“Actually, I… I have a younger brother who I lost 15 years ago.”

Eun Seo stumbled over her words as she revealed her situation.

“At that time, my brother, Eun Ho, was six years old. My mother’s health deteriorated while searching for him and she passed away after 5 years. Now I’m searching for him alone.”

It was clearly a heart-wrenching story, but in order to gain sympathy, it needed to be told in a certain way. Trying to be brief made it sound like just another common tale, and Eun Seo grew anxious.

“He was a smart child for his age. He remembered the neighborhood streets well. So I believe there’s a possibility he may find his way back if his memory returns someday.”

An ordinary person would surely express pity, saying things like “Oh dear.” At the very least, they would pretend to. However, Kwon Seung Joo asked with an unchanging expression,

“Any reason to think a person who hasn’t returned for 15 years will come back if you wait one more year?”

There was a reason. But saying it to this man, who was encased in rationality and coolness like an iron armor, would surely invite ridicule.

So Eun Seo could only say this much.

“I also need time to sort out my feelings. I want to wait just one more year, thinking of it as the last.”

Eun Seo deeply bowed her head again. So deeply that the ends of her hair touched the table.

“So please, just give me a one-year extension. I beg of you like this.”

She knew it was a shameless request after being allowed to live there for the past 15 years. But conversely, it was a house they had left alone for 15 years, so what was the difficulty in leaving it for just one more year?

He could mock her for being brazen.

He could feel like he was giving charity to a beggar.

Even if it was pity, anything would do, if only she could get one more year somehow.

Unable to even raise her head, Eun Seo anxiously awaited his answer. An icy voice, sharp as an awl carved from ice, fell upon her head.

“Let me give you some advice.”

As she lifted her head, the man spoke with his arms crossed.

“There’s nothing more foolish than wasting your life waiting for someone who won’t return.”

The coldness flowing freely from his perfect lips seemed to freeze Eun Seo’s heart.

“When will they return? If only they come back, I’ll treat them really well this time. I’ll do this for them and that for them. I’ll just stare at the front gate from morning till night, waiting endlessly… When in reality, that person has no intention of returning.”

The last words sounded somehow agitated, unlike his usual self. But before she could consider the reason, he had already regained his typical aloofness.

“If they were going to return, they would have done so by now.”

“……”

“Seeing as they still haven’t returned, they’re probably dead.”

His words became a huge hammer, mercilessly pounding Eun Seo’s head. Tinnitus rang in her ears and her mind went blank.

“I understand your purpose and I won’t agree to it. Anything else to say?”

Without even waiting for a response, he returned to his seat and spoke to his secretary over the phone.

“The meeting is over.”

As if to tell them to escort Eun Seo out immediately.

*

Eun Seo returned home, trudging her feet.

In early November, the late autumn sun didn’t last long. Even though she had left work early, by the time she entered the courtyard, the glass walls surrounding the main hall were already shining dazzlingly, bathed in the glow of sunset.

The old, renovated traditional Korean house was always beautiful in its own way, whether the sun set, snow fell, or rain poured. She had lived here for 15 years already – 5 years while her mother was alive, and 10 years alone after she passed away. At times like this, she would occasionally lose herself in its sight.

But today, she didn’t feel like doing that. Eun Seo plopped down on the small wooden porch connecting the main hall and the small room, tiredly surveying the courtyard. Thinking that everything in sight would disappear in 3 months, a sigh escaped her lips.

The old house frequently had issues here and there, but not even once had she contacted the landlord to request repairs. She was afraid that if she bothered them unnecessarily, they might tell her to move out. As a result, there wasn’t a single place that Eun Seo’s hands hadn’t touched.

The glass walls surrounding the main hall were so old that they couldn’t properly block the cold wind. It was only the year before last that she had saved up money for several years to replace them with insulated glass.

Last summer during the rainy season, a large part of the eaves had collapsed. Her summer bonus was all spent on the repairs.

Where the crock pots used to be, she had removed the jars, installed a wooden deck, and placed a table with a canopy. When replacing the glass, the company president said he had leftover materials from another interior project, so she had impulsively accepted them and started the work. Thinking it would be nice to come out and have a cup of coffee in good weather. But once it was finished, she somehow felt guilty and never once enjoyed such leisure.

And…

Eun Seo’s gaze finally settled on the large apple tree standing tall in the center of the courtyard.

One day, her mother, who said she was going to see a skilled shaman, left Eun Seo alone at home and went down to Busan. She returned the next day with a bright face.

[Eun Seo, our Eun Ho is alive. The shaman said he’ll definitely return!]

Eun Seo was a middle school student at the time. She didn’t particularly believe the shaman’s words, but she was happy to see the life return to her mother’s face, which had always been swollen from crying. She sincerely hoped those words would be true.

[The shaman told me to plant an apple tree sapling in the yard. When that tree grows and bears fruit, Eun Ho will come.]

That very day, her mother bought a sapling, planted it, and took utmost care of it. She gave it plenty of fertilizer, plucked insects one by one with tweezers, set up shade in the summer so it wouldn’t wither, and even dressed it in the winter so it wouldn’t freeze to death.

