As Seonwoo just kept his mouth shut with a blank face, Seungho was on the verge of suffocating from frustration. Seonwoo, meanwhile, was lost in other thoughts.
The doorbell rang but there was no response? When he had left, the housekeeper had definitely been home. If the doorbell rang multiple times, she would have looked outside, but something was strange.
He needed to check what was going on inside the house. But it was obvious that Seungho would bulldoze his way in alongside him. He couldn’t carelessly let in someone who might help or harm Taejeong.
“But…… You don’t know who I am?”
It was while Seonwoo was wracking his brain about how to deal with Seungho. Seungho, his eyes half-closed, asked in a puzzled voice.
“Are you a celebrity?”
Seonwoo wondered if he was some actor he didn’t know. He was handsome enough with that face resembling Taejeong.
“It’s not that…… No, never mind…… Just don’t try to find out……”
“……”
“Hey! What are you searching for now!”
Because of Seungho’s interference, the letters Seonwoo was typing into the search bar stopped at ‘주승ㅎ’. Seungho snatched the phone away and shoved it into Seonwoo’s pocket.
“Anyway. I’m Taejeong’s family, so you have no right to stop……”
“Then call the police.”
“What?”
He didn’t seem to understand, so Seonwoo said it again. Kindly, in Seungho’s own words.
“Go in with the police and check. What he’s up to.”
Whatever Seungho might do, if it was the police, they would at least ask about the basic circumstances before leaving. Since anyone could see he was in an abused state. Seungho’s brow furrowed. When he frowned like that, he looked even more like Taejeong.
“What do you mean by……”
“Who’s there?”
Just as Seungho was about to say something, someone else cut in. It was a familiar voice.
When he turned around, the housekeeper was holding black plastic bags in both hands. Whatever was inside looked heavy from the contents.
“Seonwoo? You’re back early? But who’s that person next to……?”
Seonwoo immediately approached the housekeeper. Taking one of the plastic bags from her, he naturally asked.
“Weren’t you home?”
“I just went to the fruit shop right there for a bit…… Oh my, thank you. Actually, I made breakfast but Taejeong wouldn’t eat it. So I bought some to peel and send up to him at least.”
“……”
“So who is that person……?”
The housekeeper looked at Seungho over Seonwoo’s shoulder. Then she let out a surprised exclamation and raised her voice.
“The handsome baby daddy who was on TV! Right? Oh my, what brings you here. It’s my first time seeing someone from TV.”
The housekeeper approached Seungho with an excited face, waving her palm through the air as if fanning herself.
“What was it? Some kind of athlete…… Anyway, you’re a national representative, right?”
“Haha. I retired a long time ago, so it’s embarrassing to be called that.”
“Oh, come on, how could that be? If you wore our country’s flag on your chest and won a gold medal, you’re a national representative forever!”
“Actually, I think so too. That’s probably why the country pays me a pension regularly, ma’am.”
“Oh my. You’re as funny as you were on TV.”
Left alone, Seonwoo watched the two people chatting in a warm and friendly atmosphere. Seungho seemed to be a famous enough athlete to be recognized at a glance.
“Ma’am, do you happen to help with the housework here?”
“Yes. My husband and I clean and tend to the house, things like that.”
“Then you must know Taejeong too? I’m that kid’s uncle.”
“What?”
For a moment, the housekeeper startled and jerked her head up.
“Taejeong’s uncle?”
“We’re not that far apart in age, right? I’m a late-born child.”
“Oh my, really…… Taejeong had an uncle……”
“I’m sorry for the late greeting since we’ve never met before.”
“Ye-es…… Now that you mention it, you two do look alike……”
The housekeeper fumbled for a moment, then brought both hands together over her chest. She seemed to be trying to calm her startled heart.
“But what brought Taejeong’s uncle all the way here……?”
“This brat kept skipping swimming, so I came to nag him a bit, and I just ran into this friend here.”
“Ah, ye-es……”
The reason Taejeong couldn’t go swimming was because he had injured his shoulder, and the housekeeper knew that fact. But she didn’t say anything. She even avoided eye contact that she had been maintaining just fine until now.
