The expression on Head of News Headquarters Jo Yeongmin’s face brightened.
He was trying hard not to show it, but I could see everything.
Kim Dusik becoming the anchor would strengthen the connection with Assemblyman Jin Woo-il and, ultimately, bring Jo Yeongmin himself closer to the president’s seat.
How delighted must he have been that I voluntarily said I would not become the anchor?
‘It’s a futile dream anyway.’
In any case, I secured the deal I wanted by boldly promising to bring in scoops.
「You know that granting you reporting autonomy and the authority to pull in team members are both extraordinary concessions, right? If you fail to produce good results, you’ll also have to be prepared to take the appropriate responsibility.」
「Yes, I understand.」
After roughly explaining the situation to Seo Suyeon, Ju Myeongjin, and Go Hakjun, I looked at Myeongjin and spoke.
“From now on, you’ll be assigned exclusively to cover this segment with me.”
“Really? Then I don’t have to go out reporting with other reporters? I’m honestly only happy when I’m out in the field with you, hyung.”
“Hyeonwook, what about me? My heart was genuinely racing while I helped with the Machine Church coverage this time.”
Although she had not asked as directly as Go Hakjun, Seo Suyeon’s gaze seemed to contain a similar message.
“From now on, I can cover news from any field, not just the Social Affairs Department. I can also select whichever team members I want depending on the story, so when I ask, you have to join me. That includes you too, senior.”
“Okay!”
“I’d always welcome a request like that.”
Seeing people who were willing to join me without asking questions or raising objections made me feel full even without eating.
Seo Suyeon, Go Hakjun, Ju Myeongjin, and I returned to the office together and went back to our respective seats.
Department Head Lee Jinyeol had probably been contacted separately through the News Director.
I could now conduct investigations without reporting them first.
After sitting at my desk and checking my reporting notebook, I looked at the central figure in the next case I would investigate.
Because she was right nearby.
Who was it that said life begins at sixty?
Kim Hyeonja did not know who had said it, but she thought they had coined a truly fine saying.
Even her own life, dry and gritty like sand, seemed to be coming alive beginning this year, when she had turned sixty.
“Hmmmmmm, hm-hm-hm-hmmmm.”
She found herself humming at all hours.
Because laughter kept escaping between her lips, the people around her often asked whether something good had happened.
Ding-a-ling, ding!
A messenger notification sounded from Kim Hyeonja’s phone.
It was a sound like magic, one that made her smile.
With a bright expression, Kim Hyeonja took out her phone and hurriedly checked it.
[My love, I’m starting another day thinking about my princess. I love you.]
“What a silly flirt. There really isn’t anything you won’t say, honestly.”
After checking the message, Kim Hyeonja seemed to be scolding the other person under her breath, but the reply she sent was no less affectionate.
[My beloved. Me too. Think of me today and stay strong. You can do it!]
Pfft! She laughed.
Who would have known that receiving love and loving someone would come into her life so late?
Life truly was something worth living for a long time.
Five years earlier, when she first put on a blue work uniform and began cleaning, she had thought her life was already over.
Other people said she should be happy to clean inside such a magnificent broadcasting station, but how good could it possibly be to work as a cleaner at her age?
‘That damned man!’
Had her husband not died in a sudden traffic accident, and had that damned man not only lost money in stocks but also gone into debt to a friend, she would never have needed to wake up before dawn and scrub floors like this.
After holding her husband’s funeral, she used the insurance payout and condolence money to settle the debts.
The traffic-accident compensation had all gone toward the marriage of her only son.
With no choice but to begin earning living expenses immediately, she put on a cleaner’s uniform.
As she worked as a cleaner at KCN, her circumstances gradually improved.
She was no longer in debt, and she had no children who needed her care.
‘I feel free.’
That was what she had thought. But she was lonely.
Once she could afford to eat and get by, she grew tired of her situation, the future in which she would continue aging like this, and every exhausting day.
