A Rare Beauty with a Bob Cut
It was rare for a bob cut to suit a girl so well. She was truly a pretty girl. With a graceful yet adorable face, she scanned the inside of the counseling room. Her complexion wasn’t bad at all. I had assumed she would be weighed down by considerable stress. This is exactly why you should never rely on preconceptions. First, I needed to start things off right with a proper greeting.
“Welco—”
“Hello!”
Hmm…? The way she burst in with that bright smile felt strangely unfamiliar. Was she the proactive type in counseling? From what I had heard, I expected her to be quite prickly. Yet even though she was meeting a stranger in an unfamiliar space, she showed no hesitation whatsoever. As if she already knew exactly how she should behave, she immediately pulled out the chair in front of me and sat down. It felt like watching a child brimming with excitement before playing their favorite game.
“Ah, yes, hello. My name is Kim Jihyun—”
“Kim Jihyun! Then can I call you Jihyun oppa?”
“Uh… sure, I guess…?”
I ended up giving permission without thinking. The flow of the session was being carried by the girl rather than me.
“You don’t look like an oppa at all! Maybe we’re the same age?”
Not a single crack showed in her smiling face. It was a completely genuine smile. What on earth was this…?
“Ah… haha, I get that a lot. It’s true I’m a bit short—”
“We’re similar then! That’s totally fine~ No, actually, it would’ve been better if oppa was even shorter. Wait, no no, but it still suits you! I’m not teasing you about your height, but if someone with your face was tall, it wouldn’t match, right? That slightly youthful feeling that bursts out is what makes it good!”
Ah… I was starting to feel dizzy. The priority seemed to be stopping her from constantly interrupting.
“I see. So do you know why you came here today?”
“Oppa, you can drop the formal speech now!”
The conversation wasn’t flowing at all. Still, I couldn’t afford to fail right from the beginning, so it seemed best to yield a little and begin from there.
“Ah… then—”
“My name is Kim Jimin. You can just call me Jimin!”
I had heard she was a high school senior, but her liveliness and innocence made her seem even younger. I needed to match her energy as much as possible.
“Alright, Jimin. From what I can see, you seem like a really bright and good kid. But the people around you appear worried that something bad might be happening to you. That’s why your father asked you to meet with me. Recently, have you felt down or suddenly gotten really irritated?”
“There hasn’t been anything like that! Lately only good things have been happening?”
“Um… then at school or the academy—”
“Oppa, I’m good at studying! You were going to talk about academic stress, right? I don’t have any of that at all.”
Well, that was fortunate.
“Ah, I see. Other kids really struggle during their senior year. If you’re not like that, Jimin, that’s truly a relief.”
“Right? The other kids do struggle. But I help them a lot! There’s this girl named Hye-eun who has such a hard time with math. She’s in the science track! Strangely though, she’s good at everything else. Isn’t that weird? She’s great at physics and chemistry but bad at math—it doesn’t make sense, right? Anyway, I teach her for free every day. And there’s another girl I hang out with named Jeong-eun who……”
The words poured out without pause. I had tried to subtly probe her peer relationships, but from these nonstop stories it seemed there was no bullying or ostracism involved.
“…and then she started sobbing uncontrollably, so I spent the whole day comforting her. It was honestly exhausting, you know?”
“You did well. It sounds like your friends really like you and trust you, Jimin.”
Then where exactly was the problem? Should I ask about family issues directly? No—when I mentioned “your father” earlier, she hadn’t shown any particular reaction. What part of this was making Professor Kim uncomfortable? Were her outside appearance and her behavior at home completely different? Did she explode with all the stress and resentment once she got home…? Since the issue seemed to lie in the family, I would have to approach it carefully.
“But Jimin—”
“Oppa, what were you thinking about just now?”
The girl caught the exact moment I paused in thought.
“Nothing. I was just picturing the stories you told me.”
“You’re thinking about what kind of problem I have, aren’t you, oppa?”
Oh god, stay calm.
“Um… yes. Because you’re far more wonderful and amazing than I expected, so I don’t really understand why you would need counseling…”
The girl rested her chin on her folded arms and stared straight through me. Stay calm. I haven’t done anything wrong. I was simply thinking about the session. There’s no reason to panic.
“So in oppa’s opinion, I’m completely normal in front of you and at school, but turn into a total bitch the moment I get home?”
Keep it together.
“No, I was just wondering if there had been any conflicts with your parents during puberty. I fought with my mom and dad a lot too. Now I love them so much I wonder why I ever did that.”
