My Secret Daddy

Chapter 2

1.

A fortnight had passed since then. For Ruby, it had been a painfully tedious stretch of time.

Seonghyeon had taken every bit of leave available to him and spent his days shut up at home. The only things he did during that time were pound away at the piano, then slump over it and drift into a fitful nap.

After returning from school, Ruby went straight into the kitchen. The Indian woman who helped with the housework was busy preparing vegetables. Looking at the tray on the dining table, Ruby asked worriedly,

“Has Daddy eaten anything?”

“No. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve reheated the soup. Whenever I bring it to him, hoping he might eat, he tells me to leave it there and says he’ll have it later. He won’t even drink water.”

“I see… Has he gone out at all?”

“Not once. He’s been staying in the practice room.”

Watching him doze off in the dark practice room as though he had collapsed, Ruby thought to herself,

Why doesn’t he just drink? Like everyone else, he should cry, get drunk, curse the heavens, or at least let himself fall apart!

Ruby knew why he wasn’t doing any of those things. Or, more precisely, she could feel it.

He had always insisted that he was an adult. He had even said that he was someone who couldn’t afford to cry.

During her first year living in this house, Ruby had attended Seonghyeon’s concerts several times. When she realized that the captivating tone she had heard on the day they first met wasn’t simply the desperate product of his years in an orphanage, she fell even more deeply under the spell of his violin.

His violin was neither as dazzling as Mozart’s nor as rich and full as Mendelssohn’s. It was closer to Paganini’s.

Considering his bright and upright disposition, there was something strangely balanced about it.

Ruby could feel, in its entirety, the way he controlled himself.

To him, the violin had been a black hole that swallowed his desires, a clearing in the forest where his emotions could be purified, and, more than anything, a lover who understood him better than anyone else.

When he lost it, he had lost a part of his arm and a piece of his heart.

Even so, Hyejeong was still there for him, and he had somehow managed to pull himself together.

Ruby wanted to believe that he would now resolve to live on for her.

Starting the next day, Ruby began sending him messages as soon as her classes ended.

Ruby: Have you eaten?

Seonghyeon: Yeah.

Ruby: What did you eat?

Seonghyeon: What about you?

Ruby: I asked you first.

Seonghyeon: Something white and thick.

Ruby: Rice gruel?

Seonghyeon: Oh, right.

Seonghyeon was briefly puzzled.

Irena, the Indian housekeeper, couldn’t cook Korean food at all. Since Seonghyeon loved Korean cuisine, Hyejeong had always made a point of cooking for him on weekends. Whenever she did, Ruby would be right beside her, helping out.

“Ah… Ruby made it.”

Before he knew it, Seonghyeon had begun waiting for Ruby’s messages.

As his leave was drawing to a close, he gazed at one of her messages for a long time before finally managing to form a coherent thought.

“That’s right… I have to pull myself together. Ruby’s here…”

But it wasn’t as simple as he had hoped.

It felt as though pain and regret had clung to every last cell in his body. He could feel them gradually tightening their grip on both his body and mind.

A helpless sense of defeat was slowly erasing the person he used to be.

When his leave ended, he reluctantly returned to work and reluctantly resumed his lectures. His monotonous life of commuting between the university and home continued.

On weekends, he shut himself away in his room and barely moved.

One Sunday, Ruby chased him all the way into his study and began pestering him like never before.

“The weather is amazing! Let’s go for a walk!”

Seonghyeon kept his head lowered toward his laptop and muttered absentmindedly,

“Daddy’s busy. I have to prepare my lectures…”

Ruby planted herself in front of his desk, her face caught halfway between a smile and a frown.

“Do you know how long it’s been since we went for a walk together?”

“Huh…?”

“Can’t you go out for my sake?”

Only then did Seonghyeon manage to read the expression on Ruby’s face.

She was desperately trying to tell him that there was still something he could do for someone else.

“All right. Go get your coat.”

Ruby immediately reverted to the little girl she used to be, bouncing out of the study.

By the time Seonghyeon had slowly gotten his coat on and come out, Ruby was already opening the front door.

As he descended the apartment stairs, Seonghyeon looked up at the sky and frowned.

