The Hearing
After dropping Eom Chaewon off, I headed home myself. The moment Harin finished school, I told her straight about the evening plans.
“Dinner at Aunt and Grandma’s?”
“Timing-wise it’s more of a late-night snack than dinner… Once Aunt finishes cleaning up, we’ll probably eat around nine, right? The library’s open till ten anyway, so just leave an hour early.”
“Today’s fine, but…”
“Today?”
“Ah, it’s nothing. I’ll come home on time then.”
With that, Harin headed straight for the library. But what the hell did that mean just now?
Today’s fine? So on ordinary days there was some unavoidable reason she couldn’t leave the library an hour early?
Was I being overly suspicious? But she’d been so flustered and hurried out of the house just a moment ago.
I was dying to tail her, yet as she’d said, “today” probably wouldn’t yield much. It seemed the days she met her boyfriend were fixed, and today simply wasn’t one of them.
Ding-a-ling!
The appointed time arrived. When Harin and I stepped into the chicken place near Aunt’s house, the two nieces greeted us warmly.
“Unnie!”
Of course, only Harin—not me. Strictly speaking, though, wasn’t she your “niece,” not “unnie”?
“How’ve you been?”
Harin beamed a bright smile at the “aunts” hugging her tightly. Seeing that unexpected warmth made me realize anew that Harin was just an ordinary high school girl.
“Come on, sit down.”
Aunt even pulled out a chair for me. Still, the kids sat with the kids and the adults with the adults, so father-daughter conversation was out of the question again today.
“Unnie, did you see this?”
Harin and the nieces seemed pretty close. Aunt lived in Seoul but had diligently visited Mom, so the similar-aged kids had grown up half like sisters.
Come to think of it, I wasn’t particularly close with Aunt either. Sometimes I even thought it would have been better if those five were the real family and I was the outsider.
“Alright, spill it. Who the hell is she?”
“Eom Chaewon? Just a coworker. I’m her team leader.”
“She was super cute, though? Why would a girl with no boyfriend suddenly come have lunch with you?”
“You heard the rough story earlier, right? Maybe she got curious when she found out I was a single dad with a kid.”
“She followed you just out of curiosity? All the way to your aunt’s restaurant? Honey, doesn’t this seem weird?”
“Munch munch… From what I saw, she didn’t look all that interested.”
“…”
At least Uncle was realistic—thank god. Looking at him, he seemed excited that his nephew was finally hanging out with a woman after thirty-four years, but Chaewon was just like that, okay?
“Come on, give it a real shot. You two looked great together.”
“Do you even know how old she is? She’s ten years younger than me. We don’t have a single thing in common.”
If Aunt hired a part-timer in her early twenties once, she’d change her mind. It wasn’t that I had a prejudice against the MZ generation, but Chaewon took it to the extreme.
“What’s ten years? You know as well as I do—looking at you, no one would even guess there’s an age gap. Right, honey?”
“Munch munch… The age gap was pretty obvious. Our nephew looked younger, actually.”
“Why’d you even come out here? After scavenging all those scraps, you’re still stuffing chicken legs in your mouth?”
“Munch munch…”
And there it went—the usual family discord. But Aunt was the one with the pork cutlet skills, and Uncle was literally just the shutter guy, so he had no choice but to watch his step.
“I get why you’re all excited, Aunt, but it’s really not like that. Even when I dropped her off earlier, she kept grilling me about what kind of mess I’d made. In the end, without me even realizing it, it turned into me knocking up some woman I randomly met at a nightclub, getting the dad notification, and then getting dumped.”
“That’s better, actually. If you’d been in a deep relationship, the past would make it awkward, right?”
“I got a one-night stand from a nightclub pregnant and that’s not awkward? She looked at me like I was a piece of trash and despised me.”
“If you start treating her well from now on, it’ll change. Women always fall if you treat them sweetly.”
“…”
I’d never dated a woman, so what did I know? Besides, if sweet was the best, shouldn’t our department head be the most popular guy around?
Then suddenly this thought hit me. What exactly had Yu Jiyeon liked about my brother?
Looks-wise he wasn’t bad, but was he charming enough to catch Yu Jiyeon’s interest? That I wasn’t so sure about.
