“Wow……. Both of you could model our products.”

“Couldn’t they?”

Han Soeun, who had led Ha Tae-ung to the golf wear shop she likes to buy from.

She watched Ha Tae-ung appear changed into golf clothes together with her daughter Hyoju, and marvelled.

The fit is art.

It’s a look with nothing lacking for an advertisement with idols or male models on screen.

No — it suited him better than that.

Ha Tae-ung had a grace that came off him naturally.

It was the unhidable ease that comes off people educated in a good house.

He wasn’t outdone even by her daughter Hyoju, who carries the born well-bred look among the children of the family.

No — there’s something in him that overwhelms her instead.

“Sir, you’re perfect!”

Assistant Manager Yu Areum was marvelling just as much.

Enough that anyone looking might mistake it for models shooting a spread in the shop.

She thought that a professional model could come and still not look better than these two.

Golf clothes that wrap close to the line of the body looked like a beautiful work of art once these two had them on.

Across all her time dealing with customers she has handled upper-class people, models and famous actors beyond counting.

But a couple as perfect as these two is a first.

Unexpectedly, male actors on television are often short, so the hems have to be taken up and the original fit can’t be kept.

Most actresses too couldn’t carry golf clothes as designed and released, because of their height.

But the two in front of her are carrying that brand perfectly.

Height is height, but their looks don’t fall short either, so the fit and the air of them both overwhelm.

With a small lie added, it’s like looking at aristocrats.

“It feels good on. I’ll take this.”

Ha Tae-ung, with no hesitation about choosing.

He tried it on once and liked it.

“I’ll take this as well.”

The two of them carrying off white trousers and a white skirt, and mint half-zip collared shirts that could easily have looked tacky, as a matched pair.

“Yes, that’s lovely. And Tae-ung looks even better in it.”

“Thank you.”

The time it took to buy golf clothes was about thirty minutes.

“It was Assistant Manager Yu Areum, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’d like the other items I need for going out on a course as well, please. Shoes in two-eighty, and gloves. And these along with those over there.”

“Yes, sir!”

High-end golf wear where two pieces, top and bottom, run well past several million won.

A VIP choosing two sets outright.

“Put it all together, please.”

Han Soeun, standing beside him, held out a card.

The cost of what the two of them had bought alone runs well past ten million won.

But she didn’t mind it.

“Mother. Let me pay for——”

“I can give my daughter’s friend a present of this size. Look after our Hyoju from now on.”

“Yes, thank you. Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of Hyoju properly!”

“Yes. It’s good when friends live helping each other.”

Han Soeun, who knows nothing, smiled wide at Ha Tae-ung’s dependable answer.

“Mom! Am I a child?”

“What of it. It’s good to have a solid bodyguard like Tae-ung.”

“Tsk……”

And you know nothing about it.

Lee Hyoju pulled back the tongue that was trying to force its way out between her lips.

If she knew he was a charity case, hospitality like that would disappear in a moment.

And the deliberate friendliness of his manner would be exposed along with it.

But really…… what is he?

The longer the conversation with Ha Tae-ung went on, the more Lee Hyoju doubted the fact that none of it was awkward.

She is a woman who has been meeting people her own age from the family’s circle, and upper-class friends with connections to it, since she was a child.

The conversation with Ha Tae-ung ran on as naturally as it did with any of them.

He was different from the other children in the class, who find even standing beside her difficult and can’t get a word out.

Confidence is worked so far into his body that she doubted whether he had always been like this.

Lee Hyoju thought about this and that and stared at Ha Tae-ung.

“What? Seeing me today, does oppa look more handsome to you?”

“What??”

“Hoho. Our Tae-ung could act, given the chance. I know a director, and I could introduce you.”

Han Soeun laughed out loud at Ha Tae-ung’s bold, unchecked manner.

“Sir. The wrapping is all done.”

In the meantime the wrapped goods had come to a fair quantity.

“Delivery is possible?”

“Yes. Of course. Write down a time and an address and we’ll deliver to fit it.”

“I’m moving today, so I’ll send the address at around five.”

“Sorry?”

“You’re moving?”

“Yes.”

“Where to?”

Lee Hyoju showed some curiosity at the word moving.

“The Signiel.”

“The Signiel? With your parents?”

“No. On my own.”

“……!!”

“The Signiel is good.”

At the word that the place he was moving to was the Signiel, Han Soeun nodded slightly.

It’s a place where a single household goes for tens of billions.

Even taking the monthly rent, setting the deposit aside, the cost for one month alone runs into tens of millions.

It’s a residence like a symbol of wealth, and one you absolutely cannot enter without cash in hand.

What is this, is he really a charity case?

Lee Hyoju, growing more confused as the time went on.

“Mother. I’ll buy lunch. Let’s go somewhere good that you know.”

“Yes. Let’s go and eat something delicious.”

The three of them finished a pleasant shopping trip that way, out of a meeting nobody had expected.

Three people who had met for the first time looked nothing but natural, like people who had always known one another.

It had been a time of sharing the shopping style typical of VIPs alone.