“Good grief… You said the weather was nice? It’s snowing! Ugh, it’s freezing.”

“It really was nice earlier. You should’ve come out sooner.”

Seonghyeon grumbled as he waved at Ruby, who was about three meters ahead of him.

“Don’t run.”

“Catch me if you can~! If you catch me, I’ll give you an oni!”

“Oni? Where did you learn that word? Even I only heard it when I was very little.”

Ruby remembered exactly when Seonghyeon had said it. And she remembered every other thing he had ever said, too.

“My boyfriend is kind of old.”

“What’s old?”

Ruby thumped her chest in exasperation.

“Oh, my goodness! You don’t even know what a boyfriend is? It’s short for ‘boy friend.’ Like BF.”

Seonghyeon tilted his head.

“Why shorten it?”

Instead of answering, Ruby ran a little faster.

“If you catch me, I’ll buy you a hot dog!”

“All right, then. What grade is he in?”

“What?”

“Your boyfriend. You’re not dating a college student, are you? Is he Korean?”

“Oh, come on! Just hurry up! I’m really craving a hot dog!”

“Is he a good kid?”

“The best! He’s the greatest angel in the universe.”

“Do I know him?”

Seonghyeon pressed her with an unusual degree of persistence.

Is his single-dad protective instinct kicking in? Ruby wondered, though she couldn’t help feeling pleased.

“You know him, Daddy! He’s super nice, super smart, super handsome, and super tall!”

“There’s no one that perfect among the people I know.”

“Oh, wow. Daddy actually swore.”

“Ah, wait. There is one guy.”

“Who?”

“My only personal disciple.”

“Oh, Little Seonghyeon. The genius boy from Munich, Go Eunbin, right?”

“He’s in Korea now. He quit playing the piano, too.”

“I know. Mommy even showed me videos of him.”

“Yeah. You could call him a devil with an angel’s face.”

“Is that better than the other way around?”

“Ruby, wait a second.”

Seonghyeon stopped the fluttering little girl and wrapped a scarf around her neck.

“Your neck is completely exposed. What if you catch a cold? You already have hypothermia.”

The warmth of Seonghyeon’s body and his gentle, familiar scent, which had soaked into the scarf, were conveyed directly to Ruby’s neck.

Sniffling, Ruby tilted her head back as far as she could and gazed up at Seonghyeon as though his eyes were stars.

When he saw Ruby wearing the exact same expression she had had when they first met, Seonghyeon somehow felt relieved.

“Good grief… I thought you’d grown up a little, but I guess not. How are you still exactly the same as when you were a little kid?”

“What did you say?”

“Heh… Even Rudolph would cry and run away. Look at that strawberry nose.”

His mischievous streak kicking in, Seonghyeon wound the scarf around Ruby’s face until it was completely wrapped up.

With only her enormous eyes showing, he burst out laughing.

“Those huge eyes of yours! You’re so cute I could just die!”

“What is this?! I look like a baby wrapped in a blanket! I feel disgusting! I look like a little infant!”

Made happy by his adorable daughter’s complaints, Seonghyeon scooped Ruby up and wrapped her in the hem of his coat.

“You’re smaller than a speck of dust, and you have a boyfriend?”

“Hey! Put me down! How dare you just grab a lady and hug her like that!”

“A lady, my foot.”

By then, Seonghyeon was laughing brightly beneath the softly falling snow.

2.

And so, time passed at a leisurely pace.

Seonghyeon was gradually beginning to regain his composure.

In Ruby’s words, his heart was slowly becoming softer.

His entire daily routine began to find its way back onto a normal track, with Ruby at the center of it all.

In the mornings, he sat at the dining table reading the newspaper and waited for Ruby to come out of her room. In the evenings, he sat at the same table and finished his remaining work while waiting for her to finish her shower.

Every Friday, he went out with Ruby, and every weekend, he took walks with her.

During the summer vacation the following year, they traveled to Hawaii. That Christmas, they went skiing in Canada.

They wore matching outfits at their destinations and tried every kind of sport together.

Before he knew it, he was living out a new life as Ruby’s dad.

