Chapter 40: Even the Absolute Being Is a First-Time Dad
Even the Absolute One is New to Fatherhood - Episode 40
Lee Soo-bin, now on the cusp of thirty, had lived a life far more exhausting than her peers.
Having lost her parents at a young age, she hadn't even been given the luxury of grieving—she had to adapt to reality immediately.
'Noona, I'm hungry...'
Back then, it was because of her little brother, who barely reached her waist.
She had to survive.
Because of that, it was no exaggeration to say her adolescence had been entirely consumed by desperate struggles to stay afloat.
'Please, just hire me—I'll work harder than anyone else...'
Not long after she entered high school, the death benefits from her parents ran dry.
That same day, Soo-bin got a job at a nearby fast-food joint, working shifts right after school until late at night.
She wanted to run away.
She wanted to focus on her studies like her peers, attend cram schools, and sometimes hang out with friends in the bustling downtown.
Deep down, she also wanted to sit in a pretty café and chat for hours, take sticker photos, get hair extensions, or even dye her hair.
'Noona, you're home?'
What kept her from running away was the sight of her little brother, huddled in front of the TV in their dim, cramped one-room apartment, his lonely back turned to her.
Her brother never fell asleep before she came home—he would always wait for her, staring blankly at cartoons with a dazed expression.
'Kang-jun, you must be really hungry, huh?'
'Yeah.'
'I brought hamburgers, so eat up.'
She would save the employee meals—usually hamburgers—and bring them home, only for her brother to always split them in half and share with her.
'It's good, so let's eat it together.'
The stubborn endurance of those days had left calluses on her heart.
Twenty-nine.
Now, life had molded her into someone unassuming, frugal, yet tough and unyielding.
She would fill empty shampoo bottles with water to squeeze out the very last drop, and she'd press toothpaste tubes flat to get every bit out.
Every time she went grocery shopping, her mind raced with calculations, always feeling like she was being chased.
The world had relentlessly, ruthlessly forced her to live that way.
Tap, tap, tap-tap...
And now, she sat like a woman possessed, mindlessly poking her chopsticks into the rice in her bowl.
Ever since she found out that the lottery ticket her brother had bought on a whim had won the grand prize...
Soo-bin couldn't stop the flood of thoughts, sinking deeper and deeper into contemplation.
'The prize is 1.5 billion won...'
Even after deducting 33% in taxes, she would still receive over a billion won.
—1,000,000,000￦
For someone as ordinary as her, it was an unimaginable sum—one she could never have dreamed of seeing in her lifetime.
Even if she saved a million won every single month, it would take her 83 years and 3 months to amass a billion.
"Uh, my lady...?"
Crabsley cautiously called out to Soo-bin, who was still blankly stabbing innocent grains of rice with her chopsticks.
One...
Soo-bin didn't even seem to hear him. Instead, she pinched her own cheek hard.
"Ow..."
"My lady...?"
"It hurts..."
Then, Soo-bin suddenly whipped her head around and stared at Kang-jun, who was too busy slurping down stew broth to pay attention.
"Kang-jun, hold on."
"Hm?"
"We need to talk."
Grabbing his wrist, she dragged him all the way to her room, locked the door, and finally spoke.
"Kang-jun, about that lottery ticket you bought."
"Yeah."
"I think... it might have won the grand prize."
"Oh, really?" Kang-jun casually replied before nodding a few times. "That's great."
"That's it?"
"What else?"
Soo-bin's eyes widened as she began rambling.
"No, no—you just beat odds of 1 in 8,145,060! And your reaction is just... lukewarm?!"
"Guess I got lucky."
"And the estimated prize is over a billion won! With my salary, even if I'd started saving back in the Joseon Dynasty, I'd never—"
As she babbled out the calculations she'd done in her head—
"You take the money, Noona."
"What?"
"I don't need it."
Silence hung in the air for a moment.
"You once told me that if you just had a billion won, you could live the life you've always dreamed of."
"Kang-jun..."
"Honestly, I'm already living the life I dreamed of. So now... it's your turn."
His words were so touching, so precious, that Soo-bin couldn't bring herself to speak. She could only bite her lower lip.
'If I really had that much money, the first thing I'd do is move to a safer neighborhood...'
'And then?'
'Hmm... Quit the factory job, maybe? Until I find something better, I'd just focus on raising Seol.'
