Chapter 3
- Wanting to Play With Her
2023.05.03.
Seven-year-old So-eun lived in the staff quarters of Tae-joon's house until her father, who was serving a prison sentence, returned.
Ten-year-old Kim Tae-joon and seven-year-old Han So-eun quickly became friends. So-eun was completely won over by the candies and caramels Tae-joon offered her a few times. The young So-eun, who had her heart stolen by a few candies and caramels, followed Tae-joon around well.
"Shall we play rock-paper-scissors?"
"Yes!"
"If you lose, I'll flick your forehead, okay?"
"Okay!"
So-eun unconditionally agreed to the games Tae-joon suggested. Tae-joon swallowed a bitter smile as he watched the child, who was simply excited to be playing and shouted with her mouth wide open.
So-eun's rock-paper-scissors had a pattern. Once you learned that pattern, you were guaranteed to win.
Flick. Flick. Flick. Tae-joon was able to hit So-eun as much as he wanted under the pretext of winning rock-paper-scissors. Even after being hit so hard that her round forehead was bruised, So-eun soon giggled. Even with tears in her eyes from the pain in her forehead, she didn't know how to stop playing.
After hitting her particularly hard, Tae-joon would willingly let her win. Even though she only won about once every ten times, So-eun was so excited that she stomped her feet as if she had the whole world.
"Yay! I won! You get flicked too, oppa."
"If you hit me hard, I won't play with you."
Tap.
"Aaaah! Hey! That hurts too much!"
The child's forehead flick didn't hurt at all, but Tae-joon made a painful expression as if he couldn't bear it. So-eun's forehead flick, softened even more by his exaggerated acting.
A seven-year-old couldn't beat a ten-year-old. So-eun was an easy target to deceive and tease, and whenever Tae-joon was bored, he would go to So-eun, pull her hair, trip her, or splash her with muddy water to relieve his depression.
Among the ways to torment So-eun, Tae-joon's favorite game was hide-and-seek. He would tell So-eun to hide well in the vast garden of the mansion, and then leisurely go to find her around sunset.
One day, less than an hour after starting a game of hide-and-seek, he scolded So-eun, who came out of the bushes crying and whimpering.
"You're supposed to hide until I find you, why did you come out! Don't you ever want to play with me again?"
"Noooo..."
The child said she came out because she was scared, but she didn't complain, even as she sobbed.
"You have to hold back and wait, even if you're scared!"
Tae-joon scolded the child once more and reminded her of the meaning of the game.
"From now on, you have to wait for me no matter what. I'll find you no matter where you're hiding. Got it?"
"Yes."
"And don't cry. I won't play with you if you cry. Got it?"
"Yes!"
Tae-joon couldn't help but smile at the sight of the innocent child, who quickly stopped crying at his nagging and smiled brightly.
In front of Tae-joon's office.
So-eun looked inside the paper bag in her hand and asked blankly.
"...Excuse me?"
"We got a few, but there were some left over. You're the only section chief here."
Tae-joon replied.
Eel rice bowl. The eel rice bowl her boyfriend had mentioned.
Just seeing the name tag that said "Eel rice bowl" made her heart flutter.
The head of headquarters was a good person!
A pretty person with a kind heart!
"Thank you."
So-eun bowed deeply. Was it because Hee-wook sent that text? She felt like crying over a single eel rice bowl.
The world is warm.
Yes. Han So-eun. Let's cheer up.
"Can I take this to eat?"
"Of course."
"Yes. Thank you. I'll enjoy it."
"But."
As she bowed again and was about to leave, Tae-joon stopped her with a short introduction.
So-eun stopped walking, and he took a step closer and asked.
"Have we ever met before?"
"Excuse me?"
It was a rhetorical question, as if to say, "How could we have?" He had a face that you could never forget once you saw it. Unless he had plastic surgery, there was no way she wouldn't recognize such beauty.
Kim Tae-joon, was it? The name itself sounded familiar. There must be at least ten people with similar names in the company. In So-eun's 27 years of life, that ordinary name had probably passed by countless times.
