Nodeul Island
The frenzied VR session was over. Even I, who’d spent more than a decade at sea, never saw that shark invasion coming. In the end, our only choice was to cling to each other and pray we’d make it out alive.
Of course I knew it was the wrong call. It had been pure instinct, but still—I should have kept reminding myself that she was my daughter’s upperclassman at school.
Maybe that was why Hyunji stayed completely silent the whole way out of the arcade, distant and cold.
She wouldn’t even meet my eyes. It felt exactly like looking at the Monday version of her.
“S-so, should we head back now?”
With the atmosphere this awkward, I figured this was finally my chance to go home. Hyunji seemed to think the same.
“I’m going alone.”
“Huh? You don’t even know which bus takes you home.”
“I’ll figure it out myself!”
“...”
Just not the way I expected. Hyunji barked the words and then strode off alone toward the subway station.
Ugh… Looks like I really screwed this up. Then again, this kid lives and dies by her pride.
She’s the type who keeps guys at arm’s length and stakes her entire life on that boyish image—and I just had to suggest VR and drag out every last scrap of her feminine side.
She couldn’t stand the shame. The longer she stayed near me, the more those mortifying memories would surface, so she was trying to erase my existence entirely.
But…
In a way, wasn’t this a good thing? The more uncomfortable Hyunji felt around me, the fewer times she’d ask to meet.
This was a girl bold enough to suggest we just live together if I was going to keep leaving the house. If I could cut the attachment like this, quitting the high-school-boy cosplay would get a whole lot easier.
Of course it wasn’t all upside.
For one thing, I’d never get to admire that classical Western-actress face again. Those big puppy-dog eyes that wagged an invisible tail the moment they found their owner—gone forever.
And that wasn’t all. Goodbye to the sensation of two arms filled perfectly, like they’d found the missing piece of a puzzle.
Whatever shampoo she used, that addictive scent from the crown of her head—every bit as intoxicating as the smell of her nape—would never…
I shook my head hard.
What the hell am I thinking? She’s a minor. Worse, she’s my daughter’s upperclassman.
Just the physical act of holding her was already a moral and legal felony. So what right did I have to still be stuck on how warm she’d felt?
This was all Teacher Eunju’s fault. If she’d just accepted my feelings properly, I never would have crossed any lines with my daughter’s friends.
And while I was stuck like this, Teacher Eunju was off having a great time with that senior guy of hers…
Bzzzt!
My phone rang again. After the same situation repeating all day long, I didn’t even need to check the screen to know who it was.
“Yeah, Eunju? What’s up all of a sudden?”
“All of a sudden…? Who was that earlier?”
“Th-that? Uh, that was… a friend of mine.”
“Which friend?”
“Someone from another school. You don’t know them.”
“Oppa, you only transferred this year. And you’ve already made friends at another school? Besides, you clearly said you were alone earlier.”
“Aren’t internet friends still friends? We’re in the same offline arcade club, so we meet up outside sometimes. I really was alone until the moment I started talking to you.”
“Haa… Fine, if you put it that way I can’t argue. But Oppa? I really didn’t want to say this, but… how do I put it… it sounded like a girl’s voice to me.”
“People have always said I sound a little feminine. But I’m not actually gay. And I’m pretty open-minded about sexual orientation anyway, so even if I were it wouldn’t matter.”
“...”
As the pathetic excuses piled up, Eunju seemed to lose even the energy to speak. Ugh… this wasn’t going to work anymore.
“Haa… Eunju, it was Hyunji.”
“You were with Unnie…? A minute ago you said it was a feminine-voiced guy you befriended right after transferring.”
“I figured Hyunji wouldn’t want that getting out… But I didn’t meet her because I wanted to! She just suddenly insisted, and I didn’t have anything better to do, so…”
“How am I supposed to take this? You carefully lie while pretending to care about Unnie’s feelings, then suddenly drop a confession of conscience?”
“I just… felt like I shouldn’t keep lying to you…”
Honestly, so what if I hang out with Hyunji a little? Why hide it? Eunju was clearly angry, but she still accepted the final confession.
“Fine. So are you still with her now?”
“No, she said she had something urgent and left first. So are you guys starting the afternoon activities now?”
