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2. Held in the Heart
Sweltering heat. Sweat beaded on Seonha’s neat forehead as she walked over the heated asphalt. As she trudged endlessly up the gentle slope, she caught a snippet of two female students passing by, grumbling that summer vacation ought to start sooner.
She turned her head and stole a glance at the backs of the girls heading in the opposite direction. They carried bags from famous luxury brands that anyone in the country would recognize, and in pointed high heels that gleamed even brighter under the sun, they clicked along with haughty steps.
Seonha faced forward again and moved her feet diligently. Unlike Seonha, who was climbing the slope with uneven breaths, the two girls were going downhill with light steps.
“You brought your car, right?”
“Yeah. Dad said if I don’t drive properly and get into another accident, he’ll take it away and never buy me a car again, so I have to drive carefully.”
“Please turn on the air conditioner as soon as we get in. Ah, it’s seriously hot. I want vacation to hurry up so I can go on a trip.”
“A family trip? Or with your boyfriend?”
“Both, obviously. Jihoon oppa and I decided to go to Bali, so we have to set the schedule in advance……”
Their chattering voices, talking about what they would do during vacation, were full of excitement.
At the high laughter behind her, Seonha tucked the loose strands of hair falling at the side of her face behind her sweat-damp ear and wore a faint smile. Once vacation began, she would have to increase her part-time work and labor without rest, so unlike them as they grew farther away, she was not particularly looking forward to the end of the semester.
Stories like that—commuting to school by private car instead of bus, going abroad whenever they pleased without worrying about cost—belonged to a world so far removed from her that she did not even feel envious.
Yu Seonha’s harsh and weary life was nothing like theirs, which flowed with ease. Since she was in a position where simply enduring each day was all she could manage, on days when her part-time wages were delayed, she often did not even have enough money for the bus and naturally walked until her feet felt ready to burst from school to the out-of-the-way hillside neighborhood where her home was. As for travel, she had never properly been on a domestic trip, let alone gone overseas.
But what Seonha truly envied was not such material things.
Grumbling that their mother had not woken them up properly, so they had almost been late to class. A casual voice saying they had relaxed at their family home over the weekend, then come back in their father’s car with side dishes their mother had packed so full the containers looked ready to burst, filling the refrigerator.
Stories about family always overflowed around her and reached her ears. Words tossed out fleetingly, without even knowing how precious those ordinary days were, would make Seonha’s heart ache and sting. Simply because she was envious, and envious again.
When she entered the newly built College of Social Sciences building, said to have been designed by a famous architect, a cool and pleasant air unique to the building—not air-conditioning—drifted around her. As the heavy, stifling air that had been like a steamer receded, her unpleasant mood improved considerably.
Seonha shifted the file she had been holding between her right arm and her side into her hand. As she tried to straighten the papers sticking unevenly out of the file, a small unsecured sheet inside fluttered down and quietly settled on the clean floor. It was the very last questionnaire remaining.
The liberal arts class she was taking this semester, “Modern Society and Value Consciousness,” was not particularly fascinating in its content, nor was the professor especially eloquent, but she had grown quite close to the people she had gathered with for the group project, so she found that time rather enjoyable.
They did not look at her through eyes full of prejudice, and they treated her very kindly. It was probably possible because none of them were from her department, but during that liberal arts class alone, Seonha could attend with an extremely light heart.
Seonha’s role in the group project was to walk around campus and conduct a simple survey with students.
In the scorching weather, walking around outside and warmly approaching strangers was something everyone could not help but avoid. But since someone had to do it anyway, she, the oldest among the group members who were only watching one another’s reactions, had volunteered.
Once she actually started, however, regret came rushing in.
When even walking outside briefly to go to class made sweat pour down her back, stopping wary students and asking them to fill out a questionnaire was no small exhaustion. As the discomfort index rose, the frequency of refusals also surged, making it even harder.
She even wondered whether everyone had had good reason to protect themselves, and whether she had pointlessly pretended to be kind all by herself. Still, after all that hardship, if she could now fill out just one more person’s questionnaire, she would finally be done.
She planned to first tidy the messy stack of papers covering the inside of the file, then pick up the questionnaire that had fallen to the floor. But in that brief moment, a black leather dress shoe that appeared out of nowhere stamped down hard on the pure white paper as if pressing a seal, then passed by.