The following year, he renewed his contract with the university, and he entered his third year as a professor.

By then, the title of “world-renowned virtuoso” had faded from the public’s memory, and he had become an ordinary working professional.

He liked it that way.

After Hyejeong’s departure, he had completely severed his ties with music. He had even forgotten the tiny lingering attachment he had carried around for so long.

Working as a professor in New York wasn’t particularly difficult.

It wasn’t so much that the work itself was easy as that the job was structured in a way that allowed him to focus solely on his work, making it easy to adjust to life there.

Professors here were more like scholars than educators.

Thanks to that, he was able to conduct new research that he hadn’t had time for while he was actively performing.

He also began giving lectures and writing books, keeping himself just as busy as he had been during his days as a performer.

After joining a club organized by a fellow professor, he even made friends in fields unrelated to music.

At his first party, he met a German-American woman named Rose Hakkel.

James Fitch, a professor of sociology, introduced Seonghyeon to Rose, who was wearing a red dress.

Rose was a beautiful woman with blonde hair and green eyes, and she was the same age as Seonghyeon.

“Seonghyeon! This is Rose, a friend of my wife. She teaches anthropology at the same university. Haven’t you met her before?”

“Oh, I know her.”

“At last, I finally get to meet you! I’ve been to several of your concerts. You’re even more handsome up close.”

“You’re too kind. You’re a beautiful woman yourself.”

Rose was an outgoing woman, and that night she took Seonghyeon back to her apartment.

After getting out of the taxi, he held out his hand to her in front of the apartment door.

“Go on inside. I’ll see you again.”

“I have some good wine at home. Just have one glass before you go.”

“Some other time. I have a young daughter at home, so I need to get back.”

“Just one glass. I’ll call you a taxi afterward.”

But the moment the door closed, Rose launched into a surprisingly passionate kiss that left Seonghyeon utterly flustered.

That night, he was worn out by Rose’s seemingly inexhaustible energy and accidentally dozed off.

When he awoke with a start, he discovered that less than thirty minutes had passed.

He covered Rose’s exposed breasts with the bedsheet, picked up his clothes, and went out into the living room.

After getting out of the taxi, Seonghyeon flew up the apartment stairs and carefully opened the front door, making sure not to make a sound.

After confirming that the light in Ruby’s room was off, he let out a sigh of relief and tiptoed inside.

After taking a shower, he let out a small scream.

Ruby, dressed in her pajamas, was fast asleep while hugging an enormous teddy bear.

“What the… Why is this little rascal sleeping here?”

He thought about it for a moment before lying down beside her.

Then he gazed at the little girl who had suddenly barged into his life one day, looking at her with a sense of wonder.

Her eyelashes were so thick they looked like black butterflies. Her nose was reminiscent of a ski slope at Whistler, and her lips were the size of cherries.

Tiny teeth peeked out between them.

Before he knew it, a contented smile had spread across his face.

“Look at you, drooling.”

Is this little rascal taking over my bed, too?

One of his friends was also a widower. His name was Adam Law, an American.

He often complained that his eldest daughter interfered too much in his private life.

“She says she’s worried I’ll start seeing some strange woman. Can you believe that? What about you? Isn’t it annoying? Now that I think about it, Ruby seems to follow you around everywhere, too.”

“I like it. I’d actually feel hurt if our Ruby didn’t show any interest in her dad.”

Adam scratched the bridge of his prominent nose, looking dazed.

“That’s incredible.”

Seonghyeon wondered why Ruby was sleeping in his bed.

Was she worried, like Adam’s eldest daughter, that Seonghyeon might start seeing some strange woman?

“Ah…”

Seonghyeon thought he could understand Ruby’s feelings.

She’s anxious… because she’s not my biological daughter.

Perhaps she was worried that her place in his life would become uncertain if he ever remarried.

He blinked twice, as though he were having a conversation with Ruby.

“That won’t happen. At least not until you’re an adult. Absolutely not.”

More than anything, he himself wasn’t ready to leave Ruby’s side.

As he watched Ruby grow a little more every day, he would often think to himself:

By next year, I’ll be ready.

Or perhaps the year after that…