Chapter 101 – Seo Yeon-Ah, It’s Me

Kim Joo-won and Seo-yeon’s gazes met for an instant.
Still, when she was looking at me, her eyes filled with sadness.

“Let go.”

Even a little bit of vitality disappeared, and it was coldly dyed.

“I don’t intend to talk to a non-human bastard, so don’t talk to me.”

She spat out a cold word to Kim Ju-won, and she took her wrist out of his hand.

“Sister, answer me.”

Then the arrow goes to me, her blade into my neck.
Her sharp gaze stabs me with meaning instead of words.

‘Did you abandon me and run away just to give birth and raise a child like that?’

It was as if those words were quietly flowing out from between Seoyeon’s teeth.
You must have been terribly disappointed in me.
It would have been a shock to her to give birth and raise her new child, if she had rather lived alone on the run.

No, maybe
Everyone who knows Lee Seo-ha might be greatly shocked.
The original Lee Seo-ha is rational, but even if he doesn’t have affability, he’s someone you can depend on when you’re with him.
That kind of person, because she felt maternal love from the child who received the seed of objection that raped her.

“Who is your father?”

Her voice, wet with tears and crying, demanded an answer from me.
Her tightly closed lips are my answer.
She was begging that it wasn’t the answer she thought it would be.

“Who is your father?”

Seoyeon’s voice cuts through her skin.
At that moment, she wondered if the new baby was startled by her shrill voice.

“Aaaaaeng-!”

Sae-ah, who had been quiet, suddenly burst into tears.
At that moment, as she unconsciously held the child in her arms, she felt as if she had been hit in the head.

There is a child who only looks at me like this, who comes to me as a mother.
Why am I being swayed by Seo-yeon like this now?
Wasn’t she giving up everything to protect her new child?

“Do I really have to tell you about it?”

Aww
Gritted it
Hearing my voice, which had become cold, I thought of that.
In fact, maybe I’ve been too withdrawn all along.

“What?”

Didn’t I know it would come out like this?
Or was it only then that she realized that she had crossed the line?

“Why, daddy, this bastard who forcibly drunk me next to me. But what is that?”
It was a moment, but I felt like I was getting angry inside.
Why is he so mad at me?

“What, what?”
“What’s wrong with your father being this bastard, is he doing this to me?”

Actually I know.
That I didn’t keep my promise not to disappear without a word first.
But, that doesn’t mean I deserve to be so unfairly angry from Seoyeon, right?

“Lee Seo-yeon. I think you’re mistaken about something, but I’m not someone who should be managed by you or something like that.”
“Sister!”
“Don’t talk recklessly. Yes, I won’t say anything until Kim Joo-won insults him. But.”

If I had been alone, I might have lost to her here.
But I am a mother
There’s a child called Sae-ah who needs to be protected, an existence that shouldn’t be weak.

“There’s nothing wrong with Sae-ah.”

She cuts off her words for a moment, then hands her words to her as if to sentence her.
Looking only at me

No.
It doesn’t stop at the level of her only looking at me, and she stabs her with her worst words to the only person who deserves her affection.

“…Is that serious?”

She didn’t expect to hear these words from me, and Seoyeon’s expression turned into shock.
And, saying that to Seo-yeon made me stab myself in the heart.

“…That’s right.”

I have to listen to Seoyeon’s words.

“That’s right, the kid did nothing wrong.”

Her emotionless, empty eyes turn to me again.
Seo-yeon, hurt by her favorite sister’s words to protect her child as her mother, drops her head.

“I’ll go.”
“Yeon-ah Seo.”
“I’m sorry.”

Seo-yeon, who spat out the words she had forbidden to Kim Joo-won, passes me and leaves.
I get the feeling that Seo-yeon is moving away from her without being able to catch her like that and not even looking back at her.

“Joo Won.”
“…Uh.”
“Let me ask you a favor, bird.”

When Sae-ah, exhausted from crying while being patted, became quiet, she carefully handed her child over to Kim Joo-won.

“…Don’t be late.”
“Huh.”

Kim Joo-won is unable to say anything, accepting Sae-ah.
In that state, she stared at me for a while, and when I didn’t move, she turned her feet and started to go home.
As long as you have a new baby, you can’t be outside for too long.

“Seo Yeon-ah, I’m sorry. Unnie, I’m sorry…”

But I just held back because I didn’t want to show this in front of him.
As soon as Kim Joo-won disappeared, she sat down and burst into tears.

It was a cry I had been holding back.
Sadness that she found her sister and said something she shouldn’t have said to her brother.
Being swept away by her feelings, the fact that he had hurt Seo-yeon was hurting more than ever.