“We’re on a short break in the middle of activities. Then Oppa has some free time, right?”
“I don’t really have anything planned, but why?”
“Then it wouldn’t be a huge problem if you came out near Nodeul Island for some air, would it?”
“...”
You’re not seriously telling me to come all the way out there, are you? Sure, it was on the way home—I just had to get off the bus—but that was beside the point. Why did she keep making these unplanned appointments?
“Uh… I mean, I could, but why? Even if I go, you’re busy. We wouldn’t be able to meet anyway.”
“After activities end we have free time until dinner. I think I’ll have about an hour free.”
“But the teachers are there too, right? Everyone’s doing group activities. If you slip away alone it might get awkward.”
“This isn’t some training camp with fences so no one can escape. Around that time everyone’s probably going to wander around Nodeul Island freely. Haa… so Oppa just doesn’t want to come, is that it? You got caught lying to my face and you don’t feel even a little sorry?”
“Of course I feel bad. But in the end I told the truth, and more than anything I want to respect the educational purpose of the student council camp…”
“Fine. Then I’ll just hang out with Sangmin.”
“What time do I need to be there?”
There she goes with the threats again. Of course I didn’t mind Eunju making friends her own age, but we still didn’t know a single thing about this guy.
As a fellow parent of a classmate, I needed to judge in advance whether she was hanging out with the right people. That was what an “adult” was supposed to do.
So I ended up at Nodeul Island. I headed for the eastern edge of the helipad where we’d agreed to meet and waited for Eunju.
Clomp, clomp…
After about five minutes I spotted her strolling leisurely toward me from a distance. Vintage jeans topped with a purple hoodie.
The complete lack of skin exposure was very much to my liking. Not that it could hide a face so radiant even the sunlight would get jealous.
“You got here earlier than I expected.”
“Like I said before, I try to arrive before the appointed time whenever I can. What about Yuna?”
“Who knows? She seems to have made a ton of friends here. She looked super busy.”
“...”
Letting my guard down just because it was a student council camp had been a mistake. Until recently Yuna had been going on about how she liked me, and now she’d already switched targets?
It wasn’t that I was jealous. I was just scared after realizing how ruthlessly kids these days played the field.
Today it was Yuna—who was to say tomorrow it wouldn’t be Harin? That thought made me suddenly study the girl standing right in front of me.
“What about you? You spent the same amount of time, so you should’ve gotten just as close, right? Or are you the shy type after all?”
“I got friendly enough, but not enough that I want to spend free time with them too. Of course if Oppa hadn’t come I would’ve gone that way myself…”
Forcing myself out here had been the right call after all. Though I still had a few doubts about whether it had really been necessary.
“So is the camp fun?”
“These events are all pretty much the same. Listening to the other schools’ campaign pledges was pretty entertaining, though. None of them seemed as professional as Oppa.”
“You don’t have to butter me up.”
“I’m not buttering you up—I mean it. Even the teachers from the other schools were praising you.”
All I’d done was a middle-aged guy crashing the kids’ games and showing off a few tricks. The more she said things like that, the more embarrassed I got, so she needed to stop.
“So what game did Oppa play? With Un-nie.”
“Do we really have to talk about Hyunji… She just wanted to do the claw machine, so I blew ten thousand won. After that we did VR—riding a boat out to a lighthouse. It rocked so realistically. Midway through a shark jumped onto the deck and I screamed without even realizing it.”
“Sharks don’t jump onto decks… Whoever made that must never have even been near the ocean.”
“Huh? How do you know that?”
“...”
Eunju didn’t answer. She just smiled softly. I’d noticed this about her for a while—she knew way too much about ocean life.
Sure, she’d gotten pretty into career exploration, but this went way beyond casual interest. Eunju abruptly changed the subject.
“Anyway, what happened with taking your niece to the amusement park?”
“Oh, that? She seemed to hate the idea of going with me so much that I just bought the tickets and told her to go with a friend.”
“Isn’t that too dangerous? Sending kids alone without a guardian?”
“Ah… there’ll be a guardian on that side. It’s a shame I can’t go with her, but in the end that’s what an adult is supposed to do, right?”
“You never change when it comes to wanting to act like a grown-up. Is that why you came today too? Because you were worried I’d skip the camp and go do something else with Sangmin?”
