CHAPTER 4

The scattered cigarette ash around her burst into a fiery red, then fizzled out and lost their color.

It reminded Leeseo of the gardener who had suspected the new driver of casually throwing cigarette butts in the garden. He found the culprit, but it turned out to be Chairman Kwon’s second son, much to the disappointment of the gardener, who vowed to find the culprit and beat him so badly that he would never light a cigarette again.

“Hey.”

As Jin-gyeom took a step closer, coming near to where Leeseo had stepped back, he lightly poked her shoulder with his index finger. It wasn’t a forceful jab, so it didn’t hurt much but it certainly wasn’t pleasant.

“Why?”

“Why? Aren’t you a little short with words?”

His tone was confrontational, but despite that, Leeseo responded calmly.

“In case you don’t remember, I’m older than you.”

“So?”

“That means you were the one who acted rudely first.”

Jin-gyeom smirked, raising the corner of his mouth in a sly smile. Crossing his arms and leaning back, he taunted her playfully.

“I can get away with it, though.”

“…”

“I am still your master, after all.”

Leeseo narrowed her eyes.

Who is calling whom a master? This guy is insane.

Just when she thought he’d grown up in her absence, Kwon Jin-gyeom was still the same as he’d always been, a spoiled brat.

Throughout their school days in the mansion, Jin-gyeom couldn’t get enough of bothering Leeseo. It wasn’t fear that made her avoid him, but rather a sense of disgust, so Leeseo tried her best not to draw his attention. However, his malicious pranks only escalated as time went by.

At school, rumors circulated that Leeseo was a servant living in the famous GK Group Chairman’s house. It didn’t take much for her to find out who was responsible for the childish and pathetic nickname and spreading it around the school. Nevertheless, it did have one advantage: it fueled her determination to study harder than ever before.

After getting into a university and moving into Songdo’s dormitory, Leeseo felt relieved that she would no longer have to see Kwon Jin-gyeom and endure his pranks. She pretended not to care about his antics, acting nonchalant, but in reality, it truly bothered her. The desire to remove the label of being called a maid always lingered in a corner of her heart.

“It’s been a while, Leeseo.”

“….”

“After running away like a little mouse, you’ve crawled back here, huh?”

Last winter, Leeseo returned to the mansion after taking a leave of absence from school, fortunately for her, Jin-gyeom wasn’t there. He had gone to a boarding supplementary school and hadn’t been seen around. But, recently, he came back to the mansion.

Shortly after Tae-gyeom arrived in Korea, to be exact.

It seemed that Jin-gyeom’s return to the mansion was to restrain the son of the first wife who had returned to Korea under Chairman Kwon’s orders, Lady Shin Joo-ah hastily pulled him out of the supplementary school. There were stories circulating among the mansion’s staff that she had recruited renowned SAT tutors to give private tutoring to Jin-gyeom at the mansion, becaming a fun topic among the staff for a while.

After flicking open his cigarette case and placing a fresh cigarette between his lips, Jin-gyeom glanced up briefly to stare at Leeseo intently, scrutinizing her.

“Your personality is quite… frustrating, isn’t it?”

He tilted his head as he lit the cigarette with his lighter. The fluorescent lime green lighter had a partially faded logo printed in small letters, making it hard to tell where he had picked it up.

“I like it.”

Inhaling deeply from the filter, Jin-gyeom exhaled a long puff of smoke. The choking smell of the cigarette scattered hazily in front of them. It was clearly intentional. Leeseo’s face contorted in disgust.

Jin-gyeom seemed pleased with Leeseo’s reaction, and he chuckled with a smug expression that wrinkled his nose. Suddenly, Leeseo reached out and snatched the cigarette between Jin-gyeom’s lips with a rough tug.

 “Huh?”

In an instant, Jin-gyeom snatched the cigarette back, giving a look as if to say, ‘See this?’ His eyebrows arched in a displeased manner.

“Oh. Hyun Leeseo, has grown up?”

He was still five years younger than her.

It was ridiculous to hear someone boasting about who had grown more. But in the case of Kwon Jin-gyeom, he really had grown so much in just a few years that Leeseo could hardly recognize him.

The last time she had seen him, he was a middle school student, barely reaching Leeseo’s shoulders in height. But now, their eye level are completely reversed. That’s why, when Leeseo caught a glimpse of his silhouette in the darkness of the greenhouse earlier, she momentarily mistook him for someone else.

“Don’t throw your cigarette butts out here. There’s a smoking area in the back of the garage, if you want to smoke, go there.”

