I Don't Like Going into the Water

“Kang-hyun, the Chairman is going fishing, so Dad’s heading out now too. Want to come along?”

It was not long after Kang-hyun had entered Cheongbaekwon. At the time, Hyung-sub often sought out the reservoir near Cheongbaekwon, following Chairman Baek Soo-chul, who enjoyed fishing.

It was usual for the two of them to go simply with just their gear, but Hyung-sub always asked his son’s opinion. Perhaps he wanted to convey, even in that small way, his regret at not being able to spend time together.

For a little boy not yet ten, nothing was as boring as fishing, so Hyung-sub’s proposals were usually refused. That day, however, was different.

“Yes. I’ll go.”

The reservoir was within walking distance even for a child’s short steps. Originally built by raising a dike to irrigate the village paddies, it had become Paeksan’s private land and transformed into Chairman Baek Soo-chul’s personal fishing spot.

Leaving behind the adults who had cast their lines and begun chatting from folding chairs, Kang-hyun walked alone along the water’s edge.

The long-stagnant water was so murky the bottom could not be seen, and the tangled thickets offered nothing worth looking at either.

Then, among the broad leaves blanketing the turbid surface, a plump bud rising into view caught his eye—along with the pure white flesh of the still-unopened lotus that peeked through the gaps.

At the same moment, a voice that had once muttered dejectedly by the pond in a corner of Cheongbaekwon—“It feels like spring never comes here”—brushed past his ear. The voice of the annoying little girl who dragged him around at will.

“…….”

As if trying to shake off the irritating sound, he scratched his ears hard. The more he did so, the clearer the voice became.

If I bring her that flower, this detestable voice will disappear too.

The decision was instantaneous. He stepped boldly onto the sloping bank. Yet no matter how far he stretched, the lotus floated just out of reach, as if teasing him.

Glaring at the flower that drifted leisurely at a precarious distance, Kang-hyun soon planted one foot firmly, crushing the mud, then braced his other hand against the shallow bottom and leaned his upper body forward as far as it would go.

At last the soft petals touched his fingertips.

“Got it…. Uh-oh?”

The soft earth supporting his foot crumbled without resistance. His body, center lost, toppled helplessly; in an instant the world flipped.

“Hup!”

Before he could even scream, the cold water swallowed young Kang-hyun headfirst.

He flailed both arms on instinct. All that came to hand were slippery water weeds and sticky clods of mud.

With the pain of his airway sealed shut, consciousness flickered and sank. It was the moment his vision was about to black out, without even the realization that he was dying.

“…Hyun!”

A noise like a scream drove into his dull, submerged ears. At the same time he felt something jabbing his arm.

Kang-hyun swung his arms with all his strength. A hard stick of wood caught in his hand. He clutched the lifeline reflexively.

Unable to withstand his pull, the stick was dragged forward and barely stopped just before toppling back. It trembled with the force of whoever was holding on.

There was clearly no hope of being hauled out. Relying on the support for his upper body, Kang-hyun groped for the bottom with his feet. The instant they touched ground, he kicked off hard.

“Hah—huff!”

Finally breaking the surface, he crawled onto the shore on all fours like an animal. Oxygen poured into his mud-caked nose and mouth.

“Cough, cough!”

While he spat muddy water with rough coughs, a pair of shoes completely covered in dirt flickered at the edge of his vision. His sight was too blurred to make them out clearly, yet they were unmistakably those of someone with very small feet—someone around his own age.

It was the moment Kang-hyun was struggling to focus his flickering eyes and lift his head.

“Kang-hyun! Tak Kang-hyun!”

From a distance came Hyung-sub’s urgent voice searching for him.

At that, his still-unseen benefactor flinched and spun around. Something glittering dropped with a soft plop onto the dirt from the pocket of the child who was hastily leaving.

“Wai…t…”

Kang-hyun tried to call after the receding figure with a dying voice, but it was useless. The shadow vanished beyond the dense thickets without looking back.

Having lost the figure in vain, Kang-hyun crawled across the ground, wringing out his last strength. Clutching whatever the other had dropped, he let go of consciousness.

“Kang-hyun! Are you awake?”

When he came to, the whole commotion had already passed.

His mother held him tightly and wept; his father never again suggested going fishing. Even Chairman Baek Soo-chul, with whom he had barely exchanged words, asked at once if he was all right.

And once he was fine again, Kang-hyun went to find the person who had saved him.

“This… is the young lady’s, right?”

Baek Chae-young blinked, looking back and forth between the hairpin resting on his palm and his face.

The reason Kang-hyun had been able to deduce his benefactor so easily was the hairpin she had dropped. It was the one Baek Chae-young had lately been cherishing and always wearing.

“Yeah, it’s mine. But where did you find it?”

“At the reservoir. You dropped it while saving me.”

“Aha, no wonder…”

Toward Chae-young, who trailed off as if she had only just realized, Kang-hyun bowed his head deeply.

“Thank you for saving me.”

“Well… I just did what anyone would.”

Contrary to her words, Baek Chae-young put on airs and shrugged. Looking at her, Kang-hyun carefully voiced the question that had been on his mind the whole time.

“But why did you run away then?”

For some reason the adults did not even know someone had saved him, and Kang-hyun kept silent as well. It felt wrong to broadcast what Baek Chae-young herself had not said.

“Uh, about that…”

Rolling her eyes as if troubled by the question, Chae-young suddenly lowered her voice and whispered,

“Because if Grandfather saw me, you’d get scolded. You know how much he dotes on me.”

Her consideration surprised him a little. Until then his impression of the young ladies of Cheongbaekwon had not been especially good.

If Baek Yeo-eun had sought him out to the point of annoyance, Baek Chae-young—his own age—had felt strangely distant and snobbish.

He had never expected her to consider his position as well. The praise circulating among the people of Cheongbaekwon that the first young lady had a kind heart was apparently not empty talk.

“You’re really grateful to me, right?”

With half-lidded eyes, Chae-young twisted the corners of her mouth into a crooked smile.

It was a suspicious smile, as if she had some other scheme, yet Kang-hyun nodded obediently. He was, after all, truly grateful.

“Then from now on be close with me too, not just Yeo-eun. Drop the formal speech a bit. We’re the same age.”

At the unexpected demand, Kang-hyun could not answer at once.

Should he explain that he was not close with Baek Yeo-eun, that she simply chased after him one-sidedly? That he still used formal speech because she insisted on being treated as a young lady?

Somehow he did not feel like spelling it all out. Besides, speaking formally to a peer had already felt awkward, so in the end he simply nodded.

“Alright, then.”

Thus he became friends with Baek Chae-young. Their interactions were never particularly frequent afterward, yet she remained someone with whom he could converse comfortably whenever the occasion arose.

The one who reacted most strongly to the change was, of course, Baek Yeo-eun. For some reason she had not shown her face for a while; when she finally saw the two of them newly close, she flipped. From Kang-hyun’s point of view it was a case of trying to remove a boil only to attach more.

He later learned she had caught a severe cold and been bedridden even longer than that. Given how often she suffered minor illnesses, it was nothing new.

It had been nothing more than a trivial anecdote—nothing more or less than a simple mishap of misstepping while walking by the water.

Since no one knew he had been trying to pick a lotus flower, it was only natural that Baek Yeo-eun, who had ultimately become unrelated to the incident, would not remember that day.