The Black 850i
Things had completely gone to hell. Running into Eunju outside school was bad enough, but now my relationship with Harin—the one thing that absolutely could not come to light—was on the verge of being exposed.
“H-Harin? Are you sure you didn’t just missee something, Eunju?”
“I don’t… think so. I just got off the bus a moment ago. I was staring out the window without thinking, and there she was. By the time I got off, Harin had already disappeared—and instead I realized the person who’d been with her was you, sunbae.”
“…”
I was finished. Of all the rotten luck—she’d gotten a clear look at Harin herself, not me.
No matter how hard I insisted it wasn’t her, all Eunju had to do was ask Harin at school tomorrow and that would be the end of it.
The second the words “my dad” left Harin’s mouth, I was done for. And it wouldn’t stop at mere humiliation or a trip to the police station—Harin would pack her bags and walk out of the house that very day.
“Haa… Fine, Eunju. It was Harin. But could you keep this just between the two of us?”
“Why? It’s not like it’s anything you need to hide.”
“I told you before—my friend is interested in her. If word gets around that I’ve been asking about her all over the place, how mortifying would that be for her? Wait. Don’t tell me you already went around blabbing to the others about what I’ve been doing?”
“I-I haven’t, and neither has Mokhwa. But Wonhui… I’m not so sure.”
Mokhwa barely spoke at all, so she was safe enough—but Wonhui was a wild card. I’d have to be careful with her.
“But why doesn’t that friend of yours just approach her himself? I don’t want to stick my nose into someone else’s business, but if I were Harin, I don’t think I’d feel any particular attraction to him.”
“Everyone has their reasons. You almost dropped out of the student council election because of your running mate, didn’t you? That meant something big to you. For my friend, Harin is that something.”
“W-well, when you put it that way, I don’t really have a comeback…”
The moment I held up a mirror to her own situation, Eunju turned cooperative. Honestly, she was a hundred times easier to talk to than Harin.
“But… are you sure you were with Harin because of that friend?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if it wasn’t actually your friend, but you who—ah, never mind. Wonhui keeps saying weird things, so I must’ve caught it from her. I shouldn’t go around suspecting people like that…”
“…”
So she was buying into Wonhui’s theory after all, even while pretending she wasn’t. Fair enough—my “friend” story was a lie from the ground up, so a little reasonable suspicion was inevitable.
But Harin and I couldn’t be like that. Legally or biologically. Period.
…
An awkward silence settled over us again. Normally I would’ve cut the conversation short and bolted for home, but the past few days had taught me one useful lesson.
The more you try to run, the more suspicious you look. Standing your ground is what earns trust.
“Do you live around here?”
“Yes. Over there.”
So I dove straight into ordinary small talk. The place she pointed to was a mixed-use high-rise that stood out even among the buildings near my own place.
“Y-you live there? You’re loaded, huh?”
“I’m not rich—my father is, don’t you think? What about you, sunbae? Do you live nearby too?”
“Me? I live a little farther out.”
I gestured vaguely in the general direction of my house. Most of the kids at Cheonji High lived that way anyway, so it was safe enough.
“You’re out pretty late, though. Did you come from studying at the library too?”
“Academy. It’s a bit of a distance, so I take the bus.”
“You commute all the way out there? You’re really serious about getting into a good school, huh?”
I’d figured she was the model-student type, but going to an academy that far away meant her drive was no joke. Eunju answered with a bitter little smile.
“It’s just… everyone seems to want that from me.”
“Parents are all the same that way. I wish I had a daughter who understood her parents’ hearts the way you do.”
“Pardon?”
“Huh? Ah… I mean, someday. In the distant future.”
“…”
How much of a freak did I look like in her eyes right now? Spilling my future parenting plans to a girl I’d just bumped into on the street was not normal behavior.
“So… what did you talk about with Harin?”
“Us? This and that. Her outlook on life, her plans for the future—stuff like that.”
We’d covered roughly similar ground, so it wasn’t a complete lie. Of course, reaching any kind of agreement had involved a massive amount of conflict.
“Really? So the two of you have gotten pretty close?”
“Not at all. Today was the first time we’ve ever actually talked face-to-face.”
“And you had a conversation that deep on the first meeting?”
“…”
I got that I’d been thrown off by running into Eunju so suddenly, but I still needed to keep at least a shred of plausibility. I gave an awkward laugh and rubbed the bridge of my nose.
