Prologue
“I’m sick to death of this.”
Dohun grumbled irritably as he climbed the hill. What irritated him even more was the fact that he was only allowed to show even this much annoyance once he was alone.
The title of being the sponsor’s son was suffocating enough, but the way people looked at outsiders and every bit of their excessive kindness made him uncomfortable and annoyed.
Noblesse oblige, social contribution activities, whatever. Fine. Doing good deeds was a good thing.
But why did he, the son, have to come along too? They were going to come here themselves, put on their good-natured smiles, look around, and leave anyway.
“Someone who’s never even washed a few dishes at home…”
His face hardened further when he remembered his hypocritical mother.
She would wash a few dishes and then claim she had overexerted herself or was tired before going off to get a treatment worth millions of won. He could practically see it happening.
After leaving the orphanage building, Dohun followed the back path that continued up the hill.
This was the second year in a row that Dohun had visited this place, ‘Bitna Orphanage,’ with his parents. It also meant that this wasn’t the first time his parents had dragged him here against his will, and that he already knew roughly what lay at the end of this path.
They were probably inside the director’s office discussing the sponsorship after putting on their good-natured smiles in front of the reporters. Having gained himself a little time, Dohun quickened his pace.
He wasn’t supposed to be alone, but there wasn’t really anywhere he could be alone in the first place. The interior was cramped despite the large number of people.
Perhaps because of his striking appearance, or perhaps because they found it fascinating that he couldn’t speak Korean, the children kept showing interest in him.
Dohun found that attention bothersome. He had no ill feelings toward them, but whenever they approached him and kept trying to talk to him, he wanted to shout at them to be quiet.
After completing middle school and returning from the United States last year, Dohun had been introduced to everyone at the orphanage, including the director, as ‘the boy who can’t speak Korean.’ It had been the condition he had imposed on his parents for being dragged here against his will.
He had thought that if they did that, everyone would leave him alone.
His expectations had been spectacularly wrong.
“I’m going to be a student preparing for the entrance exams next year. Surely they won’t tell me to come again…”
Dohun’s brow furrowed as he reached the small incline that could barely even be called a hill.
Someone was already there in the space where he had thought no one would be.
His initial bewilderment lasted only a moment before he resumed walking.
Since she lived here, naturally she would know this place better than he did. And if this cramped space felt suffocating, surely the girl who actually lived here would feel it more strongly than an outsider like him.
Besides, it was ridiculous for him to claim ownership over a place that wasn’t even his.
All Dohun wanted was to escape people’s gazes and attention, and he simply needed somewhere to rest for a while.
There was nothing there except one enormous tree. It was so desolate and out of place that Dohun even found himself worrying needlessly about whether it could receive proper sunlight with the building blocking it.
The tree in front of him had probably been planted here before the orphanage itself.
Casting aside his brief curiosity about the tree, Dohun turned his gaze toward the girl standing in front of it.
“……”
The girl in a school uniform was looking up at the tree. He didn’t know whether she was looking at the branches or the flowers, but she remained completely still.
If not for the wind scattering the flower petals and the girl’s long hair swaying, he might have made the ridiculous mistake of thinking that time had stopped.
Dohun had intended to go sit on the bench beside the tree, but he stopped several steps away from the girl.
There were several reasons, but the biggest one was that the girl was crying.
She cried quietly, without a single sob or whimper. Tears were colorless, of course, yet the tears running down her cheeks seemed to have been dyed with color.
It would have been nice if her hair could cover her face. But the spiteful wind seemed to have no intention of doing that. Instead, it revealed her tear-stained face even more clearly.
Dohun remembered the girl.
She had been there when he first visited the orphanage last year. Unlike the others who had shown curiosity toward Dohun, she had quietly sat in a corner.
Perhaps that was why she had caught his attention more, but there was another reason he remembered her.
“She really does look like it.”
The girl reminded him of the rabbit he had raised at his school in the United States.
Her white skin, round cheeks, the black beauty mark beneath her eye, and her large, clear eyes. She even resembled the rabbit that had been so dearly loved by the principal that they had chosen a rabbit as the school character. Even her small frame, dressed in an oversized school uniform, was similar.
As far as he remembered, she had definitely been smaller.
Whatever had happened over the past year, the girl had grown so much that he could hardly recognize her. Her baby fat was still there, but her arms and legs had grown noticeably longer, and the oversized school uniform now fit her perfectly.
In Dohun’s eyes, she was still young, but unlike before, he no longer thought of her as a little child.
“Phew…”
Perhaps she had finished crying. The girl raised her hand and rubbed the corners of her eyes.