“No, well… I just meant you should get to know who the other person is first before getting close. There’ve been so many scary incidents lately, you know?”
“Don’t most people get to know each other while becoming friends? I know a lot of scary things happen, but it’s not like I’m going to date Sangmin or anything.”
“You never know, right?”
Thinking it over carefully on the way here, the chances of Sangmin actually having a bad influence on Eunju were extremely low.
Running for vice student council president meant the teachers had already recognized him as suitable. And if he was popular enough to get elected, his peer relationships were probably solid too.
Or rather, the moment I started looking suspicious for coming all the way to Nodeul Island just to worry about my daughter’s classmate over something that small, Eunju answered.
“That won’t happen.”
“Even if you don’t feel anything now, people’s hearts can change later…”
“No. I don’t think it’ll change. At least not right now…”
“...?”
Wondering what she meant, I turned my head. Eunju was staring into empty space, kicking her feet lightly, with no intention of elaborating on what she’d just said.
“You mean you don’t want to date anyone right now? Because of studies or student council work…”
“I don’t think that’s it.”
Only then did Eunju turn her face toward me. Meeting those already-too-large eyes head-on made my own body freeze up instead.
Gulp…
I swallowed dryly without meaning to. For some reason I had the illusion that most of what Eunju had just said was directly or indirectly about me.
As if the reason she was here with me right now was because her goal was… me myself…
I shook my head hard.
What the hell am I thinking? She’s a minor. Worse, she’s my daughter’s classmate.
Sure, I knew there were kids who couldn’t grasp the situation because of Saiyan Syndrome. Yuna, for example, still thought I was her classmate and had shown at least a little interest.
But this was Eunju. Compared to ordinary high school girls she was three or four years more mature, always thinking carefully before she spoke or acted.
A girl like that having feelings for me was impossible. No—it was something that must never happen.
“Th-then should we head back in? Everyone might be looking for you.”
“This again? We’ve only been meeting for a little over ten minutes. And this is the first time since Thursday.”
“That’s true, but…”
Still, that was only two days ago. Wasn’t a parent and a high school girl meeting three times in one week already way past the acceptable limit?
“Haa… I really don’t understand Oppa at all. If you were going to be like this, why bother spending dozens of minutes coming all the way out here? It’s not like you felt sorry for lying either.”
“That’s because you said you’d hang out with Sangmin if I didn’t come…”
“Why do you care about that?”
“I just do. I don’t know why…”
Only then did my mind fully return. I never should have come here. Adult duty or whatever—no matter what Eunju said, I should have just claimed I was busy and hung up.
Look at the result. Maybe I was just imagining things on my own, but this subtly off-kilter atmosphere that couldn’t be put back together—what was I supposed to do about it?
Heh…
But Eunju seemed to like that answer. All I’d done was unconsciously repeat something Hyunji had said, yet for some reason it was more than enough to satisfy her.
“What are you doing tomorrow, then?”
“Tomorrow? Meet a friend during the day, then probably stay home in the afternoon.”
“I’ll probably finish morning activities, have lunch with everyone, and then we’ll all go our separate ways.”
“...”
Eunju stopped there and waited for my reaction. No matter how I looked at it, it only sounded like she was telling me to take responsibility for the rest of the schedule.
“Then you should go home and rest, right? Sleeping outside always leaves you extra tired.”
“Even on school trips I automatically wake up at six in the morning. On the way here I saw people riding bikes. Sometimes renting a bike and riding along the river isn’t bad either, is it?”
So you’re asking me to go bike riding with you right now? Even if I’m just a small-company employee who only has to show up three days a week, don’t you think I’m investing way too much time in you?
“If you don’t want to go home, how about we all grab a meal together? Like you said before, Wonhui and Mokhwa wanted to treat me to tteokbokki from last time, right? We can throw in Yuna and Eunchae and go eat something good.”
If I couldn’t refuse Eunju’s suggestion, the best move was to insert a third party. But she was a wall I couldn’t possibly knock down.
“Mokhwa said she’s going to Goldeworld tomorrow, so she won’t have time. If even one person is missing, doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose?”
“Haa… Fine. Call me around the time you part ways with the others tomorrow.”