She disliked the people around her.
It felt as though they treated her with contempt for being a widow, dismissed her for being poor, and looked down on her for doing menial work.
She even felt as though her son and daughter-in-law thought of her that way.
Her son had never been particularly affectionate even before he married, but after his marriage, he had practically become part of someone else’s family.
A high school friend she occasionally met would stare at her phone whenever they saw each other.
When Kim Hyeonja asked what on earth she was doing, her friend said she had made friends through her phone.
「This is a picture of the shabu-shabu we ate earlier. See how people looked at it and left comments saying it looked delicious?」
She could see them.
Strangers had written things beneath a picture that was nothing special.
「Then I say something back to those people too. Something like, ‘Yes, it really was delicious.’」
Kim Hyeonja had not known that such a world existed.
She had thought phones were only for making calls, and that even if she took a picture of a flower, she would be the only one who saw it. But that was not true.
She could connect with people who did not know her and converse with them by leaving comments.
Kim Hyeonja immediately went out and bought something called a smartphone.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
The smartphone was difficult and complicated, but it was not completely beyond her ability to use.
Her friend could use one, so why shouldn’t she be able to? With that thought, she tried touching this and that and found it manageable.
She even liked the notification sounds that rang whenever she did something.
After barely managing to sign up for social media, she wondered what her first picture should be and eventually posted a selfie.
As she had grown older, she had gradually come to dislike having her picture taken, but she liked the selfie she had casually taken that day.
Ding-a-ling, ding!
Her first comment appeared.
[You are beautiful.]
Kim Hyeonja’s romance began that day.
Words such as “you,” “darling,” “love,” and “happiness” overflowed every day.
Even when the air, which had recently grown much colder, slipped beneath her collar during her early-morning commute, she did not feel the chill.
The News Department on the sixth floor of KCN was no longer an irritating workplace either.
Kim Hyeonja was going from desk to desk, emptying the individual wastebaskets into a large trash bin, when someone spoke.
“Good morning, ma’am. It’s another lovely morning. Please have a cup of this while you work.”
A tall, handsome young reporter greeted her with a smile.
What he handed her was a warm sweet-potato latte, and she had already lost count of how many times he had bought one for her.
The employee ID hanging around his neck read, “Lee Hyeonwook, Social Affairs Department.”
“I feel bad that you give me something every time.”
“I’m the one who should be grateful. Thanks to you, I get to work somewhere clean every day.”
“I heard you have something to celebrate. I overheard it while passing by. They said something good happened.”
“The rumor reached even you, ma’am? Haha. I’ve been assigned to work with the nine o’clock news team.”
“My goodness! Congratulations from me too. Your mother must be so happy.”
“She probably would be. If she were still alive.”
“…Oh dear, I put my foot in my mouth. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, ma’am. She passed away a long time ago.”
“I suppose it does get a little easier as time passes. My husband passed away five years ago, and I’m doing all right now too.”
[November 16, 20XX. Mrs. Kim Hyeonja, responsible for cleaning the sixth floor of the KCN broadcasting station, was defrauded of her entire fortune by a lover she met through a messenger app.]
[She resigned because of the emotional shock… I wonder whether she is doing well.]
The next person recorded in my reporting notebook was none other than Mrs. Kim Hyeonja.
「Reporter, well… you see. I think the person I was seeing may have… scammed me. Please help me. Will you?」
In my previous life, Kim Hyeonja had been swindled out of money by someone she met through a social-media messenger.
She suffered a tremendous shock after realizing that the person she believed she was in love with was a fraudster.
She could not bring herself to tell her son, and even reporting it to the police did not resolve anything. She also lacked the courage to tell the reporters she met every morning.
Eventually, she had barely managed to open up to me, who went around with my shoulders hunched after being scolded by Kim Dusik every day.
「My Richard… He wasn’t that kind of person…Sob.」
I genuinely wanted to help her.
