A Blessing of a Daughter
It seemed he'd showered in hot water; her cheeks still carried a faint flush, glistening with leftover moisture. If she'd pulled an all-nighter, this was more than late enough for the drowsiness to be catching up with her.
"Stop yawning already. Eat, go in, and sleep."
"I have school."
"Then you shouldn't have played around like that yesterday."
"Ugh, nagging. Did I ever say I wasn't going to school? I do what I have to do and then I play—why are you the one nagging me?"
She had a point, and Woo Tae-kyung fell silent for a moment. When Lee Do-hee began whining that it was time to eat, he had no choice but to rise from his seat. She slipped into the kitchen ahead of him, and the first thing to come into view was a long dining table that seated eight. A rare blue marble stood in perfect contrast against the white floor, and the chairs, matching the marble's hue, were arranged around side dishes already set at the center.
Two place settings. He quietly held back, wondering whether he even belonged at this table—but Kim Kyung-hwa, transferring a freshly reheated stew from the induction cooktop, spoke to him kindly.
"Sit down and eat. I don't have breakfast myself. Every now and then our daughter shows up out of nowhere demanding morning food, so I keep things ready."
One small earthenware pot bubbled with kimchi stew, while another held a steamed egg that had puffed up beautifully just moments ago. And with a little of every kind of side dish arranged alongside, it was already a generously spread table. Woo Tae-kyung was momentarily at a loss.
A home-cooked meal made for him by someone—never mind that she was a woman whose face he didn't even know, one who hadn't yet left for work. It was simply the first time he'd ever received one.
Lee Do-hee sank into her seat with sleepy eyes. Kim Kyung-hwa, who had even set out a small ladle and a plate so the stew could be served separately, sat down beside her daughter and faced Woo Tae-kyung.
"Thank you for the meal."
At his crisp bow, Kim Kyung-hwa let out yet another omona and laughed.
"Don't just look at the scar—look at the whole package. Handsome and well-mannered, isn't he?"
Lee Do-hee spoke as she fished nothing but tofu out of the kimchi stew and piled it onto her plate.
Kim Kyung-hwa nodded along to her daughter's jab. Without the scar—that gashing mark slicing viciously across his face, the first thing anyone's eye would land on—he would have looked like an upright, handsome young man. Even setting aside his sharply defined features, the shirt he wore was obviously one her daughter had dressed him in, and from it alone Kim Kyung-hwa couldn't help but acknowledge just how fine a body he had. The wound torn straight down from the corner of his eye, past the bridge of his high nose, only made his deep-set eyes seem all the sharper.
"If only it weren't for that scar…"
What a waste of a face.
The words slipped out of Kim Kyung-hwa before she could stop herself, pure regret.
"If he didn't have it, he'd be nothing special. It's because he has it that I want him."
Lee Do-hee opened her mouth as she chopped the tofu into fine little pieces with her chopsticks and ate. Woo Tae-kyung simply ate his share quietly and cleanly. Having grown up trailing after Jang Hee-jo, table manners like these had long since been drilled into his body.
If anything, it was Lee Do-hee who kept cutting the tofu—already slippery enough to chase with chopsticks—into even smaller pieces, sending it flying to every corner of the table. Before long she seemed to lose interest in the tofu altogether and stretched her chopsticks toward the braised quail eggs, only to fail to get a proper grip and scratch at them futilely, again and again.
Then one quail egg went tumbling loose and rolled right up to the front of Woo Tae-kyung's bowl.
"Our daughter really does pull stunts like this all the time. I'm sorry."
"It's no trouble at all."
Woo Tae-kyung reached out with his chopsticks, picked the quail egg from his bowl, and set it down atop Lee Do-hee's rice. The one that had rolled toward him, he naturally claimed and ate himself.
"Woo Tae-kyung, I want that one."
The moment he'd placed a single quail egg in her bowl, Lee Do-hee gave up on her chopsticks entirely. Lifting her rice spoon, she began demanding that he serve her the side dishes.
"Goodness, she never even did this as a child. Look at our daughter."
Kim Kyung-hwa didn't scold—she laughed. The thought settled into Woo Tae-kyung without his quite realizing it: whatever Lee Do-hee did, Kim Kyung-hwa would laugh like this and never say a word against it. So this is what all mothers are like, he found himself thinking. He'd assumed parenting meant unconditionally doting on whatever your child did and never blaming them—because he had never once had parents of his own, it was a wholly unfamiliar thing.
When Woo Tae-kyung deliberately spooned stir-fried anchovies onto the utensil instead of the rolled omelet she was asking for, she scrunched up her face but obediently put it in her mouth anyway. She'd spent so long fussing over the side dishes that she was only now getting around to her rice, and he felt inwardly relieved.
It would have been too much for her to be the only one leaving her bowl untouched after her mother had gone to all this trouble.
