25 – Who Found Whom (18)
1.
Countless idol proposals, I don’t even know how many times I’ve heard them.
Until now, Mr. Haan had rejected every idol proposal without leaving any room for doubt, even going so far as to give perfectly valid reasons why he couldn’t become an idol.
“Why do you look at me like that?”
“Well, just now…”
“An idol? Yes, I’ll do it.”
Even though I received confirmation twice, Mr. Haan’s response was so light that it made me doubt my own ears.
He was so different from the Haan of yesterday, who said he couldn’t become an idol and didn’t want to. It was as if a girlfriend who had been dating and even speeding with her boyfriend for over ten years suddenly accepted his proposal without any hesitation. It was quite bewildering to me.
“Why?”
I found myself asking without even realizing it.
Why? Why all of a sudden? What kind of change in feelings could have occurred?
Of course, Han Sei managed to crush all the thugs who had covered her life in despair, and with that alone, she received a promissory note of 600 million.
But could she truly be happy with that? Beyond happiness, she couldn’t use her appearance, which had been a complex, as a means to stand in front of people.
It was impossible for Han Sei to be truly happy just with that, considering the depth and magnitude of the despair she had experienced.
So, without realizing it, I had to ask why.
Was Han Sei not as desperate as I had thought? Or did she simply become happy in the world because she got 600 million? However, it was hard to understand why she would become an idol, someone she hated, just for that reason.
Even if I thought about it alone, it was a question I couldn’t answer.
“Why all of a sudden…”
So, when I asked her again, Han Sei extended her hand to me with a faint smile.
“Manager, let’s walk. Together.”
“Hold hands?”
“Yes, hold hands.”
Even if holding hands wouldn’t solve the mystery, it would make Han Sei happy.
Yes, since Han Sei had already said that she would talk later. Once we held hands and walked, she would gradually reveal the answers.
In the end, if I just endured a little, I could get both the experience of walking with Han Sei and the answers to my questions.
If it’s a marshmallow test like this, I have confidence. If you endure for 15 minutes with a bowl in front of you containing two strawberries, they give you three more. There’s no reason not to endure.
In fact, from the moment I thought I could hold hands with Han Sei, the dilemma was no longer a dilemma.
“Alright, I understand.”
That’s how I clasped the hand Han Sei offered.
The softness I didn’t feel when coming out of the abandoned factory, due to being intoxicated by violence, now transmitted through my palm.
In one hand, a small and delicate hand that I want to hold tightly, a hand that I want to hold forever.
With this hand, she endured such despair alone. I’ve thought about it since the first time I saw her, but Han Sei is truly amazing.
I sincerely admired, trying to focus all my senses on the palm of my hand, but my concentration was shattered by Han Sei’s voice.
“It’s firm. Big. It also feels a bit rough.”
“What?”
“To repay debts, I’ve been through tough times and didn’t have time to take care, so my hands are quite rough. Compared to Manager-nim’s hands, mine are like a child’s.”
A child’s hand… Han Sei’s as a child… Baby Han?
“Kuk!”
“Manager-nim? Why are you suddenly clutching your chest? Is something uncomfortable?”
“Oh, no. I’m fine.”
Baby Han. Just imagining it was dangerously overwhelming.
At that time, as I firmly resolved to be fully prepared the next time I imagined, Han Sei, who responded with a considerate answer, didn’t let go of our intertwined hands and started walking.
While doing so, she also included the answer to the question I had just asked.
“Why did you suddenly ask about doing idol activities? You rejected so decisively before. Is it strange and suspicious to suddenly change your stance?”
“It’s not suspicious.”
“But it is strange, isn’t it?”
I couldn’t possibly deny it here.
“…”
Still, without much reason to say no, I just nodded slightly. Han Sei let out a cute chuckle.
“It’s a relief that it’s not suspicious. Since Manager-nim doesn’t doubt me.”
What is this? Why is it making my heart race? hahahahan, you’re not someone who can do this, right?
Even though hahahahan already had an incredibly charming presence that could make anyone’s heart race, she had never done anything so openly to make someone’s heart race like this.
But for some reason, from the moment she placed her hand on top of mine that I had extended in the factory, hahahahan didn’t feel like the hahahahan I knew.
It wasn’t that she was becoming someone I didn’t know, but rather that I was getting to know a side of hahahahan that I had never seen before.
Just thinking about it made me genuinely happy.
Getting to know an unknown side of someone is proof that our connection is deepening.
While I was thrilled and delighted by getting closer to hahahahan, she began to tell me the answer that would solve my question once again.
