My Secret Daddy
Chapter 10
1.
It was a beer pub on a side street a little way from the university district.
At six in the evening, two men emerged from the pub and hung a banner decorated with balloons outside the entrance. They were Lee Ho-young, a teaching assistant in the Department of Music at Hyein University, and Park Jun-hyung, the student representative of the Department of Instrumental Music.
The banner read:
Welcome Reception for Ha Seong-hyeon, the Legendary Violinist — From the Faculty of Hyein University
Ho-young straightened a crooked balloon and said, “We’ll have to get to know him better, but he seems like a good person.”
“Famous people are often psychos. Besides, he’s an aristocrat from an old-money family.”
“Even today, he kept speaking politely to me. I told him it made me uncomfortable and asked him to speak casually.”
“Don’t trust him too much. You’ll get stabbed in the back before you know it. I heard something’s going on between him and Jang Eun-ji. Have you heard about that?”
Ho-young’s eyes flashed behind his glasses.
“What? No way!”
“They say Professor Kang getting fired was Jang Eun-ji’s doing. She wanted to bring Ha Seong-hyeon here.”
“Oh my God…”
“Although that trash Professor Kang deserved to get fired.”
“Then what are you saying? That the two of them are dating or something?”
“What else would it be?”
“Oh my gosh… He looks so dignified, and he’s involved with that vixen Jang Eun-ji? I can’t believe it.”
“I’m a man myself, but men are all the same, aren’t they? A rich, sexy woman comes along and seduces them. What man could resist?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Uh… Neither would I!”
“Liar!”
“Ah! Everyone’s coming. Let’s hurry inside.”
A group of people was crossing the street. Jun-hyung pushed Ho-young forward by the back and ushered him into the pub.
2.
“All right, let’s see… Where should I start?”
Wearing work gloves, Ruby surveyed the five-pyeong patch of wasteland.
As Seong-hyeon had told her, the property was long and narrow. Standing by the front gate, she could see how deeply the yard extended toward the back.
“Should I plant vegetables in the back and flowers in the front?”
That would mean she would have to walk through the flower garden every time she wanted to pick vegetables.
“Hmm… I guess I can’t help it. Flowers in the back, vegetables in the front.”
Another idea occurred to her.
“If I get a dog, should I put its house here? No, wait… Would a dog leave my flower garden alone?”
Ruby didn’t like the idea of having to tie a dog up and put a muzzle on it if she got one. She decided to think about getting a dog later and briskly rolled up her sleeves.
Then she began digging up the roots of the shrubs that had already died.
The work was much harder than she had expected. The deeper she dug, the more complicatedly the roots became tangled together.
“Ugh… When am I ever going to get all of these out and plant my flowers?”
Even tending a five-pyeong garden wasn’t easy.
Still crouching, Ruby raised her face toward the gloomy evening sky. A ghostly white moon sat just above the wall.
It took her another two hours to dig out the largest root. Once she had removed that one, everything else was little more than weeds.
But then another problem arose.
“How am I supposed to throw this away?”
She went into the kitchen and came back with one of the recycling bags left over from unpacking.
The roots had to be cut into pieces before she could fit them into the bag.
“Oh my God… This is practically forced labor!”
Seong-hyeon’s icy face appeared right in front of her.
Stop wasting your time on pointless things and just study.
Ruby sincerely regretted ever starting the project, but she continued chopping away at the roots with all her might.
“Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing… Memory and desires, stirring…”
3.
“I imagine everyone here feels more or less the same way, but I’ve been a fan of Professor Ha Seong-hyeon since I was babbling as a baby.”
Professor Jeong Hyo-seok, who was serving as the emcee, cracked a shameless joke, prompting a boisterous chorus of heckling.
“How old are you to have been babbling?”
“Anyone listening would think you were still in high school!”
“I mean that I’ve admired him for that long! Now, shall we listen to a little old-man pop song in the voice of our most venerable Professor Ha Seong-hyeon? How about ‘My Way’?”
Professor Jeong flashed Seong-hyeon a cheerful smile, his face resembling a coin-sized version of a traditional Korean mask.
But Seong-hyeon simply shook his head with a cold expression, as though the smile had no effect on him whatsoever.
“Ah! Yes, yes, yes! Hahaha! I see you’re not ready yet! In that case, I’ll kick things off with a song of my own! ‘Love Me Tender’!”
