Saiyan Syndrome
“It’s Saiyan Syndrome.”
At last, it had been revealed. The true identity of the curse that had tormented me for the past several years. After visiting no fewer than twelve hospitals, the doctor had finally given me the correct diagnosis.
The problem was that I had no idea what Saiyan Syndrome even was.
“What is Saiyan Syndrome?”
“Do you know the manga Dragon Ball?”
“I’ve seen it, sure. People my age couldn’t not know it even if they tried...”
“Then this will go quickly. In it, the protagonist Son Goku is from a warrior race called the Saiyans, right? These Saiyans are absolute bastards who invade other planets, smash them up, kill everyone, and then sell them off for a high price...”
“Uh, Doctor? I already know the whole story, so could you just get to the point?”
“Anyway, one of the traits of those Saiyans is that their period of ‘youth’ lasts a very long time. According to the lore, they evolved that way so they could enjoy fighting for longer...”
I clenched my jaw hard. Please just shut up and give me the answer I want, my expression said as it hardened. The doctor rubbed the bridge of his nose awkwardly and continued.
“You already know, don’t you? It’s a rare disease where cell division continues far longer than normal, with only a handful of reported cases worldwide. The official scientific name is in Latin, but among us we just casually call it Saiyan Syndrome.”
“...”
That was right. As for the secret curse I carried...
I was thirty-four years old this year. And yet I had a baby face.
I didn’t mean that in the sense of simply looking younger than my age. No matter how generously people estimated, they never put me above twenty. I lived under that relentless prejudice.
Of course, when I was younger I hadn’t even realized such a condition existed. Up until twenty I had grown normally like everyone else, and looking a little youthful hadn’t been much of a problem.
“Aren’t you a bit too young for this kind of work?”
But once I started pushing past thirty, people around me gradually began to notice something was off. Now it was routine for every stranger I met to eye me suspiciously and ask my age first thing.
And that wasn’t all. If I ever tried to buy alcohol or cigarettes, they demanded my ID right away.
At convenience stores they at least scanned it through a machine for bulk verification, but if I hurried into a neighborhood corner store, the elderly proprietress would start scolding me on the spot.
“Hey, student. You think I won’t notice just because you’re not in uniform? A fresh-faced kid like you already after booze and smokes!?”
“What the... I’m over thirty. Really!”
I showed my ID, but of course she assumed it was fake and wouldn’t budge. After getting burned like that a few times, I stuck exclusively to convenience stores and supermarkets.
Anyway, as the inconveniences piled up I became aware of the problem myself. I figured if I could just uncover the true nature of this curse, I might find a way to fix it.
“So what’s the treatment?”
“Didn’t you hear what I just said? It’s a rare disease—there is no treatment. According to the case reports, people start aging gradually once they hit around fifty, so just wait until then.”
“What the hell... So I have to live with this face for another fifteen years? Isn’t there some experimental drug or something you could try on me?”
“There’s nothing like that. Because no one has ever tried to cure this disease. You’ve hit the jackpot, patient. I’d sell everything I’ve earned so far plus my wife if it would just make me young, and you were born with it from the start!”
“...”
Youth is life’s only privilege, fleeting once it’s gone. Everyone in the world pours money and time into clinging to that privilege a little longer.
But I was different. Because more than anyone, I wanted to become an adult.
And the source of the trauma that had driven me to an almost obsessive fixation on aging was standing right in front of me now.
“Coming home from school?”
On the way back home I spotted a familiar figure and called out. A girl in school uniform turned her head, then flinched! Her eyes went wide.
Her name was Kang Harin. Pale skin and cute cat-like eyes that reminded one of a baby kitten.
But to me she was the coldest, and only, family I had.
“I told you not to act like you know me when there are people around.”
“What the... Can’t a dad even say hello when he runs into his daughter by chance?”
That was right. I was thirty-four. And yet I had a daughter who was a high school sophomore.
I’ll put off explaining this family relationship that reeked of dysfunction for a moment.
The reason my only daughter avoided me was obvious. Until I explained, I looked like nothing more than an older brother born a year apart, or even a same-age peer—an abnormal father she couldn’t stand.
“I’m going ahead.”
“Hey! We’re both heading home anyway...”
She whipped around. But Harin turned her back on me as resolutely as a hardcore opposition supporter who’d just run into the president. Yeah, this was exactly it.
The Saiyan Syndrome that everyone else called a blessing was, for me, a curse that made even my own daughter turn away.
In a life already overflowing with misfortune, it was an inescapable swamp that had even stolen my last remaining family!
Ah... of course, she wasn’t my real daughter, but...