– It’s true that your body has weakened overall after the stent procedure. Your age is also a factor. Fortunately, we’ve managed to overcome this crisis, but no one knows when another crisis might occur.

Remembering the doctor’s explanation from earlier, Seung Jun looked at his grandfather’s emaciated body, connected to various tubes and breathing heavily.

Just ten years ago, he was as fit as a different person. But there’s no fighting against age, it seems. After turning eighty, he visibly weakened, and last year he even received a stent procedure due to myocardial infarction.

Chairman Han slowly opened his eyes.

After a moment, as if realizing his situation, he looked at Seung Jun with calm eyes and gestured.

“Come here.”

As Seung Jun approached, he tightly grasped Seung Jun’s thick hand with his thin one.

“I don’t have much time left to live.”

Seung Jun furrowed his brow.

He always had mixed feelings about him. Thinking about how he had destroyed his family made him hate the man, but he couldn’t entirely hate someone who had loved him so much.

Why not just do one or the other? Why make people confused?

“Don’t say such things. Just last year, you said you’d live to a hundred.”

“Haha, you have a talent for taking jokes seriously. How could anyone live to a hundred when we all have a predetermined fate?”

Chairman Han looked past Seung Jun’s gaze to the ceiling.

After a moment of silence, he asked with a sigh.

“Do you resent me?”

Seung Jun couldn’t answer.

To say he didn’t would be a lie. Knowing this and still asking made him resent the man even more. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“I understand. But I had no choice. It was the only way to protect you and ensure the group’s succession.”

Seung Jun let out a soft sigh before answering.

“Whether I accepted it or not, wasn’t it already a predetermined path?”

“But if a person doesn’t truly accept a path, they’ll always find a way to deviate from it. Even in old age. People pretend and live that way, don’t they even get divorced in their twilight years?”

Seung Jun stared blankly at Chairman Han.

Until now, he had never strayed from the path he was told to follow. Except for that secret romance. Even that ended with a betrayal, and now he was back on his original path.

But why did Chairman Han’s words, spoken on the brink of death, feel like a prophecy?

“I hope you will truly accept this path.”

As Chairman Han patted Seung Jun’s hand, the door opened and his mother Hyo Young, father Sung Pil, Seung Jun’s stepmother Hye Won, uncle Sung Woo, and Seung Heon entered.

Seung Jun awkwardly exchanged glances with them.

“Our son is here too. Father, how are you feeling? We heard from Dr. Kim, but it’s a relief you’ve made it through this crisis.”

Hyo Young said, her eyes brimming with tears as she looked at Chairman Han.

“Well, just like an old car gets scrapped, old people go when they’ve been used for too long. Don’t worry too much. Your job is to raise Seung Jun well and put him in my place. That’s all you need to do well.”

At Chairman Han’s words, Hyo Young shook her head.

“How can you say such things? No. You need to stay with us for a long time.”

Chairman Han chuckled. He looked at his eldest son, who was standing in silence, and said.

“You, do you think the same? I wonder if you’re thinking that the sooner I step down, the sooner you can put your precious son in this position.”

The faces of everyone in the room, including Sung Pil, twisted grimly, but Chairman Han burst into laughter.

“Alright, alright. Oh, by the way, since we’re all gathered, I asked Attorney Yoon to come. The doctor said today that I might go in a week, or a month. So I thought I’d make a public announcement right here.”

“What are you planning to announce?”

As Sung Pil asked in a worried voice, there was a knock on the door as if in response. Chairman Han called out loudly.

“Come in.”

The person who entered was indeed Attorney Yoon, Chairman Han’s personal lawyer. He was holding an envelope.

“Come and read it.”

Attorney Yoon took the document out of the envelope.

“It’s my will.”

At Chairman Han’s words, everyone swallowed hard. Attorney Yoon cleared his throat and slowly began to read the contents of the document.

*

“Seung Jun.”

A moment later, the person who followed Seung Jun out of the hospital room was his birth mother and stepmother, Hye Won. Seung Jun turned his head and stared at Hye Won.

“Yes, stepmother.”

Even now, pronouncing the word “step” still felt like a thorn in his throat. Hye Won hesitated for a moment before approaching Seung Jun.

“Are you staying healthy?”

Seung Jun lifted the corners of his mouth.

“Of course. I’m very healthy.”

“I see.”

Hye Won silently grasped Seung Jun’s large hand firmly.

Ten years after being exiled to America. When they met again, Seung Jun had grown unrecognizably. Since then, Seung Jun had become a son who could not be a son to Hye Won.

“Make sure to eat your meals properly. Don’t skip them because you’re busy.”

“Yes.”

Hye Won raised her eyes to look at Seung Jun. As she quietly smiled and turned away, Seung Jun strode ahead of her.

“Let me drive you.”

“Oh, you don’t have to.”

Sung Pil and Hyo Young had already left, while Sung Woo and Seung Heon decided to stay a bit longer to watch over Chairman Han.

