Lee Hyoeun’s move went off very smoothly.
It was a villa that already came with the basic fixtures anyway, and all her belongings amounted to a single box.
Honestly, it was so bare you could hardly call it a girl’s place.
“Hm.”
Thinking he ought to order at least one bright, cheerful piece of furniture for her, Hyunseung took Lee Hyoeun to a restaurant he frequented.
Clatter, clatter.
Everyone must have been really hungry….
Without anyone taking the lead, they were all busy polishing off each dish as it came out in turn.
By the time the main course arrived, they were starting to feel gently full.
Only then did Hyunseung turn his head and ask Dad Kim, who was sitting beside him slicing steak,
“Did you really have to tag along and kill the mood today?”
“What, are you planning to propose to Hyoeun today?”
At that, Lee Hyoeun almost spit out the steak she was chewing.
But if anyone is second to none in having no sense, isn’t it Hyunseung?
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
Hyunseung answered so flatly and firmly it was embarrassing to hear.
“She’s just a friend, and my new instrument, is all.”
“If that’s all, then I don’t need to bow out, do I? I can’t miss a chance to eat something this good.”
The more time he spent with him, the more there was one thing he acutely felt.
Namely, there was such a gap between Dad Kim’s image in the company and the way he saw him that it sometimes gave him whiplash.
Maybe because he was so comfortable around Hyunseung, he was baring his true feelings without realizing it.
“Division Head, are you really here for the food?”
“Of course.”
“Really? There isn’t some other reason?”
“O-of course!”
Catching Dad Kim sneaking a glance at the staffer who’d come in to serve the next course, Hyunseung couldn’t help a little laugh.
How can a person be that transparent?
Hyunseung checked the name tag pinned to the left chest of the woman.
Kang Seola.
Whenever he made the reservation himself and came by, she was often assigned as their server.
Looks like he’s taken with her….
A woman with a pure face and neat air about her, who looked to be in her late twenties.
So that’s your type.
With those rugged good looks, I wondered how he could still be a never-dated—(*not actually never-dated)—turns out he just has high standards.
And to think he scolded me for being looks-obsessed….
“Excuse me.”
Hyunseung stopped the staffer just as she was about to leave after placing the dish.
“Is there something you need?”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
At the question, she flushed and said, “Pardon?” in return.
“I meant, are you seeing anyone?”
When he pressed, she nodded and answered.
“Y-yes….”
“That’s a shame. Well then, we’ll look forward to dessert.”
After Hyunseung gave a slight nod in return, the staffer hurried out of the room.
Meanwhile, the other two were in shock.
“Keck, cough, cough….”
Lee Hyoeun could not believe that Hyunseung, who treated women like rocks, had just asked about someone’s relationship status in front of others, and choked mid-sip on her water.
“I—I can’t believe this….”
As for Kim Woo-hyun, it wasn’t Hyunseung’s sudden move, but the fact that the woman he’d just started to like had a boyfriend that made him drop his steak.
Thud.
Deciding he really shouldn’t have come today, he began to soothe his stinging insides with cold water.
Gulp, gulp.
Patting that broad back, Hyunseung spoke.
“Alright then, now that the Division Head’s love story is over….”
Then he handed a napkin to Lee Hyoeun, who was still fighting a coughing fit, and added,
“Shall we hear your story now?”
xxxx
No one touched the final dessert, a yuzu sherbet, until it had melted and started to run in sticky rivulets.
They simply sat and listened in silence to the words Lee Hyoeun spoke, fidgeting with her trembling hands.
“T-that’s… all.”
At first she insisted she had nothing to tell, but when they persuaded her that the company could only help if it knew her situation, she cautiously confided what was inside.
“Hyoeun, have a little water first.”
Watching her complexion, Kim Woohyun didn’t know what to say; he simply filled her glass to the brim.
Indeed, he doubted anyone could easily open their mouth after hearing a story like that.
