“Whew……”
The detective smacked his lips with a frustrated face and trudged to the break room. After a while, Seungho, who had finished his call, approached and said.
“You come with me.”
ლ
When the front door opened, warm air rushed in. A bench was placed on the wall of the vestibule space, and underneath it, small shoes were lined up like doll accessories.
Sneakers with cute characters drawn on them, slippers with dinosaur heads attached, sandals with rabbit ears drawn on them. There wasn’t just one or two types.
As soon as the inner door opened, the sound of pattering could be heard. Two young children wearing matching pajamas in different colors rushed into Seungho’s arms.
“My princesses. I’m sorry Daddy came late.”
Seungho immediately bent down, spread both arms, and lifted the children up. The children screamed excitedly.
“Sorry.”
Seungho, who approached his wife’s side like that, whispered quietly. The wife just smiled silently and patted his shoulder a couple times.
“You’re here? You didn’t sleep a wink, did you?”
Seonwoo was led to the master bedroom bathroom with an attached dressing room. From the living room, the sound of children laughing didn’t stop. Clothes to change into were already prepared on the dressing room vanity.
“First wash up and come out. Don’t think about anything, just wash.”
Without a chance to refuse, Seonwoo, whose back was pushed into the bathroom, looked in the mirror. He stared blankly at his upper garment with blood smeared on it, then took off his clothes. He also unwrapped the bandage around his right toes and turned on the water.
Water pouring on the top of his head flowed down his face to his entire body. When he soaked his whole body in water hot enough to make the air stuffy instantly, his mind became hazy.
Suddenly, the conversation he had with Seungho while riding in the taxi came to mind.
Seungho intended to appoint a lawyer for Taejeong. Befitting a sports star who appeared frequently on broadcasts, he had an agency, and besides that, he seemed to have connections in various places.
[And what you said too……]
Seungho couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud and swallowed his words. He paused for a moment as if choosing what to say, then said he would somehow help in any way he could.
[Mom is at that bastard’s hospital.]
It was a statement that didn’t need any further explanation. Seungho patted Seonwoo’s shoulder and promised to transfer her to another hospital as soon as possible.
For now, believing those words was the best option. Though he had paid the price several times for carelessly trusting others, Seonwoo had no choice but to lean on someone else once again. Seungho was the only person he could ask for help.
After finishing the shower, he roughly shook off the moisture and came out to the living room, but Seungho wasn’t there. Instead, the children were lying on the floor reading a picture book. Then they noticed Seonwoo like ghosts and came running pattering.
“These are our daddy’s clothes.”
The children clinging to both of Seonwoo’s legs pulled at his pants. Should it be said they were friendly or had no wariness toward a person they were seeing for the first time? The aunt who detached the children clinging like cicadas answered instead.
“Right. Mommy lent them to you.”
“Why? Oppa, you don’t have clothes?”
“No? Oppa said he wanted to try them on. Eunju, you wear Eunha’s clothes sometimes too.”
The yellow pajamas was Eunju and the sky-blue pajamas was Eunha. However, Seonwoo distinguished the two children by their pajama colors instead of names.
Seonwoo was seated right at the dining table. A meal with a strong home-cooked smell was set out, but he didn’t feel hungry. When Seonwoo just sat without even picking up his utensils, the children who had claimed seats on either side asked.
“This is delicious. Why aren’t you eating?”
“Right. This is really delicious.”
The children chattered incessantly like baby chicks. Even though Seonwoo didn’t smile warmly at them or answer them, they kept talking to him, finding interest in some aspect.
“Eunju, Eunha. You can’t disturb Oppa while he’s eating.”
“We didn’t disturb him.”
“This is really delicious!”
The two looked exactly the same but had different personalities. The yellow pajamas was observant and the sky-blue pajamas didn’t even pretend to listen. Her eyes were full of anticipation for when Seonwoo would eat the side dish she liked.
Then the sky-blue pajamas brought chopsticks with characters drawn on them. She put them on her fingers and picked up the side dish she had been emphasizing to Seonwoo and placed it on top of the rice.
“You have to eat a lot to grow big and strong.”
Both children giggled at the same time. They were imitating the tone of their mom and dad they had seen and learned at home. When one started, the other one followed as if she couldn’t lose.
The side dishes were piled up so high they seemed about to spill. When Seonwoo picked up and ate one sausage, the children shouted in celebration.
“He ate it, he ate it!”
They were delighted as if they had accomplished something great. Getting into it, they picked up even more side dishes for him. If he hadn’t started in the first place, it would be one thing. He couldn’t undo what he had already done.
In the end, Seonwoo was swept up in the children’s chattering and emptied an entire bowl of rice. He ate prepared for indigestion, but surprisingly his stomach wasn’t uncomfortable.
