The heritage of the stud farm

-

Esteemed Sir,

Following our recent telephone conversation, I hereby confirm that your great-uncle Kim Seokjin has designated you as his principal heir. You are presently the owner of the domain of the Great Pines as well as the stud farm.

I invite you to meet with me upon your arrival in Cheongsong, so I may give you the details of the will procedure and hand you the necessary papers.

Yours faithfully, Master Park.

-

When Kim Taehyung learned that he was heir to a stud farm, he felt sad at first. One does not inherit anything if there is no death after all, even if he had never really known Kim Seokjin. He had heard about him, of course, from family members in passing or in newspapers about equestrianism. The sport had only recently become popular in South Korea, so a man who had won so many awards had made himself known.

Then came the pride. That he was chosen over anyone else and trusted to handle such a large field gave his ego a big boost. Taehyung had also grown up with horses and to have the chance to run a club if he so desired was a great opportunity. And all that at nineteen only.

With his family, Taehyung had mainly lived in Japan when he was younger. The land for riding was bigger and there were some fine horses. But he had also traveled a lot since; to Italy, France and even the USA. Thus, he had to fly here from China, his most recent trip for his studies.

Finding the village itself was easy, there wasn't much in the region. It was a bit of an isolated area, with few inhabitants and few stores open. The stud farm was not the only thing left abandoned, it seemed. What was hard was to find the notary's study.

The village was so remote that he had not found a map to navigate it, and Taehyung was starting to go in circles. He had spotted a few houses, a convenience store, a coffee shop, a place of worship, and a small park, but everything else was closed.

He was getting hot in his sweatshirt and his skin was chafing, the young man regretted not taking a t-shirt instead, but he had feared it would start to rain.

Suddenly, he received a call. The caller was Park Dongjoo, a well-known rider now jury for competitions he had followed since childhood. He had met him at one of his first competitions in which the man was the jury. He had become friends with him and since then he regularly received advice from him.

"Hi, I just wanted to wish you good luck. Say, it's a new life starting for you, you must be awfully happy!" Dongjoo exclaimed.

"It's really nice of you to call me, hyung. Thank you for your support, I have a feeling I'll need it."

"Well, I'll leave you to it, I guess you have a lot of things to do. I'll call you back later. In the meantime, I wish you good luck. Bye."

And with that, the call ended. When Taehyung looked forward, he saw a little girl of about eight years old walking in his direction. She was wearing a purple vest, large blue pants, and had cute little brown pigtails on each side of her face.

"Hi! Are you lost?" she asked innocently, moving from tiptoe to heel with her feets.

"Hmm...well it looks like it." Taehyung confirmed with a small laugh, running his hand through his hair in his discomfort.

"The village isn't very big though. By the way, I'm Kim Geongmin." she introduced herself, bowing, and he did the same.

"And I'm Kim Seokjin's little nephew...Nice to meet you Geongmin."