Undeterred by the laughter and heckling, Professor Jeong stuck pieces of roasted seaweed to his cheeks and began belting out the song.
As the atmosphere grew livelier, the professors began approaching Seong-hyeon one by one to greet him, shake his hand, or ask for his autograph.
Professor Ryu Jenny, who was also famous as a painter, pulled up a chair beside Seong-hyeon and held out her glass. She was a woman in her sixties, nearing retirement, and she already knew Seong-hyeon.
“Seong-hyeon, or rather, Professor Ha. It’s been a long time. Have a drink with me, and pour me one in return.”
“Ah, Ms. Jenny. I heard you were here.”
Hyeong-seop, sitting beside them, watched as two glasses were filled and asked, “How do the two of you know each other?”
“My daughter is such a huge fan of Professor Ha that I invited him to my exhibition in New York.”
“My daughter is a fan of yours, too, Ms. Jenny.”
Jenny raised her glass and beamed. Her narrow, long face crinkled with layers of wrinkles resembling the crust of a pie.
“Oh my! Your daughter certainly has excellent taste!”
Hyeong-seop listened with keen interest.
When he had heard that Seong-hyeon had a daughter, he had tilted his head in confusion. If she was a high school senior, the timing meant she must have been born during his years in Germany.
But as far as Hyeong-seop knew, Seong-hyeon and his wife hadn’t had a baby during their time in Germany.
“Have you met his daughter, Ms. Jenny?”
“Of course. She came with him to my exhibition, and the two of them were so affectionate! My daughter was terribly jealous. My girls are always fighting with their father.”
Seong-hyeon’s phone, lying on the table, lit up. Ruby’s face appeared on the screen, and Jenny leaned forward.
“Oh, it’s Ruby!”
Hyeong-seop leaned forward as well to get a better look at the phone.
“Let me see, too!”
“My goodness, she’s already grown into such a young lady. Children really do grow up so quickly.”
Seong-hyeon wasn’t particularly pleased to hear that.
“Grown up? She’s still a child.”
“All fathers think that way.”
Before long, the people gathered around the table were all peering at the phone screen.
“Is this your daughter?”
“She’s an absolute beauty, just like her parents!”
“With a daughter this pretty, how will you ever bear to send her off to get married?”
Seong-hyeon awkwardly picked up his phone.
“Marriage? She’s still a student.”
“Oh my! Just look at Professor Ha getting all serious!”
“Just get remarried and have another pretty daughter!”
“That’s right!”
Everyone burst into loud laughter, but Seong-hyeon didn’t smile.
Until that moment, the only thing he’d considered was that he might have to send Ruby abroad to study. He had never once thought about the day he would have to give her away in marriage.
Just then, someone shouted in a booming voice.
“Ha Seong-hyeon! Sing!”
The tone was rather intimidating, and Hyeong-seop adjusted his glasses and turned around.
“Who’s being so rude… Ah!”
He hurriedly turned back and leaned toward Seong-hyeon.
“It’s the dean. He seems a little drunk.”
Seong-hyeon glanced over. Yong-seon smiled and raised his glass in greeting.
As though they’d been waiting for the signal, everyone began chanting in unison.
“Ha Seong-hyeon! Sing! Ha Seong-hyeon!”
With an expression that seemed to say he had no choice, Seong-hyeon set down his beer glass.
Jenny clapped her hands, blushing like a young girl.
“Oh my! I’ve struck gold today!”
When Seong-hyeon took the microphone from Professor Jeong and stood in the middle of the hall, a brief silence fell over the room.
“I am deeply honored that you’ve welcomed a mere retired performer so warmly. From now on, I will do my very best to live up to my responsibilities as an educator.”
He bowed politely.
Applause and cheers erupted, as though everyone had been waiting for those words.
Seong-hyeon began humming an old pop song, sneaking glances at the lyrics on his phone.
“I’ve been alone with you inside my mind…”
Hyeong-seop shook his head in admiration.
“It’s cheating if he can sing well, too.”
“Tell me about it. Is it fair for one person to have everything? I’ve traveled all over the world, but Seong-hyeon is the only truly elegant man I’ve ever met.”
“Elegant man. That’s exactly the expression for him. At first, I thought he was just putting on airs.”
Jenny rested her chin in both hands and smiled like a young girl. She gazed at Seong-hyeon as though she were painting his portrait with her eyes.
