Stalking (2)
We relocated to the studio waiting room.
"Whoa. You get this whole place to yourself?"
The moment I stepped inside, I couldn't help but gape in admiration. I'd figured a model's waiting room would be some cramped little closet. Instead, it was a spacious suite with floor-to-ceiling windows that took in the entire Gangnam skyline at a glance.
"This is the biggest room they've got."
Choi Yeonjeong tossed off the remark as if it were nothing, picked up a small remote, and aimed it at the windows. A soft beep sounded, and the wide-open glass suddenly frosted over into an opaque grayish white.
"Oh…."
No wonder everyone wanted to become an explorer.
Though she's a pretty special case even among them.
Divine Archer Choi Yeonjeong. A former Hero from the other world, just like me, she was one of the most successful explorers on the planet. "Explorer" meant a licensed professional who specialized in the labyrinths and dungeons that had been appearing across the globe for years. Twelve years ago, she had brought her Hero-era power back as compensation, and she had shaken the entire industry to its foundations, rocketing to the top ranks in the blink of an eye. Of course, her current fame also owed something to looks that put most celebrities to shame.
"What do you want to drink?"
"What've you got?"
"Hmm…. Everything. Booze, too."
Rummaging through the little bar set against one wall, Yeonjeong lifted an expensive bottle of liquor and flashed me a sly smile. She was a notorious drinker.
"No alcohol. I drove here, remember?"
"Just call a designated driver."
"Pass. Just give me something cold. Anything."
Yeonjeong pushed out her lower lip in mock disappointment and poured me a glass of something non-alcoholic.
"Thanks."
"So. What exactly do you need my help with?"
I wet my mouth, then quietly got to the point with the woman seated across from me on the sofa.
"I'm trying to find someone."
"Someone?"
Her eyes went round as she tilted her head.
"Who?"
I couldn't quite bring myself to spit it out. By any ordinary standard, the target was a little… questionable.
"…This kind of person…."
I pulled a slip of paper I'd prepared from my pocket and slid it across the table.
"…?"
She took it with an innocent look, flicked her eyes down, and checked the contents—
"What is this?"
The moment her brow furrowed, excuses came tumbling out of me.
"L-look, just so you know up front, this isn't actually weird, okay?"
It was plenty weird.
"Isn't this kid the same age as Nakyeong?"
"Uh, yeah. She is."
The note I'd handed her listed a girl's name and age—information on my wife that I'd extracted from the Goddess of Prosperity that morning. My newly reincarnated wife.
"Who is she?"
"Huh?"
Yeonjeong's gaze swung back to me, eyes narrowed with open suspicion.
"I said, what's this girl's deal? If you're coming to me for help, she has to be someone seriously important."
Her instincts really were maxed out.
Should I just tell her?
The goddess had warned me about leaking information, but she hadn't exactly forbidden me from saying anything at all.
And this isn't some random person. She's a former Hero.
So I carefully broached the subject.
"…This morning, I met a goddess."
"…What?"
Yeonjeong's expression wiped clean in an instant, her eyes turning cold. For reasons I'd never fully understood, her hostility toward goddesses ran deep, and she reacted with extreme sensitivity.
"Not the Goddess of Fortune we knew. A goddess from this side."
"A goddess from this side…. Fine. So? What did she say?"
"…She asked me to look after that girl."
Yeonjeong stayed silent for a beat, her face cycling from shock to something far more serious as she looked back and forth between me and the note.
"You. Be honest with me."
Then she pressed me in a tone that felt like an interrogation.
"Who is she?"
"Who do you think? Some kid I don't even know. I've never even seen her face."
I tried to hedge my way out of it.
"That's exactly my point!"
It didn't work.
"Why would you, of all people, listen to a goddess and raise some random girl? You put down your sword for life just so you wouldn't have to get mixed up with their side again!"
I could understand why she was reacting this way. Ever since we'd returned from the other world, she had constantly wanted to partner up with me. If I hated fighting that much, she'd said, I could at least be her manager—and she'd waved an absurd salary under my nose. But I had zero interest in dipping so much as a toe back into that world, and I'd turned her down every single time.