“Heuk, heuk, Seo Yeon-ah…”

It was then.
When I couldn’t even raise my voice due to crying, someone next to me gently held out a handkerchief to me.

“Excuse me.”

She turned her head.
A man with a face I had never seen before was holding out a handkerchief to me.
Only then was I able to realize it.
You were crying so ugly in the garden of someone else’s college campus.
“I don’t know what happened, but he was crying so sadly…”

But the emotions that had already risen were blocking me even from speaking.
I look at the man who handed me a handkerchief, and I stare blankly at him, not knowing what kind of expression he is making.
As I seemed to be getting closer, I involuntarily raised my hand to stop him.

“Ah.”

…If I were to sit here like this, I’d be tempted by these weirdos who had a dark heart for my mother.
I must have thought so subconsciously.
After rejecting the man’s favor, she stood up and staggered out of the school campus.

‘Seo Yeon-ah…’

Where did I unconsciously go?

– Iris Lounge

It was a cheap bar that students would often find near college towns.
Originally, I would never drink alcohol no matter what happened.

Now, whether it’s with alcohol or as a mother who shouldn’t say bad things to her child.
As an older sister who only said bad things to her younger sister who was looking for her older sister fiercely.

“I don’t care about anything, so please give me something I can get quickly…”

I wanted to erase this miserable feeling I felt.
As a mother who breastfeeds her child, as things she shouldn’t put in her mouth yet.

*     *    *

“Hey, doesn’t that woman resemble Lee Seo-yeon in some way?”
“Your eyes are blue for that.”
“Oh, she’s so damn pretty. Shall we go and talk to her?”

I could hear the faint whispers of what was going on around me.
I looked at the snacks in front of me with blank eyes, then I picked up the glass in front of my eyes once more and poured the alcohol into my mouth.
…I’ve been here for several hours.

“Hey.”

I turned my head.
Two men I had never seen before were looking at me with smiling faces.

“If you’re coming alone.”

Then, she glanced at the bottles of alcohol lying next to me, and cautiously spoke to me.

“Would you like to drink with us?”

Since it’s a bar near the school, he’s probably the same age as me.
However, if there is a difference, they are normally people who enjoy college life in college.
I am a married woman who gave birth to a child after being subjected to various unspeakable things at 21.

“Hey, don’t be bothered, yup! Don’t do it, get out of here.”

In a state where words don’t come out properly, he spits harsh words at them in a moment of anger.
That’s not why they should be cursed at.
I just throw up my feelings on them simply because they are in a better environment than me.

“Ego, you’ve drunk a lot.”
“What year are you in?

But he saw me drunk.
Those who are already fascinated by my body and appearance ignore my words and stick to the seats facing me.

“Sir, stop bothering me and fuck off!”

The radical act of throwing the glass I was holding imprints on them that I am a disgusting being.
The glass that suddenly flew in hit the wooden frame above Sophie and shattered, creating a great noise.
The two men are taken aback and quietly curse at me, saying, “Sheesh, I’m going to go and fuck you.”

“Are you all right, sir?”

I glanced at the surprised clerk who was watching over my safety, then moved my gaze to the back of their heads.
It wasn’t a self-defense instinct or an act that I did for any reason.
It was just an act of being swept away by emotion, just because I was drunk.
First, the subject of the radical act, the strong urge to punch them simply because they spit out curses.

But I will have to be patient
She is a bad mother who has done bad things to her new child, drinking alcohol while already being a mother.
Because I don’t want her to point fingers at me for having a woman who walks around swinging her fists outside as her mother.

“How much is it.”
“Yes?”
“Including the glass I broke earlier, how much is it?”

I didn’t feel like drinking any more, so I got up and paid for it at the counter.
It was obviously a day when the sunset didn’t even set.
No matter how long I had been in the bar, the surrounding scenery was already immersed in darkness.

But that didn’t matter to me now.
Sloppy body.
With a drunken gait that wouldn’t be strange if someone with a dark heart touched him right now.
Carefully chasing only one object seen through the eyes of the dimension.

‘Two-dimensional space.’

I walk in search of the person I want to see the most at this moment, not even paying attention to the fact that it is an unfamiliar street at night.
Even the door that blocks me and the stairs passes through the two-dimensional space, step by step toward that person.
In front of the front door of a studio I arrived at.

“…”

But is it because the woman lives alone?
Looking at the front door that doesn’t respond to the sound of knocking, I breathe in quietly.
And then

“Seo Yeon-ah, it’s me.”

I spit out a sentence through the person inside.
The place I arrived was in front of Seoyeon’s one-room apartment.