She sniffled and wiped away her tears one by one. She wiped the tears from her cheeks, then brushed away the tears gathered on her chin with the back of her hand. The tears on her hand glimmered faintly as they reflected the sunlight.
The girl repeatedly inhaled and exhaled. At the time, Dohun did not know whether she was trying to steady her breathing or compose herself after being abandoned once again.
“…Let’s go.”
Yunkyung muttered softly and took her gaze away from the tree. As her gaze moved, so did the tips of her feet, turning toward where Dohun was standing.
“……”
“……!”
Yunkyung’s shoulders flinched.
She hadn’t known that someone would come into this empty space, and even less so that the person would be Dohun.
“Uh…”
I don’t think I heard any footsteps. Did I not hear them because I was crying?
Did he see me crying? Why?
Her large eyes, above her reddened eye corners, darted about in obvious embarrassment.
At that moment, Dohun had the strange thought that Yunkyung’s time, which had been frozen until then, was only now beginning to flow again.
Yes, it was strange. Time flowed; it wasn’t something that could stop.
“……”
Dohun silently stared at Yunkyung in front of him. From the front, she really did look exactly like the rabbit he had raised at school.
Dohun didn’t realize that his gaze alone was enough to make the other person uncomfortable. The one who had to feel uncomfortable was solely Yunkyung.
It would have been nice if he had said something, anything, but Dohun merely stared at her without saying a word. Even when she touched her face, wondering if there was something on it, Dohun’s gaze didn’t leave her.
Yunkyung found it difficult to breathe, this time for an entirely different reason than when she had been crying.
“Why aren’t you saying anything…?”
Unable to bear the silence, Yunkyung blurted out what she was thinking.
“…Ah, you said you couldn’t speak Korean.”
Yunkyung belatedly remembered that Dohun couldn’t speak Korean. Once she understood the reason, his behavior made a little more sense.
When Yunkyung gave Dohun an awkward smile, Dohun, who had been maintaining his distance, approached her.
“Huh?”
Yunkyung blinked and watched Dohun carefully. Her expression clearly showed that she had no idea why he was coming closer.
Dohun strode toward Yunkyung with his long legs and stopped one step away from her.
Yunkyung’s face looked so much like a frightened rabbit that, despite the situation, he almost laughed.
“Uh…”
“What kind of tree is this?”
Yunkyung, who had been avoiding Dohun’s gaze, suddenly raised her head. It was partly because the unfamiliar language wasn’t Korean, but more than that, it was because of Dohun’s voice.
Even if she closed her eyes and listened, it was so low and steady that she couldn’t have believed the owner of that voice was a high school student.
“You don’t know?”
Yunkyung stared blankly at Dohun’s lips. When he opened his mouth once more, she suddenly came back to her senses.
“Uh, so… I think you’re asking what kind of tree this is…”
“Cherry blossoms?”
“Cherry blossoms? If it’s cherry blossoms…”
Yunkyung shook her head as if to say no.
“It’s not a cherry blossom tree. It’s an apricot tree. What’s ‘apricot’ in English?”
She even tried making the shape of an apricot with her hands and explaining the fruit’s color and size in English, but she let out a deep sigh of disappointment at Dohun’s expressionless face.
“You lived in America for a long time, right? Isn’t your nationality Korean? Why can’t you speak Korean if you’re Korean?”
If you’re going to live in Korea, you should speak Korean. Thinking Dohun couldn’t understand her, Yunkyung pouted and muttered under her breath.
“Apricot is apricot.”
Her lips, which became round like an apricot every time she pronounced the word, were cute.
“Still, I answered your question. If you didn’t understand…”
“…Salgu.”
Dohun repeated the name of the fruit as if imitating Yunkyung.
“…Huh?”
At that moment, Yunkyung’s eyes widened before the corners of her eyes softened into a gentle curve.
“That’s right, salgu!”
Yunkyung nodded enthusiastically and smiled.
“Salgu-namu.”
She slowly moved her lips, pronouncing each syllable so that Dohun could memorize it.
Just moments ago, she had been silently shedding tears, but now Yunkyung was smiling brightly, showing her neat teeth as if she had never cried at all.
If not for the lingering redness around her eyes, no one would have guessed that she had been crying just moments earlier.
Dohun looked at the girl before him—or, more precisely, at her eyes. Moisture still lingered in them, not yet completely wiped away.
The eyes through which sadness had just passed carried the color of an apricot. It was as though the fruit itself had been embedded in her eyes.
Dohun’s gaze slowly lowered.
<Kim Yunkyung>
On the white name tag, its color like that of an apricot blossom, he saw three black Korean characters.
