Chapter 12

Grandfather, who had been reacting like someone watching a drama, soon wiped the emotion from his face.

Back to his usual dignified self, Chairman Joo Tae-baek lowered his voice and spoke.

“Dating, well… that’s a matter for the kids, I won’t stop it.”

“…..”

“Still, our Sae-i isn’t ready yet. She’s about to become overwhelmingly famous, after all.”

Fame, huh.

He probably meant the path I was about to take.

Sure enough, Grandfather gave me a brief look. It seemed to say that since it was my own business, I should be the one to say it.

With his permission secured, I opened my mouth toward the two bewildered members of the Ryu family.

“I’ve decided to act. Like my grandmother did.”

“You mean to become an actress? Wait, does your grandfather know about this?”

Chairman Ryu, flustered, asked. This time Grandfather answered in my place.

“You wouldn’t have seen it, but my grandchild gave her grandfather quite the gift on his birthday — through acting.”

“Do-gyeong told me about that! Said Sae-i’s acting was really something.”

“Do-gyeong said that?”

Grandfather’s gaze landed sharply on Ryu Do-gyeong. Ryu Do-gyeong wore the awkward expression of someone wondering why that had to be brought up.

So he told him my acting was good.

I was the most surprised person to hear what Chairman Ryu had said.

Back when I’d performed in front of Grandfather, Ryu Do-gyeong had been too busy glaring daggers at me.

I’d assumed he hadn’t left with a good impression at all, but apparently that wasn’t the case.

“So that’s why you gave your permission? You, of all people?”

Grandfather nodded instead of answering.

With acting already on the table, I decided to bring up the real reason I’d come to Jaedamjae today — the news that I’d been cast as the child lead.

“Um, Chairman. There’s something I need to tell you…”

“If it’s about the child role, I already heard. Writer Choi Gi-jeong apparently liked you a great deal.”

Before I could even say it, my own news came out of Grandfather’s mouth. When I widened my eyes in surprise, Grandfather laughed warmly and went on.

“This old man has a connection or two tucked away here and there, you know.”

Ah…

That made sense. So that was why he hadn’t bothered to ask separately — news about me reached him one way or another.

“Even so.”

“…..”

“I’m glad you brought it up yourself.”

Grandfather, sipping from his teacup, smiled lightly and praised me. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes folded pleasantly.

Turning his gaze back to Chairman Ryu, he added, as if boasting.

“See that? My grandchild’s going to be the best there is before long.”

“You really have changed a lot. Back when Jeong-wol was…”

Chairman Ryu stopped mid-sentence and clapped a hand over his own mouth.

It sounded like my mother’s name had just come up, and he looked flustered, as though he’d said something he shouldn’t have.

Was there something about Mom I didn’t know?

But before I could even process it, Grandfather smoothly changed the subject, acting as if he hadn’t heard a thing.

“Ha, well, so Do-gyeong, no matter how much you want my grandchild, there’s nothing to be done. I won’t easily hand over the artist I’m raising.”

Nice one, Grandfather!

“…If our Sae-i wants Do-gyeong, I suppose I could think it over.”

…Not nice.

Don’t leave room for that!

I’d have to find a moment soon to tell him plainly that I didn’t like Ryu Do-gyeong anymore. Only that would put an end to this.

Chairman Ryu, who had kept his mouth firmly shut since his slip of the tongue, tapped the table on his side to draw my attention.

“…Right, so you’re going to become an actress. Then we might as well have Sae-i take on the ad for our Lunatic series.”

“…Excuse me?”

“The one you gave me your opinion on.”

Before I could say a word, Grandfather accepted this with a hearty laugh.

Having turned me into the face of the Lunatic series in record time, Chairman Ryu continued.

“Sae-i, then what will you do about school?”

Right, school.

It was fine for now since it was vacation, but after the term started it would be a problem. Commuting back and forth for filming and everything else would be difficult given the distance from home.

In my first life, I’d never even dreamed of becoming an actress, and I’d dropped out before my senior year at my uncle’s urging, so I’d never imagined a problem like this would come up!

“About school — I was thinking it might be good to send Sae-i to your foundation’s school.”

“Then our Do-gyeong could look after her.”

“Of course he should.”

Excuse me…?

Leaving my own opinion entirely out of it, the two chairmen went back and forth, settling the matter of my transfer.

If it was a school founded by the Seohae Foundation, that meant Yeongpung High School, where Ryu Do-gyeong was currently enrolled.

Joo Su-yeon goes there too, doesn’t she.

My uncle’s daughter, Joo Su-yeon. The same age as me, and desperate to push me out of her way.

