Min Junseok opened his eyes to the sunlight squeezing in through the gap between the blackout curtains.
Since he couldn’t hear to begin with, he had never slept after setting an alarm clock, but he always woke up around the same time.
Clink.
To begin the day in a world without any noise, Min Junseok reached for his glasses.
They say humans have five senses in total: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste.
However, someone might have only four of them, or three, or only a single sense.
For Min Junseok, among the five senses, hearing did not exist.
Because of that, the joy of listening disappeared, but his other senses, especially in terms of sight and smell, he reacted more sensitively than other people.
So his eyes opened to the handful of sunlight slipping in between the curtains, and his body responded on its own to the smell of bread his daughter must be toasting beyond the door.
Creeeak.
When he opened the bedroom door and headed to the kitchen, he saw his daughter from behind, thinly spreading butter over crisp toast.
He couldn’t hear it, but from the faint, swaying movements of her body….
Nine times out of ten.
She was definitely listening to her older brother’s song.
This was how his daughter started her day.
When she woke up in the morning, she opened her older brother’s door to check whether he was there, then prepared a light breakfast.
If her brother was home, she prepares three slices of bread or three fried eggs, or else three glasses of vegetable juice she blended herself.
If her brother wasn’t home, then only one: bread, a fried egg, vegetable juice—just one.
That one serving….
Wasn’t for herself, but for him, her father.
‘Kid…’
If Hyunseung couldn’t eat, Hyuna chose not to eat either.
Yes.
His daughter Hyuna had always loved her older brother Hyunseung in an exceptional way since she was little.
Even if she was crying, the moment she was held in her brother’s arms, she stopped crying immediately, and when she went to school and came home, she would toddle after him, swinging her shoe bag.
Once on sports day, when it was her brother’s grade’s turn, she disobeyed the teacher’s instruction to wait and left her spot to go watch.
Then as the two siblings entered adolescence and began to take on the forms of a young lady and a young man, they grew awkward with each other.
In truth, that was all his fault.
As the kids grew, they must have felt their mother’s absence more and more, and the days they were frustrated by money must have increased.
That would all have been brought on by his incompetence and bad luck.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
There were times he muttered that in front of his sleeping children’s doors. With slurred pronunciation and a tone that must have sounded strange.
Perhaps the heavens took pity on his confession.
One day, the tightly shut door to his son’s room opened, and the smile of his daughter—who always forced a smile while carrying a heavy backpack—became real.
Now Min Junseok was happier than anything, because his two children, whom he could put in his eyes and it still wouldn’t hurt, were bickering and getting along well.
Of course.
He was deeply worried about his son’s health.
“Ah?”
Just then, Hyuna spotted him, smiled brightly, and set down the bread and knife.
— Did you sleep well, Father?
As always, she offered him a warm, soft, affectionate greeting.
He wasn’t saying it just because she was his daughter, but not even an angel would have a heart more beautiful and noble than hers.
It still felt unbelievable that a daughter like this had been born from him.
Ah.
Of course, Hyuna resembled his wife more than she resembled him.
Gentle, beautiful, and wise—wise enough to be called intelligent—cheerful, and with a fresh smile bright enough to make anyone smile along….
Tap, tap.
Min Junseok turned his head at the touch of his daughter’s hand as she came up and tapped his shoulder.
— Dad, what are you thinking so hard about?
— It’s nothing.
— Then hurry and sit down and eat a piece of toast. And drink milk with it so it doesn’t stick in your throat.
Today, since there were already three pieces of buttered bread and three mugs set out, it seemed his son Hyunseung had come home.
— Where’s Hyunseung?
— Sleeping like he has no idea what’s going on in the world.
At that, Min Junseok’s face darkened further as he looked toward his son’s door. Not just tired—his body must be exhausted.
Yes.
It felt like just yesterday he had shown them the office building being built in America over a video call, but if he had come back this quickly, it meant he had been pushing himself and running around without even having time to adjust to the time difference.
Crunch, crunch.
With a bite of her own toast, his daughter hurried to get ready to leave the house. If her brother Hyunseung saw her like that, he would probably tell her to sit in one place because crumbs would fall.
When he pictured the siblings bickering, a smile escaped him.
But then.
Watching his daughter carefully close the door as she rushed out, still saying to tell her brother to eat toast when he woke up….
He couldn’t smile anymore.
‘What am I doing?’
That thought quickly took over his mind.
‘Am I someone who helps my son?’
No.
‘What am I doing for my son?’
Nothing.
