Chapter 94
“Sister, you used the bathroom in my room again! I told you not to come in!”
Haru shouted when she saw that the bathroom floor had been flooded while she was briefly out.
Her older sister would sneak into the bathroom in Haru’s room to take a bath whenever Haru was away, simply because its tub was a little bigger.
“It’s barely any different from yours! And if you’re going to use it, at least leave it clean! What is this...?”
“Your mom.”
“Ugh...! I hate you!”
Haru shot her sister a murderous glare. How was she supposed to react when her own sister threw a “your mom” insult at her?
Even when she felt wronged, Haru couldn’t talk back to her older sister, Lee Boreum, who was seven years her senior.
It wasn’t just because of the age difference. The moment her sister brought up their mother, it would turn into a fight Haru could never win.
After the sisters’ mother passed away, saying that their family had been driven to the edge of a cliff was the most accurate description.
Their father was so consumed by work that it was rare to see him at home, while Lee Boreum spent money recklessly while hanging out with a bad crowd.
Haru was deeply displeased with her sister, but she had come to resent their father even more for doing nothing to stop her.
‘Mom...’
Even when she buried her face in her pillow and called out the name she missed, all that came back was the hollow noise of the city.
Haru had always thought of her mother as a kind and warm person.
Her mother’s health had always been so frail that Haru saw her more often at the hospital than at home, but whenever they met, her mother was always the only one who listened attentively to everything Haru had to say.
‘This isn’t the time. I need to get ready.’
There was no need to tell her father that she would be spending the night at a friend’s house.
Since he hadn’t contacted her lately, she vaguely assumed he was on an overseas business trip, as expected.
“Miss, are you taking all of that with you?”
Manager Park, who served as Haru’s bodyguard and attendant and had now even taken on the role of her driver, asked uneasily.
He was referring to the suitcase in Haru’s hand, which was nearly as large as she was.
“I’ve already taken out a lot...?”
“Understood. Let’s take it for now.”
Once she got into the car, Haru gazed blankly at the scenery rushing past the windows.
Haru’s world was dyed gray.
She hadn’t been completely color-blind from the beginning.
It was just that her chronic condition always resurfaced whenever she was under stress.
For example, it had happened when her father broke his promise to take her to an amusement park and when she was preparing for the academy entrance exam.
And after watching her mother take her last breath, she had thought she would never see color again until she met Name.
Her mother’s death had been such a shock that the memory had literally been smeared into a blur in Haru’s mind.
She could barely recall a vague scene of herself doing nothing but sobbing while clutching her mother’s hand all day.
Even the hospital had been unable to find anything wrong with the cone cells in Haru’s eyes, so there was nothing they could treat.
From the outset, the prevailing opinion was that she wasn’t completely color-blind, but that there was a problem with her brain.
“I want to see them soon...”
“Are you looking forward to it?”
“Ah...! Y-yes...”
Having accidentally said her thoughts aloud, Haru blushed and nodded.
The event had originally been planned by Name so that Haru could have a chance to reconcile with Yuna, but Haru placed even greater significance on being able to see Name on the weekend.
When she was by Name’s side, the world took on a spark of vitality, if only for a little while.
Wanting to savor the beautiful forms emanating from objects and living things alike, Haru urged her attendant to hurry.
* * *
“Hello, sir!”
“So you’re Yuna! Just as Name said, you’re the girl with the beautiful hair!”
“Oh, thank you! But did Name really say that?”
“Yuna, you need to get in quickly if I’m going to get in, too. There’s a car coming behind us.”
“Mm-hmm!”
I hurried the dawdling Yuna into the back seat, then slipped in beside her.
Yuna was incredibly energetic today and never once kept her bottom on the seat.
She kept poking her head between the front seats and peppering Professor Cheon with questions.
“Where’s Name’s house? Is it far from here?”
“It isn’t that far. We’ll be there in ten minutes by car.”
“Is Name’s room big? Is the bathroom big, too?”
“You’ll find out when we get there. You seem awfully curious about Name’s house, Yuna. Hahaha.”
“Hurry up and fasten your seat belt, Yuna.”
“Eek!”
I tugged Yuna’s sleeve and made her sit properly.
She seemed fascinated by Professor Cheon’s car as well, turning her head this way and that and listening intently to the voices of the navigation system and the autonomous-driving AI.
“Name, Name.”
Yuna tapped my thigh and whispered in a small voice, as though she had something to say to me privately.
I tilted my head slightly toward her. Yuna gently brushed back the hair beside my ear, covered her mouth with her left hand so her voice wouldn’t carry, and whispered in my ear.
