A Cup of Citron Tea

Ever since learning that Ji-hoon had left the school, I-eum hadn't been able to live a normal life.

She could no longer focus on her studies; even the college entrance exam, the defining test of her life, had been pushed aside. The only thing filling her head was Sung Ji-hoon.

Tears came, but she didn't cry. She didn't even know whether crying was something she was allowed to do.

Class ended.

The students drained out of the room like an ebbing tide, and I-eum was left alone in the classroom. She was supposed to buy bread and milk before the school store closed and head up to the study hall, but she couldn't summon the energy. So she sat at her desk for a while, gazing out at the schoolyard where the trees stood in bare rows, their once-lavish maple leaves nearly all fallen.

She found herself remembering the day she'd first met Ji-hoon down there...

"...!"

That was when I-eum's eyes went wide.

A man in a charcoal-gray three-piece suit had entered her field of vision. The tall figure standing in the schoolyard, hands tucked into his trouser pockets, was no mirage, no matter how many times she rubbed her eyes.

I-eum thrust her head out the window and hollered with all her might.

"Teacher!"

The man, who had been looking out over the athletic field, lifted his head and looked up at her.

It was Ji-hoon. It really was Sung Ji-hoon.

"Don't move! Stay right there! I mean it!"

Having shouted herself hoarse, I-eum kicked out of the classroom and ran. She heard a chair topple over behind her, but she paid it no mind, legs pumping.

Her ragged breathing swam dizzyingly in her ears.

What if she lost him again? The anxious thought made her eyes sting hot.

Then, just as she was bursting through the entrance, a firm grip seized her arm.

"Whoa there."

Ji-hoon had barely caught her as she stumbled, feet skidding out from under her in her haste.

"Why are you chasing me down like this? Did I borrow money from you or something?"

I-eum forgot to answer and simply stared up at him, dazed.

The man she'd believed gone back to the company for good was standing right before her eyes.

"Hic."

Relief burst out of her as tears.

At the girl suddenly scrubbing her eyes with her sleeve, Ji-hoon panicked, his voice short-circuiting like a broken machine.

"Wh-what's wrong? Why are you crying?"

"Hic, sob..."

"What is it?"

Not knowing what to do, Ji-hoon awkwardly reached a hand out over I-eum's shoulder, but he couldn't bring himself to pat it, and it just hovered there in the air.

"Why did you just leave?"

"Leave? Me?"

"They said you went back to the company, hic, and that you wouldn't be coming back to school anymore, sob..."

At the words she barely squeezed out between sobs, Ji-hoon wore a hopelessly baffled expression.

He'd only gone off to reflect after catching an earful—he'd had no idea this girl, who dissolved into tears at the drop of a hat, had been waiting for him.

In the end, he lowered his hand without ever having touched her shoulder.

"Of course I'd go back."

Though this time, he hadn't.

"You cry over that? Exam students must have it awfully easy these days. Back in my day, I even skimped on time spent eating."

But even as he said it, a strange feeling stirred in Ji-hoon.

Relief—and, at the same time, something far more tangled.

The truth was, he'd come back to the school with his anger still smoldering.

He'd known from the moment he saw her name tag on the day they met that I-eum was Yeon Chang-shin's daughter and Yeon Ho-nam's granddaughter.

What he hadn't known was that she was being offered up as a sacrifice to the games of adults rotten clear through.

"That's enough crying."

At that, I-eum tilted her bloodshot eyes up at him, sharp and accusing.

"That's so mean. Telling me to stop crying when you won't even comfort me."

"Follow me."

Saying it deliberately stiffly, he set off with his back to her—all the while thinking that the pattering footsteps trailing behind him, grumbling the whole way, sounded exactly like a baby chick's.

I-eum pressed her cold fingertips to her hot, swollen eyelids.

As she pressed down hard, a teacup landed in front of her with a soft clink.

"Drink up, brat."

Grunting about why a man his age should be playing tea-brewer for a brat, Ji-hoon settled into the seat of honor—the place diagonal from hers.

One sip in, and I-eum was in a good mood again, as if she'd never been crying at all.

"Wow. It's delicious."

Citron tea. How long had it been since she'd tasted anything so sweet and tart? It felt like the first time since her mother had walked out.

