The Wish Ticket

Yeon-jae's light brown eyes grew distant as she stared into empty air, her chopsticks forgotten in her hand. Even in the middle of a meal, the moment her mind drifted, the afternoon's events would surface unbidden. Why had he come looking for her, only to throw her heart into such turmoil?

She was worrying her lip between her teeth when a voice slipped into her ear.

"Mommyyy."

Yeon-jae's head snapped up. It was Ji-woo. Their eyes met across the table.

"Hmm? Did you call Mommy?"

"Ji-woo called you three times already."

He answered with both cheeks puffed out like little buns.

"I already finished eating, but Mommy keeps giving me pork cutlet. Look at this."

She glanced down. Pieces of pork cutlet sat stacked in a tidy pile inside his empty bowl. The crispy fried cutlet was Ji-woo's favorite dish, and she had been laying a piece onto his spoon every time he scooped up rice. She'd been certain she was matching his pace.

"Look at me, spacing out like that."

She hadn't even realized he was done.

"Mommy was completely out of it. Did my little cutie eat well?"

The child who had been watching her with a sulky little pout broke into a bashful grin.

"Yeah! The pork cutlet was yummy."

He nodded again and again, and Yeon-jae's own smile rose to meet his. She stood, took the apron from the back of her chair, and tied it on. The moment she reached the sink and pulled on her rubber gloves, Ji-woo came padding over with the utensils in his hands. She beamed as she watched him rise onto his tiptoes to drop them into the basin.

"Are you helping Mommy? Whose son are you, being this adorable?"

"Ji-woo is Mommy's son!"

The praise seemed to swell him with pride. He wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled his head against her, showing not the faintest intention of letting go for as long as the dishes lasted.

"Mommy's little barnacle. Are you going to stay like this the whole time?"

"Yep. I'm gonna stay just like this."

"Is that so? Then whoever lets go first loses."

"Okay!"

The dishwashing was nearly finished when Yeon-jae looked down. There he was, clinging to her like a cicada fastened to an old tree, holding on with such fierce concentration that she had to swallow a laugh. Water was splashing him, and still he hung there with his eyes squeezed shut. Did he want to win that badly? They made little bets like this often enough, but she had never seen him this intent.

Only after she had set the last of the squeaky-clean dishes on the drying rack did the contest come to an end.

"Mommy. Ji-woo won, right?"

He came up to her as she untied her apron, his eyes shining bright as stars. It had always saddened her that he seemed to have grown up faster than other children his age. But today he was every inch a five-year-old, and the sight of it made her heart flutter.

"That's right. Ji-woo wins. Amazing. Mommy always seems to lose, doesn't she?"

In truth, she was the one who let him win more often than not. But watching his smile stretch from ear to ear, she knew it had been the right choice today, too.

"Then since Ji-woo won, you have to grant my wish!"

"A wish? I don't think we made that kind of promise."

"I just decided. The winner gets to be king."

The child so adorably determined to claim even a wish ticket was too precious to refuse. Yeon-jae raised the white flag and bent her knees until their eyes were level.

"What's Ji-woo's wish?"

"Hmm."

The sparkle that had been dancing in his eyes only a moment ago settled into something quiet and still.

"Ummm. Well."

She watched his small mouth work as he hesitated. What kind of wish needed this much stalling? She fought down the urge to kiss those round, puffed cheeks and simply waited.

"Must be something you really, really want. The way our Ji-woo is dragging it out like this."

She reached out and gently ruffled his hair. Then those small, careful lips opened.

"Ji-woo wants to play piano with the ahjussi."

Her hand, still drifting through his hair, went still.

A memory rose without warning. On the way home after meeting Je-heon at the kindergarten, Ji-woo had asked if he could learn the piano.

"That's... could Mommy think about it?"

She hadn't been able to bring herself to refuse him outright, so she had dodged the answer. She had tried to find words a five-year-old could understand without being hurt, but it had not been easy. Several days had passed since then, and he had still been waiting. Her heart sank as if dozens of weights had been hung from it.

The answer she could give had already been decided.

I'm sorry, Ji-woo. We can't afford piano lessons.

The foundation is a dangerous place for you. If something goes wrong... Mommy and Ji-woo might be torn apart.

Unable to choose either truth, she had frozen in place when his voice reached her again.

"This is Ji-woo's wish, so it's okay, right?"

The eyes looking up at her were endlessly clear. Her heart clenched around the words she would have to deliver to a five-year-old swollen with expectation, a child who believed a wish ticket could make anything come true.

"I'm sorry, Ji-woo. I don't think Mommy can grant that wish."

"...Why? It's a wish ticket."

His large eyes wavered helplessly. A vast sense of loss crashed over him, as if he had lost an entire country.

"It might be hard to understand. But Mommy can't leave Ji-woo with the ahjussi."

"The foundation is a scary place. Mommy wants Ji-woo to keep living just the way he does now. I'm sorry."

