Tickets
The weekend schedule that had stretched from Eunju straight through to Hyeonji had been one long stretch of chaos. With every new piece of information cracking my eyes open, I figured I had finally waved goodbye forever to the high school boy cosplay.
And. Yet. There was still a “next” waiting for me? I still had to grab two more meals with Eunju, and with Hyeonji I was supposedly supposed to personally pilot a yacht just so she could make peace with her stepmom?
Absolute nonsense. The moment Harin’s cigarette pack turned out to be Hyeonji’s, it was already time to start dumping the school uniform at the thrift store.
There was no way I could meet Harin’s classmate—or worse, her senior—three more times after this.
“You’re back?”
Harin greeted me the second I walked through the door. The strange part was that, once again, she wasn’t in her own room; she was curled up on the sofa, carefully reading my face.
Aww… Looking at her now, all I felt was guilt. This tiny, pure-hearted kid who only knew how to love her dad had spent all this time getting every kind of unfair suspicion from me because I kept mistaking her for Yu Jiyeon Mark II.
It had never made sense that a girl would spend her entire weekend meeting friends for exactly one day and then locking herself in the house. Meanwhile the so-called father had been out flower-viewing with her classmate and school senior, spinning every lie in the book.
“Yeah. What’d you do with your friends today, Harin?”
“Just took pictures and hung out.”
“Sounds fun. Even when I was in middle school I used to sneak out to the riverside with friends whenever I could spare a minute. What was that park called again? The one near Olimcheon with the long bike path…”
“Sosan Park? Who’d you go with?”
“…”
How was I supposed to answer that without hesitating? Every single person in that group was someone connected to her.
But maybe the high school cosplay hours were finally paying off. I decided that freezing up here would only make her suspicious for no reason.
“Just neighborhood friends. Your mom, Uncle Mingu, and your mom’s little sister—Aunt Minjeong. The four of us used to go.”
To be precise, Yu Minjeong would beg to go flower-viewing first, and I’d only tag along on the condition that I could bring Yu Jiyeon. Then, without ever being invited, my older brother would casually insert himself until the four-person party was complete.
Looking back… my brother and Yu Jiyeon had been interested in each other the whole time, hadn’t they? I was the only idiot who never noticed. Maybe Minjeong had roughly figured it out too.
Haa… What if I had just quietly accepted Yu Minjeong as my fate?
Then my brother and Yu Jiyeon would have had Harin with everyone’s blessing. Minjeong and I would have naturally become the uncle and aunt who welcomed this kid with open arms…
“I see…”
Maybe it was because her mother’s name had suddenly come up. Harin sat there lost in thought, imagining an uncle and aunt from a distant past she had never even met.
Thinking about it, that picture had never been allowed for her. Sure, she must have walked the riverside holding her grandmother’s hand, but a full family outing with everyone holding hands had always been missing a mother and a father.
That only made the guilt heavier. On a day this nice I hadn’t spent a single minute with my own daughter; instead I’d been throwing every kind of baseless accusation at her until Hyeonji set me straight.
Once every misunderstanding cleared, a courage I’d never felt before welled up. Before I knew it my mouth was moving on its own, quietly floating the one wish I’d been holding onto.
“Should we… go too?”
“Huh?”
“It’s been forever since either of us spent time with family, right? The flowers should still be blooming next week, so I was thinking we could go together as a family this time.”
“Just… the two of us?”
“…”
Harin asked again, as if she couldn’t believe it might only be the two of us. Those big kitten eyes of hers had gone especially wide; clearly the idea was hard to swallow.
“O-of course it wouldn’t just be the two of us. I’ll call Auntie and Grandma and see if they can take a day off. If that doesn’t work, we can just go with your aunts to Goldeworld. Ride the attractions, look at the flowers—it’d be perfect, right?”
In the end this was the best compromise I could manage. After synthesizing Chaewon’s opinion with the general consensus, a full day alone with Dad ranked somewhere around the same level of torture as childbirth for Harin.
So pivot to a family unit. The cousins were around her age and got along well; they could give her room to breathe.
“That’s… what you meant?”
