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# Chapter 2. Episode 1. A Strange Confession (1)
I quickly pushed my way through the crowd and decided to assess the situation first.
For some reason, a little boy was barely hanging onto the railing, while the adults below were shouting in panic about
what they should do.
“Kid! Don’t look down under any circumstances! Just keep holding on to that! Got it?”
“You! What are you doing? Call for help already!”
“Just wait a second!”
The adults’ noisy chatter was only making the child even more frightened.
I deliberately raised my voice to calm everyone down.
“The child might panic, so please stay quiet for now! I ask for your cooperation!”
However, there was no way my voice alone could reach all these people.
When an accident occurs, controlling and organizing the surrounding situation is also part of the job.
Trying to do that alone was simply too much for me.
What should I do?
I couldn’t immediately go up to the fifth floor where the child was.
And unlike me, a young child wouldn’t have muscles built from real-world training. His arm strength would give out
before long.
In this extremely urgent situation,
a woman suddenly shouted with a voice far louder than mine.
“Everyone, please stay calm for just a little while!”
The woman’s voice rang out loudly, and the entire area quickly fell silent.
Even though I was certain I had never seen the woman before,
I somehow felt as though I had seen her many times somewhere.
Before I could recognize her, the people around me began doing so.
“Isn’t that Yesul?”
“You mean Min Yesul?”
“Wow, seriously! We actually have a celebrity in our neighborhood!”
If you asked people who the most popular female singer in Korea was right now, nine out of ten would probably answer Min
Yesul.
Even I, who knew very little about popular culture, knew who she was, so there was no doubt she was extremely famous.
I had no idea why someone like her was on such a small downtown street, but thanks to Yesul, the volume of the crowd’s
voices dropped instantly.
Yesul looked at me and asked directly,
“You said you’re a firefighter, right?”
“Ah, yes!”
“What should we do? Please tell me.”
“First…”
There was a set procedure for dealing with accidents.
But there was something Captain Kim always told us whenever he trained us.
Accidents don’t happen according to the manual.
And that was exactly what was happening now.
One of the child’s hands slipped off the railing.
People held their breath as they watched the child dangling by only his left arm.
Yesul also let out a suppressed scream beside me.
“What should we do…!”
“D-do we have something like a mattress? Huh?”
The crowd began growing noisy again.
And eventually,
the child’s body dropped rapidly toward the ground.
Screams erupted from all directions.
Without even having time to think, I threw myself forward.
The falling child seemed to appear in my vision in slow motion.
I stretched both arms forward.
Normally, I wasn’t supposed to catch someone like this.
But none of that mattered right now.
To save a precious life, I didn’t care where or how badly I might get hurt.
The person who had once saved me when I was young must have felt the same way.
I caught the child and pulled him tightly into my arms.
Even though the child was small, falling from such a height meant the impact would inevitably carry considerable weight.
Even so, I managed to withstand it.
Thank goodness I had always worked hard on my strength training for moments like this.
“Are you okay?”
To calm the frightened child, I pretended nothing had happened and asked with the brightest smile I could manage.
As the relief of having survived finally washed over him, the child burst into tears.
A woman who appeared to be his mother hurried toward us.
He was alive.
Only then did the tension finally leave my body.
* * *
“Thank you. Thank you so much!”
The child’s mother repeatedly thanked me.
Apparently, the boy had always been quite mischievous. While his mother had briefly looked away, he couldn’t resist
fooling around, and that was how this whole situation had happened.
His mother smacked him on the butt and scolded him harshly.
“I really can’t believe you! Why would you do something like this!”
“Ah, no! Ma’am, it’s okay. I’m fine, so please don’t scold him. He’s already been frightened enough, hasn’t he?”
Only after I pleaded with her several times did the boy’s mother reluctantly agree.
I gently patted the still-sniffling child on the head and gave him a warm smile.
“Don’t do something like that again, okay? Promise your big brother.”
I held out my pinky.
The child hesitated shyly before eventually extending his little finger and hooking it around mine.
“Good job. Listen to your mom from now on and behave yourself. If you’re a good boy, your big brother will buy you
something delicious later.”
“Really?”
“Of course! Here. This is my business card… No, actually, it has my phone number on it. Keep it, and if there’s
something you want to eat, make sure you call me.”
“Wow! Thank you!”
He looked absolutely delighted, as if he had just received a present from Santa Claus.
Seeing him like that naturally brought a smile to my face as well.
Only after the situation had more or less been settled could I finally pay attention to what was around me.
The first thing I needed to take care of was the several business cards scattered on the ground.
“Oh.”
I must have accidentally dropped several while hurriedly taking them out to calm the child.
They weren’t business cards I had specially ordered. An acquaintance had made them for me while I was doing volunteer
work.
Since they were special to me, I couldn’t simply throw away even one of them.
Just as I bent down to pick them up,
“I’ll help you.”
Yesul, who had calmed the crowd in my place earlier, was wearing sunglasses and a hat as she helped me.