Go to the school where the person tied with my uncle for “someone I least want to run into” attends?

I hurriedly waved my hands and cut into the conversation.

“That, um, it’s that I live alone with my dad in Gyeonggi-do!”

“As for that.”

Grandfather cut me off as though that were nothing at all. His eyes gleamed like a predator before its prey.

Please don’t let your eyes gleam like that!

I begged silently, but it didn’t seem to work.

“Why not move back into Jaedamjae with your father?”

…Please, no.

I hadn’t even managed to tell Dad I wanted to become an actress yet!

And if we moved to Jaedamjae, Grandfather and Dad would end up face to face.

Grandfather was in the stronger position, so he’d be fine with it.

But to Dad, he’s his father-in-law and the owner of the company he quit!

Dad had originally worked in the legal team at Dongwoo Electronics, the core of Dongwoo Group.

After Mom died and we became independent from the Joo family, he’d left the company too, and now he worked at a law office run by a senior from his university.

Either way, there was no chance Dad would welcome a reunion with the father-in-law and chairman who hadn’t easily given his blessing even for his marriage to Mom.

“If you can’t bring yourself to say it, I’ll just tell your father myself…”

“N-no!”

That would be even worse!

Grandfather had already made up his mind to transfer me to Yeongpung High School and bring me into Jaedamjae.

…I have no strength left to resist.

Left with no choice, I decided to pick the lesser of two evils over the worst one.

“I-I’ll tell him myself.”

Sorry, Dad…

Ryu Do-gyeong smirked at the sight of me looking thoroughly deflated.

The two members of the Ryu family had somewhere else to be, so they left separately.

I could have gone home on my own, but Grandfather insisted, so in the end I rode in the car with him.

To think the “Chairman” himself was giving me a ride home. Of course, the driver was the one actually driving, but still — it felt strange to me.

The car ride home was filled with silence the whole way. I almost found myself missing the rides with Ryu Do-gyeong.

Grandfather seemed to have closed his eyes and fallen asleep.

If this is how it was going to be, wouldn’t it have been fine to just go separately…

As if he’d read my thoughts, Grandfather’s eyes suddenly snapped open. Then he slowly called my name.

“Sae-i.”

His tone was warm but carried weight.

“…I thought you were asleep.”

“I had something to think about for a moment, that’s all.”

After a pause, Grandfather asked me.

“Why is it you want to act?”

“Grandmother acted too, and…”

“No.”

When I brought up my grandmother, who had been an artist, Grandfather shook his head, as if that wasn’t the answer he wanted.

“Not a reason meant to satisfy me.”

“…..”

“The reason you truly want to act.”

At the unexpected question, I felt my throat close up.

On the way to his granddaughter’s house, Joo Tae-baek quietly recalled the past. Painful memories he had kept hidden away over the years.

‘I said I was going to see Grandfather… I hate Grandfather! Bring my mom back! My mom…’

His daughter, who had been in an accident on her way to see him.

Having lost her mother, the granddaughter who had wept bitterly, blaming her grandfather, hadn’t called him “Grandfather” since that day.

The shock must have been so great that she seemed to have forgotten even having railed at him so fiercely.

But Joo Tae-baek remembered all of it.

That was why — why a man who could shake the worlds of politics and business with a single word hadn’t stopped his granddaughter and son-in-law from leaving Jaedamjae.

He had meant to talk with her once the child grew up. But his son, Joo Su-deok, had blocked it, saying that Joo Sae-i found it too hard to see the Chairman.

And then the child who had been so busy avoiding him, avoiding the Joo family, had come to him herself.

‘I want to act, Father.’

Looking exactly like her mother, she had repeated, word for word, what his daughter had done decades before.

When Sae-i had landed the child role not long after, Joo Tae-baek had wanted to ask his granddaughter something.

Why she wanted to act.

It haunted him — the past where he’d refused his dead daughter’s wish to take up acting as her career, without even asking why.

The thought that if he had only let her act, perhaps she wouldn’t have died so meaninglessly.

Even if belatedly, he wanted to hear the answer at last from the granddaughter his daughter had left behind.

“Grandmother acted too, and…”

That was the answer his granddaughter had given.

He hadn’t seen Joo Sae-i in a long time, but he could still read her expressions well.

That wasn’t all.

There seemed to be a deeper reason.

The way she’d agonized for a long moment when pressed proved it.

Joo Tae-baek didn’t rush the child. He swallowed hard, waiting for the moment she would tell him herself.

“I…”

Before long, his granddaughter slowly opened her mouth. Her expression was resolute.