“Yeah. It’s been a while since you went to an amusement park, hasn’t it? You don’t even have to stick with me once we’re there. While you hang out with your aunts I’ll just stay with Auntie and Grandma and—”
“Okay. Let’s do that.”
“…?”
But for some reason Harin suddenly went quiet, as if even that didn’t sit right with her.
She didn’t so much as glance at the iced-tea bags she normally loved. She simply stood up and walked back to her room.
I’d thought I was offering a decent middle ground. Was even that not good enough? Aww… Harin really must hate me that much.
A guy who couldn’t even play the dad role properly suddenly blurting out “let’s go play” must have looked ridiculous. And then, because he was too scared to go alone, dragging in the aunts and cousins on top of it—peak cowardice.
I’d finally gotten my daughter’s permission and still couldn’t feel at ease. I thought clearing the misunderstandings would let us move forward, but I guess a person’s heart doesn’t melt that easily.
Monday arrived and I returned to ordinary life. Incheon Port was once again packed with ships coming and going, and Eom Chaewon was, as usual, salary-thieving her way through online shopping and Blabla.
I carved out a short break and called my aunt.
“Goldeworld? You know it’s hard to free up time unless it’s a day off. Why don’t the two of you just go alone?”
“I’d love to, but Harin says she’ll suffocate to death if it’s just the two of us. Even when I brought up the cousins yesterday she reacted the same way. Just having me there seems to be too much for her.”
“You’re writing novels in your head again, aren’t you? Come to think of it, why aren’t you ranting about Harin’s boyfriend today? Normally you can’t stop calling some kid you’ve never even met every name in the book.”
“Ah, about that…”
I updated her on everything I’d learned about Harin and the boy. My aunt clicked her tongue like she’d expected it all along.
“See? I told you Harin isn’t that kind of kid. Where the hell do you even dig up this information?”
“Uh… like I said before, I’ve got my sources. But it’s not the homeroom teacher or her diary, so don’t worry.”
Honestly, asking the homeroom teacher or stealing her diary would have been better. If my aunt ever found out I’d spent two days in a row flower-viewing with Harin’s classmate and school senior while cosplaying a high school boy, she’d be the one writing the disownment letter first.
“Instead of that, why don’t you yield a little this time?”
“What do you mean?”
“Stop trying to force something one-on-one with Harin and start with a gift offensive. Buy her two tickets to the amusement park. The important part is that it’s two tickets—not three or four.”
“Uh… wouldn’t that be awkward? I only know two friends she hangs out with. If I give her exactly two tickets, the leftover one is going to feel left out, right?”
“That’s exactly the point! From Harin’s side, using one of those two tickets on a friend gets complicated. So who does she end up using them on?”
“Huh? Wait, you’re right. Then she’d have no choice but to go with me—”
“No. With that boy!”
“…?”
What… the hell… was she saying? So the whole reason for giving Harin two tickets was so she would gift them to the boy instead of her own father?
“A-Auntie? That doesn’t make any sense. What if the boy actually goes?”
“Then they go. Harin gets a date with the boy and is happy, you score points with your daughter and are happy. Then Harin will feel guilty enough to at least offer to walk the neighborhood mountain with you, right?”
“Talk sense! I just found out Harin’s still a virgin—I mean pure—and now you want me to hand her over to some guy with my own money? Are you even my real aunt?”
“Can you stop spouting nonsense that even some washed-up temple abbot wouldn’t say? What do you actually want? To get closer to Harin, right?”
“That’s true, but…”
Couldn’t I protect my daughter’s innocence while I was at it? Honestly, learning that the relationship was completely one-sided had been a small relief.
So why should I spend my own money connecting the two of them? She was already a hundred-percent pure kid who wanted to leave the house because of me. Doing this would only speed that up, wouldn’t it?
“The choice is yours. Anyway, once you decide, call my kids. They’ll definitely want to go.”
And that was the end of the call. My aunt’s plan was perfectly rational, but from the perspective of the person actually involved it was impossible to accept.
I went back to the office and sat down. Instantly Chaewon pinged me on messenger.