Faced with Kim Kyung-hwa's wholehearted encouragement of her daughter being served by him, Woo Tae-kyung simply kept feeding Lee Do-hee first.
"The braised beef is good. Try some."
Lee Do-hee offered him the tender shredded soy-braised beef sitting beside the quail eggs.
Without a word, he took a bite from her spoon, then loaded it again and held it back out to her—and she ate it the very same way.
"The rice here is good, isn't it?"
"Oh, this child. The way you keep going on about how delicious everything is, it makes it hard for me to tell the housekeeper to stop coming. Honestly, it's so much work."
Kim Kyung-hwa laughed and gently smoothed a hand over her daughter's unruly hair. Watching her eat alone was enough to make her look stuffed to bursting, so Woo Tae-kyung didn't let his gaze linger.
"Where on earth did such a beautiful little blessing come from?"
"From Mommy's tummy."
At Lee Do-hee's matter-of-fact answer, Kim Kyung-hwa burst out laughing like a girl.
It was then that Woo Tae-kyung's eyes briefly met Lee Do-hee's. She had been wearing that indifferent expression, but at the sound of her mother's laughter she laughed along with it. The corners of her eyes creased into a smile sweet enough to make anyone watching fall a little in love, and she turned her gaze away from him—turning instead to face Kim Kyung-hwa, who was looking at her with nothing but love in her eyes.
Before he knew it, Woo Tae-kyung had forgotten that he'd stopped moving his chopsticks, that he was simply sitting there watching the two of them.
"You're Mommy's joy. Did you hear? The Chairman said you'd been through so much this time, he put a commercial building in Banpo in Mommy's name."
"Really? Daddy never tells me things like that one by one."
Lee Do-hee slid her spoon down with a slow, melting smile and leaned into her mother, coquettish as anything. Mother and daughter held each other, paying Woo Tae-kyung's stare no mind whatsoever. Patting her daughter's back, Kim Kyung-hwa said:
"You're Mommy's joy and her pride. You won't put Mommy through heartache, will you? Our girl is so good. Why is it only now that you're all grown up you have to worry me so."
No doubt she was talking about the detention center.
Woo Tae-kyung easily guessed what "worrying her" meant. What he couldn't make sense of was what hardship Kim Kyung-hwa had endured to earn herself a commercial building. Had that heartache been the kind suffered while sending her own daughter off to a detention cell? If Chairman Lee loved Kim Kyung-hwa that much, why on earth had he never taken her as his wife?
The question lingered in his head for a moment.
"Being loved by Mommy is the best."
Lee Do-hee had turned into a spoiled brat he'd never seen before. Clinging to Kim Kyung-hwa for all she was worth, she refused to let go of the embrace no matter what. She stayed like that until her mother, looking helplessly fond, finally peeled her off.
"Honestly, she still acts like such a baby. Hurry up and eat. Don't you have school?"
"Should I skip school and play with Mommy instead?"
The declaration that she'd rather play with her mother than go to the school she was supposedly headed to made Woo Tae-kyung cheer silently inside.
"But I have a brunch thing this morning. What do I do?"
"And here I thought I had such a pretty daughter. Always telling me you're busy."
"That's because you only ever show up when Mommy's busy. That's why we keep missing each other."
Kim Kyung-hwa said it in the gentlest of tones. Given Lee Do-hee's temperament, she should have been wrecking that brunch appointment beyond repair, yet somehow she let it slide, meekly. Woo Tae-kyung stopped his silent cheering.
Just then, the doorbell chimed briefly.
"Woo Tae-kyung, your change of clothes. I told them to send everything to Seongbuk-dong and deliver it here, so wear those today, Tae-kyung-ah."
Lee Do-hee pointed at him with her chopsticks as she spoke.
"You can use the room at the end of the hallway. There's a bathroom in there too."
The bell didn't ring a second time. At the mention of the room at the end of the hall, Woo Tae-kyung—who had finished his meal—rose from his seat.
"Thank you for the meal."
"Oh, I hardly prepared anything. Come again with our Do-hee sometime. I'll make you something really delicious."
He bowed his head at the customary farewell, walked to the entryway she had mentioned, and opened the door—where a familiar shopping bag awaited. He picked it up and came back inside. The room nearest the entryway, at the end of the corridor, stood in quiet contrast to the lavish living room; it was plainly furnished, clearly a guest room.
Peering into the shopping bag, Woo Tae-kyung let out a short, pointless laugh.
Because inside, still without a single pair of underwear, were a heather-gray T-shirt and black jeans.
Lee Do-hee, who had once sworn she'd buy him everything down to the last scrap of underwear, showed no sign of ever intending to. Someone meticulous enough to arrange even his change of clothes couldn't possibly have overlooked his boxers.
Finished with the meal, he headed into the guest bathroom to freshen up, a wry smile tugging at his mouth.
Whatever Lee Do-hee's real reason for claiming she had to go to school, it seemed to be something else entirely.