“Song Yoon Min, currently 17 years old. She was brought to us by her parents when she was merely 6 weeks old.”
Mr. Choi placed her personal file on the desk and sighed lightly.
Seokjin took it in his hands and began to read whatever there was inside. After she fainted in his arms, he insisted the manager to take her to a hospital. But Mr. Choi wasn’t pleased with the idea and rather told him she wouldn’t like it and she was better off here in the orphanage.
It killed his kind heart to leave her before he could see her eyes open, he had to leave the orphanage that evening because he was a busy man with his own problems. Ever since then, his heart had been poking him every minute to go back to her and know her more.
And here he was, after three days, back in the manager's office to get her personal information.
As he was reading attentively although there was nothing important in the file other than her birth certificate and a few photos, he heard the manager speaking on his own,
“Cardiomyopathy is a disease of the heart muscle that makes it harder for your heart to pump blood to the rest of your body. Unfortunately, she was born with this same disease, resulting her to have a weak heart since birth. And this is the very reason her parents gave her up.”
“Her parents didn’t want a sick heir like her to manage their business and conquer their wealth in future. So they signed her up for adoption and left their only child alone to survive in the world.”
Mr. Choi added, “Over the years, there were a lot of families who wanted to adopt Yoon Min. You know, she's a special girl. She can make anyone fall in love with her just by her kind, gracious personality and amazing choice of words.”
He started to smile faintly but sorrow took over when he mentioned next, “But every single one them turned her down once they realized she was sick. And like that, Yoon Min spent all her life around here, being rejected by adults and bearing a sick heart from childhood.”
Seokjin gulped down to realize she was an orphan. At first, he thought she might be a caretaker around here but it completely slipped out of his mind that she could be one of the children as well. He found an old photo of baby Yoon Min with her parents who had a cold look on their face. As if they hated their daughter to death.
He couldn’t suppress the sympathy for the young girl, he couldn’t imagine how people live with a past like that. A past that reminds you are unwanted, useless, a mistake to even born. A past where you are abandoned shortly after you are born.
Shaking off his thoughts, he returned the file and cleared his throat.
“I saw a w-woman that day-”
He didn’t have to continue more as Mr. Choi eventually cut him off,
“Yes, she's Ms. Seo Dan, the caretaker of our orphanage. I must say I do not like the way she treats the children.” he sighed lightly.
Seokjin shrugged his shoulders, “Then just fire her.”
Mr. Choi's facial expression changed after hearing his suggestion. With another deep sigh, he answered, “I wish I could, CEO Kim. But I cannot.”
When Seokjin showed him an expression of Why not, the manager took off his glasses and moved his eyes away to the window,
“I'm afraid I cannot tell you about that.”
Seokjin understood that maybe he was interfering in their business a bit too much, considering he's just a man who donated here a few days back. He was disappointed by the shory reply of the manager of course, but he decided to let it go.
With a sigh, he stood up from his seat and looked down at Mr. Choi,
“Well, I'll be going then, Mr. Choi.”
The manager also stood up and replied warmly with a grin, “Do visit again, CEO Kim.”
--------------
Though Seokjin said he was leaving, it wasn’t his plan at all. He was yet to visit the girl. How could he leave without seeing the girl who had been wandering in his mind for the last few days?
But the question was, where was she?
He searched the whole orphanage from the second floor to the ground floor. Avoiding everyone's curious, awkward stares and passing by places thrice by getting lost made him tired. Yet there was no sign of her.
Where did she go?
Concern and fright surged through his body, his brain guessing every single theory behind her disappearance. What feared him most was that there might be a chance that old woman was torturing her somewhere. And he needed to save her.
But how would he when he didn’t even know her location?
With a frustrated, disappointing look, Seokjin arrived at the backyard for the 4th time out of despair.
He stood there for a good minute, watching children’s voices floating around and the wind touching his skin shyly. As his eyes moved everywhere, he spotted an empty swing, rocking in the wind lightly. It wouldn’t hurt to sit on it.
He found himself sitting on the vacant swing and smiling to himself faintly. The inner child that lived within him sparked brightly anonymously, wanting to be a child again who only cared about playing.
As he engaged himself to his own, he heard a young voice beside him,
“You again?”
Seokjin turned his head towards the voice and found a teenager staring at him suspiciously. She looked the type to always doubt people, with her ponytail hair and unbrotherly face.
He huffed at her question, “Am I not allowed here?”
The girl caressed her chin with her thumb and index finger, “You are here for Yoon Unnie, aren't you?”
Clever. He considered this girl to be smart and uptight. He should think before he should talk with her.
Raising his eyebrow, he asked, “How did you figure out so quick?”
