"You're late, son."

"When did you get in?"

"Around eight?"

"Have you eaten?"

"Oh! Are you seeing to your mom's meals now?"

"You're the only mom in the world, aren't you."

"What's this? Why does my son suddenly feel like a stranger?"

Kang Junu, come home.

At his reply Go Mihui's eyes went round.

Growth…… in a single moment, is that possible?

Her son's eyes had gone soft and hard both together.

Until a very short while ago he had been behaving with great edginess.

Her son Kang Junu, who had set himself a stricter standard still, with the national exam to prepare for and adulthood coming.

The air of him has changed.

Unlike this morning when he left for school, the son who has come home seems to have become another person.

"I'll be an adult soon, won't I. One who can drink beer."

"Beer??"

Go Mihui found it odd that her son's answer put the stress on beer.

Her son has never once put drink to his mouth.

The circumstances would let him drink easily enough, but he has never tried.

Among his classmates and the other chaebol children of his age there are some who drink, of course, and mix boys and girls at their parties, and put a hand to drugs.

Her son, on the contrary, laughed at them.

And that same son has just spoken with an expression that holds a grudge against beer.

"Shall I give you some fruit?"

"There's watermelon, isn't there?"

"Mm~ I'll bring it."

The helper ajumma has gone home, it being evening.

At this hour there is nobody in the house but the son and the mother.

Go Mihui, not the Ilseong Hotel's chief but a mother with a third-year child sitting the exam.

She prepared the watermelon with practised movements.

Go Mihui, heading for the living room with it cut to eat easily and forks laid ready.

This moment made her very happy.

The reason she works hard every day is one only — her son.

In place of a husband who left the world early she has had…