Yu Areum couldn’t take her eyes off it, and marvelled inwardly as she looked in on a world of their own.

“Do sit down.”

“Thank you.”

He knows the basics, of course he does.

Ha Tae-ung had pulled Han Soeun’s chair out.

Han Soeun sat down as one used to it.

Inwardly she added points to Ha Tae-ung’s manners.

Ha Tae-ung, what on earth are you?

An Italian restaurant in Cheongdam.

A place Mom comes to often.

The three of them were shown to a quiet private room.

As they came in, Ha Tae-ung pulled Mom’s chair out with a movement so natural it might have been worked into his body.

This is plainly the Ha Tae-ung who until recently spent whole days at school with his head down, crumpled into himself.

But the Ha Tae-ung she saw today has nothing about him you could find of that charity case.

The same ease has been there without changing from the moment she saw him in the department store until now.

“You as well?”

“N— no. I’m fine.”

Lee Hyoju, who had been standing and watching blankly, sat down quickly.

“I’ve ordered the set courses, is that all right?”

“Yes! I eat anything.”

“Hoho. That’s welcome to hear. Our Hyoju is such a light eater.”

“Mom!”

Lee Hyoju flared up at her own information being let out in small pieces.

“I know. She doesn’t eat the school meals either.”

“Does she? I’ll ask you a favour. Tae-ung, do look after her.”

“Yes, I’ll eat with her from next week.”

“……??”

Lee Hyoju was more at a loss the further it went.

What kind of nonsense ploy is this!

She narrowed her eyes and looked at Ha Tae-ung.

That the quality of the school meals is decent, she’ll grant.

But a dining space with that many people in it and that much going on is awkward for Lee Hyoju.

The brewed tea the auntie who helps in the house prepares for her was the whole of her lunch.

And now he was going to eat lunch with her?

“Thank you, I’m asking you to. She’ll be in her third year soon, so her strength wants looking after.”

Mom, knowing nothing, asking Ha Tae-ung for this and that.

“Haa.”

A short sigh got out of Lee Hyoju in her frustration.

She had never once imagined a situation like this.

A friend who was a boy, in particular, had never existed in her life at all.

Dad, fighting hard on his own to hold his current position in the group.

Watching that, at some point she had understood the weight a chaebol house’s royal family has to carry.

Romance?

At Cheonghwa High School even romance is only business.

The principle is that people who don’t match in standing absolutely do not associate.

On that basis there was no possibility of any boy enrolled there measuring up in Lee Hyoju’s eyes.

Today, for the first time, Ha Tae-ung had taken the seat of a friend who is a boy in Lee Hyoju’s life.

I don’t know either.

Lee Hyoju shut her mouth firmly, as though giving up.

It had come too far to reveal Ha Tae-ung’s standing.

This was a Lee Hyoju who had never once, with a boy or a girl, sat at a table with her mother under the name of a friend.

“Your soup, madam.”

A male member of staff with a clean look about him set soup and bread down on the table.

“The butter is a kelp butter the chef makes himself.”

Truffle cream soup and warm ciabatta were served, and the butter with them.

“Thank you.”

“Please enjoy.”

Mom answered the man softly, watching him as she did it.

Every single thing in her cultivated mother’s behaviour ran with grace.

Lee Hyoju, who has had this in front of her eyes all her life.

It was the dignity belonging only to upper-class people carried down through generations, which no quantity of money can come near.

But then……

“The ciabatta here is the real thing. It looks easy, but ciabatta is a bread that’s hard to make properly.”

“The chef here came out of a Michelin three-star. And I’ve heard the bakers finished their training in Paris.”

Ha Tae-ung, starting in naturally on an appraisal as he looked at the bread on his plate.

Han Soeun kept time with him, and the smile never left her mouth.

“I should bring my parents next time.”

“Tae-ung is a devoted son.”

“Devoted is going far…… I fall a long way short.”

“He knows how to be modest as well……. Hoho.”

Mom! That isn’t modesty. It’s an act!

Lee Hyoju felt as blocked up inside as though something had lodged there.

Ha Tae-ung’s savage look at school came back to her.

Mom knows nothing whatever about Ha Tae-ung’s real face.

What is this! How is he this natural?

Ha Tae-ung the charity case has no sense of not belonging even in an expensive restaurant.

The lunch course here runs past three hundred thousand won a head.

Ha Tae-ung, who said he’d pay for lunch, doesn’t look as though he cares about the price at all.

“The truffle is the real thing too.”

Ha Tae-ung, savouring even the soup with refinement, as though it were an everyday sight.

He is in a state of having hidden the beast’s claws completely in front of Mom.

“Your appetiser, madam.”

The appetiser served while they were finishing the soup.

A salmon steak came out, garnished properly, at the level of a main course.

“Would it be rude? Tae-ung, what do your parents do?”

Starting on the food, Han Soeun moved naturally into a survey of Ha Tae-ung’s household.

At the question Ha Tae-ung, just as naturally, put on a small smile.

And.

“My father——”

(End of Chapter 32)