Dead! End of Part 2!
……………
Silence fell.
Kim Bom stared at me, her mouth half-open.
"Wh-what do you……."
"I'm sorry. Really sorry, but I feel like I have to say this clearly. I'm not your father, Bom."
Her face drained of color at my words. Shock and disbelief twisted her features.
"Lies…… that's not true."
Her hand gripping my arm trembled violently.
"Yeoreum lost her memories through reincarnation, so it's natural she doesn't know. I have…… I have proof. Your soul is the same. The names, the illness, everything———"
Her delusion runs deep.
Her fantasy wasn't some fleeting confusion or mistake. It was her worldview itself, hardened over nearly twenty years.
"Listen to me, Bom."
I cut her off and spoke as calmly as I could.
"I'm truly sorry. I can't even imagine how hard it must have been for you to lose your father. But I'll say it again. I'm not your father."
"No! You are Dad! I saw it!"
"That's you seeing what you wanted to see, not reality."
Was I too blunt? Her face grew even paler.
"I'm sorry. But this is the truth. I'm Yeoreum, and you're Kim Bom. We're just…… friendly neighbors."
"……."
Kim Bom opened her mouth, then closed it again. She seemed to want to argue, but the words wouldn't come.
"I like you, Bom."
I continued carefully.
"Really. I like you. But it's as one person to another…… and as a woman."
To her right now, I was her father. It wasn't true—it was purely her delusion—but in her worldview, it was absolute. That's why I pitied her. I had to shatter that delusion by force.
Even if it hurt her.
"Not as father and daughter, but as man and woman. That's the feeling I have."
Her breathing grew ragged.
"Stop……."
It was a small voice.
"Please stop……."
"This is for your sake. A relationship built on those thoughts isn't normal."
It's for my trial, too.
Of course, Kim Bom's mental health mattered more than the trial. Clinging to the ghost of a dead man could never lead to happiness.
"Please…… just stop."
She bowed her head and covered her ears.
"Don't torment me anymore……."
It was a pleading voice. The sound of her twenty-year-old world crumbling.
"Stop……."
I'm sorry, Bom.
My heart ached. I could empathize with others' pain. I didn't want to hurt her like this.
But I couldn't back down. It might be cruel, but if not now, there might never be another chance.
I took a deep breath.
One last time, I had to make reality crystal clear.
In a firm voice, I said, "I am Yeoreum. I'm not your father. Talk of reincarnation or whatever…… it's just your delusion."
In that instant, Kim Bom's body went rigid.
She snapped her head up. Her hair fell aside, revealing her face.
The pleading and sorrow from moments ago were gone.
And in their place———
"Aaaaaaah!"
Rage and hatred.
"Stop it! I said stop——!!"
Before I could react, her hands lunged for my throat.
"Guh!?"
The sudden attack choked off my breath. Slender fingers wrapped around my neck and squeezed with unbelievable strength for a woman's hands.
I reflexively grabbed her wrists to pry them off, but Yeoreum's frail body was useless.
"Why! Why do you keep saying that! Why!"
Her fingers tightened more. My windpipe crushed, I couldn't breathe.
Th-this is…… for real……!
"Lies! It's lies! You are my dad! You are!"
Her strength was far beyond what I'd imagined. My lungs burned. Oxygen deprivation blurred the edges of my vision.
Thump, thump-thump, thump-thump-thump——
My heart pounded wildly. This was nothing like the irregular beats that had plagued me since becoming Yeoreum. It felt like fireworks exploding in my chest.
Oh, no…….
Intense fear and the physical crush on my throat. It exceeded what Yeoreum's congenital heart condition could endure.
Finally, a sharp pain erupted in the center of my chest.
"Kkh, guk……!"
Strength drained from my body as my vision went white. All sounds faded. Kim Bom's screams, my heartbeat.
This is really…… dangerous…… I could die…….
With that final thought, the white in my vision darkened.
And everything sank into blackness.
……………
Dad said he wasn't Dad.
Kim Bom's world shook.
Strength left her thighs wrapped around Yeoreum's waist.