"Then Ji-woo... can't go with the ahjussi? That's not fair."

Tears welled along his lashes as he looked up at her.

"We don't even have a pianooo."

His small shoulders began to shake. Thick tears gathered at his eyes and streamed down without end.

"Ji-woo has to play the piano, hic."

A moment later he could no longer hold it in, and the sobs broke loose.

"At the recital, with Seo-ha, hic. We were gonna perform together. And Ji-woo's the representative."

He wailed as he told her he had been chosen to lead the ensemble performance at the kindergarten recital. Confusion flickered across Yeon-jae's face — this was the first she had heard of any recital. Before she could even ask —

"Now Ji-woo's a liar. Waaah. Seo-ha's gonna hate Ji-woo."

"Ji-woo!"

He ran for the inner room where the bed was. Without so much as a glance back at her call, he yanked the blanket all the way over his head. Even that thick quilt could not muffle the child's swelling cries.

"Is the foundation work manageable?"

Je-heon lifted his head at the sharp, ringing voice. It belonged to Myeong-hee.

"Yes. Well enough."

At his tidy answer, one corner of Myeong-hee's mouth curled.

"I hear you found a piano prodigy. Jeong Ji-woo, was it?"

"I watched the video. The foundation's in quite an uproar. Catch a kid like that and it's a lottery win, isn't it?"

She tossed the words out as if testing the water. Je-heon set down the cup in his hand.

"Yes. That's why I've been working so hard to catch him."

"Good. You should. For you, it's a matter of life and death."

An unreadable smile touched her mouth before she picked up her cup and blew across the steam rising from it.

"Oh, and you know Yo-eun is coming back this time, don't you?"

The subject shifted, and at that unwelcome name Je-heon flinched, just slightly. No matter how many times he heard it, it never grew familiar.

"I received the report."

"The report? The way you say it, anyone would think you were talking about a stranger. Our Yo-eun will be hurt."

Je-heon's even brows lifted a fraction. He had never grown used to hearing Myeong-hee speak of anyone with that kind of warmth. He swallowed the dry laugh that rose on its own.

"She is a stranger."

"What?"

Leaving Myeong-hee's venomous stare where it was, he reached for his cup. Warmth gathered in his palm as his fingers closed around the steaming porcelain. Yo-eun had not set foot in Korea once in the five years she had spent studying in America. She would be twenty-six by now, if that.

"I can barely even picture her face."

He summoned the image of a woman who had already gone hazy in his mind. He had actually stood in front of her fewer than five times, so it was hardly surprising. If not for Myeong-hee, there were any number of occasions when he would have forgotten Yo-eun existed at all.

To him, Jeong Yeon-jae's face was far clearer than his fiancée's. He turned the cup in his hands. As naturally as the warmth spreading through his palm, Yeon-jae's face rose before his eyes. The girlish look was gone; she had become a complete woman. The face was unmistakably the Jeong Yeon-jae he knew — and yet the air she gave off was unfamiliar.

"You're smiling? Now?"

He looked up to find Myeong-hee staring at him with a face of pure disbelief.

"Ah. Was I?"

He brushed the corner of his mouth. He must have been smiling without realizing it. She looked at him as if she had seen enough, and shook her head.

It had been Myeong-hee, in fact, who had tried to talk Yo-eun out of going abroad. From five years ago to this very moment, she had wanted the two of them married with a consistency that never wavered — pushing even with the absurd logic that marriage and childbirth were better the younger one was. She was so sincere about the match that Je-heon's perpetual lukewarmness had always sat poorly with her.

"This is why I can't hold my head up in front of the in-laws. How many years has this been going on? I don't care how young Yo-eun is. You don't keep a woman waiting that long."

The same old repertoire, as always. Already knowing what would come next, Je-heon closed his eyes.

"You know the Chairman has high expectations of you. You didn't transfer to the foundation for nothing. It's all Chairman Gu's test, tied to the succession."

"There's going to be a family dinner with the elders. You need to prepare properly, so that—"

He had every intention of letting it wash over him, the way he always did. Then a knock rang through the quiet room.

"It's Ju Min-yeong. I'll be coming in for a moment."

Chief Ju bowed and walked in.

"What is it? Can't you see we're in the middle of a conversation?"

"It's just... Director. A call came in."

"A call?"

Myeong-hee's gaze shifted from Min-yeong to the phone being held out to her. The name on the screen lit her face at once.

"I'll take this for a moment."

"Of course."

Watching Myeong-hee rise from her seat, Je-heon thought it was just as well. He had had his fill of engagement talk. He glanced at Min-yeong as she bowed toward him, then reached indifferently for his own phone — and that was when Myeong-hee's voice, bright with excitement, carried over the threshold.

Chief Ju followed her out and closed the door behind them. Even so, that sharp, ringing voice struck Je-heon's ear with perfect clarity.