Grave Visit
My mood had been excellent since the start of the weekend morning. Last night Eunju had played the ultimate card by showing up at my door herself.
But life is full of twists and turns, as they say. In the end I managed to make up with Eunju and settle the campaign-promise mess as well.
On top of that, for the first time in my life I had gotten a girl’s number, so spring was finally arriving in my life too…
Shake it off!
What the hell was I thinking? She was a minor—my own daughter’s classmate, no less.
Besides, who exactly “got” whose number?
The one who wanted the number was Eunju, not me. I had merely offered an alternative so she wouldn’t keep showing up at the house every time she had a question.
Anyway, Eunju wasn’t the important thing right now. Today was the death anniversary of my older brother—and Harin’s real father—Ban Mingu.
Yesterday both Aunt and Eom Chaewon had agreed it was fine to take Harin to the grave. Their reasoning was that if she was going to find out eventually, there was no harm in building up to it starting now.
So from early morning I had been watching for any chance to bring it up. At last—creak—Harin came out of her room.
I snatched up the peach iced tea I had prepared and dashed over to her. Startled by my sudden charge, she took half a step back.
“Wh-what’s with you?”
“Still half-asleep, right? Chug this down.”
“...?”
Too forced? It was a rare day without school, so she had slept in until nine, and my sudden friendliness seemed to throw her off.
“I’ll… drink it. But do you like peach iced tea? You bought a ton of it.”
That was because I had long since acquired the new intel that she liked peach iced tea. On the way home that day I had bought five whole boxes of tea bags—enough that you could dump them in the bathtub and swim around in them.
“Lately peach iced tea just keeps hitting the spot. Anyway, you got anything planned today?”
This was the real question. No matter how little burden Harin felt about visiting her big uncle’s grave, if she already had a schedule locked in, the whole thing was dead on arrival.
“I’m meeting friends today because of the election.”
Deflated… Of course she had plans. I had thought that after Eunju’s side submitted their manifesto they would have some breathing room, but apparently there was still a lot left to prepare.
…Or was there?
Why was I assuming Harin would be busy with campaign work?
Harin was cute as a kitten and never picky about side dishes, but she had one flaw: when it came to meeting her boyfriend, she lied to her dad as naturally as breathing.
On a rare weekend, wouldn’t she want to hold hands and take a walk with him? Even if Harin herself had no particular plans, would a boyfriend whose balls charged to full capacity by the minute just sit still?
“W-well, can’t be helped then…”
But what could I do? I had cosplayed as a high-school boy and walked in and out of that school like it was my own house any number of times, yet I had never once stepped on that bastard’s shadow.
Besides, asking a high-school girl whose friendships ranked first to break a prior promise just so she could go on a boring grave visit was something I simply couldn’t do. In the end I had to turn away weakly.
“What’s… going on?”
Surprisingly, though, Harin asked for the reason. I spun right back around and explained, practically spitting with earnestness.
“You know you had a big uncle, right? We even lived together once, though you probably don’t remember…”
“I know. Uncle Mingu…”
“Exactly! Today’s actually Uncle Mingu’s death anniversary. I was going to visit the grave and wondered if you might come along.”
“A grave visit…”
Unexpectedly, Harin was seriously weighing it. Her pupils trembled left and right without mercy.
But if you agonize like that, I’m the one who feels terrible. Whether she was meeting her boyfriend or Ji-hye’s group, asking her to break a promise on the same day was far too much.
This really wouldn’t work.
“You don’t have to feel pressured. If you’ve already got plans with friends, it can’t be helped…”
“I’ll go with you.”
“...”
Yet Harin’s answer was yes. She must have wrestled with an enormous dilemma, but even so she decided to spend half of her precious weekend with her dad.
Vroom—
I put Harin in the passenger seat and set off for our hometown. First we stopped by Aunt’s place to pick up the ritual food, then climbed straight onto the Gyeongchun National Highway.
La-la-la—
A Saturday-morning drive out to the countryside with my beloved daughter—was there a happier father alive? Still, I couldn’t let my guard down.
Just getting her into the passenger seat wasn’t the end. If she stuck in AirPods like Eom Chaewon and vanished into her own world, father-daughter conversation would fall through again today.
