45 – Haerin Kang (45)
Haerin Kang (45)
“Lee Dong-min, why aren’t you saying anything?”
In silence for a long time, my older sister, who was opening the box and packing clothes, books, and dishes, suddenly said.
“… what?”
When I looked up, my sister was biting her lip.
“Should I ask first?”
“… so what…”
Right after I declared that I would live with Kang Hae-rin, I screamed in a mental breakdown, and then he willingly came to help me pack, and the reaction was unpredictable.
“The reason for going to Kang Hae-rin’s house.”
“… I told you. It’s good because it saves money. Now that I’m not even writing novels, I want to benefit from my girlfriend.”
“… such a snobbish…”
she said in awe.
“You are not that kind of kid. Is it because of money?”
“Originally, what kind of Anne am I?”
“……..”
At my words, my sister kept her mouth shut.
Did I say it too bluntly?
I felt sorry and added.
“I can marry Haerin. It’s nice to live together because we like each other. and…”
“Hey, Lee Dong-min-!”
sudden rush.
I grabbed my heart.
“It’s a surprise…”
“At what age are you getting married!?”
My sister screamed.
“… Age doesn’t matter…”
“Do you want to be like your mother?”
“You talk too much.”
“Then would you like to be like my mother?”
“……..”
I was going to refute it because I hit my mother’s drip, but if it comes out like that, I have nothing to say.
My sister’s mother and my mother both married my father at a young age and suffered quite a bit.
And as soon as I got married, I regretted it.
Even though they must have had the hardest time, my sister and I who grew up under it had a formidable hardship.
The marriage was a misfortune for everyone.
My sister was talking about it now.
“I will never be like my mother and my sister’s mother. never. Don’t speak carelessly.”
I replied.
What kind of secret did my father have? Even at that age, he always took young women with him.
If you think about it, rather than living together, it seems that she first attacked her for pregnancy and made her his wife.
My sister and I all know that our father impregnated our mothers before we got married.
My older sister seemed to be trying to treat my marriage at a young age like a marriage by sale, but the leap was too great.
I would have known that too.
“you you…”
“Have you anything more to say? I want to join you as soon as possible, so if you’re going to help me, please do so quickly.”
“… How rich are you? Long naked? do you believe that Isn’t that woman suspicious? Whoever sees it, it’s an award. I suddenly want to ask you to come in, but do you just go? Is it normal for girls to say that? Do you know what sinister intentions he has?”
“… Sis, calm down. He is really rich.”
“So how much!?”
“To the extent that there is a two-story detached house in Hanx-dong?”
In fact, if you include intangible assets such as coins and stocks, it will be twice as much.
There will be one more building.
“……..”
“Can I go?”
My sister swelled up as if she had eaten a room.
No, it’s more like a suspicious look.
Well, who would believe a pretty young girl like Kang Hae-rin living alone in a wealthy village?
Even if I had been to her place myself, it would be unbelievable for her.
She asked as if she were looking at her younger brother who had fallen into a multi-level scam and couldn’t make sense of it.
“…is she the daughter of a hidden conglomerate?”
It must have been half a joke, but in fact it hit like a cow backing away.
Kang Hae-rin was the hidden daughter of the 2nd generation of an insane chaebol in the setting, and although she was not recognized afterwards, she was gifted a certain amount of property from her grandfather.
It was her ability to call it, but anyway.
Of course, these facts were Kang Hae-rin’s privacy, so he had no intention of explaining them to his sister.
… but is it privacy?
I was confused at this point.
It is true that 『Journal』 has materialized to some extent, but the entire world view has not become a reality as it is.
To be precise, should I say that it was done?
According to Kang Hae-rin’s neighbors, she had already been living there since ‘five years ago’.
There’s no way the characters in the novel had been living there five years ago, so this is a memory manipulation.
So how far does this ‘magic’ apply?
According to the original setting, Kang Hae-rin must have a chaebol grandfather and a crazy father.
If you look at it, it’s a complicated story.
