Chapter 5 - Chapter 3: Episode 2 - Encounter
On weekends, Min-ah and Hyeon-tae used to take their son Seon-ah out to amusement parks or other places a kid would enjoy.
With the mind of a twenty-eight-year-old adult, Seon-ah found it awkward, but he couldn't ignore the expectations Min-ah and Hyeon-tae had as parents.
What started as an act—pretending to be a child—eventually became ingrained in him.
It happened over and over, and before he knew it, he found himself actually enjoying it. Even his thoughts started to feel like a child's.
Seon-ah didn't fully realize just how happy and joyful this daily life—and the love from his parents, a love he never received in his previous life—truly made him.
It was because he wasn't accustomed to any of this, and his mind was too confused to properly recognize it.
Five years had passed since he gained parents and received their unconditional love, but it still felt a little strange.
Still, feeling sorry at the thought of disappointing them, he'd occasionally act clingy around them, and he could see himself enjoying the pleased looks on their faces.
But he had to stop his mind from wandering.
Today felt a little different from usual.
That morning, Hyeon-tae had bathed Seon-ah and dressed him in neat, clean clothes.
Hyeon-tae and Min-ah had also changed into something formal, not the comfortable clothes they normally wore when going out.
It wasn't like last week's family trip to the amusement park—Min-ah's outfit was so dressed up it looked like she was trying to impress someone, and his gaze kept drifting to it.
"Omma, where are we going?"
"An acquaintance of omma's invited us over for a meal. There's also a friend there who's the same age as you, Seon-ah. Let's go eat some tasty food and play."
Min-ah spoke in a way young Seon-ah could understand.
In truth, the meal invitation from her work superior made her uncomfortable, but she didn't want her son and husband to sense her unease, so she acted as bright and positive as possible.
"Our Seon-ah is mature and well-behaved, so I know you wouldn't do such things, but when we get there, you need to get along well with the friend. No causing a ruckus or making trouble, okay?"
Hyeon-tae, who understood Min-ah's feelings to some extent, said the words Min-ah couldn't bring herself to say.
"Yes, I understand. Omma, Appa."
When Seon-ah answered using polite speech, which he normally didn't use when acting clingy, Hyeon-tae ruffled his hair with an expression that said he found it adorable.
"Our Seon-ah is such a good boy."
Sometimes, when Seon-ah showed how sharp and quick to understand things he was, he came across as too mature for a five-year-old.
'They say that when parents often act unreliable, the child tends to become more mature... It worries me.'
He couldn't say it directly to Seon-ah, but every time Hyeon-tae saw him acting mature, he worried whether he and Min-ah were doing their jobs as parents properly.
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'Is this really Seoul?'
That was his thought as he looked at the house built right in the heart of the city center—an area where Seoul land prices were sky-high no matter how you looked at it.
A two-story house with a garden of this scale, in a neighborhood where land value easily hit hundreds of millions of won per pyeong.
It was hard to even call that a simple Gold Spoon level.
'At this point... could it be a Diamond Spoon...'
As his mother pressed the doorbell and waited in front of the entrance to a detached house with a garden that looked to be about a thousand pyeong in Seon-ah's eyes, a young woman's voice came through the intercom.
"Team Leader Lee, right on time. Come in."
"Thank you for the invitation. Th-then, I'll come in."
Min-ah's voice trembled slightly as she answered.
The person she'd just spoken with through the intercom seemed to be 'the acquaintance of omma's' she mentioned earlier in the car.
Given how tense she looked, it seemed like the kind of person omma would find intimidating.
'Since it's a world where women work professionally, it's probably a work superior. But if omma is this cautious even though the voice sounded young, she must be pretty high-ranking, right?'
This was omma's work superior.
He organized his thoughts on how to act carefully before stepping inside.
As he entered, a young woman, a man who looked to be in his mid-thirties, and a girl around his own age were standing there.
Among them, the woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties with cat-like features spoke first and offered a handshake.
"Welcome. I saw you in the hallway before you went out to the field last time. It's been a while."
"Hello, Executive Director Park Yu-ra. This is my husband, Kim Hyeon-tae, and my son, Lee Seon-ah."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Kim Hyeon-tae."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Lee Seon-ah."
Seon-ah listened to what Min-ah said and roughly guessed the situation.
'She's young, but she talks like she's in her forties. Kind of an interesting person.
