Chapter 111
“Have you been able to contact him?”
“Not yet.”
“…Surely nothing has happened to him, right? He’s not drinking somewhere and freezing to death on the street, is he? Can’t you find out? By asking Director Nam?”
Eunseong asked worriedly, recalling the image of his father stumbling drunk. His anxiety was growing with his imagination.
Suddenly Eunseong found it strange that Yoo Siwoon hadn’t been able to find his father for so long. If he had the will to find him, it should have been more than possible by now. This was the man who had manipulated police records to find Eunseong by putting out a wanted notice under a different name. For someone with connections to the police force, Eunseong couldn’t understand why finding his father was taking so long.
Staring at him, Eunseong withdrew his legs from Yoo Siwoon’s thighs with a doubtful expression. Yoo Siwoon’s hands, which had been touching his warm feet, closed emptily.
After looking at Yoo Siwoon’s profile for a while as he avoided looking back at him, Eunseong asked in a tone of disbelief:
“…Have you not been looking for him at all?”
“…”
“You haven’t even tried to find him from the beginning?”
“…”
Yoo Siwoon didn’t answer. Eunseong’s suspicion was correct.
“Why?”
“Is there any reason to look for him?”
Yoo Siwoon turned to face Eunseong, who was asking because he couldn’t understand. He boldly countered with his own question.
“What?”
“He never treated you well, couldn’t raise or care for you properly. Taking you with him, he didn’t do anything right for you.”
“…”
“Is there any reason to look for such a person?”
Yoo Siwoon spoke with a hardened face, as if the fact itself displeased him. His tone suggested he couldn’t understand why Eunseong would want to find him.
Eunseong recalled when he first met Yoo Siwoon. His father had knelt before him like a criminal, despite being much older. As if begging for forgiveness, as if pleading for his life.
Yoo Siwoon had acted as if a hierarchical relationship naturally existed between him and Eunseong’s father. He didn’t raise his kneeling cousin out of embarrassment.
What surprised Eunseong more than learning how Yoo Siwoon viewed his father was the fact that he had been deceiving him all this time.
“Why, do you miss him? He’s the one who beat you.”
Yoo Siwoon spoke as if he disliked Eunseong’s continued mention of his father.
“It’s not that I miss him—I want to say goodbye, to give my final greetings since I might never see him again.”
“Why do that? You don’t need to.”
Yoo Siwoon said they should stop talking about Seo Jeong-gi and reached for Eunseong’s legs again. As if his hands felt empty and he wanted to pat and touch his feet. Eunseong curled his legs more tightly and moved back to where his hands couldn’t reach. Yoo Siwoon looked up at Eunseong as he avoided his touch.
“…Has something happened to my dad?”
“It’s not like that. I can’t reach him. No, to be honest, I don’t particularly want to contact him.”
“Are you afraid he’ll try to extort money from you using me as an excuse?”
“…I can’t say I haven’t worried about that.”
“My dad may be worthless and uneducated, but he’s not that kind of person. He wouldn’t be shameless enough to ask you for money after leaving me with you. If he had that kind of cunning, he wouldn’t have abandoned his family and run away with me.”
“He beat you whenever he felt insignificant.”
“…”
“That alone is unforgivable to me.”
“…”
Though Yoo Siwoon’s words were true, Eunseong somehow pitied his father. One might ask how he could sympathize with someone who beat him, but it wasn’t such a simple emotion. Literally, he pitied Seo Jeong-gi’s life.
He had been abandoned by the family, left in limbo. It was to prevent Eunseong from becoming the heir. He wanted Eunseong to live a normal life. Although his methods weren’t beautiful, it was an undeniable fact that his father had given up much to protect Eunseong.
“Still… because of me, my dad gave up his family. He could have lived as a rich man, but he gave that up.”
“I would have done the same. Instead of choosing the family, I would have taken you and run away. But that doesn’t mean I would blame you for it and beat you.”
Yoo Siwoon’s tone was cold. It was an unsympathetic tone that didn’t want to show any compassion.
Eunseong was talking like that because he didn’t know what Seo Jeong-gi had done.
His carelessness in revealing the birth of the target had driven Eunseong’s biological parents to their deaths. Driven by guilt, Seo Jeong-gi had no choice but to flee with Eunseong. Eventually, his bold declaration to turn his back on the family became regret, stamping on his own feet. And whenever he felt disheartened about his life, whenever he felt small and worthless, he beat the child. What other intentions he had when beating the child could not be confirmed, as he was already dead.
Perhaps he wanted to violate him. It was impossible for a breeder not to touch the great gap that would give birth to the heir. He too was a man born with Seongha blood. Yoo Siwoon didn’t know whether that was why he beat Eunseong, and he didn’t want to know what was in his mind.
