At this point, I was worried about where he was hurting. Did he catch a cold? Or maybe a stomachache?
I approached the child who was curled up facing the wall in one corner of the living room. As my body got closer, I could faintly hear the sound of him crying and hiccupping.
“Why are you crying?”
“…Hyung.”
“Huh? Huh?”
When I, flustered by the weak voice, approached closer, the whimpering child threw himself into my arms.
“My tooth fell out…. What do I do? Do I, do I have to go to the hospital now?”
“Tooth?”
“Did I catch a disease? Do I have to get a shot?”
The child cried, shaking his head saying he didn’t want a shot. So pitifully, as if he didn’t know how he’d been holding back until now.
“Let me see.”
“Here…”
The child held out his tightly clenched fist. When I opened his fingers to check inside, there really was a tiny tooth. When I examined the child’s teeth, one of his lower teeth was missing.
“Ah.”
I, who had been shocked thinking something terrible had happened, finally felt relieved.
“When you’re young, all your teeth originally fall out. And then they grow back new.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It’s true. I was like that too.”
The child shook his head, unable to understand the concept of all teeth falling out and growing back new.
“You’re lying…”
“I’m telling you it’s not. Didn’t you have any friends whose teeth fell out?”
“Th-there were.”
“Like them, yours will fall out and grow back new too.”
At my words, the child repeatedly opened his big eyes wide and blinked. His white cheeks were flushed red from crying.
I don’t know what he was thinking, but the child soon shook his head.
“Y-you said if I slept for ten nights I could go home. But that wasn’t true. So… sniff, so this is a lie too.”
“…….”
“Wh-what if I die?”
As the child looked at me crying desolately, I somehow felt suffocated.
I didn’t know how I should comfort him. But if I left him to keep crying like this, I was anxious not knowing when Dad would wake up. If he saw this situation, he would definitely hit the child.
I pulled away the extremely frightened child and firmly covered his mouth that kept making whimpering sounds. Fortunately, the child didn’t act more spoiled.
Looking back now, I regretted not being able to hug the child and instead covering his mouth. If I had also learned from someone how to comfort by hugging, could I have reassured the child?
It was a situation too difficult for a mere ten-year-old child to handle. In the midst of being kidnapped and exposed to abuse, the only person to rely on was the son of a criminal—in other words, another criminal.
I was just as harmful to the child as Dad, only I didn’t hit him.
“Don’t cry. I’m sorry.”
I whispered while firmly covering the child’s mouth. It’ll be okay soon. I only repeated those words like a habit. It’ll be okay soon.
Then the scene changed.
It was the way home after finishing school. Acrid cigarette smoke flowed out from a narrow alley.
Since Dad often smoked in front of the house, I quieted my footsteps. As I cautiously moved my steps toward the house, conversation sounds faintly leaked out. Dad’s and an unfamiliar person’s voices rang out alternately.
“Anyway, as long as the kid’s alive, we just need to get the ransom and that’s it. Do we have to take care of his health too?”
“President Choi. That, he’s the money source, so it’s useless if his body gets damaged. Do the new product experiments somewhere else.”
“I’m telling you if we drastically reduce the dosage it’s fine even for kids. Surprisingly, the little ones show effects quickly and recover fast too. Since they can’t go anywhere and tattle, how convenient is it to experiment on them.”
“Still, how much is that kid’s ransom worth? If we just finish planning everything properly, billions will just fall into our hands.”
“Geez. Hyun Taesoo-ssi is surprisingly small-minded. These days needles come out thin and nice, so the marks don’t even last a few days.”
The person called President Choi let out a big sigh as if frustrated. Then he immediately continued speaking.
“Even if his condition is strange, they’ll just think he was scared and went crazy for a bit. Who would think someone fed him drugs?”
“Phew, enough of that talk…. Is the place to receive the money all prepared?”
“Not yet. Wait just a little longer.”
“Not yet?”
“They say that construction site will be shut down soon, but there’s still manpower remaining. I guess it’ll take a few more days to empty it, but there’s nothing we can do.”