“Duh, I'm 15. I'm old enough to even date now.” the girl said confidently before sitting on the swing next to him.
“Yah, don't date before 18.” Seokjin gave a cautious glare.
She rolled her eyes and began to push her feet on the ground to swing.
Seokjin chuckled lowly at her young attitude. He proceeded to ask her carefully so that he didn’t sound weird or nosy.
“So where is your Yoon Unnie?”
The girl replied quickly, “She's doing her part-time jobs outside.”
Part-time jobs?
“She w-works?” he stuttered. With that weak heart?
“Yeah, she's gotta earn money to find a place for her own within a week.”
He was receiving too much information all on a sudden and he didn’t mind it. Seeing this girl knowing everything about Yoon Min was an opportunity to get to know the young girl more.
Seokjin asked, “And why is that?”
The girl stopped swinging and looked at him with the most annoying look. He felt dumb by her stare.
“She's turning 18 next week. It's the orphanage's rule to kick you out when you're fully grown.” the girl scoffed as if she was against this idea.
So Yoon Min was the eldest kid in this orphanage. That explained why she seemed like the parent of everyone. She was like the children’s guardian.
Seokjin heard of this rule in movies but never actually knew it existed in real life. How on Earth will she manage to live outside her home all alone with that weak heart? What if she failed to save enough money and die on the streets unnoticed? What if...
“But Unnie spends all her money on us.” the girl interrupted his thoughts. She neither looked sad or happy with what she said.
“I keep telling her to save money for her future. But she always focuses on what we need. Foods, toys, clothes, books etc whatever we need, she tries her best to provide us.”
The girl looked at Seokjin, “One time, Jisung ran out of his crayons and the next day, Yoon Unnie comes with many coloring materials for him. Another time, Yeri wanted a computer so she gave her a toy computer in order to learn the keyboard system first. Gang Tae always craves for sweets and she gifts him a candy every time he succeeds on something. I wanted to watch Twilight series in the movie theatre. But knowing it wasn’t possible, she bought me the books one day.”
She didn’t stop blabbering Yoon Min's interesting love for them. Dedicating her young life on these children was the reason why they were unexpectedly happy without having parents. As if she filled the absence of a mother and a father in every child's life here.
She was an interesting person.
Seokjin asked the girl, “What's your name?”
“Nice of you to ask so late, mister. I'm Kwon Eunbi.” she flicked her hair behind her.
He nodded and said, “Tell me everything you know about Yoon Min.”
The girl named Eunbi blinked twice as though she found him a little suspicious. She crossed her legs to look smart, “Well what do you want to know? I don't know much.”
“Yoon Unnie likes books. She's crazy for them. I find it boring by the way.” she took a small glance at Seokjin who was attentively listening to her. Satisfied, she added,
“She has a weak heart.”
He replied, “I know that.”
Eunbi didn’t feel the necessity to ask how he knew so she only spared him a suspicious glare. A few seconds later, she released a deep sigh abruptly and lowered her gaze on the ground. “Unnie was harassed by our previous caretaker.”
Something shot through his heart, faster and more shocking than a lightening. He didn’t blink or say anything.
Eunbi sighed before continuing, “There was another caretaker here before. His name was Mr. Cha. We all thought him as a really good person. I remember him playing with us, cooking for us, taking care of us. Every one of us liked him.”
“Except her.”
Seokjin managed to choke out through the thick curtains of his haze in curiosity, “Was she...r-raped?”
She widened her eyes and immediately waved her hands in denial, by which he released a satisfied sigh and closed his eyes. Thank God..
“No, rape is a strong word. What I know is, Mr. Cha targeted her because she had a weak heart and she wouldn’t speak up. Also, my personal opinion is she is the prettiest among all of us. So I exactly don't know what he did, but I heard from Jae Wook that he actually tried to touch her. He really seemed like a good man, who knew he was the devil?” the girl groaned in anger.
Eunbi glanced at him, “Mr. Cha misjudged her character. He never guessed she would actually complain everything to Mr. Choi. He didn’t believe her at first. But when Yoon Unnie even gave him evidence, he fired him in an instant!”
“Isn't she so cool?” the girl was smiling ear to ear.
He had to admit that was a courageous step she took to defend herself. As much as he was proud of her unknowingly, a part of him was still sad that she had to go through that.
Seokjin asked in curiosity, “How old was she?”
Eunbi didn’t know the answer right away. She calculated quickly and replied, “14.”
“Don't get surprised yet, mister. There's more you need to know.” she warned him beforehand because she saw how grievous he was turning every second.
“Afterwards, Mr. Choi looked for another caretaker. But nobody wanted to work at an orphanage with a low salary like that. Yoon Unnie started to fill out that position for us for a while. She worked outside to bring supplies for us and helped out our manager like that.”
