. On my free days, I spent every earned penny searching for Lee Dongjae.

It was a very difficult and tense time. Finally, I found Lee Dongjae, but instead of killing him as I wished, I was killed myself. And here I am, back ten years ago, and immediately sent Lee Dongjae to prison, not allowing him to take anything from me.

To put it nicely, it was a clean reset, where nothing changed and nothing was lost. But I still had those ten years that only I remembered. Ten years when there wasn’t a moment of peace for either body or soul.

The memories of these ten years in my head were exhausting me. I had a feeling that I had already lived a whole life, having ridden through it. There was neither desire to do anything nor motivation to undertake anything.

Maybe it’s fine like this?

My parents, who worked as researchers in the government, left quite a large inheritance. Grandmother never touched this money, saying it was my share, and never touched it. If not losing it to scammers like Lee Dongjae, not spending it on unsuccessful business, or not losing it in gambling, this amount would be enough to live more or less normally until the end of life without working.

If I said I was going to be idle all my life, my late parents and grandmother would probably clutch their hearts, but I wanted to spend a few years, even if not all my life, thinking about nothing.

Just out of habit, opening the store every day and selling seolleongtang. When there’s no desire to do anything, just close and leave for a while, and when I want to again – open.

Isn’t that enough?

After all, it’s not a store I ran for profit.

Grandmother at least had a kind of mission – to feed as many people as possible. For me now, it was just a suitable occupation to spend the day.

Visitors came to eat at a low price, so even if I close for a few days and then open, the flow won’t stop.

To be honest, selling one portion of seolleongtang at such a price left no profit after deducting the cost of ingredients, so it doesn’t matter if many customers come or few – I won’t earn more or less money from this. If it weren’t for the store building and property left by grandmother, this store wouldn’t have lasted three months, let alone 30 years.

People probably didn’t understand that if you also consider labor costs, the more you trade, the more losses you incur.

Even if closing the store, you need to work until the remaining products left by grandmother are sold. In any case, I currently had neither the desire to do anything nor the need to do anything. If I work lazily and rest, a few months or years might pass. Maybe during this time, I’ll get new motivation.

And then I suddenly remembered the face of the scammer who came today.

After Lee Dongjae – Sa Gongwoo.

Not only is the face unique, but the surname is very unusual. Like Lee Dongjae, who didn’t use his real name, the name Sa Gongwoo is probably fake too. It would have been better to choose a more common surname. This is what distinguished him from Lee Dongjae, whose face and name were inconspicuous. I said his methods were banal and obvious, but he’s strangely unique in useless aspects.

But… has grandmother’s restaurant really become a popular place for scammers?

Maybe they came here with the mindset of “I don’t know if it will work out or not, but if it does, it will be a jackpot,” like when buying a lottery ticket? Maybe I should have reported him immediately, not forgiving the fact that he was a novice? I needed to make him understand that this wasn’t a lottery at all, but a flytrap where they were caught immediately as soon as they showed up.

I was overcome with belated regret.