But Executive Director is one of the highest positions among company executives... To reach that position at this age, she must be a parachute appointment. Omma's work life isn't easy either, huh.'
It was a bit of a misunderstanding, but the current Seon-ah couldn't know that as a Hunter, the more magical power you accumulated in your body, the stronger your body became and the slower the aging process.
As a courtesy, Park Yu-ra introduced her husband and then her daughter.
"This is my daughter, Park Yu-rin."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Park Yu-rin."
A cute face with big eyes, reminiscent of a kitten.
Seon-ah thought the five-year-old girl was incredibly cute, speaking politely with a lisp and clear pronunciation.
This girl named Park Yu-rin had been staring at him ever since he arrived.
Her gaze had been fixed on him since her large eyes turned toward him, and she hadn't looked away even once.
It was a look mixed with curiosity and anticipation, like when you see a friend your own age.
"Let's get along well!"
Seon-ah said in a bright voice, taking Yu-rin's hand.
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Park Yu-rin had heard that today, a subordinate who worked at her mother's office and that subordinate's family were coming over.
When she heard that among them was a boy her age, she was excited at the thought of having a friend to play with.
From time to time, acquaintances or people her mother knew would visit, but it had been a long time since a friend her age came over.
While she did see friends her age at daycare, making a new friend was one of the most fun things for her.
After some time passed, she heard a woman's voice greeting them through the intercom.
When the front door opened, there were a man and woman who looked like a married couple, and a boy who seemed to be her age.
The pretty-looking boy had slightly sharp eyes, but he had a beauty mark under his right eye.
Even while the other family was introducing themselves, she couldn't take her eyes off him—she had never seen such a pretty child among kids her age before.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Lee Seon-ah."
'His voice is pretty too. If I ask him to be my friend, will he say yes?'
Yu-rin wanted to get closer to this boy named Seon-ah.
His appearance and his obedient attitude pleased her.
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After the family introductions were finished, Yu-ra guided Min-ah's family to the barbecue area prepared at the back of the garden.
I listened in a bit on the conversation between omma and Executive Director Park Yu-ra while eating.
"Is everything fine at work lately?" "Our HR Manager will help a lot with this promotion review," and so on.
A lot of what Executive Director Park Yu-ra said was about taking care of omma.
'She's a parachute appointment, but she seems nice and takes good care of omma. Probably trying to pull her into her faction within the company.'
"Seon-ah? Hey, Seon-ah, answer me~"
I'd been so focused on listening to the two of them and thinking that I didn't properly respond to the voice suddenly coming from beside me.
Yu-rin was grabbing my arm and shaking it continuously.
So absorbed in their conversation, I hadn't heard what Yu-rin said, so she grabbed my arm and started shaking it.
"Huh? I was thinking about something else and didn't hear you. Could you say it again?"
"You and I are the same age, so you don't have to use formal speech. Talk comfortably. Listening to the adults talk is boring anyway—let's go play in my room."
Yu-rin could have been upset for having been ignored, but she didn't seem to care and suggested we go play in her room.
I changed my speech to match what Yu-rin asked me to use.
It was my way of repaying the gaze and actions that showed she wanted to be friends with me.
"Okay, let's go together."
It wasn't like there was going to be any interesting conversation if I stayed here anyway.
I just couldn't bring myself to leave because omma looked so uncomfortable, trapped with her work superior.
The woman called Executive Director Yu-ra didn't do anything to intentionally make omma uncomfortable, but perhaps because she was so high-ranking, omma kept breaking into a cold sweat and stuttering frequently.
'She seems like a nice person, though... She's just clueless...'
With that brief thought, I followed Yu-rin.
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Yu-rin must have wanted to get close to me—she showed me various toys, trying to catch my interest.
But with my age counting my previous life, my mental age was way too high to be playing with toys like these.
Even though I acted like a child to match my age—going out with my parents every weekend and behaving accordingly—playing with toys like this felt uncomfortable to me.
I felt like if I kept this up, I'd actually become a real kid, and I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
Instead, I tried to talk with Yu-rin.
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I learned information about Yu-rin—the name of the daycare she went to, her favorite teacher, her friends, and so on.
I planned to figure out topics and interests I could use to talk with this girl and pass the time.
After chatting for a while, just when I was running out of things to talk about with Yu-rin, she came over and sat close beside me.