Kang Hae-rin’s first murder begins with the murder of an elder.
The things of that night when she couldn’t stand the persecution and evil deeds of her stepmother and her foolish father and eventually committed them…
Haerin Kang will remember that clearly.
There’s no way you’ll be fine if you have those memories.
However, it has never been described in a novel, and it is always close to an imagination that flashes back whenever it is easy to forget.
Was this case ‘real’?
… It’s dizzy.
The existence of the ‘chaebol grandfather’ has not yet been confirmed, but if you look for it, you will be able to find it.
It’s common for us to call the names of presidents who are ranked in the business world in a friendly way, like a neighborhood brother.
While I remembered, I searched on my phone.
“Kang Hwan-jae?”
I thought I felt a tickle in my ear, but my sister was pulling her hair.
“President of Hwansung Group…? Why is this person?”
“……”
I quickly turned off my phone, but my unnecessarily quick-witted sister read what Kang Hwan-jae and Kang Hae-rin had in common.
“Are you Mr.. Kang? Could it be that Kang Hwan-jae is Kang Hae-rin’s…?”
“sister. Shh.”
“… Hey, is it real?”
“no.”
“No. Is it like a hidden daughter? Granddaughter?”
“… sister, please.”
Perhaps realizing that I was serious, my sister stopped making a fuss and kept her mouth shut.
I was confused.
… Kang Hwan-jae is real?
He is definitely a fictional character I created in the novel, and the fantasy group does not exist.
If I were crazy, would I write a novel using the names of real people, groups, and conglomerates?
What if you get sued at least once?
But more than anything, what made me feel uncomfortable was my sister’s attitude of just accepting them.
The name of the honorary chairman of the top group in the business world is considered common sense, but I was more confused because I couldn’t have written it without knowing it.
“Sister, Kang Hwan-jae, I wrote about it in the novel… but…”
“Kang Hwan-jae? No, the one you wrote was ‘Kang Hwan-goo’.”
“… what the hell are you talking about?”
There was silence between my sister and me.
“The one you wrote was ‘Kang Hwan-goo’. Ah, now that I see it, it seems that Kang Hwan-goo was the model you modeled for? The names are similar. Wasn’t he Kang Hae-rin’s grandfather in the novel?”
My sister said confidently.
She was one of the first readers of my novel and reads it more thoroughly than anyone else.
Sometimes it gave me goosebumps because I remembered details better than I, the writer, did.
So I’m sure it’s not confusing.
“Because it is not. What I wrote was ‘Kang Hwan-jae’!”
“… it can’t be… no, wait a minute…”
My sister buried her face between her knees.
“… Kang Hwan-jae… Kang Hwan-goo… which one was it?”
She raised her head.
“… I just don’t know. Why?”
“……”
I couldn’t answer either way.
Kang Hwan-jae wasn’t a name that often appeared in the main story, and somehow my memory was hazy.
‘Was it really Kang Hwan-gu? It can’t be.’
The problem is that there is no way to check because the novel has already been taken down on all platforms.
Of course, there are saved files, but now the laptop I moved my files to was written on its own and then turned off.
There is no way to check the file.
‘…Do you think PD-nim Ban Yuri has a file?’
I stopped while trying to search for ‘Kang Sang-joon’, the second-generation conglomerate who ‘was mysteriously murdered’.
A feeling of uneasiness crept in.
I had a premonition that the act of searching for ‘Kang Hwan-jae’, which had no basis but proved the existence of Kang Hae-rin, somehow changed something inside me.
If I followed this intuition, the act of searching for Sangjun Kang would also change something.
I put my phone down.
It’s not certain, but whether my hypothesis is correct or not, it seemed like there was no need to touch Kang Hae-rin’s wrath.
Whether Kang Sang-jun exists or not, whether or not his end is a mysterious murder, Kang Hae-rin will keep the memory of it, and remembering it will be painful.
As the writer who gave her such a narrative, I did not want to sadistically recall her memories again.
“Dongminah.”
Then, my sister called my name.
