A Real Parent's Will
Mother.
Vroom!
With that, we pulled out of the alley. The moment Mother climbed into the car, she launched into badmouthing her daughter as if she had been waiting for the chance.
"When I got to her place, it was a complete mess, you know? No matter how much I cleaned, there was no end to it, so I ended up staying until this hour."
"Work at the company has been so busy she probably hasn't had time to clean. Or maybe she's the type who piles it all up for the weekend..."
"And on top of that, she hadn't touched a single side dish. It looks like she just orders delivery every day, and since the kid has such a picky appetite, I have no idea how many half-eaten boxes she just shoves into the freezer."
"Chaewon's job comes with a lot of work stress, so that might be it. Maybe she's just letting it out through food..."
"You don't have to try so hard to put a good spin on it. From what I saw earlier, I could pretty much tell how she carries herself at the company. Ah! You can just drop me off at the subway station over there."
"Are you sure you'll be all right? It's already gotten pretty late—I'll drop you at the riverside where there are plenty of express buses."
"No? Our house is in Gaepo-dong, so once I hop on the subway I'll be there in no time."
"Huh? Gaepo-dong is in Seoul, isn't it? Then I'll take you all the way home. From our place you just cross the bridge and it's right over that way."
I had assumed that since Eom Chaewon lived alone, her parents must live at least out in Gyeonggi Province. And Gaepo-dong wasn't even that far from here, was it?
"But if your family home is in Gaepo-dong, is there really any need for her to live outside? I work at the same company, so I know—on our salaries, just covering monthly rent is enough to make you wobble."
"It's not monthly rent; it's a jeonse, so once you take out the utilities and interest there's not really much else going out."
"What? I'm no real-estate expert, but for an officetel that size, even a jeonse deposit has to be at least a hundred million won, doesn't it? Chaewon must have saved up an incredible amount of money all this time?"
"Saved up, my foot... Of course we took out the loan for her. That kid probably only has this month's paycheck sitting in her account."
"..."
Was I the only one who couldn't make sense of this situation? No matter how I looked at it, there seemed to be no reason for Eom Chaewon to be living alone.
"Mother? It's not really my place to meddle, but I just don't understand. If I were her mother, I don't think I would have gone so far as to cover the jeonse deposit and the loan interest just to push my daughter out of the house."
As someone who fretted that Harin might run off in the middle of the night the second she turned twenty, I found it hard to accept. If you went to the trouble of hauling side dishes over on public transit, that wasn't a child you had cast out, was it?
"Heh heh... If you don't mind my asking, how old are you this year? If you came straight after graduating, twenty-two? Or twenty-three?"
"Thirty-four."
"What!?"
The moment she heard my age, Mother shattered every scrap of dignity she had been carefully maintaining. She looked so startled I had to calm her down.
"I have a slight tendency to look younger, so people are always surprised when they hear my age. But I really am thirty-four. I'm on the same team as Chaewon—I'm the team leader and she's a team member."
"I-I was quite shocked. You look even younger than our kid, so I thought you were a brand-new hire... Wait, so our kid is talking like that to a team leader who's a full ten years older than her?"
"Well... I'm only older in years; I came in a bit late after doing other work first. So when it comes to the actual job, Chaewon is basically my senior."
"Even so, how could she..."
Mother shook her head as if she had never imagined such a thing. Then she regained her composure and spoke again.
"Then you've lived alone before, I take it?"
"From the time I graduated high school, you could pretty much say I've lived alone almost the whole time."
"Then you might not understand. Me? I've never once in my life lived alone."
"What do you mean by that, Mother?"
"Exactly what I said. When I was little I lived with my family, of course, and even while I was in college and starting work I stayed in Seoul the whole time, so I never left home. Then I met this kid's father, got married, and have been a full-time housewife ever since, so I've never once had a place of my own."
"..."
There was logic to her words. For women of her generation, being sent out to live alone would have been even harder.
She had simply ridden the natural track of life and become an ordinary mother of this era who had never once experienced independence.
"I've always felt regret about that. Growing older without ever having lived alone left a hollow feeling in my chest, like a hole had been punched through it."
"I think I understand what you mean. But what does that have to do with Chaewon..."
"Then the moment she graduated and got a job, she said she wanted to live alone. Honestly, I didn't want to let her go. But in the end, that's a parent's heart. I never got to have it, so I desperately wanted her to. That's why I persuaded her father and let her live on her own."