Then, Yu-rin quietly said,
"Out of all the boys I know, you're the first one who's this pretty and easy to talk to. Want to be friends?"
"Sure."
Seeing how Executive Director Park Yu-ra had invited our family today and how she treated Seon-ah almost like her own direct subordinate in the earlier conversation, I realized something.
She was blatantly hinting at recruiting us into her faction for corporate politics—it was impossible not to notice.
If that Executive Director brought omma into her company faction, I'd probably be meeting Yu-rin often, so I decided to become friends to maintain a good relationship.
"I like you, Seon-ah. Do you like me too?"
I thought Yu-rin's "like" meant the kind of 'like' kids usually say—like "Do you like omma or appa better?"
"Then, Seon-ah, there's something omma and appa do sometimes—want to try it with me?"
"Huh? What is it?"
'Do they do sports or hiking together or something?'
While I was thinking about it for a moment, she suddenly pushed me over onto my back, brought her face close to mine, and pressed her lips against mine.
"Mwah! Mmm-mwah!"
Yu-rin's tiny lips sucked at my mouth with such force that it actually hurt.
'What's going on? Why would she suddenly do something like this...'
Not fully processing the sudden situation, Seon-ah stared at Yu-rin with startled eyes.
After sucking on Seon-ah's lips for a while, Yu-rin looked into his eyes and, as if answering his unspoken question, pulled her mouth away and said,
"It's my first time doing it, but I think it's fun. I saw omma and appa doing it before, so I asked them, and they said it's something people do with someone they like."
Now I understood.
To Yu-rin, who was full of pure childish innocence, this was just a game.
"No! You're supposed to do this when you're older! Let go! I said stop!"
Seon-ah said.
"No, it's fun! Just once more."
'Are we really the same age? Why is she so strong? No matter how much strength I put into my arms, she doesn't budge...'
Seon-ah struggled hard, trying to break free, but he couldn't escape from Yu-rin, who had him pinned down.
"Nngh! Hnn! Let go!"
To make matters worse, even the arm holding his wrist wouldn't budge at all.
When his desperate resistance seemed utterly futile,
Yu-rin kept kissing him, and seeing his troubled expression, she seemed to enjoy it.
'Seon-ah looks so pretty and cute when he's in trouble. If I make him even more troubled, will he show me an even cuter side?'
For a child's innocent thoughts, it was remarkably full of sadism.
The moment she tried to put her thoughts into action—right then.
The door opened, and someone saw them kissing.
No—saw Yu-rin pressing down on the young boy with her full body weight, forcing her mouth onto his.
Someone who saw them shouted Yu-rin's name in a loud voice.
"Park Yu-rin! What do you think you're doing!"
The person who opened the door and yelled was Park Yu-ra, her face filled with shock.
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Park Yu-ra enjoyed inviting acquaintances, juniors, colleagues, and other people over to her home on weekends, treating them to meals and maintaining good relationships.
Whenever she welcomed others together with her family, she sometimes noticed her family looking tired, which worried her.
Seeing that, she would think to herself that she should be more considerate of how her family really felt.
She wondered if her daughter Park Yu-rin was getting along well with kids her age at daycare, and if her husband was lonely at home alone.
She felt that by coming home late on weekdays and spending weekends with other people instead of just her family, she had been neglecting them. Curious to see how Park Yu-rin would act when alone with Min-ah's son Seon-ah, she pretended to go to the bathroom and eavesdropped on their conversation from outside the door.
"It's my first time doing it, but I think it's fun. I saw omma and appa doing it before, so I asked them, and they said it's something people do with someone they like."
'No way... It can't be what I'm thinking...'
Listening to her daughter Yu-rin's words from behind the door, Yu-ra tried to convince herself she was mistaken.
"No! You're supposed to do this when you're older! Let go! I said stop!"
"No, it's fun! Just once more."
"Nngh! Hnn! Let go!"
Hearing the urgency in Seon-ah's voice, Yu-ra realized it wasn't her imagination.
It was clear that if she left things as they were, her daughter was about to make a huge mistake, so she quickly opened the door to check what was happening inside.
And sure enough, just as she had overheard, Lee Seon-ah was lying face-down on the floor, tears welling up in his eyes, as Park Yu-rin pinned him down and forcibly kissed him.
So shocked and furious, Park Yu-ra screamed at her daughter.
"Park Yu-rin! What do you think you're doing!"