“If Ga Eul wants to… shall we do that?”

Mother’s answer was as accommodating as the tension I had been holding the entire time was for naught.

The day when several of my drawings did not satisfy the chairman.

When it became too burdensome to be attentive to his mood, I left the mansion, and when I begged, you firmly stopped me, saying I couldn’t betray his grace like this…

Hee Sun, who had been looking at Ga Eul, carefully spoke up.

“Mom also heard everything. The lady from Ansan said that there was a big fight between the chairman and his second grandson recently over the gallery.”

“……”

“So, mom’s thoughts have changed too. Ga Eul just graduated, so shall we start thinking about independence? Let’s repay the chairman’s grace in other ways. We don’t necessarily have to stay in this mansion to repay him.”

Ga Eul, who had heard everything her mother said, hung her head.

Hee Sun, who frowned as if she was upset, wiped Ga Eul’s tears with her hands full of scars.

“What happened, Ga Eul? Why are you crying?”

“…No, nothing happened.”

I thought I was just feeling a bit down…

When mom took my side for the first time, saying we should leave the mansion, tears kept welling up.

Actually, for the past week, I couldn’t even pick up a brush to draw, which I loved.

It was clear that I was under that much stress.

“Look at mom’s face. If nothing happened, why are you crying? Suddenly talking about independence too…”

“…Just. It’s so nice to be with you when you came home early for once.”

The set goal. The days I tried to endure the mounting expectations became a mere nuisance to someone else.

Ga Eul shook her head, wanting to say it was hard that she became the cause of a fight regardless of her intention, that the situation where she still had to be attentive was frustrating, that she was at her wit’s end, but couldn’t.

Gi Tae was right. Couldn’t we repay the chairman’s grace more fairly, in a different way?

Either way, it would be resolved if we left, so I didn’t want to make mom worry about me.

“Okay. If anything happens, tell mom, and I’ll talk to the chairman about independence.”

Ga Eul nodded.

Just then, a text message arrived on Ga Eul’s phone.

Ga Eul, who had cried in her mother’s arms and calmed down a bit, checked her phone.

It was a message from Chairman Han, whom she hadn’t heard from in a while.

[Chairman: Come to the main house for dinner tomorrow evening.]

What could it be? He hadn’t called for a while after arguing with Han Gi Tae…

Though puzzled, Ga Eul sent a reply saying she understood for now.

‘Wait, if we’re meeting tomorrow…’

And she spoke to her mother, who was still looking at her with concern.

“Mom, I’ll tell the chairman myself. He’s someone who has helped me in every way with my drawings. I think it’s right for me to tell him directly.”

* * *

−Attend the dinner.

Gi Tae, who had stopped by the gallery, raised his head from looking over the exhibition schedule in his office. He had to get up around now to attend the dinner.

‘Is he going to bring up Yoon Ga Eul again?’

Recently, Gi Tae had been staying at the studio apartment near the company, not only because he was busy, but also because he knew his grandfather would keep pushing him if he was at the main house. It was a small studio apartment that he used just to sleep when it was too troublesome to go all the way to the main house.

It wasn’t very inconvenient since he had plans to become independent anyway.

But seeing him keep calling like this, it was clear that there would be no end until the problem was resolved.

Gi Tae packed his things, determined to settle it properly today.

His decision was firm, but who did he take after?

His grandfather was also the type to stick to his argument until the end without backing down. It was obvious that if Gi Tae kept ignoring him, he would come to his workplace and rage.

As Gi Tae stood up and put on his coat, his secretary entered the office with a bow.

“Yes?”

“Representative. The cultural foundation called earlier proposing a collaborative exhibition, what should I tell them?”

“Tell them to proceed. It could be helpful for our gallery too.”

“Yes. I will convey that. Then, take care, representative.”

Considering the boss who didn’t like to be held up for long, the secretary immediately turned around upon hearing his answer.

But Gi Tae called out to the secretary who was about to leave.

“At Yoon Ga Eul’s graduation, what else did you send besides the bouquet?”

He occasionally thought about that ‘note’.

Did he write something and send it? The little kid who usually had trouble just talking to him suddenly stopped him and asked.

That was the first time he properly faced her.

When he asked back to her innocent face, her complexion rapidly deteriorated.

Disappointment.

She seemed to be harboring such an emotion.

Why to me?

“…Ah, that… well.”

“What is it? I’m busy so speak quickly.”

As Gi Tae sighed, the secretary, who had been hesitating for a moment, opened his mouth with difficulty.

“You told me to send something appropriate…”

“And?”

