Chapter 191 – Chapter 191

“Did you still keep these?”

I picked up the album while muttering in an absurd voice.
To be honest, until this point, I wasn’t particularly impressed with the album. It was just a feeling of wanting to keep the old album for some reason, and a bit of a welcome feeling after seeing it for the first time in a while.

“Ah, because I don’t know if there will be another dark history of my past. Let’s leave that out.”

With that thought in mind, the moment I opened the first page, the first picture caught my eye.

It was the image of a mother lying in a hospital and a young father holding a small and fragile baby in front of such a mother and making a V like an eight-year-old.

[Ooooo.08.13]
[The day my son, the great man captain was born]

“…”

It was a really ugly picture.
A photo with a dull color, as if it was covered in yellow dust, to the point that I wonder if it was corrected in a different way…
But the mom and dad in the picture were so bright that I doubted my eyes, and they were young and full of energy.
Why are your clothes so tacky?

“Dad has always been good at handwriting.”

You have a bad head, but why do you write so well at least one letter?

“Light!”

Turning over one page of the thick album, I see the next picture.

[Ooooo.08.13]
[Kim Hyun-woo’s first birthday party]

I was wearing a hanbok for a baby, smiling brightly and fidgeting with my fingers, and on either side of me, my parents wearing the same hanbok as me were laughing.

“They look like you’ve already suffered a lot from here.”

This picture was taken after a year, but there were already blurry dark circles around my parents’ eyes. They say that I used to cry a lot when I was young.
I heard how picky the palate is, and sometimes, even though I ate my mother’s milk well, I refused, so I ran to the 24-hour mart at dawn to buy powdered milk.

“Sarak, Sarak.”

[Ooooo.05.05]
[First visit to the amusement park]

I think you’ve already grown quite a lot since then. Ever since I was little, I’ve had a bit of an expressionless part.
If anyone sees you, you’ll know he’s angry.

“Haha, I vaguely remember seeing this. I think they used a group to eat ice cream when they went in and when they left.”

「Light, light, light!」

Every time I turn over an album, my parents, who were young and full of energy, change quickly. At the same time, I was growing up in an instant, as if I was receiving the affection and energy of my parents in reverse. As the plump breasts start to fall out, they look like dried anchovies on the contrary.

[Ooooo.06.17]
[The whole family together at a luxury photo studio]

“…”

Grandpa and Grandma in it.
There was also a group photo of all of the cousins, including aunts and uncles. Even now, if you go to your grandfather’s house, there will probably be a picture frame about 10 times the size of this hanging on the wall.

[Ooooo.03.02]
[Entrance to elementary school, my son is a genius with his own mouth. My future hope is a teacher.]

Gradually, the fashion of father and mother, and the method of mother’s makeup start to change.
Dad’s hair, which was long, has obviously been shortened.

The popular sports cut at the time…
In the middle, I see myself staring at the camera blankly.

“Buy… Rock…”

[Ooooo.05.06]
[Parents Observation Class]

[Ooooo.10.11]
[School play]

[Ooooo.09.17]
[Autumn sports day]

Even the time of six years passed so quickly that it was pushed to the back of faded memories.

[Ooooo.01.21]
[Graduated from elementary school. When did this guy go to school for 6 years? It seems like it was only yesterday that I entered the school, but I am already graduating. It has grown a lot.]

“…”

While flinching, I was carefully looking for the next album and turning over the next page.
Once I started to see the flow of time, I couldn’t stop it.

[Ooooo.03.03]
[Junior high school admission]

More and more… My parents start to disappear from the photos in the album.
The picture quality and color are much better.

[Ooooo.06.01]
[1st grade field trip]

[Ooooo.05.03]
[2nd Grade Neverland School Trip]

Even at the sports day in middle school, my parents were no longer by my side. Instead of being photographed together, they became the existence of taking pictures.
Instead, next to me were skinny and troublesome friends like me, drawing Vs while joking around.

And, last.

[Middle school graduation]

Here, the photos that went into the album became the last. Me and people… I’m so used to the smartphone in earnest.
Rather than printing photos, it has become a habit for each of us to save them on our phones.
No, it was from this time that a guy like me started ignoring my parents with only foolish beliefs.

I went back to the first chapter of the album and compared the appearance of my parents in the photo with the parents I met today.

“…”

In the picture, the index finger touching the face of the parent trembles.

My mother, who woke up earlier than anyone else to make my breakfast every morning.
And my father, who was proud of himself and had to bow his head and waist more than anyone else to protect such a family.

The young people who only smiled brightly like this… Having already given birth to a child at my age, you became a parent who had to take on a lot of responsibility.

“…”

“Duk-wook.”

As I get older and grow up, my parents more and more share that energy…
The wrinkles increased, and the bright smile gradually began to change into a pale smile.

“Hey, heh…”

Even more so, in my case, after middle school graduation, as if we were strangers at all, my parents didn’t care at all.
I had been rotating inside for several years and came this far.

Taking away my mother’s youth and beauty.
It was none other than me, their child his, who made my father sick with his empty hair and great pain.
The son who should have done better than anyone else… More brutally than anyone else, he gave their hearts an indelible wound.

