A Chairman Who Has No Regrets - Chapter 63



Only Krnovel

The next day.

After finishing my morning routine, I got on the bus instead of the shantytown. I let out a snicker as I handed over a good ticket instead of a cut one.

It’s vacation time, but perhaps because it’s late in the morning, the buses are deserted.

“It’s a shepherd.”

This is probably the most distant moment I’ve ever gone out in my life. It would have been better if I had gone out with my family instead of alone, but it’s such a shame. Soon, when the weather gets warmer and spring comes, I’ll try to get them to go on an outing.

After taking two buses, I finally arrived at Mokdong. I wandered around the Mokdong entrance for a while with only the address written on a small piece of paper.

I knew him as a fairly renowned architect, but when I saw the house he lived in, I wondered if I had been mistaken. I couldn’t help but think that way when I saw the small multi-family house.

As I was staring blankly up at the multi-family house, my eyes met with a figure coming out of the black door between the red bricks.

“Huh? A student from Jeon Gang?”

He was the director of the scholarship quiz.

“Are you here to meet the architect?”

“yes.”

He nods his head.

“You said you had a prior engagement and turned me away… but that was a student from Jeon Gang.”

He nodded quietly.

The reason he came to see architect Kim Up-joong was probably because he wanted to score points with me. However, as I said yesterday, I didn’t really want to owe him anything.

He glanced at me as if he was licking his lips again and asked,

“If it’s okay, can we meet up?”

You can see the curiosity in his eyes.

“Well, that’s up to the landlord.”

He nods and opens the front door wide.

“Let’s go together.”

I’m not the landlord, so I don’t have the power to choose. I don’t necessarily want to sit with him, but if he wants it, I can’t come out and object.

Following his guidance, I climbed the stairs and knocked on the brown iron door that looked just like my front door.

“teacher-”

The front door creaks open at the director’s words.

A very old man shows his face.

“I didn’t say I had a prior engagement···”

He stops talking and looks at me blankly.

“Are you the one who called?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

He turns his head again and looks at the director and asks.

“I guess the person you know is PD Baek.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Come in.”

The front door opens.

Architect Kim Up-joong glances outside after we enter and then closes the front door.

There is a hint of uneasiness in his appearance.

Have you ever lived your whole life with such anxiety?

A silver table just like the one in our house is spread out, a yellow teapot is placed on it, and steaming barley tea is poured into a small glass cup.

“I have nothing to offer you.”

The director responded to his words.

“Barley tea is great.”

Was he a witty character?

I nodded my head because I also liked barley tea.

As I take a sip of barley tea, architect Kim Up-joong looks at me with a passionate gaze.

“How much is the spring and autumn?”

“I’m eighteen this year.”

“her.”

He shakes his head as if in disbelief.

And I could read in his eyes that he was asking how he dared talk to me like that on the phone at that age.

Was the provocation excessive?

But I really wanted to sit down with him. It’s rare for someone to value something other than money. At least that’s the case for me, who’s lived my whole life. I’ve always been surrounded by people who are obsessed with money.

Doesn’t it fit perfectly with what I want to do and the situation right now? It’s like pursuing something other than money.

“You can talk freely. There will be no eavesdropping.”

He got lucky first.

The director, who was about to open his mouth, closed it.

It must have been difficult to open one’s mouth rashly at the provocative keyword of wiretapping.

By the way, even though I told him my age, he still speaks politely to me. It’s a bit different from people these days.

Perhaps that kind of personality also comes from the Western attitude that they were forced to adopt.

He said with a bitter expression on his face.

“Is that so?”

He nodded his head as if he was sure.

“Yes, I check it every day. I check it again when I go out. I check it even when I go to the neighborhood supermarket, so you can be assured.”

Even in his short words, it seems like he conveys the feelings he has held throughout his life. How tiresome life must be, feeling like someone is watching you.

Surely, it is similar to the feelings that celebrities have in their lives. Of course, the pain is greater for him. The simple discomfort and the anxiety accompanied by fear are clearly different.

My gaze lingers for a moment on the scholarship quiz director.

Because architect Kim Up-joong is now indirectly confirming why families don’t like being on camera.

“You said you didn’t run away.”

Kim Up-joong nods slightly.

His eyes were burning with anger, and I could feel that the arrows of that anger were aimed at someone other than me.

“They are no different from North Korea.”

I knew he was a displaced person, but he uses words like that. I guess it’s proof that he lived a difficult life. He also experienced the Japanese occupation, so how could I understand him completely?

“You’re not designing anymore?”

He nodded to my subsequent questions.

“I don’t feel well.”

Certainly his complexion was not good.

Enough so that it wouldn’t be awkward even if one or two places hurt.

“Is the demolition of shantytowns in Mokdong in full swing?”

“Ignorant people do that.”

His answer was so bitter that it almost felt like malice. It’s not that I don’t understand his feelings. I can’t have good feelings toward someone who has even taken away my nationality.