“H-Harin turned out to have a surprisingly serious personality. Even I never dreamed a conversation like that would come up on a first meeting.”
“What kind of things did she say?”
“Huh? Even for you, Eunju, that’s crossing a line. She trusted me enough to open up about that stuff.”
“Ah… you’re right. That was really rude of me.”
“…”
I was the rude one, not her. Here I was cosplaying as a high school boy and openly conning a kid, and somehow I was still digging into someone else’s conscience.
Hmm… maybe it was time to let her go. But a strong urge not to send her off just yet rose up inside me.
Of course, that didn’t mean I was harboring any low-grade lust for my daughter’s classmate. I simply wanted to unload the biggest worry I was carrying—the kind only someone her age could truly understand.
“Hey, Eunju? Can I ask you just one thing? It’s a little sensitive, so I’d really appreciate it if you kept it secret.”
“What is it? I won’t tell anyone.”
I hadn’t known Eunju long, but I’d already finished a rough character analysis. She was thoughtful, the type who considered other people’s feelings before she even opened her mouth.
Clearly a rare, well-behaved girl of this era—raised in a cultured household, living the school–academy–home route and nothing else.
Of course, even that route had produced a heretic like me, but I decided not to dwell on that.
Anyway, if anyone could give me a wise answer to this problem, it was her. It probably wouldn’t actually solve anything—but at least it would ease my mind.
“It’s about that friend of mine who likes Harin. He’s been acting weird lately. He used to say he wanted to be independent all the time, like a habit—and now he’s saying the second he graduates, he’s cutting ties with his family completely.”
“What’s the reason?”
“Apparently something happened that really disappointed him about them. I actually agree with him on the reason, but even so, his family has been trying incredibly hard to repair things lately. And he doesn’t know any of that—he’s just thinking about leaving. Doesn’t that seem a little much?”
What the hell was I doing, a father who couldn’t even handle his own daughter, just trying to make myself feel better? This was pure mental self-gratification, fishing for a comforting answer.
And considering this was basically the same conversation Harin and I had just had, wasn’t I the one flapping my mouth like a gossip and spilling someone else’s secrets at lightning speed?
“I think it’s entirely possible.”
“Right? Even you can see how hard this is to underst—wait, what did you just say?”
My prediction had been spectacularly wrong. For a second I thought I’d misheard and asked again.
“That doesn’t make sense. You think it’s entirely possible?”
“Yes. Like you said, sunbae—everyone has their own circumstances, don’t they? The same way I almost gave up running for student council, or the way that friend of yours can’t bring himself to confess to Harin directly. It might look ridiculous to other people, but to that person it’s more meaningful than anything else. So isn’t it entirely possible?”
“But it’s family! How can anyone just sever blood ties with a single stroke? And the other side is trying, I told you!”
“You can’t know that unless you’ve been in that person’s shoes. Just because you haven’t experienced it, sunbae, doesn’t mean no one else has.”
“Hey, what do you mean I haven’t? I also—”
In that instant I slammed face-first into a massive self-contradiction. It wasn’t just that she’d turned my own mirror-therapy specialty back on me and left me speechless—I’d belatedly realized the messenger himself had a critical flaw.
This was completely my story. The guy who got so disappointed when his older brother stole the girl he liked that he threw away his future, left home, and never came back until the day he died.
Wasn’t I that bastard?
“You’re right.”
“Y-you’re suddenly agreeing?”
“Yeah. Because I’m exactly that kind of person. The one who got so disappointed in his own blood relatives that he ran away from home—the one who tore apart the sacred family bond I claimed I couldn’t understand just a second ago.”
Self-mocking words mixed with a sigh spilled out on their own. Eunju’s eyes grew even more serious as she asked,
“You… left home?”
“More precisely, I left my family.”
“For how long?”
“Depends on where you draw the line, but if I had to set a beginning and an end… about eighteen years.”
From the moment Harin’s existence in this world became known until the day Mom died. Even when my body was still under the same roof, my mind had already left the family and sunk into a world of its own.
So if I had to put a number on it, it was eighteen years. Of course, Eunju didn’t take it that way.
“Eighteen years…? You mean from the time you were one year old until now?”
“…?”
What the hell was I even doing? If I was going to cosplay as a high school boy, I needed to do it properly. Why did I keep getting tripped up by other people’s wordplay and confusing my own identity?
“I-I meant eighteen days that felt like eighteen years. Why do you never listen to people all the way through?”