“If you want music, connect Bluetooth, Harin.”
So I casually offered the Bluetooth connection. Harin answered lukewarmly, shaking her head.
“I don’t really need to play anything.”
“Yeah? No carsickness or anything?”
“Seems fine.”
“Good. And that tumbler’s yours, so drink from it if you get thirsty.”
In the short time available I had prepared quite a lot for her. Just in case she might get dehydrated on the way to the grave, I had even stocked a tumbler packed with ice and drink.
“Peach iced tea… again?”
“Yeah. But you don’t seem to drink much of it. Is this tea bag not great? I’ll buy a different kind if so.”
“N-no. I don’t think that’s necessary.”
Was I overdoing it? She had made a big decision to come along, and here I was getting excited all by myself and only loading her with pressure.
“Sorry… Dad talked too much, huh? Want to just quietly look out the window?”
“It’s not that.”
“Then that’s a relief… Ah, but this is your first time here, right? It’s not far from Grandma’s grave…”
“I’ve been. With Grandma before…”
“...”
What? So it wasn’t even her first time?
Of course Mom would never have skipped her child’s death anniversary. When Harin was little there had been no one to watch her, so she must have tagged along any number of times—what exactly had I been fretting over all this while?
“I-is that so? I never thought of that. But you… how much do you remember about Big Uncle?”
Was that too dangerous a question? My brother had died when Harin was around five—usually the age when childhood memories are just starting to form.
She might still have fragmentary recollections. Later, though, looking at my photos she had gotten confused about who was who, and that had led to the present situation.
“I don’t… remember well.”
Harin answered shortly, as if she didn’t really want to talk about it. I felt like I had only made the atmosphere awkward by bringing up something unnecessary.
In the end both of us kept silent the whole way to the grave.
We arrived. Thanks to having hired someone in advance for the weeding, the gravesite itself was neatly tended.
I set out the ritual food Aunt had prepared and performed a simple memorial rite. After bowing first, I spoke to Harin.
“Want to offer a cup of wine too?”
“...”
Harin bowed in silence, then took the cup I poured and set it on the offering table. Hmm… watching that scene made my heart grow heavy for no reason.
Had my brother known a day like this would come? His own daughter calling her real father “uncle” while offering a cup, and the younger brother who had left home never to return playing the role of that father—a paradoxical situation.
Less than two years remained. Before then I had to restore my relationship with Harin and stop her from becoming independent.
After that I would return here, reveal every truth, and become her real father. That was my goal.
Could I really accomplish all of it?
The grave visit itself was over in only a few minutes. If we had been a true father and daughter, this would have been the time to peel the apples from the offering table, chew on the dried pollack, and savor the lazy spring atmosphere.
But we had none of that, so cleanup began at once. While I cleared the table, Harin asked a question about the chrysanthemums she had bought nearby.
“Where do I put the flowers?”
“The flowers? In that stone vase over there…”
Yet why was this? A single chrysanthemum was already stuck in the stone vase.
Of course, until last year Mom had come for the grave visits, so a filled vase wasn’t particularly strange.
But this chrysanthemum—even if it was artificial—was far too clean for something left abandoned for a whole year in a desolate mountain.
Still, something felt off. The only people who came here were me and a handful of others.
If Aunt had visited she would definitely have left word. So who had left this chrysanthemum?
“...?”
Yu Jiyeon. The single name that sank heavily into my mind—there was no one else it could be but her, the other family my brother had left behind.
I didn’t know how the two of them had ended up separating. But if she could leave Harin behind and never visit even once, their relationship had to be completely shattered.
Yet Korea is a country generous toward death. No matter how bad a person was, once they die the nation of manners grants them at least one second of sentimentality.
I myself was proof. Even after being betrayed by my own kin, time had eventually brought me here to the grave.
Would Yu Jiyeon be any different?
She had left the neighborhood long ago, but that didn’t mean every line of contact was gone. So if, long after my brother’s death, she had decided the time had come and sought out the grave, it was quite reasonable.
“Harin? It’s been a while since you were back in the hometown—anyone you want to see? Plenty of kids who went to the same school as you until last year still live around here.”
