PHUW 42

He fell off just like that. Somehow he had trouble breathing and opened his eyes. His nose was buried against something thick. He turned his head slightly and pulled the tip of his nose free so he could breathe more easily.

‘Ah, right.’

He had fallen asleep in Jeong Mok’s arms earlier. What was pressing against his nose was none other than Jeong Mok’s well-developed chest muscle.

Like a baby whining in its sleep, he rubbed his forehead against the other’s chest. The thick and firm sensation felt very good.

What guaranteed good sleep was not the most luxurious bed, nor the most advanced medical prescription. Far better and faster than medication prescribed with the utmost care by a renowned university hospital professor was none other than a thick, smooth chest muscle.

Haeri stretched out his arms and wrapped them around Jeong Mok’s waist. Then he fell asleep.

Breaths so cute that it was hard to believe they belonged to an adult man followed.

The tightly shut eyelids of the other person moved slightly.

“……”

Jeong Mok was not someone who slept deeply. Especially when someone was sick, he hardly slept at all. It was a habit formed when Song-i had been ill. Because of that, he had been awake from the moment the person in his arms twisted his head.

“Hhng.”

A pleasant voice resonated in his ear. Ahn Haeri’s movements as he rubbed his forehead into his chest in his sleep were full of affection. The pale arms that had been tucked neatly against his chest stretched out and wrapped around his waist without thought. Their hearts drew a little closer.

His soft curls tickled his chin. His smooth forehead touched near Jeong Mok’s collarbone. The deep breaths unique to someone asleep seeped through his thin t-shirt and warmed his pectoral muscle. When he lowered his head slightly, he smelled the shower gel they both used.

He naturally stroked and patted. It was an instinctive reaction that could not be resisted. Ahn Haeri was the first person to cause this reaction since Song-i.

From the time he had been in and out of the children’s psychiatric ward, Jeong Mok had harbored strong distrust toward people. The blame did not lie with the professor or the chairman who had hospitalized him. It was because of the filthy blood of that man that ran in his veins.

Jeong Mok had inherited the blood of the terrible monster who had devoured his mother in the name of love. His appearance, his voice, everything was a replica of that man. That was why he hated it.

His mother, a natural-born artist, had cherished deep romance for a fated love. She had defied her family’s opposition to win what she thought was love. Only after having a child did she realize it had never been love.

Noh Heejae, the youngest daughter of the Hyeonsan Group family, spoiled by favoritism as much as by immense wealth and power, was a free-spirited soul. By contrast, Jeong Yeongil, whose movie-star looks alone had won him the beloved daughter of a conglomerate head, wanted her to devote herself solely to family. A woman who had lived freely her whole life was naturally unsuited to the role of a housewife looking only at her husband and child.

Even after marriage, Noh Heejae focused more on personal pursuits than family. For the daughter of Hyeonsan Group’s head, it was the most natural path. The family supported their gifted child in continuing her creative work.

Only Jeong Yeongil was dissatisfied. Among Noh Heejae’s close acquaintances were men just as handsome and stylish as he was. Drinking with them all night, discussing art, sometimes suddenly leaving with male colleagues on indefinite painting trips, her actions unsettled the impoverished Jeong Yeongil. His obsession with her grew stronger. Warped obsession fueled by inferiority worsened year by year. Arguments soon turned to violence.

When Jeong Mok was about to start kindergarten, Noh Heejae left home and filed for divorce. The bitter fights continued even during the lawsuit. Using Jeong Mok as an excuse, Jeong Yeongil dragged her back home and in the end turned into a monster.

A night of terrible screams.

The monster called father beat his mother to death.

‘Aaagh! Help me!’

His mother screamed.

‘I love you this much! Why! Why! What’s lacking in my love!’

His father howled.

He had to save his mother. But his frail legs would not move.

The night that seemed endless passed. As dawn came, his mother’s screams stopped. The mad father’s crazed shouts also ceased. Only when morning sun rose did Jeong Mok leave his room.

The study, which faced east and was filled with morning light, was covered in red. His mother’s face was completely ruined, her body sprawled on the floor in blood. His father stood awkwardly in the corner. His feet pointed forward. His face hung down and his tongue dangled long. Behind him stood a coat rack his mother had designed.

Hot urine ran down the legs of a child who had long been out of diapers.

The housekeeper, wandering through the eerily silent house, came up to the second-floor study. Ahhhh! Only when he heard the maid’s scream did Jeong Mok faint on the spot.

Because of severe seizures from psychological shock, he was hospitalized for a long time in the children’s psychiatric ward. He also developed aphasia¹.