“I thought sending just a bouquet would seem insincere, so I wrote a note and sent it too.”

“What did you write?”

“I just wrote congratulations on your graduation.”

Gi Tae let out a deflated sound. Perceiving it as a sigh, the secretary fidgeted and asked back.

“Did I make a mistake, representative?”

“No, you may go.”

“…Yes. Take care, representative.”

Gi Tae got into the back seat of the black sedan that was waiting outside.

While looking through the documents for the department store brand opening that he had planned to review before arriving at the main house, he put down the documents and turned his gaze out the window. The sky was gradually darkening and dazzling lights were coming on here and there on the streets.

He absentmindedly swept his eyes over the passing scenery outside while fiddling with the edge of the document with his hand.

Yoon Ga Eul, with her cheeks flushed peach color as if she had been drinking, asking him rather earnestly, lingered in his mind.

She had asked such a trivial question of whether he had put in the note himself quite desperately.

Should I have at least congratulated her…?

Her darkening face.

What’s with the congratulations that she showed so much disappointment and made people worried.

Even if she had lived in his house for a long time, they weren’t anything more than strangers.

Even though there was no reason to have expectations, her crumbling expression kept haunting his mind.

Those dejected eyes that had suddenly drooped.

* * *

Ga Eul entered the main house dining room in time for dinner. Chairman Han’s family members had all already arrived. Ga Eul bowed in greeting and then went to find her seat.

A moment later, Gi Tae was seen entering the dining room.

‘Gi Tae is also attending the dinner today…?’

Leaving the puzzled Ga Eul, a somewhat chilly greeting was exchanged in the dining room.

“So, Gi Tae, you’re here.”

“Yes, grandfather.”

“Okay. Then let’s eat first.”

“Yes.”

Then, a choking dinner began.

The atmosphere flowing over the dining table was heavier than usual. Ga Eul barely ate, as if she might choke.

The meal ended without a single word, and the chairman’s eldest son and his wife left as soon as the meal was over.

Meanwhile, Chairman Han clicked his tongue inwardly, looking at his grandson who wouldn’t yield to him first throughout the meal.

‘That jerk Gi Tae, he won’t bow his head and admit he was wrong until the end.’

When Chairman Han was about to call Gi Tae in a deliberately stern voice to talk in the study-

“Han Gi…”

“Excuse me… Chairman.”

Ga Eul called out to Chairman Han first. Then, she spoke quite firmly.

“I… have something to tell you.”

“Yes…?”

As Ga Eul suddenly engaged in conversation, Chairman Han instructed Gi Tae.

“Let’s go to the study. You go with us and wait for a bit.”

“Yes. I was going to do that anyway.”

Today, he had a lot of homework to solve with his grandfather. He nodded his head without further words and entered the study together. Then, he sat on the study sofa with his legs crossed, waiting for his turn without much thought.

Ga Eul sat on the wooden chair, looking at Chairman Han, and carefully opened her mouth.

“Chairman. I… am planning to become independent with my mother.”

“…What? Independence?”

A blood vessel suddenly bulged on Chairman Han’s forehead.

At the voice filled with anger that popped out, Ga Eul stopped talking for a moment, puzzled as if she had done something wrong, and shut her mouth.

However, the topic had already been brought up.

It was something she really wanted to say, so Ga Eul mustered up her courage and continued.

“I am well aware of the grace you have bestowed upon me. I will make sure to repay the grace no matter what. But now, to become independent…”

“You’re well aware of the grace? You’re well aware of the grace, yet you say such a thing?”

Ga Eul flinched at the suddenly chilly atmosphere. She felt that something was going wrong.

As expected, the chairman began yelling at Ga Eul for the first time.

“Do you know how much debt your father owed?”

“…What?”

“I paid off all the money and supported you in every way so you could draw, and you say you’re aware of the grace! For 9 years, I fed and sheltered you with nothing expensive without any compensation. But you’re trying to eat and just run away? I didn’t tell you to repay the same amount. Is it that hard to just go into the gallery and draw some pictures!”

The chairman shouted even louder than a week ago when he seemed angry at Han Gi Tae.

Ga Eul’s hands began to tremble.

In the chairman’s image, yelling at the top of his voice, the images of the rough men who had come to her house when she was young, causing a scene to repay the money her father had borrowed, overlapped.

It was no different from a kind of trauma.

‘How much debt was there?’

Due to Hye Jung, who didn’t tell the young Ga Eul, she didn’t know the details well. Still, she thought it wouldn’t be that much since they sold all the works of her father, who was a fairly successful painter…

Ga Eul shut her eyes tightly.

