Second to None

chapter 19

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The first time Rael realized he’d lost control of his life, Hana was eighteen months old and had just made his HR director quit.

Her name was Clara. Sharp blazer, sharper tongue, and the kind of competence that made shareholders listen. She walked into Rael’s Zurich office with a stack of quarterly reports, smiled at Rael, and said, “Mr. Han, if we could—”

That was as far as she got.

Hana, sitting on Rael’s lap, took one look at her, crawled straight up Rael’s chest, wrapped both arms around his neck, and screamed like the building was on fire.

Then she pointed at Clara and shouted, “Mine!”

Clara blinked. Rael blinked. Hana burrowed into Rael’s shirt and refused to let go.

She didn’t quit that day. She quit the next morning, via email, with a very polite note about “misaligned workplace dynamics.”

Rael stared at the email for a long time. Then he called Sung-ho.

Kim Sung-ho was forty-two, married, had two sons, and absolutely no interest in Rael’s love life. He became Rael’s new assistant the next week. Hana approved. She climbed into his lap during board meetings, stole his crackers, and called him “Uncle.”

No more women near Appa. That was Hana’s first law.

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Hana was dramatic. Painfully, theatrically dramatic.

She cried if her banana broke in half. She cried if Rael looked at his phone instead of her for more than ten seconds. She cried if the Zurich sky was gray, and she cried if it was blue because the sun was “too loud.”

But she only ever cried real tears for Rael.

The nanny learned this the hard way. She tried to put Hana to bed one night while Rael was on a shareholder call. Hana screamed for forty-five minutes straight. The second Rael walked in, tie loosened, eyes tired, she stopped. Instantly. She held out her arms and said, “Appa.”

He picked her up. She buried her face in his neck and went limp, like he was the only thing holding her together.

He was.

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Hana looked exactly like him.

Thick, dark hair that stuck up no matter how much Sung-ho tried to comb it. Sharp, dark eyes that studied people like she was deciding whether they were worth her time. The same scowl when she didn’t get her way. She had none of Sora’s features. Not the softness of her mouth, not the curve of her nose, not even the way she tilted her head when she was thinking.

If someone asked who Hana took after, the answer was obvious. She was Rael Han, shrunk down and given twice the volume.

But she reminded him of Sora anyway.

Not in looks. In the way she’d grab his face with both hands and stare into his eyes like she was trying to read him. In the way she’d whisper “Appa” when she was scared, and expect him to fix it. In the way she’d fall asleep on his chest after a tantrum and squeeze his shirt like she was afraid he’d disappear.

Sometimes, when she was half-asleep, he’d murmur Sora’s name without meaning to. Hana wouldn’t understand. But she’d squeeze tighter, like she knew.

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Rael’s mother thought he was lonely.

“You work too much,” she said during one of their weekly calls to Zurich. “You need a woman. For Hana.”

“I have Hana,” Rael replied.

“That’s not the point,” she snapped. “I’m setting you up. Next month. Zurich. Nice restaurant. Don’t cancel.”

He canceled. She booked it anyway.

So one Friday night, Rael walked into Restaurant Metropol in a black suit, Hana in a tiny navy dress on his hip, and found a very pretty woman waiting at the table. She smiled. Hana did not.

Within five minutes, Hana decided she hated this.

She climbed onto the table.

She started dancing.

Badly. Arms flailing, dress spinning, Rael’s mother’s voice ringing in his head: _Be polite, Hana._

Then she grabbed the teapot.

The woman shrieked as hot tea poured down her silk blouse. Hana looked delighted.

“Bad!” Rael hissed, grabbing her off the table.

Hana burst into tears. Real, wailing, heartbreaking tears. “Appa yelled at me!”

The date left. Rael’s mother called him ten minutes later: “You’re raising a monster.”

Rael looked down at Hana, still crying in his arms, and sighed. “I know.”

On the way home, Hana fell asleep against his shoulder. In the quiet of the car, she mumbled: “Sora…”

Rael froze.

He’d said that name in his sleep before. When Hana had a fever at 2 AM. When he’d held her through a nightmare. He didn’t think she’d heard.

But she had.

“Hana,” he said carefully, once they were home. “Where did you hear that name?”

She didn’t answer. She was asleep. But her little hand clutched his shirt like she knew exactly what she’d said.

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Two weeks later, Rael tried again. This time it was a charity gala. He thought if Hana was in a stroller, she wouldn’t cause problems.

He was wrong.

The woman he was talking to leaned in to ask about Hanwu’s new AI branch. Hana, sitting in the stroller, reached up and grabbed the woman’s necklace.

“Mine,” she declared.

The woman laughed nervously. “Oh, she’s cute—”

Hana yanked. The necklace snapped. Pearls scattered across the marble floor.

Rael dropped to his knees to pick them up. Hana took the opportunity to climb out of the stroller, grab his tie, and yell: “Appa, pay attention to me!”

The woman left. Again.

Sung-ho, standing nearby, just sighed. “Sir, maybe we stop doing this.”

Rael looked at Hana, who was now grinning like she’d won a war. “Maybe,” he said.

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Hana was smart. Too smart for three.

She started asking questions around her third birthday.

“Appa, why do you say Sora when you sleep?”

Rael froze, mid-email. “I don’t.”

“You do,” she said matter-of-factly. “You say it when you think I’m asleep.”

He closed his laptop. “Hana, Sora is… someone important. From a long time ago.”

“Is she my mommy?”

Rael’s throat closed. He’d prepared for this. He had answers. He had a whole speech about how moms come in different ways, how Hana was loved, how—

Hana beat him to it.

“I think she is,” Hana said. “Because when you say her name, you sound sad. And I don’t like it when you’re sad.”

Then she crawled into his lap and hugged him.

Rael held her and didn’t say anything. Because she was right.

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After the blind date, after the necklace, after she said Sora’s name out loud, Rael stopped pretending.

Hana wasn’t just his daughter. She was his weakness. She was the reason he’d left Korea, why he’d gone radio silent, why he’d turned down three board seats and a merger deal. She was why he’d built a life in Zurich where no one knew who he used to be.

She was mischievous, dramatic, and 100% him. She chased away any woman who came near him. She cried if he looked at his phone. She danced on tables and blamed it on him. She looked exactly like him and had none of Sora’s genes.

And she was his entire world.

Sometimes, late at night, he’d hold her sleeping body and whisper the name he wasn’t supposed to say: “Sora.”

Hana would stir, grab his finger, and mumble back: “Appa.”

That was enough. For now.

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