Because the family history that came out of Lee Hyoeun’s mouth carried a tragic arc different from his own family and the families he’d known.
When Lee Hyoeun was very young…
not only her father, the head of the household, but her mother also ran a business, and she had a very affluent childhood.
Her parents were that busy, but they were kinder than anyone, so it had been a string of very happy days.
But when her mother’s business collapsed abruptly, cracks began to form in the bonds that had held them tight under the name of family.
Cracks too difficult to mend.
They fell into heavy debt, the house went to auction, and with a relative’s help they barely managed to secure a semi-basement place.
However, she said that wasn’t even the beginning of the misfortune.
Her mother, who felt she had lost everything, put a bottle to her lips every day, and before long that bottle swung toward her father.
Then one day, a day when she was at home with only her father, without her mother… he silently held her tight until she fell asleep.
And when she opened her eyes, her father, who had been lying beside her, had vanished without a trace.
From that day on… in the home where only her mother and Lee Hyoeun remained, loud shouts rang and objects flew.
Sober, her mother was vacant; drunk, she often turned violent.
So Lee Hyoeun said she began to recognize her mother inwardly as “a sick person.”
Because she was sick.
Because she was sick.
Because Mom is sick.
That little girl endured her mother’s verbal and physical abuse, turning those words over and over in her mind.
She could hardly have her sick mother arrested, and Lee Hyoeun had nowhere else to go.
In the end, saying that she had abandoned her mother, that even if people cursed her it had been an inevitable choice, she bowed her head as if crying out.
Does this… does this make any sense?
Hyunseung shook his head. He felt anger. There are many forms of family in the world, but this was no different from setting an inescapable trap under the name of family.
At least,
to Hyunseung, the relationship that Lee Hyoeun now called family was not family.
“Hey.”
At his call, Lee Hyoeun slowly lifted her head and met his eyes.
The face he’d thought only ever bright looked as pitiful as a puppy that had lost its home.
“You’ve never told anyone this, have you?”
“No…”
“Then how about turning your story into a song?”
“What?”
Bewilderment washed over Lee Hyoeun’s face.
It had been hard enough to tell just two people; and now he wanted her to tell a story like this to the public.
“Do I have to?”
She asked in a tone suggesting she didn’t think she must.
What came back was not an answer but a sharp question.
“Do you really think you abandoned your mother?”
“Huh…?”
“Even you don’t think that’s quite right, do you?”
Watching Lee Hyoeun press her lips tight, Hyunseung added,
“It’s not my place to meddle in someone else’s family affairs, but….”
Despite Kim Woohyun nudging his ribs and glancing at Lee Hyoeun,
“I just get frustrated because I think there are a lot of people out there who think like you.”
Hyunseung didn’t look like he intended to stop.
“I’m not saying to lay everything out in excruciating detail; I’m saying, tell them not to be foolish the way you were.”
At that, Lee Hyoeun’s pupils trembled as if an earthquake had struck.
Right.
It wasn’t a tragic arc confined to herself alone.
The statistics on reports of domestic violence made that plain.
Which meant… a second Lee Hyoeun, a third Lee Hyoeun, were somewhere out there, living on because they couldn’t die.
Right. Just because it’s family, you shouldn’t live with your eyes and ears shut, sacrificing yourself—should you?
Pursuing that thought, Lee Hyoeun resolved she couldn’t stay as she was.
“I’ll do it.”
Then, in a voice that sounded like she had stiffened her resolve, she added,
“I want to try.”
Listening to the two of them, Kim Woohyun felt his insides heat as if he’d swallowed hot pebbles.
This gold-kid punk….
So that’s why he insisted on coming along today.
Indeed…
What kind of song will he craft from Lee Hyoeun’s story?
Just as an unknown sense of anticipation and grandeur wrapped his whole body—
Tap, tap.
Covering his mouth, Hyunseung whispered very softly,
“That guy’s had a meddlesome streak for ages. I figured if I put it like this, she’d agree.”
