An Odd and Beautiful Midsummer Night's Dream (3)
The address Yujacha sent me in a personal DM was exactly this: Come to Room 505 on the fifth floor of Tower Terrace at 25 Miraero 77-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul!
Tower Terrace. It was the name of the highest-grade luxury residential and commercial apartment complex in Gangnam, Seoul—the kind of famous building that even someone living in a semi-basement like me couldn't possibly miss.
As I hesitated, wondering whether a broke guy like me could really move into such an extravagant place, my smartphone rang with a familiar number.
“Hello? Mom, what made you call?”
“Yeah, I called because I was worried about my son, of course.” The person on the other end was my mother.
She was the parent who had suffered a stroke when I was in middle school. After recovering, she had been resting at home.
“I saw on the news that Seoul is flooded from the rainy season and got so worried I had to call. They said it's been pouring nonstop for weeks where you live…. My son, are you really okay?”
How could she have known to call at exactly this moment? A parent's intuition was terrifyingly accurate.
Because I commuted to a company in Seoul to support my mother and younger sister, a cheap semi-basement room had been my only option.
“…Yes, of course I'm fine.” I had no choice but to lie to my mother, tasting something slightly bitter on the tip of my tongue.
“That's a relief. The news called it an unprecedented downpour, the worst in twenty years, so I was incredibly worried. You still have enough side dishes, right?”
“Yes, you don't have to send any more. There's still plenty of food in the fridge. I haven't even finished what you sent last time.” I kept spitting out lies.
Of course, the flooded semi-basement fridge did contain the side dishes my mother had sent. But with the circuit breaker down from the flooding, they had probably spoiled or been contaminated with muddy water. If I asked her to send more, the sudden change of address would likely raise her suspicions.
“What? Oppa? Oppa! What have you been up to lately? Do you have a girlfriend?” Soon another welcome voice cut in between my mother's words.
It was my younger sister, Kim Hayeon. She had just started college and was enjoying fun days with her classmates.
“Hayeon, is that any way to greet your older brother you haven't talked to in so long?”
“Ah, why~! I posted an old family photo on Insta, and my friends won't stop asking who that handsome guy is!”
When had she posted that? I had basically lived a busy life doing part-time jobs since childhood, so I wasn't the type to enjoy things like social media. The time spent chasing vanity and showing off felt far less precious than the time needed to survive in reality.
“Anyway, oppa, I have this friend who's so pretty she's called the goddess of Saetbyeol University. She's interested in you!”
“No thanks. I've told you before. Dating is a luxury I can't afford.” I cut off my sister's blind-date suggestion with a single decisive refusal.
Ever since middle school, plenty of girls had approached me saying they liked me, but my father's infidelity had left me terrified of personal relationships with women, so I avoided them. On top of that, there had never been any spare time after covering my mother's hospital bills and our living expenses.
“Oppa, don't let that bastard weigh on your mind so much. You deserve to meet someone good and be happy too! You don't have to keep sending us allowance money anymore!”
“If you're going to keep talking like that, I'm hanging up.”
“Fine. But contact me if you change your mind! She saw your picture and fell for you at first sight—she says she can't even sleep! She's the prettiest and has the best personality out of all the girls I know─.”
Click─. I pressed the end-call button without listening to the rest of my sister's sugary coaxing.
Marriage. Until now, I had never once considered being with someone or dating. Part of it was the fear that the other party would view our family negatively because of my father's affair, and I had learned from a young age that being poor was a sin in South Korea.
Of course I enjoyed the sweet emotional arcs in romance-comedy webtoons and web novels, but my feelings only went that far.
“…This might be why I enjoyed watching Yujacha so much.” I couldn't help smiling bitterly as I looked at the personal message that had arrived line after line.
What on earth did this person see in me to offer such kindness? Thinking back, it had been like this from the very beginning. Even with anonymous one-dollar donations, she always responded with genuine care.
I wasn't used to that kind of warmth, so the question came out naturally.