It would be the same for him. The name "Han So-eun" was also very ordinary.
But he was a person from a different world than her. The only ordinary thing about him was his three-letter name.
He really seemed to be trying hard to recall something, scanning So-eun's face thoroughly. She felt like his gaze was piercing through the inside of her glasses. His sharp eyes made So-eun feel embarrassed. It felt like he was about to snatch her glasses off with his long, large hands. Her heart pounded.
His head moved closer and closer to So-eun, and she forgot to breathe and froze. She became ice, but her face flushed with heat.
"No. Never mind. Go ahead."
After a while, he straightened up and said after finishing his search. So-eun bowed once more and left the spot.
Tae-joon followed her with his eyes until So-eun got on the elevator at the end of the hallway. With each step she took, the neatly tied ends of her hair fluttered.
She didn't seem to recognize him. She was just embarrassed by his sudden question.
She didn't seem to be hiding anything either.
He needed to investigate further.
Han So-eun, whom he had met after a long time, had become a mature woman who had completely erased her past self. But even so, there were a few things that could never be erased that were re-engraved in Tae-joon's eyes.
A white face that changed color from moment to moment. Transparent skin, plump lips that opened smartly. Round eyes visible beyond her glasses. As if tears would fall at any moment...
After seeing her face directly, he felt strangely hungrier.
Han So-eun.
After that little girl disappeared one night without saying goodbye, Tae-joon felt empty for a few days, but he quickly forgot and lived as if such a child had never existed.
He had also become much brighter than he had been immediately after his parents passed away. Somehow, the weight of his sadness seemed to have lessened.
In that way, time passed without any further incidents, and he left to study in the United States. Before he knew it, he had become accustomed to living in a foreign country, and Tae-joon also settled there.
His grandfather, Chairman Kim Jae-pil, also gave Tae-joon plenty of freedom. He told him to study as much as he wanted until he was thirty, and then return to Korea at the age of thirty-one.
Tae-joon started and ended several relationships within his limited freedom. For some reason, he always felt the same emptiness at the end of each relationship. The women always wanted more than just a relationship, and Tae-joon couldn't give them what they wanted, so he broke up with them. The women were always angry, but he was indifferent. He had gotten everything he wanted anyway, so he was just curious as to why they were angry at him.
His last partner even picked on him for absurd reasons and burst into an incomprehensible rage.
"You called me Han So-eun when you were drunk! Several times!"
Tae-joon didn't sympathize with her anger at all, and just muttered to himself, "Ahn Seo-yeon or Han So-eun."
That day, Tae-joon was more deeply immersed in the fact that he might have really done that than in the fact that his last relationship had ended, and he kept muttering the name "Han So-eun."
Han So-eun, Han So-eun, Han So-eun...
'Ah, Han So-eun.'
Like that, the girl from more than a decade ago came to mind as if she had been pushed. As soon as he remembered the name, the memories he had buried somewhere in his head unfolded as if a blocked waterway had been cleared.
Tae-joon turned on his old laptop PC and searched through the photo list. His aunt had given him the laptop as a gift, with photo files inside, telling him to take it out and look at it whenever he missed Korea.
After persistent clicking, he found a photo. It was a photo of a seven-year-old girl and a ten-year-old Tae-joon sitting side by side in the garden.
He could see that the girl's forehead was red and swollen between the strands of hair that were stuck to her sweat. Even with that red forehead, the child was smiling brightly.
A foolish child who didn't even know she was being bullied, even after being tormented so much.
A child who would cry sadly, "Oppa, oppa," if he left her abandoned in the middle of the garden. As if she had no one in the world but him.
He suddenly wondered what this child was doing now.
No, he wanted to pinch her cheeks and pull her hair like he used to. He wanted to snatch her precious toys and throw them far away, and trip her to make her fall. And he wanted to see the child's face react as much as he tormented her. He wanted to see if she was still as foolish as she used to be, and if she would chase after him, calling him "oppa, oppa," as if he was her whole world again if he played with her a few times. He wanted to play with her.
