“No. Do you see that hospital over there?”
I turned my head in the direction Uncle pointed. At the tip of Uncle’s finger was a hospital building with a sign that read “Imari Women’s Clinic.”
“Women’s clinic?”
“Right. Women’s clinic.”
If it’s a women’s clinic… is it an obstetrics and gynecology clinic? That betas go to?
“Why that?”
“It’s the hospital my nephew goes to. Yesterday the kid’s condition wasn’t good and started bleeding, but the husband was on a business trip out of town, so I got a call saying they were scared. So I took the kid to that hospital.”
Ah. The urgent matter was a bigger deal than I thought.
“Is your nephew okay?”
“Huh? Yeah. Fine.”
“That’s a relief.”
“Right, right. A relief. But.”
“But?”
“I think I saw Yeoul there, Seonjae.”
……
I doubted my ears.
Did I hear what Uncle Irang said correctly? Where… who did he see?
“Uncle, wait. I think I heard something wrong just now.”
“Seonjae. I think I saw Yeoul there.”
Uncle Irang looked me straight in the eye and said it once more. My head went blank. This is strange. It doesn’t make sense.
In a neighborhood with no connection, at an obstetrics clinic that betas go to, he saw Han Yeoul? How? Why?
“Uncle… does that make sense?”
Uncle looked at me muttering and gulped down his coffee again.
“No, I really don’t understand.”
“Seonjae.”
“Then are you saying Yeoul was in Seoul?”
But no. Until now he’s been playing hide-and-seek with me going around isolated islands. When I went to catch him, he’d run away just before and made me desperate like that.
“I’m not sure about that yet—”
“Let’s go, Uncle. I need to go see.”
Uncle grabbed me as I stood up and shook his head.
“No, Seonjae. Sit down first. Just sit and—”
“You said you saw Yeoul there! I need to go to Yeoul! Why are we doing this here? Let’s go, Uncle!”
“No, Seonjae, wait! Just wait! Listen to more of the story before going!”
“What story? We found out where Yeoul is, what more is there to hear? I need to hurry and go meet him!”
“That’s…”
Uncle Irang’s hand gripping my arm was trembling finely.
“Yeoul, his stomach… was showing.”
I couldn’t easily understand what Uncle Irang was saying. What is he talking about?
So… he saw Yeoul at an obstetrics clinic that betas go to, and his stomach was somewhat showing?
Why?
Questions kept circling in my head. Why? Why on earth?
Yeoul, who had been taunting me all this time going between islands, why is he in Seoul, why is he at an obstetrics clinic that trait carriers have no reason to visit in their lifetime, and why is his stomach showing?
“Uncle.”
“Y-yeah, Seonjae.”
“I have no idea what Uncle is saying. Let’s just go. Let’s go and meet Yeoul first.”
“Seonjae, whether Yeoul is there now or not, I also don’t really—”
“That’s why! Let’s just go. If you saw him there, he might be there today too, right? That’s why you wanted to meet here, right, Uncle?”
Uncle Irang looked at me with a bewildered face.
My anger is rising.
I know. That this isn’t something to get angry at Uncle about. But something like fire kept surging up inside me and I couldn’t bear it.
What made these past few months of searching for Yeoul unbearable for me was the fact that the distance between Yeoul and me kept growing. I knew everything about Yeoul, and Yeoul knew everything about me, but now we have too much we don’t know about each other.
No, ‘I’ didn’t know too much about Yeoul.
Every time I chased Yeoul’s traces, every time I faced the places Yeoul had left, I always met an unfamiliar Yeoul.
I was certain I knew Yeoul better than anyone else in the world, but the Yeoul I found was different from the Yeoul I knew. The unfamiliar Yeoul was awkward and difficult, so I was scared to approach him. To the point where I wanted to think he wasn’t my Yeoul.
But now what? An obstetrics clinic?
…Still, that’s not what’s important.
I ran blindly to the hospital. Uncle called my name and chased after me, but I didn’t stop. Yeoul might be there. So first, I need to meet Yeoul. Whether the Yeoul there is the Yeoul I know or not, that didn’t matter.
