Alone in the Crowd

"Mom's always felt so sorry for the eldest young master, ever since he was little. It was pitiful watching him play alone outside every single day. Such a young kid with nowhere to put his heart..."

Everyone else was busy making dumplings, so Building B held only the two of us. Maybe that was why Mom's worried nagging stretched on so long.

"I still don't know how the President and Madam could leave that little scrap of a baby and walk the path to the afterlife. I could never die if it meant leaving you and Chan-hee behind."

"Mom, don't say things like that."

"Strictly speaking, Chan-hee still has you. But the eldest young master is an only child—there's no one. If only Manager Yoon were still in Seoul at a time like this..."

"Who's that?"

"Someone. An old friend of the late President."

I thought I had heard the name in passing. Manager Yoon. I was quietly turning it over in my mind when Mom lowered her voice.

"The Chairman never liked him—said his fate clashed with the family's bloodline. That's why even the President ended up gone."

That damned fortune-telling again. Chairman Kwon treated a person's saju as more important than the family itself.

"Manager Yoon this, Manager Yoon that. It's all his own karma. The guilty one always shouts the loudest, honestly... aigoo."

Mom let out a long sigh, clearly unsettled by thoughts of the late President.

"Tell Hyun-jin to make sure he eats properly, Na-hee."

Mom's request stayed with me as I headed to the apartment, leaving my heart oddly restless.

Kwon Hyun-jin, with no family.

Kwon Hyun-jin, with no one to ask if he had eaten.

Kwon Hyun-jin, alone...

The phrase "loneliness in a crowd" seemed made for him.

I didn't want to adopt some one-sided, charitable attitude—guessing at someone else's loneliness without even asking. Still, Mom's unusually grave face and voice kept snagging on my mind.

From childhood I had instinctively kept my distance from the noisy, violent Kwon Hyun-jin.

I sometimes overheard Chan-hee saying things like "Hyung bought it for me" or "Hyung made it for me," but the Kwon Hyun-jin I watched from afar was always destroying something. The nannies never knew what to do when they tried to stop the family's eldest grandson. On the days Chairman Kwon or Vice President Kwon Young-moo witnessed it, there was always shouting.

Growing up too early from living carefully under someone else's roof, I spent my days holding my breath.

So when that boy—younger than me or not—stole my shoe bag, blasted a bubble gun at my head, or shoved reptile toys right in my face, I simply could not stand it.

Whenever he prowled around the Building B kitchen, I refused to step outside. Even when Chan-hee called, "Noona, come out! Noona!" I stayed put. I had long since figured out that the sly Kwon Hyun-jin was using my little brother as bait to lure me.

I was still lost in those thoughts when the elevator doors opened.

The moment I reached the thirty-fifth floor, a thick floral fragrance flooded my nose. At this point I half-wondered whether the entire apartment had been marinated in Kwon Hyun-jin's fabric softener.

Fortunately, he wasn't home at this hour. I set the bundle of side dishes down beside me and, out of courtesy, pressed the bell for 3501. After three long, dull rings, I started rummaging through my bag. That was when I was still hunting for the card key.

Beep-beep—the door unlocked on its own. Startled, I snapped my head up.

"Finally here?"

One hand braced against the wall, Kwon Hyun-jin had opened the front door and was looking down at me with a crooked little smile.

He must have just showered; Kwon Hyun-jin's hair was still a little damp. Every time he exhaled, the scent of musky body wash mixed with a faint, clean water smell drifted toward me.

"I heard you go to the gym... first thing after waking up."

"I get up at six every day."

"You leave at nine, though..."

Flustered, I stammered without even knowing what I was saying.

"The place opens at nine, so that's when I go. Hey, whatever."

"..."

"What are you doing standing there? Come in."

I had been planted in front of the entrance like a stone guardian. I rubbed my tingling arms and hesitated.

"What."

"..."

"Because I'm here... you don't even want to come in?"

