Seon-ah's defense of Yurin wasn't out of pure kindness. He figured that, given the inevitable future encounters due to his mother's connection with Executive Director Park Yura, creating a debt of gratitude might be useful. He didn't want to risk souring relations with Yura or her family over this, and besides, he found Yurin kind of cute. Seeing Yura's top-celebrity-level beauty up close, Seon-ah thought Yurin could grow into a stunning woman—someone worth befriending.
"More than that, the physical strength gap was bigger than I expected," Seon-ah mused. When Yurin grabbed his wrist and forced their lips together, it wasn't arousal he felt but a hollow laugh and a stark realization: men were physically weaker than women here. He'd assumed kids their age would have similar strength regardless of gender, but he was wrong.
He also couldn't help but smile at Yurin's silly expression as she kept bumping their lips together—it wasn't even a kiss, just clumsy collisions. Yet Yura's gaze, treating him as a victim, made him acutely aware of how his sexual worldview had shifted. Despite retaining memories and values from a past life into his late twenties, growing up "like a girl" in this world would inevitably change his body and mind. That was something Seon-ah refused to accept.
The thought of himself acting coy and cutesy like a girl gave him chills. And the women of this world? No matter how pretty, they lacked any allure—spreading their legs casually, speaking like gruff old men, burping after meals, smoking, wiping their faces with wet towels. It was a shock he couldn't get over. Even if he was "chewable" by their standards, this was too much. It'd be a disaster for dating.
Then it hit him: "The opposite perspective?"
A brilliant idea formed. He'd raise a girl to fit his tastes—treat another girl "like a woman from his past life." No matter how reversed this world was, he didn't have to conform. He recalled a saying: treat a man like a woman, and he'll act like one. So why not "correct" a girl's behavior the same way?
"If I treat her like a woman from my past life, I can preserve my own masculinity too," he thought. A win-win: shaping a girl to his liking while maintaining his identity.
To pick a target, Seon-ah mentally listed criteria: a girl his age, likely to grow into a beauty, useful in life, and eager to befriend him. "Yurin fits perfectly," he concluded.
The benefits were obvious. Getting close to Yura, his boss, would help his mother, and he could mold Yurin into his ideal girl. If they grew up and even married, this life might be worry-free. With his goal set, he considered his appeal—his looks seemed to work well on this world's women—and decided starting as childhood friends was the best approach.
Seon-ah began planning how to become Yurin's playmate.
"Distance breeds distance; closeness breeds closeness." A truth about relationships he'd learned in his past life.
If they spent daycare's two mandatory years, six years of elementary, three of middle, and three of high school together—14 years total—they'd be inseparable. In rational terms, such a long friendship might complicate romance, but Seon-ah had other plans. He intended frequent physical closeness with Yurin, making her crave his presence. When Yurin couldn't hold back, Seon-ah would use light touch and mental conditioning to shape her perfectly.
To pull this off, he needed to see Yurin often in the same space. "First, I'll switch daycares," he decided.
From past chats with Yurin, he'd learned the name of her daycare and found it was just a 10-minute drive from his own. He liked his current teachers and friends, but those bonds were fleeting. Long-term, a "friend" he'd rely on mattered more.
He told his parents he wanted to attend Yurin's daycare instead.
+
That evening, after Mina's family left, Yura sternly reprimanded her daughter about how she usually treated her daycare friends.
"Yurin, the way you treat your friends and others will come back to you just the same."
Yurin rarely got scolded by her mother like this. Yura was often away from home due to her busy work schedule.
"If you treat people well, they'll treat you well in return. And when they do, you should treat them well too—that's how you live in this world. If you want praise, do something praiseworthy. If you want something from someone, you have to do something worthy of it for them first."
It was the same advice the daycare teachers constantly gave her. Taking this incident as an opportunity, Yura began dedicating weekend evenings to educating her daughter. Since that day, Yurin felt her mother becoming more strict and forceful with her. Reluctantly, Yurin started listening to her.
After that day, Yurin found herself exhausted every weekend evening. Her mother, Park Yura, would drink and repeat the same lecture about "what you do comes back to you" under the guise of discipline. It was like a broken tape stuck on repeat—annoying, yet it drilled itself into her head.
Then, one day, Seon-ah joined Yurin's daycare. Being the same age, he was placed in the same class. Seeing Seon-ah again for the first time since the incident, Yurin noticed he didn't bring up the mistake from before. Grateful that Seon-ah had saved her from a harsh scolding that day, Yurin wanted to get closer to him.
"He's pretty too," Yurin thought. Honestly, the other kids weren't as pretty as Seon-ah, so she never felt like kissing them. But the biggest reason she wanted to befriend Seon-ah was that she had almost no friends at daycare—none at all, really. Yurin's mischievous nature often led her to push or hit others as a prank, so the other kids avoided playing with her.
In that situation, she wanted to hang out with Seon-ah, who she liked, and maybe even kiss him again like before. To her surprise, Seon-ah approached her first, offering a handshake and suggesting they become friends.
Even after Seon-ah started attending the same daycare, Yurin couldn't always hold back her playful impulses or minor squabbles with other kids. She worried that her rowdy behavior might drive Seon-ah away like the others, but Seon-ah kept coming closer despite it. Watching this, Yurin felt a mix of emotions. She realized Seon-ah genuinely liked her and was different from the other kids. To Yurin, Seon-ah became someone special—a true friend who understood and stuck by her.
One day, as they hung out together and Yurin gazed at Seon-ah's pretty face while listening to him talk, words slipped out of her mouth unbidden:
"I want to kiss you again."
"Oh no, what did I just say?" Startled, Yurin covered her mouth, but Seon-ah giggled with his cute face and replied, "If you do what I say, I'll let you kiss me. Want to?"
It was just a thoughtless slip, but Seon-ah's offer was real.
"For real?" Yurin asked.
"Of course," Seon-ah replied.
The kiss with Seon-ah last time had felt so good—soft, warm, and comforting, with Seon-ah's sweet scent lingering. Eager to kiss him again, Yurin asked, "What do I have to do?"
"Let's go apologize to Si-woo, who you fought with yesterday. Then I'll kiss you."
Yurin had thought Seon-ah understood her, but now she felt a twinge of betrayal. Maybe Seon-ah wasn't accepting her but tolerating her behavior instead.
"Why do I have to apologize? And why go together? It's got nothing to do with you."
"I don't think you were wrong yesterday," Seon-ah said. "But I don't want you to have bad relationships with the other kids. I'm on your side."
Thinking back on all the time Seon-ah had spent with her, Yurin didn't want to believe his words were a lie. Plus, she'd have to listen to Seon-ah if she wanted that kiss. Seeing Yurin hesitate with a cute, troubled expression, Seon-ah added,
"You know, last time you kissed me. This time, I'll kiss you instead."
"Seon-ah's going to kiss me himself?" The scales tipped quickly in Yurin's mind. She wasn't one to refuse something a cute boy offered—it just wasn't in her nature.