She was still staring straight through me.
“It’s not academic stress, and it’s not bullying or harassment, so it must be family issues. Right?”
No. If I let this continue I would be dragged along until the end. Time to change tactics. I placed my elbows on the desk and leaned slightly toward her.
“Yes. If everything you’ve told me so far isn’t a lie, then there must be something happening at home.”
The girl stared directly into my eyes. I stared back. I couldn’t read any emotion or thought from her. All I could see was my own reflection in those deep, dark pupils.
“Oppa, I don’t lie.”
She finally lowered the arm she had been resting her chin on. She pulled her arms off the table and leaned back in her chair.
“Have you decided I’m a bad kid? That makes me a little sad.”
She made a pouty face. Like a completely different person from before, that pure emotion came through directly.
“I’d be really sad too if you treated me like a suspicious old man.”
I leaned back in my own chair as well.
“There really isn’t anything else at home! Except for a little fight with Dad… It’s strange.”
“Ah, is that so? But it seems okay between you two now?”
“Yes! Of course! Dad kept ignoring what I said, so I got angry and threw a little tantrum.”
Professor Kim was not the kind of person who would easily ask for help over a brief irritation or quarrel. The girl in front of me was clearly hiding what had actually happened. But I was not a detective. I did not need to uncover the details. Not yet.
“He loves his daughter so much that if she gets angry, it would tear his heart apart. If it were my daughter, I would feel the same.”
“Hmm.”
“You have someone you love too, Jimin. It hurts when that person gets angry, doesn’t it?”
With her arms crossed, the girl stared piercingly at me again. I hoped the slightly authoritative attitude I had adopted would have some effect.
“Well… I suppose so.”
She uncrossed her arms and slipped her hands into her pockets. It seemed to be working, at least a little.
“Still, none of it was your fault. Conflicts happen between people, but that doesn’t always mean someone did something wrong, right?”
Rather than assigning blame for the fight with Professor Kim, the priority was to reduce the conflict between them first.
“You sound exactly like my mom.”
“Was your mother also a psychology major?”
“I suppose she was?”
“What did your mother say?”
“She told me not to fight with Dad.”
“She only spoke the truth.”
“She only spoke the truth.”
“Spoke?”
“Yes. Because she passed away.”
….Ah, you idiot. How could I have missed that?
“Ah… I see.”
So Professor Kim’s haggard appearance wasn’t because of his daughter. The puzzle pieces were finally fitting together. The fact that I had only realized it at this exact moment made me feel like a complete fool.
“I… didn’t know. I’m sorry. I apologize.”
“It’s fine. You didn’t know. I don’t really have any particular feelings about it?”
Yes. Now everything became clear—why the professor looked so worn out, why he had fought with his daughter, why he was worried about her. All of it stemmed from that one sentence. Asking whether there had been discord before his military service must have reminded him of his wife’s death. He had never mentioned it. Or had he deliberately kept silent? Was that why he had asked me for counseling? The reason he had called someone close to his daughter’s age was likely because he wanted emotional connection. No, wait. He could have easily asked other female students. Why me specifically? Ah, perhaps because other female students or older people would remind him of the mother’s characteristics…? Yes, viewed that way, everything fit perfectly.
“Oppa, so what’s the conclusion?”
“Huh…?”
“I’ve told you everything I was going to tell you. So what’s the conclusion?”
That expression that seemed completely unbothered. The extremely aggressive tone. The attitude that she was the one deciding the direction of the counseling. The way she spoke about her own personality traits and negative experiences as if they belonged to someone else. Above all, the way she treated her mother’s death as mere material made anger rise inside me. It reminded me of Mom. I was supposed to keep emotion out of counseling, but I really was still a novice.
“The fact that you’re asking in such a sharp way means you really want me to speak honestly, doesn’t it?”
“That’s right?”
The girl smiled brightly.
“After your mother’s sudden death, conflict between father and daughter increased. The father, who still hasn’t recovered from the shock of losing his wife, is now experiencing fights with his daughter as well, so he requested counseling from me. The daughter pretends to accept her mother’s death calmly but relieves her mental stress by directing anger toward her father.”
“And?”
“However, she justifies it by believing it is not her fault at all, or even convinces herself that she never expressed anger in the first place. During the relationship-building stage with the counselor, she undermines the counselor’s authority in an attempt to make the counseling fail.”
“Hmm, and?”
“But in the end, you want me to take your hand and help you.”
“As expected, oppa really is cute.”
She smiled brightly once more.