“After many months, Mr. Choi found a replacement.” Eunbi's eyes roared fire as she mentioned the name, “It was Mr. Cha's wife; Ms. Seo.”
Seokjin widened his eyes, “Wait, she's his wife?”
The girl nodded. “I don't know what made him hire her, but later I realized he really didn’t have a choice. We needed someone to guard us and take care of us. So Ms. Seo was hired to be our caretaker. And look what she does! Abusing Unnie and treating us like trash.”
“Ms. Seo hates her! She thinks maybe Unnie tried to seduce her husband. She blames her for every single fault. She ordered her to sleep in the kitchen instead of with us. Ms. Seo enjoys watching us submitting to her, pleading her, respecting her! She treats Unnie just like a maid!”
Eunbi almost blabbered about Ms. Seo for 15 minutes straight. Well, Seokjin also thought this Ms. Seo wasn’t a nice person. He himself saw her hitting Yoon Min earlier as if she had no emotions. Psychopaths don't have hearts for sure.
Seokjin wondered if Yoon Min ever healed from whatever happened to her. Though she was under horrific agony every day, did she ever smile contently? Childhood is supposed to be happy. Children should be running out in the sun, laughing endlessly, not caring about any negative things in the world. They shouldn’t live a nightmare in a corner of horrifying darkness.
All her life, she focused on taking good care of every kid here instead of taking preparation for her own unanticipated future. He doubted if she ever thought for herself. It surprised him how a young girl with a weak heart stood by their side from their birth and endured every abuse and pain for them. These children should know how much lucky they were to find a guardian like her.
“She's here.”
Seokjin jolted in his place, hearing her words. Eunbi chuckled at his flushness and slipped down her swing before running towards a specific someone.
His heart started to pound inside him, a feeling he hadn’t experienced for a long time. His eyes searched the area around him and suddenly, he caught her entering through the orphanage gates. The presence of her gave him goosebumps and immense joy for some reason. Once he looked at her figure, he had no interest to be bothered about anything else. The one he's been looking for was finally here.
“Unnie! Unnie!” Eunbi surprised her by her loud yellings.
“I hear you, girl. What's wrong?” Yoon Min smiled at her before walking inside.
The girl cheesily sing-songed, “There's someone who wants to meet you~”
Yoon Min had a spark in her chest, as the mere thought of him coming to visit her weakened her soul helplessly. But she immediately broke her own expectation. Someone like him had no reason to come see her.
She gulped down, curiosity painting her body.
“Who?”
Eunbi giggled before pointing her finger somewhere near the swings,
“That handsome mister!”
Yoon Min looked towards the pointed direction and before she knew, her cheeks burned red and her heart was unexpectedly melting and fluttering. Excitement took over her face and she couldn’t wait to run over to him.
For a short while, none of them could break the loving, intense eye-contact from afar.
“Come on, what you waiting for?” Eunbi whined before grabbing her sister's hand and started to drag her towards him.
Yoon Min tried to stop the girl, “Hey, hey, Eunbi. Let me go, I can go myself.”
“Yeah, that'll take a month.”
As much as she wanted to run away from him because he managed to do things to her body and feelings no one ever did to her; she also wanted to properly see him wholeheartedly because maybe a small part of her missed him.
Before she realized, they were in front of him, standing face to face.
“Here she is!” Eunbi told him with a bright face.
Seokjin was pretty embarrassed. What if she thought he's some crazy dude trying to steal her heart?
“Right...” he murmured quietly before standing up.
He was a head taller than her so he had to look down at her small figure with kind eyes. So this was the girl; a perfect guardian for the children and an ailing girl with a gloomy past.
Among the three of them, only Eunbi was smiling cheesily, she didn’t know how to smirk as of yet so she didn’t show it. And the elder ones had trouble finding proper words to greet, along with inability to control their hearts' rapid beatings.
“H-Hi...” Seokjin spoke first to break the really awkward atmosphere.
Yoon Min was glad he started something at least, “Hi, Seokjin-ssi.”
“Don't just Hi each other! Tell her why you wanted to--”
Eunbi wanted to play the matchmaker between them but soon, her little career came to an end as Yoon Min looked at her, “Okay, that's enough. Go take a shower, Eunbi.”
“But--”
“No buts. Go on!” she was trying to shoo away the little one.
Eunbi pouted and threw her a glare before turning her back. She realized something quickly as she glanced at both of them and threw them a naughty smile, “I see...you want some privacy. Well why didn’t you say so?”
“Yah you--”
Well, she was out of sight in a second after successfully managing to create the situation more embarrassing and awkward.
It was fully up to Yoon Min and Seok Jin to figure out how to start a nice conversation.