First Impression.
First Impression.
A massive house that looked like a palace.
"Hello... I'm Si-yoon's dad."
-"Ah! One moment~!"
A voice rang out through the intercom, and when the door opened, a bodyguard in a full suit guided us inside.
"Si-yoon~!"
The front gate opened, and Da-yeon greeted me from the yard.
She had the expression of a puppy about to pee itself from excitement, and the moment the door opened, she came running at me.
"Oh my, Da-yeon! You're going to trip like that."
Dad spotted Kim Seon-hwa, Da-yeon's mother, and greeted her first.
"Hello, I'm Si-yoon's dad."
"Huh? Ji... ho?"
Dad scratched his cheek and nodded.
"Oh my! I'm a real fan!"
Once we stepped inside the house, as if to prove her claim of being Dad's fan wasn't a lie, Dad's music was playing.
"Wow... Si-yoon's father is Ji-ho... I'm really surprised. No wonder Si-yoon is so pretty..."
"Ah... thank you. I was also really shocked to learn that Da-yeon's family heads Hanseong."
Kim Seon-hwa naturally guided us to the sofa in the guest room.
"Oh, come on~ Compared to you, Ji-ho, I'm nothing at all~ Si-yoon, do you know how amazing your daddy is?"
"Yeah."
"R... really?"
Da-yeon sat beside me, fiddling with a doll.
"You want this?"
"Oh my... Da-yeon, isn't that the doll you treasure the most?"
"I like Si-yoon more."
Kim Seon-hwa poured tea for Dad and looked at me with a smile.
"Aren't you lucky, Si-yoon~"
I fingered the lace-trimmed rabbit doll, then handed it back to Da-yeon.
"What's its name?"
"Antonio!"
"Isn't that a guy's name?"
"He is a guy!"
"...What?"
That rabbit doll, which suddenly seemed to mirror my own situation, was starting to look pitiful.
It was dressed up to look cute and pretty on the outside...
yet it was male...
As I kept lifting the rabbit doll's skirt, Dad gave me a strange look.
And the boy who'd been hiding behind Kim Seon-hwa kept sneaking glances at me.
"Jeong-yeon, you should say hello to Si-yoon."
"Uh... hi."
I looked at the shy little kid and nodded.
"Hi~"
"....."
The little kid ended up hiding behind his mom.
"Oh my...? Jeong-yeon, do you like Si-yoon too?"
"....."
"I think this is the first time Mommy's seen our Jeong-yeon being this shy?"
My appearance had only been growing more striking with time, so that kind of reaction was only natural.
Kim Seon-hwa, who'd been looking at my face, said, laughing.
"Our Si-yoon... you're getting prettier at a frightening rate. You're going to have every man spellbound when you're older..."
Dad laughed awkwardly at Kim Seon-hwa's words.
"Aha ha..."
"Oh! Where are my manners..."
Kim Seon-hwa rose from her seat and brought out refreshments with another woman.
"Please have some. They're homemade cookies, and they're really delicious."
Thinking, 'Cookies are still just cookies no matter how good they are,' I took a bite...
and heaven unfolded before my eyes.
"Ah..."
As I closed my eyes for a moment and savored it, Kim Seon-hwa looked at me with a smile.
"Is it good?"
"...Yeah."
Dad tried one too and couldn't hide his amazement.
"This is... honestly incredible. My god."
While I was eating the cookies in a trance, Kim Seon-hwa spoke.
"If you come over to our house often, you could have these every day..."
I glanced at Dad for a moment, then nodded.
"I can just get them every day through Da-yeon."
When I casually mentioned, right in front of the parents, that I planned to use Da-yeon as a cookie delivery girl, the room went quiet.
"....."
Kim Seon-hwa stared at me. I smiled and spoke to Da-yeon.
"Wanna play English games?"
"Yeah!"
"...I'll... send cookies."
Faced with the reality that she'd been outmaneuvered by a four-year-old kid, Kim Seon-hwa was at a loss for words.
The adults drank coffee, the kids drank milk.
Even the milk here tasted different.
So much so that I couldn't understand how Da-yeon and Jeong-yeon weren't gaining weight.
"Si-yoon's palate is going to get picky... it's too delicious."
"Oh dear... we can't have that... would you like to stay at our house?"
Kim Seon-hwa chatted with a smile, and as the atmosphere warmed up, the topics of conversation began shifting from moment to moment.
From what I'd seen, Da-yeon was smarter than her older brother Jeong-yeon.
Of course, that was a strange thing coming from someone who'd been reincarnated, but it was common knowledge that everyone at Hanbit Kindergarten was gifted.
While I was lost in thought, Jeong-yeon—I had no idea when he'd fetched it—brought out a tiny little violin, as if he wanted to show me.
Then he took his stance and began to play the violin in front of me.
Dad watched and spoke with admiration.
"Wow... that's impressive, isn't it?"
"Really?"
"Is being a violinist your dream? That's truly remarkable..."
Dad went over to Jeong-yeon and adjusted his posture.
"Right here, like this."
Dad wasn't considered especially skilled at the violin,
but he was clearly serious about music and earnestly pointed out the areas where Jeong-yeon needed improvement.
"Oh my... you're pointing out the same things as his violin teacher?"
"Ah, really?"
While teaching Da-yeon English, I watched the violin performance with close attention.
