"How were the examinations?"

"They were……."

Lee Hyoju, home after finishing the examinations.

She had gone down like the dead, catching up the sleep she had gone short of.

When she woke her mother was back in the house.

"Sit down. I'll give you something to eat."

"Where's Dad?"

"It's Friday, isn't it. He'll be having his men-only time."

For all her manner of not caring much, Han Soeun trusted her husband.

Lee Seokjun has an important meeting today with one of their trading partners. The meeting place is a golf course.

"Mum."

"Mm?"

They are of a chaebol family, but the atmosphere of Lee Hyoju's house is not much different from an ordinary home's.

A daughter in her second year. During examinations in particular the husband and wife are careful.

Having seen to this and that, they have reached the day the examinations end and they can take a breath together.

Han Soeun brought out the makings of supper the helper had prepared and laid the table.

Mostly the various namul side dishes Lee Hyoju likes.

Lee Hyoju called to Han Soeun, who was just taking a bottle of wine out of the wine cellar.

"Tae-ung is having a housewarming tomorrow."

"A housewarming? Didn't you say it was a monthly rent?"

An ordinary housewarming is the small party held once somebody has moved into a place of their own.

"So you haven't heard yet, Mum."

"Heard?"

Whirrrrr.

Han Soeun, drawing the wine cork with an electric opener, spoke.

"They say Tae-ung has moved into a super penthouse."

"A super penthouse? At the Signiel?"

"Yes."

"His own?"

"It seems to be. He told me he was moving to a place of his own, and it was a super penthouse."

"Good heavens……."

Han Soeun stopped her hands where they were and looked at Lee Hyoju, startled.

The boy Ha Tae-ung, whom the people of the Ha house do not so much as acknowledge.

The super penthouse was one she could not have bought even if she had wanted it.

And a place like that, as his own?

"Did he do well…