Love - Chapter 1 Part 3

“Waaah…!”

“You look really pretty, Eunhye. Why are you crying? Huh?”

In all her nine years of life, Eunhye had never cut her hair above her shoulders. She had always admired her mom’s long, beautiful hair and wanted to be just like her.

The memory of her mom, sick and bald, flashed in her mind. She had accidentally seen her mom without her wig in the hospital bathroom, and it made her even sadder.

“Eunhye, do you hate me now that I’m not pretty anymore? Are you scared of me?”

“N-no… no… Mom.”

Even as a child, she couldn’t bring herself to tell the truth to her mom’s sad face. Maybe she really was a liar, just like the other kids said.

“You’re really cute and pretty, so why are you crying? The kids are lying. You’re really pretty.”

“…I hate you, oppa… sob… I hate you!”

Overwhelmed with frustration, she punched him with her tiny fists. Jeongwoo took her weak punches without flinching and comforted her.

“Stop crying and let’s go eat dinner, okay?”

As if her world had collapsed, Eunhye wailed loudly. Jeongwoo led her by the hand to the dining hall. The dinner menu happened to be jajangmyeon, Eunhye’s favorite. Jeongwoo filled a bowl for her and ate heartily in front of her.

“Sob…”

“Eat. Hurry.”

Even while crying, Eunhye took the chopsticks he handed her. Hungry, she ate the jajangmyeon messily, tears streaming down her face as sauce smeared all over.

“Eat slowly. Were you that hungry?”

She chewed on the radish he handed her, glaring at him as he carefully wiped her face with a tissue. The next day, and the day after that, she continued to sulk around him.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for cutting your hair without asking. Okay?”

Every time she touched her unevenly cut hair and acted like a puppy whose food had been taken away, he would look her in the eye and apologize softly.

Truthfully… Eunhye liked it. Even though he said he was scared of ghosts and promised to always stay by her side so she could cover his eyes, Jeongwoo was often busy helping the teachers. When she deliberately got all her math problems wrong because she was jealous of the other kids he helped, he scolded her.

“…Do you want to be a fool?”

At times like that, the only thing she could do was look at him with teary eyes and sniffle.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Oppa was wrong.”

Eunhye wished the hair he stroked, brushing against her cheek, would never grow back.

“Eunhye, what are you doing?”

Late at night, when she was caught cutting her hair with scissors in the dark study room, Eunhye ran down the hallway to hide. With nowhere else to go, she hid in the kitchen pantry until Jeongwoo found her. She cried and punched his chest with her tiny fists, unable to handle the embarrassment and sorrow. For a child, bearing shame and sadness was an immature task.

“Eunhye. But your hair… the right side and the left side are completely uneven.”

Eunhye already knew. The right side looked shorter, so she cut the left side, but then the left side became shorter, so she had to cut the right side again. Trying to even it out, her hair ended up looking like a crow’s nest.

“How do you still look cute even with your hair like this? You’d look cute even if we shaved it all off. Haha.”

Jeongwoo messed up her hair and laughed out loud.

“I hate you, oppa! I really hate you…!”

Despite her words, Eunhye followed Jeongwoo around like a shadow, sticking to him even more. She helped him sort trash and organized books in the study room by height.

Sometimes, when she suddenly covered his eyes with her hands, the other kids looked at her strangely, but she didn’t care. Neither did Jeongwoo. He took care of Eunhye, who struggled to fit in with the other kids, more than anyone else.

Three months later, Jeongwoo’s adoption was finalized after his elementary school graduation. The couple had been sponsoring him even before Eunhye arrived at the facility.

On the day Jeongwoo left, Eunhye hid in the bathroom storage room with his luggage bag for two hours. By then, her nickname had changed from “liar” to “Jeongwoo’s booger.” It started when someone teased her for clinging to Jeongwoo like a dirty booger every day.

It didn’t matter. As long as Jeongwoo was there to scold the kids who teased her, everything was fine.

“I’ll visit often, Eunhye. I promise.”

As always, Jeongwoo found her and held out his pinky. Eunhye, still touching her short hair, silently let tears fall.

While Jeongwoo said his goodbyes to the teachers and the other kids, Eunhye hid behind the ginkgo tree where they had first met. Then, she chased after the car carrying Jeongwoo and his adoptive parents.

“I want to go too… Take me with you, oppa… Oppa… Jeongwoo oppa…!!!”

Eunhye, running after the car, eventually tripped and fell hard on the ground. She wailed at the top of her lungs, but the car only grew smaller in the distance.

Jeongwoo returned to Eunhye Won a month later, dressed in nice clothes with his adoptive parents. He wasn’t there to visit. He came back with the luggage bag Eunhye had hidden.

“Jeongwoo…”

In front of the director nun, who called his name with a heavy heart, Jeongwoo remained silent. He didn’t look at her, didn’t open his mouth, and just sat motionless on the sofa. It was as if he had returned to the way he was when he first arrived at the facility.

The couple, who had been volunteering at Eunhye Won once a month, had spent two years preparing to adopt Jeongwoo. No one doubted their character, as they had decided to adopt an older child rather than a very young one. They appeared to be socially respected, intelligent, and both materially and emotionally well-off.

No one noticed that the husband, a doctor at a university hospital, had a paranoid jealousy that drove him to brutally beat his wife from time to time. Not even Jeongwoo, who had spent regular visits at their home. And when the gentle and kind adoptive father first revealed his true nature, Jeongwoo tried to break down the locked bedroom door with a kitchen knife to stab the man.
.
“I know I shouldn’t do this to Jeongwoo… sob… I know I shouldn’t inflict this kind of pain on a child who’s already been through so much cruelty…”

The woman, her face bruised and hidden under a scarf, couldn’t even look at the director nun. She said she couldn’t report her husband to the police because of his profession.

Jeongwoo sat beside her, his lips cracked, staring blankly like someone who had lost their mind.

“Jeongwoo oppa.”