"Would you like to try it too, Si-yoon?"
"No, I'm good at everything, so if I'm good at that too, Dad'll cry again."
"....."
Dad laughed awkwardly and scratched his cheek.
Kim Seon-hwa sipped her coffee and spoke.
"What do you want to be when you grow up, Si-yoon?"
With milk still on my lips, I answered Kim Seon-hwa's question.
"Hmm... an assassin who rules the darkness? Abyss would be a good name for it."
""...?""
As I ate my snacks, I smiled and drifted into memories of the past.
What I'd truly wanted to be.
"A P.E. teacher? A soldier? If not that, a reclusive master..."
"".....""
Dad seemed curious about my dreams too, but because I'd always ended up telling the truth at the very end, he stayed silent, still thinking I was just joking around.
But I meant it.
I plopped down on the spot and began Da-yeon's customized English lessons.
Dad was watching me with a completely serious expression.
"...Is she serious?"
"...I think... Si-yoon is serious...?"
I walked into a room that looked like a study.
"Oh..."
"You can't go in there."
Da-yeon grabbed my arm.
"Why?"
"Um... they said it's where Daddy works."
"Then all you have to do is be quiet and not make a mess."
Da-yeon stared at me with round eyes.
"...Is that how it works?"
"Yeah."
I laboriously climbed up onto the chair and started reading through the project documents on the desk.
"Do you know what any of it means?"
"Nope?"
And I meant it. I could read what was written just fine, but I couldn't interpret it to save my life.
While I'd been reading for a good while, Lee Jin-seok came in.
He'd apparently already spoken with Dad, because he seemed to know who I was, and our eyes met.
Lee Jin-seok still had the face of his childhood. A faint knife scar from when Park Gi had cut him as he tried to protect his father remained on his face.
Da-yeon, who seemed to find facing her father in this study a little frightening, greeted him warmly but was also afraid of getting scolded.
"Hi, Daddy..."
Lee Jin-seok hugged Da-yeon and looked at me.
"Si-yoon, was it? You're pretty~"
"I know."
"...You do?"
"Yeah."
Because of Lee Jin-seok's actions back then, we'd washed our hands of Hanseong business.
More than anything, I'd felt a deep sense of disillusionment myself.
I confidently turned the A4 sheet to the next page.
Lee Jin-seok was smiling, as if he considered it a child's game of playing grown-up.
"Do you know what that says?"
"Nope."
My sheer confidence left Lee Jin-seok at a loss for words.
"Why does 'platform' come up here?"
"Huh?"
"A platform is a train station... so why... ah, I get it."
Without even looking at the printout, I fixed my eyes on Lee Jin-seok and started asking about the unfamiliar terms one by one.
"ROE, EBITDA, short selling, disclosure precedents, current ratio, unappropriated deficit, net loss for the period..."
Lee Jin-seok naturally sat down beside me and helped.
"You're smart..."
"I know."
"....."
That old, once-famous Korean song came to mind.
"I~ know it~"
"....."
Lee Jin-seok... couldn't quite roll with my bit that far.
This family was less uptight and more innocent than I'd imagined.
The major conglomerates I'd seen with my own eyes until now—their family members couldn't wait to kill each other.
If I'd been sitting in S Company's study, I would've seen all manner of filthy things.
This place was, in the truest sense, a place for the company's advancement.
Seeing such a harmonious picture stirred a guilty feeling in me, making it hard to look at this family.
'Haa... what the hell did I...'
And Da-yeon, meeting my eyes, was smiling.
Back when I'd lived like a beast, carrying out any order my master gave me, Lee Jin-seok had taught me what a conscience was again. All I felt toward him was guilt.
The little kid cradled in his arms was beaming brightly at me.
Inside the study where most of Hanseong's decisions were said to be made, Lee Jin-seok leaned back in his chair with a hollow expression and stared at the ceiling.
"...A genius... I never thought I'd find myself using that word..."
"Oh my, to that extent?"
Lee Jin-seok was recalling his first impression of Si-yoon.
Long, straight black hair reaching her waist, a child lovely as a doll, pretending to be grown-up and acting haughty as she flipped through important company printouts.
The documents contained material that could make the company reel if it leaked,
yet in this situation, a child who remembered even ten of the words written there could already be considered smart.
His own children came into this room often, but they still hadn't managed to memorize a single title from the books behind him.
That was by design—he'd deliberately made this place feel like a suffocating space that would press down on his children.
But Si-yoon, as if she'd been reading a comic book,
as if she'd been asking 'A, B, C,'
asked about countless words only once each, then closed the huge stack of printouts as if she'd understood the whole thing.
A four-year-old kid who should still be cradled in her family's arms...
Before leaving the house, that kid had brought a tiny finger to her lips and made a 'shh' gesture.
Beyond genius—a level of comprehension and reasoning that defied understanding.
His own daughter Da-yeon, the same age, hadn't yet fully mastered the basic framework of her own native language.
But seeing his daughter already trying to grasp the framework of a foreign language so early, he couldn't deny she was a genius either.
But then what was that kid?
He sensed that this kid was beyond genius—that she was different.
The words of his university mentor came to mind: you call something genius precisely when you feel its unmistakable difference from us.
'When you feel something is distinctly apart from us—that is what we call genius.'