Chapter 174: Overlapping Shadows (5)
Chapter 174: Overlapping Shadows (5)
The spoon remained motionless in the soup. Jo Minjoon’s hands were trembling, and so were his eyes. He stared at Kaya in disbelief, while she avoided his gaze for a moment before finally gathering enough courage to look him straight in the eye.
“I told you. When we met again, there was something I wanted to tell you.”
“…I just didn’t expect it to happen this suddenly.”
“I hope you’re not thinking something stupid like the man is supposed to confess first. If you’re about to say something outdated and tacky like that, don’t. I’ll kick you in the shin.”
As she spoke, Kaya began playing footsie with him beneath the table. The tip of her high heel slid along his shin, only for her expression to twist almost immediately.
“Your leg hair feels weird.”
“I really don’t think that’s what you should be saying in this atmosphere. And I—”
“Wait.”
The moment Jo Minjoon’s expression turned serious, Kaya held up a finger to stop him. Then she reached forward, pinched his lips between her fingers, tugged them lightly, and let go.
“If what you’re about to say is your answer to my confession, then think very carefully before you say it. This is going to be a moment I remember for the rest of my life. If your answer is ordinary, I won’t forgive you.”
“…You expect me to come up with something incredible on the spot?”
“Yes. It’s your homework. Since you brought it up, figure it out. But your deadline is today. If you don’t answer before the end of the day…”
Kaya’s foot brushed against Jo Minjoon’s shin again. This time, there was a seductive smile on her face.
“I’ll punish you.”
“Don’t I look strange?”
“I already told you. You look pretty.”
“I don’t want to look pretty. I want to look confident and cool. Not childish, not shabby, and at least a little intelligent.”
Kaya spoke while studying herself in the mirror. She was wearing clothes she would not normally choose: black trousers, a thin white dress shirt, and a black jacket over the top. After examining herself from several angles, she turned anxiously towards the stylist beside her.
“Is this too much? Was the dress from earlier better?”
“Kaya, like I said, no matter what you wear, your father is going to look at you fondly. And in the first place, why does the outfit matter? The important thing is that you’re going to meet him.”
“That doesn’t sound like something a stylist should say.”
“I don’t know. Even a stylist starts saying things like that after someone changes clothes ten times.”
Marilyn sighed as she answered.
Jo Minjoon looked at her apologetically. “I’m sorry for calling you over for something personal…”
“Kaya’s personal life is part of my work. You don’t need to worry about that. Let her agonise over herself for a while. We should deal with you first, Minjoon. You can’t go dressed like that.”
Jo Minjoon looked down at his T-shirt and shorts. He was not going to some formal marriage meeting, but even so, it was hardly suitable clothing for meeting Kaya’s biological father for the first time.
Marilyn handed him a white T-shirt and a casual beige sports jacket.
“Something semi-formal will be better than looking too stiff. I’m sure he’s nervous too.”
“Thank you. But you carry men’s clothes as well?”
“I stole them from Kaya’s agent. Fortunately, the two of you are about the same size.”
Jo Minjoon could not tell whether she was joking. He gave her an awkward smile, took the clothes, and went into the other room to change.
By the time he came back out, Kaya seemed to have settled on the formal outfit after all. Her curly hair fell loose over her shoulders and back, and her make-up was clean and restrained. For once, she had abandoned the heavy smoky eye make-up she usually insisted on. She still wore a mask, but it suited the outfit so well that it looked almost like part of the styling.
Jo Minjoon smiled brightly.
“You look pretty.”
“I know.”
Kaya answered as though it were obvious and headed for the door.
Jo Minjoon had briefly worried about how they would get there without a car, but the concern proved unnecessary. Before they had even fully left the hotel, a van pulled smoothly up in front of them.
The driver lowered the window.
“Get in. Kaya, Minjoon. I’ll take you there.”
Kaya eyed him suspiciously. “What’s this? You’re being unusually nice.”
“I’m always nice.”
“…I’m not going to argue today. Even talking is draining me.”
She was clearly becoming more nervous as the meeting approached. Once they were in the van, Kaya gripped Jo Minjoon’s hand tightly and did not let go.
“What was I going to say first again? ‘Who do you think you are?’ No, that was the second line. ‘Don’t think I came here because I wanted to see you.’ That was it.” She frowned. “…But that sounds strange. Doesn’t it make it sound like I actually did come because I wanted to see him?”
“Just say whatever you genuinely want to say, Kaya.”
“I’m not good with words. I already told you. If I just say whatever comes into my head, I’ll stumble over everything. I don’t want him seeing me unable to speak properly.”
“You’d still look pretty even if you stumbled over your words. I’m sure your father would think so too.”
The moment Jo Minjoon finished, a strange choking cough came from the driver’s seat. Agent Jang coughed repeatedly as though something had gone down the wrong way.
Kaya glared at the back of his head.
“What? What’s the problem?”
