Jungok had been troubled for days. It started with a phone call from Kyungrok.
—Mom, I think Kyungwoo has changed. He took a friend on his business trip to Jeju Island. I looked into it and apparently it’s a man.
Her stepdaughter’s voice, laced with subtle shock, kept repeating like a broken radio.
Since it could be a misunderstanding, Jungok personally went down to Jeju Island to trace her son’s tracks. Thanks to the business trip report Kyungrok passed along, it was easy to book and visit the same resort.
When she visited the resort, she made up a lie about her son praising an employee and requested the same staff member. Then, pretending to ask candidly, she brought up her son’s story. Since it wasn’t that long ago, the resort staff remembered various things and talked in detail about what happened that day.
“He came with a friend, right?”
“Yes. It was a male around the same age. He was extremely handsome, just like your son.”
When the chef said this with a smile, Jungok’s heart sank with a thud.
“What was the atmosphere like? They weren’t hostile toward each other or anything?”
“No. The two seemed very close. Their clothing was casual too.”
The chef answered cautiously, as if worried about having misspoken. Jungok couldn’t believe those words.
“Was there any shouting later, or did the police come to the resort or anything like that?”
“There was nothing like that since security personnel verify identities at the resort entrance before letting people in. Our hotel thoroughly manages safety matters.”
As he said this, the chef looked at another employee nearby.
“Even if you’re family, carelessly disclosing a guest’s personal matters… Please understand.”
The employee politely withdrew. That’s when Jungok held out two thick envelopes she’d prepared in advance to the two people.
“It’s a family matter, so there’s no chance of it leaking elsewhere. I’m just curious about the person my son is meeting.”
Two pairs of hands that had quietly approached grabbed the envelopes. The employee was the first to speak.
“The companion ordered the barbecue. Added wine too. The atmosphere during the meal was calm. They were like ordinary friends. When they checked out, there were no particular comments either. Ah, I don’t know if I should mention this.”
“I’m his mother. Say anything.”
“Perhaps because they’re young people, there seems to have been another guest at night. That… a woman. We discovered traces while cleaning the accommodation later.”
“A woman? Are you certain?”
This time Jungok’s heart fluttered in a different way.
“We didn’t see her, but. Those traces… you know.”
The employee spoke evasively, as if it was difficult. Jungok, who understood well enough, signaled with somewhat trembling hands that it was enough.
“I see. Thank you for letting me know.”
“It’s nothing.”
“If our son happens to come again later, contact me.”
“Yes.”
Jungok looked at the freshly grilled barbecue meat and said that was enough, sending the chef away as well. The employee and chef probably thought she was an eccentric chaebol wife investigating her son’s relationships with women.
“Kyungwoo is meeting someone.”
Left alone, Jungok couldn’t control her trembling body. She left the terrace and entered the room. Even after wrapping her thick cardigan tight, the trembling didn’t easily subside.
He’d been a child cold even to family. He didn’t keep people close, and especially couldn’t hide his disgust toward men. He even hated going to the sauna with his own father, and lived alone separately because he disliked the very act of being around people.
He refused even a housekeeper to take care of household matters.
Every family has its own problems. Being rich wasn’t a special exception. Perhaps there could be even more discord because of overflowing money. But Jungok’s family was shattered suddenly in a way she never expected.
Plop.
Sitting on the sofa, Jungok stared vacantly at the white drawing room wall. In her head, memories of a day she didn’t want to recall continued like a movie.
It was not long after she’d begun full-scale external activities following lengthy childcare and domestic life. Now even women in patriarchal chaebol families are active in external activities, but in Jungok’s time it was difficult.
Not wanting to waste a good opportunity, she did her best at entertaining guests. She wanted to be recognized as an intellectual future chaebol wife with deep knowledge of culture. So in between raising Kyungwoo, she studied extensively in various fields including art, music, and literature.
That day, with a trembling heart, she attended a small-scale awards ceremony and sponsorship tea party held at a hotel. Kyungrok, who was a teenager, went to school, and she’d planned to leave Kyungwoo with the ajumma, but that day he clung to her and threw a tantrum, refusing to be separated.
“I want to go with Mom too.”
“I told you Mom’s going to work.”
“I can just sit quietly there.”
He was a child who went everywhere with Jungok. She had no choice but to take him. Along with a promise to sit quietly.
While Jungok was swept up among writers, artists, and musicians wearing flowers, cultural figures conversing with them, and wives showing off their outstanding intellect, Kyungwoo sat in a chair placed in a corner of the banquet hall eating snacks. The female secretary who accompanied them watched over Kyungwoo.
The secretary, who majored in art, quietly approached and introduced them to each other whenever Jungok met new cultural figures. During that time, Kyungwoo disappeared.
After he said he was going to the bathroom and a hotel staff member gave him directions, his whereabouts became unclear. There were no CCTVs at the time either.
Near the end of the banquet, Jungok learned of Kyungwoo’s disappearance. Her heart rolled on the dirt floor. Life after that was hell.
Tears flowed down her cheeks. With cold fingertips, Jungok wiped under her eyes. She crossed her arms and tucked her trembling hands under her armpits. Tears kept flowing.
“Kyungwoo! Kyungwoo!”
As soon as she heard the news that he’d been found, she rushed to the hospital with her hair disheveled from not being able to sleep. While he received emergency treatment, Taeho also rushed over and supported Jungok with his half-broken appearance.
