“Sorry that you had to do extra work. You did well today. Keep it up!” the manager of the café said to you when you were about to leave.

“Nae~!” You smiled and left. You looked at the sky, “Hmm…it’s already dark outside”. The café was lack of workers so you had to do more work than usual.

When you were on the way to your house, someone attracted your attention. You looked at your watch, “It’s already late now, but that ajusshi is still there”.

Every time when you were on your way to your house, you would see that old man sitting on a bench under a tree by the road. But that night seemed so unusual. You stopped your steps and kept looking at him from quite a distance. Suddenly, he stood up from his seat and walked to the middle of the road. “What is he doing?” you thought until you saw a car was coming to his direction. “Andwae!!!” you screamed and ran towards him as fast as you could. Luck was on your and his side, that you managed to get the old man out of the road.

“Ajusshi! Are you crazy?! What would have happened to you if I weren’t there just now?!” you got irritated.

“Well, I was just doing an experiment” he said and laughed.

“What?!” you were shocked by his answer, “he is crazy”. “Ajusshi, just go home, nae? It’s dangerous if you stay here alone at this hour,” you said.

“Oho! Speak for yourself young lady”.

“Aishhh…!” you said and turned your back to him, “I’m going home now”.

“Your beautiful face comes with a beautiful heart too,” he said while nodding.

You stopped walking and looked at him again, “nae?”

“Please, allow me to walk you home”.

“Ajusshi, you don’t have anything bad planned in your head aren’t you? If you do, think about it again or I’ll have to knock you down with this!” you said while taking out your umbrella from your bag. “It’s not just an umbrella. This is a killer weapon!”

He laughed, “Keep that thing. Trust me you’ll thank me later”.

You looked at him, feeling weird.

“Let’s go. Because you’re so careful, I will walk in front of you and you’ll tell me the way," he said and walked.

“But you don’t have to……” you said and started to follow him.

 Both of you were walking together. You looked at his back, “Ajusshi, I always saw you were sitting there alone. Don’t you have anyone to accompany you? And about that experiment you were talking about. What was it actually?”

At first, he didn’t say anything. Until he stopped walking and stared at your face, “I wanted to see, the existence of someone who would risk his or her own life for a stranger”.

You looked at him, “So, that was your experiment? You might die”.

“I always saw you too. What’s your name?”

“My name is Lee ____”.

“Hmm, ____. Tell me, the boy who’s sometimes with you is your boyfriend?”

“Eh? Who?” you thought, “Ah~ You mean Cha Baro? Because he does walk me home. But he’s not my boyfriend. He’s my best friend. We’ve been friends since we’re kids”.

“Geuraeyo?” he smiled, “That’s even better”.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Nothing. Let’s keep walking”

You pointed to a direction, “My house is there”.

Both of you went to that direction.

That old man stopped walking, “This is your house?”

You continued your steps a little further, “Aniyo, ajusshi. This is my house”. You showed him your real house.

“You call that a house?” He approached you, “This is not for human to live in”.

You looked at him, annoyed by his words. You sighed. “What to do. My family can only afford to live here. That’s why I have to do part time jobs as many as I can. I don’t want to see my little sister gets starved and so do my parents”.

While you were talking, you saw him went into the house. It seemed that the door was not locked at that time.

“Ajusshi! Where do you think you’re going?!” you followed him. As soon as you were inside the house, you saw your mom, dad and your younger sister at the living room. They seemed so hopeless. You could see your sister was crying.

“What is going on here?” you thought.

“Eonnie!” your sister hugged you, “Mom said we have to get out of this house soon”.

“Mwo?! What are you saying…? If we get out of here, where else are we going to live? Mom…Dad…What is happening?” you were clueless. 

“We don’t have money to rent this house anymore. We also don’t have enough money to pay the bills. Even with the pay from your part time jobs, we still can’t settle all of this. Plus, your dad is such a trouble maker! He used our money for the horse betting games and all the money has gone just like that,” tears dropped onto your mom’s cheeks.

“Mworago?!” you were shocked. You looked at your dad in anger.

“I really thought I can win…” your dad said while looking down to the floor.

You gave a deep sigh. “It’s no use for me to get angry now”.

“Ahem!” that old man walked and sat together with your other family members after seeing the scene.

“A-ajusshi!” you said. “I really forgot about him. Gosh…! What happened just now was a total embarrassment for a stranger to watch”.

“Who is this?” your dad asked. Everyone focused on him at that time.

“Dad, this is…” you wanted to explained but that ajusshi cut your words.

“Your beautiful daughter has saved my life. I wanted to give something as return” he said. He took out a piece of paper and a pen from his pocket and started to write something. He gave the paper to your dad, “Tomorrow, go to this place at 8p.m. I’m going to treat all of you to dinner. Don’t think that it’s just a normal dinner. Just to let you know, this opportunity comes once in a lifetime and this family can be survived too”. He then stood up and looked at both of your mom and dad, “Please, come”.

Meanwhile, you just stood there, doing nothing. That ajusshi slowly walked out of the house, leaving the place.

“Yah, ______, who is that man? Why did you bring him here?” your dad asked.

“Like he said, I saved his life. He was standing on the road and waiting to be crashed by a car. So, I saved him. After that, he insisted of walking me home. I let him to because he doesn’t seem dangerous enough to do bad thing to us”.

“Anyway, we have to go to that place tomorrow!” your mom said.

“Mom…! Seriously?!” you widened your eyes.

“I want to know what kind of opportunity that he would give to us,”

“But, mom…”

“He might be a stranger, but we are desperate now!”

