“I’m really sorry, Si Hyun. Finding a job wasn’t easy, so I moved around here and there and lost the note with the phone number written on it.”
Soo Yeon firmly held Si Hyun’s hand, which was sobbing until now.

Soo Yeon was running a small restaurant on her own. Moreover, its location was right near Si Hyun’s studio apartment.

Even though it was her day off, Soo Yeon took Si Hyun to her restaurant. It was a small shop with a neat yellow sign that read ‘Mother’s Hand Curry’.

To Soo Yeon, who was opening the locked restaurant door, Si Hyun said,

“Isn’t it troublesome for you, since it’s your day off?”
“What are you talking about? I have to cook a meal for our Si Hyun, whom I haven’t seen in a long time.”
It was a small shop with four tables, and a long bar set up opposite the kitchen.

There were pretty lamps hanging on each table inside the glass wall, and small pots were lined up in the window with white curtains, giving the feeling of a cafe rather than a restaurant.

Soon, the inside of the store was filled with the delicious smell of curry.

“Do you still like shrimp tempura, Si Hyun?”
“Do you still remember that?”
“Of course.”
Soo Yeon, who was wearing a white headscarf, smiled as she put the tempuracoated shrimp into boiling oil.

She hasn’t forgotten me until now. After crying so much earlier, Si Hyun felt a tingling sensation in her nose again.

A short while later, Soo Yeon placed a plate of curry in front of Si Hyun, who was sitting at the bar. Five freshly fried shrimps were placed on the deliciouslooking curry.

“Wow, it looks delicious. But this is too much.”
“Our Si Hyun is in the prime of her life, she needs to eat a lot.”
Si Hyun laughed at Soo Yeon, who still treated her like a child, even though she was already thirtythree.

“Wait a minute. If I’m thirtythree this year, then you’re……”
“You and I are of the same zodiac cycle. I’m twelve years older, so I’m fortyfive.”
Si Hyun counted on her fingers. That meant when Soo Yeon had come to work as a livein housemaid, she was only twentytwo, and when they separated, she was barely twentynine. She hadn’t realized it at the time because she was young, but thinking about it now, she was really very young.

She was doing the work of a livein maid in someone else’s house before she was even thirty. Soo Yeon’s life hadn’t been smooth, she thought.

“But you look really young, aunt. You don’t look like forty at all.”
It wasn’t flattery, it was sincere.

Long hair tied up neatly, a slim figure, and a slender face.

Apart from the fine wrinkles that showed when she smiled, Soo Yeon really didn’t look more than her mid to late thirties. If she dressed in younger styles, she might look even younger.

“Hey, hearing that I look young makes me feel really old, doesn’t it?”
With a fine smile, Si Hyun asked Soo Yeon, who was rolling her eyes.

“Aunt, you’re not married, right?”
“Yes.”
As expected, Si Hyun thought. There was a reason why she didn’t have the typical feeling of middleaged women, even though she was in her midforties.

“But why is the shop’s name ‘Mother’s Hand Curry’?”
A shadow briefly crossed Soo Yeon’s fine face.

“…Just because. I wished I could be called ‘mother’ once.”

((()))

The mobile phone on the desk vibrated. Knowing it was a video call, Tae Ha sighed briefly before answering the call.

“Hello.”
When the video call connected, a man with a face similar to Tae Ha’s appeared on the screen. The handsome man with brown hair and matching eyes was none other than Tae Ha’s biological father, Leon Kennedy.

Son, how have you been?