ICGE 03

Chapter 03

Because I Wanted to Play With Her
Seven-year-old Soeun stayed in the staff quarters of Taejun’s house until her father, who was serving a prison sentence, returned.

Ten-year-old Kim Taejun and seven-year-old Han Soeun quickly became close. After a few candies and caramels Taejun handed her, Soeun was completely won over. The young Soeun, whose heart was stolen by just a few sweets, followed Taejun well.

“Shall we play rock-paper-scissors?”

“Okay!”

“If you lose, it’s a flick on the forehead. How about it?”

“Sounds good!”

Soeun agreed to whatever game Taejun suggested. Just having someone play with her made her so happy that she shouted with a wide, foolish grin. Watching the child like that, Taejun swallowed a bitter smile.

There was a pattern to Soeun’s rock-paper-scissors. Once you learned it, you could win every time.

Flick. Flick. Flick. Using the excuse that he won, Taejun freely hit Soeun as much as he wanted. Even when her round forehead bruised, she soon burst into laughter again. Even with tears welling up from the pain, she didn’t know to stop playing.

After hitting her especially hard, Taejun would willingly lose. Even though she only won once out of ten times, Soeun stomped her feet in excitement as if she had the whole world.

“Wow! I won! Oppa, hurry and take your punishment!”

“If you hit too hard, I won’t play with you.”

Tap.

“Ahhh! Hey! That really hurts!”

The child’s flick didn’t hurt at all, but Taejun made a pained expression as if he couldn’t endure it. Because of his exaggerated acting, Soeun’s flick became even softer.

A seven-year-old couldn’t beat a ten-year-old. Soeun was an easy target to deceive and tease, and whenever he was bored, Taejun would go find her—pulling her hair, tripping her, or splashing her with muddy water—to relieve his gloom.

Among all the ways to bully her, Taejun’s favorite game was hide-and-seek. He would tell Soeun to hide somewhere in the vast garden of the mansion, and then lazily go look for her when the sun was setting.

One time, less than an hour after the game started, Soeun came out of the bushes crying, and he scolded her.

“You’re supposed to stay hidden until I find you! Why did you come out! Do you not want to play with me anymore?”

“N-nooo……”

The child said she came out because she was scared, sobbing, but she didn’t complain.

“Even if you’re scared, you have to endure it and wait!”

Taejun scolded her again and reminded her of the “meaning” of the game.

“From now on, you wait no matter what until I come. No matter where you hide, I’ll find you. Got it?”

“Okay.”

“And don’t cry. If you cry, I won’t play with you. Got it?”

“Okay!”

At the sight of the foolish child, who quickly stopped crying and smiled brightly at his nagging, Taejun couldn’t help but smile along.

In front of Taejun’s office.

Soeun looked into the paper bag she had received and asked blankly,

“…Excuse me?”

“A few came in, and there were leftovers. The only one at her seat was Assistant Manager Han Soeun.”

Taejun replied.

Eel rice bowl. The eel rice bowl her boyfriend had mentioned.

Just seeing the label that said eel rice bowl made her heart race.

The director is a good person!

Someone pretty and kind too!

“Thank you.”

Soeun bowed deeply. Maybe it was because of Heeuk’s message—just one eel rice bowl made her feel like crying.

The world is warm.

Right. Han Soeun. Stay strong.

“May I take it and eat it?”

“Go ahead.”

“Yes. Thank you. I’ll enjoy it.”

“By the way.”

She bowed again and was about to leave, but Taejun stopped her with a short remark.

When Soeun stopped walking, he took a step closer and asked,

“Have we ever met before?”

“Pardon?”

It was a rhetorical question—there was no way that could be true. He was the kind of man whose face you could never forget once you saw it. Unless someone had plastic surgery, there was no way she wouldn’t recognize such looks.

Kim Taejun? The name itself sounded familiar. There must be at least ten people with similar names in the company alone. In her 27 years of life, Soeun had probably passed by that common name countless times.

He must be the same. The name “Han Soeun” was just as ordinary.

But he was a man from a different world than her. Aside from his name, nothing about him was ordinary.

As if trying hard to recall something, he carefully examined Soeun’s face. It felt like his gaze pierced even through her glasses. His sharp eyes made her flustered. It felt like he might reach out with his long, large hand and pull off her glasses at any moment. Her heart pounded.

His face drew closer and closer, and Soeun froze, forgetting even to breathe. Though frozen, her face heated up.

“No, it’s nothing. You can go.”

After a moment, he straightened up and spoke. Soeun bowed once more and left.

Taejun watched her back until she got into the elevator at the end of the hallway. Each step she took made the ends of her neatly tied hair sway.

She didn’t seem to recognize him. She only looked flustered by his sudden question.

She didn’t seem to be hiding anything either.

It seemed he needed to investigate further.

Han Soeun, whom he met again after a long time, had become a mature woman who had completely erased her past appearance. Yet even so, there were things that could never be erased, which were once again imprinted in Taejun’s eyes.

Her pale face that changed color by the moment. Transparent skin. Full lips that parted firmly. Round eyes visible behind her glasses. Eyes that looked like tears might fall at any moment…

After seeing her face directly, he felt an inexplicable hunger rising.

Han Soeun.

After that small child disappeared one night without even saying goodbye, he felt empty for a few days, but Taejun quickly forgot and lived as if she had never existed.

He even became brighter compared to right after his parents passed away. Somehow, it felt like the weight of his sorrow had lessened.

Time passed without further incident, and he left to study in the United States. Before he knew it, he had grown accustomed to living abroad and settled there.