“Don’t you think he’s somewhat kind of a loan shark? But from what I see, he looks so messy. Maybe he’s at the same level at us. Where did you find him?” your dad seemed curious.

“He always sits on the bench by the road, not far from here. I’ll see him every time when I’m on my way to home. But today, I finished my job quite late, but he’s still there,” you said.

“You see! He’s homeless! I may be right. But, to think about it again, someone like him wanted to treat us to dinner at this place. It’s kind of weird. Isn’t this a place for the rich?” your dad said while looking at the piece of paper, given by the old man.

“We will see,” your mom said.

xoxoxo

Your family decided to go to the restaurant. The staffs seemed like they already knew you were coming because as soon as you were there, you were brought to a private room.

“Daebak! I’ve never been to a place like this!” you thought, feeling amazed.

It seemed that you came quite early so you and your family had to wait for the old man to come.

“Maybe he really tricked us?” your dad said.

“Dad…It hasn’t been 5 minutes since we were here. Let’s just wait for a while,” you said.

About 2 minutes later, the door was opened and you could see the old man and a young man came into the room.  That ajusshi looked so different than before. Both of them were neatly dressed. They took their seats in front of you.

But something had been bothering you and it was unexpected as well. “Wait a sec! He’s my senior!” you were stunned.

That senior stared at you like he was wondering something.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” that ajusshi said. He then ordered the food. “Let’s discuss while they are preparing our food. First of all, I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Jeong Hyun Soo. And this is my only son”.

Jinyoung bowed, “Annyeonghaseyo. Jeong Jinyoung imnida,” he introduced himself.

“What a handsome son you got there,” your dad said.

“He is,” Hyun Soo said followed by small laugh. “He’s still studying in high school. What about you, _____?” he looked at you.

“N-nae?” you were a bit startled. You just looked down, “Actually, Jinyoung is my sunbae. We go to the same school”.

You changed your view to Jinyoung. He did a poker face and just remained silent.

“Oh…really? Hmm…” Hyun Soo said.

“I may be rude, but just straight to the point. This is not just a normal dinner, right?” your mom seemed in rush.

“Mom…” you said.

“It’s okay. I got it,” Hyun Soo took a deep breath. “I’m going to marry Jinyoung with _____”.

“Nae?!!!” you widened your eyes out of shock.

“What kind of nonsense is this?!!” Jinyoung was in anger.

The situation got tensed up.

“What do you mean?” your dad asked.

“_____ saved my life. If you let her to marry my son, I’ll help your family to live a better live. You’ll be free from hardship,” he said.

“Dad! What is this?! Is this the reason you asked me to go with you? This is the important meeting? To marry me to her?!!” He glared at his dad, “Even if she saved your life, by just giving them a lot of money should be enough. Why do you have to ask me to marry her?!”

“Jeong Jinyoung!” Hyun Soo raised his tone. “You listen here, carefully. I don’t think I will live in this world any longer. When your age reaches 20 years old in the future, you’ll get all my properties, all of it. That will only happen if you decided to marry her within 3 days starting from today. If you decided not to, then all my properties will be given to her, _____. That also will happen when she reaches 20 years old” Hyun Soo explained.

“Ajusshi…” you said.

“Wae?! Why would you give your properties to her? She’s not even your daughter. What makes you want to do that?!” Jinyoung was in shock.

“Jinyoung, I can imagine with your attitude now, I don’t think you can successfully manage all of my businesses. All the girls who keep clinging to you until now are just chasing your money. They don’t guarantee you happiness”.

Jinyoung stood up from his seat, “Hmph! So you trust a stranger rather than trusting your own son”.

“Marry her and live together. Divorce her, still she’ll get the properties”.

“This is just ridiculous!” Jinyoung wanted to leave the place.

“At least show me that you want to protect my hard work from falling into other’s hand, Jinyoung”.

Jinyoung who stopped for a while after listening to his father then walked out of the room.

“Ajusshi, this is too much. Why are you dragging me into this? You’ll live for another 1000 years! Just give your properties to him, okay?” you tried to convince him.

“It’s not like what you think. Before it’s too late, I really want to see him to get marry, with someone who I approve. I believe you, _____. Please, if you’re the one who get my properties, manage it well”.

“Alright! We’ll marry ______ to your son, Jinyoung,” your mom said.

“Mom! Hey, Mom! What are you-?!” you went panicked.

Suddenly, the waitresses came and served the food.

“It’s decided then”. He stood up from his seat, “I’m very sorry, but it seems that I had to go first. And sorry again that you had to watch Jinyoung acted like that just now. Enjoy your food,” Hyun Soo smiled at you before he left the place.

“Dad! You’re not going to let me go, aren’t you?!” you said.

“Hmmm…You won’t get a chance like this again. Better grab it first! I never thought that Hyun Soo is so damn rich! His son is not bad. He's handsome, like me when I was young,” your dad said and the rest of your family members started to dig in the food.

“Aishh! Dad!!!” you frowned.

xoxoxo

You had just reached school on that morning. You were on the way to your class. You could feel a heavy burden was put on you and you came with a pain in your head too.

When you were about to pass by a class, Jinyoung suddenly came out from there with some of his friends.

“Err…that night was just a dream! That’s all. What happened last night was not real!” you thought.

You did not dare to look at him, so you just slowly passed by them. But you were stopped by a hand was grabbing your right shoulder from the back, “Wait, Lee ______”.

You were startled and you turned back to find that it was Jinyoung who called you. 

To be continued...