In the past, in the early 70s, he was hated by the regime and its leaders, and eventually lost his citizenship and was forced to be deported. It is understandable that he had to live cautiously even after returning to Korea.

“There is a shantytown in the neighborhood where I live.”

Although he didn’t say anything properly, he seemed to understand what I meant and shook his head as if he had a lot of experience.

“It’s a request I wouldn’t have accepted even if I hadn’t retired.”

The underlying meaning is that there is no intention to go against the government.

“Didn’t you say you didn’t run away?”

He clearly shows his discomfort at my continued words.

“I have never forgotten my country for even a moment. It was enough to lose my homeland, but I lost it with my own hands? Do you think so?”

“Were the military residence and the war memorial tower also designed based on beliefs?”

He was speechless for a moment.

He returned right after the military dictatorship ended, so he must have been concerned about the new military government’s mood.

“Was it all about honoring heroes?”

He swallowed hard, thought for a moment, and then spat out the words as if chewing them.

“I have spent my entire life designing what I want to build.”

“My question was, was that belief everything?”

He moves his lips but cannot easily answer yes.

“You designed the Olympic Park too, right?”

At the next words, the corners of his mouth rose bitterly and he stared blankly down at his hands.

“We are getting old.”

I thought I heard the cry of a weak old man. I slowly turned my head and met his eyes that were staring at me without avoiding them.

“I don’t have much time left to live. I want to spend it on my own land. On our land. At this age, beliefs don’t make me live.”

It may seem like he has given up his beliefs, but that is probably not the case. As he said, he has lived his whole life stubbornly, and he certainly did not make plans unless he had a clear purpose.

While keeping an eye on the government, he was a man who only accepted the commissions he wanted. All the buildings he designed while keeping an eye on the government were because they had a great sense of justice.

“Even if you take on my request, you will never have to leave Korea.”

He laughs hoarsely.

“This year is 1985.”

“yes.”

“I’ve been squeaking since ’65, and it’s already been ’85.”

He stretches out his hands and points to various places around him as he explains.

Mold on the wallpaper, old furniture.

“This is what it looks like for the past 20 years. Sometimes, they would hire me to do a design and not pay me. They said I was an illegal immigrant.”

“I guarantee it.”

“You said you were eighteen this year?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“When it’s good. And when it’s not, there’s no fear.”

It is difficult to say indirectly that he is still young and does not know.

“Do you want to change the shantytown? Because you have friends there? Because you know someone there?”

I shook my head.

“no.”

“Then why? Is it simply sympathy?”

“no.”

“Then why did you forget your fear?”

“Because it is the wish of someone precious to me.”

He raises the corners of his mouth.

“Hope, that’s a good word. But does that person, who is so precious to the students, know how dangerous it is to go against the will of the government and the will of those in power?”

I shrugged.

“Is there anyone in this day and age who doesn’t know that? They get startled just by the mention of Namsan.”

At my words, he lets out another weak laugh.

“Yes, Namsan is a total mess.”

He’s staring at me.

“That’s why I don’t like it, because I’ve been to Namsan.”

Gulp.

The sound of the director sitting next to me swallowing his saliva echoes throughout the small room. It’s a strange world where people get so nervous just by mentioning the name Namsan.

“And now I don’t have the strength to endure that Namsan any longer. If I go in, even the body will disappear.”

“There’s no need to go in.”

“I don’t judge people by their age, but it’s hard to trust something you say at eighteen.”

An honest and truthful answer.

Would it be different if he saw the shantytown that had me captivated?

“Would you like to take a look together?”

“What?”

“The wishes of someone precious to me.”

Kim Up-joong shakes his head.

“Would it make a difference if I saw it? Those guys who only know themselves will push through with tanks if you bother them even a little. Sometimes it’s better not to see it. That’s not the case in Korea these days.”

I was certain that his stubborn eyes would never accompany me, for conversations with people with such eyes were familiar to me.

People who have reached a certain position or level have their own beliefs and stubbornness. And such people are surprisingly able to turn those beliefs and stubbornness over as if they were turning the palm of their hand.

This is because, unlike the nouveau riche who always cry that they are right, they are people who do not hesitate to move in a better, more correct direction.

“Can I come back again?”

“Here?”

“yes.”

He chuckles.

Perhaps the two eyes he stares at me with are similar to his eyes, those very, very stubborn eyes.

“It’s a waste of time.”

“I like it.”

I hope you like my answer.

He laughs hoarsely.

“You like wasted effort? You are an odd young man.”

They called me a young man when I was eighteen.

Aren’t you already acknowledging it a little?

I am different from ordinary high school students.

I got up from my seat.

I told him, but I’m the kind of person who likes to make things not so in vain. I wonder if there were only a few people with those stubborn eyes.

They used to come to me with all their money in the end. Instead, they bowed their heads to me.

Because the direction they believed was wrong, and I made them believe that the direction I spoke of was right.

So this time too.

“Then let’s meet again.”

He snickered and cleared the table.

I just walked out of his house.

I promise to make sure that his heavy butt touches the shantytown.