IOB Ch 21

Sunjoo’s son came to see me.

His name is Choi Yisak. To think he is already thirty years old. How many years has it been since I last saw Yisak? Was it about twenty years?

After turning sixty, time often feels distorted. When I faced Yisak standing idly in front of the rice cake shop, I felt like I had returned to the time when Sunjoo was alive. The handsome young man before me and a scared little child overlapped in my vision.

“I am Choi Yisak. You are Ms. Jung Maehwa, correct?”

So when the child abruptly uttered his first words along with a business card, I was not that surprised. It felt as if what was meant to happen had happened. As if I had always known I would meet Yisak again someday, a sense of welcome and déjà vu arose simultaneously.

“Come in.”

I had not opened the rice cake shop yet. Business is ruined for today. I needed to get back to work diligently, especially after having closed the shop for several months.

Yisak seemed to be intrigued by me, who was neither surprised nor asking any questions. He followed me with a somewhat wary face. I opened the door attached to the inside of the shop and beckoned to Yisak with my finger.

“Take your shoes off.”

Yisak placed his shoes neatly in front of the door. The toes of his shoes were perfectly aligned, not crooked in the least. He really does take after Sunjoo, I thought. Sunjoo was good at organizing and tidying up ever since her childhood days at the orphanage.

I flopped down onto the floor of the room. The old yellow linoleum was dotted with burn marks from cigarette butts. Damn bastards. No matter how much I nagged, the gamblers would smoke in here.

Yisak looked around the room, which was about 5 pyeong, and then sat on the floor with an uncomfortable expression. He is so clean-cut and handsome. His suit looked expensive, and his skin was glowing. I had thought he would grow up to be a handsome man since he was a child, but he had grown up to be much more handsome than I had imagined.

Sunjoo would be happy to see him from the afterlife. She was someone who horribly doted on her son, her only flesh and blood.

“How did you come all the way here?”

I thought he would talk about Sunjoo. What other common ground is there between him and me? The anniversary of Sunjoo’s death was not far off, so I assumed he must have had some change of heart and came to find me. But an unexpected name came out of Yisak’s mouth.

“There is something I would like to ask you about Woo Seonrim.”

“Hmm?”

“I heard you are Seonrim’s aunt. I also know that Woo Seonrim stayed here for a little while a few months ago.”

“How do you know that child?”

At first, I wondered if my hearing had gone bad in my old age. But then, as I rummaged through old memories, I remembered a time when Seonrim and Yisak had briefly met. But that was a very long time ago. There is no way the two of them would have kept in touch until now. I, too, had no idea of Seonrim’s whereabouts until a little while ago.

Yisak was momentarily flustered by my reaction. His light-colored eyes darted back and forth.

“This has been a little strange from a moment ago, but…”

Yisak hesitated before opening his mouth.

“Do you know me? For some reason, I feel like I have met you before. This place too, strangely… looks familiar.”

“So you are not here because of Sunjoo.”

At his mother’s name, Yisak flinched his shoulders.

“Pardon? How do you know my mother…”

“Then how do you know Woo Seonrim?”

I was dumbfounded as I heard the whole story from Yisak.

How could there be such a coincidence? No, at this point, is this fate? To think their grown children would get entangled with each other. In the midst of my bewilderment, I also felt a sense of relief. Yisak’s face, as he told his story with Seonrim, was full of affection.

The two children had a tough and strange connection. Since two are much better than one, it was to the point where I wondered if Sunjoo and Hwiseon had pulled some strings from the afterlife to bring them together.

In Yisak’s face, I see the nostalgic face of someone who left a very long time ago. He resembles Sunjoo. The feeling of time twisting once again enveloped my body. It felt like I was sitting in the backyard of the orphanage after a long time. It was a fitting moment to begin an old story.

۶ৎ

We were family from the same orphanage. When Hwiseon and Sunjoo entered the orphanage side by side, I was already a senior that even the childcare teachers could not handle, and I was the big unnie to all the girls. I had the duty to teach the newly arrived 6-year-old children and help them adapt quickly.

It was said that the two children had lost their families in the great hotel fire that had been all over the newspapers a while back. Sunjoo had come up to the capital with her family for the holiday and lost not only her parents but also her cousins, and Hwiseon’s single father was a contract cleaner working at the hotel at that time.

They were children with different life circumstances and backgrounds, but they had experienced death and separation through the same incident. Perhaps because of that, even though they had not known each other before, the two of them were like sisters from the very beginning.