“……”
Seonha’s face went blank as she looked at the paper marked with a clear footprint. The owner of the luxurious-looking leather shoes was surely aware that he had stepped on something, yet without even looking back, he moved on without hesitation with his long legs.
Seonha shifted her gaze to the man’s back. Tall and well-proportioned overall, with broad shoulders like an athlete’s, the man radiated an overwhelming presence from behind with nothing more than his neatly worn suit.
After belatedly picking up the paper marked with an ugly stain, Seonha hesitated for a moment, then walked toward the elevator where the man stood alone.
“Excuse me.”
The man waiting for the elevator turned around.
The moment their eyes met, Seonha consciously closed her lips, which had almost parted without her realizing it. But her greatly widened pupils alone were enough to show just how startled she was by the man’s appearance.
Even though she was already twenty-five, she could not manage her expression skillfully, like a young girl longing after a celebrity.
That was how tall and handsome the man was. His dark gray suit, without a single wrinkle, smoothly wrapped around a body that seemed made of restrained muscles.
Who on earth is he?
If there had been a professor like that, rumors would already have spread so widely that the campus would be reeling. Yet he did not seem like a student taking classes either. At a glance, he appeared to be in his late twenties.
Even after recognizing that the man’s face was handsome to a degree not easily found around her, Seonha had to be surprised once more by his extraordinary atmosphere.
His masculine yet sharp impression seemed to foretell that he did not have a gentle personality, and the deep black eyes lowered toward her also held a chill that did not suit summer. From his sleek nose bridge to the straight line of his firmly closed lips, there was not a single part of him that looked easy to deal with.
Above all, he was a man with an exceedingly subtle aura. His gaze was as wild as a rough beast’s, yet his dignified gait and posture made him look intellectual and sharp.
The thoughts and emotions that arose during the brief moment their eyes met were so intense that Seonha unknowingly took one step back. It was not as if she had been standing that close to him.
Flustered inwardly more than a little, Seonha hurriedly tore her gaze away from the man. Her eyes, lowered to the white paper marked by his shoe, rippled quietly. An unfamiliar sensation came over her, as if something had pierced her heart. ‘No way…… did I just fall in love at first sight?’
Because it was an emotion she was experiencing for the first time, even Seonha herself could not understand her own heart at once. It was only clear that the sound of her heartbeat in her chest was terribly fierce.
She had had a brief crush in adolescence, and though it had ended badly, she had also been in a relationship. But she had never once liked someone because she was captivated by their appearance.
It was true that the man before her had outstanding looks that would make anyone waver, but Seonha found herself terribly unfamiliar and strange for having her heart pound at the sight of someone whose name she did not even know, whom she had only just seen for the first time.
After breaking up with Gyeongmin, she had become skeptical about dating, and she had not met any man she might feel attracted to either. Above all, she had not had the leisure for love or romance.
Yet now, after a very long time, her heart was beating because of the opposite sex. It was the moment she belatedly realized that she was extremely weak to the visual.
“What is it?”
Still, no matter what. She was not some clueless child, and to think she had literally fallen at “first sight.” Was that even possible?
No, leaving aside whether it was possible or not…… it was embarrassing. It made her feel too simple, and somehow like a shallow person.
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
Seonha, who had been retracing the confusion in her head, flinched her shoulders and raised her head. The man was staring at her with a gaze more crooked than before.
“What is it you have to say to me?”
For a moment, she had lost her senses and done something absurd—calling out to the man first and then ignoring his words. Calming her still violently racing heart as much as possible, Seonha brought up the reason she had stopped him.
“You stepped on this as you passed by…… I suppose you didn’t notice.”
Seonha said, holding up the questionnaire marked with the footprint. Unless someone was unusually insensitive, it would be difficult not to notice suddenly stepping on something foreign while walking across a clean floor. And the man did not look like a dull person by any means.
It was obvious that he had known and ignored it, but Seonha had not spoken to him to pick a fight, so she did not erase the gentle expression she usually wore. The man, however, seemed to have perceived her as a woman trying to start trouble over a mere scrap of paper.
“How much do you want?”
“Pardon?”
“I’ll compensate you, so name the amount.”