“S-sorry. So you ran away from home?”
“Yeah. But I came back in the end. Turns out there’s nothing like family after all.”
Of course, even that had been the manifestation of guilt over my dead brother and mother—but either way, I’d decided to do my best for Harin as a form of atonement, so please, no more questions.
“I had no idea.”
“How could you? I’ve never told anyone. Anyway, it’s getting late, so we should—”
I started to turn away before any more unnecessary words could slip out. But right then, a strangely familiar clue buried in the conversation we’d just had grabbed hold of me.
“Wait! How did you know?”
“I didn’t know anything.”
“Not that. You said you completely understood. Even I—who went through the exact same thing—was stuck in double standards until you pointed it out. So how come the second I threw you the cue, you immediately empathized with that person’s situation?”
“I-I should get going.”
Eunju tried to turn away in a hurry. But that uncharacteristic reaction was the strongest evidence of all. I immediately stepped in front of her and blocked her path.
“You’ve been through it too, haven’t you? You got so disappointed in your family that you almost walked out for good. Wait—did you actually run away? Or are you planning to now?”
“I don’t owe you an explanation that far, sunbae.”
“Hey, I told you everything! You listened to all my dirty laundry and now you’re just going to wipe your mouth clean?”
“I never asked you to tell me. You’re the one who couldn’t manage your own secrets.”
“…”
She had a point—I’d been the one spouting off on my own, so I had no comeback. Swallowing my deep curiosity, I clicked my tongue and stepped aside.
“You’re right. Go on in, then. Get some rest.”
“…”
I gave a light wave of farewell and brushed past her. What did it matter what had happened to Eunju, anyway?
In the end, all I’d realized was that Harin and I were wrestling with the exact same problem. So even if she threatened to leave me, the me of the past would grab my own ankle and leave me with nothing to say.
So what now? What had I needed back then? What the hell was I supposed to do to change Harin’s mind…
“My dad.”
“…?”
Apparently Eunju wasn’t ready to let me go yet. At the unexpected voice I turned around—and saw her slender back trembling, just slightly.
“Your dad? What did your dad do to you?”
I came back around to face her. Eunju forced a smile, as if trying hard to keep her emotions in check.
“I don’t want to talk about that far.”
“Then I won’t ask. Are things bad between you lately? Are you planning to leave home the second you graduate too?”
“N-no. It was a long time ago. The first and last time I ever wanted to abandon both my home and my family and just leave. I was too young to actually do anything about it, though.”
“…”
So she had some kind of trauma. What could a father have done to disappoint a daughter that badly?
It would have to be on the level of an older brother stealing the girl you liked. Considering Eunju’s age at the time, the most common suspicion was probably the father’s affair.
Screech…
That was when it happened. A gleaming black 850i pulled up at the curb—right beside where Eunju and I were standing.
Whirr…
The rear window rolled down, and a man appeared. He looked middle-aged, yet it was hard to pin down his exact age—he had a strangely youthful air about him.
“You’re just getting here?”
“Yes. I just got off the bus a moment ago and was about to head in.”
The second she saw him, Eunju straightened up in a fluster. They clearly knew each other—and the relationship ran deep.
Shift…
The man half-turned his head and looked me over. Sensing he was about to ask who I was, I got ahead of him and bowed at the waist.
“Hello. I’m a third-year sunbae at the same school as Eunju.”
I didn’t give my name, but that was enough of an introduction. The man gave a slightly surprised, awkward smile.
“Looks like you two were in the middle of something important. Don’t be too late coming in.”
That was all. He rolled the window back up, and the car headed toward the mixed-use high-rise where Eunju lived.
“Your dad?”
Judging by the way they treated each other and the exchange they’d just had, there was no room for doubt. Eunju answered with an awkward smile.
“Everyone calls him that.”
“That’s a very literary way of putting it. Still, things seem pretty good between you two now?”
He was a man with a mature presence and refined style. And even after seeing his daughter out late with a guy, he’d put her privacy ahead of his own curiosity. That kind of consideration.
If high school girls across the country held a vote, he’d definitely make the list of dream dads. Eunju didn’t show any particular resentment either.
“He’s not the one I was disappointed in.”
“Huh?”
And there she went again, throwing out an answer I hadn’t expected. While I was still fumbling to parse what she meant, she acknowledged her slip with a bitter smile.
“Ah…”
This kid. She had two dads.