Sponsorship Stigma
Chapter 39
Just as It Was Then
The few remaining moving boxes were all loaded onto the truck.
Watching the movers survey the hollow, emptied apartment, Yeonjae glanced down.
Staring at the still-blank phone screen, she swallowed a sigh.
“Don’t look for a place. I’ll decide where you move.”
“…….”
“Just bring yourself. And Jiwoo.”
Dragging Jiwoo back and forth to Seoul to house-hunt was no longer feasible.
Yet moving to Seoul blindly without a place to stay wasn’t an option either.
In the end, Yeonjae had no choice but to go along with Jeheon.
Honestly, ever since the day she went to the emergency room, she had felt somewhat drained.
Maybe it’s okay to just follow his lead this time.
Self-deprecatingly telling herself that she could search for a home at her own pace once they got there, Yeonjae finished packing the last of the belongings they were taking.
“Jung Jiwoo!”
A high-pitched voice chimed in her ear.
Jiwoo, who had been chattering away beside Yeonjae while packing his backpack, jerked his head up.
“You’re here?”
“Yeah! Your house is empty already? The truck is full of stuff.”
“If you’d dawdled even a little longer, Seoha, we would’ve missed them.”
It was Seoha. As Yeonjae turned her gaze from Seoha, Hyekyung waved at her.
She walked over to Yeonjae and handed her an isotonic drink.
“Jiwoo’s mom, you must be working so hard. Drink this.”
“Thank you, Seoha’s mom.”
Her throat had been parched anyway. Yeonjae offered Hyekyung a faint smile.
“Don’t mention it. Have one too, Jiwoo. Seoha told me you liked this, so I bought it.”
“Whoa. Choco Emong! Thank you.”
Jiwoo scrambled to his feet, dusting off his hands. Accepting the chocolate milk carton Hyekyung held out, he beamed.
“Jung Jiwoo, are you a baby? Chocolate milk is for babies.”
Watching Jiwoo, Seoha shot him a prim, sidelong look.
“Why? It’s delicious. What are you drinking, Seoha?”
“Mine is coffee flavor.”
“Yuck. You’re not supposed to drink coffee!”
“I’m tall, so it’s fine.”
Seoha stood with her hands propped proudly on her hips. She was noticeably taller than other girls her age.
Jiwoo stared at her in disbelief, then turned toward Yeonjae.
His eyes seemed to say, Mom, is she allowed to do that? She’s still a baby too!
“Seoha, even if it’s milk, it’s better to drink coffee when you’re a little older.”
Yeonjae watched the two children before stepping in to speak gently.
“Jiwoo’s mom, just leave her be. My daughter is stubborn as a mule; there’s no getting through to her.”
Hyekyung waved both hands in the air dismissively.
She added that she had already given up after a whole battle at the convenience store.
“I suppose so. Once kids start speaking their minds, all sorts of things happen.”
“Tell me about it. I don’t know who she takes after.”
Yeonjae, too, felt bewildered at times.
As their ability to express themselves sharpened and their vocabulary grew, children developed clear thoughts and opinions of their own.
“Who else? I take after Dad! You always call me Jang Deokgyu Junior, Mom.”
“Right, right. You Jangs, both of you are identical.”
“Hmph.”
With her arms crossed, the girl spun around, turning her back on Hyekyung, and went over to Jiwoo.
The two whispered something to each other before bursting into giggles.
Soon enough, they were sitting together, chatting amicably.
They get along so well—what will Jiwoo do once he moves?
“Seoha likes him so much, I’m already sad to see you go.”
“I know. Jiwoo was really sad about it too.”
“Really? Seoha will be happy if I tell her that.”
Looking at Hyekyung, Yeonjae gave a gentle smile.
While Jiwoo had a few other friends at the kindergarten, none of them spent as much time with him lately as Seoha.
After coming home, all Jiwoo would chatter about until falling asleep was the piano and Seoha.
“Jiwoo’s mom. Keep in touch even after you go to Seoul. We’ll come visit sometime.”
“I’ll come down with Jiwoo every once in a while too. Thank you for everything, Seoha’s mom.”
As she exchanged farewells with Hyekyung, one of the movers approached Yeonjae.
“Ma’am, we need to head out now. What’s that Seoul address you’re moving to?”
Yeonjae pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and lit up the screen.
A text message appeared on the screen. It seemed to have arrived while she was greeting Hyekyung and Seoha.
