“What are you going to give me?”
“Why don’t you take at least one spoonful and then talk?”
The Vice Director calmly picked up chopsticks and personally deboned the fish and placed it on top of the rice. There was no way Seonwoo would readily accept that. Instead of picking up utensils, his gaze naturally went to Taejeong. On Taejeong’s rice bowl, his biological son, nothing was placed.
“……”
Taejeong wasn’t looking this way. From earlier, his gaze that had gone downward was fixed on some unknown place.
His face was excessively pale. The skin visible below the shadow of his bangs was so pallid he looked like someone who grew up without seeing sunlight. He wondered whether the light from the lamp above the table was particularly strong only on Taejeong, or if it looked more that way because of the black turtleneck covering up to his neck.
Why is he sitting so listlessly? Seonwoo’s indifferent gaze examined Taejeong.
The mouth that always threw tantrums was tightly shut, and the eyes that clearly glared at him were now so murky they were hazy. Looking closely, beads of sweat had formed on his temples.
Is he hot? Until yesterday he was in a bare tank top, and now he’s like that, so he looked stuffy. Moreover, because the area occupied by black had increased, the atmosphere looked twice as suspicious as usual.
Either way, it didn’t seem like there would be any conflict with Taejeong at this place, so he withdrew his gaze. Then his eyes met the Vice Director’s. He didn’t know when he’d started looking this way. The way he smiled subtly was an ominous sign.
“The bruise got worse.”
This time he placed spinach on top. Seonwoo hadn’t moved a finger, but before he knew it, side dishes were piling up on top of the rice. He was doing this even knowing there was no intention to eat.
“Ahjussi handled it and admonished him, so don’t take it too much to heart.”
Only then did the outline form in Seonwoo’s mind. He thought he knew the reason Taejeong was keeping his mouth shut uncharacteristically.
How exactly did he admonish that temper? He wondered if he’d even hit him, but for the Vice Director’s personality, that was too simple. After all, he was a person who’d cancel even university admission because his own face was damaged.
It would be a lie if he wasn’t curious what he’d done to Taejeong. But right now, there was something else to say. Seonwoo pushed the rice bowl in front of him with the back of his hand. An unpleasant sound came out as the ceramic bowl rubbed against the table.
“You did something I didn’t even ask for.”
He understood one reason why he felt rejection toward the Vice Director. This man kept shoving unwanted favors in front of him. Regardless of whether the other person had any intention of accepting them or not.
“Did you check your father’s belongings properly?”
Seonwoo didn’t answer. He just stared intently at the Vice Director’s thick face. It was a gaze urging him, asking if that was all he had to say.
Even so, the Vice Director had no change in expression. He piled side dishes on top of Seonwoo’s rice again. It was braised lotus root with a deep color. The brown seasoning soaked the food underneath.
“Since I’m already hated, I should resolve it all at once.”
“……”
“Check the seat next to you.”
The Vice Director pointed somewhere with his neatly held chopsticks. It was the empty chair right next to Seonwoo. When he pulled the chair, a brown document envelope was placed there.
The familiar hospital logo was visible at the bottom of the front. He thought it might be money again, but the envelope size was too large for that. Seonwoo tore open the entrance right in front of the Vice Director.
There was a single sheet of paper inside. The moment he read the short word at the very top of the paper full of dense letters, Seonwoo froze in the position he was about to take it out.
He had made up his mind that he would have to check it someday, but he hadn’t thought at all that it would be now. The reality he’d been turning away from approached right before his eyes in an instant.
What the Vice Director gave him was a death certificate with Dad’s name written on it.
“You haven’t reported the death yet, right?”
The Vice Director’s voice was merely passing noise. The document envelope flew limply and fell to the floor. However, Seonwoo didn’t move from that position.
His dilated pupils moved from left to right as if chasing the print. Each time the line changed, he returned to his place and repeated.
Then his gaze stayed at a certain point. Cause of death. Multiple trauma. Open injuries to head and chest. Seonwoo looked at it quietly as if engraving it in his eyes.
“Is this the business?”
Seonwoo raised his head and asked while looking at the Vice Director. It was clearly different from the irritable questioning attitude until just before. Perhaps he seemed even calmer than before checking the document envelope.
“You should slowly shake it off and get up.”
“……”
“If you don’t have the courage to go alone, you can take Taejeong with you.”
He even sold off his own son thoroughly. However, Seonwoo’s gaze didn’t leave the Vice Director. Rather, he smiled while looking straight into the Vice Director’s eyes.
“Ahjussi. You didn’t get along well with my mom, right?”
The Vice Director carefully observed the face smiling with only one corner of the mouth raised, as if tearing apart and observing each facial feature one by one. The sound of putting down the chopsticks neatly cut through the silence.
“Why do you think that?”
The Vice Director put his clasped hands on the dining table and imitated a psychiatrist. Seonwoo spoke regardless.
“Why, you ask? You only select and do things Mom hates.”
When the Vice Director gave a faint eye smile, the wrinkles around it deepened.
“You think you know what Seonmin hates.”
“Yes.”
“That’s amazing. Is it because you’re her child?”
“No. I was educated by Dad.”
Mom had a more sensitive temperament than others. However, she never wielded it as a shield and threw hysterics at her family. It was because there was Dad’s devotion, who made efforts saying that if he couldn’t fully understand Mom’s heart, he would at least try to get to know part of it.
“My dad absolutely never does things Mom hates.”
“……”
“Especially acting selfishly.”
Not making unnecessary trouble under the pretext of being for the other person, but not doing unnecessary things from the beginning. That was Dad’s way of understanding.
That was also an appropriate response for Seonwoo. Unlike his appearance that closely resembled Dad, his inner self didn’t resemble either of them. He was usually docile but would suddenly spring up like a coil one day.
There was no need to go far—just looking at what he did in high school showed that.
It was a time when about half of the first semester of first year had passed. There was an incident where a delinquent student in the same class spread bad false rumors about Seonwoo based on his own misunderstanding and delusion.
Seonwoo consistently ignored the clearly audible false rumors and treated the delinquent students who picked fights as invisible people. Since one side treated it as if it didn’t exist at all, it didn’t catch the teachers’ eyes either.
The attitude wasn’t to their liking to stop the quarrel, but it was an ambiguous state where they didn’t completely finish it either. In the end, it was Seonwoo who ended the situation.
One day, he suddenly took the delinquent students’ bags and started pouring out their belongings in order. Items that violated school rules poured out in droves. The place where Seonwoo committed this bizarre act was inside the teachers’ office.
While the owners of the belongings were called and scolded, Seonwoo was also called by his homeroom teacher. To the common-sense question of why he did this, Seonwoo said calmly.
[Just because.]
Because of his brazenly confident attitude, the teachers didn’t think Seonwoo was a victim of school violence. Since Seonwoo also didn’t mention the things he’d been subjected to, the incident was concluded as a common quarrel between students.
After that, Seonwoo was labeled as crazy, but except for a few fistfights, he spent a peaceful school life.
Seonwoo himself thought Dad’s skill at maintaining family peace while having these two people who required a lot of attention in different ways on both sides was amazing.
So he could be certain. That the Vice Director’s selfish way of acting, opposite to Dad, wouldn’t mesh with Mom. If even Seonwoo’s nerves were grated like this, how much more so for Mom?
After spitting it out in words directly, his belief became even more solid. Whether the two people were blood relatives or not, he wouldn’t be surprised if they said they’d already cut ties and were worse than strangers.