“That’s true, but…”
“Since we came all this way, you should at least say hello. I’ll drop you off in town, so call your friends.”
Harin nodded silently. Originally I had planned to head straight home after the grave visit, but my mind had just changed.
I needed to find out who had left that chrysanthemum.
I left Harin loose in the neighborhood and went around looking up the local elders I used to know. Wasn’t this basically searching for a needle in a haystack in Seoul?
Yet there turned out to be a surprisingly simple solution.
Even if Yu Jiyeon had heard of my brother’s death through some contact, learning the exact location of the grave would have been difficult. So she must have gone around asking people she knew in town for the spot.
But no one gave me a proper answer. Last of all I met Mr. Baek, who used to run the old stationery store in front of the school and now ran a convenience store there.
“Whoa, long time no see! How have you not changed a bit?”
How many times was I going to hear that today? I forced a smile by moving facial muscles that were already half in spasm.
“But Uncle, has anyone been around recently asking about my brother’s grave location?”
“Huh? How’d you know that?”
At last I had found the right person. Unable to contain the rising tension, I swallowed dryly and asked.
“It was Yu Jiyeon, right? Sister Jiyeon came by?”
“Nope.”
“...?”
It wasn’t? But if it wasn’t Yu Jiyeon, then who on earth had been asking around for my brother’s grave?
“Then who was that person?”
“Didn’t ask her name so I don’t know either. But she was an insanely pretty woman. High nose, white skin, and her head was so small. I thought people like that only existed on TV, but there she was in real life.”
“Th-that can’t be. Maybe it’s been so long since you saw Sister Jiyeon that you just didn’t recognize her?”
“Hey, you think I wouldn’t recognize Jiyeon? More than that, you know it too—Jiyeon’s those big, grand… that wasn’t it at all.”
“...”
Yu Jiyeon had left the neighborhood in her first year of high school. Just how long had this uncle been eyeing that particular feature?
“Haa… Anything else? How old did she look?”
“About ten years older than you, I’d say.”
“What… ten years older than me is a full-blown ajumma.”
“Eh? Come to think of it you’re over thirty too, right? I meant she looked around thirty. If she takes good care of herself she could be a bit older, but either way it definitely wasn’t Jiyeon.”
“...”
In the end all I had done was reconfirm that I was a patient with Saiyan Syndrome. But this made no sense at all.
Judging by how things were going, the person Mr. Baek described and the one who left the chrysanthemum were clearly the same. Yet if it wasn’t Yu Jiyeon, what woman would go all the way to my brother’s grave?
“Maybe some obscure celebrity? First time seeing the face, but it felt somehow familiar, like I’d seen her somewhere.”
“Why would someone like that come looking for my brother?”
“Who knows. Why did your brother come back alone in the first place? Feels bad talking behind a dead man’s back, but maybe he kept a side pocket while leaving Jiyeon and they split over it? Mingu was quiet, sure, but looks-wise he never fell short anywhere.”
“...”
That actually had some possibility. Because that single theory could solve two unsolved mysteries at once.
The reason my brother and Yu Jiyeon had broken up was precisely because of the person who left the chrysanthemum today.
Vroom—
In the end I had to head home with nothing to show for it. Harin was finishing the conversation she hadn’t gotten to have with the friends she met earlier via her phone, while I was still trying to deduce the identity of the woman who left the chrysanthemum.
But no matter how hard I thought, no answer came. I had no choice but to give weight to Mr. Baek’s slightly dirty inference.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Your mom.”
“Mom?”
“...!?”
What the hell had I just blurted out? My head had been so full of Yu Jiyeon that I answered Harin’s question far too bluntly.
“Ah, no—I mean the person I was talking about is, uh…”
“Mom… do you know where she is?”
Had she felt some blood-tie at the grave she had visited thinking it was her big uncle’s? For the first time since living with me, Harin was asking a question about Yu Jiyeon.
“I-I don’t know. I’m not lying—I really don’t.”
“Then why are you so flustered?”
“Just… this is the first time you’ve brought up your mom yourself.”
“...”
Another awkward silence began. But maybe all that high-school-boy cosplay had taught me something after all. The thought that I couldn’t just back down like this rose up.