In the end I was stuck with nowhere to run and fell right into Eunju’s trap. So we had to meet again tomorrow?
I spent a full hour held captive by Eunju, chatting about nothing, before I finally made it home. Pointless appointments kept getting made, and I kept agreeing to every single one like I was under hypnosis—what was I supposed to do about this?
But whenever I looked into Eunju’s eyes full of determination, I simply couldn’t find the courage to refuse. The moment those chick-like lips stuck out in a pout, I found myself granting her request without even realizing it.
“You’re back?”
When I got home, Harin was curled up on the sofa waiting for me. Lately this kid barely seemed to go into her room at all.
That was proof our father-daughter relationship was recovering, so there was no need to think of it badly. What I was more curious about was whether she’d properly made plans with her crush.
“Yeah. I ran into some people and it just turned out that way.”
“Do you have plans tomorrow too?”
“Pretty much… That’s why I said I keep getting busy on weekends and can’t go to the amusement park.”
“I see…”
“...?”
Something about the atmosphere felt off. Harin let out a silent sigh at the news that I was busy. Looking at her state, it was obvious she hadn’t set foot outside the house even a single centimeter today.
“Got something to say? Want me to make you some iced tea?”
“No! I don’t need iced tea.”
Harin frowned as if the mere mention of iced tea at the end of every sentence gave her a complex. But she still wasn’t heading to her room, which meant she definitely had something left to say.
I carefully sat down on the sofa, making sure to keep the one-meter father-daughter safety distance.
“Harin? If there’s something you want to say…”
Sliiiide…
As if she’d been waiting for exactly that, Harin slid something across the sofa toward me. If my eyes weren’t deceiving me, it was one of the tickets I’d given her yesterday.
“Why this?”
“I’m giving it back.”
“Why are you giving it back? I told you to go with a friend.”
“There’s no one to go with.”
“Don’t tell me there isn’t a single person? You don’t have to go this week. As long as it’s before the expiration date…”
“There’s no one to go with.”
“...”
Harin just repeated the same words and paid zero attention to my advice. But why?
You have a crush, don’t you? Even if it’s completely one-sided, you should at least try once. That’s exactly what I’ve been fretting over for the past few days…
“...?”
Something felt strange. I understood her handing over the ticket because she had no one to go with.
But why only one?
I’d given her two tickets total. Naturally they were meant for Harin and her crush.
So why, while claiming she couldn’t make plans, was she only returning the crush’s ticket and keeping her own?
I really had no choice but to indulge in the most self-centered interpretation possible here. For example, the reason Harin only handed over one ticket was because she’d decided the owner of that ticket was me…
I shook my head hard.
What the hell am I thinking? She’s a minor. Worse, she’s my own daughter.
“...?”
But why would that be weird? If it were Hyunji or Eunju, sure—but a daughter asking her dad to go to an amusement park wasn’t that strange, was it?
Wasn’t this actually the result I’d wanted most? Aunt had assumed that if I gave her two tickets she’d give them to her crush, but maybe Harin had fallen for my plan and chosen me instead of the crush!
“Then do you want to go with just me?”
Peek… At those words Harin’s eyes rolled slightly. She looked as tense as a kitten in a pet shop right before being chosen by its owner.
“You said you were busy.”
“No matter how busy I am, how am I supposed to just sit still when my daughter has no one to go with and is stuck in the house all weekend? Canceling a few plans is nothing.”
“You don’t have to force yourself because of me.”
“I’m not forcing myself. The truth is I want to go with you.”
“...”
Harin fell silent for a moment. Then she rolled those innocent eyes, trying to figure out the hidden meaning in my words.
But there was no hidden meaning. Because that was exactly what I wanted most. If I could just get time with a daughter I’d never really had before, even the strange loneliness I’d been feeling lately would blow away completely.
“Do you… really have time?”
“Of course.”
“Then let’s do that.”
Leaving only those words, Harin went back to her room. I sat there for a moment, completely stunned, unable to believe the situation.
In the end everything had gone according to plan. Contrary to Aunt’s firm prediction, Harin had chosen me instead of her crush. Just that alone was enough to send a lethal dose of dopamine flooding through me and make me lose my mind.
For the first time in my life, I was going to an amusement park alone with a girl. And that girl was my daughter.