Chapter 1505 Continuing On (5)

“Urgh...”

Seong Ju-Chan groaned weakly while briskly walking toward his cafe.

Maybe I should buy a car or something.

This situation came about because he got too used to the life in the Martial Assembly. Since there wasn’t much of a need for a car in the Assembly, he never bothered to get a driver’s license despite being over the age of thirty.

He told himself to get it after leaving the Assembly, but the urgent handover of the cafe from his senior meant he had forgotten about it until now. Then again, the no-car situation was not a problem during a normal daily commute, anyway. Only when he needed to visit elsewhere, like today, would he be inconvenienced by it.

It’s kinda like a torture, too.

If he wanted to, Seong Ju-Chan could run faster than cars on these city streets, although reaching the national highway speeds would be too much for him. Despite knowing his capabilities, though, he worked hard to suppress the urge desperately rearing its head.

Why? Because he was no longer a martial artist.

Since he chose to stop walking the path of martial arts, he must walk with his leg strength and not rely on his cultivation. Even though he sometimes thought this restriction was cumbersome...

...I should uphold what needs to be upheld, anyway.

The Martial Assembly had done so much for him. So it was unthinkable for Seong Ju-Chan to lose his patience over some minor inconvenience like this and create trouble for the organization.

He knew just how much money Kang Jin-Ho and MK had invested in this franchise business. Thankfully, everything worked out, at least in the beginning. But that was only looking at the result. One misstep somewhere, and they could have lost every cent that had been sunk into this venture.

Despite knowing the risks, though, Kang Jin-Ho still unhesitantly spent that enormous amount of money.

That was why Seong Ju-Chan and the others swore to work themselves to the bone to repay that debt. It was just that...

“Dang it! I will never do this re-education thing again!”

Seong Ju-Chan gritted his teeth.

Receiving the so-called re-education from Lee Hyeon-Su shooting a half-crazed glare was something Seong Ju-Chan would dearly love to avoid experiencing again as long as he was alive.

That man was already infamous for being the Martial Assembly’s unhinged demon, so imagine what would happen when a group of franchisees caught for doing a rubbish job with managing their cafes was dumped in front of him! Although it was ostensibly a re-education program, the whole experience was far closer to throwing people into the conflagrations of Hell and roasting them alive!

Just what! What did tumbling around and kissing the dirt have to do with a re-education program meant to teach you how to manage a cafe?!

“Urgh...”

However, Seong Ju-Chan couldn’t voice his discontent since he knew how guilty he was. The cafe franchise had launched only a week ago, so it was inexcusable to fail at his managerial duties so soon.

I’m just as bad as everyone, aren’t I?

The franchise policy was to always use manual grinders to grind the coffee beans. But Seong Ju-Chan was forced into temporarily relying on the automated grinder he already owned to cope with the influx of customers. That was all he did, but...!

Just how did the chairman figure that out with only one sip? One sip! That’s crazy.

Seong Ju-Chan couldn’t tell if he should be amazed by Kang Jin-Ho’s sense of taste or his obsession with coffee. At least he could take some solace in knowing that more people than he had expected had “attended” the re-education program.

That means they are all guilty of something, doesn’t it? Incompetent idiots.

Of course, he shouldn’t say that since he was one of those incompetent idiots, too!

Kang Jin-Ho pulled off a stunning feat of traveling to all the franchise stores in the capital in one day. The franchisees would’ve noticed Kang Jin-Ho’s noisy car getting closer to their stores and figured something was afoot, but...

Who could have guessed that he’d show up on a bicycle?

Indeed, no one with a sane mind would have imagined that possibility.

“Yup, our chairman sure is an amazing person, isn’t he?”

Seong Ju-Chan shook his head while heading to the entrance of his store. He energetically opened the door and stepped inside.

“Good morning to you all! Or is it lunchtime already?”

Since he survived the morning re-education program, it was time to work hard for the rest of the day. However, before he could do that...

“...? Eh?”

Seong Ju-Chan’s eyes caught the figure of a familiar man sitting in the center-most table in the cafe.

The man shouted back at him. “Oii, you! You’re late!”

Heol?

Is that really you, Director Bang Jin-Hun?

***

Seong Ju-Chan cautiously asked, “Would you, uh, like a cup of coffee?”

Bang Jin-Hun casually waved his hand. “Nah, I’m good. Coffee just ain’t my style, unlike how it is with our Assembly Master. I get that going to cafes is all the rage these days, but I just don’t see the point, really.”

“Oh, uh... Then, how about a glass of cold water?”