But it was a feeling that shouldn't be revealed to the world.
Tae-joon secretly hired someone to find Han So-eun.
It was just a secret amusement. It would be nice if he found her, but it couldn't be helped if he didn't. It was something he did because he had too much inheritance and nothing else to do. Because life was boring. Because he was bored.
He couldn't let anyone find out, so it took a long time, there were limitations, and there were more than a dozen mistakes, but he finally found the child.
The moment he checked the photos sent by the counselor, something heavy in his chest began to boil and a heat rushed up. He felt like his heart was beating with great pressure, delivering heat to every corner of his body.
The woman in the photo had long hair and was wearing glasses, but Tae-joon was sure. It was that child, Han So-eun, who could never be anyone else.
The little girl with the small, round face and the tip of her nose had become a woman with delicate features.
Her figure, which looked so fragile that she seemed like she would collapse if touched, her white skin, and the way the corners of her eyes curved when she smiled slightly were exactly the same as before.
[She works as an engineer at K Electronics Service Center Central Headquarters.]
His gaze, which had been frantically examining several photos, stopped at the news the counselor had given him.
"Are you sure it's K Electronics Service Center?"
[Yes. I'm sure.]
"How is her biological father doing?"
[Han Hong-gyu went to the Philippines more than 10 years ago.]
If it's been more than 10 years...
"Then, is it possible that her biological father doesn't know that Han So-eun has joined K Group?"
[Shall I find out?]
"Yes. Please. Find out if there is any contact between Han So-eun and Han Hong-gyu, and how Han So-eun has been doing all this time."
[Yes. I understand.]
Ha.
Tae-joon burst into laughter after finishing the call with the counselor.
The child who used to wail and cry in front of him when he broke her toys had grown up to be someone who fixed machines. Wasn't it funny?
The child who had been forced to leave K Group because of her biological father's sins had grown up and come back to K Group on her own two feet.
Did the child know about her biological father's mistakes? Did she come back knowing?
Why? What face did she have to show?
It was an intriguing question.
Tae-joon decided to continue this pursuit. He felt like he had to see Han So-eun with his own two eyes.
And so, Tae-joon boarded a plane to Korea earlier than planned.
In the evening, the head of the HR department came up with a file containing Han So-eun's personal information.
Graduated from an all-girls middle school, an all-girls high school, and an all-girls university. K Electronic Service was her first job.
She was a diligent employee with a good work ethic and got along well with her colleagues. However.
"1 month unpaid leave..."
Tae-joon read a line that had been recently added to her personal information. The head of the HR department replied.
"She said she went on a trip abroad."
"Where to?"
"Excuse me?"
The head of the HR department blinked and asked as he muttered again. His voice was so small that the head of the HR department couldn't hear him properly.
"No, that's all. You can go."
Tae-joon sent the head of the HR department out and fell into thought.
A month-long trip abroad...
Did she go to the Philippines to see her biological father?
Tae-joon tapped the keyboard a few times and found Han So-eun's personal SNS account. It wasn't difficult. He checked Han So-eun's company email account ID, pasted it into the internet search bar along with the name "Han So-eun," and pressed the search button. An account with a few numbers at the end of the ID caught his eye. He clicked on it and saw a photo of the company building. Tae-joon chuckled.
Most of the photos were private, or maybe she didn't take many photos, but her SNS was deserted. At best, there were photos of food, and photos taken at famous places where everyone else would take photos from the same angle, showing her figure very small. Even those hadn't been uploaded in the last 3 months.
"She said she went on a trip abroad."
How could there be no photos?
Tae-joon focused his attention and flipped through Han So-eun's SNS page quickly. Then, his movement stopped at a plain photo.
It was a photo from 4 months ago. It was a photo of a woman's and a man's hands overlapping. The rings on the ring fingers of the two people were very visible. It was a couple ring.
Tae-joon slowly flipped through one more photo. The man's slanted back view with the beach in front of him came into view.
Tae-joon's eyes, which had been shining with interest, turned cold.
