A Week Is Nothing
“That’s what getting abandoned is, originally.”
Seo Jio spoke flatly, without inflection.
“You don’t even get to enjoy the feeling of missing someone properly. If you let yourself miss the person who threw you away, all it does is make you more miserable.”
“......”
“Do Yooyoung wouldn’t want to make a fool of himself either. Even if he misses his mom, he’s probably in the middle of accepting the fact that she doesn’t exist anymore.”
His tone was light, but the emotion beneath it ran deep.
Because I knew his circumstances, I couldn’t bring myself to open my mouth easily.
“Then….”
Haram, who had been mulling something over, asked,
“What counts as being abandoned?”
“Counts as what?”
“Yes! Yooyoung’s mom keeps coming back to visit him! So wouldn’t it be hard to call that abandoned?”
At that innocent question, Seo Jio let out a hollow laugh.
“What’s the point of showing up once every few months? Whether the kid’s doing something or where he even is — she doesn’t care, doesn’t call. That’s exactly the same as abandoning him.”
“......”
At the cynical answer, Haram’s lips twisted anxiously.
He hesitated for a long while before the words finally tumbled out.
“Then what about a week…?”
“What?”
“A week is short, so that’s okay, right? That’s too vague to count as abandoning someone.”
There was no confidence in his voice.
Haram asked in a small voice, like it might scatter into nothing at any moment, and finally looked up at me.
“Right? Yeonjae?”
“......”
Faced with those piteous eyes, I slowly nodded.
“A week is fine. No problem at all.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Not strange in the slightest.”
I gently stroked his hair.
“Seo Jio, you think so too, right?”
“Huh? Uh, yeah.”
Caught off guard by the sudden question, Seo Jio froze for a second — but he read the look in my eyes and immediately fell in line.
“Sure. A week is nothing. People usually go on trips for a whole week anyway.”
“Jio’s right. That much is just a light little break.”
I smiled brightly, as if nothing in the world was wrong.
Only once Seo Jio had taken his side did Haram finally seem to relax, his expression brightening at last.
“Hehe, that’s a relief….”
Keeping my smile in place, I raised the pitch of my voice.
“Look how late it’s gotten! Time for bed. Haram, go brush your teeth, quick.”
“What about you, Yeonjae? Aren’t you coming too?”
“I’ll walk Jio back and come up.”
“You’ll come back fast, right?”
“Of course. I promise.”
Only after confirming that Haram had gone into the bathroom did I put on my shoes.
Where Seo Jio was staying was on the second floor.
It was just a matter of going down a staircase — hardly any need to escort him anywhere.
“Yeonjae. What was that just now?”
I couldn’t very well ignore the question mark plastered across Seo Jio’s face.
And honestly, I needed a moment to catch my breath too.
“What do you mean, a week? Why is the kid acting like that all of a sudden?”
He still clearly had no idea what was going on, and I swallowed a sigh.
“I agreed to look after Haram for about a week.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Haram’s father asked me to make sure he doesn’t contact Haram for that week.”
“What?”
Seo Jio’s brows knitted together hard.
My own reaction, four days ago, had looked exactly the same.
“Apparently his wife has been under so much stress since the kidnapping that he wants to let her completely off the hook for a week. Says she’s always had a weak constitution.”
“......”
“I told him it might be better to call at least once a day, that the kid would get anxious otherwise, and….”
I tried to keep my voice as level as I could.
But the breath that had been pressing down on me for days came pouring out before I knew it.
“Ugh — the kid wants to stay with me, so what’s the problem? He actually said, ‘Wasn’t it Haram who asked to stay with you in the first place?’”
“......”
Seo Jio’s jaw dropped so far it looked liable to fall off.
It was an expression I’d never seen on him before, but I didn’t have the luxury of marveling at it.
“He told me not to contact Haram so he can rest properly for just one week — and of all times, that happens to be when Haram is staying with me. I kept my voice down the whole call, worried the kid might hear.”
I’d hoped he wouldn’t hear it.
But the reaction just now left no room for doubt either way.
It’s a tangled mess.
As I let out a long, deep sigh, Seo Jio dragged a hand down his face.
Then he murmured, quietly,
“How come not a single one of us has a normal family….”
He had a point.
Was this what they meant by birds of a feather flocking together?
Seo Jio, Noh Bihyuk, Haram, me.
Not one of us had grown up in an easy, untroubled home.
Even if the rest of us are grown now, Haram is….
He already knew, after all, that the parents he had now weren’t his birth parents.
No wonder his eyes kept darting around like that, so careful, so watchful.
Maybe I should just take him in myself.
If I claimed I didn’t want that, it would be a lie.
The satisfaction I’d felt over those few days spent with him had been unmistakable.
I could do better for him than they ever have.
That was exactly the thought running through my head.
But seeing his reaction just now hit me like a bucket of ice water.
That no matter how gently I treated him, no matter how well I looked after him, I could never fill the empty space where parents should be.
I honestly can’t see the way forward.
I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.
What course of action would produce the best possible outcome?
Counseling requires a guardian’s consent, for one.
After the kidnapping, when I’d suggested he see a counselor, Haram’s parents had frothed at the mouth saying absolutely not.
A record of childhood counseling could hurt his job prospects down the line, they said — and who knew how the rumor might spread.
The kid’s traumatized, and that’s what they’re worried about?
But legally, Haram’s guardians were them.
All I could do was be beside him for one week.
Just that one thing.
