My Lime Golden Apple Tree #1
One.
Two.
Three.
Kimchi containers lay stacked on the ground, sorted by variety.
It was my mother's kimchi—the kind she made every winter—the one thing I'd been longing for all this time.
"I'm heading out."
Lee Jina, who had stacked the containers in the front yard with practiced ease, shrugged her jacket back on and was about to get into her truck.
That was when Seo Yerim, who had been staring at the whole scene with her mouth hanging open, finally melted back into motion.
"Hold on. Who exactly are you? What's your relationship with our employee, Ha Ildo?"
She called me an *employee*.
The well house was technically Telos Group property, and I was managing the place on a temporary basis, so strictly speaking, the word wasn't wrong.
Lately, a pack of overzealous reporters had been sniffing around our neighborhood, digging into the misdeeds of chaebol heirs with Lee Jeonghun as the headline act.
Seo Yerim had probably grown wary of outsiders because of that.
In fact, that was very likely the reason she hadn't shown her face at the well house these past few days.
"No need to be so on guard. Jina over here is someone you can trust."
"Someone I can trust?"
One of Seo Yerim's eyebrows arched upward.
I was marveling at how many expressions a beautiful face could make when Oinoi spoke up.
"The Kore in the rough, Lee Jina, says she is the master of this house's girlfriend…! And she says she gave this Oinoi a ride in a magnificent thing called a truck…! Her hair is also yellow, like the summer sun…!"
Oinoi's report was more or less accurate.
But it contained facts that were more than a little misleading.
"And now I'm off."
*Swish—.*
*Thunk!*
Lee Jina slammed the door of her battered delivery truck and gunned the engine with a *vrum-vrum*.
As the truck's headlights swept down the neighborhood road and the dog-squirrels barked *kong-kong, kong-kong* after it, Seo Yerim, still dazed, gave my shoulder a firm pat with her palm.
"Ha Ildo, what is this? You had a girlfriend? Nobody told me that! I was wondering why you'd gone so quiet these past few days, and it turns out you were busy getting a girlfriend? Where did you even meet her? She doesn't match you at all!"
The blonde delinquent girl.
And plain old me.
If we didn't match, we didn't match.
The only place our paths could have ever crossed was the back alley where she'd shaken me down for lunch money back in middle school.
I gave her the short version.
"We ran a few C-rank rifts together. And when I said 'girlfriend'—she's not actually my girlfriend. There were, uh, circumstances."
"Circumstances?"
Seo Yerim's face flushed so red it would've been readable even at night.
*Fwoosh—.*
Somehow, the temperature around us seemed to rise.
And Oinoi delighted in the sweltering air.
"Aaah…! It feels as though spring has drawn even nearer…! If we can maintain such a hot temperature, the Marmelo tree is certain to grow strong and tall…!"
*Squeak-squeak—.*
Sweat was beading on Oinoi's forehead as she said it.
Apparently she loved this summer-like heat.
Just then, Seo Yerim shouted, her face edged with anger.
"Hey, Ha Ildo! I told you to keep a low profile for a while…! Why didn't you listen to me…? If Telos's stock drops because of this girlfriend of yours, are you going to take responsibility? No—it's already dropping right now…!"
"Dropping? Dropping what? How much could it possibly drop?"
"Over a hundred million!"
The stock had fallen by more than a hundred million?
My head spun at the sheer size of the figure.
I wondered if the protagonist of *The Camellia Flowers*—the novel from my old textbooks—had felt this same vertigo when he was ordered to pay back for Jeom-sun's dead chicken.
As it turned out, experiencing something once really did teach you a speaker's heart far better than hearing about it a hundred times.
But I pulled myself together quickly.
"What does me dating someone have to do with stock prices?"
"Well, that's—you're technically a Telos employee, aren't you? And I come to see you all the time, so those paparazzi have probably pegged you as a core employee by now."
That sounded about right.
Seo Yerim was the idol incarnate—anywhere, in front of anyone, she drew the lights and made shutters click.
If word got out that Seo Yerim was visiting me often, everyone who needed to know already knew.
Then she added:
"Which means if you're a core employee, your girlfriend is prime bait for the reporters. Dating an ordinary person would be fine, but doesn't that woman from before look a little… intense?"
When she said *intense*, what Seo Yerim probably wanted to say was:
Doesn't she look like a total delinquent?
It was a fair point.
"Do you know how much noise there is about school violence these days? Even a congressman's kid or a chaebol's daughter gets absolutely destroyed if word gets out about a school violence record. And sure, that's a healthy social trend, but—"
I wasn't an idiot.
If anything, I was a quick study.
So, piecing Seo Yerim's words together, it came out like this:
"So if the girlfriend of someone who might be seen as a key Telos employee has a school-violence record and a delinquent past, that could spark public backlash, and that backlash becomes a risk, and the risk could land on Telos?"
At my words, Seo Yerim's face lit up.
It was as if someone had fast-forwarded the sight of spring flowers bursting from their buds into full bloom.
"Yes! That's exactly it! Ha Ildo, you really do catch on fast! I normally hate commenting on other people's love lives, but, hmph, ahem."
I understood perfectly well that Seo Yerim was worried about Telos. It was, after all, the company where her father worked—of course she'd be anxious.
To put her mind at ease, I explained the situation briefly.
"She's not a real girlfriend, just a fake one. My parents kept hounding me to get married. So we agreed to pretend I was dating someone, to have an answer ready whenever they brought it up."