Seonha’s jaw finally dropped. Those words, full of materialism, matched the man’s arrogant expression so well that they felt like an actor’s affected line from a movie.
The reason she felt a sense of unreality was partly because, despite having done nothing more than step on a single sheet of paper, his high-handed attitude—like he would give her whatever amount she named, so she should stop bothering him—was utterly incomprehensible by her common sense. And partly because the man uttering such words was handsome enough to put actors who dominated the screen to shame.
“It would cost a hundred won to print it again at the copy room. Do you happen to have a hundred-won coin?”
He gave off the impression that even if he carried a wallet full of checks, he would not carry jingling coins, so she deliberately asked that way. When the man, catching the peculiar nuance of asking while knowing full well he would not have one, furrowed his brow, she spoke in a calm voice.
“I’m the one who dropped it on the floor by mistake. I didn’t call you because I wanted compensation or because I wanted to take it out on you. This paper is a questionnaire I’m asking passersby to fill out for a liberal arts assignment I’m taking. It’s the last one, and I’m in a situation where I only need one more person to complete it…… But when I’m the one asking a favor, I can’t hand someone a paper that’s gotten this dirty.”
Seonha, whose clear eyes shone as though asking, “Isn’t that right?” continued.
“I’m supposed to attend a group meeting in ten minutes, so it would be tight to go to the copy room, print it, and get someone to fill it out before then. In my view, if you, the person who stamped this footprint on it, could spare just a little time and do the last questionnaire, the problem would be solved very simply…… What do you think?”
It was no different from gently chiding the man who had tried to settle everything with money for no reason. Not that she had intended it that way.
“It doesn’t take long, so you’ll probably be done while the elevator comes down. If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you filled it out.”
She felt the man’s sharp gaze. But Seonha offered him a smile so calm it was almost brazen. If she could finish the survey here and now, even while receiving a bit of a glare, rather than go out again under the blazing sun, nothing could be better. There was no other reason. ‘……
Or is there?’
Gyeongmin, her first boyfriend, as well as the men who had shown interest in her, had always approached first and naturally struck up conversation. She had never once actively approached a man first. And yet.
When she had first followed after him, it had certainly been simply to ask him to fill out the survey, but a suspicion rose within her that perhaps, right now, she was scheming in order to exchange even one more word with this man she had fallen for at first sight.
When she stepped closer to hand him the questionnaire, the expression on the man’s hardened face loosened strangely for the briefest instant.
“You don’t wear perfume?”
She had thrown the question out thoughtlessly, but his words had lodged distinctly in her ears. With a start, Seonha took a step back.
She had been rushing about under the blazing midday sun. Her body, sticky with streaming sweat, was finally beginning to dry in the cool building. The thought that the man might have caught the smell of her sweat made her face burn.
Unlike the other students around her, Seonha didn’t wear perfume. She couldn’t even afford proper cosmetics, let alone perfume; basic necessities like skin lotion and sunscreen were purchased only when the local mart had buy-one-get-one sales. She had no money to spend just to carry a fleeting fragrance on her body for a moment.
Though the beads of sweat that had trickled down had cooled long ago, Seonha rubbed the back of her neck for no reason. The man’s question just now must have meant, *How does a young woman go around without wearing perfume?* Perhaps his first impression of her was that of a slovenly woman who reeked of sour sweat.
Hiding her face, flushed with shame and humiliation, Seonha lowered her head slightly. But then the man abruptly snatched the pen and survey from her hands. Hiding her embarrassment at that action, Seonha deliberately opened her mouth in a brighter tone, as if nothing had happened.
“It’s very simple. You just need to write down three things you absolutely want to do before you die—a bucket list. Oh, and please check your gender and age too.”
He had seemed ready to ignore her to the end, but he finally took the survey, his annoyance palpable. So she had felt a faint hope, yet he didn’t even give a slight nod to show he understood her explanation. Awkward at the man’s lack of reaction, Seonha quickly added,
“You don’t need to think too hard about it. For example, many people write down dreams like traveling around the world. Does nothing come to mind yet?”
“….”
“Well, even if it’s not too grand… There are things that seem very ordinary but that you feel you simply must try, right? Like true love… or marriage….”
The man, who had been reluctantly and half-heartedly staring at the paper in his hands, raised his head at Seonha’s words. When his eyes, seeming to ask if that was all there was to it, turned toward her, Seonha regretted not having kept her mouth shut.