They were very special. They kept their distance from the other children and were so noticeably attached to each other that I nagged them a few times. But they paid no mind and did not let go of each other’s hands. They thought of each other as destiny. Saying that even the fact that their names shared the same character must be some kind of sign.

“When we have children later, let’s put ‘Seon’ in our kids’ names too. Like a generational name.”

One day, I heard Sunjoo and Hwiseon whispering. It was a day I had stopped by to see the kids after a long time, having left the orphanage after coming of age.

Even at an age when they had reached puberty, the two children were still the same. Isn’t that a bit peculiar? They aren’t even real family. I thought so, holding a fruit juice in each hand. Their faces were close.

Suddenly, I remembered the incident that had caused a stir in the industrial complex area. It was about two factory girls who were caught kissing by the site manager. The two were kicked out right away for lewd behavior during work hours. Of course, they did not receive their wages for the work they had done up to that day.

Such things happened often in girls’ schools as well, so everyone was keeping it quiet. I wondered if I should have stopped them in the end. After all, it was strange for girls to act like that with each other. It was the kind of thing where you could not even protest if you were kicked out of the factory barefoot.

I often visited the orphanage to check on the two of them. To me, who had been abandoned at the gate of the orphanage as a newborn, that place was no different from a hometown, so it was not easy to sever my attachment to it.

Then, around the time I quit my factory job and started making big money by seriously jumping into the gambling scene, Hwiseon and Sunjoo were of age to leave the orphanage and were looking for jobs.

I searched all over the country and arranged workplaces for them where they could have room and board. Sunjoo, who had been a good singer since she was young, went down to the provinces and got a job at a bar run by an acquaintance of mine. Hwiseon started working as a clerk at a lawyer’s office near the orphanage. The two naturally came to live apart.

Having seen the two children I was most concerned about at the orphanage become independent, I was at ease for a while. That was until I heard that Sunjoo had gone to Hwiseon’s place and caused a suicide commotion.

۶ৎ

“Unnie, how can Hwiseon do this to me? She says she’s going to marry that old guy. She says she won’t see me anymore. These days, she doesn’t even reply to my letters.”

Sunjoo cried so hard she was gasping for breath. The child who was always sensitive about cleanliness and acted neatly was drooling tears and snot, unable to pull herself together.

“You crazy thing. If Hwiseon is getting married, you should congratulate her.”

I chided Sunjoo out of a stuffy feeling in my heart.

“I don’t want to. I said I don’t want to……. I know Seon the best, why should I have to lose Seon to someone else?”

“Do you never get to see her again if she gets married? What do you mean, lose her.”

“Unnie, do you really want that child Seon to get married?”

To be honest, I did not like the guy Hwiseon was marrying either. He was said to be a businessman 10 years her senior whom she met through an introduction. The man was a bit ugly, but he had a lot of money saved up, and also… he would probably treat Hwiseon well. With such a pretty and young bride.

I tried to think as positively as possible. In that era, women who lived as singles like me went through many hardships. As for me, I had chosen to live by handling dirty money, and my personality was shitty, so it was bearable.

However, Hwiseon had a weak disposition and always had a side to her that looked for someone to rely on, so she would not have been able to endure it alone. She needed a pillar to lean on. Sunjoo wanted to be that pillar herself, but it did not work out as she wished.

It was that kind of time. For one single woman or two single women, life was tough all the same. Besides, the two were orphans with no family and no proper education. I did not want to drag them into the work I was doing. In the end. They had few options. Tragically.

The news of the marriage of Hwiseon, who was the most beautiful girl in the neighborhood, was a hot topic for a while. Sunjoo was not the only one crying and making a fuss. A guy named Won Jinmyeong, a schoolmate of Hwiseon’s, threw the biggest tantrum. Besides him, men who secretly admired Hwiseon would send tear-soaked letters.

Even I, deep down, did not fully trust Hwiseon’s partner, so I could not actively push for the marriage. Although I had sternly laid down the law to Sunjoo, pretending that this was the way to help Hwiseon. When I was alone with Hwiseon, I asked her carefully.

“Hwiseon, that, couldn’t there be a better guy? Twenty-four is still very young, to already be……. You can think about it a few years later.”

“No. I have to decide quickly now. That’s better.”

“Do you like that man?”

“It’s for Sunjoo. If I don’t leave, Sunjoo will become more and more obsessed with me.”

“……”

“This kind of thing is abnormal. Right, unnie.”

“That’s right……”

I could see Hwiseon trembling and holding back her tears. For a long time after that, I mulled over this moment. What would have been the best thing for me to say? Would something have changed if I had told her it was okay to be with Sunjoo?