In the end, he couldn’t continue the questions any further.
No.
To avoid continuing them, he cut the chain of thoughts.
Because beating himself up, because thumping his chest in regret, wouldn’t help anything.
Tap, tap.
While he was sunk in thought, he felt someone tap his shoulder.
It was casual, but there was warmth in it, so he knew without looking.
It was his son’s touch.
— Father, you’re awake?
Maybe he was born with heavenly luck instead of hearing, because his son really was the most splendid in the world. Even just after waking up he was splendid, in press photos he was splendid, and on stage he was splendid.
But if he told him that, his son would definitely get embarrassed and ask why he was acting like that, so he had to hold back.
— Yeah. Hyuna says you have to eat this toast before you go.
— It feels like she deliberately burned just mine a little.
Even as he said that, Hyunseung grabbed the toast and immediately took a big bite.
Min Junseok….
Watched his son wolf down the toast that still held warm heat, then pushed himself up from his seat.
— Where are you going?
— Secret.
— There’s no such thing.
Then, rubbing his son’s bedhead with his hand, he continued.
— Even if it’s late today, can you come home?
At a request he rarely made, his son looked a little surprised for a moment, his eyebrows twitching.
— Yes, I will.
His son nodded, wearing the most splendid smile in the world.
— Leave the cleanup and go. Dad will get up first.
— Where are you really going? Should I drive you?
— You don’t need to know. Son, can I hug you once?
— Why are you doing this all of a sudden.
— I just want to hold you and see how much you’ve grown.
Min Junseok pulled his son fully into his arms.
Pat, pat.
He lightly patted his son’s shoulders, shoulders that were now too broad to fit fully in his embrace, then started walking.
Planning to go outside for the first time in a while, he put on the jumper his son had bought him with the first money he ever earned.
To play the role of a father for his son, just once.
Hyunseung’s day wasn’t all that different from before.
As always, he drank coffee and went through his work again.
No matter what.
Right now, he was still an exclusive composer under LS Entertainment, and there was time left on his contract.
Construction, contracts, and the establishment itself weren’t finished yet, so until then, he intended to finish well as a member of the company.
Even then, it would only be until the end of this year, so about four months left.
“I brought coffee.”
As always, Kim Woohyun had bought coffee from the morning. What had changed was his unfamiliar tone and the cup holder.
Wait, the cup holder?
“It’s not from the office building cafe. Where is this from?”
Hyunseung asked, looking closely at the cup holder in surprise.
Of course.
You could think he might buy from a different cafe once in a while, but the Kim Woohyun he knew wasn’t like that.
He was the kind of person who stubbornly only bought coffee from the in-house cafe, saying every outside cafe was outrageously priced.
“I bought it from a cafe that just opened near here.”
Sure, that could happen.
“The coffee tastes good.”
“Right? It’s good, isn’t it? The atmosphere’s nice too, and since it’s not been open long, it’s clean, and there aren’t many people.”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s go together sometime soon.”
No, that couldn’t be it.
“Hm.”
At the very least, the Kim Woohyun he knew was not someone who chose cafes based on atmosphere or cleanliness.
Before, when he once asked him to buy from an expensive famous franchise cafe, he told him beans for an Americano were all basically the same, and he had listened until his ears hurt about the origins of coffee.
Then there was only one answer.
“Is the owner pretty?”
At his words, Kim Woohyun’s face suddenly turned bright red as he shouted,
“It’s, it’s not like that!”
“It is, though.”
“It’s really not.”
When he lies, he can’t even make eye contact, and he always does this.
“Then since it came up, let’s go right now. So I can see whether the owner is pretty or not.”
“Ah, no, wait!”
“Why? You said earlier the atmosphere was nice and it’s clean and there aren’t many people, so it’s great and we should go together.”
Kim Woohyun couldn’t refute him right away and rolled his eyes around.
Honestly.
He’s so bad at lying. That’s part of what’s good about him, though.
“Y-you, you…! What if people recognize you!”
“I’ll wear a helmet.”
“Why don’t you just walk around holding a sign that says ‘It’s HS’?”
“Then I’ll just go without it. If someone asks if I’m HS, I’ll just say no. Isn’t that it?”
“As if they’d believe that. Do you think a face like this is common? You see your face all the time, so you don’t realize it, do you?”
Why is he yelling and even making the veins in his neck stand out.
“Anyway, I have to go.”
Even more curious now.
“W-wait.”
