Something Precious
Something Precious
No matter the circumstances, time never stops flowing.
"You can have snacks, but after you eat them—"
"Yes~ I'll brush my teeth, definitely."
Living with a young child, especially, makes that flow feel several times faster.
Baek Woo-jin gazed down at Baek Ha-na, who had come out to the front door to see him off with a beaming smile.
Baek Ha-na, who had turned three this year.
The child who once barely reached his navel had now grown all the way to just under his chest.
Her squeezably soft baby fat had all melted away, and her once-vacant eyes were gradually settling into a cooler, sharper look.
Baek Woo-jin glanced briefly at the two girls standing behind Baek Ha-na, then turned away. Claire, who had been at his side, addressed the two girls.
"Don't cause any trouble."
"Yes, Executor."
"Do we still look like children to you?"
Claire shot a brief glare at the girl who had answered second, then shifted her gaze to Baek Ha-na.
"......Miss Ha-na. Don't stay up too late—"
"Big Sis, you go quickly too. Woo-jin will be waiting."
"......Yes."
Claire was pushed out the door by Baek Ha-na.
Only after both adults had left did Baek Ha-na close the front door and turn around. And then she started giggling.
"Uhehe."
"Uhehehe."
"......How many times have I told you two not to laugh like that."
A girl with a beige bob cut, Maria, frowned at her two friends who were laughing like fools, their ages forgotten.
Beside Maria stood another girl with pink hair. Idni patted Maria on the back with a thump-thump and retorted.
"We're the only ones here, so why are you being so strict?"
"Yeah. Maria's an old soul."
"You...... I told you not to say that."
Maria snarled fiercely at Baek Ha-na for using the words 'old soul.' But her face was so naturally gentle that it wasn't the least bit threatening, so Baek Ha-na just grinned and walked over, linking arms with her.
"Woo-jin said if you do that, you'll get wrinkles on your face."
"......That's because of you, you know?"
"Yeah. Sorry. So let's just go to the room already."
Maria glared at Baek Ha-na's grinning face, then eventually let out a short sigh and nodded.
Idni, who had been watching this, slipped over and hugged Maria's other arm, smirking.
"What."
"Nothing. Just thinking you still can't win against Ha-na."
"......Hmph."
Maria didn't deny it.
Because it was true.
Like that, the three girls passed through the long hallway and entered Baek Ha-na's room.
"I'll go get us something to eat."
"Cherry Sparkling for me~"
"......Need help?"
Idni, who had flopped onto the bed, called out her drink order, and Maria quietly stood up, intending to follow Baek Ha-na.
"Nope~ It's fine, so just pull out anything and read."
Leaving her two friends behind, Baek Ha-na left the room and headed to the kitchen. She opened the cupboard with ease, no longer needing the step stool meant for children.
Since she had been steadily stocking up, the cupboard was crammed full of all kinds of snacks.
She picked out a few that her friends would like and placed them on a tray.
"...I wanted to go too."
As she took drinks out of the refrigerator, Baek Ha-na thought of Baek Woo-jin and grumbled quietly.
Baek Woo-jin had always taken her with him whenever he had to go somewhere. But today was different.
-I'll be back by lunchtime tomorrow.
Those were his only words.
Baek Woo-jin hadn't told Baek Ha-na where he was going. Or why he had to go. Instead, he had only given her permission to bring her friends over to sleep.
"He only took Big Sis Claire...... so unfair."
After placing all the snacks and drinks on the tray, Baek Ha-na thought of Claire, who had gone with Baek Woo-jin, and pouted her lips.
A little eccentric, but a truly good person.
Baek Ha-na liked Claire the most after Baek Woo-jin.
But sometimes.
Whenever she saw her at Baek Woo-jin's side, her chest would ache in a strange way.
Especially when she imagined them together in a space where she wasn't present. Just like right now.
"Hoo."
Feeling the tightness in her chest, Baek Ha-na quickly exhaled deeply to calm herself, then took the tray and returned to the room.
"What the. Where's the Cherry Sparkling?"
