Chapter 75
75. One Day, 20 Years Ago
2023.07.14.
Even a tragedy that seems impossible to overcome eventually becomes distant, like footprints left behind, if you surrender to time and simply keep walking.
That year's tragic spring melted in the hot sun, washed away by cool showers, and faded into obscurity.
The ten-year-old boy, who lost both parents at once and returned after holding their funeral, grew taller and his head grew bigger, as if he were aging one year per season. The child did not stagnate. Without crying or whining, without causing trouble or making a fuss, he continued his smooth school life and began to move forward steadily again.
Seok-hwa found the child's transformation miraculous. However, her nephew, whom she met at every breakfast and dinner, somehow wore a neat smile that seemed to mimic an adult's expression. It was a cunning look, as if he were hiding something. That image sometimes made Seok-hwa feel sorry for him, but she didn't complain. She simply thought it was fortunate that he was becoming more mature, keeping pace with the speed at which his height and head were growing, without falling into despair.
Summer passed like flowing clouds, and the beginning of autumn arrived.
Seok-hwa, who was temporarily taking over her deceased brother's work and spending busy days, left work early before a business trip.
"Hey!"
And then she heard her nephew's scream from the direction of the staff quarters, beyond the garden shrubs. Seok-hwa was drawn to that cute voice and gracefully made her way through the trees. Her nephew was not alone. Seok-hwa discovered a girl laughing gleefully in front of her nephew, and a dark inkiness gathered in her face within the shadows.
It was the daughter of the driver who had been imprisoned.
Her nephew, his face wine-red as if about to burst, was panting as he held his cheek, looking quite different from the way he looked at breakfast and dinner.
"If you touch my face again, I'll hang you up over there, you know."
"Oppa, is it okay if I don't touch you with my hands? Can I touch you with my mouth?"
"If you can't touch me with your hands, how can you touch me with your mouth!"
"Then is it okay if I touch you with my feet?"
The little girl's expression, as she retorted to her nephew, was adorable every moment. When the angry nephew approached to hit her, the little girl raised her arms to defend her head and screamed. At that funny behavior, Tae-joon burst into laughter this time. This was also the nephew that Seok-hwa had lost.
Seok-hwa covered her mouth to avoid revealing her presence and watched the two children in hushed silence.
After laughing for a long time, her nephew took out something to eat from his pocket and handed it to the little girl.
"Wow! What is this?"
"It looks just like you, so eat yourself."
"Wow! Amazing!"
The little girl, who seemed to have gained the whole world by receiving a single bag of snacks, jumped up and down, and her nephew was smiling as he watched her.
It was the moment Seok-hwa realized what her nephew, who seemed to be hiding something, had been hiding all along.
Her nephew was being curt as if he hated the little girl to death, but he was nonchalantly giving her his side. The emotion that her nephew had built up without even knowing what it was could never be hatred.
The little girl had no mother, and even her father was imprisoned, leaving her with nowhere to go. Out of pity, she was allowed to stay at the mansion until her living arrangements were decided, but she never knew that such generous consideration would create such a mess.
That day, after Tae-joon escorted the little girl to her quarters and left, Seok-hwa called the little girl back again. The little girl raised her round face and asked innocently.
"Auntie, what is it?"
The girl, who accepted unfamiliar faces without resistance, was as pretty as a doll. She had a face that made one look forward to how beautiful she would become when she grew up. No, there was no need to look ahead to when the children became adults; the moment the little girl became a young lady in a few years would be the beginning.
Seok-hwa immediately set out to find an adult who would become the girl's guardian. After barely confirming that she had an aunt, Seok-hwa gave Han So-eun's aunt and uncle a generous amount of living expenses and entrusted So-eun to them.
She deliberately told them to leave in the middle of the night, fearing that her nephew might notice something and chase after them, and she watched that moment of departure with her own eyes.
The little girl, who seemed to accept the change of residence without much fuss, burst into tears as she hugged the tens of thousands of won that Seok-hwa handed her.
"Auntie, I'm moving. Please give this to Oppa……."
The little girl, shedding tears like pearls, handed over a red toy cell phone with the front panel dangling and a few candies with the packaging crumpled according to the shape of her hand.
She didn't know why that innocent, adorable hand was so hateful.
After escorting the crying and waving little girl to the door, Seok-hwa felt a little uncomfortable and abandoned the gifts.
The next day. The first person to realize that Han So-eun had left the mansion was, unexpectedly, Seok-hwa's father, Chairman Kim Jae-pil.
"Han Hong-gyu's daughter."
"……."
"You sent that child away."
The morning after Han So-eun left, during an early meal. Jae-pil knew everything, even that Seok-hwa had sent So-eun away the night before, keeping it quiet for fear that Tae-joon would find out. It also meant that he had been watching the little girl and Tae-joon for a long time.
"You knew? That she and Tae-joon were close."
"I was going to tell her when she was old enough to understand. What her father had done."
Seok-hwa was speechless at her father's answer. A chilling sensation swept through her from the top of her head to between her fingers and toes, and even to the back of her knees.