My brother was a classic otaku. We didn’t have money for games or anime, but weirdly he was an electronics otaku—he could’ve easily gone to a regular high school but chose a Meister high instead.
So his reputation was good wherever he went, but only among adults. He didn’t really have friends he hung out with, and he didn’t play sports either.
Most of all, he barely interacted with Yu Jiyeon. Sometimes when Yu Minjeong came over to make tteokbokki for me and Yu Jiyeon tagged along, he’d just glance over and then—zzzt zzzt!—go back to fiddling with his electric circuits. That was it.
But maybe, like Aunt said, he had his own kind of sweetness. If Yu Jiyeon complained her earphones were broken, he’d secretly take them and fix them, or something.
Maybe she found him far more mature than me, who openly drooled and stared at her chest. If she’d been drawn to the brother who looked after her without her noticing, well, I had nothing to say.
“What are you thinking about now?”
“No matter how I look at it, it’s not her. More than anything, our department head absolutely loathes office romances.”
“You’re thirty-four now. Don’t think you’ll stay young forever just by looking in the mirror.”
According to the doctor, I was good till at least fifty, right? Uncle seemed worried about me too and chimed in solemnly.
“Listen to your aunt and try dating a bit. You can’t live alone forever without kids, can you?”
“What?”
Smack!
Aunt immediately smacked the back of Uncle’s head like she couldn’t believe what a crazy bastard he was. Harin glanced over in surprise, but luckily she didn’t seem to have heard that far.
“Ugh, sorry. What the hell am I even saying, heh heh…”
Uncle sheepishly picked up a chicken leg again. Hold on—we ordered one chicken and you’re eating both drumsticks? What am I supposed to eat?
“You know this too, Aunt, but Harin’s at a sensitive age right now. It’s not the time for me to be meeting women or anything.”
“Harin’s not a little kid anymore. Wouldn’t she want her dad to find his own life? Or should I ask her for you?”
“What the hell… I’ll handle it myself, so please don’t say unnecessary crap to Harin.”
If someone asked if I wanted to date, of course I did. Yu Jiyeon was already living in the distant past, and honestly, I’d lost all affection for her long ago.
I was thirty-four. Leaving my family and drifting on the sea had left a blank page in an important chapter of my life.
If Harin was okay with it, I wanted to meet someone—anyone—and try living an ordinary life for once.
If Harin was okay with it, that is…
The meal wrapped up in an hour. I barely managed to stop the nieces from dragging Harin home to play, and the two of us headed home alone.
Thud, thud…
It was only two subway stops away, so we decided to walk and help digestion. Come to think of it, was this the first time I’d ever walked the night streets alone with Harin?
…
It was quiet. Neither of us opened our mouths, and only the sound of our footsteps piled up—thud, thud.
I’d been wrong. I’d thought a rare father-daughter stroll would open up conversation, but instead the awkwardness only multiplied. Far from digesting, I felt like the food was sitting heavy.
Still, I should speak first, right? She’d answer in monosyllables and try to end the conversation somehow, but as the adult I had to take the lead in resolving conflict…
“If you want to meet a woman, you can.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
But what was this? Harin spoke first. Just that alone was overwhelming, but the topic was absurd beyond belief.
“What exactly did you hear?”
Surely she hadn’t heard the whole conversation earlier? We were at completely different tables, but Uncle had blabbed so cluelessly.
If she’d heard the “kids this and that…” part? And the shock of realizing the secret of her birth made her speak to her dad first for the first time in her life?
“The kids… I mean, the aunts told me. That you brought someone you work with to Grandma’s place today…”
“…?”
Whew… Thank god. So the info had leaked from that side.
Well, before I arrived the four of them had been cozily plotting treason, so of course the kids would know.
“She’s just a coworker. Work finished early so we happened to grab lunch, that’s all.”
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
“What the hell did they say? But I’m really not anything with that person…”
“If you’re not meeting anyone because of me, you don’t have to do that.”
“…”
Harin stopped walking and looked straight at me as she spoke. In that moment, I realized I’d been treating her too much like a little kid.
This kid had been thinking a lot in her own way. The nieces had made up all sorts of stories, gossiping like there was some huge scoop between me and Eom Chaewon, and Harin had quietly eaten her chicken while sorting out the situation.