However, it wasn’t just because this man stood before her that pink-tinged thoughts had floated into her mind. Those things were on Seonha’s bucket list.
Meeting her destined partner and experiencing true love, though she didn’t know if such a thing truly existed. Marrying that partner, having children, and building a happy home. Completing a real family that made her heart swell just thinking about it.
It was an ordinary, humble story that others might laugh at, but to her, it was as preposterous as a distant dream.
As Gyeongmin’s voice, which had made her endlessly wretched in an instant, came to mind, Seonha’s chest twisted in pain. It hurt and saddened her all the more because she couldn’t firmly deny it herself.
Her complexion dimmed by memories of the past, Seonha moved her frozen hand and noticed the man writing something on the paper.
He lifted his gaze, glanced at the elevator floor indicator, and scribbled roughly with the pen. He wore an even more displeased expression than when he had taken the paper after hearing Seonha’s examples, but it seemed he had concluded to write something anyway.
What could the man’s bucket list be?
Her mind, which had been overcast, cleared lightly and brightly, and a pure curiosity toward the man before her settled in.
Ding. The moment the elevator doors opened on the first floor, the man thrust the survey at her. The instant she received the paper, without even making eye contact, he stepped right back onto the empty elevator.
“Love, marriage, world trip….”
By the time Seonha, mumbling the words written on the paper vacantly, raised her head, the elevator doors had already closed tightly and were carrying the man upward. A hollow laugh slipped through Seonha’s slightly parted lips.
He was a man who, when she had mentioned love and marriage as examples, had shown such a hostile look that he seemed ready to throw the survey away on the spot. This couldn’t possibly be his real bucket list.
He had likely judged that scribbling something roughly was less of a waste of time than bickering with her, who had approached him with such brazen familiarity despite being strangers. The reason he had checked the elevator was probably because he wanted to avoid wasting time on this worthless task, planning to fill out the survey haphazardly before the floor number reached one.
So this was the result. He should have just refused from the start if he didn’t want to write. She felt dumbfounded, as if she had been toyed with.
But strangely, she wasn’t very offended. The situation just seemed slightly amusing, and shallow smiles kept escaping her.
To think the first man she had fallen for at first sight in her life had such a cold and strange personality. She learned a lesson—that taking a liking to someone based on looks alone was dangerous in many ways. Though it wasn’t as if she would ever meet him again.
“It seemed like he scribbled it carelessly.”
Staring at the man’s handwriting, she muttered unconsciously.
“….
Even his handwriting is cool.”
Even if she repeated the lesson she had learned a hundred times over, Seonha didn’t yet truly know how difficult it was to erase emotions already etched in one’s heart. *The season when she met the man she thought would be the end of it was when lush green leaves ripened to a burning red.
Getting off the elevator, Seonha turned the backpack on her shoulder to her chest and opened the zipper. As she tried to take out the assignment she needed to submit, the slim long umbrella she held in one hand was cumbersome. The weather forecast had made a fuss about a 70 percent chance of rain, so she had brought it from home that morning despite the sunny weather.
But even now, after all her classes had ended, the high autumn sky was blue and clear without a single cloud.
She had no intention of complaining about the spotlessly clear sky, but the fact that she had muttered, “I don’t think it’s going to rain,” before leaving home yet hadn’t trusted her own intuition and ended up enduring the hassle was slightly unpleasant.
“And I’m already struggling with so much luggage.”
It was the day of the week with the most classes among the days she came to school, and with reference books she had to borrow from the library on top of that, it felt as if her shoulders would give out.
Seonha adjusted the heavy bag packed with major textbooks on her shoulder again, then carefully held the printed assignment so it wouldn’t get crumpled. She knocked carefully on the door with “Professor An Munhyeong, Department of Psychology” written on it, and when she entered, assignments submitted by students were neatly arranged on the teaching assistant’s desk. The teaching assistant seemed to have left early, as their belongings were nowhere to be seen.
She placed the assignment on the desk and turned her gaze to glance at Professor An Munhyeong’s research lab door, separated from the TA office. Professor An had said during class that she only needed to leave the assignment on the TA desk, but since she had received much help from him in various ways, she felt she should at least stop in to greet him briefly.
