I don’t know how the day flew by.
For Jin-Seo, it had been a day so painful it made her want to retch.
Nevertheless, the reason she could end her day with happiness was thanks to a cozy home and a precious family.
On days when she got off work early, she usually went to Guk-Sun’s restaurant to help with closing, but for some reason, Guk-Sun had closed up early today as well.
As Jin-Seo opened the front door and stepped inside, her daughter came running over like a little puppy.
“Mommy!”
“Princess Ye-Na!”
My princess, who shatters the universe with her beauty and cuteness!
Jin-Seo’s drained energy was completely recharged by her daughter. She effortlessly scooped up the running Ye-Na.
“You didn’t work overtime?”
Guk-Sun walked into the living room, wiping water from her hands onto her pants.
“Yeah. It’s only the first day.”
*Smack, smack.* Jin-Seo answered Guk-Sun while planting kisses on Ye-Na’s cheeks.
I am happy just like this.
This is something you, Ji-Heon Jeong, cannot destroy.
Life, once a living hell, has now become a heaven.
When I thought I had lost love, a greater love found me. The love my daughter Ye-Na taught me became the strength to keep living.
That is why I cannot vaguely resent or hate Ji-Heon Jeong either.
I just hope this heaven does not fall apart.
Around 9:00 PM, Jin-Seo laid out the bedding and lay down next to Ye-Na. It was time for the child to head off to dreamland.
She turned off the lights and offered Ye-Na an arm pillow, but there was no way an energetic seven-year-old would fall asleep so easily. Ye-Na kept playing and giggling, and only after being scolded a few times did she finally lie still.
Blinking her eyes, Ye-Na called for her mother in a low voice.
“Mom, I met a seven-year-old at the academy today.”
“Oh, you made a friend!”
“Not a friend yet. He doesn’t know anything about Baduk.”
“You can be friends even if he doesn’t know Baduk. You can teach him, Ye-Na. Maybe one day, your friend will be as good as you.”
“But he cried because he didn’t want to learn Baduk.”
“Well, maybe he’ll like it someday.”
Jin-Seo’s voice rose, excited that her daughter had made a friend. But Ye-Na twitched her lips as if she didn’t quite believe her mother’s words.
“What’s the friend’s name?”
“Park Do-Bin.”
“Is he a boy?”
“Yeah.”
Ye-Na’s voice slowed down significantly.
“His mom came today, and she came yesterday, too.”
“……”
“I think she’ll come tomorrow, too.”
Although she was feigning sleepiness, Jin-Seo could sense the hidden meaning behind those words.
“Were you jealous of Do-Bin?”
“No.”
“……”
“……Just a little bit jealous.”
At her daughter’s sincerity, revealed after some hesitation, Jin-Seo’s heart stung.
My princess.
I want to do everything for you as much as I love and cherish you, but I only have one body, so there are limits to what I can do.
It’s not that I haven’t thought about how nice it would have been to have a father.
Today, as always, that thought led me to think of Ji-Heon without meaning to.
‘But doesn’t he know I gave birth to Ye-Na? I thought he would ask one way or another.’
As soon as I thought of Ji-Heon, a huge question mark formed in my mind.
‘Does he firmly believe that I gave up the child?’
Regardless, even if he finds out the truth, if he talks nonsense about taking my daughter away, I won’t just stand by.
Jin-Seo clenched her fists tight thinking of Ji-Heon.
Then, shortly after, she released them powerlessly and sighed.
What kind of cruel trick of fate is this?
To meet the father of the child I raised in secret at my own company. And as a high-ranking superior, at that.
The man I met after seven years still boasted a handsome appearance, though his impression had become much colder.
‘Must have had many women, too.’
Naturally.
He was a man who liked women so much.
Before we dated, or rather, before our first kiss, he was so ascetic that I wondered if he was a man with no sexual desire at all. But his true nature was an absolute beast.
In a space where it was just the two of us, the private Ji-Heon Jeong was a completely different person from the public one.
He would pester her to the point of obsession, and it even seemed like he enjoyed it.
When we spent weekends together, he wanted her as if he would stay up all night. There were times when she finally had to pretend to be asleep because she was so exhausted.