Bang Jin-Hun turned his head ever so slightly to glance at the menu behind the counter. “Forget water, dude. Don’t you have something sweet? As sweet as possible.”

“Then a smoothie?”

“Come on, man. I’ll finish that in one gulp. Don’t you have stuff like, I dunno, shaved ice? Preferably with strawberries in it?”

“...”

Well, at least he knew exactly what he wanted, so that was something.

Seong Ju-Chan returned to the counter and quickly prepared a bowl of shaved ice and a cup of coffee for himself, then returned to Bang Jin-Hun’s table before taking up a seat opposite the older man.

Bang Jin-Hun frowned at the sight of the coffee. “Hey, man. Can you even stomach coffee? When you’re running a cafe?”

“The chairman told us to drink at least three cups a day to ensure the coffee’s taste doesn’t change.”

“Really? Well, I’ll be...” Bang Jin-Hun chuckled helplessly. “Doesn’t matter what he does, he’s always like this, isn’t he?”

“Yes, sir. I totally agree with you.”

Seong Ju-Chan unreservedly shared Bang Jin-Hun’s sentiment on this topic.

“But, sir...?”

“Yeah?”

“You didn’t come here for some shaved ice, I’m assuming?”

Bang Jin-Hun chuckled again. “Nope, wrong. I am here for some shaved ice.”

As if to prove that he wasn’t lying, Bang Jin-Hun began shoving the shaved ice into his mouth. The large bowl became empty of the sweetened ice in no time at all.

“Well, that was pretty good,” said Bang Jin-Hun, while tossing the spoon into the empty bowl. He then grinned at Seong Ju-Chan. “It’s not like I had an important business or anything like that. I just wanted to see how you guys were doing, that’s all.”

“...”

Bang Jin-Hun scanned the interior of the cafe before shifting his attention back to Seong Ju-Chan. “Because... I’ve never thought about doing something like this, you see?”

His voice contained traces of regret and bitterness just then.

“Do you remember when you came to speak to me back then?”

“I... Yes, sir. I do remember.”

Seong Ju-Chan sighed deeply.

Before the war with Japan began, Bang Jin-Hun asked the Assembly members if anyone wanted to quit. That was when Seong Ju-Chan chose to leave.

Back then, he just couldn’t bear the weight of killing someone while putting his life on the line.

“Do you remember what I told you back in my office?”

Seong Ju-Chan slowly nodded. “Yes, sir. You told me that it wasn’t my fault, that I wasn’t the bad guy for leaving.”

“Yeah, I did.”

Their voices got drowned out by the somewhat noisy interior of the cafe.

“And I...” Bang Jin-Hun scratched his head as if this topic was difficult for him to talk about. “...I figured that was enough. That I’ve done my part. I thought the best I could do was put the minds of everyone leaving the Assembly at ease as much as possible. And I yapped on and on like I knew what I was talking about, but... Hey, as it turned out, I knew jacksh*t.

“I thought everyone leaving the Assembly would eke out a living somehow. Because whatever happened to you afterward was none of my business.”

Seong Ju-Chan grinned wryly. “But that is normal, sir.”

“Normal? How?”

“Well...” Seong Ju-Chan hesitated slightly. “Mm... Like how a company has no obligation to look after its former employees, the Assembly is not duty-bound to look after the quitters, sir. After all, we made the choice to quit on our own accord.”

“Yeah, that’s what I used to think.” Bang Jin-Hun shook his head ruefully. “But someone evidently didn’t share our point of view. Am I right?”

“...”

That “someone” was obviously Kang Jin-Ho.

Seong Ju-Chan could tell where Bang Jin-Hun was going with this topic, but that didn’t mean he agreed with the former Assembly Master’s thought process.

“But, sir? Isn’t that more the case of our Assembly Master being a weirdo?”

“Mm?”

“Who would worry about stuff like that, anyway? I honestly believe you’ve done nothing wrong, sir. You’re the one who had behaved normally under the circumstances. It’s the Assembly Master who is unnecessarily meddlesome, that’s all.”

Bang Jin-Hun couldn’t help but chuckle at that. Maybe Seong Ju-Chan was right.

Kang Jin-Ho was the type of person who would look for something to do if his schedule opened up a bit. And he could have stumbled into this franchise idea while looking for that something.

Even if that was true, Bang Jin-Hun couldn’t sneer at Kang Jin-Ho for it. Because he should’ve been the one to think up an idea like this in the first place.

