Year-End Donation (3)
Year-End Donation (3)
"It's Seong-hwan oppa."
"Oppa~"
"Have you all been doing well?"
Whether they meant to act spoiled or not, I stroked my younger sisters' hair as they clung to me, their voices tinged with a whine.
They hadn't come outside until all the stuff had been moved,
so I was a little disappointed. But the Director or Mom probably told them not to come out until everything was finished.
But still, they were in middle school now,
and their desire to be babied was no different from before.
"Where did the others go?"
"They took the boys and went to a PC bang."
"A PC bang? Now that you mention it, maybe I should have grabbed a few computers too."
It wasn't that we didn't have computers here, but their specs
probably weren't good enough to run proper games.
Instead of wasting money at a PC bang,
having a few computers here would save money and be a good thing.
"Well, it's not super urgent anyway."
"Then oppa, hug me."
"Come here."
I hugged my younger sisters, who were now completely grown up, one by one.
Seeing my siblings blushing and grinning broadly, I wondered what was so great about being held by me,
and a wry smile crept onto my face.
"Oppa bought lots of delicious food, so eat up."
"Delicious food!"
As expected, girls seemed to like delicious food the best.
Since things like meat could be kept for a long time if frozen,
I had bought a ton of it at Costco.
I had told Mom and the Director not to skimp and to eat heartily.
I had spoken to the Director and asked her to arrange for meat to be delivered to the orphanage
on the first of every month through a butcher shop, so there was no reason to be stingy.
The kids were at a growing age, after all.
"Rather than us, I think oppa needs to eat more..."
The child who was hugging me suddenly started worrying about me.
It seemed that as she hugged me, she was concerned because I had so little flesh on me.
"Are you eating well, oppa?"
"I'm eating well."
"Then why do you have less meat on you than us?"
"That's..."
Actually, I wanted to say that I had put on a little bit of weight,
but I gave up saying it, since it would just sound like a ridiculous lie.
Looking at them now, my younger sisters must have been working out hard,
because I could feel a bit of muscle when I touched them.
"Oppa, working out is what sticks with you."
"But before that, oppa needs to eat a lot and build up his body first."
"Keung..."
I was clearly the oppa here, but instead of being the one doing the worrying,
I ended up being the one worried over.
Then, the kids who had been clinging to me tightly just moments ago
suddenly backed away a little.
I turned around to see what was up,
and A-ra was walking over with a smile.
"Seong-hwan-a, let's get going soon."
"Okay. Right, noona, these are my younger sisters. Aren't they cute?"
I hugged the three who had been clinging to me just a moment ago
and showed them off to A-ra.
But then, the kids who had felt no shame at all, even hitching up their clothes to show off their muscles moments before,
were now blushing and shaking their heads side to side.
"I told you that you shouldn't call girls cute, right?"
"Then... cool? Handsome?"
A-ra gave a wry smile, saying it was already over.
Apparently, my younger sisters were embarrassed because I called them cute.
"Well, an oppa can call his younger sisters cute after not seeing them for a long time."
I smiled,
stroking their heads one last time before leaving.
*
"Then we'll be heading off now."
The box truck and the vehicles the volunteers had arrived in had already departed,
but we were still here to finish saying our goodbyes.
As we chatted, three hours had already passed since we arrived.
I didn't get to see the boys in the end, but I could just see them next time I came.
"Call often, and come back to show your face every once in a while!"
My mom pinched my cheek as she told me to show my face often, and I automatically nodded in agreement.
"Okay. I have a car now, so I'll come visit once in a while."
"Really? You're not just saying that and then not coming, are you?"
"Can't you trust your son a little?"
"Remember how you said something similar and then left when you moved out for independent living?"
"......But I still kept in touch."
I had been too busy to show my face, but I had contacted her regularly once a week.
No, to be exact, the number of times I contacted her was once a week;
the number of times Mom called me was even higher.
"Anyway, you're frail, so take care of your health."
"Mom, you take care of your health too. You're not getting any younger."
"I'm only thirty-five, you know?!"
"Ow! It hurts!"