It's a lie.
She'd explained everything. That as a shaman, she could see souls. That his soul matched her father's perfectly. That the names Bom and Yeoreum were fated together. The congenital illness, the orphan status.
Everything matched, clear proof he was her father's reincarnation.
But he denied it all. Delusion, mistake, he's just Yeoreum.
Why say that?
Something deep in her chest shattered.
She'd waited twenty years. Prayed every night at the shrine. Not a single day since holding her father's cold body and wailing.
Yet the returned father claimed not to know her. Said she wasn't his daughter.
Was I such a bad daughter? Is Dad abandoning me this time?
The wooden grain of the porch blurred. Tears? Or something else? She couldn't tell.
Her throat burned. She couldn't breathe.
Or rather, didn't want to.
Death had torn father and daughter apart before. Now, her father was pushing Kim Bom away himself.
That fact tormented her, exhausted her, saddened her.
So she———
……………
Time seemed frozen.
Kim Bom blinked. Seconds? Minutes?
Her consciousness slowly returned. The sticky black wave filling her mind receded, revealing reality's contours.
She still had Yeoreum's waist clamped between her legs. The porch's hard wood pressed into her knees.
But…… Yeoreum's condition was wrong.
Eyes half-rolled back, whites showing. Pallid face, blue lips.
And her own hands gripped around his neck.
"N-no…… no…… no……."
Words spilled from Kim Bom's mouth.
They soon became a flood, like a bursting dam.
"No no no I didn't mean to it wasn't like this!!"
The jumbled words fused into a scream.
"I tried to stop just for a second I didn't want to hear it that you're not Dad just stop saying it——"
She babbled breathlessly. Who was she excusing herself to? Yeoreum? God? Herself? Her dead father? She couldn't tell.
"Sorry sorry sorry I wasn't trying to kill you never——!!"
Kim Bom, screaming into the void, suddenly realized her hands still clutched Yeoreum's neck.
"Ah…… aaah……!"
Terror-stricken, she let go.
Yeoreum's head lolled limply to the side, unsupported.
In that moment, twenty years ago returned.
"Ah…… ah…… ah……."
Moans leaked from her throat. Fragments of horror not yet words.
"Dad! Dad dad dad!!"
Kim Bom clutched Yeoreum desperately. Shook him madly.
"Don't die! Don't die don't die don't die! I was wrong I'm sorry!!"
Snot and tears smeared everywhere.
"Forgive me just once this time I won't do it I won't leave you alone I'll do anything please please——"
Right then, as her wails poured out endlessly.
Yeoreum's chest in her arms moved ever so faintly.
"……Huh?"
Kim Bom's cries stopped.
She checked again. Faint, but unmistakable—his chest rose and fell.
Weakly, almost imperceptibly.
"He's…… breathing?"
She lifted Yeoreum's face and held her hand to his nose.
Pale skin, blue lips.
But a faint breath touched her.
Proof he was still alive, a slender thread of hope she could save him.
"He's alive!!"
She frantically rummaged in her pockets. No phone. Dropped it? No, other pocket. Here!
Her hands shook so badly she fumbled the lock screen three times before it opened.
119. 1, 1, 9. Wrong. Again. 1, 1, 9.
Deep breath once, twice before the call connected. She had to give the address clearly. No babbling. The ambulance needed to arrive fast.
With superhuman restraint, Kim Bom suppressed her mounting panic.
"119. What's your emergency?"
"Heart…… heart attack. Someone collapsed!"
She wanted to scream for help wildly. But that would delay things. The memory from twenty years ago suppressed even her instincts.
"Please hurry! He's barely breathing. Address…… Huhaeri Village. The red-roofed house on Huhaeri Hill!"
Even as she spoke, her mind went blank.
"Huhaeri 374. Number 374! Patient has a history of heart disease, didn't get the exact name. But breathing is there, heart…… seems to still be beating."
"We'll dispatch an ambulance. Keep monitoring the patient."
Call ended.
The moment she hung up, the dammed emotions burst again.
Kim Bom hugged Yeoreum once more.