No, it didn’t seem like the time mattered, whether it was night or day.
He was a man who wanted it so much.
He must have had more women than I could count on my fingers.
‘He must have seduced this woman and that woman.’
And he must have erased someone like me in no time.
His time flowed by so leisurely, and it made me feel miserable thinking that only I was left unsettled.
Deep in my chest, a season that couldn’t leave still lingers.
‘Would it be better to just quit the company?’
I didn’t want to show that I was caught up in my emotions.
But I didn’t want to be in a position where I was running away, either.
It was a night of deep distress.
*
The next morning, Ji-Heon visited his parents’ house.
He was supposed to visit yesterday and stay the night for breakfast, but he wasn’t feeling well, so he stopped by in the morning instead.
But his mood didn’t improve just because it was morning. He had been in a daze ever since he woke up, plagued by a bizarre dream—as if he were possessed by a ghost.
“What’s wrong? Is something bothering you?”
Mrs. Youngmi Jang, who had noticed Ji-Heon rubbing his shoulder repeatedly during the meal, asked.
I couldn’t exactly tell her that, at thirty-three years old, I had fallen off the sofa while sleeping.
“I think I slept wrong.”
Ji-Heon answered vaguely.
“Be careful with your attitude in front of your employees. If you appear too unapproachable, they might misunderstand you.”
His father, Jaegwang Jeong, didn’t miss the chance to offer advice.
“Yes.”
Ji-Heon replied shortly.
The meal with his parents wasn’t comfortable. His father was a blunt man who only talked about work, and his mother was a woman who took too much interest in Ji-Heon. Fearing that the meal would drag on if the topic of marriage came up, Ji-Heon stayed silent.
“How is the new job? Is the work manageable?”
“So-so. I’ve barely managed to learn the faces of the people there.”
When Ji-Heon answered his father’s question casually, Youngmi chimed in.
“Honey, Ji-Heon has only been at that company for a week. Oh, by the way, Eun-Bi is at that company too……”
“Father, what about my brother?”
Sensing the start of a tiresome conversation, Ji-Heon hurriedly addressed Jaegwang.
“He had a sudden business trip come up.”
“It would have been nice to have dinner with my brother, too. He must be very busy.”
Youngmi looked displeased, but Ji-Heon didn’t care. After naturally deflecting the crisis, Ji-Heon offered a refined smile when he made eye contact with Youngmi.
The meal ended without incident.
Before leaving for work, Ji-Heon stopped by his room and looked over the books he used to read as a child.
I always felt strange when I came to my parents’ house. It was a place where I truly felt the fact that while my memories from when I was very young were quite vivid, there wasn’t a single trace left of my memories from seven years ago, when I was twenty-six.
What kind of person was I back then? What was I thinking?
Because I couldn’t remember, there was a part of me that felt even more obsessed.
Just as I put back the book I had opened, the door opened and Youngmi walked in.
Seeing her son, Youngmi’s face instantly brightened as she approached him and asked, “Do you have some time this morning?”
“I have to head to work now.”
Youngmi, who had hoped to have a date with her son after such a long time, felt disappointed.
Ji-Heon called out to her.
“Mother.”
“Yes?”
“During those three years when I lost my memory.”
As Ji-Heon brought it up, a cold shadow fell over Youngmi’s eyes.
The three years her son lost his memory was the topic Youngmi disliked the most.
“What happened back then?”
“You went to the army… and other than that, it was the same as always.”
To her light, dismissive answer, Ji-Heon murmured to himself.
“Was it really the army?”
Youngmi put on a forced smile and reached up to stroke her son’s hair.
“The fact that you can’t remember anything at all must mean you shouldn’t be tied down by it.”
“Still, there must have been at least one thing that happened.”
“……”
“I feel like I’ve forgotten something, but I don’t know what it is.”
“Do you remember this? A long time ago, you had a red birthmark right here.”
Just like her son had done at breakfast, the mother changed the subject to avoid a burdensome topic. My son had a red, flame-shaped birthmark—a salmon patch—on his forehead for a long time. They usually disappear before the age of three, but my son’s lasted quite a while. I think it vanished around his first year of middle school.