I knew it was a serious matter when my sister took the last name from my name and called me by my first name.
she was speechless
“… why?”
“… Mr. Haerin Kang, are you for real?”
“……”
A sudden change of mood.
My sister’s voice was trembling.
“Really? Otherwise, there’s no way this could have happened. There’s no way I can’t remember the characters in your novel. What is going on?”
She looked very distressed.
“Confused. Something seems to be messing with my head. what is this. Dongminah?”
Seeing her bewildered to the point of excessive embarrassment, I was worried.
“Why is that, sister? I might have forgotten the name. I don’t remember either. Writers are like this, so there’s no need for my sister to suffer like this.”
I wrapped my sister’s shoulders.
“… I’m sorry, Dongmin-ah.”
“huh?”
“I’m sorry for not trusting you. Actually I got it But I didn’t believe it. No, I couldn’t believe it.”
“……..”
“You said it then.”
my sister said
“I heard Kang Hae-rin showed up at my house.”
Come to think of it, when Kang Hae-rin first appeared, the first place I went to in fear was my sister’s house.
I hurriedly ran to her and stammered to tell her that Kang Hae-rin, the killer Kang Hae-rin in my novel, had appeared, but she soon changed her words.
At that time, my expression must have turned white, and my older sister, who woke up, looked at me worriedly.
I couldn’t say such ‘delusional’ words to my older sister, who knew that I was emotionally unstable.
That’s why I changed my words.
Of course, I thought that my sister would have believed it straight away, but it seems that she has been thinking about it ever since.
“… When I visited your house, when I saw Kang Hae-rin’s face, I recognized it right away. I can’t believe it, but this person is the child in your novel.”
“……”
“Above all… I read the article. I checked just in case, and the same thing was happening. A murder case just like the novel you wrote.”
“article?”
I got my sister’s phone.
An article from a newspaper, which my sister must have read on her way here, was displayed on the screen.
[A 20-year-old man trying to protect his girlfriend from a bunch of drunk college students died in vain]
It happened a few weeks ago.
“Is this half Lee Jae? An episode of a man killed by drunken college students while trying to protect his girlfriend.”
I was puzzled.
‘Have you reached this far?’
It seems that he did not simply doubt my words, but did his own research to determine the authenticity of the words.
I was looking for traces of Ban Lee Jae.
Fortunately, his previous actions were described to some extent.
Therefore, I was able to find articles using keywords such as ‘Gangnam-gu’, ‘club’, and ‘girlfriend’.
Of course, from this point of view, it is impossible to know whether this is an anti-Lee Jae or a similar incident by chance.
Above all, there was no basis for assuring that this was evidence that the novel materialized.
I was able to find a similarity because I targeted a specific person called ‘Ban Lee Jae’ in the first place and investigated it.
However, my sister is different.
The idea of ‘a novel becoming a reality’ is interesting, but it is not easy to set it up as a realistic hypothesis and investigate it.
No, I’m proud to say it’s impossible.
Even if similarities are found, it is a more general conclusion to assume that Lee Dong-min wrote a novel with reference to this incident.
But my sister was sure.
He specifically pointed out that this was the work of Ban Yi-jae.
He was pointing out the character in the novel, Ban Lee-jae, who had no room for other interpretations.
“Right? Half Yijae?”
“… No, sister. It can’t be.”
I laughed awkwardly.
I have no choice but to deny this.
I don’t want to get my sister involved.
I made up my mind from the moment I made the ‘declaration’ to Kang Hae-rin.
This is what I did, so I will never let other people get caught up in it.
The older sister I know, Lee Da-mi, is someone who would give up her job to share my concerns.
I’m a person who recently quit a web design company and do things I want to do as a freelancer, but I didn’t want to burden myself.
Above all, it is too dangerous.
“Dongminah.”
my sister said again.
I denied
“Sister, calm down. What are you talking about. Why do characters in fiction become reality? Noona, in case you are sick…”
“Lee Dong-min. look at my face.”