“Did Dowook come?”
While she hesitated briefly, Professor An felt someone’s presence outside and opened the slightly ajar door wide.
“Ah, it’s Seonha. You came to submit your assignment?”
“Yes. It seemed like you were waiting for someone.”
“My nephew was supposed to come. He’s such a busy fellow that it’s hard to see his face, so I told him firmly that we should meet at least once a quarter.”
“Ah….”
“By the way, someone I know sent me chocolates; do you want to take them?”
“No, Professor. It’s fine—”
“Take them. Young people like these snacks; an old man like me can’t even taste them. They’re just too sweet.”
Professor An said warmly with a smile, then opened the refrigerator and rummaged inside before she could even finish her sentence.
“You, are you getting proper sleep? Your part-time jobs are packed so you mustn’t have time to rest, yet when do you even study to be top of the class again? I wish you would put off finding a job and study more—that’s my regret. No matter how I look at it, you’re built to be an academic. Even in simple assignments, unlike other kids who rush through them half-heartedly for grades, I can tell you do them sincerely because you enjoy studying. Even while being that busy.”
Affection for his student seeped through Professor An’s tone. Seonha was grateful for the excessive praise but felt awkward and held her tongue.
Professor An took out a box of luxuriously packaged handmade chocolates and thrust it toward Seonha.
“Here, take it.”
“I’m really fine, Professor. I can’t eat sweet things well either.”
In truth, she liked sweet chocolate the most among snacks, but Seonha waved her hands and refused.
“Ah, really? I didn’t know.”
Professor An pushed the box back into the refrigerator, looking disappointed. She was very grateful to him, who always wanted to give her something and help her whenever he saw her, but honestly, it was also burdensome in a way.
Professor An Munhyeong, who was also her academic advisor, always took meticulous care of her. Thanks to his recommendation, she was able to work as a work-study student, and he was someone who understood generously that she could hardly participate in departmental events because her weekends and hours after class were filled with part-time jobs.
He often took the students under his care, including Seonha, out for meals; Seonha had only recently realized that this was because he had been worried about whether she, who was completely alone, was taking proper care of her meals.
She had never received such deep affection and warm care from her homeroom teachers even in middle and high school. So she had never expected a professor to look out for her and take care of her from the start. Naturally she was grateful, but being treated too specially made her feel pitiful.
“Then I’ll be going—”
The moment she was saying her goodbye, the door burst open without a knock, and someone came in.
“Dowook, you punk, you’re late.”
“You’re the one who told me to stop by since I could be late, Uncle.”
“So cold. Anyway, you don’t have an ounce of charm in you.”
“Would you be able to handle your dark-skinned nephew acting cute in front of you when he’s turning thirty next year?”
“Yes, it’s terrible just to imagine. You acting cute?”
While the two exchanged greetings, showing signs of meeting after a long time in a tone that wasn’t exactly affectionate but clearly comfortable with each other, Seonha captured the man’s figure in her widened pupils.
She couldn’t forget that strikingly handsome face so distinctly set apart from others. It was the man she had encountered last summer.
“Ah….”
Startled to run into the man she thought she would never see again, Seonha was greatly surprised. Why was that man here?
Though she had assumed he wasn’t a student or school staff, whenever she came to this building for a while, her heart had pounded at the thought of perhaps crossing paths with him again. She found herself ridiculous, yet shaking off curiosity about the first person she had ever fallen for at first sight was no easy task.
Listening to their conversation, it seemed the man called Dowook and Professor An Munhyeong were uncle and nephew. Perhaps the reason he had come to school last summer was also to meet Professor An, just like today.
Her brain quickly grasped the current situation and their relationship, but Seonha’s eyes remained blankly fixed on him. Wondering at her dazed reaction, Professor An opened his mouth.
“Do you two know each other?”
Only then did the man’s gaze reach Seonha, standing in front of the TA desk. A calm, cool gaze. The moment those eyes touched her, a tingling sensation ran to her fingertips, and her body flinched imperceptibly. His brow narrowed slightly, as if recalling something, while he looked at her.
Several months had passed since that day, and since they had only faced each other for less than five minutes, she thought there was a high chance he wouldn’t remember her.
“Ah, one hundred won.”
