The thin needle tore through his flesh. Though Hyungoh wanted to thrash against the pain, his father’s oppressive grip left him completely immobilized.
His father seemed to have been impressed by the letters etched into his mother’s back. Otherwise, why would he carve the same letters into Hyungoh’s back? Angel. Hyungoh thought. What was so special about such an ordinary word?
It was unbearable pain for an eleven-year-old child. After fainting once and regaining consciousness, his back felt as though it had been seared by fire.
When Hyungoh woke up, his father was crouched in a corner, trembling violently. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Hyungoh. Dad wasn’t in his right mind. I don’t even know what I’ve done.
At this point, Hyungoh should have suspected his father’s unstable condition. He knew his father was a fragile person, and that he was obsessively imitating his mother. The reason he failed to take any action despite knowing all this was simple.
Hyungoh himself wasn’t mature enough either. What could you expect from a mere eleven-year-old child?
His father began to fall apart. He had already been dismissed from his professor position long ago. Even after Hyungoh entered middle school, his father’s condition didn’t improve. Acting as though he had lost everything, his father became increasingly obsessed with Hyungoh, and Hyungoh—a teenage boy with growing resentment—couldn’t bring himself to pity his father unconditionally.
Hyungoh disliked himself for this. While he sympathized with his father, he also felt burdened by his excessive affection and wanted to escape from its suffocating embrace. These contradictory feelings twisted in an unexpected direction and transformed into anger toward his mother.
She had reached the pinnacle where there was nowhere higher to go. Despite countless scandals, many people still admired her. In contrast, his father had tumbled to rock bottom and continued falling endlessly. Comparing their lives, Hyungoh couldn’t help but resent her more.
Just as these feelings of discontent were taking shape, his mother returned home. It was a reunion after two whole years.
His mother wore a pure white dress. Seeing her gaunt appearance, Hyungoh completely forgot how much he had resented her and worried instead. Was she sick? He had thought she was doing well.
Hyungoh.
She smiled. His father brushed past Hyungoh, who stood awkwardly, unable to properly greet his mother whom he hadn’t seen in so long. Seeing his father rush eagerly toward their emotional reunion, his mother playfully stepped backward and fled to the kitchen.
His excited father grabbed her wrist. She calmly placed the wine she was holding in her other hand on the table.
“Why are you trying to get away from me?”
His father asked in a voice barely above a whisper. Hyungoh found his calm tone unfamiliar. It was like a storm holding its breath. Feeling tense, Hyungoh moved toward the kitchen while trying to remain as quiet as possible.
His mother silently took wine glasses from the shelf. Water flowed amidst the pervasive silence. The iridescent wine filled about half the glass.
“Answer me.”
His father’s voice grew increasingly forceful. “I said answer me.”
His mother took a sip of wine. Between his father’s unkempt bangs, his eyes gleamed sharply in the light.
He knocked the wine glass out of her hand. The glass hit the floor like a stake driven into the ground, shattering into pieces that scattered everywhere. Purple wine stained her white dress.
“I said answer me!”
His father gripped both her arms with crushing force. His mother’s smile faded as she stared back at him without flinching. A familiar emotion could be read in her eyes.
Hatred.
It was the same look he had seen in movie posters. Sensing the dangerous atmosphere, Hyungoh quickly reached out his hand. His mother’s eyes met his. A feeling of deep resentment was being secretly transmitted through her gaze.
His mother raised her eyebrows and pointed at Hyungoh’s feet. He had stepped on broken wine glass. When he lifted his foot, blood seeped through the wound.
“You ruin me.”
His mother answered. Her voice was resolute and cold. Her gaze lingered on Hyungoh’s blood imprinted on the floor like footprints.
His father’s hands, which had been gripping her, fell away limply. He seemed deeply shocked by her answer.
Hyungoh fled into his room. Never before had following eyes felt so eerie. Deliberately ignoring his stinging foot, he wrapped himself tightly in his blanket and closed his eyes, only to have his mother enter shortly after.
