"What"s your name?" Han Myung Soo gently asked the girl with a warm smile. A touched look graced his face as he stared at the girl who was so similar yet somewhat different compared to his daughter."I am Lee Yeo Ri," she politely introduced herself to them. A slight smile lingered on her face, her eyes remaining placid.
"Oh, Yeo Ri, huh..." Mrs. Han smiled to herself. She almost chuckled at her daughter"s naming sense. Since she was "Yeoreum", her daughter"s name had also started with "Yeo". It was so like Yeoreum to choose such a simple name.
Yeo Ri paused before answering half a beat later, "Yes."
"You can call us Grandpa and Grandma, okay, Yeo Ri-ah?" Mrs. Han said, stretching her hands to hold Yeo Ri"s palm that was resting on the table between them.
Yeo Ri tensed slightly at the sudden contact, but continued to uphold her smile. Gently, she pulled her hand away from the older woman, making it seem as if she was going to pick up her teacup to sooth her parched throat instead of avoiding the older woman"s touch.
As she was sipping her drink, she could feel a hostile gaze landing on her. Yeo Ri reflexively turned her head towards the direction of the hostility, meeting the eyes of a girl who seemed to be about Gun"s age.
The girl, noticing their eye contact, harrumphed before pulling away her gaze and sulkily turned around, sinking into the couch like a brat throwing a tantrum.
The coldness in Yeo Ri"s eyes subtly deepened. Hiding it from the two elders in front of her, Yeo Ri continued to drink more tea, acting as if she was unconcerned over the other girl"s unfounded animosity towards her.
The two elders did not seem to notice their exchange. They continued to ask several more questions about her.
"How old are you?"
"I"ll be turning sixteen this year," Yeo Ri smiled slightly as she answered, keeping her gaze lowered.
"Oh? When is your birthday?"
"In July," Yeo Ri vaguely replied. It was clear that she had yet to warm up to her self-proclaimed grandparents.
"I see," Mrs. Han smiled uneasily. She wanted Yeo Ri to elaborate more on the details of her life, but she did not want to appear pushy.
"Speaking of which, would you like to see Yeoreum"s—your mother"s—alb.u.m?" Mr. Han smoothly changed the subject. "She liked taking pictures growing up. I wonder if it"s the same now. Would you like to see them?"
Yeo Ri thought for a moment before nodding her head.
"Great! They"re right over here," Mrs. Han got up, smiling excitedly as she headed over to a shelf filled with various books and trinkets. It only took her a short moment to find what she was looking for.
Mrs. Han pulled out a somewhat large alb.u.m and laid it out for Yeo Ri to see on the dining table.
Behind the sofa, the other girl scowled at her mother"s actions. Her parents would never allow her to even touch that stupid alb.u.m but they easily showed it to the unknown stranger! The favouritism was clear, and she could not help but deepen her hate towards her "sister" whom she had never met before.
Yeo Ri flipped the thick pages slowly, her eyes lingering on each picture briefly before moving on to the next.
There were pictures of her mother—baby pictures, school graduation photos, vacation pictures, self-portraits... there were so many packed in each page, displaying Han Yeoreum"s childhood all the way to her teens. The final picture in the alb.u.m had been of her mother—who looked strikingly similar to her current appearance—smiling with her head held high in a gorgeous flaming red dress with a formal-looking background.
The Han Yeoreum in the pictures all bore confident and prideful looks, which was starkly different compared to Yeo Ri"s more subdued and demure aura.
Looking at the girl in the picture, Yeo Ri felt strangely familiar yet alien. It was as if looking at herself from another life.
"Yeoreum was as stubborn as a mule when she was growing up. She wanted to become an actress, but we wanted her to become a doctor, just like her father and her grandfather," Mrs. Han said as she gently brushed her fingers over the picture Yeo Ri had been looking at.
"Did she ever tell you about how she threw a huge fit when we forced her to fill out her college applications?" Mrs. Han laughed, as if reminiscing a good memory. "She ended up running away that very night. We looked for her everywhere, but she adamantly refused to come home."
Mr. Han looked away, using the back of his palm to wipe his eyes. It looked as if he had shed a few tears after recollecting the same memory.
Yeo Ri listened to the story quietly, letting the two elderly people bask in their melancholy.
"After that, the next time we saw her was when she brought that man—Lee Do Joon—back, demanding us to accept him as our son-in-law. We refused, of course, since he was a widower with kids—so she eloped with him. We were so angry that we gave her the silent treatment for a while. At that time, I found out I was pregnant with Keul—your aunt over there—and when we finally decided to look for her again, she completely disappeared," Mrs. Han sighed.
"I never had the chance to tell her she was going to be an older sister," Mrs. Han sighed again. She looked as if she had aged a little bit after recalling the story.
"When you go back, can you tell her to come visit us from time to time?" Mrs. Han stared at Yeo Ri sincerely, her tone hopeful.
"..." Yeo Ri pursed her lips and her brows wrinkled ever-so-slightly. Confusion flitted her gaze. Could it be... that they didn"t know?
"Tell her that we miss her and that we want to apologise for ignoring her will all this time," Mr. Han hurriedly added.
Hearing his request, Yeo Ri was more sure.
"You don"t know?" Yeo Ri raised her eyebrows incredulously. It was amazing how these two hadn"t found out about that incident considering how much coverage it had gotten the year before. Although Heo Woo Seung had worked hard to keep her name and face a secret, he did not do the same for Han Yeoreum. She was listed in the list of victims, and although the articles mentioned her briefly and vaguely, anyone who was interested could find out about it with just a little research.
"You haven"t seen the news?" Yeo Ri tilted her head in slight awe. Clearly, they hadn"t paid much attention to the crime-related news at all.
"W-what news?" Seeing Yeo Ri"s strange gaze, Mrs. Han felt a sense of unease rising in her heart.
"So you really don"t know?" Yeo Ri asked again for confirmation.
Seeing the alarmed and unsettled gazes the elderly couple gave her, Yeo Ri lowered her eyes and sighed inaudibly.
With a polite yet dispa.s.sionate tone, Yeo Ri said: "She"s dead."