Despite spending so much time together, Seo-an’s attitude—acting as if he didn’t know him at all and constantly giving wrong answers—made Hae-won sigh. But today, he wouldn’t just be kicked out.
He had come home with some resolve, but… Seo-an, faced with Hae-won who seemed equally resolved, just rolled his eyes around. Hae-won had an expression that said, “Go ahead and say what you want to say.”
The three of them gathered and ate together side by side, and when he came out after bathing the child himself, Hae-won naturally took the child and put her to sleep, which saved Seo-an some effort.
“You’re good at putting her to sleep.”
It was something he said to try to ease the awkwardness a little. Just like when he first met him again, reluctantly tossing out a single comment.
As soon as he did, Hae-won tilted his head crookedly and made a triumphant expression.
“You made me acquire the skill of looking after a child that wasn’t in my destiny, and now ‘the child’? What about other people then?”
“No, I’m saying I’ll leave her with someone else, so why…”
Seo-an blinked in bewilderment. He nearly lost his mind at that confident voice, as if Hae-won had his own stake in Ji-yu’s life.
But Hae-won shook his head, saying that wasn’t it. Then at some point, his eyes changed. The atmosphere, which hadn’t been entirely playful but hadn’t been heavy either, became uncomfortable in an instant.
“Anyway, I’ll keep watching the child, so don’t go to unnecessary trouble. Think about what I might like. I already gave you my answer.”
As soon as he heard those words, Seo-an recalled Hae-won’s voice saying, “I like eating with hyung more.” At the same time, discomfort crept into Seo-an’s expression.
As if he knew, Hae-won pulled his body back as if taking a step back. The way he raised his eyebrows seemed to announce that he was in the superior position.
“I deleted your number to avoid receiving your calls, and I even moved. But we met again, and now we’re living next door like this—that’s destiny, isn’t it?”
Seo-an’s expression became calm in response.
The child wasn’t the issue anymore. So the question of why he hadn’t answered his calls lingered in his mouth, but Seo-an forced himself to hold back those words. After all, it was a connection that had been severed four years ago, and what was the point of asking now? It was all in the past anyway.
To such a Seo-an, Hae-won finished what he still had left to say.
“Unlike someone, I won’t miss my chance.”
“What chance did I miss?”
“Ah, so did I miss it then?”
Even Seo-an couldn’t offer any particular retort to the added remark. Eyes identical to Ji-yu’s, which had been staring intently at Hae-won, calmly swept over the table.
His chest felt stuffy. He couldn’t understand what on earth Yeon Hae-won was saying. At the same time, it felt like he did understand, which gave him a headache.
***
What chance…
Seo-an recalled Hae-won’s bold declaration that he would absolutely never miss a chance. It was absurd. He’d never given him a chance, yet he was going on about creating one himself while seeming to scold him, asking “Why did you miss your chance?”
He was already confused by all this talk about destiny and whatnot, but that last remark Hae-won left had dealt quite a blow to Seo-an.
Letting out a deep sigh, Seo-an looked at the small child in front of him, clumsily putting on socks with her tiny, adorable hands. Do children become strong-willed at this age? He didn’t know well since it was his first time raising one, but lately she wanted to do everything herself, so he had to practically surrender even the socks to her.
“Daddy, Daddy.”
As if it wasn’t going well, the child placed her foot, half-stuck in a sock, on Seo-an’s thigh with a thud.
“Do it for me?”
“Mm-hm.”
“You should say ‘please do it for me.'”
“Do it for mee.”
“Not ‘do it for me.’ You should say ‘please put them on for me.'”
“Please put them on for mee.”
A flower of laughter bloomed at the corners of the child’s mouth as she nodded her head perfunctorily.
Seo-an, who felt sorry for not being able to properly spend time with her at night for the past week due to continuous overtime, woke the child up this morning on this weekend day, saying “Let’s go out and play.”
The child’s eyes, who usually only messed around at the neighborhood playground at best since they didn’t go out much even on weekends, had widened greatly.
Even her usual lengthy whining about sleep disappeared. Not only did she jump right up, but she went into the bathroom on her own and clumsily brushed her teeth and pretended to wash her hair. In the end, he had to wash her all over again with his own hands, but it was clear as day how much the child was looking forward to going out.
“Ji-yu, where do you want to go so badly?”
“Uh, everywhere?”
