Chapter 16

“Sae-i, can Dad talk to you for a bit?”

It had finally come.

In the rare lull of a break from filming, Dad knocked on my door. In a careful tone, watching my face for a reaction, he asked if I could spare a little time.

I really do have to tell him now.

I’d already been putting off passing on Grandfather’s message that I should move back into Jaedamjae — I’d been too busy running around here and there to say it yet.

When I opened the door, Dad stood there with a face full of worry. I followed him and perched on the sofa.

Ever since I’d come back to the past, just looking at Dad made the tears want to come. It was because I kept remembering the moment the cargo truck — sent by my uncle’s order — slammed into the car Dad and I had been riding in.

Baby!

They say people instinctively try to protect their own bodies in a moment like that, but Dad had spent his last seconds calling my name and wrapping himself around me instead.

He’d pulled me in and taken the impact that should have been mine, and the last I’d seen of him, his body had been torn apart.

If he just hadn’t said he’d take responsibility for me, Dad could have lived a good, long life.

After I lost Mom and tried to leave the Joo family, Dad took responsibility for me to the very end. Even while he suffered humiliation at my uncle’s hands, he was always on my side.

If he’d cut ties with the Joo family and left me behind, he never would have died like that.

“Dad called you in because there’s something he wants to ask.”

“……”

“Our princess — nobody’s been giving you trouble lately, have they?”

With solemn eyes, Dad worried over me again.

“You’re not home even though it’s vacation… I wondered if maybe our Sae-i’s hit that age, and doesn’t want to be home anymore.”

“That’s not it…”

The moment I opened my mouth, Dad closed his. All priority belonged to me.

I explained everything, start to finish — leaving out the part where I’d died and come back to the past — and told him I’d gone to see Grandfather because I wanted to become an actress.

That I’d gotten Grandfather’s permission, and that I’d also been offered a place back at Jaedamjae.

“I see. So our Sae-i wants to act…”

Dad’s eyes reddened. His face twisted with a kind of aching sorrow.

Thinking back on it, in my first life too, Dad had worn this same expression when I confessed that I loved acting.

Back then I hadn’t understood what that expression meant. Now, I thought I did.

He’s thinking of someone he misses.

Grandfather had worn that same expression as Dad, once before. As if the two of them were missing the very same person.

“Where did you find the script? Dad wants to see it too — our daughter acting.”

“I found it at Dongwoo Hall. Oh — it was in a box with Mom’s name written on it…”

At my words, Dad’s eyes went wide for a moment. His mouth moved soundlessly, unable to close, and then a low, choking sound came from it.

Dad bowed his head low. Before long, tears began running down his cheeks. Thick and heavy, they fell with a soft patter onto his knees.

“Jeong-wol…”

“……”

“If Jeong-wol could’ve seen Sae-i acting, how happy would she have been…”

Dad went on to tell me something I’d never heard before. That Mom had wanted to act too. That he’d first met Mom in the college theater club.

He said Mom had been the club’s ace.

…But she’d given up acting because Grandfather talked her out of it.

Only then did I understand the way Grandfather had looked at me so tenderly. I understood, too, why he’d said all the women of the Joo family were the same, and why Dad was crying like this now.

The reason Grandmother’s script had been kept in a box with Mom’s name on it was probably the same.

“Sae-i looks just like her mother…”

Voice thick with tears, Dad murmured as he stroked my hair gently.

I leaned clumsily into Dad and let him hold me. Resting my head on his shoulder, I could hear his heart pounding.

Gritting against the urge to cry, a family photo came into view. It was a picture of Dad and Mom, taken together before she died, holding little me between them.

Mom was the same as me.

I’d learned the childhood dream of my mother’s that I thought I’d never know. I was going to walk the road she’d wanted to walk, in her place.

“…You’re not scared, are you? You’re really all right?”

It was a question that came from how well Dad knew me — how obviously I used to avoid anything to do with the Joo family.

Dad’s question echoed low in my chest. Instead of opening my mouth to answer, I just kept nodding my head against his shoulder.

I have to be all right.

Even if I wasn’t all right, I had to be. I’d already died once. This time I had to go after my uncle meaning to kill him. Only that way could Dad and I both live.

So, Dad.

This time, don’t die unjustly at my uncle’s hand trying to protect me. Live a long, long life, and close your eyes in peace. Watch me act to your heart’s content, and then…

“…I’ll become an actress good enough that, when you get to heaven someday, you can brag about me to Mom.”

