IWTSDLPF 3

                                                      <3>

At the end of Mapo Bridge, Seol-hee took off the hoodie she had been wearing over her shoulders and gave it to the students.

“Thank you so much for taking me to the end of the bridge. You even gave me clothes and lent me money.”

She was grateful to the kind students who had called her “noona” (older sister).

The student who had carried Seol-hee on the back of his bicycle wiped the sweat from his forehead and proudly said,

“It was nothing.”

His legs were so tired that they almost gave out, and he could barely hold the bicycle’s handle.

But he still smiled.

Seol-hee thought he was admirable and was very thankful.

There had been a time when she believed the world was never kind to her.

But after coming back, she realized that wasn’t true.

There had always been kind people.

She simply had not had the heart or energy to accept their kindness before.

“We’re happy too. We feel proud that we saved your life, noona.”

One of the students suddenly spoke honestly.

“Saved my life?”

Since Seol-hee had been standing barefoot in the middle of the bridge wearing a wedding dress, the students had probably thought she might have been there for a dangerous reason.

Seol-hee gave a small laugh.

Whatever they had thought, she was grateful for their kindness.

“I’ll put the money into your account by tomorrow.”

Seol-hee got into the back of the taxi that one of the students had called for her.

She waved at the three students who stood there to see her off.

“Noona, good luck! Goodbye!”

“Buy us hamburgers next time we meet!”

“And pork cutlet too!”

The three boys in their dark school uniforms stood close together like a group of little chicks.

Seol-hee unfolded the note in her hand.

She had written down their bank account numbers and phone numbers.

I’ll definitely repay their kindness someday.

Even the thin piece of paper seemed to carry warmth.

Sitting in the back of the fast-moving taxi, Seol-hee looked out at the city passing by with shining eyes.

Everything looked different.

At that moment—

The taxi had completely disappeared from their sight.

The students pulled their bicycles toward a black sedan parked beside the road.

The engine was already running.

The driver’s window rolled down.

“We did what you asked.”

A short answer came from inside the car.

“Thank you.”

A large hand reached out through the window.

The students awkwardly accepted some money.

They had met the man near the beginning of Mapo Bridge.

At first, they had been suspicious of him.

His request was simple.

He wanted them to help a woman wearing a wedding dress who was standing in the middle of the bridge.

Of course, he offered them money.

But even without the money, the woman they had found was someone they could not simply walk past.

Her hair was messy from the wind.

There were still many hairpins stuck in it.

Her eyelashes, which had clearly been carefully put on, were starting to come loose.

Her makeup had been ruined by sweat.

Her thin shoulders and arms were covered in goosebumps from the cold.

Anyone would have wanted to help her.

“But…”

One of the students hesitated before speaking.

“Don’t you know her? Couldn’t you help her yourself?”

The man inside the car stayed silent for a moment without turning his head.

This life had started differently from the beginning.

Because of that, he could not act carelessly.

It was Yi-hyeok.

He looked at the student with calm eyes.

“I don’t want to lose the chance I’ve been given to come back… So I don’t want to make careless decisions.”

Before the window closed, the students gave back the hoodie they had received from him.

The car slowly disappeared onto the road.

The students looked at each other.

Then they shouted at the same time.

“Whoa, damn.”

“What is with that guy?”

“He’s so damn cool.”

The man was extremely handsome, had an expensive foreign car, and looked amazing in his suit.

There seemed to be some special story between the two people.

That strange relationship left the teenage boys feeling excited for no real reason.

They walked away with their bicycles while happily talking about what had happened that day.

“Thank you, sir.”

During the whole ride, the taxi driver kept looking at Seol-hee through the rearview mirror.

She clearly looked like someone with a complicated story.

The driver was curious, but he was professional enough not to ask questions.

When Seol-hee got out of the taxi, she refused to take her change.

Today, she wanted to give something back to people.

She stood in front of a four-story apartment building made of red bricks.

A light was on in a third-floor window.

Her heart suddenly jumped.

Holding the bottom of her wedding dress, Seol-hee ran up the stairs two steps at a time.

She had forgotten all about the pain in her heels.

She entered the door lock code.

The moment she opened the door, she heard a familiar voice.

“Hey, Woo Seol-hee!”

Her father, Song Geun, had just come out of the kitchen.

Seol-hee immediately ran into his arms.

She buried her face in his chest and began crying.

All the emotions she had been holding back came out at once.

Song Geun had been about to scold his daughter because of what happened at the wedding.

But he could not say a word.

His daughter had never been good at showing her feelings.

Since she was young, she had quietly taken care of herself.

She never complained.

She was a responsible child who rarely caused him trouble.

But because she was so independent, he often had trouble knowing what she was thinking.

And now, the daughter he had been about to marry off today was crying loudly in his arms.

Song Geun awkwardly patted her thin back.

“Oh, dear. What’s wrong? What happened?”

Seol-hee hugged him even tighter and shook her head.