It was a question asking if he would take her everywhere she wanted.
Unless they suddenly had to leave the country, he was willing to take her pretty much anywhere. When Seo-an nodded with confidence, Ji-yu grinned and twisted her body.
“Then, Ji-yu amusement park.”
“Amusement park?”
“Mm-hm.”
The child nodded cutely and watched Seo-an’s reaction. She even deliberately made a “hee” sound. It was an attitude showing she knew well how to look even cuter.
He felt like he’d heard from adults sometime that he needed to learn how to refuse the child’s demands more firmly. But this time, he had no intention of refusing, and it wasn’t an unreasonable request worth refusing either.
Seo-an nodded, saying it was good, and patted the child’s cute head.
“Which amusement park should we go to? Should we go to one with a big zoo? Or one with lots of dolls? Or, um…”
“I wanna go to the one with Aesop! Go?”
Along with her words, the child dove into Seo-an’s arms. She had become quite strong now, so as soon as she was held, a loud “thud” sound came out. Seo-an, who had strengthened his waist and straightened his upper body in case the child got hurt, hugged her with all his might and kissed her cheeks repeatedly.
“The one with Aesop—you want to ride the Tortoise and the Hare there, don’t you?”
“Mm-hm! The one with lots of dolls, uh, smells.”
Ji-yu made a pincer with her thumb and index finger, pinched her nose, and grimaced. She even shook her head side to side—anyone could see she was imitating an adult.
Seo-an laughed in disbelief and patted the child’s head. Since it was starting to get cold, it would be good to dress her in thick clothes too.
Ah, but will she get hot if she moves around too much?
As he was tilting his head, unable to gauge it well, the child climbed right onto Seo-an’s thigh as if it were natural and started bouncing her body up and down.
“Daddy, Daddy. But you know, Daddy.”
“Yeah, Ji-yu, tell me.”
Seo-an answered while grabbing the child’s kicking feet and putting on her socks.
“But you know, can Hae-won samchon come too?”
She tilted her head crookedly and blinked her big eyes. It was a level of aegyo one step higher than before.
Seo-an raised his eyebrows. As soon as he did, Ji-yu smiled cutely with a “hehe” and hugged Seo-an tightly.
“Samchon will be sad if he’s alone.”
“Hae-won samchon said that? That he’d be sad if he’s alone?”
Seo-an looked at Ji-yu with an unconvinced expression. And for good reason—it was Yeon Hae-won who spent a whole week stuck with the child. Separate from the unpleasant nature of the conversation between him and Hae-won, would he really welcome being called out on a weekend when he finally got to be alone?
But the child gave an irrelevant answer as if that didn’t matter.
“But Ji-yu likes samchon.”
“Ji-yu likes Hae-won samchon…?”
Seo-an asked with a sigh. The child’s nodding grew increasingly forceful.
Seo-an looked at the child with troubled eyes. He had hoped they could be apart at least on weekends, but the child followed him particularly well—he couldn’t figure out what she liked about Hae-won. The child’s eyes were even sparkling. It was as if she was asking, “We’re going together, right?”
Seo-an was weak to such eyes from the child. Not just weak—he completely crumbled. As he let out a deep sigh, Ji-yu grabbed Seo-an’s arm and asked, “Hm? Hm?” It was as if she had completely seen through Seo-an, who would do as she wanted for today at least.
“Hae-won samchon will be busy today. No matter how unemployed he is, even Dad feels a bit bad about leaving you with him on weekends too.”
“Samchon says he likes Daddy.”
Ji-yu drew out the end of her words. She was determined to persuade him somehow.
In the end, Seo-an picked up his phone. And he roughly looked for Hae-won’s contact on his phone, pretending to call him while turning off the screen.
“Then Daddy will call and ask.”
He felt a little guilty about the child’s sparkling eyes, but he still thought this was the best option.
Just as Seo-an was about to say “Hello” at an appropriately timed moment while watching the child jumping excitedly—
Bzzzz.
Making his awkward acting pointless, the phone rang.
“Uh, uhh.”
His phone fell from his hand, which had lost strength from surprise. The child, who knew what a call screen looked like even if she didn’t know the letters, seemed to catch on to the situation and immediately made a mountain with her eyebrows and placed both hands on her hips in a scolding posture.
“What is this!”
“Ah, no. No, the call got disconnected while it was going through.”
“Caught red-handed!”
