The Will

“Everyone has something a little out of the ordinary about them. Who on earth would say something so cruel?”

The man’s tone remained calm and steady. That sense of stability did not come merely from a deep or low voice. It was the product of quiet self-assurance, the refinement he had polished over long years, and a genuine concern for the young, frightened person before him—all of it woven seamlessly into every word.

“Um, mister… it’s just… my mom says…”

“Yes, your mother.”

“Th-that I’m… mentally… a psychopath… and schizophrenic. Hngh, shit.”

Tears spilled before she could even finish the sentence. Woo-yeon realized she was far more terrified than she had admitted of the brilliant future her mother had prophesied for her: locked away in a mental hospital for life, or cutting off her own ears, or killing someone, or taking her own life.

“Ah, and from now on… she says I can’t paint anymore. That painting is what’s driving me crazy. If I keep drawing, she’ll chop my hands off…”

Confusion began to cloud the man’s face. She should have stopped there. This man had met her for the first time today; he knew nothing about her. If he was coming from someone’s funeral, he could hardly be in a cheerful mood. She needed to shut this damned mouth of hers right now.

Yet once the tears began to pour, they refused to stop. It felt as though a balloon filled to bursting with salt water had exploded inside her brain. She bit her lip until it bled, straining with every ounce of will, but the tears kept streaming endlessly.

The railing had been right. There had been words hidden in her chest, words too painful to speak to anyone. Deep down she had never wanted anything like a bungee jump. She had simply wanted to grab any passerby and pour out her grievances.

And this man happened to be standing here—by rotten luck, or by some bastard twist of fate.

Woo-yeon sobbed for a long while with her hand still held in his, and he waited without moving an inch from that posture. Accustomed only to parents who could not endure even a single second of her crying, she found his calm patience utterly strange.

“Tell me slowly what happened. You can cry as much as you need to. Take a long breath in—that’s it. Now let it out slowly. Good. Well done.”

Woo-yeon cried as he instructed, then drew long breaths in and out again and again as he guided her. Only when her sobs had quieted did he straighten and rise to his full height. It was like watching a great tree surge upward toward the sky.

“If we go down to the end of this path, there’s a café that makes excellent hot chocolate. How about we walk that way and you tell me everything you want to say—every last bit of it?”

The chocolate-colored irises shimmering before her eyes were intoxicatingly beautiful.

Once they had come down from the bridge, the man hailed a taxi and settled Woo-yeon inside. Amid the forest of buildings, nestled in a narrow alley, a rustic wooden sign reading Mint Coco appeared. When he opened the glass door fogged white with steam, a little bell chimed and a wave of warmth rushed out to meet them.

Warmth was a mysterious thing. Woo-yeon could feel, through that gentle heat, that her grand plan had failed and the man’s quiet conspiracy had succeeded. The fact that everything had gone awry filled her with such gratitude and relief that her eyes grew hot again.

“I came here as a child with my mother and father. It was the first time I ever tasted hot chocolate, and I thought nothing in the world could be more delicious.”

Having given her his coat and walked all the way to the end of the bridge, the man’s face was blue with cold, yet his smile remained warm.

Seated beside the stove with a small coffee cup in his hands, color slowly returned to his cheeks. The large mug of hot chocolate Woo-yeon cradled gradually warmed her fingers as well. White marshmallows floated like little clouds atop the frothy foam. Watching them melt and dissolve into the heat, she thought they looked rather like her own heart.

The sweet, rich drink slid down her throat and into her stomach. A soft, spreading heat thawed her frozen body. There was surely magic in anything sweet and warm—whether person, object, or food.

The man, too, sat quietly by the stove, sipping his coffee as if his purpose were simply to warm himself rather than to hear her story. It was strangely comforting. Even though silence stretched between them for a long while, she felt at ease, never once pressured to speak.

At last her locked lips began to move.

“…Today is the registration deadline for Seolim Arts University.”

#2. The Will

His father’s funeral was over.