In the end, even when she passed away without seeing it bear fruit, her mother’s last request was about the tree, not Eun Ho.

[The tree… Eun Seo, okay?]

Inside her mother, the two must have meant the same thing.

[Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll take good care of it.]

Although Eun Seo held her hand tightly and vowed, her mother’s eyes never closed as she breathed her last.

The tree became Eun Seo’s responsibility after she was left alone. As she cared for it with utmost devotion like her mother had, at some point Eun Seo also began to feel that Eun Ho would surely return once apples grew on it.

However, the tree that was supposed to bear fruit in 3 years at the earliest or 5 years at the latest never yielded any, no matter how much time passed. The trunk was thick and the leaves were lush, but forget about fruit, it never even bloomed once.

After waiting and waiting, 3 years ago she even brought a tree doctor to examine it. The tree doctor meticulously observed the angle of sunlight and the condition of the soil, and his gaze eventually settled on the piles of fertilizer bags placed at the edge of the courtyard.

[You’ve given it too much fertilizer.]

The diagnosis was devastating.

[If the soil is too fertile, the tree will only grow bigger and have lots of leaves, but it won’t bloom. And if it doesn’t bloom, it won’t bear fruit.] [Ah…!]

Eun Seo couldn’t close her mouth. She had kept giving it more and more fertilizer, thinking it might be lacking nutrients, but that was the problem.

[You need to starve it for a few years and wait.]

The tree that had been starved for 2 years straight finally bloomed fully for the first time this spring. Lost in the fragrance of apple blossoms filling the courtyard, she sought the tree doctor’s advice again when it only flowered but didn’t bear fruit.

This time, it was a problem with the bees.

[It’s a common occurrence in the Seoul metropolitan area. There are no bees to transfer the pollen, so it can’t bear fruit.]

It made sense, as all the surrounding buildings were tall except for this house. So she had even learned the method of artificial pollination with a brush in advance, and was waiting for next year to come, thinking this time for sure.

But before spring could arrive…

Eun Seo gently stroked the thick trunk of the apple tree, its leaves falling one by one.

‘I’m sorry, Mom.’

Eun Seo was twenty-seven this year. But she had never dated, never worn pretty clothes, and never gone out to have fun.

When children her age were holding their parents’ hands and going to amusement parks, Eun Seo was following her mother around the country to prayer houses and orphanages. After her mother passed away, she continued the task of searching for her brother alone. While others were dating, Eun Seo was doing all sorts of part-time jobs to print flyers and make banners with that money.

In a single moment, Kwon Seung Joo had trampled on all those years of effort with his shoe. With an indifferent expression, as if stepping on an ant.

[If they were going to return, they would have done so by now.]

Recalling his cold tone, her eyes suddenly grew hot.

Now that she was alone, she could be a little more honest with herself. It would be a lie to say her heart didn’t flutter whenever she saw Kwon Seung Joo from afar during those past 2 years.

It wasn’t just because of his handsome appearance. When she first met him that night 2 years ago, he seemed like someone of the same kind as her. He looked as lonely and hurt as she was.

Even if that was a misunderstanding, it was true that he had been quite shaken up that day. Thinking that she had seen a weak side of this flawless man made her feel like she had become a bit special to him.

The reason it didn’t develop into a full-fledged crush was because she knew very well that she wasn’t even worthy of having a one-sided love for him. Secretly harboring feelings was something you could only do for someone who made some sense as a match.

So Kwon Seung Joo couldn’t even become the target of Yoon Eun Seo’s one-sided love.

He was just someone living in a completely different world from her, beautiful, perfect, and also very difficult.

Someone she would never cross paths with in her lifetime, and thus sometimes made her heart ache.

To think that the person she had regarded that way was actually so cruel.

[They’re probably dead.]

That assertive tone wouldn’t leave her ears.

Even now, Eun Seo would go out to crowded areas on weekends to distribute flyers about the missing person. There were people who openly showed annoyance and avoided her, and people who threw them away as soon as they received them. But there were also many who would say things like “I’m sure you’ll find them” and “Stay strong.”

This was truly the first time someone had bluntly told her to her face that they were probably dead. And with such conviction at that.

If she could go back to the past, Eun Seo wanted to hit him with all her might.

Her past self who would be startled and take a different path if she saw Kwon Seung Joo’s figure in the distance.

Her past self who would only give a quick bow if they ended up in the elevator together, fidgeting nervously before hurriedly getting off on the next floor.

Her past self whose face would redden for no reason if she heard his name from someone else’s mouth.

“…So foolish.”

Leaning against the apple tree that had grown much taller than her, Eun Seo cried a little.

*

“The meeting is over.”

After Eun Seo left the office, Seung Joo sat blankly at his desk for a long time.

“……”

Before long, a bitter shadow fell across his face that had been expressionless until then.

After a long while, Seung Joo chuckled to himself and loosened the tie around his neck, throwing it into the trash can. This was why he shouldn’t do things he normally didn’t do.

“Mr. CEO? Why the new tie…?”

His secretary, who had just entered, was surprised to see that scene. Without even turning his head, Seung Joo replied,

“Throw it out.”