After finishing wiping, he opened the box he’d brought yesterday. Among the items neatly organized through Taejeong’s touch, Dad’s laptop was visible.
When he turned on the power, a password entry screen appeared. Seonwoo familiarly entered the password. 10210408. In order, it was Mom’s and Seonwoo’s birthdays.
Just like the studio was basically organized, the class materials were also neatly categorized by folders. Inside them, he could easily find the Excel file where the students’ information was organized.
He made calls in the order written. The process was like this. First, introduce himself, apologize, deliver the news of the accident, and finally provide refund information.
Seonwoo’s voice had no change in pitch or intensity like a customer service automated voice, so everyone didn’t immediately understand at first.
The reactions after understanding the situation were varied. There were people who asked in an awkward voice when the deposit would be made, and there were people who came directly to the studio.
The people who came all the way to the studio were long-term students, so they were faces familiar to Seonwoo as well. A few of them couldn’t easily open their mouths, then even cried after seeing Seonwoo’s bruised cheek and injured hand.
Honestly, he was flustered because he didn’t know how to handle it. But Seonwoo imitated the appearance in his memory, thinking ‘Dad would have done this.’ To the people offering comfort that everything would be okay, Seonwoo smiled good-naturedly like his father and mechanically repeated only words of gratitude for their concern.
After sending all the people back, the sun was setting. All the urgent fires were put out and the studio was also more or less organized.
Even so, he didn’t feel like going back home. Rather, this place felt like home. He knew well where everything was in the familiar scenery. It was different from that place where even just sitting quietly in the room felt out of place.
As he savored the familiarity ingrained in his body, he suddenly felt hunger. Seonwoo took out one of the cup noodles filling the lower cabinet in the small room and also grabbed some of the snacks stocked by type next to it.
At that house, he barely ate the food others prepared for him, but now his hands kept going to cup noodles and snacks. He’d already finished two cup noodles.
However, a body that had barely eaten food couldn’t suddenly have good digestion overnight. By the time snack bags had piled up abundantly, his stomach felt bloated. It was because he’d indulged his appetite excessively.
Seonwoo forced himself to move his body. He circled around inside the studio like running on a wheel. He continued doing that until it was completely dark outside the window, but his stomach didn’t improve at all.
Something felt off, as if indigestion was gradually coming up. Before it got worse, it would be better to stop by a pharmacy or convenience store. Seonwoo stroked down his stuffy solar plexus and looked for his phone.
When he actually needed it, no matter how much he searched around, it wasn’t visible. Only after a long while did he barely find it cleverly hidden near the laptop. But the screen showed a missed call notification. It was the Vice Director.
“……”
Seonwoo was about to ignore it without much thought when suddenly the back of his neck went cold. A person who never contacted first—why suddenly? When his thoughts reached that far, the image of his mother lying in the intensive care unit flashed through his mind.
At the same time, the worst situation his mind could imagine was drawn before his eyes. It felt like his heart was being squeezed as if someone was wringing it with their hands.
He moved his hand to immediately make a call. At that moment, the text written at the top caught his eye.
「You’re not coming home today either?」
But the letters were only read by his eyes and didn’t enter his head. He didn’t know what state of mind he was in when he made the call. Before he knew it, the phone was at his ear and the repeating connection tone felt eternal.
— Hello……
“Did something happen to Mom?”
— Seonmin is fine. Did you call because of that?
As soon as the call connected, Seonwoo asked without even breathing. In contrast, the Vice Director answered calmly without any sign of being flustered.
But ironically, thanks to that answer, Seonwoo was able to catch his breath. It felt like the breath passage that had been tightly constricted until just before was loosening.
— I was thinking we could have dinner together. Ahjussi finally has time, you see.
“……”
The relief didn’t last long. So he called for such a frivolous reason. Veins rose on the back of Seonwoo’s hand as he understood the situation.
“I already ate. Eat by yourself.”
— I also have something to tell Seonwoo.
“Say it now.”
— It’s not something to talk about over the phone. Is it that difficult to show your face?
“Yes.”
Normally, someone would be flustered by such a considerably blunt tone, but the Vice Director was a person with a thicker face than Seonwoo.
No matter how mature he was compared to his peers, Seonwoo, who had just turned twenty, couldn’t compare in experience to the Vice Director. The Vice Director just smiled gracefully as if dealing with a childishly impetuous kid.
— Ahjussi also has something to give Seonwoo. Aren’t you curious what it is?
“……”
— You won’t regret it. Come home quickly.
The Vice Director hung up without even hearing an answer. Seonwoo looked at the screen showing the ended call and was certain. This person is definitely a stranger. He’d never even thought of him as family in the first place, but he felt that conviction. They say when you meet blood relatives, you feel your blood pull, but Seonwoo only felt an inexplicable rejection toward the Vice Director.
From when they met at the hospital, in other words, from the beginning, it was like that. Despite being the benefactor who helped his mother and himself, his heart had never once gone out to him. Where exactly did this uncomfortable feeling come from?
He called a taxi while facing the cold air. He wasn’t in the mood to leisurely wait inside the studio. Seonwoo wasn’t stupid enough to think the Vice Director had prepared a gift for him. This was clearly pressure. It meant to come back quickly since he never allowed wandering outside the house.
“……”
He leaned his body against the back seat. The sight of hurriedly taking a taxi and rushing over from just one phone call was ridiculous. Even when he got there, it might be nothing important. It could just be a trick to make him come back on his own feet.
Seonwoo himself was curious why he felt this much rejection toward the Vice Director. Because his parents raised him being doted on? Because he couldn’t grasp the situation when he was young? The questions arising in his head kept trailing endlessly.
In the end, he closed both eyes and stopped thinking. He somehow composed his emotions that were tangled and rampaging until he arrived home.
It was a return home after just one day. Having done it a few times, his fingers familiarly unlocked the door lock. The moment he opened the door, Seonwoo hesitated without realizing it.
“……”
Below a pair of luxurious dress shoes, familiar running shoes could be seen. However, they weren’t placed haphazardly like before but neatly in a straight line. No way.
“Seonwoo, you’re here?”
A welcoming voice was heard from afar. While he didn’t want to respond to the Vice Director’s call, he wanted to visually confirm that his thought was wrong. The contradictory emotion hastened his steps.
The moment he entered the kitchen, Seonwoo swallowed a sigh like inhaling breath. To the left of the Vice Director sitting at the head seat was Taejeong.
The feelings he’d barely composed on the way became a mess in an instant. Seeing Taejeong sitting obediently unlike himself, irritation suddenly rushed over him.
Even though he glared with cold eyes, he wanted to tell Taejeong, who didn’t even pretend to look this way, that he wasn’t a fucking puppy to come running just because he was called.
But he also knew that was misdirected anger. It was the form of shooting at others the self-loathing that surged from seeing it overlap with his own appearance of rushing over with just his phone in hand.
“Ahjussi called me. To eat dinner together. We’re family living together in one house, but we’ve never eaten a meal together.”
It was an unplanned three-way meeting. He thought there would be no occasion to amicably face each other, let alone have a meal together as three people. Luxurious Korean cuisine often seen on TV was filling the table.
In a state where he already had indigestion, smelling the greasy smell made his stomach churn. With appetizing food before him, Seonwoo had to swallow and hold back nausea.
