Chapter 50

Chapter 50

Chapter 50 Elementary School Debut Ceremony (3)

"Does that girl have any sense at all? Honestly."

Serin's mother irritably set her phone down on the table.

Could there be a situation more fitting for the saying about doing all the work only for someone else to reap the benefits?

She had made plans to keep her daughter away from that mixed-race girl, yet that was the very child Serin said she was bringing home.

Worse still, Serin hadn't even asked permission. She'd only contacted her mother after getting into the car, leaving her no time to deal with the situation. She hadn't even been given the chance to make some excuse about an urgent matter and tell the girl to visit another time.

-KaTalk.

『Hello. I'm Lia's guardian.

I thought it might be rude to contact you out of the blue, so I'm sending a message first.

I just heard that Lia is unexpectedly visiting Serin's home today.

Thank you for inviting our child.

I'll come to pick her up at five so she doesn't stay too late.

Would that be all right?』

The KaTalk message was a photograph her daughter had sent.

'Hmph. At least he has some manners.'

The photograph, which required her daughter to take a picture of the message on the other child's phone, showed Jinseong's consideration.

It was much more polite than somehow obtaining her contact information and calling her without warning, and her feelings softened for a moment.

But that didn't change the fact that the child was coming to her house.

-Beep. Beep-beep-beep-beep.

The door lock's code was entered without hesitation.

"Mom! I'm home!"

Her daughter's booming voice echoed through the entrance hall, corridor, and living room.

"Welcome home."

"This is my friend Lia!"

"Hello! I'm Kim Lia!"

"Well, welcome. Wash your hands and go play in the bedroom."

"Okay!"

"Yes!"

The clock showed half past two. Since the girl's guardian had said he would pick her up at five, there were only two and a half hours left.

'Good. At least I won't have to feed her dinner.'

She would be more than welcome to leave early on her own.

If things had gone according to plan, she would have fed Yeeun dinner before sending her home. But she had no desire to prepare even the snow crab brought up from Yeongdeok for a child like that.

All she had to do was let them play quietly in the room and send the girl home on time.

'But what are those two doing in there? Why is it so quiet?'

This was her first experience hosting a child from an ordinary family. Even the quietness made her uneasy.

"Could you prepare some snacks and drinks for the children? I'll take them in myself, so let me know when everything is ready."

"Yes, ma'am."

A little while later, she carried a tray neatly arranged with refreshments to her daughter's room.

-Knock, knock.

"Girls, have some snacks while you play."

And when she opened her daughter's bedroom door,

"Yes! Thank you for the food!"

"What were you doing?"

"We were doing our picture diary homework and preparing for tomorrow's lessons!"

The textbooks, notebooks, and pencils scattered across the desk made it easy enough to guess what they'd been doing, but the reality was almost impossible to believe.

"You were studying?"

"Lia said we should..."

Her daughter seemed to understand why she was asking.

Unfortunately, her daughter absolutely hated studying. Even the homework assigned by her English kindergarten would go untouched unless her private tutor personally took it out of her bag and spread it open before her.

Yet here she was, not only doing her homework of her own accord as soon as she got home, but even preparing for the next day's lessons.

She could say with certainty that it was the first time she'd witnessed such a thing in the seven years she'd been raising her daughter.

And she wasn't the only one surprised by something she'd never seen before.

"Wow! The snacks are so pretty! I've never seen snacks this beautiful before! May I take a picture?"

"Huh? Y-Yes. Go ahead."

'Is it because she's so pretty? She doesn't seem self-conscious at all. Most children would be too embarrassed to admit they'd never eaten snacks like these.'

Children hate losing.

If one child says their family has two cars, another will insist they have three, and eventually the childish competition will escalate to a hundred cars.

That is because admitting there is something they don't own or haven't experienced makes them a target for teasing.

But Lia was different.

Seeing the expensive handmade sweets that weren't sold in convenience stores or supermarkets, she smiled brightly and even took photographs.

"Have you finished taking pictures? Go ahead and eat."

She'd only intended to check what the girls were doing in the room, but the desire to watch Lia taste the sweets made her sit down at the table with them without realizing it.

"Mmm! It's really delicious!"

"Right? I like these snacks too!"

At Lia's reaction after taking a bite, mother and daughter smiled as though they'd tasted the treat themselves.

Unfortunately, Lia's little eating show ended there. After finishing one sweet, she picked up her pencil again.

"Aren't you going to have another?"

"If I eat another one, there won't be enough for everyone else."

"Ah."

There were four sweets on the plate, and Lia had met four people in the house. By Lia's calculations, that meant each person was entitled to one.

The prejudice that Lia was a child from a single-parent household and belonged to a different social class from her daughter crumbled completely with those few words.

"Could you bring all the sweets we have in here? All of them! No, wait! We had some apple mangoes delivered recently, didn't we? Bring those too!"

As though something inside her had snapped, she rushed to the kitchen and began taking out every food that could possibly be served as a refreshment.

Her daughter wasn't the only one who had temporarily forgotten the meaning of a pure heart amid a life of abundance.

______________

Lia's friend's home was a luxury apartment some distance from our coffeehouse.

To enter the parking garage, I had to fill out a visitor verification form myself, and then an employee collected my signature twice: once at the apartment entrance and again after I'd parked.

After finally completing that remarkably inconvenient parking process, I soon met Lia, her friend who had come to see her off, and her friend's mother in the lobby.

"Thank you for looking after Lia."

I handed Serin's mother a gift set of drinks I'd bought at the supermarket.