“I know what to do! Stop nagging! Please! What does mom know!”
“Are you going to hit me again? Did you hit me!”
“It’s okay to leave this house. It’s not enough to eat well and live well alone!”

“…”

I gasped for breath as tears dripped onto the album. He is such a bad son, but my mother smiled at such an unfilial child as if nothing was wrong, and my father also lied while hiding the pain for such a son.

Parents were dumbfounded.
Always, at the cost of everything… What do you mean, you’re trying to give everything to a son like this?

“…”

After crying in that state for over five minutes, I finally calmed down and wiped away the tears.
And quietly picked up the phone.

[Mom]

I remember my mom’s profile of her I roughly saved today, and her ringtone rings out. That alone made me a little nervous.

– Pop!
– Oh, yes. My son, what’s up? I was surprised, my son called me.

“What’s the surprise when your son calls? It’s a matter of course.”

– Ayu, of course. Thank you so much, mom. Okay, did you get home well?

“Yes, I’m going to come home and give the kids a bath. I had a little time left, so I called. I’ll make another video call later when I’m done washing up.”

-Really? Looking forward to it. Aren’t the kids tired? If you go back and forth in the car, you will whine a lot. You don’t have to visit them too often, so you have to take care of them a lot. Understand?

“I see. That’s the natural thing to do as a parent.”

-Then! I believe my son will do well. From the old days, it was good to have a sense of responsibility.

“What is Responsibility… Oh, is Dad okay? You lost a lot of weight.”

Haha, I’m worried that you’re losing as much hair as you do. He pretends to be calm, saying that as you get older, you naturally lose weight, but when you go to the bathroom and look in the mirror every day, it seems like men can’t help but lose hair.

“Next time, I’ll have to go to a hair loss hospital with you.”

– Hey, will Daddy go? You’re the kind of person who said you wouldn’t go to the hospital even if you died. You know you’ll get better If you just take a cold medicine, you will get better in a day. Seeing her grunting and enduring for a week.

Because he is such a person, he probably discovered the disease later and his health his deteriorated greatly.
However, when I was injured, the person who drove me to the emergency room at dawn was also my father.
The man who was always stupid and honest was my dad.

“Oh, Mom.”

-Yes?

“Shall I call you mother now? I was a bit older too.”

– Uhm, mom doesn’t like that? I feel like my son has gone too far. It’s also better to call mom, mom.

“Oh, then what about Dad?”

– I’d rather be happy if you call me ‘Father’. From long ago, I was very envious of that. You know, taking your son to friends’ gatherings or soccer clubs. Now, the body, what is it… Yeah, it’s a little bit of a break, so I can’t play soccer, but.

“I see. Then I’ll call you back later.”

-Yes, thank you, my son. I know how to call my parents, and I am always grateful to my mother for growing up so confidently.

“Oh, no… Ah… It’s you thanks… What creeps.”

-Are you Hyunwoo?

“I will hang up.”

I hung up the phone, fumbled around a few times for no reason, carefully folded the box separately and parked it in the corner of the parking lot, then got on the elevator with only the album in hand.

[Ooooo.08.13]
[The day my son, the great man captain was born]

This is not a day to be celebrated as my birthday, but a day to say thank you to my parents for giving birth to me.
I thought I knew now.

* * *

〈 Jeon Ga-eun (mother) point of view 〉

As the phone hung up, Mom tilted her head.
Because it sounded like a crying voice at the end.

“Oh, I must have cried.”

Even when he was riding his bike and crashed into a car and broke his leg, it was my son who never wavered in tears.
It was then.
My father, who had come to sleep in the master bedroom, came out with his hands behind his back on the veranda.

“What are you doing.”
“I was just getting some fresh air.”
“What do you like about the building’s wind?”
“Today is a good day no matter what you do. Oh, I just got another call from my son.”
“Therefore?”
“So what? While wondering.”
“What did you say?”
“I just called to tell you that you got home well.”
“Did you call just to say something like that?”
“Yes.”

Dad laughed.

“As expected, a man becomes dignified only when he becomes a father. Or he goes to the army.”
“Oh, and you…”

To call you father
Mom, about to say this, shook her head. It would be more impressive to hear these things directly from her son later.

“Are you feeling better than that?”
“That’s because it’s okay. I can go out to play soccer tomorrow right now.”
“Don’t overdo it, these days it doesn’t mean you’re manly, it’s called ugly.”
“Kuhm!”

Dad cleared his throat and opened the veranda door a little more.

“Druck!”

“I’m not saying this because it’s my son, he was a decent guy from the beginning. Just… I was raised so forcefully that I just went down the wrong path. I’m just a little sorry about that.”
“If you think about it that way, there are many things I couldn’t do to my son. When I was little, I also pulled my ears. He even hit me on the head with a ballpoint pen. I was forced to study something I didn’t want to do, so I cried a lot.”
“Neither of us will make that mistake in the future.”
“Absolutely.”

The two quietly gazed at the sky.
Today, for some reason, I felt that the moon was bright.