"What time do you usually get home?"

"Around midnight."

"No private tutoring? No cram school?"

"No."

At her answer, Ji-hoon fell silent, as if lost in thought.

She paid his reaction no mind and kept sipping her citron tea.

She was happy. Being allowed back into his office, drinking tea he'd brewed with his own hands.

Best of all, though, was simply getting to see him again.

"What do you want to do once you're in college?"

But Ji-hoon had gone and set the mood for a career counseling session.

"I want to be independent."

"Independent and then what?"

"Just... free..."

She wanted a part-time job like everyone else. She wanted to fall in love, too.

Having thought that far, I-eum slowly lifted her head.

If she were ever going to date anyone, she wanted it to be Ji-hoon—but she already had a track record of being flatly turned down by him, so working up the courage again wasn't easy.

"By the way, Teacher—how old are you?"

Ji-hoon was already so thoroughly an adult. She found herself wondering whether he simply didn't date.

For all she knew, he had a girlfriend right this minute. Adults were so adept at hiding their private lives.

"You do have a girlfriend, right?"

"You just answer the questions I ask you."

"Tch."

Why did his high-handedness never put her off—why did she only ever like him more? Whatever hurt she'd felt had melted away the moment she saw him again, and I-eum's heart went soft right back up.

"I asked what you're going to do with your life once you're grown."

"I just want to live freely."

She offered up a safe, unremarkable answer, but it landed on Ji-hoon very differently.

Now, at last, he understood—why sunlight and shadow coexisted on I-eum's face.

"That Assemblyman Park you met on the weekend."

At Ji-hoon's opening, I-eum—already halfway through her citron tea—quietly raised her eyes.

"I hear he's the man you're going to marry."

At the remark, dropped so casually, I-eum went motionless for a moment.

It was impossible to tell whether it was shock, or a look asking how do you know about that?

A long silence gathered between them.

It felt like ages before I-eum quietly set down her teacup.

"Has it already been decided?"

"Hasn't it?"

I-eum blinked a few times, then spoke, her voice soon steadied.

"He did bring up marriage that day. I was, of course, planning to refuse, but..."

She even explained that Ji-hoon's sudden appearance back then had kept her from getting her refusal out in time.

His gaze settled on her anxious, fidgeting fingers; then, with a low sigh, Ji-hoon swept his hair back from his forehead.

"Either way, it's not what you want. Is that it?"

"That's right."

"I see."

He'd figured as much.

But Yeon Ho-nam was not a man to be underestimated. In political circles, whispers were starting to bloom that he was a tiger gone toothless—yet he still held enough power to bend one person's life entirely to his whim.

All the more so when that person was a granddaughter with nowhere to turn.

Meanwhile, I-eum couldn't tear her eyes from Ji-hoon, who seemed lost in deep deliberation.

How could a person have features like that?

The longer she looked, the more he seemed like a sculpture so finely wrought that the word handsome fell short—or a watercolor touched with the most delicate brushstrokes.

"I-eum. Listen to me."

After a moment, he spoke as though he'd finished thinking it through.

"The marriage will most likely go ahead whether you want it to or not."

I-eum stayed quiet, her fidgeting hands folded meekly in her lap.

It should have been shocking news, but she wasn't shocked.

So much had brushed past her in this life, and not a single bit of it had ever asked what she wanted.

What held her attention far more was Ji-hoon's infuriatingly handsome face, the hazy sunset light bleeding across it like paint.

"Are you even listening to me?"

"Teacher... would it be okay if you gave me your phone number?"

"...What?"

She had no idea what tomorrow would bring. All I-eum knew was the joy of having Sung Ji-hoon—talking, moving, real—right there before her eyes.

"Or, I mean, you probably wouldn't do that. What about a social media account, then?"

Because I'm scared you'll disappear from in front of me again.

I really think I can't do without you anymore, Teacher.

"Hey, I go to the trouble of thinking something through just to say it to you, and—"

"But you'll protect me. Won't you?"

Faced with that beaming smile, Ji-hoon lost his words entirely.

"I'm right, aren't I? Right?"

He was left utterly deflated by the sheer audacity of a chick who understood nothing.

It was the moment all the fighting spirit he'd worked up drained away without a fight.