"..."
It felt like I had been solidly whacked on the back of the head with a hammer. I had received a proper dose of mirror therapy from a place I never expected.
This was exactly what Uncle had talked about, wasn't it? Both Mother and I each carried a missing piece of our lost youth, yet the ways we dealt with it were complete opposites.
Let me go back to the most fundamental question. Why did I want to go to the amusement park with Harin so badly?
Why had I clung to that lingering attachment instead of taking the easy path Aunt had suggested?
Probably because that was the missing piece of my own youth. Because I had never once gone to an amusement park with Yu Jiyeon.
In the end, without even realizing it, I had been projecting Yu Jiyeon onto Harin. That was why I had pitifully rationalized to myself that I at least wanted to take half of her along.
But in the process I had forgotten the most important fact—the fundamental duty that should form the foundation of defining this relationship.
The simple fact that I was Harin's father.
I came back home. As always, I knocked twice on Harin's tightly shut door.
Knock, knock.... Creeeak...
Through the door she had cracked open just a palm's width, Harin poked her head out.
"Got a minute... Can we talk?"
"...?"
Without a word, Harin came out into the living room. Once we sat facing each other she fidgeted awkwardly.
Ssk...
I had no intention of making my daughter uncomfortable, so I immediately pulled out the item I had prepared. It was a physical voucher for Goldeworld, the kind you rarely see these days.
"...?"
A light of confusion rose in Harin's kitten-like eyes. Because there were exactly two vouchers.
"Why... these?"
"Dad's going to be busy this weekend, so I don't think I can go. But if I just send you with the cousins, you'll end up playing big sister the whole time and get worn out, right? So if there's someone you want to go with, take them."
"Why? If it's not going to be family, there's no need to go this far."
"They're non-refundable anyway, so just go use them. You've been at the new school for a while now—there's got to be at least one person you'd want to go with, right?"
"..."
Maybe because it was so unexpected, Harin simply couldn't accept it.
But what was there to overthink? The vouchers still had plenty of validity left.
So go ahead and try. Gather the courage to at least speak to that guy you like so much.
"I just..."
"Ah, and this too."
I still had something left to give. I held out a paper bag I had carefully stowed in the car and never once taken out.
"...!?"
The instant Harin saw the paper bag labeled HERMES, she recognized what it was. Her whole body went rigid like a cat that had been caught after climbing onto the stove first.
"W-why did you buy this?"
"You wanted it, didn't you? And looking at it, I thought it would suit you really well..."
"Are you serious? Do you know how much these cost? I-I can't take them. Go return them right now..."
"It's not from me—it's from your mom. She never got to give you a single birthday present for the past seventeen years, right? So just think of it as your mom giving you everything she couldn't give you all at once. You don't even want that?"
I knew full well that a high-school girl raised by a father scraping by on a thirty-million-won salary had no business owning a pair of million-and-a-half-won luxury shoes.
But if Yu Jiyeon had never left my brother's side, she would have bought them for sure, wouldn't she? If she had seen the way your eyes sparkled looking at these that day, she would have taken out a loan if she had to and bought them without fail.
"..."
Harin froze as if she had short-circuited. In the end, I would have to finish this myself.
"I'm not returning them. And as long as I don't hand over the card, you can't return them either. So don't let them rot—just wear them. Ah! You can wear them when you go to Goldeworld with your friend. Haaawn... Dad's too sleepy, I'm going to bed."
"W-wait a second..."
Thud! Click!
You're not the only one who can lock a door, Harin. The moment I locked it, I could hear her pacing the living room, not knowing what to do with herself.
I know you feel burdened, but I hope you'll just accept them. You'll never know this for the rest of your life, but just now I made the decision of a lifetime.
Chaewon's mother was right. I shouldn't torment Harin just to compensate for a high-school life that had been poorer than everyone else's.
In the end I never got to go to an amusement park with Yu Jiyeon. But I hope you get to spend a wonderful time with a boyfriend.
It's true that one corner of my heart still feels heavy, yet even so, dress up in your prettiest clothes that day and try to move that person's heart even a little.
The wish that you will do in my place the things I never could. The will that I do not want you, at least, to experience the regrets I am living through right now.
That must be what a real parent is. Of course, even if I died and came back I could never become the real thing—but then again, my life has always been a bit like that, hasn't it?
Because I can never be the real thing, I simply act as if I am. Haven't I been living that way all along?