After leaving work, Hee-dae stood by the drawing room window sipping whisky.

The dim lighting inside made the darkness outside seem even more intense. With one hand tucked into the pocket of the robe he had thrown on, he stood there for a long time, gazing into the distance.

“Mom! There’s a pretty cat living in our yard! It’s tiny and really pretty!”

Was it spring or summer when he was six? It was then that he discovered a little girl crouching in a corner of the garden.

Even to a six-year-old boy, she seemed very small. In front of her lay a cat, seemingly carefree.

Having grown up without siblings, Hee-dae had never seen another child his own age inside the house before. This was also his first time seeing a real cat — until then, he had only encountered them in books.

Hee-dae was an irrepressible six-year-old chatterbox who told his mother everything, mixing up what he knew with what he didn’t know, and what he wanted to know with what he would rather not have known. He immediately ran to his mother to tell her about the pretty cat in their yard. However, his excited description actually mixed up the cat and the pretty little girl.

“A stray cat must have wandered in. Hee-dae, if you see it again, don’t go near it or touch it. It’s filthy and dangerous.”

Despite his earnest explanation, his mother’s reaction was completely different to what he had expected. She immediately summoned the live-in staff and reprimanded them for neglecting the garden. When Hee-dae returned to the backyard the next day, both the cat and the little girl had disappeared.

From that day on, Hee-dae checked the backyard every afternoon after returning from kindergarten. Consumed by guilt and regret, he was convinced that they had disappeared because he had carelessly told his mother about them. He promised himself repeatedly that if they ever returned, he would keep them a secret from his mother.

It was autumn when he finally saw the little girl again, crouching in the backyard just as before.

The cat was nowhere to be seen, but Hee-dae was simply overjoyed that the girl had returned.

As though tethered by an invisible leash, she never strayed beyond that secluded corner of the garden. She was always there, in the exact same spot.

The front garden was almost ten times the size of the backyard and offered plenty to enjoy, including swings and a swimming pool. Nevertheless, Hee-dae never suggested they play there.

He was afraid that if his mother found out, the little girl would disappear again.

Time flew by and, before he knew it, Hee-dae was in the final years of primary school. After hearing about a special day when boys gave sweets to the girls they liked, he went to find Yeon-seo.

Deciding that giving her a large piece of candy would be too embarrassing, he nervously toyed with two small sweets that he had slipped into his pocket instead.

“Hey, Shim Yeon-seo. Do you want one?”

Hee-dae opened his palm as though it were no big deal. Yeon-seo’s gaze fixed on the two tiny candies.

“Someone gave them to me, so let’s share. One is blueberry and the other is cherry. Take whichever flavor you like.”

The thought that Yeon-seo might realize what the sweets meant made his heart feel like it was going to burst. Yet no matter how much time passed, she just stared at them.

Her refusal to take one surely meant that she had understood it was a confession. Wondering if this was her way of rejecting him, Hee-dae felt his heart plummet.

“You don’t like candy? Fine, then. Forget it.”

“It’s not that.”

After hesitating, Yeon-seo spoke in a very quiet voice.

“I know what blueberries and cherries are, but I’ve never tasted either of them, so I don’t know what they taste like. That’s why I can’t choose.”

……Lost in the memory, Hee-dae swallowed another sip of whiskey. Then he squeezed his eyes shut before opening them again and muttering self-deprecatingly,

“This is f*cking ridiculous. Now I’m remembering every pathetic little detail.”

From the moment Shim Yeon-seo returned to Baekmun Motors as a lawyer, his memories began to return, piece by piece, completing the picture naturally.

Things would have been better if she had never appeared before him again. Then she could have remained just an ordinary first love, the kind of woman any man might keep in his heart forever.

“Whew.”

Hee-dae sighed again, closing and opening his troubled eyes.

“I know what blueberries and cherries are, but I’ve never tasted either of them, so I don’t know what they taste like. That’s why I can’t choose.”

On that day, Yeon-seo’s response turned twelve-year-old Hee-dae’s world upside down. From that moment on, he was determined to make her completely happy and give her a life lacking in nothing.

“I thought I had been born to make you happy. To meet you and protect you.”

Yes. There had once been a time like that.

No matter how much he pretended otherwise, no matter how much he acted as though those days had never existed…

“Seriously, why is my adolescence lasting this long? Why won’t it end? This is driving me insane.”

Those days were undoubtedly part of his childhood.

Hee-dae frowned, thinking himself to be needlessly sentimental. He drained the last of his whisky and slumped onto the sofa.

He stared blankly at the documents he had brought home from work for the first time, then began to halfheartedly flip through them.

When his eyes began to ache, he found his glasses and put them on. His gaze gradually sharpened as he continued to review the documents. Yet no matter how long he read for, the pile showed no sign of getting smaller. Letting out an agonized groan, he reached for the next pile.

“Back then, I never understood why you were always in the backyard.”

“There’s so f*cking much. Seriously.”

He did not know that she spent all day in the backyard waiting for her mother.

He was unaware that the backyard was the only place where she could feel the sunlight after escaping the single room that was completely devoid of it.

He had no idea that there was another world beneath the floor on which he stood.

“I’m going to finish all of this before I sleep tonight. I refuse to lose to Shim Yeon-seo.”

He had not known that the floor beneath his feet had been her ceiling.

***

Having stayed up until dawn to review the documents Yeon-seo had left him and having slept for barely two hours, Hee-dae arrived at work looking utterly exhausted.

