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Believing that one could not become a proper human being without knowing their roots, he spoke to her only in Korean. If she spoke to him in English, he wouldn't even acknowledge her.
During summer breaks, instead of going to camps like other children, she spent her summers in Korea. Thanks to this, although she was born and raised in the United States, Lauren's Korean was as fluent as that of a typical 1.5-generation immigrant.
That didn't mean she found Korean more comfortable. English was strictly her native language, and Lauren couldn't force Korean upon Hunter as strictly as her father had done to her.
As a result, Hunter struggled to communicate with his maternal grandfather. His stubborn father would scold Lauren every time they met, complaining that he wouldn't teach Hunter Korean.
As a last resort, she hired a Korean tutor once a week to teach him the alphabet, but Hunter showed little interest.
Coincidentally, the Marchioness of the Lafayette family, Miran de Lafayette, with whom they had a long-standing family friendship, was also Korean. Whenever they met, she would brag endlessly about how well her son, Rex, spoke Korean. Thus, Lauren teamed up with Miran and decided to group Rex and Hunter together for Korean lessons.
However, Hunter and Rex—both of whom were second to none when it came to being troublemakers on the Upper East Side—bickered every time they met. On the rare occasion they actually got along, they joined forces to cause chaos. Consequently, this was already the second time a hard-to-find Korean tutor had quit.
But today, seeing Jiyu reading a book to Hunter gave Lauren a great idea.
When Ae-jeong had mentioned that Jiyu was already reading chapter books, Lauren had dismissed it as an exaggerated boast. However, seeing Hunter focused on the book Jiyu was reading was, frankly, a shock.
'Was my son actually a child who could sit still in one place like that?'
Lauren harbored a hopeful expectation that if she placed such a calm and intelligent girl in the Korean lessons, the atmosphere might improve. The fact that Jiyu was also fluent in Korean was the icing on the cake. After all, children usually learn language from their peers.
Since Hunter had a personality that couldn't stand losing, there was a high probability that having a child beside him who was better at Korean and better at reading would stimulate his competitive streak, making him put in effort without being told.
Fortunately, while Hunter and Rex might hit and kick each other, they never touched girls. It was more accurate to say they had absolutely no interest in them.
Lauren beamed a bright smile at Ae-jeong.
"Ae-jeong, about that... Hunter is learning Korean with a boy named Rex. Would Olivia be interested? We have lessons every Saturday morning for two hours at my house."
Eyes widening at Lauren's proposal, Ae-jeong answered without taking a breath.
"Of course, we're interested! When can she start?"
✾ ✾ ✾
The playdates, which she thought would be a one-time occurrence, continued. This was because Jiyu was someone Hunter could easily call out to play whenever he had free time, given that they were peers living in the same apartment building.
No matter how sudden the contact, Ae-jeong never once refused a proposal for a playdate with Hunter. She even canceled previously scheduled appointments.
When the mothers ran into each other in the lobby on the way to school, they would walk together, and they even shared a nanny when urgent matters arose.
Jiyu received math tutoring at Hunter's house every Wednesday, and until he mastered the Korean alphabet, she also attended the Saturday Korean lessons with him.
Hunter found Jiyu incredibly irritating.
It had been that way from the day they first met. Throwing the ball at Jiyu as she stepped out of the elevator had been a pure invitation to play. He had absolutely no intention of hitting her forehead and knocking her unconscious.
He had never imagined there would be an idiot who couldn't catch a simple ball flying straight at them. He tried to express this opinion to Lauren that night, but he only ended up getting scolded.
The memory of Jiyu falling backward in slow motion was still vivid. It even appeared in his nightmares occasionally.
Whenever the small ball he threw hit the forehead of Jiyu, who was wearing a dress adorned with foolish lace, she would suddenly swell up like a giant.
Once she grew so tall that her face was no longer visible, she would collapse over Manhattan. Like a movie, the disaster-stricken Manhattan would shatter into pieces like cookie crumbs. The Hamilton residence also vanished without a trace.