“Hyungoh, look at this.”
Hyungoh poked only his face out from under the blanket. Why did she follow me? Her lingering gaze in his mind made him uncomfortable. As he was about to make up an excuse to drive his mother away, something squirmed on her palm.
“They’re hedgehogs,” his mother said. Hyungoh sat up at the sight of two hedgehogs with their quills fully raised. Hedgehogs? Not understanding what was happening, he looked back and forth between her and the hedgehogs.
“Let’s play.”
Ah. Hyungoh hesitated to answer. Just as he was about to refuse like he used to, his attention was caught by the hedgehogs. Even though he knew he shouldn’t, his old habit of curiosity was piqued by the game she proposed.
She held the hedgehogs closer to him. Staring blankly at the creatures as they wriggled their tiny legs, Hyungoh hesitated just as he was about to touch their densely protruding quills.
“Yes, it will be prickly.”
His mother nodded as if she understood. “If you touch them carelessly, you’ll get hurt. No matter how much you love these little ones, you can’t get close to them.”
She brought the two hedgehogs closer together. Discovering each other, they waddled toward one another, trying to press their bodies together, but they hesitated as their quills pricked each other.
Watching them try to approach each other somehow, Hyungoh felt sorry for them. “That’s sad,” Hyungoh muttered. His mother quietly asked, “Why?”
“Well, because their quills prevent them from being close to each other,” Hyungoh answered hesitantly. He realized it had been a long time since he’d had a conversation with his mother. It felt as though they had returned to the past, and his mood gradually improved.
“There’s a solution for that,” his mother said in an excited voice. Hyungoh tilted his head. “What solution?”
She grabbed both hedgehogs and crushed them together. The hedgehogs, with their quills deeply embedded in each other, let out screams. That piercingly sharp sound was almost like the crying of newborn babies.
Startled, Hyungoh froze. The hedgehogs, struggling to escape from her grasp, cried even louder.
“How is it, Hyungoh?”
His mother held out the two entangled hedgehogs to Hyungoh. Her hands were soaked with blood—whether it was the hedgehogs’ or her own, he couldn’t tell.
“I did it. Now they can hug each other all they want.”
She said. Hyungoh covered his face with both hands. It was horrifying. “No, why… why did you do that?” His voice trembled pitifully, like someone thrown out of the house in the dead of winter. “Why did you kill them, why?”
His mother’s brightly smiling face gradually sank into gloom. “Why, you ask? Isn’t it fun?”
The trembling in her words subsided. Fun? Hyungoh, who had been hanging his head low, raised his eyes fiercely. A forgotten emotion resurfaced.
“…Mother, you’re really selfish.”
Hyungoh spat out. “You ruin others’ lives for your own amusement.”
Just like you did to Father. Hyungoh held back these words, but he thought she would understand well enough. He hoped she would regret her wrongdoing by herself. Because they could still go back. Back to when everything was normal. Hyungoh recalled the past: his father in a neat suit, Hyungoh tightly embraced by him, and his mother sitting at the front door waiting for them.
“I still don’t understand,” she said, tilting her head askew.
It wasn’t the answer he had hoped for. Choked up, Hyungoh tightly closed his misty eyes and then opened them. His mother, who once shone warmly in the sunlight, was gone, and her ashen, chilling figure approached before his eyes.
“You’re just like me. Why do you keep pretending you’re not?”
She grabbed Hyungoh’s hand. Faced with the forcibly given corpses of the hedgehogs, Hyungoh opened his mouth stupidly. His palm became damp, soaked with blood.
“Coward.”
Her blood-stained finger touched Hyungoh’s forehead. A droplet of blood, marked like a red dot, slowly trickled down and pooled beneath his chin.
With those parting words, his mother left the room. Hyungoh only followed her retreating figure with his eyes. Then he rubbed his forehead with a trembling hand. It was hot. It even seemed to throb.
As if pierced by a quill.