The conclusion: a young dad’s life shouldn’t be held back because of his daughter. What kind of consideration was this?
Tears nearly welled up all at once. Here I was, a dad who suspected his daughter, cosplayed as a high school boy, and ate tteokbokki with her classmates—while the daughter herself was ready to give up everything for that dad.
With a Harin like that, this was no time for me to be eyeing other women. Besides, Eom Chaewon didn’t even treat me like a man.
And Eunju didn’t even know a guy like me existed…
“I was planning to move out after graduation anyway. So you don’t need to feel burdened.”
“…?”
What… the hell… was she saying? What did you just say?
“Ha-Harin, what? After graduation you’ll do what?”
“It’s true. Until then I have to go to school, so I’ll freeload a bit. But after that I’ll live on my own, so you don’t have to worry about me anymore.”
“…”
It wasn’t consideration. The reason Harin wanted to set me free was only one.
In her grand hundred-year plan, a person like me had never existed from the start.
“Hey! Does that even make sense? Sure, you can go independent after graduation. But the way you’re talking, it sounds like you’re cutting ties with me!”
“I’m not cutting ties. But I think we should each live our own lives.”
“Why!? I’m your dad—why live separate lives? There’s no family left in the world but the two of us, so why are you saying that?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.”
“How long?”
“That… pretty long…?”
“…”
I could bet my hand that it was from four months ago, when Mom died. She still hadn’t accepted me.
Of course I understood. Like Aunt said, that bitch of a mother left without looking back when the kid was at her cutest, and that bastard of a father abandoned the kid with Grandma and drifted on the sea—I knew I was a bad guy.
But did that sever the blood ties? I was trying in my own way, so why was she going off the rails?
“Harin, I can’t accept that. I know I wasn’t a good dad. But I’m trying pretty hard now, right? Yet you just avoid me—have you ever tried to have a real conversation?”
“I’ve never thought you didn’t do enough for me. I’m just saying this because I think it’s better for both of us.”
“How is this better? A daughter saying she doesn’t want to live with her dad and wants to leave home—who accepts that?”
“Let’s stop talking about it today. It’s not like I’m leaving right now, right?”
“If you’re not leaving right now, that’s fine? You said you’d leave after graduation! You’ve already set an end date, so what the hell have I been doing all this time…”
Thud-thud-thud!
But that was as far as it went. Harin ran off without looking back. Hey! I’m talking here—where are you going!?
Just how badly raised were kids these days that they’d bolt without a word while their dad was lecturing? And it wasn’t even toward home.
Clear rebellion that she didn’t want to hear a word I said. I wanted to chase her down right then and spank her till the tears came out…
“Uh… ahem…”
“…?”
From somewhere came the awkward sound of someone clearing their throat. And whether it was my imagination or not, it felt like it was aimed right at me.
On a hunch, I turned around. And—huh? I never expected to run into someone I knew here.
“E-Eunju?”
But of all people, it was Eunju. Just what kind of bad karma had I piled up with her in a past life that I kept running into her day after day?
No. Maybe I was oversimplifying the situation.
I’d overlooked that the things happening inside the school were actually closely connected to the outside as well.
Think about it. Cheonji High was a pretty prestigious school, but fundamentally it was a local school.
Most students lived nearby, so the chances of running into them outside school as well as inside were plenty high.
Of course, to me who ran into them outside by chance, I was just passerby number one. But to the kids who knew me at school as A Team’s Teemo, I was still A Team’s Teemo outside too.
So something like this could happen anytime. Today it was Eunju, but tomorrow Wonhui, the day after Mokhwa or Eunchae—it wouldn’t be strange at all.
“Sunbae? Are you okay?”
Come to think of it, I’d only returned the greeting and left Eunju hanging for way too long. But this was a first for me too, so I couldn’t help it.
I needed to prepare well and speak carefully. If I didn’t set up detailed explanations for why I was here and how we’d run into each other, she’d definitely get suspicious…
“Earlier… that was Harin, wasn’t it?”
“…!?”
But any further worrying became meaningless as the words came out. Of all things, my biggest secret that had to stay most hidden had been exposed to the one person it absolutely shouldn’t have been.
.