“Thank you. But… you really are Yesul, right?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I see. I’m sorry. I’ve hardly ever seen a celebrity before…”
She wasn’t just famous. She was arguably the most famous female singer in South Korea.
There were even a few people on our team who were fans of Yesul. Maybe that was why I suddenly became so nervous.
I hadn’t even been this nervous when meeting the chief of the fire station.
While I swallowed nervously, Yesul glanced down at the business card she had picked up.
Then her hand suddenly stopped.
“No way…”
“Excuse me? What is it?”
“This is your business card, right? Isn’t it?”
Suddenly, Yesul stepped much closer to me and stared up at my face.
It was the first time in my life that I had ever stood this close to a woman with such breathtaking beauty.
Perhaps because of that, I almost instinctively stepped backward.
“You’re Lee Bit-chan, right? The person who used to work around Guro!”
“I did work there before…”
Recently, due to a shortage of personnel, I had received a new assignment and was now working in a different area.
I was often told that my name wasn’t a particularly common one either.
So I assumed I must be the person Yesul knew.
But I had no idea how Yesul knew any of this.
Just as I was about to ask her,
“Yesul! You’re going to be late for your schedule. Let’s go!”
A woman who appeared to be her manager urgently called out to Yesul.
Yesul suddenly took one of my business cards.
“I can keep this, right?”
“Huh? Yes. Sure, go ahead.”
“I’ll contact you later. I promise!”
Watching Yesul quickly leave the area, I stood there dumbfounded and muttered,
Why would Yesul contact me?
I had absolutely no idea what was going on.
* * *
“What? You’re asking what it means when a woman you’ve never met before takes your phone number?”
Captain Kim looked at me as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“What kind of nonsense are you talking about first thing after coming to work?”
“It’s just… a friend of mine. He asked me that while we were talking about something last night. So I thought you might
know, Captain, since you’re a married man.”
“I don’t know, you idiot. How would I know something like that?”
Another senior laughed quietly in place of Captain Kim and spoke up.
“Bit-chan, do you really think our captain still has any sweet romantic cells left? You should ask me about things like
that.”
“You know?”
“Well, usually it means the woman is interested in you. What, you know Yoon-cheol met his current wife at a rescue site
and ended up marrying her.”
The moment I heard that, I immediately denied it.
“That’s not possible.”
“Why?”
“Well…”
Because she was a successful celebrity.
Min Yesul was not only a singer. Her acting skills were also highly acclaimed, and she was considered what you might
call a complete star.
She was beautiful, kind, young, and made plenty of money. Why would someone like that take an interest in someone like
me, who had nothing but this body to his name?
Even so, my senior refused to back down.
“You said she even knew where you used to work, right?”
“Yes.”
“See? That’s because she’s interested in you. Otherwise, why would she go out of her way to find out where you used to
work? Huh?”
I agreed with that logic as well.
Even so, there was still something I couldn’t figure out.
Yesul and I were meeting for the first time today.
Could we have met somewhere I didn’t remember?
I couldn’t think of a single possibility.
I had absolutely no idea what had caused this situation to happen.
* * *
I had wondered if it was possible.
But Yesul really did contact me.
And it was the very next evening.
I entered the small café Yesul had told me about.
The owner, who was sitting alone in the neighborhood café with no customers, immediately showed me to a seat when he saw
me.
“You’re Yesul’s guest, right?”
“Huh? How did you know?”
“She contacted me in advance. Just wait a little. She said she finished recording thirty minutes ago and was on her way
here. What would you like to drink?”
“Then… I’ll have an iced Americano, please.”
“Sure. Oh, you don’t have to pay. Yesul said she’d take care of it.”
Apparently, this was a café Yesul knew.
Not long afterward, just as the owner had said, Yesul appeared.
“Hello, Bit-chan. I’m sorry. I’m a little late, aren’t I?”
“Ah, no! I’ve only been waiting for five minutes.”
Perhaps it was true that she had come straight here after finishing her recording, because unlike yesterday, Yesul
looked even more beautiful as she sat down across from me.
There were already so many things I wanted to ask Yesul.
How did she know me?
And why had she wanted to meet like this?
But Yesul beat me to it.
“I actually wanted to visit you when you were working in Guro, but my schedule was so busy at the time that I couldn’t.
I’m sorry.”
“Ah, no, it’s fine!”
I wondered why she needed to apologize for something like that.
My head was already a mess.
I wasn’t even sure whether this was a dream or reality.
But that was nothing compared to what came next.
A little while later,
Yesul began saying something that made me question whether I had heard her correctly.
“Are you currently dating anyone?”
“No. Not yet.”
There had been times when I thought I should at least experience dating before turning thirty.
But my work as a firefighter was so demanding that I had already reached the final year of my twenties.
Yesul quietly murmured,
“Thank goodness.”
“Um, then, Bit-chan…”
Yesul clenched both fists as though she were steeling herself.
For some reason, her face was flushed.
“If you don’t mind, would you… go out with me?”
“Go out with you? What exactly do you mean…?”
“I, I’m interested in you, Bit-chan.”
The first thing I said after hearing those words was,
“Why me?”
Exactly.
Why me?