Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!
There was no reason to refuse. Seonwoo really walked leisurely. When he arrived at the house, the sweat had cooled and his damp back had also dried. When he took off his shoes, he heard the Vice Director’s voice from far away.
He walked to the kitchen following the voice calling him with a calm tone. In that brief moment, Seonwoo’s memory that floated in his head like a flashback overlapped with the present. The moment he entered the kitchen, Seonwoo unconsciously inhaled.
Like that day, the Vice Director was sitting at the head of the table. No one was beside him. In this space right now, there were only the two of them, Seonwoo and the Vice Director. The number of people was different from back then, and there was no feast filling the table either.
“What’s with the cake?”
Instead, there was a fancy whipped cream cake. It was two tiers and had a lot of fruit on the outside, too much for two people to eat.
“I bought it for you, Seonwoo.”
“……”
“Ahjussi was busy so I couldn’t take care of your birthday. We’re the same clan.”
Seonwoo chuckled. His birthday had already passed ten days ago. If he had given a plausible excuse, he would have let it slide pretending not to know, but there was too little sincerity, even for having none.
“You don’t like sweets?”
“I don’t seek them out.”
“Then Ahjussi will eat it. Sit down for a moment.”
Then the Vice Director didn’t cut the cake with a knife to divide it into portions, but just started eating it with a fork. It was the exact opposite behavior from his usual image that seemed to value etiquette.
Seonwoo had to sit and watch the Vice Director eat cake. Even if the thought occurred to him of what the hell this was, he immediately erased it from his head. He sat with the mindset of watching TV on any random channel.
“You know Taejeong ran away from home, right?”
Focus returned to his two eyes that had been gradually blurring. Seonwoo deliberately reacted lukewarmly, pretending to be uninterested.
“Ran away from home?”
“Yeah.”
“Well. I haven’t seen him lately.”
The Vice Director’s expression didn’t change. With still leisurely hands, he picked at the fruit on the very top part of the cake.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Then did you know Taejeong suspended his phone?”
“That’s also news to me.”
“They said you even asked for his phone number. Weren’t you two in contact with each other?”
Everything that happened in this house entered the Vice Director’s ears. There was no need for a long tongue about something like this. Seonwoo immediately took out his phone onto the table.
“Check for yourself.”
It didn’t matter if the Vice Director found out now that he had met Taejeong at the hotel. There was no other content that would be troublesome to show besides that. The recent text history was all just counseling schedule notifications.
“Even so, inspecting a full-grown adult’s phone isn’t good manners.”
But the Vice Director pushed the phone back in front of Seonwoo as if uninterested. The phone with weak force applied to it stopped in an ambiguous position. Seonwoo didn’t move, and the Vice Director continued eating the cake.
He turned the fork sideways and moved smoothly without unnecessary movements. Perhaps because of that, what was held in the Vice Director’s hand looked not like a simple eating utensil but like a scalpel.
He neatly put a cleanly cut piece into his mouth. He didn’t open his mouth wide or hold the fork in his mouth too long. Not even a bit of cream stuck to the corner of his mouth, so when he put down the fork, there was no trace of having eaten food at all.
“As you know, Seonwoo, Ahjussi doesn’t have a good relationship with Taejeong.”
“……”
“Ahjussi thinks it’s because I separated from his mom early. What do you think it seems like, Seonwoo?”
It was a smooth voice as if all the whipped cream he just ate had gone to his vocal cords and oiled them. But the topic of conversation was heavy, unbefitting that.
“Does what I think matter?”
Even so, Seonwoo showed no change in expression. He didn’t raise an eyebrow or tilt his head. His dry voice carried no emotion whatsoever. It felt like he was just throwing out words for confirmation, as if to say ‘isn’t that right?’
“When Ahjussi looks at Seonwoo, there’s one curious thing.”
The Vice Director’s gaze turned toward Seonwoo. He didn’t look at his whole face but examined each part separately as if dissecting them. It was the look of someone observing some interesting subject rather than a person.