"I'll explain everything when the time is right."
In the end, all I could do was lean on our friendship and plead.
"Just help me out for now."
"……."
Yeonjeong stared at me with her eyes wide, then finally let out a long sigh and slumped back against the sofa. She glanced at the slightly crumpled note, then agreed to help with a look that said she had no other choice—
On one condition.
"There's a catch."
"A catch? What is it?"
"Drink with me tonight."
"What."
"If you don't like it, go ask someone else."
Yeonjeong put on a prim face and slapped the note down on the table with a sharp tak.
Nakyeong's face flashed through my mind—the one who'd sworn she would never look the other way if I drank outside the house.
"Don't you dare drink! I'll come after you!"
It wasn't a hard decision.
Sorry, Nakyeong.
Finding my reincarnated wife mattered more to me than kimchi stew.
And so, after getting thoroughly wasted at Choi Yeonjeong's place and coming home, I took a thorough thrashing across the back from a daughter who had waited up all night with her eyes wide open. Only then did I finally collect the reward for enduring an entire weekend of nagging.
Address: Seoul Special City…
At last, I had a few pieces of personal information on my newly born wife.
This is why you keep good friends around.
Sitting in the company van during work hours, I used a spare moment to carefully review her details.
"Hmm…."
Then one particular line on the phone screen snagged my attention.
Currently enrolled at the Academy
Of all places, she was attending the Academy. The same Academy my Nakyeong attended.
I figured it was possible since they're the same age, but still….
Stuck in this strange situation, I scratched the back of my head for no good reason. Not only was my reincarnated wife the same age as my daughter—they went to the same school. Thankfully the departments were different, so they weren't in the same class, but I still couldn't shake the unease. Some nameless social guilt kept jabbing at my conscience.
…Right. Well, it's not like I'm going to date her.
I was simply a senior Hero guiding a promising junior. Having forced that thought into place, I set the phone down and started the engine. Finishing the rest of the day's work came first.
This way?
After wrapping up the afternoon jobs, I happened to have a repair appointment nearby, so I parked near the subway exit she was most likely to use on her way home.
Sitting here like this really does feel like I'm doing something wrong.
I already knew when Academy classes let out—I'd heard it from my daughter often enough. And in an age where typing an address into your phone gave you the full route, figuring out how and where she went home wasn't difficult either. It really was a great world for stalking, when you thought about it.
…Not that I was stalking anyone.
This is necessary.
According to the Goddess of Prosperity, my reincarnated wife had not yet officially become a Hero. More precisely, she was a Hero designate. The goddess hadn't explained the details, but the bottom line was that "the time had not yet come." Divine affairs beyond human understanding. In any case, I had already been assigned the role of guiding her when that time arrived. I could have simply waited until she was named and then appeared with a flourish—
How am I supposed to wait for that?
I already knew everything there was to know. How was I supposed to sit still? I was not a man with that much patience. Especially not when it came to my wife.
"She should be here by now…."
I needed to head back to the office soon, so I tapped the steering wheel and craned my neck to watch the street. I couldn't wait forever; if she didn't show today, I'd have to try again next time.
"Oh."
Right then, people began filtering out of the subway station one by one. That meant a train had arrived—one every fourteen minutes.
If she's not on this one, I'm heading home for today.
Clinging to one last hope, I carefully scanned the far side of the street as well, just in case.
"Hah…. Looks like a bust…."
And just as the stream of people leaving the exit had nearly dried up—
"…Huh?"
A familiar uniform appeared, late, stepping out of the exit. A sleek design with a blue base and gold accents.
"!"
No mistake. That was an Academy student uniform.
F-finally!
I swallowed hard, pressed my face to the window, and studied her carefully. Soft black curls that brushed her jaw. A face no bigger than a fist, with sharp eyes set neatly in place, a high bridge of the nose, and full lips. She had been born with a violently impressive bust that called my wife in her prime straight to mind, and a superb figure that radiated health. On her chest was a name tag that read Cheon Seo-hui.
Cheon Seo-hui. This was definitely the girl I'd been looking for.