Kim Woohyun urgently grabbed him as he tried to stand and added,
“I thought about it, and since I’m someone who’ll be leaving for America before long anyway, I think it’s right not to go.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because the moment we meet, all I’ll give her is a breakup scarred with wounds.”
Hyunseung had never seen him look like this. Somehow bitter and wistful, and with an unknown fluttering excitement stirring.
“Hm….”
Hyunseung looked at Kim Woohyun, then asked in a rather serious tone,
“How about switching careers and becoming a drama writer?”
“I’m being very serious right now.”
“I’m also being really serious. Strongly recommend romance writer.”
At his words, Kim Woohyun let out a sigh and shook his head side to side.
“Anyway, I have a meeting, so I have to go. Keep this a secret from others, and let’s talk again later.”
Hyunseung smacked his lips as if disappointed for a moment.
“Okay.”
As if a fun idea had occurred to him, he smiled.
It was early to call it quitting time, but Hyunseung hurried home.
Because he had received a request that wasn’t quite a request from his father in the morning.
— Even if it’s late today, can you come home?
His father was someone who might worry, but he wasn’t someone who said to come home quickly, or said to come home today.
There was probably a reason worth it, so he told him to come home.
‘He could’ve just told me to come home.’
Even then, he remembered his father asking carefully.
His father’s expression had been bright, but he couldn’t figure out the reason at all, so Hyunseung’s steps grew faster and faster.
Soon, after entering the house, Hyunseung headed straight for his father’s room.
But his father wasn’t in the room. Not in the living room, and not in the kitchen.
Is he preparing a surprise again with Hyuna?
But there wasn’t anything to celebrate yet.
‘We already celebrated me becoming CEO, and my birthday is still a ways off.’
Hyunseung tilted his head, and it was when he opened the door to go into his own room.
“Father?”
Without realizing it, he called out for his father.
His father was ironing a suit he had never seen before, looking at it as if it were lovely.
A collar, a sleeve, between the buttons—
His father’s hands moved, ironing every corner without missing a single spot, and they looked quite practiced.
So that was why the clothes he put into the laundry bin always came back neatly folded and crisp like new.
But still, what was that suit?
Unable to hold back his curiosity, Hyunseung approached his father carefully and made his presence known. Since he was holding a hot iron, he could get hurt.
— Son, why did you come back so early?
His father must have been focused, because he only noticed him when Hyunseung had come very close.
— If I came back late, I wouldn’t have seen this scene, so I hurried.
Hyunseung answered with a sly smile.
— I was about to start getting dinner ready, so wait just a bit.
Watching his father carefully hang up the suit he had been ironing so it wouldn’t wrinkle, Hyunseung asked,
— But what suit is that?
However, only after a fairly long pause did his father answer, with an embarrassed smile.
— I went out today and bought it for you, my son.
The suit in his hands had a subtle navy hue, with clean, detailed lines—very refined and trendy.
It wouldn’t be custom, but at a glance, it was clearly a high-end suit made of premium fabric.
Hyunseung felt good thinking of his father looking around and buying it for him, but….
For some reason, he got stubborn.
— You should buy clothes for yourself. Why did you buy one for me?
— Our son became the CEO who will lead such an impressive office building, so shouldn’t you have at least one suit worthy of that?
Even in this, his father soothed Hyunseung’s stubbornness with a gentle smile and warm eyes.
— As a father, I really wanted to buy this for you.
Then, with an awkward face, he added,
— Of course, I bought this too by taking only a small part of the living expenses you gave me.
At that, Hyunseung narrowed his eyes and asked,
— Father, could you give me your living-expenses bankbook for a moment?
As if thinking, Surely not, surely not.
After carefully checking his father’s bankbook, Hyunseung roughly rubbed his dry face.
‘Surely it does catch people by the throat.’
How was it that the scattered withdrawal history was all “dry cleaner” or “mart”?
This wasn’t even a savings account. Why were there so many deposits and so few withdrawals?
Ah.
They say a person’s nature doesn’t change easily. That’s right. His father had always been this kind of man. Frugal, and someone who never wasted his child’s money.
— Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thinking that being stubborn was nothing but pointless complaining, Hyunseung expressed his thanks sincerely.
Of course, with some nagging added on.
— But please, from now on, use this money for yourself. You more than deserve that.
Instead of answering, his father smiled silently.
See? A person’s nature really doesn’t change easily.
— Then today, shall we go out to eat as a family, wearing the suit Father bought for me?
Hyunseung asked, holding the suit in his father’s hands up against his own body.
‘Dad’s son—am I kind of cool?’
He mouthed the words so only his father could understand.
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