"Shut up and just drink it, you brat."
Baek Ha-na giggled at the two of them.
The private school run by the Temple of the God of Amusement.
Those two were friends she had made there.
Originally, it was a place where only the children of priests or holy knights who had died in the line of duty could attend, but thanks to Claire's consideration, Baek Ha-na had been able to transfer there last year.
"So."
"Hm?"
Idni, who had been rubbing the back Maria had hit, wiped the smile completely off her face and asked Baek Ha-na.
"When are you going to tell us about the professor?"
"......."
"......."
At Idni's question, not only Baek Ha-na but also Maria, who was sitting beside her, narrowed her eyes and shot a look at Idni.
"Wh-what. Why are you both looking at me like that?! Did I ask something weird?"
Idni was flustered.
Baek Ha-na unwrapped a children's chocolate from the tray and said to her.
"I told you yesterday, if it's about that, you can just pick anything off the shelf and read it."
A bookshelf larger than her bed.
It was crammed full of the journals Baek Ha-na had kept over the years.
At Baek Ha-na's answer, Idni flopped down onto the bed and grumbled.
"No, but. Why would you read it on paper when you have a friend right next to you who can tell you vividly? Right?"
"Yeah. Not right."
Maria smacked Idni on the forehead as she lay sprawled out, then rose from her seat. She walked over to the bookshelf, stroked the tightly packed journals, and asked Baek Ha-na.
"The one here is the first one you wrote, right?"
"Yeah. That's right."
Maria pulled out the journal on the very top and perched on the bed. Then Idni, who had been smacked on the forehead, shot upright and rested her chin on Maria's shoulder.
Idni had been about to say something, but her friend seemed to have made up her mind, so she instead wrapped herself around her tightly, arms and legs clinging like a sloth. Maria shook her head and opened the journal.
"Pfft......!!"
"......You're spitting!"
The one who burst out in a short laugh was Idni, and the one who yelled was Maria.
Idni chuckled a bit more, then barely managed to catch her breath and said.
"No, but... isn't this too terrible?"
"Yeah~ Woo-jin praised me for it."
"......This? The professor did?"
At Baek Ha-na's answer, Idni's eyes went round as she stared in horror at the wriggling letters that looked like worms crawling around.
To praise such illegible writing.
"......The professor must really, really like you."
"He does. Woo-jin likes me."
At Idni's words, Baek Ha-na grinned while munching on her children's chocolate.
Leaving Baek Ha-na to herself, the two flipped through the journal a few times before closing it and speaking.
"......Ha-na. I don't think I can read this after all."
"Yeah. How are you supposed to read this?"
"Then read a different one."
At their half-serious complaints, Baek Ha-na shrugged her shoulders and began unwrapping the next chocolate.
The two watching this shook their heads briefly, then rose from the bed together, fetched the journals in order, and started opening them. Fortunately, it didn't take long to find a readable section.
That was because Baek Ha-na's handwriting had improved at an astonishing pace.
As soon as they discovered a legible part, the two perched back on the bed and quietly began to read Baek Ha-na's journal.
The biggest reason these two had visited today was that they wanted to know about the man named Baek Woo-jin, whom even Claire, the highest-ranking person in the temple, couldn't defy.
Seeing her two friends intently reading her journal, Baek Ha-na nibbled on her chocolate like a squirrel.
She had hidden the journals containing her private memories with Baek Woo-jin—the ones she didn't want to share—in a different place, so she had nothing to feel awkward about.
Things like how they still slept in the same bed three times a week, for instance.
"But Ha-na."
"What?"
Idni, who had been reading the journal intently for a long while, raised her head.
"The professor isn't here right now."
"So?"
"So, wouldn't he not know if we sneaked a peek at that notebook you said he writes in every day in his study?"
No sooner had Idni finished speaking than Maria, reading the journal beside her, raised her head and glared at her.
"Hey. Did you forget the Executor told us not to cause trouble?"
"How is that trouble? It's just a little peek. And don't you know the saying, 'It's not a crime if you don't get caught'?"