His grandfather, Chairman Kim Jaepil, gave Taejun considerable freedom. He told him to study whatever he wanted until he turned thirty, and to return to Korea at thirty-one.

Within that limited freedom, Taejun started and ended several relationships. For some reason, toward the end of every relationship, he felt the same emptiness. The women always wanted more than just dating, and Taejun couldn’t give them what they wanted, so he would end things. The women always got angry, but he felt nothing. He only wondered why they were angry after already getting what they wanted.

His last girlfriend even picked unreasonable fights and vented incomprehensible anger.

“You called me Han Soeun when you were drunk! Several times!”

Taejun couldn’t empathize with her anger at all and simply muttered to himself, “An Seoyeon or Han Soeun, what’s the difference?”

That day, more than the fact that his relationship had ended, he became deeply absorbed in the possibility that it might be true, repeating the name “Han Soeun.”

Han Soeun, Han Soeun, Han Soeun…

‘Ah, Han Soeun.’

As if pushed, the image of a girl from over a decade ago came to mind. Once he remembered her name, it was as if a blocked stream burst open, and buried memories spread vividly in his mind.

Taejun turned on an old laptop and searched through photo files. His aunt had given it to him, saying he could look at them whenever he missed Korea.

After persistent clicking, he found one photo. It showed a seven-year-old girl and ten-year-old Taejun sitting side by side in the garden.

Through the girl’s bangs, stuck with sweat, her forehead could be seen swollen red. Even with that red forehead, the child was smiling brightly.

A foolish child who didn’t even realize she was being bullied, no matter how much he tormented her.

A child who would cry sadly, calling “Oppa, oppa,” when he left her alone in the middle of the garden—as if he was her whole world.

What was she doing now?

No… he wanted to pinch her cheeks like before, pull her hair. He wanted to take something precious from her and throw it far away, trip her, and watch her reaction as much as he tormented her. He wanted to see if she was still that foolish, if after playing with her a few times she would chase after him again, calling “Oppa, oppa” as if he were her entire world.

He wanted to play with her.

But it was a feeling that must never be revealed to the world.

Without anyone knowing, Taejun hired someone to find Han Soeun.

It was just a secret amusement. It would be nice if he found her, but if not, it couldn’t be helped—a pastime born from having too much inheritance and nothing else to do. Life was boring. He was simply passing time.

Because it couldn’t be discovered, it took a long time. There were limits, and more than a dozen mistakes, but in the end, he found her.

The moment he saw the photo sent by the counselor, something heavy inside his chest boiled over, and heat surged up. His heart pounded strongly, sending warmth throughout his body.

The woman in the photo had long hair and wore glasses, but Taejun was certain. It was her—Han Soeun.

The small, round-faced child had become a slender, delicate woman.

Her fragile frame looked like it would collapse at a touch. Her pale skin, and the way the corners of her eyes curved when she smiled slightly—it was the same as before.

[She is working as an engineer at the K Electronics Service Center headquarters.]

While flipping through the photos in a daze, his gaze stopped at the information the counselor provided.

“Are you certain it’s the K Electronics Service Center?”

[Yes. I’m certain.]

“And how is her biological father doing?”

[Han Honggyu has been in the Philippines for over ten years.]

If it’s been over ten years…

“Then is it possible that her biological father doesn’t know Han Soeun joined the K Group?”

[Shall I look into it?]

“Yes, please. Find out if Han Soeun and Han Honggyu have been in contact, and how she has been living.”

[Understood.]

Ha.

After ending the call, Taejun let out a dry laugh.

The child who used to cry loudly in front of him when he broke her toys had grown into someone who fixed machines. Wasn’t that amusing?

The child who was driven out of K Group because of her father’s crime had returned on her own as an adult.

Did she know about her father’s wrongdoing? Did she return knowing?

Why? With what face?

It was a question that piqued his interest.

Taejun decided to continue the investigation. He felt he needed to see Han Soeun with his own eyes.

And so, he boarded a flight to Korea earlier than planned.

In the evening, the HR manager came up with a file containing Han Soeun’s personal information.

Girls’ middle school, girls’ high school, women’s university graduate. K Electronics Service was her first job.

She was a diligent employee with a good work attitude and got along well with her colleagues. However—

“Unpaid leave for one month…”

Taejun read the recently added line. The HR manager replied,

“She said she went on an overseas trip.”

“Where to?”

“Pardon?”

He had spoken too quietly again.

“Never mind. That’s all. You may go.”

After dismissing the manager, Taejun fell into thought.

A month-long overseas trip…

Did she go to the Philippines to meet her father?

Taejun tapped on the keyboard a few times and found Han Soeun’s personal SNS account. It wasn’t difficult. He checked her company email ID, pasted it into a search engine along with her name, and found an account with a few numbers added at the end. Clicking it, he saw a photo of the company building and smirked.

Most of the photos were private, or maybe she just didn’t take many. Her SNS was sparse—just food photos and small figures of herself taken at famous spots from typical angles. There hadn’t even been any uploads in the past three months.

“You said you went overseas.”

Does it make sense that there’s not a single photo?

Sharpening his focus, Taejun quickly scrolled through her SNS. Then his movement stopped at a plain photo.

Four months ago. A photo of a woman and a man’s hands overlapped. Rings were clearly visible on their ring fingers—a couple ring.

Taejun slowly moved to the next photo. The slanted back view of a man standing before the beach came into view.

The interest shining in Taejun’s eyes turned cold.