“Nothing. Martin told me the two of you were unbearably cheesy, but I didn’t realise it was this bad.”
“Don’t make fun of my potential boyfriend. I’ll get angry.”
“Potential boyfriend? What kind of ambiguous status is that? ‘Potential husband’ would make more sense.”
“Minjoon still hasn’t answered my confession, so I can’t call him my boyfriend yet. And potential husband sounds fine too. I plan to marry Minjoon.”
This time it was Jo Minjoon who started coughing.
His fit was louder and lasted much longer than Agent Jang’s.
Kaya stared at him.
“Why are you so surprised?”
“…Because you keep saying things I’m not prepared for.”
“What’s so unexpected? Are you planning to date me without thinking about marriage?”
“That’s not what I mean…”
“I’m going to marry you. I told you already, Korea is dangerous. I even asked people online about it. Everyone thinks Korea is safe, but in reality it’s really dangerous. Just stay in America with me.”
Jo Minjoon’s face turned scarlet. He opened and closed his mouth without producing a proper answer, and merely imagining Agent Jang’s expression in the driver’s seat made the heat in his face worse.
Fortunately, the van stopped before Kaya could continue.
Agent Jang looked back.
“Time to get out. We’re here.”
“Jang, you’re not coming with us, are you?”
“Why would I? Have fun.”
After they stepped out, Jo Minjoon watched the van pull away.
“Jang seems like a nice person.”
“Nice person, my ass. He’ll do anything if it means squeezing one more bit of work out of me. He’s terrible…”
Kaya suddenly stopped talking.
Her eyes had shifted towards the side of the street and gone completely still.
It was almost as though time had stopped with her.
Jo Minjoon followed her gaze and saw a large luxury sedan parked a short distance away. When a white man opened the door and stepped out, he understood immediately.
That was Kaya’s father.
The man had the same black hair and blue eyes as Kaya, but what struck Jo Minjoon most was something harder to define.
Even the atmosphere around him feels… expensive.
It was not merely the car or his clothes. The man himself carried the polished air of someone accustomed to wealth and success.
No wonder Kaya was nervous.
She had known he probably was not struggling financially after learning that he lived in Orange County, but she clearly had not expected him to appear quite this refined.
That was not the only reason her composure had broken. Kaya had expected to meet her father after entering the café. She had never imagined that they would run into each other outside first.
Bruce Croft looked equally uneasy.
He hesitated for a moment, then approached Kaya and slowly opened his arms.
Kaya immediately stepped back, her eyes sharpening.
“Don’t come any closer.”
“…I’m sorry.”
“Don’t act sorry either. Let’s go inside. I’m not here to hug you. That isn’t why I came.”
She sounded tough, but Jo Minjoon could feel the trembling in the hand he was holding. He could not tell whether it came from anger or fear.
All he could do was tighten his grip.
Even after they entered the café, neither Kaya nor Bruce seemed able to begin.
Jo Minjoon briefly wondered whether he should say something to ease the tension, but decided against it. If he tried to smooth over the awkwardness before they had even addressed the resentment built up over eighteen years, he might only make Kaya’s emotions harder to untangle.
In the end, Bruce spoke first.
“You look a lot like your younger sister.”
“…That’s what you say after seeing your daughter for the first time in twenty—no, eighteen years? ‘You look like your younger sister’? Are you trying to remind me that we’re related by blood?”
“I’m sorry. I understand why you’re angry. I practised what I wanted to say to you many times, but now that I’m actually sitting in front of you, all I seem capable of saying are stupid things.”
It did not sound fake.
Every word carried so much regret that even Jo Minjoon, who was only listening from the side, felt his chest tighten.
Kaya heard it too.
And she hated that she did.
She had wanted him to be terrible. After abandoning her for eighteen years, she wanted him to be someone she could unload every grievance onto without feeling the slightest guilt.
But would that truly have made her happier?
She had no answer.
Her frustration naturally made her voice rise.
“Why did you disappear? Why weren’t you there? I really thought you’d turn out to be some worthless person, but I was wrong. Anyone looking at you would think you were some successful CEO.”
Her voice trembled, but she did not stop.
“Do you know how we lived without you? Mum’s health kept getting worse, and every day I had to watch her struggle. While my friends were walking around holding their fathers’ hands and having fun, I was picking spoiled fruit out of piles because that was what we could afford.”
Kaya’s fingers tightened around Jo Minjoon’s.
“How could you do that? Your daughter. Your family. How could you just throw us away?”
Perhaps it was fortunate that she had a cold. Otherwise, she might have been screaming at the top of her lungs.
Bruce lowered his eyes.
“At the time, I was being chased by debt. If I had stayed, I wouldn’t have protected you or your mother. I would only have dragged both of you down with me. Please don’t take that as an excuse. I know I was a terrible father. You grew up without one because I wasn’t strong enough to face what I had done, and there’s nothing I can say that makes that decision right.”
He paused before continuing.