Retreating would only advertise that I reeked of guilt. I had to step forward boldly instead.
I had already decided to be Harin’s dad—trembling the moment her mom came up was pretty ridiculous too, wasn’t it?
“Harin? Is there anything you’re curious about regarding your mom?”
So I decided to muster some courage. I knew jack about how my brother and Yu Jiyeon had lived.
But as a man who had also once liked Yu Jiyeon, I could at least give the bare minimum explanation of Harin’s roots.
“...”
Harin said nothing. That didn’t mean she didn’t want to talk about her mom.
She was simply agonizing over which question about her mother to throw at her dad for the first time in her life.
What would she ask? Curious why Mom left you?
Why we split up? How exactly you yourself came into existence?
“Mom… did you like her a lot?”
“...?”
Yet Harin’s question belonged to none of those categories. It was the purest, most primal question imaginable—almost as if mocking me for trembling while trying to guess her inner thoughts and brace for whatever she might ask.
“Y-yeah… that’s why you’re sitting there, isn’t it?”
“How much… did you like her?”
“...”
How should I answer? Should I honestly reveal my own feelings? Or answer as her “real dad”?
“A whole lot. So much that… if your mom wanted it, I could drop everything I’m doing right now and take her anywhere she asked.”
But I didn’t want to dirty her fantasy with my immature unrequited love. I spoke thoroughly from my brother’s position.
Besides, every word was true. Throughout his training my brother had maintained an excellent reputation and employment was already guaranteed.
Yet the moment he heard Yu Jiyeon was carrying his child, he bought a train ticket without looking back.
Could I have done the same? Yu Jiyeon had always dreamed of a man who would help her escape, but I had merely waited to become an adult and never once taken action.
Maybe that was what had divided me from my brother. He abandoned his future because he loved someone; I left my family because I hated someone.
It was nothing more than simple arithmetic—why hadn’t I realized it until now? Yu Jiyeon hadn’t chosen my brother over me.
She had chosen the person who loved her more.
And what about the me of today? Back then with Yu Jiyeon, and now with Harin—wasn’t I still only ever retreating?
I should have faced things more squarely, yet I had taken far too long a detour. Just because the other person found me uncomfortable I had gotten scared in advance, postponing and postponing with the thought that someday a chance would come.
That was exactly how I had lost Yu Jiyeon.
“Harin? The reason Mom doesn’t come back is…”
So I would say it now. To the girl who had been left alone to chew on her wounds and endlessly throw unanswered questions at herself—the truth that had never once changed.
“Because she was deeply disappointed in Dad. More than wanting to see you, the feeling of not wanting to see me is stronger. The truth is she wants to meet you more than anyone, but unfortunately I’m right next to you, so she can’t return. It is absolutely not because of you.”
Everyone had made small mistakes. My brother, Yu Jiyeon, and Mom as well.
Well, I had done nothing right, so I was out of the discussion entirely…
But if there was one clear and certain fact among them all, it was that Harin had done nothing wrong.
I wanted to free her, even a little, from the girl who had taken everything onto her own shoulders under that premise.
Sniff… sniff…
Suddenly a sound reached my ears that made me doubt them. No matter how emotional I had become, I wasn’t old enough to start pouring tears first.
So this sound was definitely coming from Harin. Thinking “no way,” I turned my head—and already fat tears like chicken droppings were streaming from her eyes.
“Harin, you…”
“The car!”
“Eh?”
Screech! Vroom!
I had nearly turned my head the wrong way and sent father and daughter both escaping this world together. Barely collecting myself, I glanced sideways and saw Harin hurriedly wiping her tears with the back of her hand.
“Harin…”
“It’s nothing. I just… yawned.”
“...”
As if. The truth was that Harin had also been waiting for that answer.
She had wanted to be acknowledged that her existence was not merely the byproduct of a mistake but the crystallization of love—and she had swallowed that question any number of times.
After the brief uproar, silence flowed through the car once more. But now the silence no longer frightened me.
Because I had said everything I wanted to say, and heard everything I wanted to hear. So I felt a little like I had become a real dad, a little like we had become a real father and daughter—and that made me happy.
I hoped Harin felt exactly the same way.