However, though not immediately, the man definitely recognized her. And with the keyword “one hundred won coin,” at that.
At his casually muttering voice, Seonha’s expression turned awkward. It seemed that she, who had boldly demanded he fill out the survey instead of paying compensation after he had crumpled it, had also left quite an impression in his memory.
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Should she consider it fortunate that he hadn’t started with the smell of sweat?
“Oh my, so you two really aren’t strangers?”
Professor An looked back and forth between the two of them, as if intrigued.
“It’s not our first meeting, but I wouldn’t say we know each other.”
The man defined their relationship very simply and clearly, cutting straight to the point.
It was an accurate statement, but seeing him avert his gaze so quickly the moment he recognized who she was, as if he had no further interest, she felt a faint, absurd sense of disappointment. She was so overjoyed to meet him again like this that it felt as if she were walking on clouds, utterly surreal; yet he seemed nothing like that. She had fallen in love at first sight, as if in a movie, and to him, she was probably nothing more than a random passerby, so it was only natural.
At the man’s sorely lacking explanation, Professor An tilted his head, but Seonha also delayed her answer with an awkward smile.
“Professor, then I’ll be on my way first.”
“All right. If you have any worries or need help, make sure to come find me. Understand?”
“……
Yes. Thank you.”
Seonha bowed her head politely in greeting, then looked at the man. When she gave a light farewell greeting, he too returned a brief nod, just enough not to be rude.
Seonha left the lab with regret lingering behind her. Her desire to see him again—whom she had reunited with after the seasons had changed—burned like a chimney fire, but she lacked the brazenness to wedge herself between two people meeting after a long time.
No, to begin with, she wasn’t the type overflowing with enough confidence to actively throw hints at a man who looked like he didn’t have even a speck of interest in her.
Even if she happened to run into him again, she wouldn’t be able to utter a single word asking if he might give her his number, yet her steps treading down the hallway kept growing slower and slower.
Seonha plunged her hand into her outer coat pocket. Her hand closed around a round-capped lipstick.
The first lipstick she had ever bought.
Her peers would all be shocked to hear it, but she had never bought proper color makeup until she turned twenty-five. Money was part of it, but she had simply had no interest in adorning her face.
Yet the day after meeting him, she had impulsively stopped by a cosmetics store. She had wanted to buy perfume, but when she checked the price of the fragrance she liked, it was so expensive her mouth fell open. Yet she didn’t want to buy a scent that wasn’t her type just because it was cheaper.
About to leave empty-handed, she found her gaze drawn to a lipstick display that was on sale. And so she had ended up buying, for the first time, lipstick because of a man. Because she had fallen for a man she didn’t even know if she would ever see again.
When she had dated Gyeongmin, the lipstick she had received from him hadn’t suited her taste, so she had applied it only a few times before stopping, and after they broke up, she couldn’t bring herself to throw it away and had shoved it into a corner of a drawer.
But the one she had bought with her own money, she had applied faithfully every day. Partly because she liked the color, but more than anything, because if she were to meet him again, she had wanted to make up for her dreary bare face during their first meeting, which had been more countrified than even the freshmen who had just entered school. “He didn’t even seem interested in my existence, let alone the color of my lips.”
Recalling those cold eyes in which no emotion could be caught, she felt utterly ridiculous for having dreamt rosy imaginings while thinking of him all this time. She felt like an immature teenage girl.
Seonha dawdled and trudged all the way to the elevator before belatedly realizing her hand was empty. The umbrella she had been carrying around since morning was gone.
“Ah, right.”
She remembered hanging her umbrella on the side of the teaching assistant’s desk when submitting her assignment. Having unintentionally found an excuse, Seonha retraced her steps with a pounding heart.
She opened the door and went in, stretching her gaze toward Professor An’s lab door, which was slightly ajar as before. Through the gap, she saw the man move and plop down in front of the table, and Seonha unconsciously drew closer.
“So you really don’t know each other?”
Seonha flinched, startled at Professor An’s voice. They were in the middle of talking about her.
“Yes.”
“Her name is Seonha, and she’s my student… a pitiful girl.”
“…….”
“She lost her parents when she was young and grew up alone. Her family was very poor too. It’s impressive enough that she graduated high school without going astray in those circumstances, but when I see her studying and working part-time, squeezing out time she doesn’t even have to live diligently, it’s so heart-wrenching and admirable that I end up wanting to take extra care of her.”
