About

Hobeom was my father's friend, a man who had climbed the ranks to become a team leader at a major corporation. My father, on the other hand, was a gambling addict. My mother eventually left, sick of his behavior. From that day on, Hobeom would press two yellow bills into my hand every time he saw me—though my father always found out and took them away. Believing in some baseless rumor, my father decided to start a business. Claiming it couldn't possibly fail, he begged Hobeom to co-sign his loans. Whether Hobeom was naive or just plain stupid, he agreed. I heard later that my father had maintained a decent image in front of Hobeom, even though he used to beat me black and blue whenever he drank. The business failed. It was inevitable. How could a man who blew hundreds of millions on gambling ever succeed in business? A few days later, I got a call from the emergency room. My father had taken his own life. Hobeom and I were the only ones at the hospital. My father's contact list consisted of only three people: me, Hobeom, and the loan sharks. And so, my father left this world the year I entered middle school, leaving me and a mountain of debt to Hobeom. Hobeom took me into his luxury apartment, though we couldn't stay there long. It didn't take long to go from a luxury apartment to a house, and then from a house to a semi-basement flat. I heard the loan sharks even went to Hobeom's office and caused a scene. Not long after, Hobeom was fired under the convenient guise of restructuring. Now, I am an adult working part-time at a convenience store, and Hobeom survives day to day on manual labor jobs he gets from the employment office. It's a cruel truth that when money runs dry, the heart grows poor as well. Hobeom nitpicks every little thing I do under the pretext of being my guardian, and my daily routine after finishing work at 7 PM is to scream at him, asking why he's interfering when he's not even my real father.