My sister covered my cheek.
“Right? Tina when you lie.”
“… Noona, please pretend you don’t know. I don’t want to get my sister involved. Think of it as my delusion.”
Eventually I got caught again.
Because I always read my inner feelings to my sister.
“Is it your will to live with Kang Hae-rin?”
she asked again.
This time it was a more direct question.
“Are you being threatened? That person… Kang Hae-rin, does he know that he is… a character in a novel? Is that threatening you?”
I said, taking her hand away.
This much I could say for sure.
“no. sister. And this is my choice. I want to live with Harin. I will protect that child.”
“……”
My sister lowered her eyes and chewed her thick lips for a long time, thinking.
“… okay.”
“……..”
“I’ll accept your sister too.”
Then an awkward silence came.
After hearing my answer, my sister seemed to feel a little better, but with a firmer expression than usual, she silently put my luggage in the box and repeated taping.
Chi profit.
puck.
Chi profit.
puck.
“……..”
I looked at my sister and said.
“sister.”
“huh.”
“How do you know? did you take it? It’s strange no matter how you think about it. It’s too much of a leap to think of Ban Lee Jae just by looking at them and to come to the conclusion that my novel has materialized. right?”
“huh.”
“…Really, did you take a picture?”
I screamed because I was dumbfounded.
“Park Seong-gang.”
My sister who smiles shyly.
“… uh?”
“There was a detective interview in the article.”
“……”
“Is it a coincidence that there is another detective named Park Seong-gang at the Gangnam Police Station? That person is the one who started investigating the Ban Lee Jae case.”
she is also my sister
I was silently admiring.
It seems that my older sister discovered the existence of Park Seong-gang through an accident similar to mine.
In order to prove the hypothesis that ‘the novel became reality’, we just need to discover the elements of the novel in reality.
This is only possible for readers of my novels.
“…couldn’t it just be the same name?”
My older sister laughed at my question.
After my answer earlier, the atmosphere that subtly continued to harden was relieved for a very short time.
“Are you testing your sister’s reasoning skills? You little boy.”
She said.
“Where do you have the same name? Do you think the way you talk, act, and even look the same? I’ve read that episode several times and the plot is the same. You, did you put a lot of effort into the description?”
“What is the possibility that I copied him?”
“Can it be? You imitated every detail of a certain detective you never interviewed in the media?”
“… it’s not like that.”
“And your novel was already written several years ago. Above all, I know from your reaction. I only had about 5% of my heart, but I didn’t believe it because it was so absurd. But are you sure?”
“……..”
I got caught by my sister in a good way.
I also found an interview with ‘Park Seong-gang’ in the article.
He was a homicide detective who arrested the suspects of the ‘club murder case’ under investigation.
The arrested suspects revealed that they had accomplices, and Ban Lee-jae’s name was among them.
However, things get complicated when they discover that Ban Yi-jae has already mysteriously disappeared at the time.
In the end, he persistently investigated and found out that Ban Yi-jae was stalking Kang Hae-rin.
Afterwards, he learns that there are missing incidents around Kang Hae-rin, and suspects her as a serial killer.
Therefore, the following conclusions are reached.
Park Seong-gang first became aware of Kang Hae-rin’s existence while investigating a case involving Ban Yi-jae.
It comes to the conclusion that if Ban Lee-jae materializes, Park Kang-seong will inevitably appear at a similar timing.
My sister’s reasoning process was the opposite of mine.
“… that’s great.”
“You are my sister.”
My older sister said proudly, raising her chest as if forgetting the gloomy screening.
“…Now what are you going to do? Do you really believe in that hypothesis?”
she said to my question.
“I still don’t know. Fiction is real? I can’t believe it. But first of all, Kang Hae-rin and Park Seong-gang exist in reality. Moreover, the same incident, down to the smallest detail, as the one in the novel happened several weeks ago. Just like a prophecy. But my brother… is convinced that this is a novel that has become a reality.”
“……”
“Then should I believe you? That’s the conclusion.”