It No Longer Feels Necessary
The moment the door slammed shut with a loud bang, Choi Hyun-seo furrowed his brows.
“He offered to give me his share… why is he reacting like that?”
But when he said in all seriousness that she had to play the proper father’s role, her heart jolted. She had gathered a good mother just to fulfill that role, yet the employee was too large. Min Tae-yeon’s heart was too big, and there was no way to deal with it.
In truth, the heavy and uncomfortable feeling in one corner of her chest grew after she saw Hyun-seo get angry and slam the door. She wondered if something was truly wrong.
Choi Hyun-seo trusted Min Tae-yeon in everything, especially when it came to raising Yun-woo. She was the most reliable person he knew.
“Why is the boss closing the door and coming in?”
He muttered the words toward the door without anyone hearing, then shook his head at his own foolishness.
“What exactly am I supposed to do right now?”
He couldn’t tell if he was the one confusing Min Tae-yeon or if it was the other way around. A pang of guilt struck him, but he couldn’t simply sweep it under the rug. Then Tae-yeon’s words came back to mind.
“Choi Myung-seo. How did the staff even remember a name the family members had long forgotten?”
The family was crueler than he had imagined. Choi Hyun-seo entered his study, pulled a box from the drawer, and took it out from the closet. When he opened the lid, photos spilled out.
They were the pictures taken when he and his brother were young. They hadn’t lived together for long. Choi Myung-seo had been sent away to study in the United States, just like a boy who wanted to run away from home.
The faces side by side were so similar in eyes and nose line that it was almost impossible to tell they were half-brothers. It was a picture they had taken with shoulders touching, full of innocent joy from their childhood days.
The photo of his brother from when they were little. He had tucked it away deeply for a long time, but it was now in the closet. Min Tae-yeon must have seen it when she was near the closet, yet he had simply kept silent about it.
He had thought about Choi Myung-seo’s situation over and over. The mother was already gone, the stepmother—father’s secret lover—had entered, and the half-brother who was only two years older. A ten-year-old boy would have found it impossible and humiliating.
Yet Myung-seo had still loved his younger brother. He gave him his toys and took care of the brother who transferred to the same school. He endured his father’s unfair favoritism toward the other son. Hyun-seo, who had been on the receiving end of that favoritism, was the one who couldn’t endure it.
“Is my brother Cinderella? Snow White? Is Mom the witch stepmother from the fairy tale?”
Hearing that loud shout from the young Hyun-seo, Oh Jin-hee cried out while glaring at Myung-seo. Her sharp hand slapped Myung-seo’s cheek.
“Choi Myung-seo. This is all because of you. Did you do this to your brother? Did you tell your mother to call her a witch?”
It was clearly abuse. Chairman Choi treated his son Myung-seo like a thorn in his eye. The eldest son born to the legitimate wife. Yet to Chairman Choi, the only thought was that having Myung-seo gone would make the perfect family. Eventually, Myung-seo was sent to study in the United States at the age of ten.
“Brother, don’t go. Brother, stay with me.”
“I’ll come back soon. You can come visit me at my place.”
But he didn’t meet his brother again until he was twenty. They talked on the phone every day and exchanged messages for eight years, yet Myung-seo lived alone in America the whole time. Hyun-seo had known all along. His mother was wrong. His father was wrong. And the one who suffered the most was Myung-seo.
Choi Myung-seo vanished from Korean society and faded into memory. After graduating from university in America, he joined Wall Street. Until the day he died in a private-plane accident, Myung-seo remained the person Hyun-seo loved most in the world.
Choi Hyun-seo turned on the video on his phone. It was the sky captured by Myung-seo during his last flight. The sky was so blue it hurt the eyes, and above, below, front, and back—all seemed endless.
As he stared at the video, Hyun-seo closed his eyes.
***
Tae-yeon always locked her bedroom door the moment night fell. A week had already passed since Hyun-seo, who had been knocking on the door connecting the dressing room and her bedroom, turned away without a word.
After he told her to properly play the father’s role, she only smiled vaguely on the first floor, acting like a proper wife, then locked herself inside and refused to speak once she climbed to the second floor.
Tae-yeon didn’t react to the knocks coming from the dressing room.
“Min Tae-yeon. At least look at my face first… Min Tae-yeon? Miss Min. Director Min?”
He wondered if Choi Hyun-seo had such a side. But even so. For days now, he had been stirring up someone’s heart and then drawing an arbitrary line. If she called herself Mom, she should naturally have the right to express her opinion on anything related to the child.
Tae-yeon thought that if she had to raise Yun-woo until the end of her life, she deserved at least those rights.