After finishing the meal, the aunt brought a first aid kit from the master bedroom. For something kept at home for emergency use, the contents were quite systematic.
“Let me see your hand.”
She was referring to the hand that had carelessly pulled out the needle. On the back of his hand were only scratch marks, no blood visible. Still, she carefully disinfected it and cut and attached a moist bandage. Next was his right foot. Whether the dried blood had been washed away while showering, the flesh showed through between the broken nails.
“Tell me if it stings.”
“I’ll do this myself.”
“No. Stay still.”
The aunt said in a firm voice. Her hands handling the first aid supplies from the kit were quite skilled too.
“Does it hurt here too?”
The watching child asked. Her tiny finger was pointing at Seonwoo’s right hand. A long, large scar remained clearly visible. It would look gross to kids’ eyes, but they just stared blankly.
“No. It doesn’t hurt.”
He said it thinking answering would draw their attention away. But the child slid down from the chair and ran to her room. The sound of small footsteps rang out.
The child who soon returned had a thick sticker book in her hand. She spread it on the dining table, took out several stickers, and began sticking them on Seonwoo’s right hand.
The aunt who had been watching smiled and said in a voice tinged with amusement.
“That’s Eunju’s most precious sticker, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. So Oppa won’t hurt.”
There was no way the other child would just watch quietly.
“I wanna do it too!”
In an instant, she brought her own sticker book and began sticking them identically on the opposite hand.
Sparkling stickers filled the back of his hand densely. Popular characters among children, stars and flowers and hearts in various colors…. Before long, the back of Seonwoo’s hands had become the children’s sketchbook.
Seonwoo quietly looked down at both hands covered in stickers.
“…….”
The thought that Seungho might genuinely worry about Taejeong—that he might be a proper adult—had been vaguely expected from their first meeting. Just seeing him carry family photos in his wallet made it seem like a harmonious household.
But he didn’t know it would be to this extent. Kind children who learned it directly from kind parents. Everything was harmonious like a painting. They were merely relatives separated by one degree, yet it was so completely different from Taejeong’s environment.
He’d thought it was a broken family from the start, but in fact, even that expression was too generous a description. In that excessively large house, there was only silence and violence.
But this place was different. In the living room visible directly from the kitchen, toys the children had been playing with were scattered about, and family photos decorated the walls.
What did Taejeong think when he saw Seungho’s harmonious family? Taejeong had been trapped living in that house while knowing such harmony existed in the world.
Did he wish he could remain ignorant instead? Or was it resentful? Either his own situation, or Seungho who made him aware that such affection existed.
Even while being led by the children’s hands to push the toy cars, Seonwoo’s mind was preoccupied with other thoughts.
He’d been continuously puzzled about why Taejeong refused visits with Seungho. When family who would finally help him came to meet him, why would he do that?
All sorts of speculations churned through his head, but in the end, only Taejeong knew the truth. Seonwoo didn’t know enough about Taejeong to figure out what was inside him.
The only thought that remained in his head in the end was this: What was Taejeong doing right now?
The children clung to him for quite a while. The aunt just sat at the dining table watching without helping. Before long, Seonwoo couldn’t resist the drowsiness washing over him. This had been designed to wear him out.
Even with the chattering voices still audible on both sides, Seonwoo fell asleep as if passing out.
ლ
When he woke up, his mind was clear.
He’d slept on the sofa with just a blanket over him, but it was cozy. The children were sleeping on the floor with bedding laid out. As he sat up, something fell off with a flutter.
Most of the stickers attached to the back of his hands had fallen off. Small stickers were scattered on the blanket and sofa.
Seonwoo picked them up one by one. After gathering all the fallen ones in his palm and peeling off what remained on the back of his hands, he gently placed them on top of the coloring book the children had been playing with.
The house was quiet. Seonwoo roughly tidied the sofa and looked around the house. With no people except the sleeping children, the house sunk in silence felt unfamiliar.
Then he heard conversation sounds from the direction of the small room. When he listened carefully, he heard a low voice. It wasn’t the aunt’s voice. Seonwoo approached that direction without deliberately hiding his footsteps.
The conversation that had been continuing until he approached the door stopped abruptly when he knocked. Before permission to enter was given, Seonwoo opened the door.
When the door opened, two people came into view—Seungho and the aunt. Neither scolded Seonwoo for opening the door without permission. However, both their expressions were hardened.
The aunt gestured for him to come in. When Seonwoo approached, she moved to give him a seat facing Seungho.
“He needs to know too.”
After hesitating for a moment, Seungho opened his mouth with difficulty.
“The situation has become… a little complicated.”