"What if you do get caught?"
"In that case..."
Idni's eyes swiveled over to Baek Ha-na.
"Wouldn't Ha-na just get a light flick on the forehead?"
Because according to the diary, no matter what Baek Ha-na did, Baek Woo-jin had never seriously scolded her.
A flick on the forehead or a pinch on the cheek was about the extent of it.
The Baek Woo-jin depicted in the diary displayed an oddly soft side when it came to Baek Ha-na.
"Uh, Ha-na?"
"...Hm?"
Having heard Idni's suggestion, Baek Ha-na—who'd been mulling over raiding Baek Woo-jin's study—quickly lifted her head at Maria's call.
"Have you... ever actually seen the professor get angry?"
"Woo-jin, angry?"
"Yeah. The diary didn't mention him getting genuinely angry even when you caused trouble."
"Yeah. Woo-jin can't get angry at me."
"Then let's raid the study..."
Smack—!!
"Kyaak?!"
"I told you to sit still!!"
Having been struck in the exact same spot as the first hit, down to the millimeter, Idni let out a silent wail.
Ignoring Idni, who was writhing beside her like a bug, Maria turned back to Baek Ha-na.
"You've really never seen the professor angry?"
"Uhm..."
Maria's persistence on the subject had a simple reason.
She too was curious about the study Baek Woo-jin used.
"I have... seen Woo-jin get angry before."
"Oh?"
"Yeah."
"At you?"
"No. It wasn't at me..."
Baek Ha-na fell quiet for a moment.
The day Baek Woo-jin had genuinely been enraged.
It happened last year.
Baek Woo-jin had originally intended to send Baek Ha-na to the private school operated by the Temple of the God of Amusement. But Baek Ha-na refused.
The reason was simple.
It bothered her—being treated too specially.
So she stubbornly insisted, and ended up transferring into the second year of an ordinary middle school near the academy. Kim Seong-won, head of the Finance Department, handled the arrangements.
Her first day of school.
She rode in Claire's car, wearing transparent glasses, heading to the faculty office.
She already knew how to conduct herself. She'd heard it all from the sisters at the temple, and Claire had explained it as well. She didn't make any mistakes.
She followed her homeroom teacher to the classroom, gave a brief introduction, and fit in well enough.
The students asked a lot of questions because of her unusual hair and eyes, but she thought they were all kind, good kids.
Then, exactly on her third day of school.
A group of female classmates from another class surrounded her. They were saying something, pointing at the ring on her left hand, insisting it violated school rules, trying to take it.
The ring on her left hand.
It was a precious ring Baek Woo-jin himself had placed there on her very first birthday.
So she resisted.
And that became the problem.
Unlike herself, who was perfectly fine, the classmates who had tried to steal the ring ended up battered and bruised.
Compared to the sisters at the temple, those classmates were so fragile it felt embarrassing to even make the comparison. And that had caused her to misjudge her strength.
That afternoon, she missed class and was called to the faculty office. Waiting for her there were the parents of the classmates she'd injured.
It was the first time she learned how loud and chaotic malice could be—and what an agonizing thing it was to have to endure someone's spite head-on.
Vicious insults and outright hostility.
It's fine. I can endure this.
But.
[So they say she's an orphan without parents, and just look at her face—makes it real clear what her guardian was thinking when he took her in. Ugh, so trashy, for real.]
She could not endure them insulting the person who had saved her.
[This little bitch made a wreck of my daughter and now she's glaring like she's proud of it?!]
A hand swung upward.
It came down, aimed exactly at her face.
[Uh, uh...?]
But that palm never touched her face.
A broad, huge back she'd seen every single night.
The black coat she always saw.
【Baek Ha-na.】
In that place brimming with malice, the one warm voice that embraced her.
【Claire. Take her out of here.】
She was pulled by Claire's hand—when had she gotten there?—and taken out of the office. And through the closing door, one single phrase leaked out.
—How dare you...
A voice she'd never heard before. Frigid, icy, utterly cold.
She didn't know what happened afterward.