Back when Kang-jun had just returned, they'd exchanged those words almost absentmindedly.
Now, Soo-bin dredged up the rest of that conversation from the depths of her memory.
'I'll figure something out.'
'Huh?'
'About the billion won.'
She never could have imagined that her brother had kept those passing words close to his heart all this time.
"Kang-jun, even so..."
Kang-jun replied in a deliberately brusque tone.
"If you won't take it, just give me back the ticket. I'll tear it to shreds and throw it in the street."
Then, more seriously, he added:
"Like I said—I don't need that piece of paper for my dreams."
"Kang-jun..."
"The life I'm living now is the one I've always wanted."
Soo-bin's eyes trembled.
"So now... it's your turn."
Countless people say that happiness can't be bought with something as trivial as money.
Kang-jun believed that cliché was half-right and half-wrong.
Money might not buy happiness, but it could easily prevent most misfortunes.
And so—
If the price was reducing his family's suffering, he was willing to pay any amount.
"Noona, do you remember your dreams?"
Soo-bin's lips twitched before she hesitantly answered.
"Well... I don't think I ever really had any dreams..."
Kang-jun shook his head.
"See, that's what I mean."
When she was little, her dream had been to become a writer.
Back in those dark, tunnel-like days in their one-room apartment—
He had once found a manuscript of a novel she'd written, hidden in the closet.
—Lovers of the Seine.
Even now, he could still picture the tiny, cramped handwriting filling dozens of pages.
He remembered reading it aloud, watching her face flush red with embarrassment.
After she started working part-time, she never picked up a pen again. He also remembered her using the money for manuscript paper to buy him snacks instead.
At first, her dream had made him feel oddly warm. But at some point, it just made him unbearably sad.
The girl who had once written romance novels while imagining the Seine—a river she'd never even seen—had grown up too fast.
Crushed by the weight of reality, cowed by poverty, she had grown so harshly that she'd even forgotten her dreams.
And yet, the way she had grown so beautifully, so kindly, only made his heart ache more.
"Noona, you've never put yourself first. So isn't it okay to be a little selfish now?"
No matter what dream she chose, he would support her silently. But he desperately wished that, at the very least, she would be at the center of it.
He never wanted to think of the word sacrifice and see her face again.
He just wanted her, from now on, to live like any ordinary person her age—free from worry, crying sometimes but smiling as much as possible.
"I'm overstepping."
Kang-jun spoke softly, gave her shoulder a light pat, and stood up to leave.
"Anyway... let's be happy."
At those words, Soo-bin's head finally dropped.
Her slender shoulders began to tremble slightly...
And Kang-jun pretended not to notice as he quietly stepped out and closed the door behind him.
"Huuuuhk...!"
The sobs that leaked through her tightly pressed lips were unbearably sorrowful.
A whirlwind of emotions raged inside her.
Ridiculously, the clearest of them all was guilt.
'Kang-jun, no matter how hard it gets, we'll endure. Don't ever give up, don't ever run away—no matter how tough, we'll make it through...'
She remembered now—those words she had once said to comfort her little brother had really been meant for herself.
The memory of wanting to run away, leaving her little brother behind, was so painful she could hardly bear it.
And so, on the cusp of thirty, Lee Soo-bin finally broke down and wept like a child.
This really was all the world's fault.
And outside the window, thick snowflakes began to fall.
Unaware.
Late at night, when the entire family had fallen asleep.
Tick, tock—
The only sound in the house was the ticking of the clock.
"Hm."
Kang-jun carefully opened the bedroom door and peeked in at his sister and daughter, fast asleep in each other's arms.
Seol had vowed to stay awake tonight to meet Santa, but that determination had crumbled instantly in the face of sleep.
And his sister—after he left her, she must have cried herself to exhaustion, because her eyes were swollen as she slept.
"My liege..."
Crabsley approached from behind, kneeling on one knee before speaking.
"Together with Lord Iriel, we have successfully located the stronghold of 'Aldebaran' and its followers."
Kang-jun's gaze lingered on the sleeping faces of his sister and daughter.
This was good.
Just looking at them filled his chest with a tickling warmth—these small, ordinary days spent with them...
This life, which seemed like it would only grow happier from here, was more than enough.
And if anyone dared to disrupt it—whoever they were—he wouldn't hesitate to kill them.
In the cruelest way imaginable.