For the first time, the briefcase that had always been empty felt heavy in his hand; he had never put anything in it before. To make matters worse, Hee-dae entered his office with an armful of documents, took his seat at his desk, and asked his secretary for coffee.

He was about to drink the coffee that his secretary had brought him when he abruptly stopped. After glaring at the cup for a long moment, he finally put it back down.

“Sorry, but make it decaf.”

“Yes. I’ll prepare another cup, Executive Director.”

The stern warning from his mother not to consume caffeine while taking the deer antler tonic echoed through his mind. Moaning about his misfortune at not being able to enjoy a cup of coffee, he stared at the ceiling and yawned.

“Whew, I’m so f*cking sleepy.”

“I’m dying! Ugh!”

He should have gone to bed at a reasonable hour, but he was overcome with a strange stubbornness that kept him awake all night. Shim Yeon-seo had undoubtedly finished reviewing every last page by now, and he was determined not to make himself look ignorant in front of her.

He could hardly parade his lack of knowledge in front of her.

Hee-dae drained half the decaf coffee his secretary had brought him in one gulp. As he let out an exhausted breath, his secretary began to brief him on his various appointments.

This daily briefing marked the start of his working day, but he had never bothered to listen to it properly before. He usually paid only half-hearted attention, but today his exhausted body rejected every word even more stubbornly than usual.

When the secretary finally finished her report, which had sounded like an alien language to him, Hee-dae waved a hand dismissively.

“Sure. Let’s do that.”

“Yes, Executive Director. Understood.”

The secretary was about to turn away after finishing when he looked back at Hee-dae. Resting his chin on one hand and idly dropping his pen against the desk, Hee-dae merely raised his eyes.

The secretary added with a faint smile,

“The company interview you gave last month was published in today’s issue of the company magazine.”

“Ah, really? When did I give an interview? My memory is a little hazy.”

“Would you like me to print it for you? You can also view it on the company bulletin board.”

“No need. It’s not as though I said anything worth reading. Thank you.”

“Yes, Executive Director.”

After the secretary left and closed the door, Hee-dae sipped the rest of his coffee. Then he propped his chin on his hand once more and stared blankly at the documents.

He considered summoning Yeon-seo immediately, but soon shook his head.

“……Forget it. She’s probably busy.”

He wanted to summon her immediately, sit her down in front of him and talk to her, but she was probably busy. The Choi Dae-sik lawsuit could not be the only case she was working on.

Should he call her? Or should he not? Should he call her? Don’t call her?

After silently agonizing over the decision, Hee-dae swiveled his chair around and stared out of the window.

“This is insane. What the hell is wrong with me?’

Did he actually want to do some real work for a change? Or did he simply want to see Shim Yeon-seo? As if spending the entire night thinking about her had not been enough, the moment the working day began, he found himself wanting to call her again.

His thoughts became increasingly tangled, and he hated every bit of it. Just as his sighs became more frequent, Hee-dae suddenly looked up at the ceiling.

A memory abruptly resurfaced. The previous month, he had agreed to be interviewed for the company magazine, sitting down with the interviewer for about thirty minutes.

“Executive Director, this is the final question. We selected something that every employee at Baekmun is probably curious about.”

“All right. Go ahead. Ask whatever you like.”

“We’re curious about your first love.”

Hee-dae’s eyes gradually widened as he retraced the memory.

“My first love? It was pretty pathetic. It was unrequited from beginning to end. I confessed to her in high school, and she rejected me on the spot. I’d liked her for quite a long time too.”

Hee-dae, who had been leaning back in his chair, sprang forward and opened the company website immediately. The page featuring his interview had already received an astonishing number of views.

Ignoring the photographs, he quickly scanned the interview until he came to a section that caught his attention.

Q: We’re incredibly curious about the woman who didn’t return your feelings. What was your first love like?

A: She was just… pretty. She had long hair and was good at studying. We even went to church together at weekends. Things like that. I wasn’t religious myself, but I used to go to church with her because I wanted to spend time with her. Well, that’s about it.

“This is f*cking insane.”

Hee-dae sprang to his feet. After staring helplessly at the rapidly rising view count, he stormed out of the Executive Director’s office, rounding his desk on the way.

The secretaries rose from their seats, but he rushed straight past them.

Seeing that the lift was still on a lower floor, he quickly opened the emergency stairwell door. Taking five steps at a time, he raced down to the seventeenth floor, where the legal department was located.

Bang, bang — his shoes thundered through the stairwell.

Q:) Lastly, how do you think you would feel if you ever met your first love again?

A:) I think I’d simply be glad to see her. It would be nice. After all, it’s all in the past.

“Ah, f*ck! No! Please! Please!”

A:) Now that we’re talking about her, I suppose I would like to see her at least once.

“Please! No! No, no! Please! Please, please!”

Without pausing to catch his breath, Hee-dae flung open the door to the legal department. The employees rose from their seats one by one at his unexpected arrival, while he frantically scanned the room for Yeon-seo’s desk.

Ah! There she was.

“Welcome, Executive Director!”

The department head shot towards him like a bullet and hurried to his side. The moment Hee-dae spotted Yeon-seo’s desk, his gaze flew straight to her monitor.

When he saw the screen, he squeezed his eyes shut, then slowly opened them again.

Displayed in full on Shim Yeon-seo’s monitor was the page from the company magazine interview.