Not long after, Hwiseon started looking at wedding halls. The relationship between Hwiseon and Sunjoo soured uncontrollably. I thought that was how their childhood connection would be severed and Hwiseon would start a family.

The situation flowed in an unexpected direction.

A call came from Sunjoo, who had not been coming to the bar for a long time and had disappeared without a trace.

“I’m pregnant.”

The father of the baby was President Choi Byunggwan of Jaeyoo Construction. He was a gentleman I knew as well.

He was such a big shot in the private loan industry that there was a joke a few years ago that half of the gamblers borrowed money from Choi Byunggwan. He was the most successful among the gangsters who came up to the capital from a small provincial city, and then he made a fortune in real estate and established a construction company in the open, becoming a respectable president.

And Lee Sunjoo was carrying that man’s child. At first, I thought I had heard wrong. Sunjoo said she was going to live as Choi Byunggwan’s concubine.

“Are you crazy?”

Sunjoo mumbled, clutching her stomach, which did not yet show signs of pregnancy.

“Because there is no law that says only Hwiseon can make a family.”

His face looked very worn out in the time I had not seen him. I did not understand why Sunjoo, who had no desire for wealth, had made such a choice.

“Hwiseon says she dislikes me. Then I have no reason to live, do I? This child will become a new meaning for me. Yes, definitely.”

“You really have gone crazy. Are you so short of men that you would get involved with President Choi?”

“He was the richest among the men who hit on me. That is all.”

“Sunjoo, you’ll have a dog’s life if you go into that house. How many weeks are you? Let’s get rid of the baby. I’ll find a doctor for you…”

“I’m going to have it. I might become unhappy with this choice. It’s as good as Hwiseon having made me this way. I want her to regret it. We were the only true family. I want Hwiseon to see what the price is for abandoning that family first.”

“You crazy thing.”

Sunjoo made a choice that was no different from self-harm. For the sole reason of wanting to show off her unhappiness to Hwiseon. I could not slap a pregnant woman to bring her to her senses. I could only stare blankly as Sunjoo fell apart.

Perhaps Hwiseon and Sunjoo were fated to be together. It was a moment when Sunjoo’s stubborn assertion felt plausible.

A short while after Sunjoo entered Choi Byunggwan’s house with a pregnant belly, the company run by Hwiseon’s fiancé went bankrupt. It seems he had been hiding the company’s already unstable finances from Hwiseon. The wedding was called off just like that.

“Don’t tell Sunjoo, unnie.”

Hwiseon mumbled that they should keep it a secret that the wedding was off, saying only the date had been postponed. It was already a situation where nothing could be undone.

At that time, Jaeyoo Construction was on a roll. Wouldn’t the life of a rich man’s new wife be happier than that of a singer in a cheap bar? We just hoped that the new life Sunjoo had chosen for herself would not be too painful.

A short while later, Sunjoo gave birth to a son. A single letter arrived for me, informing me that the child’s name was Choi Yisak. And for nearly 10 years after that, I had no news of Sunjoo.

۶ৎ

“Unnie, please help me. I can’t live like this.”

A phone call came to the rice cake shop in the middle of the night. On the other end of the line, Sunjoo was crying.

It was not long after I had moved down from Seoul to Gumi and settled in. A Hwatu game was in full swing, so the small back room was noisy, and I was in the middle of calculating the bribe money to slip to the officer this month.

Hwiseon was next to me, helping with the final cleanup of the shop. Her moving date was left hanging in the middle, so she had decided to stay at my place with her child for a few weeks. I had kept in touch with Hwiseon, but it had been a long time since I had seen her face.

The last time I saw her, Hwiseon’s son had not yet taken his first steps. The child, who had turned seven, was beautiful like Hwiseon. His facial lines were so fine and his hair so long that he could be mistaken for a girl.

Of all times, for Sunjoo to call when I was with Hwiseon. I thought it was a tough and strange fate. If I had known it would be like this, I should have just cheered them on back when they were pressing their faces together like they were about to rub lips.

I put down the bills I was holding and let out a sigh.

“Sunjoo?”

As I spoke into the phone, Hwiseon, who was next to me, flinched. Hwiseon’s son was sitting blankly in the corner, staring into space with unfocused eyes.

Sunjoo said she wanted to run away from home but called because I was the only person she could think of to get help from. Her voice was so desperate and cornered that I could not bring myself to refuse her. Even though it had been 10 years since we had last been in touch, she still felt like close family.

Was it because I had lived my whole life alone, without a child or a husband? To me, the orphanage children still seemed like important beings that I had to look after.

“Come here first.”

