Desperate for a Catch (Completed Main Story) - Side Story 1

At 11 p.m., all the lights on the ceiling of the orphanage were turned off.

Yeon Woo quietly got out of bed after confirming that all fourteen children sharing her room were already asleep, and, as usual, secretly switched on her flashlight.

With her small, delicate hands, she opened a book.

She had read it plenty during the day, but reading it again in the night, when darkness had swallowed the entire world, wasn’t bad at all.

“Yeon Woo, Mom went abroad to study. If our Yeon Woo grows up beautifully and well, she’ll come visit you someday.”

Four years ago, before he passed away, Dad would bring up Mom whenever he saw Yeon Woo staring blankly out the window—even though she never asked about her.

Each time, Yeon Woo would simply nod silently, as if she didn’t care.

“Look at this! Yeon Woo, if you hold your hands like this—wow! It’s a butterfly. A butterfly.”

“Now, woof woof! Look, it’s a puppy!”

“This one’s a rabbit that looks just like our Yeon Woo. What do you think? Isn’t Dad cool?”

On nights when she couldn’t sleep, Dad would sometimes entertain her with shadow puppets.

Reading her book, Yeon Woo suddenly remembered those moments and quietly moved both her hands above the pages.

“…Butterfly.”

She was now old enough to make not only cute puppies but also that rabbit Dad said resembled her—but Dad himself was gone.

She still couldn’t fully grasp the weight of death, the emptiness left by Dad, or why Mom still hadn’t come looking for her.

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