Yet the aftermath stretched long. Lee-won had been the sole chief mourner of a modest household, and his father, Chairman Han Se-kyung, had been widely connected. A procession of political and business figures whose names everyone knew continued through the night; for three full days Lee-won could not leave his post for even a moment. Already exhausted from keeping vigil at his father’s side every night, by the time the funeral Mass was held he could barely keep himself upright.

His father’s battle with illness had been long and agonizing. A brilliant strategist who had built his business with relentless success, the chairman had suddenly been diagnosed with liver cancer ten years earlier and had since endured an endless cycle of surgeries, chemotherapy, and relapses.

Lee-won, then enrolled in seminary with the intention of becoming a priest, had finally abandoned that path because of his father’s illness and begun intensive training as successor. Practical education covering Sekyung Holdings—the holding company named after his father—and its eleven subsidiaries had been rigorous. In the final year the process of transferring the CEO position had been accelerated.

A full-scale war had erupted with Managing Director Woo Il-hyuk, son of the late co-founder Chairman Woo Young-seok and self-proclaimed next CEO. While Lee-won pushed the succession forward by persuading shareholders and board members, his father’s condition deteriorated sharply. Toward the end even opioid painkillers barely worked; he suffered extreme agony.

Night after night Lee-won held his father’s thrashing hand and prayed. His father had been his only family, yet he could not bring himself to pray for such a painful prolongation of life. Instead he prayed that the terrible pain might be transferred entirely onto himself—or, failing that, that his father might be released from it swiftly.

On the rare occasions when clarity returned, his father would clutch Lee-won’s hand and murmur with difficulty.

“Don’t casually pray to take the pain in my place. You have no idea how much it hurts.”

“Being left alone hurts more, Father.”

“A boy who hates loneliness this much, left alone… I should have married you off long ago. Is there really no girl you like?”

“There isn’t.”

“Your eyes aren’t stuck to the sky, and nothing else is broken—how have you gone this long without a single one? Are you planning to go back to seminary after I die?”

As his son furrowed his brow and bowed his head as though swallowing bile, a low whisper reached him.

“I’m sorry, Lee-won. I’ve done something unforgivable to you…”

“What are you saying? In the end it was my choice, wasn’t it?”

Immediately after receiving the Anointing of the Sick, even through the final surge of pain, he had desperately urged:

“Don’t cry. Send me off smiling—smiling. Don’t call the doctor. I’m all right.”

Lee-won had kept his father’s word. As the hand gripping his slowly stiffened, instead of wailing he had quietly given thanks that his father had departed for the land of rest.

Rejoicing in his father’s death had been impossible, yet he could give thanks for the release from suffering, and recalling happy memories instead of grieving had not been difficult either. Like most fathers and sons they had never been especially affectionate or clingy the way mothers and daughters sometimes are, yet by both subjective and objective measures he had been a more than decent father, and the store of memories was ample.

You’ve suffered so much. Rest in peace now, in a better place.

That was how Lee-won had folded away the grief and sense of loss that threatened to tear his throat open. He had believed it a painful yet peaceful and quiet farewell.

Until, in the headquarters conference room where the company’s executives, directors, and shareholders had gathered, a young lawyer named Jeong Seo-hyeong appeared and dropped a thunderbolt.

“At present, Executive Director Han Lee-won cannot exercise the inherited shares of Chairman Han Se-kyung!”

“What the hell does that mean—Executive Director Han can’t inherit?”

“What? Did the chairman have a secret child somewhere?”

Murmurs erupted on all sides. Lee-won gave a hollow laugh and shook his ringing head. What nonsense was this? There had been no problem with the inheritance; his father had even settled the tax matters cleanly before he left.

But when Attorney Jeong raised the handwritten will like an imperial token and began to read it aloud in a clear voice, the atmosphere froze solid.

Lee-won listened to the contents of the will without a single word. He could feel the gathered people’s gazes striking him like arrows. Having finished the disclosure, Attorney Jeong set the original will down on the desk and turned to Lee-won with a question.