“Fuck, just how long are you planning to only prepare? If we get caught by the cops at this rate, it’ll only be me who was holding the kid for nothing…!”
“Ah, wait. I got a call. Just a moment.”
“…Haa, shit.”
This time Dad’s deep sigh followed.
“Ah fuck, why doesn’t the phone work here?”
“You have to go out further to answer.”
“Then let’s go to the store briefly to buy cigarettes. Who knows? There might be listening ears.”
Then the sound of the two people’s footsteps rang out. I, who had been standing still listening carefully, hurriedly entered through an open gate in the side alley.
Soon Dad’s and the person called President Choi’s steps drew closer, then gradually grew distant at some point.
I confirmed that the two people disappeared outside the alley and immediately ran home. The child was asleep. With his tooth tightly clenched, just like he had been in the morning.
Wondering if they had already stuck that thing called a shot into the child’s body, I carefully examined his arms and legs, but aside from the marks rubbed from being bound by chains, I couldn’t find anything particular.
“Phew.”
I didn’t know what it was, but I could instinctively tell that the drug they were going to put into the child was dangerous.
I looked down anxiously at the sleeping child. What can I do? I anxiously bit my nails while racking my brain.
If the adult me now were placed in the same situation, I would naturally call another adult or phone the police.
But in the world I lived in at that time, the greatest predator was Dad. I grew up learning that I would die if I went against Dad’s words. I remembered that when I was very young, the police Mom called were of no use, and I also didn’t forget the fact that on such days, bigger punishment always followed.
“That won’t work. It seems dangerous….”
If I said the child was very sick, wouldn’t they not do such a bad thing? Since they said the child’s ransom was expensive.
But how far would they believe my words? Dad already knew that I was protecting the child more than necessary. Words asking them not to use that unidentifiable drug on the child definitely wouldn’t work, and there was a high possibility they wouldn’t believe me saying the child was sick either.
“What should I do?”
What should I do?
I kept muttering to myself, then suddenly recalled that a few days ago the child said he had a peanut allergy. He said if he ate them, strange pimples would come up on his face. He said he’d become similar to me, who always had a face covered with red and purple rashes.
There happened to be peanuts left in the house that Dad had been eating as drinking snacks. I immediately brought them and woke the sleeping child.
“Kwon Yujin. Wake up.”
And I recklessly shoved peanuts into the mouth of the child who wasn’t fully awake yet.
“Mmph! Hyung, ugh.”
“You eat this.”
“Why, I don’t want… mmph, ugh.”
“Swallow it, quickly.”
“It’s bitter…”
“I’ll buy you chocolate later. Okay?”
The child struggled saying he didn’t want to, but it was impossible for Kwon Yujin, who was younger than me and much smaller, to beat me. Honestly, subduing that thin, small body wasn’t very difficult either.
“It’s bitter, uwaaah…! Cough, cough.”
“Swallow it, Kwon Yujin.”
“It hurts, hyung. Please stop. Yujin hurts so much!”
Only after confirming several times that the peanuts he hadn’t even chewed went down his throat did I let the child go.
It was also then that I released his hands that had been annoying me by constantly hitting my shoulders and face, which I had grabbed tightly and pressed down with my knee.
“Uwaaah! Why are you doing this to Yujin…! I said it hurts.”
Only then did the child burst into tears. Peanut crumbs were messily smeared around his mouth. The child clutched his left hand and cried at the top of his lungs that it hurt.
“Mom, it hurts…. Sob. Mooom.”
And then, what happened next….
I blinked once and before I knew it, President Choi and Dad had returned home.
“Why is this kid suddenly like this?”
They got angry asking why he was like this while looking at the child’s condition, swollen from the allergic reaction. They pressed me, but I only repeated that I didn’t know.
Whether his left pinky finger broke while struggling with me, the child’s small hand was swollen thickly enough to be pitiful. Anyone could see it wasn’t a normal state. Watching the child whose fever was even boiling, Dad kept muttering curses.