"Wow…. Holy…."
How long had it been since a pretty girl made my heart race like this? Without thinking, I clutched at my chest and stared blankly after her retreating figure.
"……."
Wearing cheap wired earbuds that dangled like noodles from her ears, as if in open defiance of every fashion trend, she crossed the road in silence and vanished into an alley.
"…Hah."
Only then did I finally manage to collect myself.
Crazy.
It felt exactly like running into a long-lost first love.
G-get a grip, Han Dohyeon! She's young enough to be your daughter!
Strictly by the numbers she was more than a full twelve-year cycle younger than me. But the fact that she was the exact same age as my own daughter sat very, very wrong. If a mother the same age as her suddenly appeared, wouldn't Nakyeong find that more than a little awkward?
"Hoo…."
I rested my forehead against the steering wheel and let out a long, slow breath. It still hadn't been confirmed that she was truly Kim Yubin's reincarnation, but—
Is it just my imagination?
The sudden ache blooming in one corner of my chest suggested there was something real there after all.
After confirming Cheon Seo-hui's existence, I went back to that neighborhood again and again, watching her from a distance. Of course, every time I did, the endless guilt of doing something wrong ate away at me.
Kim Yubin is alive.
The thought that the wife who had died in my arms was living on in another form—however different—made it impossible to hold myself back. That was what love meant to me.
"Nakyeong."
"Yes?"
After trailing Cheon Seo-hui in secret for who knew how long, I carefully floated a question over dinner one night.
"Hypothetically… how would you feel if I remarried?"
"…Where is that coming from all of a sudden?"
Just as expected. She set down her chopsticks with a frosty look on her face.
"No, I just… heard some people talking about it…."
"Who?"
"Huh?"
"Did Auntie Yeonjeong say that? That you should remarry?"
She fixed me with a murderous glare I hadn't seen in a long time and grilled me in an ice-cold voice. Moments like this, she was the spitting image of her mother.
…And that was the problem.
"No. Just, uh, people at work."
"Unbelievable. Why are those old men sticking their noses into other people's family business?"
Whether it was residual memories of her mother from childhood or something else, Nakyeong hated the idea of me remarrying with a passion. Once, when a female coworker I'd gotten friendly with at the company suggested we go see a movie together, Nakyeong had straight-up run away from home. The words she'd left me with when I finally found her in a dark playground were still lodged in my chest like a dagger.
"How could you forget Mom?"
After that, I had resolved to live looking only at Nakyeong.
And I can't even explain this properly.
It was a thoroughly awkward situation in every possible way.
"Anyway! Dad has to live with me and only me for the rest of his life!"
"Of course. I've got no one but you, Nakyeong."
"So tonight I'm sleeping in your room!"
"What are you casually slipping in there? No."
"I don't care! Tonight we're definitely sleeping together!"
Nakyeong huffed and puffed and shoveled rice into her mouth. Looks like I was spending the night locked in a full-body hug whether I liked it or not.
Some time later, I left work early and headed straight for Cheon Seo-hui's neighborhood.
She's beautiful today, too.
Luck was on my side—I got to watch her just as she came out of the station. For a little while I gazed after her with a fond expression. Then, the moment she disappeared from view, the self-loathing I'd been forcing myself to ignore came flooding back. I felt utterly pathetic.
I can't even talk to her. What am I doing?
After days of this repeated stalking, a proper sense of disgust finally hit me, and I decided to stop. I needed a different approach—not this pathetic routine.
Isn't there some kind of breakthrough idea?
I was still turning over ways to approach her properly when, one ordinary evening, I sat eating a meal Nakyeong had made and chatting about this and that.
"Oh, right. Starting second semester, they're bringing in temporary teachers."
"Temporary teachers?"
"Yes. It's the first time they're doing it. They're recruiting active explorers."
"Oh. Not bad. A couple of regular teachers can't cover that many kids."
"Right? I wonder who's coming to our side…."
I was nodding along and moving my spoon when I suddenly froze.
"……Wait. Teachers?"
"Yes. Why?"
At last, a halfway decent idea had presented itself.