Chairman Han seemed to think that Ga Eul had been staying at the mansion with the intention of irresponsibly running away, and was greatly angered in a way she had never seen before.

Ga Eul finally realized.

She had never seen him really get angry because she had never gone against Chairman Han’s wishes.

“How much have I cherished you all this time! What? Independence? You ungratefully repay the grace bestowed like this…!”

“Grandfather, that’s enough.”

Gi Tae, who had been silent, jumped up and blocked Ga Eul. Then, he turned his head and whispered softly to her, who was trembling behind his back.

“You, go out.”

“…The chairman is angry.”

“It’s okay, so go out.”

“…Yes. …I’m sorry.”

Ga Eul bowed her head to him and ran out of the study.

“Oh my, Ga Eul. What’s wrong?”

Even at Mi Jeong’s startled voice calling her from behind, Ga Eul kept running.

She ran out of breath and stopped, only to find her feet halting in front of the main house garden.

How much debt did the chairman say he paid off for her father…?

Also, the value of the support she had received while staying at this mansion.

Not everything could be converted into money, but Ga Eul’s face grew paler and paler as she recalled the things she had received.

A whole. 9 years.

Somehow, fear rushed in and Ga Eul trembled.

She must have been mistaken, drunk on the kindness she saw.

He seemed to intend to take back all he had invested in her or even more.

Not knowing that, she had firmly believed that if she just drew diligently, everything would be peacefully resolved…

She thought that even if she became independent, even if she didn’t enter TS Gallery, there would be a way to repay the grace she received from him if she kept drawing the pictures he wanted.

It was too complacent a thought.

From the day she accepted Chairman Han’s proposal at the age of fourteen, she had no right to choose.

Ga Eul plopped down in the garden.

Then, as if pouring out the sorrow she had felt, she burst into tears.

If I draw diligently, can I escape…?

She asked herself that question again, but now she couldn’t even know that.

* * *

‘There was debt?’

After sending Ga Eul out, Gi Tae’s thoughts were all focused on that.

That’s why she was living in his house…

Gi Tae silently listened to his grandfather’s words, including the rage directed at him because of Ga Eul, lost in other thoughts.

This situation was nothing to him.

But it wouldn’t be for that woman. He thought he caught a glimpse of her face with tears in her eyes.

Is she still crying?

He thought his grandfather had just brought her because she drew to his taste.

He thought his grandfather was just doing this to cultivate a painter to his liking in his old age, that it was just a whim that arose when he was bored.

But he had been making her indebted under the pretext of sponsorship.

He didn’t know because he wasn’t interested, and his grandfather was even less likely to tell him such things one by one.

Now that he traced back that fact, a sneer automatically escaped.

Why did she catch his grandfather’s eye?

Does she know? How precarious her situation is?

No matter how much she struggled, the debt would only increase. Even if she paid it back, she would incur new debt every day.

Even if she doesn’t want to bear it. Regardless of her own will.

But…

Saying she’ll pay it all back by selling her paintings.

The woman’s innocent face flickered again.

* * *

“Chairman, I apologize. I haven’t forgotten everything you’ve looked after until now either. I will gradually pay back the debt.”

“…Tsk.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

As Gi Tae and Chairman Han came out, Hee Sun, who had rushed over after hearing the news, kept apologizing while watching Chairman Han’s mood.

She thought the debt could be repaid little by little.

She didn’t know Chairman Han would be angry, thinking they were ungrateful, so her daughter ended up being severely scolded.

Hee Sun, who thought it was all her fault, could not do this or that, and only repeatedly uttered apologies.

“If you’re going to leave, then leave. But can you pay it back right away?”

“…About that, well.”

Hee Sun hung her head and trembled, turning pale.

“…You may go.”

Gi Tae, sighing, sent Hee Sun away like Ga Eul. It was impossible to face his grandfather with such a docile attitude.

Gi Tae escorted Chairman Han to his room, saying they would postpone the conversation he had planned for today.

It was when Gi Tae, who had decided to return to the studio apartment, left the main house and walked towards the sedan.

“…Sob …Hic, sniff…”

“…”

Then, from far away, a small, pitiful crying sound flowed in.

“Sigh…”

Leaning against the car body, Gi Tae, who had examined the shadowed figure that was not clearly visible, sighed and moved his steps.

That small woman was so startled that she didn’t even know he had approached her, and was crying with her mouth covered.

Does she think the sobs won’t leak out like that?

Gi Tae called out to Ga Eul, who was sitting and crying.

“Yoon Ga Eul.”