Even when he tried to pull Jiyu to stop her from falling, his body wouldn't move as if it were tied down. He couldn't even scream. It was a horrific nightmare that made him shudder just thinking about it.
Because of that accident, Hunter experienced prohibition and deprivation for the first time in his life. He received a harsh punishment and lost his freedom as a result of an unintended action.
To think he was banned from the playground and playrooms for a week.
He would have rather starved for a week.
The culprit was that precocious little brat, Jiyu Parker, who was a master of pretending to be kind.
He couldn't understand why his mother kept inviting this tiny girl, who rubbed him the wrong way at every turn, to their home. Her only use was reading books aloud while he played. Strangely, when she read, the content of the book entered his ears perfectly.
But such a thing was optional; he could have done without it. It would have been better if she had remained useless.
Unfortunately, before long, Hunter realized that Jiyu was absolutely necessary to him. It was truly shocking.
✾ ✾ ✾
A few months ago, on the day Jiyu came to watch a tournament for the first time, Hunter crushed an eleven-year-old opponent and became the tournament champion. It was the first victory of his life. As a result of that match, his UTR (Universal Tennis Rating) finally entered the 4-point range.
'But that was because I'm good.'
His victory had nothing to do with Jiyu coming to watch.
However, not long ago, his mother invited that scrawny bookworm and her fussy mother to another tournament. It was a waste of time.
In the first round, the opponent was a head shorter than Hunter. The intimidated opponent lost the first set 6-0 and then gave up the match, crying that their stomach hurt. Thus, he advanced to the second round, easily winning the first set 6-2 and the second set 6-1. The semi-finals were not much different.
But in the finals, Hunter faced a quite strong opponent. Sean Peterson, with a UTR of 5.8, was twelve years old and a head taller than Hunter. In fact, they had played a few matches before. The result had been a losing streak.
Before the match started, while doing a coin toss with Sean across the net to determine the serve order, Jiyu, sitting in the stands, suddenly caught his eye. Despite coming all the way to watch, she had her head buried in a book spread across her lap. She was a considerably delinquent spectator.
Sean won the first set 6-3. Hunter won the second set 7-5. The third set was a tight battle. Eventually, with the score tied at 6-6, the winner was to be decided by a tiebreaker. The first person to reach 7 points would be the winner.
[Go Hunter!]
Lauren and Ae-jeong were being noisy in their attempt to cheer. After dozens of rallies, Hunter scored a dramatic point, and the stands erupted. Only then did Jiyu glance up. However, after looking around and giving a couple of soulless claps, she immediately dropped her head back to her book.
That felt strangely annoying.
'Is that book more interesting than my match?'
Hunter couldn't accept that. So, he gritted his teeth with all his might and sprinted across the court. Only after he—who had been unilaterally dominated due to a momentary lapse in concentration—caught up to the point where the result was unpredictable, did Jiyu lift her head from the book and watch his match.
That day, Hunter performed far beyond his usual skill level, defeating Sean and achieving the feat of becoming the tournament champion.
After the match, the four of them had dinner together at a Korean restaurant in Fort Lee. At that gathering, Lauren said something to Jiyu that she didn't need to say.
It was the starting point of an ominous omen.
"Thank you for coming, Jiyu. Come to think of it, it seems like every time Jiyu comes, Hunter becomes the tournament champion. Jiyu must be Hunter's lucky charm."
Hunter grumbled with a face as if he had chewed on a caterpillar, insisting that there was no way that was true.
Jiyu did not attend the next tournament. He was eliminated in the quarterfinals. It was a match where he strangely couldn't concentrate. And in the following tournament, he made it to the semifinals but suffered a crushing defeat to a player with a lower UTR than him. That day, too, he had a bad feeling from the moment he hit the first serve.
While analyzing the reason, he suddenly remembered what Lauren had said to Jiyu at dinner. It felt like he had been hit in the back of the head. There was no way that scrawny bookworm was his lucky charm.
'Maybe a jinx, though.'
If so, there was only one way.
[The only way is to invite her to a tournament and check if she's actually a jinx or not.]
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