"Uncle, this may be rude, but what did you want to talk about earlier?"

Halfway through the meal, Yeo Ri raised her head questioningly . She had almost forgotten that Heo Woo Seung had wanted to ask her something .

"Ah, yes . . . " He pursed his lips into a tight smile, "Don't worry about it . Finish eating first . You can take your time . "

Heo Woo Seung hid his nervousness as he s.h.i.+fted in his seat . Yeo Ri was about to finish eating, yet he still did not have the guts to open his mouth . Sooner or later, he had to tell her the truth .

But he was scared . How would she react? Will she hate him? Will she look at him as if he was a b*stard? He was just too afraid to know .

The closer they were to finis.h.i.+ng the meal, the more nervous he became . Thanks to that, he didn't even touch the food spread out in front of him .

Because there was just too much food, Yeo Ri was already full by the time she finished a bowl of her noodles and half a bowl of rice . There were a lot of leftovers left . Years of penny-pinching taught her not to be wasteful, so she felt that it was a pity that she didn't have a bigger stomach to consume everything that was left .

"Uncle, can I bring back the leftovers? It's a pity to just leave them," Yeo Ri requested .

"Oh, yes! Of course," Heo Woo Seung was snapped out of his thoughts and nodded towards the girl . "Go ahead," he says . He called for a waiter and instructed them to pack the leftovers .

" . . . "

" . . . "

The two waited in silence .

Yeo Ri looked at the older man with a curious gaze . She wondered what it was that he wanted to talk about . It must have been quite important, since he even brought her out to eat at such an expensive place .

"Uncle?" She urged the man to speak . "About the thing you wanted to talk about . . . ?"

"Yes . . . " Heo Woo Seung grimaced . He wondered how he should approach the subject . She might be too surprised so he should just . . . take it slow . It wasn't that he wanted to hide it, but rather, he was afraid .

"How is Gun?" He started . "I heard he placed first again recently?"

"Yes . I'm very proud of him," Yeo Ri beamed .

"That's great," he smiled placidly . His heart thumped loudly . He really shouldn't dawdle .

" . . . "

" . . . "

Another bout of silence made its way into the room .

Yeo Ri was rather befuddled . Did he just take her out to eat to ask about Gun's performance in the recent exams? She had a feeling that that was not the case .

The waiter from before came back, and placed a paper bag filled with packed food containers at the side of the table . Heo Woo Seung stopped him before he exited the room, asking for the bill . He took out a credit card and pa.s.sed it to the waiter .

This allowed them to have some privacy .

"Yeo Ri-ah, I . . . "

After struggling to arrange his words for a long time, he finally spoke .

"There's something you need to know . "

Yeo Ri straightened her back . She felt like there was something foreboding about his words, and the man in front of her seemed to want to speak about something serious . She poured all her attention on the man .

Heo Woo Seung rummaged the inside of his suit coat and took out an object . He slid it on the table, showing her the thing .

It was a picture .

On the picture, a man and a woman stood next to each other, smiling to the camera . The woman held a bouquet of flowers, and the man looked at her with an affectionate gaze . The woman was strikingly similar to her, while the man had some resemblance to Jin Goo . Perhaps, in ten years or so, Jin Goo would have looked similar to the man in the picture .

"!" Yeo Ri stifled her gasp . She looked at the picture with an uncomprehending gaze . She reached out to touch it with trembling hands, intending to scrutinise it closely .

"W-what is this?" She was so shocked that she did not realise that she had dropped the honourifics, asking the man informally .

Heo Woo Seung looked away from the trembling girl with a remorseful look on his face . "You might not believe it, but . . . I am your father . "