“Ha, this is insane…” After confirming Yujacha’s true intentions, I did my best to calm my slightly racing heartbeat.
Yujacha had always been like this. Whenever I was going through rough times in life, she would suddenly appear and shield me from it all without asking for anything in return. That only made me want to rely on her more, to get closer to her, but—
“How much should I pay for monthly rent?” I suppressed that desire and decided to at least keep my minimal sense of conscience. After all, she had once told me she trusted me because I didn’t seem like the type to try getting personally close or confess to her.
I accepted Yujacha’s offer and boarded the subway heading for Gangnam.
Tower Terrace, the address Yujacha had written down, showed me a world far beyond the rich neighborhood I had only imagined in my head. The apartment complex had walking paths, a gym, an electronic library, benches, fountains, and sculptures—so much that it felt like a massive park.
Arriving at the entrance that reminded me of a hotel lobby beneath a skyscraper so tall I couldn’t even guess how many floors it had, I asked her again despite the grace she was showing by taking in someone with nowhere to stay until the flood damage was repaired.
Yujacha gave a meaningful reply and asked me not to question her any further. She must have her own circumstances. These days it was rare to meet someone without deep scars in their life. After hearing her answer, I decided not to pry into her painful past.
I stepped across the smooth marble floor and greeted the security guard behind the glass partition.
“What brings you here today?”
An elderly woman with graying hair neatly tied back, wearing a crisp suit. Every movement carried the refined grace of a head butler from a noble household.
“Ah, I was called by Yujacha. I’m Kim Baekhyun, an editor working at EASY Network─”
“One moment. Please show me your ID and the document you received. I’ll compare them against the short-term lease contract the young lady prepared in advance.”
The elderly woman working security narrowed her eyes slightly. It seemed she had already heard my name, yet she still insisted on the verification process.
The way she called her “young lady” and had even prepared a legally sound short-term lease contract in advance made me realize Yujacha was far more cautious than I had thought. Maybe she really was a rich heiress after all. If streaming as a VTuber was simply her hobby, that would make sense.
Normally a fan should never show interest in a VTuber’s real identity, but this situation felt like it was dragging me toward a truth so enormous it could shake even me.
“…Confirmed. Mr. Kim Baekhyun, please take the elevator at the end of that corridor to Room 505 on the fifth floor. The password will be exactly what the young lady told you.”
After listening to the dignified elderly woman, I hurried toward the elevator like someone who had committed a crime.
“How unexpected. This is the first time Miss Yujeong has ever let an outsider into her space… I didn’t think he would be so much younger than I imagined.”
After Kim Baekhyun’s figure had completely disappeared and she confirmed no one else was around, the elderly security guard muttered to herself.
She had served Im Yujeong for a long time as a servant of the Daehan Group—one of the most powerful conglomerates in the country.
She couldn’t understand why this person named Kim Baekhyun had suddenly been told he would be living in the building.
“Should I report this to the chairman? He might be some strange man trying to approach our innocent young lady…”
After suffering extreme distrust of people from an incident in middle school, Im Yujeong had shut herself away alone in this building as an adult following another series of events. Yet now she had suddenly invited a complete stranger—especially a man she feared—into her own apartment.
“…No. In the end, the chairman wants the young lady to step back into the real world, so it might be better to just leave things alone.”
The elderly woman, who had briefly considered contacting Chairman Im Jaejun of the Daehan Group on her other smartphone, changed her mind and let out a small smile.
“It’s been a long time since the young lady praised someone like that…. It should be fine.”
That man named Kim Baekhyun could probably be trusted. This wasn’t based on any concrete evidence but on the intuition she had gained from many years of life.
In the end, people are saved by other people. She simply remembered the moment when Im Yujeong, still in middle school, had blushed while talking about returning home after meeting an unnamed boy at the playground.
“The young lady is at the age where she should meet a good man, get married, and build a family. Rather than someone from a chaebol family… a pure and honest young man like him might be better.”