"What? A fake girlfriend?"
Hearing my explanation, Seo Yerim's expression cycled through an entire gallery of looks.
Then she let out a long sigh. "Ugh. You could have just said so. Scared me half to death."
Relieved that this wasn't some corporate stock-risk crisis after all, apparently.
" honestly, if that's all it was, I could have handled it for you. Why didn't you just ask me for help?"
Seo Yerim asked.
I, of course, recoiled in horror.
"Are you kidding? If you told my mom we were dating, she'd hang a banner across the whole neighborhood! The rumors would explode! Do you think you could handle that?!"
"…What did you just say? Why would I date you? I meant I could introduce you to one of my employees as your girlfriend! Me, dating you. Do you actually think about things like that normally?"
"Heeek…! This Oinoi thought the warming weather was a blessing, but now it's gotten far too hot…. It feels as though she will become a nymph of boiling water, not a nymph of ditch water…!"
*Fwooosh—.*
The temperature around us climbed even higher.
Which meant Seo Yerim's fury—her fanning hand at her own burning cheeks—had hit its critical threshold.
I remembered something I'd heard long ago.
That sometimes, women get *angry* at being confessed to. The whole "How dare you confess to me? Do I look that easy to you?" kind of thing.
That was probably why Seo Yerim was furious.
I hadn't even confessed to her, and yet here I was, feeling rejected anyway.
"I can't stay another minute. Yu Ari sent a package—I moved it into the yard. Open it or don't, whatever!"
*Whoosh—.*
Seo Yerim sped off into the neighborhood in her electric car, so silent you couldn't even gauge its speed. Maybe because the car was so quiet, this time even the dog-squirrels didn't bark.
Electric cars really were great.
Still, I felt wronged.
"Hey! I've never once imagined dating you either!"
We lived in different worlds to begin with.
Not that she probably heard my parting shot anyway.
"The master of the house must look at this…!"
Oinoi was overjoyed as I carried the kimchi containers into the yard.
What on earth was going on?
I knelt down to meet her at eye level and saw it—a bud had formed on the sapling of the golden apple tree she'd been so devotedly raising.
"The flower is preparing to bloom…! If all goes well, we may taste the first fruit before this year is out…! Surely the tree has reacted to all that hot air just now…!"
So Seo Yerim's rage had accelerated the golden apple tree's growth?
The world really did contain the strangest miracles.
━Kong-kong…!
Keongkeongi hopped around the tree and scrambled up and down its branches.
The apple tree growing must have put him in a good mood.
I stroked his fur gently with my hand.
"Did you guard the house well today?"
━Kong-kong…!
No idea what he was saying, but I'd take it as a yes.
Looking closely, though, his fur was ruffled.
Had he gotten into a fight with someone?
Probably another dog-squirrel. This was a dog-squirrel-friendly neighborhood, after all—dog-squirrels from all over the country kept flocking here, and that meant territorial scuffles broke out all the time.
Keongkeongi, the Prime Dog-Squirrel, was fighting challengers for that top spot every single day.
━Kwang-kwang…!
Just then, a huge cry rang out from far across the rice paddies.
What kind of cry was that?
Was that even a dog-squirrel's bark? It looked enormous and thick.
━Grrr…!
Keongkeongi's fur bristled.
Then he slipped off my palm and streaked away toward the sound like an arrow.
Keongkeongi was brimming with fighting spirit, as always.
You'd have to go that far to keep the Prime Dog-Squirrel seat, I supposed.
I'd probably need to go that far myself if I wanted to become a Prime Awakener too.
I turned my head to look at Angangi, Emperor of the honey ants.
━Zeuje…!
Angangi was pulling weeds beside the apple tree and tidying up the scattered stones. Thanks to him, our flower bed was being kept beautifully—something I was grateful for.
Oinoi gathered the well's mana-rich water in her palms and sprinkled it over the apple tree with a soft *shhh*, calling out all the while.
"The nectar of the Marmelo is an exceedingly delicious thing—! Emperor Ant Angangi waits for the flowers to bloom in full…! And the honey ants' nectar is a tonic that even heroes of old delighted in drinking…! They say it enhances one's mana…!"
━Zeuzeuje…!
Oh.
I couldn't say whether it was true, but it was a pleasant story to hear.
No awakener alive would turn down a mana boost.
And I, more than anyone, had spent years desperately dreaming of enhancing my mana.
I had tried every ridiculous scheme imaginable.
"Is there a way to make the flowers bloom faster?"
I asked.
Oinoi answered.
"There is…! If you place something imbued with the power of the sun god near the tree, it will surely grow healthier and stronger—! It is said to be wonderful for raising plants…!"
Something imbued with the power of the sun god.
It didn't click right away, but then something came to mind.
There was a Fixed Rift where you could obtain an item called the Sun Stone.
Entry required C-rank or above.
And as it happened, I had just been promoted to C-rank—I was more than qualified to enter.
"Then how about I check out the Fixed Rift tomorrow? I should file an entry request in advance. The slots might be gone by the time I get there."
*Heh heh—.*
I was still mulling it over as I headed back inside—and found a package sitting in front of the door.
So this was the one Yu Ari had sent.
Come to think of it, what was Yu Ari up to these days?
Carrying the package with me, I stepped into the house.
*Tap.*
As I started to open it, a letter slipped out and fell to the floor.
"A handwritten letter, in the age of smartphones."