“Just a moment. I’ll tell you right now.”
With hurried, anxious fingers, Yeonjae opened the message thread.
And as the short message surfaced on the screen, the corners of Yeonjae’s mouth slowly sank.
Her pupils trembled violently as she stared at the phone screen.
[Building 104, 47th Floor, 777 Seongsu-dong 1-ga, Seongdong-gu, Seoul]
At the maddeningly familiar address, Yeonjae’s hands began to shake.
It was the Residence, Jeheon’s place where the two of them had lived together.
* * *
The gate at the heavily guarded security booth opened surprisingly easily for the truck carrying Yeonjae and Jiwoo.
As if Jeheon had given them word in advance.
‘차라리 통제돼 돌아갔으면 했는데.’
Entering the underground parking garage, the moving truck soon slowed and came to a halt.
Stepping out of the vehicle, Yeonjae scanned her surroundings. A wide variety of cars was parked there.
Even Yeonjae, who knew nothing about cars, swallowed hard at the sight of several recognizable supercars among them.
“Mom, are we living here?”
The boy’s voice clinging to her ear snapped Yeonjae from her thoughts.
“Huh? Uh, well… for now?”
“Really? This must be an apartment building. It’s huge and so shiny!”
The child’s voice rose with excitement as he pressed both palms against the entryway door.
Jiwoo’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the gleaming marble floor visible beyond the apartment entrance.
“Mister really is rich.”
Looking at the boy marveling in wonder, Yeonjae turned back to look at the truck.
A small truck that looked completely out of place next to the gleaming luxury cars parked all around.
Their load had always been sparse, so she hadn’t needed a large moving van and had only called a one-ton truck.
Even of what little they owned, she had sorted out and thrown away what she could, leaving only a handful of things.
Loaded onto the truck were a secondhand single-door refrigerator, a microwave, an electric fan, and a few boxes of clothes.
It was all so shabby and glaringly out of place for such a luxurious Residence.
Watching the movers approach, Yeonjae unlocked the apartment entrance.
There wasn’t even a need to check the passcode. Even after five years, it remained vivid in her memory.
“The 47th floor is the top floor. You must have made good money, ma’am. This place is crazy expensive.”
Heading for the 47th floor, the highest penthouse level, the elevator climbed endlessly.
And when the elevator finally came to a stop, Yeonjae stepped out with familiar ease.
Then she opened the front door. He had said he’d leave it unlocked, and it truly was.
As Yeonjae and Jiwoo stepped inside, the lights turned on one by one.
“Whoa. Mom, the lights came on automatically. Did you see that?”
Yeonjae offered an awkward smile.
Unlike Jiwoo, to whom everything was wondrous, Yeonjae felt an oppressive tightness in her chest, as if a heavy slab of lead were crushing her heart.
“Where should we unpack the stuff?”
“Could you leave them packed and just stack them in this pantry?”
“Huh? The belongings?”
The movers looked at her with puzzled faces, but after surveying the surroundings, they quickly nodded.
The house was so perfectly equipped that there was no need to unpack anything Yeonjae had brought.
“Ah, right. Fully furnished, eh. Damn, look at that view. You can see the whole Han River. So we just leave all this in the pantry, right?”
“Yes.”
Having quickly stacked the belongings inside the pantry, the movers exchanged goodbyes and left.
“Whoa! It’s so huge!”
Having kicked off his shoes, Jiwoo ran toward the living room with an excited look.
Yeonjae started to tell him not to run, but the words died in her throat.
Walking down the long hallway past the inner door, a growing sense of dissonance came over her.
Surely it couldn’t be in the exact same state as when I lived with him.
It can’t be, she murmured, yet her heart thudded erratically in her chest.
And when she finally rounded the corner and stepped into the living room—
Jiwoo, who had stopped in the living room first, pointed an index finger somewhere.
“Mooom. Look at that!”
Following the child’s small finger, Yeonjae’s eyes widened helplessly.
“It’s a piano! A super big, expensive one!”
At the end of her gaze stood a piano.
In the center of the living room, in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the Han River, stood a pitch-black grand piano.
And as the rest of the interior slowly came into view, she squeezed her eyes shut.
Yeonjae’s closed eyelashes fluttered helplessly.
Incredibly, the Residence was in the exact same state as when Yeonjae and Jeheon had lived there together.