Hye Won had come out first because Sung Woo had signaled her to leave first. Chairman Han wanted only the men to stay.

As the second daughter-in-law who married Sung Woo instead of Sung Pil, she had always existed as if she didn’t exist. A woman who couldn’t say a word even when her son was taken away overnight.

Today too, she was carrying out the order to return home alone among the family.

“Please.”

Seung Jun said, leading the way to the parking lot.

Hye Won hesitated before getting into the back seat of Seung Jun’s car. Even then, she sat without leaning back against the seat, as if uncomfortable.

“Please sit comfortably.”

Seung Jun said as he sat in the driver’s seat and fastened his seatbelt.

“Yes, thank you.”

Only then did Hye Won cautiously lean back. The car slowly left the parking lot.

Neither Seung Jun nor Hye Won spoke further. Seung Jun turned on the radio in the silent space.

– That’s right, the word “mom” gives a nostalgic feeling. No matter how old we get, a mom is still a mom, right? Even I call out “mom, mom” when I go home.

Seung Jun turned off the radio again. Of all the broadcasts to come on. He clicked his tongue without realizing it, and he felt Hye Won’s gaze fall on him.

“Calling out ‘mom’ even when you’re grown up, isn’t that a bit immature?”

He blurted out whatever came to mind, having nothing else to say.

Hye Won looked at Seung Jun’s back for a moment, then slowly said.

“Still, I like the word ‘mom’. Seung Heon never calls me ‘mom’ either, always just ‘mother’.”

Is that so.

Suddenly, he thought of the seven-year-old child clinging tightly to Seol Ah. That smart and sturdy-looking child. The boy who recklessly pushed away a man twice his size, telling him to get away from his mother.

“What was I like when I was seven?”

Hye Won’s back straightened again at Seung Jun’s sudden question.

“Huh?”

“I’m just curious.”

Hye Won lowered her eyes. After silently rolling her eyes and swallowing once, she answered.

“You were smart. You spoke well too. You were a child who could outsmart adults, so I scolded you a lot. I also received many troubling calls from the kindergarten because you would speak up clearly to the teachers when you thought something was wrong.”

Seung Jun laughed softly. It was an unexpected answer.

“You must be misremembering.”

Hye Won quickly shook her head.

“That can’t be. About you,”

Hye Won bit her lip firmly mid-sentence. As if guarding words unsaid in her mouth.

Seung Jun spoke, as if filling the silent space.

“As I remember, I think I listened well to adults. I was polite too.”

There’s no way I could have been the same as that little boy. Seung Jun was certain. He could remember his childhood clearly, so he couldn’t understand why Hye Won was lying.

“No. I remember more clearly. You were smart, but not particularly… good.”

Seung Jun glanced at Hye Won as he stopped at a red light. Her face, speaking those words, was shimmering in the streetlight.

“But that doesn’t mean I disliked you. You had charm. You were, well, a lovable child.”

Seung Jun turned his head forward again.

After that, neither of them spoke. Seung Jun drove Hye Won to her house. Hye Won thanked him and went inside.

‘Damn it.’

Seung Jun cursed inwardly as he ran his fingers through his hair.

A lovable child, she said.

Yes, he remembered. A mother who would hug him at the slightest chance, kissing his cheeks. And his younger self, offering his cheek for a kiss from such a mother.

‘Mom.’

She was the only person in this world whom Seung Jun had called mom. He had two mothers, but that’s why he only had one mom.

He recalled Hye Won’s face shimmering in the streetlight. To the eyes of a seven-year-old child, mom was the sun. The prettiest person in the world, the person he wanted to protect most in the world.

He remembered the child who looked at his mother with such eyes. The child who stood to protect his mother, glaring at him as if facing a demon.

What did I lose when I was seven?

And what did I remember when I met you?

Seung Jun drove again. When he came to his senses, he was in front of a familiar playground.

Of course, Yu Min wasn’t there. Instead, an unexpected figure was sitting on the swing.

‘What’s this?’

The person sitting absentmindedly looking up at the sky with a beer in one hand was none other than Seol Ah.

Seung Jun approached slowly, but Seol Ah didn’t seem to notice, remaining seated in the same position.

“Where did you leave the child to come sit here alone?”

“Oh.”

Seol Ah raised her head.

Seung Jun and Seol Ah’s eyes met directly.

“Why are you here again?”

Seol Ah’s brow furrowed.

Seung Jun looked at the beer can in Seol Ah’s hand.

“Drinking alone. Is this okay for a child’s mother?”

“A child’s mother, why?”

Seol Ah’s tone became sharp.

“Is a child’s mother not human? Can’t she drink alone? It’s so funny. People always have something to say to a child’s mother. But they won’t even let you off work when the child is sick. What’s the point of grinding your bones to raise a child? You only get cursed at.”

Looking at the fuming Seol Ah, Seung Jun let out a quiet sigh.

He sat down heavily on the swing next to her. As he stretched out his legs, he felt strangely comfortable. As if he had found his rightful place.