"Oh, not at all. You really didn't have to bring anything like this..."

"Well, we'll be going now. Serin, if you ever want to come over and play, you're welcome anytime. I'll drive you home afterward. All right?"

"Yes!"

The shorter the awkward greetings between parents, the better.

Besides, a parking area wasn't exactly a suitable place to stand around chatting about children.

There was no need to ask Lia what she'd thought of her first visit to a friend's house until we were in the car and had reached a familiar road.

"Did you have fun?"

"Yes! It was so much fun! We ate snacks shaped like flowers, and snacks with jam inside! And we had fruit too, but there were so many kinds that I couldn't ask what all of them were called. Hehe."

"Sounds like you had fun."

Why did I feel as though I'd only heard about food?

"Didn't you do anything else?"

"Hmm, we were going to draw our picture diaries together, but Serin's mother kept bringing us food, so we couldn't finish. We ate this much!"

When we stopped at a traffic light, Lia showed me the photographs she'd taken on her phone.

Her claim that they'd spent nearly three hours doing nothing but eating was no exaggeration.

The photographs showed literal mountains of snacks and fruit piled high.

I hadn't realized wealthy families could be so generous.

Should I have brought a more expensive gift instead of those drinks?

"Then I guess you're too full to eat black bean noodles today?"

"Hehe."

"We'll have black bean noodles next time. If you get hungry tonight, we can grill some of the beef Uncle Dohyeok brought. How does that sound?"

"Sounds good!"

______________

At the same time, the mother and daughter who had returned home were once again deep in conversation about Lia.

"Where does Lia live?"

"Dangsan-Nam-dong, she said."

"Dangsan-Nam-dong?"

"Yeah."

'I knew it. They must not be very well off.'

She'd vaguely suspected as much the moment she saw the old, dented compact car Lia's father had driven.

But learning that they lived in a neighborhood with practically nothing, one that even redevelopment had passed by, weighed heavily on her heart.

And her daughter delivered the final blow to those feelings.

"Oh, right! Lia said she's never eaten black bean noodles before."

"Oh my, really?"

"At the supermarket in front of the school, she couldn't decide between hamburger steak and black bean noodles, so she ate hamburger steak."

"..."

Serin's mother quietly closed her eyes.

And then the scene the father and daughter must have experienced played out vividly in her mind, like a television drama.

'My little girl, it's your entrance ceremony today. Daddy will buy you anything you want to eat.'

'No, it's okay. You already spent so much money on school supplies. Let's just go home and eat.'

'Don't worry. Daddy has plenty of money today.'

'Then I'll have this one. What about you, Daddy?'

'Daddy already ate earlier. You go ahead, Lia.'

"Mom, are you crying?"

"Hm? No, I'm not. Sniff!"

It was only black bean noodles.

Even at a Chinese restaurant, a bowl would hardly cost more than thirty thousand won. Yet this child had reached elementary school without ever tasting such cheap food?

Just how poor could they be?

The thought of Lia maintaining her bright smile despite such poverty made her seem all the more admirable, and the tears wouldn't stop.

After sniffling for some time, she finally nodded to herself and made a phone call.

(Oh, Serin's mother! I was busy on the day of the entrance ceremony and couldn't greet you properly. Have you been well?)

"Yes, Principal. Thanks to you."

(May I ask what you're calling about?)

"I'd like to move up the regular meeting of the School Operations Committee."

(The Operations Committee?)

"There are some matters that need to be addressed urgently. I noticed our school doesn't have a school bus. If some children arrive in expensive cars while others walk, won't that create a sense of inequality among them? And I'd also appreciate it if you could look into whether donations could fund an improved school meal program."

(Ma'am, j-just a moment! Let me write this down!)

And so it took less than two months for Geumhyo Elementary School to become famous for providing school bus transportation to all its students and for serving meals so delicious that photographs captioned "School Lunches at a Certain School" became a sensation across various online communities.

Thanks to someone's thoughtful consideration, one of the school buses made its very first stop in front of an old coffeehouse to pick up its first child.

And black bean noodles and hamburger steak began appearing particularly often on the school lunch menu.

All these changes were brought about because of one household whose guardian not only worked for a major corporation and earned tens of millions of won in passive income every month, but also kept his refrigerator packed with 1++ grade Korean beef.

However, good deeds did not always bring good fortune in return.

_______________

An office in Guro Digital Complex.

In the dark, empty office after everyone had gone home, two men were having a secret conversation.

"Hyung, if things go on like this, we're all going down together. Do you think the Audit Department will stop with me once they finish their investigation?"

"So what do you want me to do? You're about to lose your job, and all that's left is for you to go to prison."

"Is that how you're going to treat me? After all the business I've passed your way over the years!"

-Bang. Crash.

The impact of his fist slamming down in anger sent a bottle of liquor tumbling across the desk.

"Hey, Jung Jiwon. You said it yourself. Did you really just hand those projects over? We paid you kickbacks for every one of them."

"Come on, help me out just this once. While I was at Daechun Group, I kept the source code from the project deliverables of a few first-tier vendors. I'll give you those if you give me thirty percent. In return, I'll shift all the problems tied to your company onto one of those first-tier vendors. How about it?"

"Which company?"

"It's run by a strict woman in Namyangju. You'll know the place. Serin Software."

"Of course I know it. That bitch has caused more than five of my projects to fall through."

At Department Head Jung Jiwon's words, the middle-aged man couldn't suppress his laughter.