His tone dropped, strangely low. That faintly careful reaction threw me more than anything.

"No, it's just... walking into someone's house when the owner is actually home feels a little weird. Is it okay if I come in?"

"You kidding me? You came and went just fine when I wasn't around."

"How did you know?"

"How wouldn't I know? It's my place."

Feeling awkward, I picked up the side-dish bundle I had set down. In the next second my hands were empty.

As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Kwon Hyun-jin had taken the load from me. He jerked his chin toward the inside.

"Come in, Lee Na-hee."

The kindness was almost unbelievable. I didn't bother refusing. My arms had already felt ready to fall off from carrying that heavy bundle all the way here.

I followed the homeowner awkwardly down the hall, only to find my entire view blocked by Kwon Hyun-jin.

The white T-shirt he wore made his already broad back look nearly as wide as a door. The bundle dangling from one of his hands even looked small and light. I had practically been hugging the thing the whole way here...

If he had become an athlete he would have brought glory to the country, yet somehow this kid had been born into a chaebol family.

The Kwon Hyun-jin who used to kick a ball in the garden every day had been forbidden from soccer ever since he fell and scraped his knees raw. On Chairman Kwon's orders, no ball was allowed anywhere in the house after that.

He had been born into such a precious household and raised so carefully that he couldn't even freely do the things he liked. If that wasn't a tragedy, nothing was.

Today, as always, a completely mismatched bouquet sat in the middle of Kwon Hyun-jin's dining table. Besides the orange roses, it was a lavish mix of all sorts of flowers.

Just like the sweet floral fabric softener he used, the spotlessly clean space felt even stranger. Kwon Hyun-jin's home was full of things that simply did not suit him.

"What's this supposed to be?"

"...Braised dried pollack."

"What's that?"

"Fish..."

Still gauging his mood, I spotted my chance to escape. I finished folding the gold wrapping cloth and was about to open my mouth when Kwon Hyun-jin jerked his chin at the table.

"What are you doing? Set the rice."

"..."

I was so stunned I couldn't speak. Seeing my reaction only seemed to make him find it more absurd; he shot back with a crooked look.

"So I'm supposed to cook it myself?"

"..."

I had been a fool for feeling even a moment of pity for him. With manners that didn't contain a single gram of decency, no wonder Mrs. Jang had washed her hands of him.

"...Your place doesn't even have a rice cooker."

"It does."

"It does? Where...?"

Instead of answering, Kwon Hyun-jin reached up to the cupboard above my head. Sure enough, an electric pressure rice cooker sat inside.

As he pulled it down, the solid muscles of his arm showed clearly beneath the sleeve of the white T-shirt. Feeling as though I had stolen a glance at something I shouldn't see, I quickly dropped my eyes.

"There's no... rice."

"Then we buy some."

"..."

If he had any intention of cooking rice, he should have done it long ago. After never eating it until now, why suddenly demand I cook some? Did he think I was his personal rice girl?

It made me furious, but being Director Lee's daughter was my own fault. To him, the daughter of "Director Lee" apparently registered as little more than kitchen staff.

"Fine. Go buy rice. I'll cook it for you."

"Where do they sell it?"

"There's a market downstairs. You didn't know?"

"I don't know."

"How can you not know? From the apartment to the subway station..."

I started to explain and then realized. Kwon Hyun-jin always had his personal chauffeur on standby. From the moment he landed at Incheon Airport until now, he had never once used public transportation. Of course he had never needed to go to a subway station.

"If you know where it is, then you come with me, Lee Na-hee."

Kwon Hyun-jin took my silence as agreement.

"I'll change and come out."

He was already dressed neatly enough for going out, yet he insisted on changing clothes...

Even when the kid acted rough, if you looked carefully you could still see the traces of a carefully raised young master. A young master was a young master, after all.

Between the rice cooker still wrapped in plastic and the even more suffocating boy himself, my precious Saturday was disappearing before my eyes.