“Your appearance is clearly that of a stranger, but the way you talk and act keeps showing me Seonmin.”
“……”
“When I see that, my feelings are really…… curious.”
“……”
“Taejeong is also a child with my blood flowing through him, so why doesn’t he have that?”
The gaze was directed at Seonwoo, but the Vice Director seemed to be asking himself. He looked somewhat empty, but even that face might have been created as needed. Seonwoo had no intention of being swept up in the Vice Director’s flow.
“That’s not something to ask me, you should go to family counseling.”
“Right. That’s the correct method.”
“……”
“But Ahjussi wants to hear it from Seonwoo.”
“……”
“Did you get along well with your father?”
The conversation felt like it was gradually turning strange. It was hard to clearly explain what this feeling was. It was like the ground was slowly tilting to one side, or swaying like gentle waves rippling.
But instinct warned him. Now was not the time for that. Seonwoo bit down hard on the flesh inside his cheek to maintain his state of tension.
“What kind of story do you want to hear?”
Unlike the Vice Director who twisted his words this way and that to say what he wanted, Seonwoo asked refreshingly. Rather than being stripped to the bone by leading questions, it was better to give only the answer he wanted clearly.
Moreover, he strongly didn’t want to share memories with his dad with the Vice Director. He thought he’d abandoned useless stubbornness, but there still existed a line in Seonwoo’s heart that he couldn’t compromise on.
“Ahjussi just wants to become real family with Seonwoo. To do that, I need to learn various things so Seonwoo won’t hate me, so I keep wanting to ask. I wish Seonwoo would tell Ahjussi about how you’ve been living.”
“……”
“Does it sound difficult?”
A brief silence fell. Seonwoo’s gaze went down for a moment and then returned to the Vice Director.
“You said you were family with my mom.”
“That’s right.”
“But why do you think you and I aren’t real family?”
The Vice Director had no answer. He wasn’t flustered or angry. Such intense emotional changes weren’t visible. He just seemed to be looking for an appropriate answer to a question that deviated from the expected flow.
“Is it because Seonwoo doesn’t see Ahjussi that way?”
“……”
“Your expression is scary. Did Ahjussi keep you too long?”
The Vice Director said as he stood up from his seat. Finally, the end of the long conversation was in sight.
“Then, let me ask just one more time at the end.”
The Vice Director, who’d approached closer, reached out his wrinkled hand to Seonwoo. A chill was felt from his right shoulder where the hand touched.
“Did you really not know that Taejeong had his phone suspended?”
The Vice Director’s hand pressed down heavily on his shoulder. The pressure seemed to travel down his shoulder and press down on his entire body. Seonwoo chewed the flesh inside his cheek again.
“Yes.”
The pressure on his shoulder was maintained for a moment before the strength gradually drained away. Then it patted his shoulder weakly a couple of times.
“Then Seonwoo doesn’t know anything.”
“……”
“I understand. Ahjussi will believe that.”
Naturally, the hand moved to his head. The Vice Director always stroked Seonwoo’s head without asking his opinion.
Their bodies were clearly in contact, but Seonwoo didn’t feel any emotional exchange. When his shoulder had been pressed down just before, a clear intention was conveyed, but not now.
The touch on his head was endlessly light, so it felt like something formless was passing by like the wind rather than a hand. Seonwoo couldn’t understand what meaning this act had, nor did he want to know.
“You’ve been exercising diligently so your complexion has improved a lot. Still, don’t overdo it too much. With head trauma, even if it looks fine on the outside, you never know when aftereffects might appear.”
The Vice Director talked about this and that in that state. Seonwoo deceived himself that it wasn’t the Vice Director but the attending physician who was stroking his head and diagnosing him. Perhaps desperate to escape reality, his eyes were even closed.
When the hand finally disappeared from atop his head, Seonwoo stood up from his seat as if he’d been waiting for it. The Vice Director just called his name quietly while watching him.