“Choi Hyun-seo. You’re really unlucky. Fine, if you keep mentioning the contract terms, I’ll do nothing except what’s written in the contract.”
More than anything, she didn’t want to see Choi Hyun-seo’s face. That unknown expression. Those eyes. Just thinking about it made her heart throb deep inside. She wasn’t sure if she truly didn’t want to see him or not. Her heart, already fluttering like laundry in the wind, was irritated enough, yet every night he knocked.
Knock knock. And when there was no answer, he spoke one sentence.
“If you’re angry, come out and talk with your face instead of locking the door all the time.”
But Tae-yeon never replied. The next day, when she woke up to feed Yun-woo morning milk and went downstairs, Hyun-seo was waiting, not having gone to work. Their eyes met, and Hyun-seo rolled his eyes. Then, hesitating, he said,
“I’d like to feed Yun-woo some milk too. Can you show me how to do it? I want to play the proper father’s role.”
It was funny. The baby had already passed the age for milk, yet he was claiming to play the father’s role after feeding him milk once. Hmph!
“How boastful. The father who couldn’t feed milk until the baby was weaned. That’s pretty sad, isn’t it?”
The words carried a sharp bone. Hyun-seo smiled at Tae-yeon. It was an awkward smile. Icheon-daek, who was sitting beside them, stood up and left. Hyun-seo demanded of Tae-yeon,
“Still, you have to teach me this. Because I asked for it. I told you before—properly play the father’s role. So teach me.”
Tae-yeon shot him a sideways glance. His words meant only one thing: this was a matter written in the contract, so teach me.
Fine. She had to cooperate since she was raising Yun-woo.
“Like this. Hold him like this, and feed the milk like this.”
Tae-yeon sat Hyun-seo on the sofa, then tilted Yun-woo in his arms against Hyun-seo’s arm. She placed the milk bottle in Hyun-seo’s hand. When he carefully brought the bottle to Yun-woo’s lips, Yun-woo grabbed the bottle with both hands and suddenly pulled it away.
The milk bottle slipped from Hyun-seo’s hand, and Yun-woo held it however he wanted and drank. Watching that, Tae-yeon’s expression turned smug.
“It seems the father is no longer needed to feed milk. The baby is sucking the bottle himself with his hands. Why are you forcing him to feed him?”
She had foreseen this. Now that the baby was past the weaning age, he was drinking milk from the bottle alone. So from now on, feeding milk would no longer be necessary. Hyun-seo showed a troubled face and said,
“Still, I have to try once. Right?”
“Well, even if it’s meaningless, if you want to do it, then do it.”
His words without even looking at her made Hyun-seo stare at Tae-yeon. At that moment, Yun-woo, who had finished drinking the milk, pulled the bottle out and sat up from Hyun-seo’s arms.
“Then burp him too.”
“Should I? Will Daddy burp our Yun-woo?”
“Gulp!”
Yun-woo, sitting on the sofa, let out a burp by himself. Tae-yeon, hearing the sound, lifted one corner of her mouth and smirked.
“Burping is no longer needed either. He does it all by himself, so the father’s role shrinks even more. Someday you’ll have to say what the father did for him.”
Hyun-seo clenched his teeth inside. He didn’t know when Yun-woo had grown so fast. Or when he would start drinking milk and burping alone.
“Then tell me from now on what I need to do.”
“Yes, Director. I will report by email.”
The line he drew was sharp. It was a knife.
“Miss Min.”
“You’re on the first floor? Icheon-daek is here.”
Shooting him a sharp look, Tae-yeon took Yun-woo in her arms and headed toward the balcony.
Anyway. The problem was that mouth. He had spoken one wrong word and been driven away by Min Tae-yeon. Watching her expression, Hyun-seo said,
“Today, shall we eat outside together?”
“Yes? Eat?”
It was the first time Choi Hyun-seo had suggested eating together outside. They had never had a meal together except at the Cheongdam-dong Choi family home, baby showers, or company founding parties. There was no reason to.
Tae-yeon, not having expected this proposal from Hyun-seo, quietly thought for a moment, then raised her head.
“Dining out? Just the two of us?”
“Of course. Since Yun-woo can’t eat properly yet, wouldn’t it be better at home? For now, let’s eat together and talk.”
“Talk? What to talk about?”
“So, whatever we talk about, we’re doing it while eating.”
It was truly something he had not wanted. When Tae-yeon first slammed the door, he had laughed it off. But as the days turned into a week, annoyance kept piling up, and he often stared blankly at work. Something was definitely wrong. No, way too wrong.