“I know. That’s why I kept my forehead covered with bangs.”
Ji-Heon answered as if it were a trivial matter.
Youngmi Jang traced the spot where the salmon patch had once been, her voice trailing off as she became lost in nostalgia.
“I could even tell what you were feeling, even when it didn’t show on your face. By looking here.”
“…….”
“Things were like that back then.”
It was an unpleasant memory for Ji-Heon. Having his heart read even when he hid his expressions was never a good thing. He hated that the birthmark would flush a bright red whenever he was in a bad mood.
Youngmi Jang, not fully understanding his inner thoughts, smiled affectionately and smoothed over the messy history.
“Don’t let what happened seven years ago weigh on your mind too much.”
But he had no feelings left to weigh on his mind. It was as if he had already spent all of his emotions back then.
Ji-Heon still lived his life hiding his inner thoughts.
“Still, if something difficult comes up, talk to Mom. Okay?”
“Yes.”
“I love you, my son. You’re all Mom has.”
Ji-Heon, reacting loosely to his mother’s embrace, said his goodbyes immediately and left their family home.
Once he stepped off the stage of being the “good son,” the warmth quickly drained from Ji-Heon’s eyes.
Exhaling a breath he’d been holding, Ji-Heon stepped hard on the accelerator.
Even though it was a bright morning, his mind felt far from clear. It felt as if soot had clogged it, unable to be scrubbed away.
He couldn’t tell if it was because he’d dug up the events of seven years ago, or because of the dream he’d had last night.
*
At the same time, in the breakroom at Max Planning, Jin-seo brewed a cup of coffee with hollow eyes.
She had stayed awake until dawn contemplating whether she should keep working at the company or quit.
The conclusion she barely reached was that, for now, she had to stay.
For now, she had to work hard. That was the best she could do. As long as she had her mother, who had sacrificed her whole life for her children, and her daughter, who was growing up so fast, she couldn’t afford to collapse.
Ji-Heon Jeong was an executive, so they wouldn’t cross paths often. If she just did a good job of avoiding him, she could probably last a few months. In the meantime, she could prepare to find another job.
Once she had set a course, her heart felt much lighter. Her footsteps felt quite nimble as she carried her coffee away.
However, that feeling did not last long. Jin-seo stood rooted to the spot.
Following Ji-Heon Jeong from yesterday, another villain had appeared today.
The woman widened her eyes and greeted Jin-seo.
“Oh my, who is this? You’re Jeong-o Lee, right? Do you remember who I am?”
Of course, it was impossible not to remember.
She just didn’t want to.
Why was she here—the very person who had caused her the most tears during her school days?
“It’s me, Eun-Bi Chae. Don’t you know me?”
“……Oh, yes. I do. ……Eun-Bi Chae.”
“It’s so good to see you, Jin-seo! How have you been all this time?”
We aren’t that kind of relationship. Since the other person was being so overly friendly, Jin-seo felt even more flustered.
“Oh, well, you know. ……Did you work at this company?”
“Yes. I’m a copywriter.”
Eun-Bi Chae answered with a smile to Jin-seo’s redundant question.
Still, it had been ten years since they graduated high school, and they were meeting as coworkers, so digging up the past would be meaningless.
Furthermore, she couldn’t stay trapped in the past that Eun-Bi Chae might have already forgotten.
Should she just play it cool and get along?
She wasn’t going to be at this company for long anyway.
Just as she was trying to inject a new resolve into her heart and open her lips to offer a friendly reply, Eun-Bi Chae spoke first.
“Come to think of it, were you the assistant manager who joined the team next door? Production Team 2?”
Eun-Bi Chae’s lips rounded, as if she were incredibly curious about Jin-seo.
“Yes.”
“How many years have you been an assistant manager?”
“One year.”
“One year? What on earth have you been doing?”
The moment a prickly feeling washed over her, Eun-Bi Chae’s rounded lips stretched out long. It was a twisted smile, one side longer than the other.
It was the expression of a noblewoman dealing with a lowly subordinate, yet a flicker of delight flashed in her eyes.
“Because I’m a manager.”