Seo Jeong-gi lacked both the heartlessness and the determination to expose the child’s identity, offer him as a sacrifice, and return to the family. He was always vaguely and opaquely kind, and when he wasn’t kind, he was evil. And at decisive moments, he repeatedly provided the grounds for Eunseong’s existence to be discovered. Even at his death.
If Yoo Oseon hadn’t known Eunseong’s identity, perhaps they would have had difficulty developing this kind of relationship.
In the end, Seo Jeong-gi even became the catalyst for Yoo Siwoon breaking his own convictions.
It wasn’t that he was afraid Eunseong would find out Seo Jeong-gi was dead. Even though it was natural for Eunseong to defend Seo Jeong-gi, believing him to be his biological father, Yoo Siwoon was seized by a strange jealousy. It was an illogical and unjustified emotion that even he couldn’t understand. It was an incomprehensible aversion that came from Eunseong sympathizing with and caring about a worthless human being.
The TV that Yoo Siwoon had turned on was broadcasting the news. It was a forecast that the cold wave, which they couldn’t feel, would continue.
“…Still. I want to say goodbye to my dad.”
“…”
“Ahjussi.”
“…I’ll look for him.”
Yoo Siwoon reluctantly made a lukewarm promise. It was a half-hearted answer, his gaze still fixed on the news he didn’t care about.
“You’re not lying again, are you?”
“Lying? I’m just doing this for you.”
He protested as he turned his gaze to Eunseong. Eunseong had a disappointed look in his eyes, realizing that Yoo Siwoon had been deceiving him all this time. He was looking at Yoo Siwoon with suspicion about his reluctant promise.
“Fine. I’ll look for him.”
Yoo Siwoon sighed as if giving up and said.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You don’t have to lie to me. It’s okay even if my dad says he doesn’t want to talk to me.”
“It’s not like that. I just didn’t look for him. I just thought that was the right thing to do.”
“Well, I’ll be the judge of that.”
“…”
“It’s my business, isn’t it?”
“…Yes, it is your business.”
Eunseong placed his legs back on the lap of the man lost in thought. Yoo Siwoon’s eyes, which had been looking at some corner of the living room, turned to Eunseong.
He tapped Yoo Siwoon’s hand with his foot, as if telling him to touch it again. The gesture was provocative and cute. Yoo Siwoon smiled and grasped Eunseong’s foot, slowly beginning to massage it.
∞ ∞ ∞
It was a morning that seemed to have returned to normalcy. Yoo Siwoon brewed coffee as usual, with an increased amount to include Eunseong’s portion. Eunseong was eating the apple that he had cut for him. Brewing coffee for Eunseong instead of milk and neatly cutting apples for him was one of Yoo Siwoon’s important morning routines.
There was a sound of someone approaching, and Director Nam soon entered the dining room. For Eunseong, it was the first time seeing Director Nam in almost a month.
“CEO, did you sleep well? Ah, Eunseong. It’s been a while. Have you been well?”
Director Nam greeted them casually. Eunseong awkwardly greeted him back. Judging by how he avoided eye contact, it seemed he already knew about the relationship between Yoo Siwoon and himself. Director Nam was a perceptive person.
Director Nam pretended not to know about them and brewed his capsule coffee as usual.
Yoo Siwoon was also drinking coffee and checking his emails on a tablet. He handled necessary approvals over the phone, and Director Nam managed most other matters. Director Nam was capable. He was trustworthy enough to be entrusted with responsibilities. There was no reason for Yoo Siwoon to remain in Korea because of the company. Now he just needed to create an excuse to leave.
Yoo Siwoon was planning to claim he had contracted some disease. He would declare that he could no longer perform the task of cleaning up the family’s mess due to treatment and recuperation, and then disappear after making a promise to return once recovered—a promise he had no intention of keeping. It might not be as simple as he thought, but he planned to push through with it anyway.
In any case, everyone who knew of Eunseong’s existence was dead. Whenever Yoo Siwoon reflected on this fact, he praised himself for having killed Yoo Oseon without hesitation and exhaled a breath of relief, thinking he had done the right thing.
“I forgot to give you this earlier. It’s information from Team Leader Lee Joon-seung.”
“…”
Director Nam took out an envelope and handed it to Yoo Siwoon. When Yoo Siwoon pretended not to see it, he quietly placed the document on the table.
Yoo Siwoon glanced sideways at Director Nam as he stepped back. Director Nam was constantly urging him to return to his former self, to go back to how he was when he pretended not to know Eunseong’s feelings and looked away. He was continuously warning Yoo Siwoon not to collapse in the way he had so despised.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