I was thinking I would ask around and somehow create a position for her to make a living, or if Sunjoo wanted, I would look into a boat she could secretly take to China or Southeast Asia.

After hanging up the phone, I told Hwiseon the situation, and Hwiseon reacted with surprising calmness.

“It’s been a while since I will see her.”

I glanced at Hwiseon’s son, who was stuck quietly in the corner, and said.

“Sunjoo doesn’t know, does she?”

“No.”

“She’ll be surprised when she comes and sees him.”

Hwiseon, with a face as pale as her son’s, gave a faint smile and silently went back to washing the dishes.

When Hwiseon first told me about the baby, my head ached and I felt dizzy thinking of Sunjoo. After breaking off her engagement, she had been living and working office jobs, moving from company to company, and then she suddenly said she was pregnant.

She never told me who the baby’s father was. When she said she would give birth and raise the child alone, my vision went dizzier than it had with Sunjoo. I even harshly reprimanded her several times, saying it would be better to live as a second wife, but Hwiseon would not bend her will.

On the outside, Sunjoo seemed like the more peculiar and fiery child, but in truth, wasn’t Hwiseon the truly strange one? She was always quiet and expressionless, so you never knew what she was thinking. At least Sunjoo was transparent.

Why do you two take turns being such a pain in the ass? When I said this with a sigh, half-giving up as I bought her baby clothes, Hwiseon laughed out loud, a rare occurrence, and said.

I guess it really is fate.

It was a frustrating story.

۶ৎ

Sunjoo, whom I saw after a long time, looked rather shabby for a rich man’s wife. She had come in a hurry, breaking through tight security, so she was almost empty-handed. Her clothes were thin for the middle of winter, and her skin exposed to the air was red and chapped.

But Sunjoo’s son was, to anyone’s eyes, a young master of noble birth. He wore a high-quality scarf and glanced at me. He seemed like a timid boy. A child for whom reading others’ expressions and living cautiously had become a habit since birth.

“So you are Yisak.”

Sunjoo said as she patted the child’s back.

“Mommy told you, right? This is Aunt Maehwa. Hurry and greet her, Seon.”

Sunjoo called her son by his nickname as usual, then paused. Seon. Only then did a piece of a conversation I had heard a long time ago come back to my mind.

‘When we have children later, let’s put Seon in our kids’ names too. Like a generational name.’

A hollow laugh escaped me. I had thought she had forgotten her promise with Hwiseon, but she had not. Choi Yisak. Nowhere in the three characters of the child’s name was there a ‘Seon’, yet she was calling him Seon. The child accepted his unusual nickname as if it were familiar.

Drrrr, at that moment, the rice cake shop door slid open, and a round head popped out. Sunjoo looked surprised by the sudden appearance of the child. Then, seeing Hwiseon appear behind the child, her face hardened.

After a moment of silence, a voice filled with breathy sounds echoed through the air.

“……Hwiseon.”

“It’s been a long time.”

Only after hearing those two phrases did I deeply realize. No matter how much they tried to deny it, what passed between those two was unmistakably love.

The two loved each other. From their childhood when they first met to the moment they reunited with their respective sons by their sides. The love had never waned.

It would have been good if the two had become a family. Though if such a life had been possible, these two children would not have existed in the world.

It is clear that the deeper and more intense love is, the more of a pain in the ass it becomes. Around that time, watching the four people with different last names, I became certain of it. Woo Seonrim, Choi Yisak, Lee Sunjoo, Kim Hwiseon. I thought, so this is how a strange fate is tied into such a tragedy. Because in the end, Sunjoo was caught by Choi Byunggwan again not long after.

I did not know then that that moment would be the starting point of another strange fate.

۶ৎ

After hearing my story, Yisak fell into a long silence. I waited quietly until Yisak opened his mouth. While pointlessly tidying up the newspapers messily spread out in the corner of the small room.

I was somewhat exhausted. I had just returned after shutting down all the illegal gambling houses I managed during the several months the rice cake shop was closed. There was no particular reason for abruptly closing down the business.

It was getting harder to evade crackdowns unless it was in some remote backwater, and I figured I had earned enough money. Besides, I have no children or siblings to pass my fortune on to. I just wanted to continue with the rice cake shop I started for money laundering and die a boring death.

It was always a thought I had, but I had not planned to wrap everything up so suddenly. I had intended to live as usual at least until this year. But a few months ago, my mind changed after hearing about what had happened from Seonrim, who had returned to Korea.

My mother is dead. Seonrim’s face was calm as she recited the news of the death. Her voice was serene as she described, one by one, what she had gone through.

‘It’s not a big deal, but just so you know, Auntie.’

