I had promised myself I would talk to Haewon properly.
The problem with promises like that is that they are easy to delay when everything around you is urgent and the person you made the promise to is twelve and has not asked you directly for anything. Haewon was good at that—at existing quietly within the household's turbulence, observing, absorbing, never demanding. It was a skill she had probably developed out of necessity. Children in complicated households learn early how to become small when smallness is what the moment requires.
But I had been watching her, and I had noticed things.
She had started spending more time in the study. Not interrupting, never touching anything without asking, but present. Sitting in the chair near the window with a book she was not always reading. She was listening to everything, and I thought that deserved acknowledgment rather than management.