Tell her how proud you are of your daughter.

That was all I wanted.

Seohae Group Chairman Ryu’s residence.

Ryu Do-gyeong stared at his phone screen with a rather grim expression.

[Regarding the Seohae Electronics Lunatic series advertising contract]

He read the document title over several times before checking the name written beneath it.

Joo Sae-i.

Ever since Joo Sae-i — who’d vanished without a trace and was now barging back into his life — had resurfaced, Do-gyeong’s nerves had been nothing but her lately.

So she wants to be an actress.

Do-gyeong remembered the days when Joo Sae-i used to trail after him everywhere.

Yes, even back then, Joo Sae-i had loved theater. Young as she was, her hunger for roles had been unmistakable — she’d even once declared to him, a boy only a year older, that she wanted to be the princess in the play.

‘Please. A fool like you could never play a princess.’

‘Hey! I’m telling Mom!’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Waaaaah!’

A kid like a puppy — tease her the slightest bit and she’d burst into tears, then turn around and wag her tail happily all over again.

Joo Sae-i, who’d finally landed the princess role in her kindergarten play and gotten an armful of flowers from her parents, who used to make him laugh just by looking at her.

When he’d first heard she wanted to become an actress, Ryu Do-gyeong had been briefly surprised. He’d thought she’d changed, seeing her since she came back — but it seemed some things about her hadn’t changed at all.

Still, he didn’t think they could grow close again.

If Joo Sae-i had thought of him as anything more than a bystander, she wouldn’t have disappeared the way she had.

Just from the fact that she’d run off and left him alone in this rotten adult world, he could tell he’d been nothing to her.

‘I bet even her confession that she liked me was just a joke.’

Joo Sae-i, who’d upended his young life by talking about marrying him and then vanished. Remembering the sleepless nights he’d spent picturing her, holding her father’s hand, walking away — he couldn’t forgive her so easily, not after that.

Yes, this time he didn’t want to be the one swept along. He wanted to ignore her, firmly, even if she came lingering around him again.

‘It’d probably be best if Do-gyeong contacted her directly about the advertising contract.’

‘Sir?’

‘What, don’t you want to?’

‘No, it’s not that, but…’

But he couldn’t go against the orders of his own grandfather, Chairman Ryu. As the heir, following his orders came before his own personal feelings.

And so he’d been handed Joo Sae-i’s contact information, told to send over the advertising matter.

“Why is this so…”

Why did this feel so suffocating.

Closing the document file with an irritated expression, Ryu Do-gyeong checked the contact he’d been given for Sae-i.

[Dongwoo, Joo Sae-i]

He stared for a long while at her CocoaTalk profile, which had no photo at all. No background photo, no profile picture, not even a status message.

Feeling like he was staring blankly at a tightly shut window, Do-gyeong bit his lip and pressed the chat button.

[hey]

[joo saei]

[its ryu dogyeong]

Even after he sent it, the little “1” beside the message bubble refused to disappear. Everyone else read his messages the instant he sent them — Joo Sae-i was entirely different.

‘Let’s see how long until she answers.’

Out of spite, he set his phone down and waited, until a while later it buzzed. He checked it in a rush, then tossed the phone aside, looking disappointed.

[oppa, you came to Jaedamjae last time right? why didn’t you say anything T_T]

[when can we see each other again? not until school starts? TT_TT]

It was a message from Joo Su-yeon — granddaughter of Chairman Joo of Dongwoo Group, and Joo Sae-i’s cousin, the same age as her. Clingy enough to be unpleasant, she kept sending messages like this even when he never replied.

“Why is it the message I’m waiting for never comes…”

Oh, forget it. Picking up his phone again, he sent the file related to the contract to the chat room where the “1” still hadn’t vanished.

[This is about the ad contract I mentioned before. Look it over.]

He typed it quickly, and was just about to stop thinking about it when—

The moment the words “advertising contract” appeared, the “1” beside the message bubble disappeared in under five seconds.

[Thank you for passing it along.]

Before long, a reply arrived that sounded as distant as possible. Joo Sae-i’s voice, saying those exact words, played automatically in Do-gyeong’s ears.

“Heh.”

A short, bitter laugh escaped him. Toward Joo Sae-i, who seemed so busy ignoring him, Do-gyeong felt something stir in him — a reckless urge to compete.