“Are you an idiot? I’m smoking in secret, so I’m hiding in places like this. If I were openly smoking, I’d just do it comfortably in my room. Why would I bother coming all the way here to bum a cigarette?”

Only then did she understand why he had come all the way to the greenhouse, far from the main building, to smoke. He was avoiding his strict parents, acting like a mischievous little kid. Were they really that scary?

“You better keep your mouth shut. If rumors spread, I’ll think that you started it all.”

“I don’t care whether you smoke or not. Just make sure to dispose your cigarette butts properly.”

Jin-gyeom’s mouth suddenly twisted into a mocking grin as he looked at Leeseo. Something seemed to have irked him.

But regardless, Leeseo had no intention of speaking to him further. Taking her eyes off of him, Leeseo walked casually past his side.

“You really know how to put things so damn nicely.”

Jin-gyeom muttered through clenched teeth at the back of Leeseo’s head as she walked away. Instead of retorting, Leeseo quickened her steps even more.

“See you again?”

Jin-gyeom’s unruly shout cut through the crisp evening air.

* * *

Leaving Jin-gyeom behind, Leeseo walked briskly. The lukewarm night air wrapped around her arms and legs.

At the end of the pond, a small containerized house came into view. The exterior walls were partially corroded, and the paint was peeling in spots. This was the place where she had spent her entire childhood. She had eaten, slept, and gone to school here.

After punching in the code, she threw the cigarette butt she had been holding into the trash. The half-crushed cigarette fell with a muted sound. Right in front of the entrance was a small counter-like kitchenette, where she washed her hands thoroughly before taking off her clothes.

She tossed her discarded clothes into the laundry basket. There wasn’t room for a washing machine inside, so the laundry had to be collected together and taken to the staff quarter to be washed.

The bathroom was so small that it could barely fit one person. Her dad, who was taller and bulkier than her, used to bump his arms and legs against the bathroom walls every time he used it. Of course, this was a story from when the three of them were living together in a crowded house.

After her mother’s sudden death, her father seemed to have deflated like balloon, getting thinner day by day. At least he wasn’t bumping into the tiny bathroom anymore.

After finishing her shower, she wrapped a towel around her head and stepped out of the bathroom. She quickly applied lotion to her face and then opened the small square refrigerator to take out a beer can. The sound of the tab popping open was refreshing and cheerful.

Gulping down the beer, it felt like her stomach was pierced with refreshing coolness. Drinking beer alone in her room at night had become her new habit since returning to the mansion. Ironically, she had developed a strong aversion to alcohol, yet here she was.

She pressed the button on the fan, and the blades spun around noisily. As she dried her hair in front of the fan, she took a sip of beer, letting it flow down her throat. Leeseo’s gaze shifted to a picture frame placed on a low nightstand.

It was a photo taken at her high school graduation ceremony, with her holding a large bouquet of flowers while her mom and dad stood on either side, all wearing cheerful smiles. They had all graduated in the same year, they used to say.

After the graduation ceremony, they had gone to a family restaurant for the first time. Facing the complicated menu, the three of them had looked at each other helplessly, not knowing what to order. But the food had been absolutely delicious, and laughter was nonstop.

Her mother had worked in the mansion’s kitchen, while her father was a driver. They had moved from one rented room to another until around the time her mother’s belly had grown visibly round that Chairman Kwon and his wife graciously offered them to live inside the mansion out of consideration.

In return, her father had been employed as an on-call driver, ready to rush out and drive whenever called upon. It may have been a 24/7 job, but in any case, their living situation has been resolved, the three of them were able to live in the mansion, and her Mom always say out of habit that she was grateful to the owners.

Sometimes, Leeseo would wonder of how things might have turned out if she hadn’t escaped to college back then. Would she have realized that her mom was sick?

By the time they found out that her mother had cancer, the metastasis had already spread throughout her body. She had been in so much pain until then, it was hard to imagine how she endured it. The doctor’s expression as he spoke about the extent of the cancer, was a memory that she could never forget.

‘Your personality is quite… frustrating, isn’t it?’

As she recalled Jin-gyeom’s words, Leeseo brushed her wet hair in front of the fan. Frustrating personality… Yeah, maybe it was. When her mom died, it felt like the end of the world, but little did she know, it was just the beginning of her misery.

Leeseo downed the remaining beer in one gulp and got up from her seat. Lights flashed through the container’s windows. It seemed like the owner of the annex was throwing another party.

Leeseo took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. She knew that engaging with Jin-gyeom would only lead to more frustration. Instead, she decided to focus on the present and enjoy her evening alone.