“The thing about me is,” Bang Jin-Hun bitterly muttered after a few seconds of weighty silence. “I’m pretty useless. A dead weight.”

“N-no, wait, sir. What are you talking about?”

“It’s the truth, though.”

Bang Jin-Hun reached across the table and took the coffee cup in front of Seong Ju-Chan. He gulped the hot drink down in one shot, then put the empty cup down with a loud Clack! while making a strange expression.

“Things were different in the past, but now? Let’s be brutally honest here. Even if I’m gone, the Assembly won’t splutter to a halt, right? In fact, I think nothing much will change with the organization.”

“...”

Seong Ju-Chan clamped his mouth shut. He earnestly wanted to say Bang Jin-Hun’s assumption was wrong, but couldn’t. Because he knew that would be a lie. A lie that Bang Jin-Hun would be able to see through.

Bang Jin-Hun’s outlook might sound cynical, but it was still uncomfortably close to the truth, too.

“Even then, I still prided myself on being a member of the Assembly because I saw myself as the organization’s backbone. Its original heart. Whether it’s the Assembly Master or Lee Hyeon-Su, or the other directors... They were all outsiders before joining us, after all.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

Bang Jin-Hun stopped talking there and began scanning the interior of the cafe once more. He furrowed his brow deeply and asked, “Hang on. Don’t you have a smoking area in your cafe?”

“No, sir.”

“Geez... Fine. Let’s get out of here. I need some nicotine in my system.”

“I thought you quit smoking, sir?”

“I did, but I still smoke maybe once or twice every two months or so. I’m surrounded by chain smokers, after all. How can I not smoke, in that case?”

Bang Jin-Hun chuckled while trudging toward the cafe’s exit. Seong Ju-Chan silently followed him outside.

Once they reached a back alley behind the cafe’s building, Bang Jin-Hun mouthed a cigarette. After lighting it up, he began puffing away, only to scowl deeply. “I still don’t get why anyone would want to suck on these things. It’s just bitter and not much else.”

Seong Ju-Chan tilted his head. “Then don’t smoke, sir.”

“Shut up, man.”

Bang Jin-Hun dragged in yet another deep puff.

“Okay, so where was I... Ah, that’s right.”

A bitter smirk spread on Bang Jin-Hun’s face.

“The Assembly’s backbone and whatnot. What a laughable notion that is, though. It’s not like we’re back in the feudal era, so who cares about your background and whatever? But I had no idea such a mindset was buried deep within me all this time. I thought that, since others were originally outsiders, they would only care about achieving their goals.

“I believed they would never think about the people of the Assembly, that it’s my duty to care about them. And I must become one of the directors and ensure that everyone has a way to keep a roof over their heads.”

While Bang Jin-Hun muttered self-deprecatingly, the cigarette smoke continued to leak out of his mouth.

“But all of it turned out to be horsesh*t.”

“Sir...”

“That f*cking bastard, Lee Hyeon-Su, came up with the idea of raising everyone’s wages. And the one who gave our people a legit reason to carry around business cards was Lee Jung-Geol’s granddaughter, a man I wanted to kill with my own hands. And it was the Assembly Master who created jobs for those leaving the Assembly.”

Bang Jin-Hun’s head faltered, but he raised it again to stare directly into Seong Ju-Chan’s eyes.

“See? I haven’t done a damn thing.”

“...”

He sounded so bitter and sorrowful just then.

“I only knew how to run my mouth. If I was serious about doing something constructive, I should’ve pulled my pants up and done it by now, yet all I did was sit on my ass and yap like a know-it-all.”

“Director Bang, sir. None of us thinks that way.”

“You know what’s even funnier?”

“Sorry?”

Bang Jin-Hun smirked weakly. “The Assembly Master is doing all this so that all of you can have a good life outside the Assembly. But me? After he joined us, all I have done for you guys is create a new standard martial art for the organization. That’s it. I’m doing a thing I was worried about, while the Assembly Master is doing a thing I should have done in the first place. Do you get what I’m saying?”

Seong Ju-Chan clamped his mouth shut again. He held himself back from offering meaningless words of solace to Bang Jin-Hun right now. The latter’s expression was far too sorrowful for him to do that.

“That’s why I’m here.”

“...”

“I just wanted to see how you guys were doing. Don’t sweat it, though, okay? I’m not trying to jinx you and ruin your business or anything like that. I really, genuinely, seriously hope everything works out for you guys.”

Seong Ju-Chan slowly nodded while listening. In a situation like this, what should he even say?

He hesitated for a little while before finally breaking his silence.