“…”
At least close the Blabla tab on your monitor before you say that, you little— I’d spent the entire morning fixing the disaster of a document she submitted and only managed a ten-minute call. This was too much even for her.
“Hey… Chaewon? Last time you said you didn’t have a boyfriend—”
She fired the reply before I even finished speaking. So she was living her own busy life too, huh?
“Oh… really? That’s great news. Anyway, that might speed the conversation up. Let’s say two free tickets to a musical—wait, amusement park—suddenly appear for you. Then Chaewon would…”
“Give me the details.”
Screech! Chaewon’s interest was piqued; she yanked her chair around and spun it so she was facing me completely. Luckily the office was empty except for the two of us.
“That’s the whole scenario. If you suddenly get two free tickets, would you use them on that guy?”
“Is it Wicked?”
“Uh… for the sake of this conversation, sure.”
“Can’t it be three? I’ve got two close friends. If I only take one the other one gets sulky.”
“Uh… only two tickets. In that case, to avoid making faces with your friends, you’d end up using them on the guy, right?”
“Ugh, seriously, would it kill you to just give three? So when are we going?”
“When are we going? Once I give you the tickets, isn’t that for you to decide?”
“I need to know when Team Leader’s free so I can decide, don’t I? Even if I go out of my way to take you it’s still a whole production?”
“What the— I’m not going! The important part is who you go with. Why would I be tagging along?”
“You’re not going? Then why’d you even ask?”
“It was just a hypothetical—”
“So you don’t even have real tickets and you just asked for fun? Are you kidding me right now? Team Leader, are you a scammer?”
Chaewon scowled harder than I’d ever seen. Did she seriously think I was crazy enough to go see a musical with her?
“Something’s off here, Chaewon. You just said a boyfriend was about to appear. If I offered two tickets, shouldn’t the guy be the first person you consider?”
“When did I say that?”
“Just now. You sent it on messenger.”
“Ahh, that? I meant one could appear soon.”
“What does that even— If you phrase it like that anyone would assume you’ve got a solid almost-boyfriend going.”
“Who cares about almost-boyfriends? A boyfriend is something I can whip up in an hour if I feel like it. I just don’t bother because it’s annoying.”
“…”
So that was it. Chaewon currently had no promising almost-boyfriend whatsoever.
She just found it creepy that a guy ten years older with a kindergartener daughter was suddenly curious about her love life, so she’d thrown up a wall first.
Then the moment free musical tickets entered the chat, greed kicked in. Best case was snagging three tickets and going with friends, but since it was only two she’d take them even if it meant going with me.
Completely useless as a reference. Then who the hell was I supposed to ask if I wanted to predict Harin’s choice?
Tuesday was my day off. After sending Harin to school I finally tackled the housework I’d been putting off for the high school cosplay.
But even that only took an hour or two; before eleven I had the place looking exactly like the day we moved in. With nothing left to do I flopped onto the sofa—and my phone immediately buzzed. Vrrr—
“…?”
A message from Hyeonji. And of course it was her signature subject-less, reason-less command: just “come out.” Come out where, when, and why?
Not even worth answering, so I ignored it. I was reaching for the remote to turn on the TV when the phone started ringing again in under thirty seconds. Vrrrrrr!
[Ringing…]
“…”
I hadn’t answered a single text for thirty seconds and she was already calling? Naturally I kept ignoring it.
“…”
Problem. I’d assumed that if I ignored Hyeonji’s calls she’d eventually give up. Instead, one more ignore and this girl might actually walk back into school and start hunting for me.
If that happened it was game over. With her level of follow-through she was fully capable of walking into any random classroom during class and yelling my name without a second thought.
That would only prove I wasn’t a student at Cheonji High. One suspicious question to Harin about her “cousin oppa” and the whole thing collapsed.
“…”
You’re the one who just woke up and rolled out of bed, you know. But this was a real problem.
Eunju I could still manage somehow, but Hyeonji? Every time she summoned me, if I didn’t show she might storm a classroom whenever she felt like it.
Special measures were required. In the end, eyes stinging with tears, I pulled the school uniform out of the drawer once again.