“Such a handsome man, and yet he parts his hair in an old-fashioned two-to-eight style. He’d look good with a more chic hairstyle, too.”
“I think he’s so handsome that he doesn’t bother paying attention to his appearance. Or perhaps he’s simply not interested in fashion.”
“No, that’s not it. His clothes aren’t the sort of thing someone who knows nothing about fashion would put together. Don’t you think he deliberately tries to look like an old man? What was he like in Germany?”
“He was a little different from how he is now. He was quiet, but cheerful. I suppose he’s become much more withdrawn since that accident.”
“Oh, right… That’s true.”
Jenny began sketching out the rest of his appearance in her mind.
His most distinctive feature was his slender eyes. His nose was nicely defined and sharp, his lips rarely smiled, and his build was neither too thin nor too heavy. He was tall and slender, too.
Aside from his slightly drooping bangs, there was hardly a single flaw to be found.
Jenny thought that if she painted him in the style of Chagall, he might end up looking like an eagle.
“If I were twenty years younger, I’d see what I could do about him.”
Hyeong-seop chuckled, as if to say he had no doubt about that.
Jenny was a renowned expert on romance, after all. Everyone who knew her knew it.
“Maybe he’ll put on a little belly once he hits forty.”
“Don’t say such unlucky things.”
“By the way, do you know what song he’s singing, Ms. Jenny?”
“You don’t even know ‘Hello’? Are you that young?”
Hyeong-seop pursed his plump lips like a duck and grumbled.
“It’s possible not to know it… Who said I was young…?”
4.
By the time Seong-hyeon sent the designated driver away and got out of the car, it was well past midnight.
He stood in front of the gate of his still-unfamiliar house for quite some time.
He’d forgotten the password.
“Ah, Ruby…”
Remembering that he’d set every password to Ruby’s birthday, he finally managed to open the gate and quietly enter the house.
Ruby’s sneakers lay overturned in an S-shape in the entrance hall.
He straightened them, then tilted his head.
They were covered in dirt.
Perhaps because he still hadn’t gotten used to the place, the house felt rather chilly and empty.
After checking that the heating system was working properly, he took off his jacket, tossed it onto the sofa, and went upstairs.
On the second floor, a small living-room-like space separated Ruby’s bedroom from the door leading to the terrace.
Seong-hyeon thought he should get a sofa for the hallway and gently opened her bedroom door.
Although the security system was active, the fact that they were living in a detached house made him a little uneasy about Ruby being home alone.
Thanks to the night-light, he could clearly see Ruby lying on the bed inside.
After confirming that she was sound asleep, he quietly closed the door.
Twenty minutes later, he emerged from the shower, dressed in a bathrobe, and flopped onto his bed.
“Good grief, I’m exhausted. How do people drink so much without ever getting tired?”
He felt as though he’d learned everything there was to know about Korean company dinners in one go.
As soon as he’d finished singing, a deafening round of applause had been followed by the appearance of bomb shots.
“Bottoms up! Bottoms up!”
“How long are you going to keep making us dance?”
Seong-hyeon had a sense of balance that would have placed him among the top ten people in the world, but there was no resisting that atmosphere.
Everyone was smiling and having a good time, and they insisted that Seong-hyeon join in their happiness.
It was as though refusing to participate would be an unforgivable crime against the collective joy.
Before he knew it, he’d drunk about four glasses of something called a whirlwind shot.
He wasn’t terribly drunk, but he couldn’t remember when he’d gotten into the car.
Before falling asleep, he muttered something he didn’t even understand himself.
“Dirt… Why would she… do something so pointless…”
Before long, he was having a warm, sweet dream.
An empty music room…
A girl was smiling.
His first kiss with Hye-jeong, who wore a gray school uniform…
I love you…
Lips as delicate as a little bird’s feather drew near.
I love you. You can cry in front of me.
I love you.
I love you, Daddy…
A blue light flooded his vision, and Seong-hyeon suddenly opened his eyes.
The entire room was blue.
It seemed the curtains had been left open.
As he searched for the clock, Seong-hyeon let out a faint scream.
“Ah!”
Ruby was fast asleep with her head resting on his bare arm.
What is this?! Why is this girl sleeping here?
His mind went completely blank.
He began trying to piece together the events of the previous night.