“Is your family, like, super rich?”
“A little?”
If owning a forty-pyeong apartment in the middle of Gangnam didn’t count as being rich, calling it anything else would be rude.
“I wish my family had lots of money, too. What’s the fastest way to become rich?”
“Why is a little kid already going on about money?”
“But if you have lots of money, you can do anything...! I wish I had enough money that I wouldn’t have to lick the lid of my Yoplait.”
“Is that a big dream or a small one?”
I could understand Yuna’s materialistic attitude.
She had suffered every kind of sorrow that came from growing up without money, so it was only natural that she would say something like that.
“If you made a tremendous amount of money, what would you want to do first?”
“I’d buy four houses!”
“Four? Why?”
“One each for Mom, Maru Oppa, Noeul Oppa, and me.”
“So you’d all live separately?”
“Hmm... I still want to live with Mom, though... Then I guess three would be enough! Hmm, and I’d buy an Apple phone, and the best capsule, too.”
For someone so fixated on money, she apparently hadn’t thought through what she would actually do with it. That was how children were.
“I suppose the easiest and fastest way would be to get married.”
“Marriage?”
“Yeah. You could just marry a rich person.”
Marriage was a highly sociological act and an indispensable institution in the history of humanity, as well as a path to social advancement.
In my previous life, it had been common to send marriage proposals to high-ranking nobles one had never even met in order to strengthen ties between families, open new trade routes, or revive a crumbling house.
The values of the modern era and the Middle Ages were mixed together inside me, which made things a little confusing, but even in modern times many people wrapped their desire for capital and fame in the name of love. I figured human nature hadn’t changed all that much.
“You should marry someone you love...!”
“People can fall in love after living together for a long time.”
Being part of high society had allowed me to understand noblewomen’s mindsets and true natures all the better.
Unless their spouses had some serious flaw, they were capable of brainwashing themselves into sincerely loving their partners.
As someone who still retained a small part of my identity as a man, it was a value system I would never understand.
“I don’t think so. If I had to, I’d want to live with Name.”
“Huh?”
“Because you’re rich, but you don’t show off like the other kids. You’re kind, quiet, and smart, too. Like a prince in a fairy tale.”
It was a shame that Yoon Sihoo, rather than me, had picked up a flag like this.
That way, he could at least use it later in middle or high school by claiming it was a promise they had made as children.
“I might not be as good a person as you think. I sleep all day on weekends, never eat without a meat dish, throw a fit when someone asks me to go shopping, and my hobbies are drinking and playing games. Would you still like a spouse like that?”
Of course, I had never actually drunk alcohol even once.
“Ugh... I’ll think about it...!”
That’s right. You shouldn’t make promises like that recklessly when you’re young.
Yuna could succeed in whatever field she pursued without needing to get married in the first place.
How many children planned out their lives for themselves from elementary school onward?
If she were simply given a supportive environment where she could study without worries, she would grow up straight and true, beyond anyone’s expectations.
“Oh, right, Yuna. There’s something I’m curious about. Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah! What are you curious about?”
“Last time, you printed out a picture and showed it to me at school, saying it was a drawing your brother made. Do you remember?”
“Yeah. Maru Oppa is really good at drawing, isn’t he?”
“Wasn’t it drawn on a computer? The picture was moving and everything.”
“I think so. I heard he made it as a performance assignment in high school.”
I had assumed that someone whose dream was to become a painter simply meant oil paintings on canvas, but that had been a misunderstanding caused by Yuna’s limited vocabulary.
The digital paper she had given me as one of Seo Maru’s works contained an animated splash art piece of remarkable quality. The game character looked as though it were truly alive and moving.
“Would it be rude if I asked whether your brother had ever considered finding another job?”
“Another job? What kind?”
“A VTube editor.”
“An editor? Ah... But we don’t have a computer at home.”
“We can buy one.”
“Would you buy him one if he became an editor?”
“Yes.”
I couldn’t speak for anyone else, but I was willing to buy him one.
Since I was going to start streaming properly anyway, how great would it be to have a VTube editor lined up in advance?
Besides, I had met Seo Maru before, so it wouldn’t be awkward.
I was doing it for my own convenience, but it was clearly not a bad offer for him, either.
“Okay! I’ll ask him.”
[You have arrived at your destination.]
By the time I finished chatting with Yuna, we had already arrived home.
When she realized in the elevator that I lived on the thirty-ninth floor, it was adorable how frightened she became while asking how we would evacuate if an earthquake struck.
“Welcome to our home.”
The first day of the party was just beginning.