It was a story that would have landed Seonrim in prison without a doubt if he had breathed a word of it anywhere. I do not know why he confided in me. Perhaps even that seemingly emotionless child felt the need to pour everything out at least once.

‘Unnie, he’s my son, but I’m scared of him. I don’t know what he’s thinking.’

Perhaps because she had suffered from severe postpartum depression, Hwiseon could not seem to form an attachment to her son. It must have also been overwhelming to raise him alone. She often used to mutter that her son did not seem human.

I also thought that Seonrim was not an ordinary child. But whether he was a chilling child without a single emotion, I do not know. Maybe… just maybe, he is like that because he never learned how to rely on others. Because he has not yet found someone to give his heart to. Well, Hwiseon was not a good mother.

But I do not want to blame Hwiseon deliberately either. A completely evil person is a concept that cannot exist anyway. And not all mothers can be good and sacrificial. I knew I was not cut out for that, so I did not have a child in the first place.

Kim Hwiseon’s end was very gruesome, so it could be considered that she left this world having paid for her sins to some extent. Maybe I am taking Hwiseon’s side too much. I cannot help it. That child was always precious to me.

While I was lost in thought about Hwiseon, Yisak broke the long silence and opened his mouth.

“……I remember now.”

“You do?”

“When I was eleven, I came here with my mom. Yes, that’s right……. I met Woo Seonrim here, too. Why had I forgotten?”

“Because you only stayed for a few days before leaving right away. It’s understandable that you forgot.”

“……”

“While you were staying, you and Seonrim did play well together.”

The image of two round, black crowns of heads sitting side by side suddenly came to mind. Seonrim, who had always been stuck in a corner, was particularly fond of Yisak, and his face suddenly came to life. He tried not to leave Yisak’s side, so much so that anyone who saw them would have thought they were real brothers.

Yisak sighed softly and then rubbed his face roughly with his hands.

“I should not have forgotten.”

“Why? What did you do with Seonrim back then?”

“……”

“If you don’t want to talk about it, then don’t.”

“More than anything, I… thought he was a girl…”

“It’s easy to mistake him. He was pretty, wasn’t he? Is he still pretty these days?”

“Yes……. Pardon?”

Yisak, who had been staring blankly at the old linoleum floor, snapped his head up.

“I thought he was so big he was grotesque. But he looks pretty to you.”

“Well. If you just look at his face……. But why are we talking about this.”

“There’s no need to be so solemn. Should we cry then?”

“……No. Just tell me about Woo Seonrim. Is there anything else you’ve heard?”

“There is. But hear it from him yourself.”

“But.”

Yisak hesitated and then said he was worried about Seonrim.

“I think he was being held by a strange group. I’m worried that those bastards might harm Woo Seonrim again.”

“Everyone there is dead.”

“……Woo Seonrim said so too.”

“Yeah. Everyone is dead, so don’t worry.”

“You know something more in detail, don’t you, Auntie.”

“Just listen to what he tells you and leave it at that. Why do you want to know everything so badly?”

I did not feel like blabbing on about how Seonrim was the sole survivor of that Sudowon, and what he had to endure and what he had to commit there. I have seen all sorts of things in my life, but what that child went through was too terrible.

‘The community was collapsing. The teacher said it was better for everyone to perish together than to fall apart like this.’

Of course, Seonrim explained even that part of the story calmly.

‘The teacher took their breaths, but I disposed of the bodies. Most of them I chopped up and fed to the animals. Because I was the chosen child. I was the only one who would survive until the end, so I had to finish it. I was lucky.’

Seonrim spoke in a sincere voice.

‘I am really lucky.’

No, you do not call that being lucky. You cannot describe being the sole survivor of a mass slaughter group as good fortune, Seonrim. There were many things I wanted to say, but I held back. If Seonrim was consoling himself with the word ‘luck,’ I did not want to forcibly break down that defensive wall.

If moderately distorting and chipping away at reality was his only way to survive.

I stared blankly at Yisak’s confused face.

“You had it hard too.”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind. Want to get something to eat before you go?”

“I do not have much time.”

“Then don’t.”

“……”

“Not leaving? You won’t get anything more out of me, no matter how much you try to dig.”

“……No. Let’s just go get something to eat. I will treat you.”

“Why would I let a kid buy me a meal? I have a lot of money.”

“I’m not a kid, though……”

“Yeah, right.”

A smile escaped me without my realizing it. It was because Yisak’s strangely curt way of speaking and the shape of his rising eyebrows resembled his mother’s.

I hope this one hurts less, I thought. I truly hope he suffers less.