I had to confirm whether Yeoul was safe, whether he’d been well without any pain.
The hospital I rushed into blindly was quiet. I ran to the reception desk and asked while catching my ragged breath.
“Han Yeoul!”
“Yes?”
“Do you have a patient named Han Yeoul?”
The nurse looked at me with bewilderment as I asked out of the blue. I caught my breath for a moment, organized my words, and asked again.
“A patient named Han Yeoul, does he come here? I’m his husband.”
Only then did the nurse seem to grasp the situation and looked me up and down, saying “Ah—”
“Do you happen to have your ID? Or something else that can prove your family relationship…?”
“Pardon?”
“Ah. We can’t just confirm based on words alone. It’s personal information…”
“Ah.”
The documents I’d been carrying around while searching for Yeoul came in handy at times like this. I took out the family register certificate from my bag and handed it to the nurse.
“Uh… you’re a man…?”
“Yes.”
“Um, this is a women’s hospital.”
The nurse said to me with an even more bewildered face than before.
“I know. But someone said they saw my husband here, so I came to check.”
“Ah, I don’t think you understand—we don’t treat trait carriers here.”
“So. Are you saying he’s not here?”
“Yes. We can’t accept them. We don’t have a trait medicine specialist.”
I expected as much, but hearing it directly makes my legs go weak.
“Yes, I understand. I apologize for the intrusion.”
I took the documents back from the nurse and turned to leave. Anyway, they’re saying Yeoul isn’t a patient here, so does that mean there’s nothing wrong with his body? At least… it means he didn’t come to this hospital because he was sick, right? Then why? Why did he come here?
“Seonjae!”
Uncle Irang came running in, panting.
“You’re late, Uncle. Why are you so slow?”
“No. It’s not here, Seonjae.”
“What do you mean it’s not here?”
“Over there! I said I saw him over there!”
The place Uncle dragged me to by the arm was the cafeteria. The cafeteria, quiet now with no one there, looked no different from any hospital cafeteria.
“The cafeteria? You saw Yeoul here?”
“Yeah. Specifically, here.”
I turned my gaze to where Uncle pointed. A bitter laugh escaped.
“What is this?”
A basket was full of bread. It was a small bakery section set up in one corner of the cafeteria. For a moment, a face I didn’t want to think about came to mind, and my brow furrowed unconsciously.
“What was Yeoul doing here?”
“I don’t know exactly either. A face passing by looked so familiar that I looked again and it was Yeoul. I was so surprised I stared, and he had his mouth full of salt bread… I thought I should sit my nephew down first and then catch him, so I turned my head for a moment and he disappeared.”
“Salt bread?”
I remembered the salt bread Yeoul had once bought in bulk. There was a day when he bought a huge amount of salt bread and croissants that he didn’t normally eat much.
“Bread here, bread there…”
A sigh burst out.
“Excuse me.”
“Yes.”
“Do you make this bread here directly?”
I asked an elderly employee at the concession stand. I kept having an ominous feeling. I hoped that what I was imagining wasn’t true, but somehow it felt like it would be true, and my heart beat anxiously.
I wanted to turn away from reality, run out of here, and just pretend to know nothing, going back to search for Yeoul’s traces starting from that island again. But I had to confirm. I had to. After all, they said they saw Yeoul here, and maybe Yeoul was nearby.
“No. We don’t have time to bake bread ourselves. We just get deliveries.”
“Deliveries… do you happen to get them from Hyohyo Bakery?”
“Oh my, how did you know? Do you also get deliveries from there? That young boss is so friendly—”
“No. The packaging just looked familiar.”
“Ah, it changed recently. Originally it was just a bread factory with no name, but now it has a name and a character and such. Ah, should I give you one of these?”
The employee handed me something. I took it without thinking, and when I looked, it was that damn bookmark.
“I think it’s promotional. If you rub it, it smells like bread, but many patients here are sensitive to smells, so it’s a bit awkward to give them out.”
“I see.”