“Even when I rang the doorbell there was no answer. Is he still sleeping in late by any chance? I heard earlier that he didn’t eat.”
“……I’m not really sure. He’s a kid who doesn’t come out of his room much……”
The housekeeper cleverly dodged the answer. Then she glanced beyond the gate before asking Seungho.
“……Are you planning to come inside?”
Her voice was trembling terribly. Enough to make the listener anxious. But Seonwoo merely observed the situation with a cold gaze. He was watching to see how Seungho would react.
“No. It feels wrong to just barge in when my brother-in-law isn’t here either. And Taejeong seems to still be sleeping……”
Seungho trailed off as he looked at the house. Taejeong’s room was on the other side, so it couldn’t be seen from here no matter how much he looked.
“Ah, the strawberries are at the end of the season, so maybe that’s why they look incredibly sweet—I bought two baskets? Seonwoo, you should eat some too. I’ll wash them right away.”
The housekeeper changed the subject with an awkward tone as she led Seonwoo away. Seonwoo followed without resistance.
“Wait a moment.”
Just then, Seungho stopped the two of them. More precisely, he was reaching out toward Seonwoo.
“Didn’t you ask for my autograph earlier? I almost forgot.”
Seungho, who had come closer, pulled out a notebook from the inner pocket of his windbreaker. It was a small size, about the size of his palm.
“What about Mother?”
“I’m fine. It would be unseemly for an old lady like me to receive something like this…”
Even when he asked for her name with an easygoing smile, she declined again. Seungho grabbed the pen stuck in the notebook’s spiral binding and approached Seonwoo.
“Your name?”
“…Song Seonwoo.”
Was this the same person who had been flustered and didn’t know what to do because of his slip of the tongue? After pausing for a moment, Seonwoo played along with Seungho’s rhythm. Seungho moved his hand here and there, then tore off a page from the notebook and handed it over, saying,
“Ah, and when Taejeong wakes up, tell him to give me a call.”
“……”
The housekeeper’s gaze was blatantly obvious. Seonwoo silently received the paper.
Once they passed through the front door, the housekeeper walked with long strides like someone being chased by something. Without looking back to see whether Seonwoo was falling behind or not, she entered the house first.
When he got close to the front door, Seonwoo glanced back. Beyond the main gate, he could see Seungho still standing in that spot. Looking at the motionless figure, he took out the paper. Instead of an autograph, a hastily scrawled phone number was written on it.
After entering the house, Seonwoo was about to go straight up to the second floor but stopped in front of the stairs. It was because of the sound of water coming from the kitchen. The housekeeper, standing in front of the sink, was washing fruit. Even when Seonwoo made footsteps and approached, she didn’t notice.
“Ahjumma.”
“Mm? Ah, Student Seonwoo.”
When he made his presence known and called out softly, the housekeeper lifted her head with a start and answered. Seonwoo looked at the strawberries submerged in water and said,
“I’m full, so I won’t eat any.”
“Really? Then I should only wash this much.”
But there was already a lot. She had already put the entire basketful into a bowl.
“…But will Taejeong eat them? Earlier, no matter how much I called, there was no answer… There’s no one to eat them, so maybe I bought too much unnecessarily…”
Feeling awkward, the housekeeper needlessly kept dumping out the water and refilling it, and her words grew unnecessarily long. She couldn’t stand her own embarrassment and added laughter at the end of each sentence, but even that laughter was awkward.
However, Seonwoo didn’t feel inclined to go out of his way to ease the housekeeper’s discomfort. Whatever the housekeeper said, he just stood beside her without either affirming or denying anything.
Before long, the kitchen was filled only with the sound of running water. Even if it meant choosing silence, the housekeeper desperately ignored the meeting with Seungho and treated it as if it had never happened.
“Since I’m going up anyway, I’ll take them to him.”
Seonwoo said as he picked up the plate full of strawberries. The housekeeper was silent for a moment, then only after Seonwoo turned his back did she mutter a thank you in a voice that crawled away.