And I was feeling the helplessness of it with my whole body.
“Yeonjae.”
Seo Jio sat down on the stairs next to where I’d slumped.
“Let’s stop there.”
“Stop what?”
“Worrying about Haram. Even a third party finds this stuff hard to hear. I get how you must feel, too. But that’s enough for today.”
Seo Jio looked me straight in the eye.
“Why do you only ever think about other people? You have to think about yourself too.”
There was a quiet reproach in his pale eyes.
I hesitated a moment before answering.
“I think about myself plenty.”
“Sorry, but I’m not as soft and roundabout as the people around you. I don’t buy that.”
He brushed off my words with airy ease.
“This world is crawling with people who are basically pests. Rude, or stupid — I’d settle for one or the other, but the annoying thing is, those people never seem to have the sense to tell the difference.”
Seo Jio smiled lazily.
He was clearly smiling, and yet somehow it looked fearsome.
“Pests strolling down the street isn’t our fault. Sure, it’d be great if we could dose them all with roach spray and wipe them out, but we do live in a nation of laws.”
“......”
It had been a while since I’d heard him this biting, and for a moment I was struck speechless.
Whether I stared at him blankly or not, he carried on, utterly at ease.
“Haram’s parents are just one of the countless pests out there. It’s not Haram’s fault, and it’s not yours either.”
“I know weighing whose fault it is doesn’t actually mean anything.”
As always, what mattered was the solution.
Then, all of a sudden, the words slipped out on their own.
“Seo Jio, what do you think I should do? I don’t know what’s best for Haram.”
I never expected to be saying these things to Seo Jio of all people.
Late at night, on a dark staircase.
Maybe that was why — with someone right there in front of me — the urge to lean on someone else grew larger and larger.
And the answer that came back was impossibly unbothered.
“How would I know? Why would I have any idea?”
“......”
Of course that’s what he’d say.
Seo Jio was wearing the expression of someone dealing with other people’s problems, as always.
What was I even expecting.
Just as the futility of it washed over me, he went on.
“There’s exactly one thought in my head right now. Probably not a helpful one, for this particular situation.”
“Which is?”
An irritable tone escaped me before I could stop it.
Seo Jio answered calmly.
“That I wish I’d had you when I was nine?”
“......”
“Looked at that way, Haram’s childhood isn’t some endlessly gloomy thing, is it? His parents leave something to be desired, sure, but nothing in this world is perfect.”
He gave a casual shrug.
“So don’t take it all on yourself. And throw out that weird compulsion that says you have to fix everything.”
“Do I really come across like that?”
“It does look a bit excessive, yeah.”
Even for you, honestly.
The follow-up made me sheepish.
Because it was something I’d already recognized in myself.
“I don’t even know why I’ve ended up looking after Haram like this.”
“Yeonjae, forget that — what about sixteen-year-old Seo Jio? He could use a warm hand or two himself.”
Oh, this kid.
His light, mood-loosening tone drew a laugh out of me despite myself.
He really is a decent guy.
It was strange in places, but I genuinely thought it was a pretty good piece of comfort — and I was still thinking so when Seo Jio put on a serene smile.
“Why are you just laughing? I’m being sincere.”
“......”
“Pay some attention to me too. Nobody stroked my head when I was nine, you know. If you think about it, I’m actually the lonelier on—”
“One-tenth. Say one-tenth of that.”
I raised a hand and clapped it over his mouth.
Absurd — I shook my head back and forth.
People really do flock together, apparently.
I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why everyone around me had to be this strange.
Seo Jio, mouth muffled against my palm, grumbling something unintelligible — he looked like such a child today, for some reason.
And seeing him like that sent a chill down my spine.
……Is that how I look to other people, too?
It made me uneasy, just a little.
The next morning.
Unlike the night before, I woke up feeling relatively at ease, at least.
Telling Seo Jio was the right call, I think.
I hadn’t gotten any particularly useful answer out of him, but it had been a surprisingly decent conversation.
With my heart a little lighter, I set out for the film set.
The moment I set foot through the door, every single staff member came running.
“Yeonjae! You looked so cool!”
“We’ve all been replaying the video!”
“……Sorry, what video?”
What video?
Despite my dumbfounded expression, everyone was too busy chattering to bother answering me.
“The teen-movie vibe was off the charts. I literally screamed the second I saw you in that football uniform.”
“The science lab for me! You in those lab goggles was adorable. Think we could sneak something like that into our movie?”
“Why would there be lab goggles in a rural film?”
“Ugh, because!! We just need to have one science class before the break! Anyone want to go request it with me? Please. Just one person.”
I was dazedly absorbing the barrage of words when it hit me.
So it’s already out.
Time really does fly.
Feeling a little sheepish, I pulled out my phone.
I didn’t even need to search anything.
The real-time trending list was already packed with words that included my name.
‘Lee Yeonjae American football’
‘Lily new song’
‘Our Bambi’
That’s right.
Today was the day Lily Sweety’s music video dropped.
The reaction’s already something else.
When I opened the fan cafe, posts kept flooding in without pause.
Every time I refreshed, a new wave of titles rolled in — every last one of them about the Lily music video.
There were even fans asking about behind-the-scenes stories.
Once filming wraps today, I should post something in the fan cafe.
That was the idle thought running through my head.
At least until that evening, when Jinbae hyung brought me the news.
“I’m sorry — what?”
I asked, dazed.
“You want me to host a broadcast alone?”