After receiving a cheek-stretching that could practically be called an expression of affection,
I got into the car.
It seemed she had already said her goodbyes to the Director and A-ra.
"Right. Mom, I left something on your desk, so go check it out."
"What? When did you even..."
"Noona, let's head out now."
"Goodbye, then."
A-ra finished the last farewells, and we pulled out of the orphanage parking lot,
heading back towards the initial meeting point.
*
"What on earth is this gift..."
Once she entered her room, Ah-young
checked the box left on top of her desk.
She was already grateful just that the son born in her heart had shown his face after so long,
but with the sponsorship, the donations... he had paid so much attention to everything that she actually felt sorry.
Despite that, to hear he had even left a personal gift—
how could she possibly contain her curiosity about what was inside?
So she came straight into her room and opened the box to check its contents.
It was a large box, but unexpectedly, the contents were surprisingly small.
"A letter... and gift certificates?"
Along with an envelope containing a bundle of department store gift certificates, a single letter had been left behind.
To summarize the letter's contents: he said he was sorry for not showing his face in so long, he had wanted to buy her clothes as a present but didn't know her size or taste and thought it would be hard to pick something, so he was leaving gift certificates.
The message added that winter was coming soon, so she should use half to buy clothes for herself, and the other half to buy warm clothes for the kids.
Ah-young was moved by the heartwarming letter,
but the moment she saw the bundle of gift certificates next to it, that feeling shattered.
"Seong-hwan-a... this is way too much..."
Stacked there were 100,000 won gift certificates, bound with a white paper strap.
Seeing the gift certificates, which looked like they would amount to at least ten million won judging by the thickness,
Ah-young let out a sigh.
***
When we got back to the meeting point, it was absolutely chaotic.
Maniacs and collectors had swarmed in droves to buy the limited-edition goods distributed to the volunteers.
Some of the volunteers were holding auctions with the people crowding around, sharing the items in a pretty entertaining way.
For reference, cash transactions were reportedly banned at this location.
The only things allowed were trading each other's items.
Now that I thought about it, among the goods randomly distributed to the volunteers this time,
I had heard there was a Volunteer Limited Edition.
Seeing as no one had crowded into a particular spot yet, maybe no one had gotten it.
I had been a little curious about what it was myself.
"Director, can you just tell me?"
"The limited edition?"
"Just what it is that's making everyone swarm in like this..."
"They're just plastic photo cards."
From what I gathered listening in, there were photo cards featuring the entertainers belonging to our agency.
You could buy them in random packs on the agency site,
and since every card had a rarity level, collecting all of them seemed incredibly difficult.
And, during the last limited goods sale,
they had reportedly sold a few new rarity-level cards that didn't appear in random packs, calling it an event.
Apparently, a photo card that sold for 10,000 won each at the time of sale now couldn't be obtained even if you offered a million won.
"Then the volunteers who received cards are going to make some money."
"Though among them, there are only two Volunteer Limited Cards. But, Seong-hwan-ssi, are you interested? In photo cards."
"Well, collecting A-ra's cards is one of my hobbies too."
"Then I'll give you a binder that has all the cards, so do a little promotion for me."
"Really? Can you just give something like that away?"
It was great news for me, but wouldn't it seem a bit unfair
to people who bought random packs one by one to collect?
"It's a gift for the strongest being in the photo card universe. Here, take this."
"What's this? And what do you mean by strongest..."
"This is it. The Volunteer Distribution Limited Edition for this time."
What the Director took out of her pocket was a silver card pack.
They'd done a good job of driving card-loving maniacs crazy.
Seeing something like this, of course you'd want to open it up.
"But something like this only shines if it's unopened..."
"I'll give you an unopened one later too, so go ahead and open it."
She urged me to open it quickly, telling me not to worry,
so I carefully opened the card pack.
And then, I carefully pulled out the dazzlingly shining card.
"This is......"
"How is it? Do you like it?"
"Haha... why is this..."
The photo printed on the plastic photo card
was a picture that A-ra had personally taken of me in Japan, a scene where I was looking at a passing train with my eyes sparkling.