But she did remember what Claire said as she held her hand and walked away.
[Ha-na. The professor is a far more incredible person than you realize. And that incredible professor values you above anything else. So if you truly believe you didn't do something wrong, don't bow your head.]
She couldn't remember how she'd responded. She only remembered that she didn't say a single word after returning home—not through dinner, not until bedtime.
And that for the first time, she cried while held in Baek Woo-jin's arms.
"Ha-na?"
"Huh?"
At the sound of Maria's voice, Baek Ha-na shook off the memories and snapped back to the present.
"What were you thinking about that made your face go all red?"
"N-no, nothing."
She shook her head at Idni's question, which came with a distinctly unpleasant grin.
Her face was red?
Must've been because she remembered crying in Baek Woo-jin's arms.
"Anyway. Are we raiding the study or not?"
"...Let's go."
At Idni's repeated question, Baek Ha-na sprang up from her seat.
"Wait, really...?"
Idni—the one who'd brought up the idea in the first place—looked flustered by Baek Ha-na's decisive action and asked again.
"Yeah. Really. If you don't want to, you two can stay here."
Leaving those words behind, Baek Ha-na didn't even wait for a response, turning and walking out of the room.
Only then did Idni and Maria realize Baek Ha-na was serious. They scrambled off the bed and hurried after her toward the study.
Click—
The firmly closed study door swung open. The three girls swallowed dryly and stepped into the unoccupied space.
A subtle, pleasant fragrance greeted their noses.
"Sniff sniff... Haaah~ What is this place? Smells amazing."
"Seriously. I can't quite put my finger on the scent, but it's incredibly calming."
"Nice, right?"
The inexplicably soothing aroma made all three girls stand there flaring their nostrils, completely forgetting their original objective for a while.
"Ah..."
After a short while, Baek Ha-na—who had built up the most tolerance to the scent—was the first to snap out of it. Maria followed, and then Idni, who was brought back to reality by a smack to the back from Maria.
"But... is this really okay?"
"Dunno. If it's not, we can all just get scolded together later."
"Hey!! You might get scolded by the professor, but we're gonna get..."
An icy gaze, cold enough to chill the bone—Claire's stare.
"Ugh... gives me the creeps."
Idni shuddered, hugging herself. Baek Ha-na ignored her and plopped herself down on the chair Baek Woo-jin always used. Maria settled in beside her.
Idni—who, contrary to expectations, fretted the most—hesitantly hovered next to Maria.
"So, I'm opening it?"
Gulp—
At the sound of someone swallowing, Baek Ha-na slowly pulled open the desk drawer.
Inside the drawer now exposed.
A single notebook and Ha-na's journal sat there.
The kind of plain notebook you could easily pick up at any store.
But this notebook was stored inside a special glass case lined with fine cushioning.
Whereas the journal, made of high-quality leather, was simply left sitting in the drawer on its own.
"Is this—"
Thwack—!!
The moment Maria reached for the notebook in the glass case, Baek Ha-na slammed the drawer shut.
And then.
"Out!! Let's go!!"
She shot up from the chair and shouted.
"Wait, what... Ow!!"
"H-hold on, Ha-na!! That hurts!!"
"Out!! This really is a bad thing to do!!"
Baek Ha-na slapped Maria and Idni on the back, herding them out of the study. Ultimately, the two of them gained nothing and were forcibly dragged back to her room.
"Ugh... why'd you even say let's go if you were gonna do this."
"Hey. Ha-na."
The moment they re-entered the room, both of them called out to Baek Ha-na. But she had flopped down onto her bed and was humming a weird, dreamy tune.
She didn't answer. She just kept tapping her feet against her bottom and humming to herself.
The plain notebook inside the glass case.
It was the very first notebook where she had learned to write from Baek Woo-jin—the one she'd used to scribble his name.
He'd kept it like some precious treasure, plain for anyone to see.
"Eheheh..."
"Well, would you look at that."
"What's with her, seriously?"
The two girls exchanged a shrug as they watched Baek Ha-na grin like an idiot.