She realized that no matter how hard she tried, she would not be able to beat her father. Unlike herself, who acted impulsively based on her emotions, her father had a meticulousness that allowed him to look ahead and watch according to his calculations.
A cruel meticulousness that could be called experience.
"Well, it's not bad now either. Separating them when they don't know anything at all might be a good method."
Jae-pil calmly brushed aside the past, as if it were nothing, like turning the page of the newspaper in front of him.
"Let's not talk about that child again."
And so, the father and daughter became accomplices.
Meanwhile, the nephew, who found out that the little girl had disappeared overnight, wore a blank expression for a while.
"I don't even know who took her. She left without saying goodbye, and I couldn't even ask where she was going."
Seok-hwa watched the child's expression and mixed in unnecessary lies. She was nervous that the child's wrist was shaking like a leaf.
"Are you very disappointed? It seems our Tae-joon has grown fond of that child."
"No. That can't be. I hated her."
The nephew denied the obvious emotion with a face as red as the maple leaves that had first touched autumn. That image was heartbreaking, but this time again, Seok-hwa did not complain. She simply thought it was enough if he didn't despair.
She believed without a doubt that this feeling of loss would naturally fade away as time passed, just as leaves fall and snow melts away.
\*
As soon as morning dawned, Tae-joon called a driver and headed to the main house.
He was finally having the family breakfast meeting that he had been putting off. Even though it was a modest family of only three, everyone was so busy that it was only after Tae-joon had been in Korea for two months that they were able to have a meeting.
In fact, being busy was an excuse, and Tae-joon deliberately avoided visiting the old house. Although a long time had passed, the main house was still a site of tragedy for Tae-joon and a place that held the saddest memories.
A place that was even more lonely because the garden surrounding the mansion building was as vast and distant as a forest.
Arriving earlier than expected, Tae-joon told the driver that he would go alone from the entrance of the mansion and got out of the car.
Passing through the gate and stepping on the uneven paving stones, he really felt like he had returned home. It was also a beautiful place that he had been reluctant to acknowledge, trapped in the shadow of sad memories.
To the right of the paving stones, the garden, where all kinds of trees grew, stretching to the front of the mansion building, was in its best season, forming a magnificent verdure. In the summer, it attracted all kinds of birds and insects, sometimes to the point of being noisy, but there were definitely good things about that.
Beyond the treetops of the tall trees, the mansion, like a magical castle, could be seen. Tae-joon turned away from the stone path.
Turning his steps towards the staff quarters, not far from the gate, he searched his memory and found the bench.
The bench, located on the back road connecting the staff quarters to the main building, was clean white, as if no one had sat on it since Tae-joon had left.
Tae-joon sat down as if he were the old owner of the bench.
It was the bench where he had waited for her.
It was the bench where he had waited for her, and then stopped waiting.
Even though he had realized early on that she would not return, Tae-joon had come to sit in this spot. Like ordinary people who can continue to do their jobs even after their initial enthusiasm has disappeared, the word "waiting" was erased, and only habit remained, so he continued to sit in the spot where he had sat. Even after her name was erased, and even after the memories were erased, he continued to sit, so he ended up sitting.
Come to think of it, he seemed to have deliberately erased the name "Han So-eun" in order not to think about it. But he couldn't give up the habit of sitting on the bench.
At dusk, he would sit on the bench and watch the shadows fall on the child's ankles. As the time to say goodbye approached, he became even more restless and wanted to torment her. Occasionally, cicadas would chirp loudly, and he would take advantage of the opportunity to pull the child's hair and laugh or scold her.
After the seven-year-old So-eun suddenly left one day, he seemed to have thought that for a while. I was so mean to her every time we said goodbye, so she left without saying a word.
He also seemed to have thought, just a little, that he should have been a little nicer to her.
"Tae-joon."
He was just planning to sit quietly and then get up, but Seok-hwa approached from the direction of the main building and waved her hand. Tae-joon, who had been deprived of his leisurely contemplation, got up from his seat.
"Aunt."
"What are you doing here? Why aren't you coming in?"
"It's been a while. The weather is nice."
"Yes, it's a nice day today."
Seok-hwa, who had approached, gracefully spread out her hand like a gentleman guiding a young lady. Following the direction her hand was pointing, Tae-joon and Seok-hwa walked leisurely.
"Have you been well?"
"Yes."
"Still no girlfriend?"
"……."
"Why not? You're so handsome."
"I know, right?"
Tae-joon smiled it off without showing any emotion.
"Should I introduce you to a nice girl?"
"No."
"Why are you being so serious? Don't you trust me?"
"If you introduce me to a girl, Aunt, I'll have to meet her with marriage in mind."
"If you meet her and she's good, you can get married."
"I don't want to. Not yet."
Tae-joon's stride grew larger as he approached the main building. Tae-joon's steps, stepping on the uneven paving stones, were straight and stable, but somehow Seok-hwa felt uneasy.