“But I never threw you away in my heart. I thought about you constantly. I missed you. I kept telling myself that once I succeeded, I would find you, and I worked as though my life depended on it. Looking back now… I suppose even that was selfish. I decided by myself when I was allowed to come back into your life.”
That was what infuriated Kaya most.
Bruce’s answers were far too mature, and every explanation contained enough reason that she could not simply dismiss it.
She hated it.
She wanted to shout more. She wanted to be angrier.
But Bruce was a far better person than the one she had imagined for all those years.
“How hard your mother must have worked, I can understand just from looking at you,” Bruce said quietly. “You grew up so well. That only makes me feel more ashamed. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry you had to grow up without even knowing who your father was.”
Kaya’s gaze did not soften.
She would not allow it to.
For eighteen years, she had lived longing for a father she had never met. She had imagined him, thought about him, and even loved the father who existed only inside her head.
Perhaps that was precisely why this hurt so much.
She was immensely grateful for the mask hiding the lower half of her face.
Her questions continued.
Some she repeated more than once. Others dredged up old hurts she barely even remembered clearly, such as school events and parent-child activities she had watched other families attend without her.
And every time, Bruce answered in a way that made him seem painfully reasonable.
He was a good person.
Far better than Kaya had expected.
After a long while, Jo Minjoon finally put an arm gently around Kaya’s shoulders.
“Kaya. Try to calm down and look at the person sitting in front of you. At least from what I can see, your father is a good person. Better than I was hoping he’d be.”
“…Whose side are you on?”
“Yours, obviously. I’m saying this because I’m on your side.” Jo Minjoon kept his voice soft. “Hating someone is exhausting. Your father… try to understand where he was coming from.”
In truth, by the time Jo Minjoon said it, Kaya had already begun to accept Bruce.
He had not been a good father.
But he was not a bad person either.
And she understood, at least partly, why he had made the choices he had.
Slowly, Kaya pulled her mask down from her mouth.
To Bruce, the gesture felt almost like watching the wall between them lower.
“…Fine. I’ll accept that. I’ll try to understand your side. I’m not saying I completely forgive you, but… I won’t keep blaming you forever. There is one thing I want, though.”
“Tell me. If it’s something I can do, I’ll do anything. What is it?”
“There’s something I’ve always been jealous of.” Kaya hesitated before continuing. “Families going out to eat together. Mum and my little sister will be coming to Los Angeles soon. When they do, have dinner with us. With my family… I want to have a meal with my family.”
Bruce’s face tightened with emotion.
“…All right. Let’s do that. I’ll make sure I’m there. Call me whenever you’re ready.”
Being asked to sit down with Kaya’s mother could hardly have been easy for him, but he did not refuse.
Kaya abruptly stood.
“Stand up.”
“Hmm? Ah, I’m sorry. I took too much of your time.”
“No. That’s not what I mean. Just stand up.”
Bruce rose with a confused expression.
Kaya bit her lip, hesitated for only a moment, then slowly stepped towards him and wrapped her arms around him.
Bruce froze in shock.
Kaya held him tightly and whispered,
“…I think I can hug you now, Dad.”
After Bruce left, Kaya and Jo Minjoon remained sitting quietly in the café where the three of them had talked.
They did not need any special conversation.
Every so often, Kaya would suddenly laugh for no obvious reason. Then her nose would redden and she would sniffle, and sometimes the tears would begin again. Whenever they did, Jo Minjoon simply patted her shoulder or held her hand.
After a long while, Kaya finally spoke.
“…Thank you. For staying with me.”
“I’m your boyfriend.”
“You still haven’t finished your homework. You’re only a potential boyfriend. Potential.”
“That homework… I think I can answer it now.”
Kaya turned towards him.
Her eyes and nose were red from crying. It was the sort of face that made him want to pull her into his arms without saying anything.
She sniffled.
“Are you confident? Your answer has to be amazing.”
“The foundation of any speech is sincerity.”
“Then show me. If it’s good enough, I’ll remove the ‘potential’ part.”
Jo Minjoon smiled and looked directly at her.
Kaya’s eyes darted away nervously for a moment, but she quickly forced herself to meet his gaze again, stubbornly refusing to be the first one to look away.
Then Jo Minjoon slowly leaned towards her.
Kaya’s eyes widened. She hurriedly tugged the mask up over her lips and shook her head.
“No. I think I know what you’re trying to do, but no. You’ll catch my—”
She never finished.
Jo Minjoon gently pressed his lips against the mask covering hers.
Their warm breaths mingled through the thin layer of fabric between them. The cloth separated their mouths, yet somehow the softness and warmth of the other person’s lips still felt startlingly clear.
Kaya’s eyes went completely round, trembling like those of a startled rabbit.
Jo Minjoon raised one hand and gently caressed her cheek. Then he lowered the mask from between them, allowing their breaths to warm each other’s lips directly.
He smiled.
“I already caught your cold.”
Their shadows merged into one.