Suddenly Kim Woohyun felt as if those pebbles had gone icy cold.
Lately Executive Director Park felt a strange and peculiar way.
How to put it?
People had gotten especially friendly toward him lately.
“Hello, Executive Director!”
Of course, being an executive director, he knew he made people uncomfortable and they tended to flatter him, but something about the expressions they wore toward him seemed different.
“Have a strong day!”
In the past, they would do their best to avoid him. If they happened to run into him, the corners of their mouths would twitch with cramps from being forced up.
The instant they passed him, their faces would freeze again.
But now…
“Lovely morning!”
… some would come running from far down the hall with smiles to greet him.
“You look fantastic today!”
Even the kids in Management Team 2 would flash grins and give him a thumbs-up when they met him.
Tsk.
Something felt like it was going strangely…
He was just about to head up to the roof to cool his head when—
“Hey, he’s the Villain Daddy!”
He heard voices down the corridor talking about him.
“No way! The voice you hear at the end of the song?”
“Yeah! He’s the owner of that voice!”
“Wow, so he’s a total daughter-fool, unlike his image.”
Apparently, word had gotten around inside the company that the voice in Hyunseung’s “Villain daddy” was his.
Damn….
An inexplicable embarrassment washed over him.
As it was, “Villain daddy” showed no sign of cooling off, its popularity buoyed by the “Dad Challenge” Reels trend.
[ Seriously, who is the owner of the voice inserted at the end of Villain daddy? I thought it was Moon Beomjae, but they say it isn’t. ]
↳ You can tell it’s not Moon Beomjae just by listening;
↳ Maybe it’s HS himself?
↳ The comment above—you don’t know HS’s voice, do you?
↳ Then HS’s dad?
↳ The comment above—you don’t know HS’s gender, do you?
The public was dying to know who the voice in the outro was.
[ I think the owner of the voice at the end is the person who was the motif for this song. In other words, the true Villain Daddy.. ]
↳ In that case, we look forward to a Dad Challenge from the real one.
↳ Are you seeing this, Daddy? Come on, let’s see you go for it.
↳ Nameless Daddy, please be our Villain Daddy,,
Some even posted hoping the owner of the voice would personally respond to the Dad Challenge.
To be honest, thanks to that kid he had broken down the wall he’d been hesitating before, decided to divorce his wife, and arranged to bring his daughter… so perhaps he should do one as promo for the song?
That was a thought that did flicker across his mind for the briefest moment.
But if he did something like that, he might not be able to hold his head up from embarrassment.
Right.
He absolutely would not do that.
Ping!
Just then a text arrived from his daughter.
[Dad, I explained it well to my little brother and we decided to come to Korea together. We made our wishes clear to Mom too! Mom said that would be for the best! So don’t eat alone anymore!]
Clutching his heart, Executive Director Park stared down at the message endlessly.
How precious was she?
No matter how resentful he was toward his wife or how wrong she had been, she was the mother who had borne his children, so he’d thought he shouldn’t take both kids away.
But he had worried about leaving his son alone in America, and now his daughter said she’d take care of her brother and bring him along….
Honestly how could he not love her? After all, whose daughter is she!
Ha…
If he was going to raise his two little ones alone, he’d have to work even harder and make more money.
Swipe.
Leaving the message screen, he came back to the community post he’d been looking at.
[ I think the owner of the voice at the end is the person who was the motif for this song. In other words, the true Villain Daddy.. ]
↳ In that case, we look forward to a Dad Challenge from the real one.
↳ Are you seeing this, Daddy? Come on, let’s see you go for it.
↳ Nameless Daddy, please be our Villain Daddy,,
What the heck? Maybe I should post a challenge to throw a bit of weight behind that punk.
“Villain daddy, if you ever hate me, you can hate me all you want—”
In high spirits, Executive Director Park hummed a tune through his nose.
Honestly, right now he felt like not just doing a challenge, but even launching a whole channel called “Villain daddy TV.”
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