While he was undergoing treatment, his maternal grandfather, who had grown rapidly frail from the terrible death of his daughter, passed away, and Noh Seongjae, Noh Heejae’s older sister and the group’s successor, was inaugurated as the new head.

No Seongjae pitied Jeong Mok, but she found it hard to be close to him. He resembled too much the monstrous man who had killed her beloved sister. The one who looked after Jeong Mok was No Seongjae’s husband, Professor Choi Changsu of the education department, who had faithfully lived a quiet life as a husband.

Choi Changsu was a good educator. Cousins Choi Sangeon and Choi Jieon, born to Noh Seongjae and Choi Changsu, were also good older brother and older sister. But for Jeong Mok, who had been exposed to a cruel incident at far too young an age, it was not enough.

Do not love anyone. Do not try to be loved. Love is something terrible. He had repeated that to himself as his parents’ corpses grew cold.

In Jeong Mok’s world, everything was gray. No matter how much the professor and his cousins smiled warmly, no matter how many experts the stern chairwoman brought in for his treatment, his aphasia hardly improved. The treatment was not completely without effect, so sometimes he attended his elementary school, though he was officially enrolled but on medical leave.

He met Song-i when he was in second grade. As always, he had stopped by school only to sit still, then was riding back in the car driven by the bodyguard uncle.

He remembered it vividly even now. That day it had rained. In a narrow alley next to the construction site of a large building by the road, three colorful umbrellas were huddled together. His eyes naturally went that way. They were upper-grade boys. They were swinging baseball bats at something in the alley.

At first, he thought it was a soaked box. But the screams that pierced even the thick windows of the luxury sedan told him it was a living being. His mind went blank white.

I have to save it! This time, I have to save it!

When he came to his senses, he had already pushed between the umbrellas.

One of the older boys shoved him, who had appeared and, without a word, had flung away the bat. Falling with a thud, Jeong Mok stared blankly at the clump of wet brown fur. In the black eyes frozen in terror, he saw his own reflection.

The bodyguard uncle, running up with an umbrella, flung aside the upper-grade boy who had been about to strike Jeong Mok.

In the meantime, Jeong Mok stretched his hand out to the soaked child. A black nose touched his chest. Then a pink tongue licked the nape of his neck. The stinking body slowly moved into his embrace. The box the child had been lying on had the words “Specialty Song-i Mushrooms,” which were blurred and smudged in the rain.

The bodyguard uncle put both Jeong Mok and the child in the car. When they arrived home, Jeong Mok held the child out toward the professor, who had come out to meet him full of worry. And after that incident, he finally opened his mouth.

‘Song-i.’

The child, who from then on was Song-i, was always with Jeong Mok. Song-i was a closer friend than any peer, a more lovable companion than any girl, and a more reliable partner than any bodyguard.

A being that was not human, yet could love a human purely, very slowly, but with a force stronger than any specialist or medicine, erased Jeong Mok’s trauma.

The child psychiatrists who had treated Jeong Mok for years were astonished at how quickly he recovered. By the time he was in high school, the traces of his trauma had nearly vanished. He was just an ordinary boy of his age, blunt and unsentimental.

He entered the country’s top university in the architecture department and soon afterward enlisted. Enlistment had been the professor’s policy. Choi Sangeon also enlisted as usual. Rare for a conglomerate heir, he began his military service in Gangwon Province.

Jeong Mok could have been exempted because of his mental history. But he refused. He wanted confirmation that he was “normal.” The professor agreed to enlistment on the condition that he would be discharged for medical reasons if it became too hard.

Even during basic training, no special problems were found, so he was assigned to the Capital Defense Command. While he served in Seoul, someone brought Song-i to see him once a week. It was a consideration from the chairwoman, following the professor’s advice.

Completing his service as a military police officer left a strong impression on the chairwoman. Deciding that he could properly manage his own life, she granted him independence. As soon as permission was granted, he built a fine house in the outskirts of Gyeonggi. He installed an elevator so the aging Song-i could go up and down, and, taking into account both his own and Song-i’s dislike of people and other dogs, he had a high retaining wall built to keep others from approaching the garden. When Jeong Mok went out, Song-i lay waiting for him in the shade of the garden. Those were truly happy and quiet days.

But even a life that seemed it would last forever came to an end. By the time Jeong Mok was discharged, Song-i was already an old dog. Despite being elderly, she was unusually healthy and still had a fiery temper. But at last, Song-i crossed the rainbow bridge.

The world turned gray again.

1. Aphasia, also known as dysphasia, is an impairment in a person’s ability to comprehend or formulate language ↩︎