I also thought that, as a Culture Department reporter, I could sufficiently handle a story that examined social-media culture and warned people to be careful about exchanging money with strangers.
But to Kim Dusik, Mrs. Kim Hyeonja’s story was nothing more than the disgraceful senility of a pathetic old woman.
In the end, Mrs. Kim Hyeonja quit her cleaning job without receiving help from anyone.
That unresolved record was precisely the matter I would handle this time.
A romance scam.
It was a crime in which someone became intimate with another person online, borrowed money, and then disappeared.
It took time for many people to become familiar with the term.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Kim had been scammed before she ever encountered it.
Who had been the person who scammed Mrs. Kim Hyeonja back then?
If they had obtained a large sum without being properly punished, wouldn’t they have continued committing the same crime afterward?
This time, I would save Mrs. Kim Hyeonja and make sure the bastard who so casually stole other people’s money was properly punished.
As I was thinking that, Mrs. Kim Hyeonja asked me a question.
“Reporter, aren’t you seeing anyone? You’re handsome, tall, and capable enough to appear on the nine o’clock news. Why aren’t you getting married?”
I cheered inwardly.
It had taken a week for us to have this kind of conversation.
That was because Mrs. Kim Hyeonja tried to avoid conversing with people at the broadcasting station as much as possible, following the cleaning crew supervisor’s instructions.
I had therefore deliberately come to work before dawn, when hardly anyone else was around, and exchanged small talk with her over sweet sweet-potato lattes.
At last, the conversation moved toward the subject I wanted.
“I am seeing a woman, actually. But I have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“She keeps talking to me about money. She says something happened at home and asks me to lend her some.”
“How much?”
“Fifty million won.”
“What? Fifty million?”
“Yes. No matter how much we love each other, fifty million is a little overwhelming. And I don’t have that kind of money. All my savings are tied up in the deposit for the place where I’m living.”
“Then tell her honestly that you don’t have the money.”
“I did. Then she asked whether I could cash out my lease deposit, move somewhere with monthly rent, and lend it to her. Ma’am, you’ve lived longer than I have, so you must understand people well. Does this woman really love me? Is it right for me to lend her money even if I have to move?”
“…I don’t know as much as you do, but this doesn’t seem right to me. You aren’t even married, and asking you to withdraw your housing deposit and lend it to her seems like going much too far.”
“Right? I’m not the strange one, am I?”
“To put it bluntly, what would you do if you lent her that much money, then she broke up with you and ran away? My late husband caused a lot of trouble involving money. He took on so much debt without telling me. That debt is why I’m working as a cleaner now… Oh dear. Listen to me ramble. Pretend you didn’t hear that. I should hurry and clean the hallway. Thank you for the drink again today, reporter.”
I released a relieved sigh as I watched Mrs. Kim Hyeonja walk away.
‘Thank goodness. She has a sensible view of financial dealings.’
We had a similar conversation the following day.
“Did you manage to refuse the money?”
“Yes. I told her moving would probably be too difficult. I said I was too busy with my current work to have time for a move as well.”
“Well done. Then your problem has been resolved now, right?”
“…The thing is, she asked whether I could somehow lend her ten million won if fifty million was impossible.”
Good grief. I deliberately sighed before speaking.
“He can’t give a firm answer, unlike young people these days.”
Mrs. Kim Hyeonja muttered to herself while changing her clothes after work.
She found it unfortunate that the bachelor named Reporter Lee Hyeonwook was such a pushover when it came to money, despite his appearance.
She worried that he might end up losing both his money and his love.
Ding-a-ling, ding!
“Am I really in a position to worry about someone else’s love? I have my own love, don’t I?”
Mrs. Kim Hyeonja’s expression immediately brightened.
She wondered what lovely words Richard would say to her today.
Humming as she checked her phone screen, Mrs. Kim Hyeonja’s eyes began to tremble violently as though she could not possibly believe what she had seen.
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