“It’s been six years. I haven’t felt happiness.”
hahahahan’s story, or more accurately, the story of her despair.
“It was a pretty long time, so I thought I might be a little happy, but I wasn’t happy at all. Not even once in six years.”
······.
Although it was a short winter day, there was still some time left before the sun set.
Under the gradually darkening evening sky, hahahahan calmly spoke of her unhappiness and despair.
“If you can’t be happy, then just stopping there would have been enough unhappiness. But there was no end to the unhappiness. As each day passed, life became harder, and I became more desperate, thinking that it would only get more miserable instead of being able to be happy.”
She had made hahahahan, who was beautiful enough to make anyone happy just by looking at her, someone that no one could believe.
“So I gave up on being happy. At least if I didn’t have expectations for happiness, I wouldn’t despair.”
In the difficult and challenging six years, hahahahan eventually gave up on happiness.
At least if she didn’t have the despair that comes from not being able to be happy, she could endure it somehow.
“But even so, it was still very difficult. But I somehow managed to endure it. I decided that I wouldn’t submit to this cursed life… but just making that decision wasn’t enough.”
She hadn’t done anything wrong, she had just lived her life, but the despair that ate away at hahahahan grew larger with each passing day.
Deciding not to yield even to Haan’s words was overwhelming.
“I tried to die because I couldn’t endure it in the end. But if I die, I lose, right? So, I decided to kill the biggest culprits who made my life like this, and then, at least if I die, it would be a draw. That’s what I intended.”
It was a story so difficult to hear that just listening to it made my jaw tense.
I don’t know why she’s suddenly telling this story, but repeating such a story in this way wouldn’t have a positive impact on Haan.
“······Haan.”
So, trying to interrupt Haan’s words, I called her name, but Haan didn’t pay attention to my call and just looked at me with a calm gaze.
“······.”
“······.”
Still calm but no longer as cold, her gaze was warm like clouds moistened by the sunset.
Seeing the warm gaze from Haan for the first time, I was speechless and couldn’t say anything more.
“······.”
As I stopped trying to interrupt Haan’s words and closed my mouth, Haan once again showed a faint smile on her lips.
And she continued the story.
“But then the manager appeared. In a situation where everything would be over with just reaching out my arm. Like a protagonist.”
Me?
“I just thought he was a good person. I thought, ‘In this cursed life for 6 years, the first good person I meet, and still, it’s a good person to meet at the end.’ But the manager wasn’t a person worth liking.”
In Haan’s eyes that spoke about me, there was an overflow of warmth that I couldn’t fully contain.
It was a gaze warm enough to feel warm even in winter, a gaze that could no longer find despair.
“All the problems that made me desperate for 6 years. After meeting the manager, everything was solved in just one day. I’ve been saved from a life so desperate that I was ready to give up the right to be happy, all in just one day.”
I wanted to refute, but looking at Haan’s gaze, I couldn’t possibly do that.
Because the one telling my story right now is Haan, and······.
“And when the manager, who completely defeated my despair, reached out his hand to me, I was happy.”
Yeah, she really looked happy.
“Thanks to the manager, I became happy. Just in one day. Me, who had given up on happiness for six years.”
“······Haan.”
“So now, I can become an idol too. I can make people happy by becoming an idol.”
Haan was now talking about being happy and making people happy.
When I first saw her, I couldn’t even trust her a little. But now, she was holding my hand first and saying she became happy because of me. It felt like something warm was rising inside me.
“And the most important thing is, if I become an idol, I won’t have to be separated from the manager, right? Of course, you’ll be my manager. Right?”
I can’t allow someone else to manage Haan.
It might be greedy and excessive for someone like me, who knows nothing, to manage someone like Haan, but still, I will be greedy.
It was decided from the moment I first saw Haan.
“Yes, yes. Definitely, no matter what anyone says, Haan will be under my care. Absolutely.”
So, confidently declaring that I will take care of her, Haan smiled at me as if to say she won’t let go, holding my hand even tighter.
“Then, I’ll be an idol.”
“Haan······.”
“Not anyone else’s, only Manager’s idol.”
“Haan······?”
From Noble mtl dot com
Huh? Shouldn’t it be a universal idol that can make people happy, not just mine? What’s this? Did she make a mistake in her words?
At that moment, when I doubted if I heard it right, Haan held my hand even tighter, as if to assure me that she won’t let go.
While doing so, she brought her lips close to my ear and whispered softly.
“So, Manager, you should continue making me happy in the future.”
It was a small but definitely not a small whisper.
“Ha, hahahahaha…”
Really, who found whom?
Ahhhh too cute. I’m melting