“How’s our Kyungwoo? Is he okay? He’s not hurt anywhere, is he?”
The emergency room chief who personally examined Kyungwoo delivered good news with a smile.
“Thank heavens. There’s nothing to be greatly concerned about. There are some abrasions and contusions, and the child was just frightened.”
“Thank you, Professor. Thank you so much.”
“Oh my. Please don’t do this, ma’am. What did I do? Kyungwoo hung in there well.”
When the chaebol wife knelt and thanked him, the professor tried to help Jungok up, seemingly flustered.
Kyungwoo was soon moved to a quiet private room. The head nurse and resident praised him, saying he was admirable for not crying and bravely receiving the examination. Only then did Jungok smile slightly along with tears while combing her disheveled hair with her fingers. As she carefully entered the hospital room where Kyungwoo was, she belatedly realized the shoes she was wearing were mismatched.
“Kyungwoo. It’s Mom.”
The medical staff advised that only Mom should carefully go in to see him, considering the shock.
Jungok forced a smile onto her expression that couldn’t hide her emotion and regret, with trembling hands.
She first saw Kyungwoo’s black hair at the back of his head as he sat alone on the white bed. There were no bloodstains visible. Barely suppressing the wailing that was about to burst out, she approached the child.
Gently patting his shoulder, she called again.
“Kyungwoo?”
The small head slowly turned. The pale face showed no reaction even upon seeing Jungok.
“It’s Mom. Kyungwoo, it was hard being alone, wasn’t it?”
“……”
“From now on, Mom will never be separated from you. I’ll hold our Kyungwoo tight.”
Saying this, unable to control her emotions, she pulled the child into her arms.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
Like a seizure, Kyungwoo screamed and went wild. At the same time, he pushed Jungok away with surprising strength. He pushed so hard that the bed shook and Jungok staggered backward. Before the startled Jungok could straighten her body, the medical staff rushed in first.
“Aaaaaaaaah aaaaaaaaaaaah!”
The young doctor, who pinned down the child’s limbs as he screamed and went wild, told the nurse to quickly bring something. At the same time the nurse ran out, Taeho, who had been outside, came in.
“What’s happening?”
“Aaaaaaaaah aaaaaaaaah!”
The nurse held out a syringe to the doctor, who was struggling desperately to hold down the seizing child. The medicine inside was injected into Kyungwoo’s thigh as his limbs were restrained by the nurse and doctor like an animal.
“Aaaaaah aaaaa… ah.”
Shortly after, Kyungwoo went limp like a sick chicken. His face was pale. His small forehead and bridge of his nose, covered in cold sweat, twitched.
“What’s going on!”
Taeho couldn’t contain his anxiety and shouted. Jungok jumped right there on the spot. Then she rushed at the limp Kyungwoo. The nurse stopped her.
“It’s a sedative. To calm the seizure.”
“Why is he like that? What’s wrong with my son!”
Taeho looked ready to grab the doctor by the collar right then. Professors who received late notice came one after another. But no one presented any particularly clever solution. The hospital room was filled only with the screams of the wailing child and woman.
She heard the explanation the next morning after the pediatrician and neuropsychiatrist examined Kyungwoo overnight together with the emergency chief.
“Post-traumatic stress disorder. Trauma.”
At the time, it was an unfamiliar disease name she’d never heard of.
“In short, the shock was severe… absolute rest is necessary.”
“He’ll get better, right?”
“That’s hard to say… child psychology hasn’t developed sufficiently yet, so it’s difficult to give a definite answer. Especially research on traumatic disorders is still at a crawling stage.”
Kyungwoo hated everyone. He constantly sat alone in the room with a blank expression. When they tried to feed him even rice, it was war. Soon he began to survive on glucose and vitamin injections.
Watching the child through the glass window on the door, Jungok wasn’t really living even though she was alive. Rather than relief at finding the child, she could barely breathe due to guilt over making Kyungwoo that way through her carelessness.
“Why Kyungwoo. Why a perfectly fine child.”
Taeho, who came in drunk, looked at Jungok with resentful eyes. When Kyungrok wasn’t there forcibly pushing Dad into the bedroom, it escalated into fierce marital fights.
A month later, the medical staff, diagnosing that there was no effective treatment method domestically, introduced a university hospital in America. After making contact with them, they hired a Korean-speaking nurse who worked in America.
After that, Kyungwoo grew up in America. Jungok tried to go, but the American pediatrician said Kyungwoo was less aggressive toward foreigners who spoke English and aggressive enough to self-harm toward people who spoke Korean, so they told her to reduce contact as much as possible.
What she heard later was that Asian men made him have fits even if their shadows were cast from a distance, and while he was somewhat lenient toward women, his reaction to Mom’s picture was intense.
Even if not aggressive, they added that his brainwave activity and physical reactions were poor enough to be sufficiently concerning.
“Kyungwoo resents you too. You know? For being his mother.”
Wouldn’t it be better not to have a mother like this at all?
Jungok said she wanted a divorce. But Taeryoung didn’t easily let Jungok go. They cornered Jungok as a thoughtless woman, saying that after making their child turn out that way, did they have to bear the gossip of the heir’s divorce too?
“Mom.”
Ironically, it was Kyungrok, who didn’t share a single drop of blood, who stayed by the side of Jungok, who had become a ghost floating around the house.