“Nothing happened… Nothing will happen anymore.”

Her voice trembled.

Then she spoke with confidence.

“I promise you, Dad.”

Normally, they would have sat apart from each other.

But today, they sat together.

Seol-hee held her father’s hand tightly.

As if she would never let it go again.

His hands were rough from years of hard labor.

The blisters had broken many times, and thick calluses had formed over them.

His hands were warmer and stronger than she remembered.

She wanted to act spoiled and childish in front of him.

It was not like her at all.

Seol-hee told her father that she could not go through with the wedding because of Dong-chan’s relationship with another woman.

She had never seen her father this angry before.

She had a hard time stopping him from going to find Dong-chan and beating him up.

After finally calming down, Song Geun let out a long breath.

“You did the right thing. You really did. How could I live peacefully if I sent my daughter to a man like that? Thank goodness you found out before the wedding. Your mother must have helped you from heaven.”

He kept saying how lucky they were and rubbed his chest in relief.

Seol-hee thought that making a parent happy was really simple.

Just knowing that their child had avoided danger could make them this relieved.

After explaining everything, Seol-hee took a shower.

Then she sat down and had dinner alone with her father for the first time in a long while.

Song Geun kept cursing Dong-chan while bits of rice flew from his mouth.

Seol-hee was simply happy watching him.

If this is a dream, I never want to wake up.

It was late at night when she finally went to her room.

Now that she was alone, everything that had happened that day passed through her mind.

Seol-hee gently rubbed her left wrist with her thumb.

“It’s really… gone.”

The scar had appeared in the year her father died.

A glass railing had suddenly broken, and she had fallen from the second floor.

The scar had always felt like a mark of her unhappy life.

Whenever she saw it, she wanted to erase it, so she had developed a habit of rubbing it.

But now—

The scar was completely gone.

There was not even a trace of it.

But the memory remained clear in her mind.

Seol-hee slowly breathed out.

A new life had been given to her.

She had to live this gift of a life well.

But it would not be easy.

Jin Dong-chan and Yeo In-ok would never leave her alone.

Just like before, they were the kind of people who would do anything to use her as their scapegoat.

“I won’t let them hurt me easily this time.”

She would do everything she could to protect the things she loved and become happy.

She remembered everything they had tried to hide.

All of their wrongdoings and bad actions.

She remembered every single one.

So if they tried to stop her—

She would take everything from them, even more painfully than before.

But first, she needed to solve her father’s medical expenses.

She already had a plan for that.

However, there was something she needed to do first.

“I need to pay back those little chicks.”

Luckily, her father had brought her belongings home from the wedding hall.

He had complained angrily that he had been forced to bow his head and apologize to the people who were supposed to become his in-laws.

Seol-hee searched through her bag and found her phone.

There were a huge number of missed calls and messages.

The person who had called her the most was obviously Dong-chan.

Seol-hee deleted the name Jin Dong-chan from her phone.

She replaced it with:

[Jin Poop Car]

“You really deserve this name. First, the money…”

She transferred money to the bank account written on the note she had been holding all this time.

She was surprised when she saw how little money she had left.

Still, for the kind “little chicks” who had helped her when she was in trouble, she sent twice the amount she had borrowed.

She also sent them a message.

[It’s the noona you met on the bridge. I sent the money. Thank you so, so much for helping me earlier. If you’re hungry, contact me. I’ll buy you pork cutlet or hamburgers.]

She felt proud after calling herself “noona.”

She had returned ten years into the past.

Now even high school boys were calling her noona.

What a strange situation.

Seol-hee fell onto her bed.

The familiar smell of her room and the small familiar objects around her made her feel safe.

For the first time in a very long time, she fell into a deep sleep.

Hotel Suite

Bzz—

A phone placed on top of a neatly folded gray hoodie vibrated.

Yi-hyeok had just finished taking a shower.

A towel was wrapped around his waist, and he was drying the water from his hair with his hand.

The name [Seol-hee] appeared on his phone.

For a moment, he remembered himself at thirteen years old.

Back then, he had not yet become Do Yi-hyeok, the son of a famous political family.

Yi-hyeok read Seol-hee’s message.

A soft smile appeared on his lips.

He stood there and read the message several more times.

Drops of water fell from his wet hair onto his shoulders.

But he did not look away from the phone.

Then his smile disappeared.

He made a phone call.

The phone rang several times before the other person answered.

“This is me, Manager. I’m not going back to America.”

“I’ve gained enough experience at Sync Bank.”

“And more importantly, about the position you mentioned…”

“I think it’s worth trying.”

“So please tell my father that I’ll take the position.”

“Why did I suddenly change my mind?”

Yi-hyeok picked up the gray hoodie.

It still carried a faint scent of Seol-hee.

“I thought I’d make a different choice this time.”

“Who knows? Maybe that choice will lead to an unexpected result.”

The faint scent reached his nose.

A deeper smile appeared on his lips.