Seonha’s pupils shook aimlessly. Her small, tightly clenched fist trembled weakly. She squeezed her eyes shut.
She knew there was no malice in Professor An’s words. He was someone who had simply known her circumstances. He was a good person who had sincerely worried about her and always tried to help.
She was too starved for affection to take issue with the pitying, sympathetic gazes directed at her. She had been disdained and rejected far more often than she had been looked upon with kindness. She should have been grateful even for sympathy.
But right now, no reasoning could get through to her; she found Professor An nothing but resentful. She understood that he could speak briefly about a student he cared for to a close and dear nephew.
But why him. Why did it have to be that man of all people.
Why did she have to be found out by that man in such a miserable state?
She gripped the lipstick in her fist so hard her palm stung. It was miserable and wretched. Both her squalid reality of having to be pitied so matter-of-factly, and this very moment of listening to him talk about how objectively pitiful she was.
“So are you interested in her as a woman?”
At the man’s sudden question, Professor An jumped in surprise.
“What? No matter how ill-mannered you are, there are things you don’t say to your uncle. Do you call that speaking?”
“Then why did you bring up someone I don’t even know?”
“Well… seeing Seonha, I couldn’t help but think of you, actually.”
“Because I don’t have parents?”
At his nephew’s sharp tone as ever, Professor An adjusted his glasses with an awkward expression.
“You at least had family around to look after you, and no financial difficulties, but Seonha has had it so rough.”
The man let out a short laugh, but the smile hanging at his lips was nothing short of cold.
“With a stepmother who wished I would just disappear, a father who kicked out his young son to grant that woman’s wish, and a birth mother who went off to immigrate far away with her remarried husband so I don’t even remember her face anymore—but I suppose I’m better off than that woman earlier since I at least had money at home and a grandfather who raised me?”
“Douk.”
“Did you call me here to tell me that there’s a kid more pitiful than me, so I should stop acting like I’m the only one who’s hurt and try to live a little more flexibly?”
“You rascal, you know that’s not it.”
“If someone doesn’t have parents, they’re all tear-jerkingly pitiful, and she’s even more pitiful because of her circumstances. Even if you think that way, why do you have to let me know about it too? It’s unpleasant for a parentless wretch to hear.”
Professor An pressed his lips together tightly with a self-reproachful face, then parted them.
“I seem to have spoken out of turn. I’ve been told I’m meddlesome since long ago, but I suppose I’m becoming more of a busybody the older I get. Douk, if I hurt your feelings, I’m sorry.”
At his apology, Douk’s face loosened slightly.
“That’s why, even if I ignore other people, I come without complaint when you call, Uncle.”
“What?”
“Most people, at this point, either turn red and curse or turn their backs and leave. It’s one of the two.”
Knowing those words meant he accepted the apology, Professor An burst into his good-natured, hearty laughter again. The rough and sharp nephew, who seemed to have thorns sprouting all over his body, was notorious for mercilessly spitting out whatever he wanted to say without filtering. His blunt way of speaking, which stabbed at people’s hearts to the point of embarrassment, discriminated against no one, young or old.
“Anyway, the reason I called you today is this.”
Seonha stared at the man’s face visible through the door gap. Having forgotten even the misery and wretchedness she had felt in this spot just moments ago, she looked at him with widely rippling eyes.
Just then, the man stretched his gaze toward the door. His eyes met squarely with hers, frozen as she stood before the door. Eyes of the same cool temperature as before. Seonha’s breath caught in her throat, so startled that her spine bristled.
She hurriedly turned around. Having forgotten even the fact that she had come here to retrieve her forgotten umbrella, she slipped out of the lab, muffling her footsteps.
The moment she stepped into the hallway, despair spread throughout her entire body. She had absolutely not meant to eavesdrop on purpose, but she had no excuse even if he misunderstood it that way. Why did she always have to show such an unsightly side of herself in front of that man?
Seonha shook her head in the air as if distressed. He would surely think she was a very strange woman.
Though her head was filled with nothing but negative thoughts, Seonha’s steps gradually slowed. Chewing over the words the man had spoken, she found herself repeatedly glancing back at the lab door.