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“Huh?” It had been a long time since she heard from this contact. Noah quickly pressed the answer button. “Hello, Mom?”

– Noah.

“Why did you call first? It’s been a long time since you called me first…”

– Are you busy on the weekends?

“Oh… why? Is something wrong?”

– Whatever happened… It’s not like that, but I was wondering if you could help me with tomorrow’s work. I’ve been looking after the store all week, and I’m so tired.

Silence.

– You’re not busy, are you? 

Noah’s lips were pressed into a thin line for quite a moment, pondering what to reply. And yet every time, the same words roll from her tongue. Her response whenever her parents called had become habitual.

– Noah?

“When are you going out tomorrow? I’ll be there on time.” A flurry of instructions echoed over the phone. Noah muttered, “Yes… Yes. I’ll be there early tomorrow morning. Yes, go to sleep. All right…”

Soon, their phone call ended on a cold, dull note, without even the slightest whisper of a common greeting. Noah left the company building, trudging her exhausted body. Her weary steps headed toward the taxi stop, her hair and shoulders drenched under the trickling rain. Noah managed to grab a cab and hastily thrust her body in. 

“Please take me to Sillim Station.”

“Sillim Station. Okay. By the way, Miss, you don’t look so well, are you okay?” The cab driver asked in a worried voice.

“It’s all right,” she replied despite her spinning head. She rested her head by the window and closed her eyes. There was only one thing she had to do at home tomorrow: to manage the grocery store owned by her parents while they, along with her sibling, fancy a trip.

But if I wait till evening… I think I can at least show my face. If Noah comes early, she might be able to have a real dinner. Noah heaved a long sigh, her body crumpling on the seat of the cozy cab. On a tumultuous Friday, Seoul’s streets, vibrant even at night, brushed past her drowsy eyes.

10:02 P.M. 

It happened twenty-hours before Park Noah’s unfortunate death.

Noah was an adopted child. She met her parents for the first time when she was eight years old, preparing to enter elementary school. Regrettably, she had no knowledge of her biological parents. What seemed to be a fragment reminiscent of their spectral existence was the words of the director of House of Love, the orphanage that sheltered her. He had said her mother’s hair and her eyes looked like mixed blood because of their light pigments.

Noah had grown to become the oldest in House of Love and had almost given up the chances of a new family. But soon enough, it was a young couple, who had been declared infertile, that took Noah into their home.  

Coincidentally, only a year after adopting Noah, whether it was a farce in heaven, the couple conceived a child. A foster child who had only been their daughter for a year and a child in the mother’s belly- the parent’s priorities were expected to shift the moment she was impregnated with her own child.

However, the shift did not imply abuse. In the end, Noah grew up in a house of strangers, alone.

For Noah, being loved was one of the least natural things in the world. She had lived trying to earn affection. Even in House of Love, when couples visited to adopt, the children had to act behaved, plastering winsome smiles on their faces. Even after their adoption, they needed to continue being good, beautiful children to attract the attention of their parents and other strangers. 

It is only those who strive harder, those more sincere, and those more exceptional than others are deserving of love. It was what Noah believed in since she was young.

In order to establish her own foothold in a battleground swarming with contenders aspiring for excellence, she must be recognized. Heavily anchored to such belief, Noah toiled for more than twenty years, dividing days into minutes, never indifferent to a single moment’s worth. 

But on a day like today…

8:30 P.M.

Soon, her family will be carousing under the starry skies while she stays home, alone, tending the store of her parents. Her efforts to be acknowledged by her own kin were a little futile.

“Excuse me, I would like to pay…? Excuse me, miss!” 

After a moment’s silence, while she gazed blankly outside the window of the store, Noah came to her senses in surprise. “Oh, oh, yes. Yes, I’m sorry. 13,800 won. Would you like an envelope with it?”

“Yes, please. By the way, miss… Are you all right? You look so pale.” 

Noah fixed a wide smile on her lips. “It’s all right. I’m sorry. I was thinking about something else for a little while.”

“You don’t have any customers, so close it thirty minutes early and go home. I feel like you’re about to faint.”

“Ah-ha-ha.. Thank you for your concern.” 

The middle-aged woman who came to buy food ingredients for tomorrow morning worried over Noah. The thought of her parents and younger sister not returning had made her feel a little less depressed.

After the last customer left the store, Noah checked the time again. 

8:35 P.M. 

It was already past dinner. She had planned to stay out until Monday, after she finished revising the presentation she couldn’t finish yesterday.

Come on, let’s go home.